Honest Seeker Or Hardened Heart

[ironmonk]

God provided just enough evidence of Himself for any honest seeker whose heart really cares about the truth of the matter. But not so much that hardened hearts will be convinced by force.

-Kreeft

This too can be said about the Catholic Church.

One topic that can be proven by Scripture alone, that is distinctly Catholic... (there are a few non-denoms that believe it)

Purgatory

Anyone who denies that purgatory exists either does not know what purgatory is, or has a hardened heart...

Let's look at what the Catholic Church calls Purgatory... Please note the footnotes...

Purgatory from the Catechism, The Official Teaching of the Catholic Church:

III. The Final Purification, or Purgatory

1030

All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are inDouche assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

1031

The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.606 The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:607

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.608

1032

This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: "Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin."609 From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God.610 The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead:

Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.611

607: Cf. 1 Cor 3:15; 1 Pet 1:7.

608: St. Gregory the Great, Dial. 4, 39: PL 77, 396; cf. Mt 12:31.

609: 2 Macc 12:46.

611: St. John Chrysostom, Hom. in 1 Cor. 41, 5: PG 61, 361; cf. Job 1:5.

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Isaiah 6:5

Then I said, "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

7 He touched my mouth with it. "See," he said, "now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged."

Matt 12:32

And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

How can someone be in Hell, and then be forgiven??? The age to come people can be forgiven, it can't be Heaven because there is no need for forgiveness because in Heaven there will not be sin... it can't be Hell because once your in Hell, it's for eternity.

Rev 20:13

The sea gave up its dead; then Death and Hades gave up their dead. All the dead were judged according to their deeds.

14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the pool of fire. (This pool of fire is the second death.)

15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the pool of fire.

Death and Hades (not the pool of fire) gave up their dead and they were judged according to their deeds.... THEN Death and Hades were thrown into the pool of fire (HELL as we know it) Death and Hades is not Hell, and is not Heaven... then what could it be??? The Catholic Church calls it Purgatory.

1 John 5:16

If anyone sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God and he will give him life. This is only for those whose sin is not deadly. There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray.

Rev 21:27

but nothing unclean will enter it, nor any (one) who does abominable things or tells lies. Only those will enter whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Nothing Unclean can enter Heaven, but not all sin is deadly (1 John 5:16) therefore we must have our sin purged (Isaiah 6:6-7) before we enter Heaven if we are guilty of lesser sins.

1 Cor 3:15

But if someone's work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire.

How can we be saved from Hell, because Hell is eternal? This being saved as through fire can only be Purgatory, where our lesser sins will be purged from us.

Luke 12:59

I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny."

We will pay for all our sins in one way or another (Purgatory). All our sins must be paid for. We know Hell is eternal, once someone is in hell there is no chance of getting out, then what could we be released from? - Purgatory.

1 Peter 1:6

In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials,

7 so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

2 Macc 12:43

He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view;

44 for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death.

45 But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.

46 Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin.

If we make it to Heaven, we don't need atonement. If we go to Hell, there is no atonement.... There must be Purgatory

----------------------------------------------

The Jews before Christ came to the World believed in Purgatory... So should all Christians... If they don't, then they do not know the bible or their heart is hard...

Your Servant in Christ,

ironmonk

Edited October 6, 2003 by ironmonk

[Mary's Knight, La]

lol I need a thread for the best of Iron that way I can just print the whole thing and distribute it as an apologetics primer keep it up

[littleflower+JMJ]

*claps*

[Trooper4DaHolyG]

see I like the whole conceptual ideas, and how it is being presented. Yet all the verses are irrelevant and show me no truth.

Therefore now I know what it is!

THANK YOU GUYS!

I will decide to not believe in it because it is not strong enough for me to believe....

[ironmonk]

see I like the whole conceptual ideas, and how it is being presented. Yet all the verses are irrelevant and show me no truth.

Therefore now I know what it is!

THANK YOU GUYS!

I will decide to not believe in it because it is not strong enough for me to believe....

The Jews before Christ believed in it. Jesus Christ believes it. The Apostles believed in it. So did every Christian up until after 1517 AD.

Your ignorance is has turned to stupidity.

You see, the Catholic Church gave a name to something that was already in the bible. All they did was give a name to describe it. How can it not exist?!

If you think the bible is Truth, then you must believe that purgatory exists, but you deny those verses. "Purgatory" could be something that happens, not necessarily a place...

If you say purgatory does not exist, after learning that purgatory describes something in the bible, then how can you say the bible is truth?

Ignorance is not bliss trooper.

You've got a lot to learn about God.

Your Servant in Christ,

ironmonk

[Trooper4DaHolyG]

You've got a lot to learn about God.

AMEN!

[Trooper4DaHolyG]

The Jews before Christ believed in it. Jesus Christ believes it. The Apostles believed in it. So did every Christian up until after 1517 AD.

Your ignorance is has turned to stupidity.

You see, the Catholic Church gave a name to something that was already in the bible. All they did was give a name to describe it. How can it not exist?!

If you think the bible is Truth, then you must believe that purgatory exists, but you deny those verses. "Purgatory" could be something that happens, not necessarily a place...

If you say purgatory does not exist, after learning that purgatory describes something in the bible, then how can you say the bible is truth?

Ignorance is not bliss trooper.

You've got a lot to learn about God.

Your Servant in Christ,

ironmonk

were my faith stands now i do not believe in it

and i will research coz it is interesting

btw please refrain from calling me stupid.....

[cmotherofpirl]

see I like the whole conceptual ideas, and how it is being presented. Yet all the verses are irrelevant and show me no truth.

Therefore now I know what it is!

THANK YOU GUYS!

I will decide to not believe in it because it is not strong enough for me to believe....

But trooper you said scripture was inspired by God and useful for teaching, and yet you call it irrelevant?

[[jas]]

I believe what He meant was that those verses are irrelevant to what we're talking about here

[[jas]]

And let's take a look at these verses that apparantly "prove" purgatory. This is my understanding:

Isaiah 6:5

Then I said, "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

7 He touched my mouth with it. "See," he said, "now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged."

I see no reference to purgatory after death here, if anything it's saying that Isaiah had his sin purged on the spot, no need for anything after death.

Matt 12:32

And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

How can someone be in Hell, and then be forgiven??? The age to come people can be forgiven, it can't be Heaven because there is no need for forgiveness because in Heaven there will not be sin... it can't be Hell because once your in Hell, it's for eternity.

Very shaky to pull something from that, especially given that Jesus was not teaching on purgatory at all. Nonetheless, from some of your other theology you say that people may be accepted by God after they die even if they weren't christians if they didn't know any better. If they've blashphemed the Holy Spirit by specifically rejecting His work, they won't be forgiven at this point. Agreed?

Rev 20:13

The sea gave up its dead; then Death and Hades gave up their dead. All the dead were judged according to their deeds.

14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the pool of fire. (This pool of fire is the second death.)

15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the pool of fire.

Death and Hades (not the pool of fire) gave up their dead and they were judged according to their deeds.... THEN Death and Hades were thrown into the pool of fire (HELL as we know it) Death and Hades is not Hell, and is not Heaven... then what could it be??? The Catholic Church calls it Purgatory.

How do you know it's not just refering to every person that has died?

1 John 5:16

If anyone sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God and he will give him life. This is only for those whose sin is not deadly. There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray.

Rev 21:27

but nothing unclean will enter it, nor any (one) who does abominable things or tells lies. Only those will enter whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Nothing Unclean can enter Heaven, but not all sin is deadly (1 John 5:16) therefore we must have our sin purged (Isaiah 6:6-7) before we enter Heaven if we are guilty of lesser sins.

Sin isn't deadly because I've been forgiven once and for all by Jesus' death on the cross. And because of that, my sin (past, present, future) ALREADY HAS been purged. I am forgiven, made whole, free from sin, and pure in the eyes of God.

1 Cor 3:15

But if someone's work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire.

How can we be saved from Hell, because Hell is eternal? This being saved as through fire can only be Purgatory, where our lesser sins will be purged from us.

The context there has nothing to do with purgatory. It's talking about making sure our work will last, and the metaphor is of it being tested by fire. When talking about being saved through fire (or as the NIV puts it, escaping through the flames), it's talking about narrowly escaping, and our work being destroyed.

Luke 12:59

I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny."

We will pay for all our sins in one way or another (Purgatory). All our sins must be paid for. We know Hell is eternal, once someone is in hell there is no chance of getting out, then what could we be released from?  - Purgatory.

This was a parable of Jesus in which He was talking about forgiveness. The person refered to here was locked in prison because he had a debt that he couldn't repay, which was probably common practice back then. I think it's dangerous to try and read something into that when it's got nothing to do with what Jesus was teaching.

1 Peter 1:6

In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials,

7 so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Let's look at that in context, 1 Peter 1:3-7

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

It's talking about trials in our life now, not being purged from our sin after we die!

2 Macc 12:43

I don't seem to have the book of 2 Macc handy at the moment

To be honest, it looks to me like you've taken something you already believe in and hold to be true, and tried to find ways of backing it up using the bible. Do you have any direct teaching from the bible that shows purgatory is real, rather than just verses here and there that it can be explained into?

[JP2Iloveyou]

Curtis Martin wrote a wonderful article on purgatory that explains it so clearly, it is amazing. It is the last chapter of the book Catholic for a Reason. I would highly recommend it. You can probably get it from a library on inter-library loan or just buy a copy. I think it's only about $15.00.

[cmotherofpirl]

,Oct 6 2003, 10:59 AM] And let's take a look at these verses that apparantly "prove" purgatory. This is my understanding:

I see no reference to purgatory after death here, if anything it's saying that Isaiah had his sin purged on the spot, no need for anything after death.

Very shaky to pull something from that, especially given that Jesus was not teaching on purgatory at all. Nonetheless, from some of your other theology you say that people may be accepted by God after they die even if they weren't christians if they didn't know any better. If they've blashphemed the Holy Spirit by specifically rejecting His work, they won't be forgiven at this point. Agreed?

How do you know it's not just refering to every person that has died?

Sin isn't deadly because I've been forgiven once and for all by Jesus' death on the cross. And because of that, my sin (past, present, future) ALREADY HAS been purged. I am forgiven, made whole, free from sin, and pure in the eyes of God.

The context there has nothing to do with purgatory. It's talking about making sure our work will last, and the metaphor is of it being tested by fire. When talking about being saved through fire (or as the NIV puts it, escaping through the flames), it's talking about narrowly escaping, and our work being destroyed.

This was a parable of Jesus in which He was talking about forgiveness. The person refered to here was locked in prison because he had a debt that he couldn't repay, which was probably common practice back then. I think it's dangerous to try and read something into that when it's got nothing to do with what Jesus was teaching.

Let's look at that in context, 1 Peter 1:3-7

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

It's talking about trials in our life now, not being purged from our sin after we die!

I don't seem to have the book of 2 Macc handy at the moment

To be honest, it looks to me like you've taken something you already believe in and hold to be true, and tried to find ways of backing it up using the bible. Do you have any direct teaching from the bible that shows purgatory is real, rather than just verses here and there that it can be explained into?

Jas the verses are simply backup to what the Church believed for centuries beofre the Bible was written.

If you don't have all the books of the Bible, may be you should get one that was not chopped up by Martin Luther.

Its interesting to me people say scripture is inspired then use a book that was altered by a man.

[[jas]]

Jas the verses are simply backup to what the Church believed for centuries beofre the Bible was written.

Some of those verses (Isaiah for example) were written way before the church was around, and the rest certainly not centuries later

But anyway, you're finding verses to back up what the church already believed. I thought so. You just proved my point.

If you don't have all the books of the Bible, may be you should get one that was not chopped up by Martin Luther. 

Its interesting to me people say scripture is inspired then use a book that was altered by a man.

Hrm, I don't know the history of that so I'm not going to comment. I'd be interested if you can point me to some objective sources of info about that though.

[ironmonk]

www.Britannica.com

Look up Septuagint.

The Catholic Church uses the Septuagint (written approx 290 BC) for the Old Testament.

the protestant churches use the Massorah (written 90 AD, by the Jews - 57 years after Christ took away their authority)

Jesus and the Apostles and every Christian used the Septuagint as their Old Testament until 1611 AD... that should speak volumes.

Also look up Canonization and New Testament. Note the names of the people involved.

God Bless, Your Servant in Christ,

ironmonk

Edited October 6, 2003 by ironmonk

[ironmonk]

biblical literature

Encyclopædia Britannica Article

New Testament canon, texts, and versions

The New Testament canon

Conditions aiding the formation of the canon

The New Testament consists of 27 books, which are the residue, or precipitate, out of many 1st–2nd-century-AD writings that Christian groups considered sacred. In these various writings the early church transmitted its traditions: its experience, understanding, and interpretation of Jesus as the Christ and the self-understanding of the church. In a seemingly circuitous interplay between the historical and theological processes, the church selected these 27 writings as normative for its life and teachings—i.e., as its canon (from the Greek kanon, literally, a reed or cane used as a measuring rod and, figuratively, a rule or standard). Other accounts, letters, and revelations—e.g., the Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), Gospel of Peter, First Letter of Clement, Letter of Barnabas, Apocalypse (Revelation) of Peter, Shepherd of Hermas—exist, but through a complex process the canon was fixed for both the Eastern and Western churches in the 4th century. The canon contained four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Acts, 21 letters, and one book of a strictly revelatory character, Revelation. These were not necessarily the oldest writings, not all equally revelatory, and not all directed to the church at large.

The Old Testament in its Greek translation, the Septuagint (LXX), was the Bible of the earliest Christians. The New Covenant, or Testament, was viewed as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises of salvation that were continued for the new Israel, the church, through the Holy Spirit, which had come through Christ, upon the whole people of God. Thus, the Spirit, which in the Old Testament had been viewed as resting only on special charismatic figures, in the New Testament became “democratized”—i.e., was given to the whole people of the New Covenant. In postbiblical Judaism of the first Christian centuries, it was believed that the Spirit had ceased after the writing of the Book of Malachi (the last book of the Old Testament canon) and that no longer could anyone say “Thus saith the Lord,” as had the prophets, nor could any further holy writ be produced.

The descent of the Spirit on the community of the Messiah (i.e., the Christ) was thus perceived by Christians as a sign of the beginning of the age to come, and the church understood itself as having access to that inspiration through the Spirit. Having this understanding of itself, the church created the New Testament canon not only as a continuation and fulfillment of the Old Testament but also as qualitatively different, because a new age had been ushered in. These 27 books, therefore, were not merely appended to the traditional Jewish threefold division of the Old Testament—the Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nevi’im), and the Writings (Ketuvim)—but rather became the New Testament, the second part of the Christian Bible, of which the Old Testament is the first.

Because of a belief that something almost magical occurs—with an element of secrecy—when a transmitted oral tradition is put into writing, there was, in both the Old and New Testaments, an expression of reluctance about committing sacred material to writing. When such sacred writings are studied to find the revealed word of God, a settled delimiting of the writings—i.e., a canon—must be selected. In the last decade of the 1st century, the Synod of Jamnia (Jabneh), in Palestine, fixed the canon of the Bible for Judaism, which, following a long period of flux and fluidity and controversy about certain of its books, Christians came to call the Old Testament. A possible factor in the timing of this Jewish canon was a situation of crisis: the fall of Jerusalem and reaction to the fact that the Septuagint was used by Christians and to their advantage, as in the translation of the Hebrew word ‘alma (“young woman”) in chapter 7, verse 14, of Isaiah—“Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel”—into the Greek term parthenos (“virgin”).

As far as the New Testament is concerned, there could be no Bible without a church that created it; yet conversely, having been nurtured by the content of the writings themselves, the church selected the canon. The concept of inspiration was not decisive in the matter of demarcation because the church understood itself as having access to inspiration through the guidance of the Spirit. inDouche, until c. AD 150, Christians could produce writings either anonymously or pseudonymously—i.e., using the name of some acknowledged important biblical or apostolic figure. The practice was not believed to be either a trick or fraud. Apart from letters in which the person of the writer was clearly attested—as in those of Paul, which have distinctive historical, theological, and stylistic traits peculiar to Paul—the other writings placed their emphases on the message or revelation conveyed, and the author was considered to be only an instrument or witness to the Holy Spirit or the Lord. When the message was committed to writing, the instrument was considered irrelevant, because the true author was believed to be the Spirit. By the mid-2nd century, however, with the delay of the final coming (the Parousia) of the Messiah as the victorious eschatological (end-time) judge and with a resulting increased awareness of history, increasingly a distinction was made between the apostolic time and the present. There also was a gradual cessation of “authentically pseudonymous” writings in which the author could identify with Christ and the Apostles and thereby gain ecclesiastical recognition.

The process of canonization

The process of canonization was relatively long and remarkably flexible and detached; various books in use were recognized as inspired, but the Church Fathers noted, without embarrassment or criticism, how some held certain books to be canonical and others did not. Emerging Christianity assumed that through the Spirit the selection of canonical books was “certain” enough for the needs of the church. Inspiration, it is to be stressed, was neither a divisive nor a decisive criterion. Only when the canon had become self-evident was it argued that inspiration and canonicity coincided, and this coincidence became the presupposition of Protestant orthodoxy (e.g., the authority of the Bible through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit).

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Roman Catholicism

Encyclopædia Britannica Article

Christian church characterized by its uniform, highly developed doctrinal and organizational structure that traces its history to the Apostles of Jesus Christ in the 1st century AD. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity.

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About AD 95 Clement, bishop of Rome, in his letter to the church in Corinth ( First Letter of Clement ), expressed the view that bishops succeeded the Apostles.

originally titled Letter To The Church Of Corinth; also called I Clement, a letter to the Christian Church in Corinth from the church of Rome, traditionally ascribed to and almost certainly written by St. Clement I of Rome, c. AD 96. It is extant in a 2nd-century Latin translation, which is possibly the oldest surviving Latin Christian work. Regarded as scripture by many 3rd- and 4th-century Christians, it was transmitted in manuscripts with a sermon known as the Second Letter of Clement, written c. 125-140 by an unknown author.

Concerned about a dispute in the Corinthian Church in which younger members had deposed older men from the ministry, the letter opposed the deposition and discussed the orders of the ministry, which it asserted were established by the Apostles and were the will of God. The First Letter of Clement was an important influence on the development in the church of the episcopal orders of the ministry (bishops, priests, deacons), and it has been used to support the doctrine of the apostolic succession, according to which bishops represent a direct, unbroken line of succession from the Apostles.

The idea of apostolic succession appears in the writings of Irenaeus, a Church Father who died about 202. Against the Gnostics (dualistic sects that maintained that salvation is not from faith but from some esoteric knowledge) Irenaeus urged that the Catholic teaching was verified because a continuous succession of teachers, beginning with the Apostles, could be demonstrated. In the 3rd and 4th centuries problems of schism within churches were resolved by appealing to the power of orders (i.e., the powers a person has by reason of his ordination either as deacon, priest, or bishop) transmitted by the imposition of hands through a chain from the Apostles. Orders in turn empowered the subject to receive the power of jurisdiction (i.e., the powers an ordained person has by reason of his office). In disputes between Rome and the Eastern churches the idea of apostolic succession was centred in the Roman pontiff, the successor of Peter; it will be observed that this goes beyond the idea of collegial succession. Apostolic authority is defined as the power to teach, to administer the sacraments, and to rule the church. Apostolic succession in the Roman Catholic understanding is validated only by the recognition of the Roman pontiff; and the Roman Catholic Church understands the designation "apostolic" in the creed as referring to this threefold power under the primacy of the Roman pontiff.

The idea of apostolic succession appears in the writings of Irenaeus, a Church Father who died about 202. Against the Gnostics (dualistic sects that maintained that salvation is not from faith but from some esoteric knowledge) Irenaeus urged that the Catholic teaching was verified because a continuous succession of teachers, beginning with the Apostles, could be demonstrated. In the 3rd and 4th centuries problems of schism within churches were resolved by appealing to the power of orders (i.e., the powers a person has by reason of his ordination either as deacon, priest, or bishop) transmitted by the imposition of hands through a chain from the Apostles. Orders in turn empowered the subject to receive the power of jurisdiction (i.e., the powers an ordained person has by reason of his office). In disputes between Rome and the Eastern churches the idea of apostolic succession was centred in the Roman pontiff, the successor of Peter; it will be observed that this goes beyond the idea of collegial succession. Apostolic authority is defined as the power to teach, to administer the sacraments, and to rule the church. Apostolic succession in the Roman Catholic understanding is validated only by the recognition of the Roman pontiff; and the Roman Catholic Church understands the designation "apostolic" in the creed as referring to this threefold power under the primacy of the Roman pontiff.