Chapter II.
On the Perpetuity of the Primacy of blessed Peter in the Roman Pontiffs.
That which the Prince of Shepherds and great Shepherd of the sheep, Jesus Christ our Lord, established in the person of the blessed Apostle Peter to secure the perpetual welfare and lasting good of the Church, must, by the same institution, necessarily remain unceasingly in the Church; which, being founded upon the Rock, will stand firm to the end of the world. For none can doubt, and it is known to all ages, that the holy and blessed Peter, the Prince and Chief of the Apostles, the pillar of the faith and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of mankind, and lives, presides, and judges, to this day and always, in his successors the Bishops of the Holy See of Rome, which was founded by him, and consecrated by his blood.[293] Whence, whosoever succeeds to Peter in this See, does by the institution of Christ himself obtain the Primacy of Peter over the whole Church. The disposition made by Incarnate Truth therefore remains, and blessed Peter, abiding through the strength of the Rock in the power that he received, has not abandoned the direction of the Church.[294] Wherefore it has at all times been necessary that every particular Church—that is to say, the faithful throughout the world—should agree with the Roman Church, on account of the greater authority of the princedom which this has received; that all being associated in the unity of that See whence the rights of communion spread to all, might grow together as members of one Head in the compact unity of the body.[295]
If, then, any should deny that it is by the institution of Christ the Lord, or by divine right, that blessed Peter should have a perpetual line of successors in the Primacy over the universal Church, or that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy: let him be anathema.
Source edition notes
[293] From the Acts (Session Third) of the Third General Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, Labbe's Councils, Vol. III. p. 1154, Venice edition of 1728. See also letter of St. Peter Chrysologus to Eutyches, in life prefixed to his works, p. 13, Venice, 1750.
[294] From Sermon III. chap. iii. of St. Leo the Great, Vol. I. p. 12.
[295] From St. Irenæus against Heresies, Book III. cap. iii. p. 175, Benedictine edition, Venice, 1734; aad Acts of Synod of Aquileja, A.D. 381, Labbe's Councils, Vol.II. p. 1185, Venice, 1728.
Translation: Henry Edward Manning, Petri Privilegium (1871), reproduced in Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom II, via CCEL.
Source: Pastor Aeternus (CCEL)