Cyprian on Peter and the apostles

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Reformed Covenanter

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If anyone considers and examines these things, there is no need of a lengthy discussion and arguments. Proof for faith is easy in a brief statement of the truth. The Lord speaks to Peter: 'I say to thee,' He says, 'thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven,' Upon him, being one, He builds His Church, and although after His resurrection He bestows equal power upon all the Apostles, and says: ‘As the Father has sent me, I also send you. Receive ye the Holy Spirit: if you forgive the sins of anyone, they will be forgiven him; if you retain the sins of anyone, they will be retained,’ yet that He might display unity, He established by His authority the origin of the same unity as beginning from one. Surely the rest of the Apostles also were that which Peter was, endowed with an equal partnership of office and of power, but the beginning proceeds from unity, that the Church of Christ may be shown to be one.

Cyprian of Carthage, The Unity of the Catholic Church (c. 250), 4 in Saint Cyprian: Treatises, trans. and ed. Roy. J Deferrari, The Fathers of the Church. A New Translation: Volume 36 (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1958), pp 98-99.

Would you classify Cyprian's position as one of granting primacy to Peter among the apostles as the first among equals?
 
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