[57] Cat. xi. n. 3. ho protosthates ton Apostholon kai tes ekkleshias koryphaios kheryx. [58] Mark xvi. 16; John iii. 18; Rom. iii. 3, &c. [59] Ambros. in Ps. 1. n. 30. [60] Mansi, Tom. viii. 746. [61] De unitate Ecclesiae, 3. CHAPTER III. THE INVESTITURE OF PETER. Our Lord has hitherto, while on earth,[1] ruled as its visible head that body of disciples which He had chosen out of the world, and which His Father had given Him. And this body He for the first time called the Church in that famous prophecy[2] wherein He named the person, who, by virtue of an intimate association with Himself, the Rock, should be its foundation, and the duration of which until the consummation of the world, He pronounced at the same time, in spite of all the rage of "spiritual wickedness in high places" against it, because it should be founded upon the rock which He should lay. Secondly, He had, at that period of His ministry when He thought it meet, the second year, selected out of the rest of His disciples, after ascending into a mountain and continuing the night long in prayer, twelve whom He named Apostles--as before and above all sent by Him--for "He called whom He would Himself, and they came to Him," to whom "He gave authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every weakness," whom He chose also "to be with Him," His personal attendants, "and to send them to preach;" to whom, moreover, He subsequently made a promise that whatever they should bind on earth, should be bound in heaven, and whatever they should loose on earth should be loosed in heaven.[3] Thirdly, as at a certain time in His ministry, that is the second year, He had selected twelve to be nearer His person than the rest of His disciples, so at a yet later time, the third year of His ministry, He had set apart one out of the twelve, to whom from the very first, and before either he, or any one, had been called to be an Apostle, or even, as it would seem, a disciple, He had given a prophetic name; whom by word and deed, in correspondence with that name, He designated to be the future Rock of His Church, to be the Bearer of the keys, which opened or shut the entrance to His mystical Holy City, to be endued with power _singly_ to bind and to loose; and whom at last, on the very eve of His being taken away from His disciples, He pointed out as the future "First one," "Greater one," or "Ruler," among them, having, as such, had given to him a _special_ and _singular_ charge, after the departure of the Head, to "confirm his brethren."