KEYS
KEYS
Power of the, a term made use of in reference to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, denoting the power of excommunicating and absolving. The Romanists say that the pope has the power of the keys, and can open and shut paradise as he pleases; grounding their opinion on that expression of Jesus Christ to Peter
“I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, ” Mat 16:19. But every one must see that this is an absolute perversion of Scripture; for the keys of the kingdom of heaven most probably refer to the Gospel dispensation, and denote the power and authority of every faithful minister to preach the Gospel, administer the sacraments, and exercise government, that men may be admitted to or excluded from the church, as is proper.
See ABSOLUTION. In St. Gregory we read that it was the custom for the popes to send a golden key to princes, wherein they inclosed a little of the filings of St. Peter’s chain, kept with such devotion at Rome; and that these keys were worn in the bosom, as being supposed to contain some wonderful virtues! Such has been the superstition of past ages!!
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
keys
A symbol of the power and office of the Pope, the successor of Peter, to whom Our Lord said: “And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16).
Also a symbol of the Sacrament of Penance.
Saints and beati with keys as their emblem in art include
Genevieve who carries the key or keys of Paris
James the Greater
Peter the Apostle who is represented sometimes with one, the key of heaven; with two, either of gold or silver, to absolve and to bind; with two, either of gold or iron, to open the gates of heaven and hell; and again with one, symbolizing dominion over heaven, earth, and hell
Petronilla
Raymond of Penafort
New Catholic Dictionary
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Keys
KEYS.The word () occurs 6 times in the New Testament, twice in the Synoptic Gospels, and 4 times in Revelation. In Luk 11:52 Jesus upbraids the lawyers on the ground that they have taken away the key of knowledge, the instrument by which entrance into knowledge could be obtained, and thereby hindered the people from the privilege which should have been theirs. This they had done by substituting a false conlidence in the wrong kind of knowledge, with the result that the right kind was ignored and forgotten. The knowledge from which the people are thus excluded is that of the way of salvation (Plummer), or, more profoundly, that knowledge of the Lord, for lack of which the people perish (Hos 4:6), to seek which they had been urged by the prophets (cf. Joh 17:3).
In Mat 16:19 the word is used again metaphorically, in the address to Peter: I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The apparent limitation of the promise to one Apostle is to be controlled by the repetition of the following and interpretive clause addressed to the Apostles in general in Mat 18:18. The keys are to be intrusted to Peter as to a steward of the house (and in like manner to the Apostles in general), to whom might be given the power of locking and unlocking, but not of deciding who did or did not belong to the household (Weiss). The significance of this promise would be fully met if it announced the effectual proclamation, through the Apostles, of the gospel by means of which the believer obtains entrance into the kingdom. On the passage as a whole see artt. Caesarea Philippi, p. 249, and Peter.
In Rev 1:18 the Son of Man in Johns vision says: I have the keys of death and of Hades, i.e. control over the entrance to the realm of the dead. The figure of death as a realm with portals comes down from Psa 9:13, and was freely developed in the Rabbinic writings. The key of death was one of the three (four) keys which were said to be in the hand of God alone. Thus in Sanhedrin, 113, Elijah desired that there should be given to him the key of rain; he desired that there should be given to him the key of resurrection of the dead: they said to him, Three keys are not given into the hand of a representative, the key of birth, the key of rain, and the key of resurrection of the dead. There is therefore strong significance in the claim here made by the Risen Messiah.
In like manner a claim to at least Messianic dignity is involved in the phrase in Rev 3:7 he that hath the key of David. The allusion is clearly to the promise in Isa 22:22 I will give to him (Eliakim) the key of the house of David upon his shoulder, a passage which, according to Zullich, was commonly referred by Jewish commentators to the Messiah.
In the two remaining passages (Rev 9:1; Rev 20:1) the use of the word (the key of the pit of the abyss, the key of the abyss) depends on the idea familiar in Jewish cosmogony, viz. that there was a communication between the upper world and the under world or abyss by means of a pit or shaft, the opening to which might be conceived as covered and locked. According to Rabbinic tradition, this opening was placed beneath the foundations of the Temple, as the Moslems hold to this day that it is to be found beneath the Dome of the Rock, or Mosque of Omar (see Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos, pp. 9198).
C. Anderson Scott.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
KEYS
mentioned as symbols of authority
Isa 22:22; Mat 16:19; Rev 1:18; Rev 3:7; Rev 9:1; Rev 20:1