Binding and loosing

Binding and loosing is originally a Jewish phrase appearing in the New Testament, as well as in the Targum. In usage, to bind and to loose simply means to forbid by an indisputable authority and to permit by an indisputable authority. The Targum to a particular Psalm implies that these actions were considered to be as effectual as the spell of an enchanter.

The poseks had, by virtue of their ordination, the power of deciding disputes relating to Jewish law. Hence, the difference between the two main schools of thought in early classical Judaism were summed up by the phrase the school of Shammai binds; the school of Hillel looses.

Theoretically, however, the authority of the poseks proceeded from the Sanhedrin, and there is therefore a Talmudic statement that there were three decisions made by the lower house of judgment (the Sanhedrin) to which the upper house of judgment (the heavenly one) gave its supreme sanction. The claim that whatsoever [a disciple] bind[s] or loose[s] on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven, which the Gospel of Matthew attributes to Jesus, is probably therefore just an adoption of a phrase popular at the time.

This is also the meaning of the phrase when it is applied in the text to Simon Peter and the other apostles in particular when they are invested with the power to bind and loose by Christ.

This also serves as the scriptural and traditional foundation for the Catholic Church's conception of papal authority, stemming from such an investiture of St. Peter, since, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, the Popes are the Successors of St. Peter.

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