What my question is… Did Jesus mean for Peter to ‘pass down the keys’?
Each person ordained was to choose worthy men to succeed himself. “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” 2 Tim 2:1-3. The faith was handed from one bishop to another, the bishop of Rome being the centering point. The authority belonged to the Apostles: " I have written something to the church; but Diot’rephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge my authority."3 John 9
From the Early Church Fathers:
“Through countryside and city [the apostles] preached, and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty, for bishops and deacons had been written about a long time earlier… Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry.” (Epistle to the Corinthians 42:4-5, 44:1-3 [A.D. 80]). Clement of Rome
“When I had come to Rome, I [visited] Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. And after Anicetus [died], Soter succeeded, and after him Eleutherus. In each succession and in each city there is a continuance of that which is proclaimed by the Law, the Prophets, and the Lord” (Memoirs 4:22:1 [ca. A.D. 180]). Hegesippus
“It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about…Surely they wished all those and their successors, to whom they handed on their authority, to be perfect and without reproach” (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [inter A.D. 180-199]). Irenaeus
“For all these [heretics] are of much later date than are the bishops to whom the apostles handed over the churches, and this fact I pointed out most carefully in the third book. It is of necessity, then, that these aforementioned heretics, because they are blind to the truth, walk in devious paths, and on this account the vestiges of their doctrines are scattered about without agreement or connection. The path of those, however, who belong to the Church goes around the whole world, for it has the firm tradition of the apostles, enabling us to see that the faith of all is one and the same” (Irenaeus Ibid. 5:20:1).
“Polycarp was instructed not only by the apostles and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also appointed bishop of the church in Smyrna by the apostles in Asia. I saw him in my early youth, for he tarried a long time and when quite old departed this life in a glorious and most noble martyrdom. He always taught those things which he learned from the apostles and which the Church had handed down and which are true. To these things the churches in Asia bear witness, as do also the successors of Polycarp even to the present time” (Irenaeus Ibid. 3:3:4).
“It is necessary to obey those who are the presbyters in the Church, those who, as we have shown, have succession from the apostles, those who have received, with the succession of the episcopate, the sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. But the rest, who have no part in the primitive succession [of bishops] and assemble wheresoever they will, must be held in suspicion…The true gnosis [knowledge] is the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient organization of the Church throughout the whole world, and the manifestation of the body of Christ according to the succession of bishops, by which succession the bishops have handed down the Church which is found everywhere” ( Irenaeus Ibid. 4:26:2, 33:8).
“But what is his error and how great his blindness…who does not remain on the foundation of the one true Church which was founded upon the rock by Christ, can be learned from this, which Christ said to Peter alone, …’ The power of forgiving sins was given to the apostles and the churches which these men, sent by Christ, established and to the bishops who succeeded them by being ordained in their place” ( Firmilian Epistle to Cyprian 75:16 [Inter A.D. 255-256]).
