Replies

A disappointing post. I was hoping for a much fuller discussion of Manichean beliefs, of which early non-Catholic Christians were often accused (largely without basis in primary sources). I have a reason. As a Baptist, I have long been informed of the great persecution Baptists (and others) have had to endure just to reach the present century in any measurable numbers. It is exquisite irony to me to hear Sheen speaking then of knowing the true church by where the most hatred has been directed. If that is the test, surely it is us Baptists who bear that crown, theology notwithstanding. Nobody likes us.

But of course we don’t see it that way. For us the measure of truth is whatever God says is true. He has a book out, you know. We’ve read it. It’s pretty helpful, if what you want is truth.

There is another premise in the article which is shot through with irony. Supposedly all the rejection of Catholicism is just one big misunderstanding, resulting from centuries of biased misrepresentation. If we “outsider” Christians just understood what y’all really were about, we would find our common ground and join in happy kumbaya singing.

But it is the early dissenters from Rome who have almost no representation in the court of historical evaluation. Exterminated by the tens of thousands, self-testimony of beliefs and practices nearly wiped out, described almost exclusively through the biased testimony those who labored mightily for their demise, which exterminators sincerely thought they were doing God a service.

http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/hisel.bapt.hst.ntbk.chp18.html

It passes my simple little mind how any institution can claim the mantle of the “One True Church” with so many real skeletons in their closet. Honestly. It rings hollow to me. Just like “Religion of Peace” does.

However, I make no pretense to being an expert historian. For those who wish to see a fuller discussion of the relevant historical/theological issues, represented by some of the most capable advocates for either side right here on FR, please see the following link:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2316511/posts

Peace,

You mean you did were not impressed with the latest post of the obligatory promoting of the church of Rome, who has infallible declared that she is infallible?

There are many Catholic scholars who see historical research as showing a reality that is contrary to the desired version of Rome and her rhetoric of a church under a pope Peter ruling over all the church from the beginning of the church.

In the light the diversity of the early church situation it must be remembered the true church of born again believers was established upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, not handling the word in craftiness, or by using the sword of men, (1Cor. 4:20; 2Cor. 4:2; 6:1-10) and it has ever been a remnant after its beginnings, and will be. May we all daily choose to be fully of it in purity and power. Pray for all and I.

Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] on Priesthood, Canon, and the Development of Doctrine in his work, “Papal Primacy”:
The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative. That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably “no”

.. if we ask in addition whether the primitive church was aware, after Peter’s death, that his authority had passed to the next bishop of Rome, or in other words that the head of the community at Rome was now the successor of Peter, the Church’s rock and hence the subject of the promise in Matthew 16:18-19, the question, put in those terms, must certainly be given a negative answer. (page 1-2)

“If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no.” (page 3, top)

We probably cannot say for certain that there was a bishop of Rome [in 95 AD]. It is likely that the Roman church was governed by a group of presbyters from whom there very quickly emerged a presider or ‘first among equals’ whose name was remembered and who was subsequently described as ‘bishop’ after the mid-second century. (Schatz, 4). More: http://thulcandra.wordpress.com/2007/11/30/klaus-schatz-on-priesthood-canon-and-the-development-of-doctrine/

The late Catholic priest and major Biblical scholar Raymond Brown (twice appointed to Pontifical Biblical Commission) states,, “The claims of various sees to descend from particular members of the Twelve are highly dubious. It is interesting that the most serious of these is the claim of the bishops of Rome to descend from Peter, the one member of the Twelve who was almost a missionary apostle in the Pauline sense – a confirmation of our contention that whatever succession there was from apostleship to episcopate, it was primarily in reference to the Puauline tyupe of apostleship, not that of the Twelve.” (“Priest and Bishop, Biblical Reflections,” Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1970, pg 72.)

Peter Lampe is a German theologian and Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Heidelberg, whose work, “From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries,” was written in 1987 and translated to English in 2003. The Catholic historian Eamon Duffy (Irish Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and former President of Magdalene College), said “all modern discussion of the issues must now start from the exhaustive and persuasive analysis by Peter Lampe.” (“Saints and Sinners,” “A History of the Popes,” Yale, 1997, 2001, pg. 421).

The picture that finally emerges from Lampe’s analysis of surviving evidence is one he names ‘the fractionation of Roman Christianity’ (pp. 357–408). Not until the second half of the second century, under Anicetus, do we find compelling evidence for a monarchical episcopacy, and when it emerges, it is to manage relief shipments to dispersed Christians as well as social aid for the Roman poor (pp. 403–4). Before this period Roman Christians were ‘fractionated’ amongst dispersed house/tenement churches, each presided over by its own presbyter–bishop. This accounts for the evidence of social and theological diversity in second-century Roman Christianity, evidence of a degree of tolerance of theologically disparate groups without a single authority to regulate belief and practice, and the relatively late appearance of unambiguous representation of a single bishop over Rome. Review of this work, from Oxford’s Journal of Theological Studies: http://reformation500.blogspot.com/2008/08/review-of-from-paul-to-valentinus.html)

Roger Collins (M.A., D. Litt., F.R.Hist.S., F.S.A. Scot., English medievalist at Edinburgh) in his quite thorough history of the papacy, “Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy,” states

“There was … no individual, committee or council of leaders within the Christian movement that could pronounce on which beliefs and practices were acceptable and which were not.

This was particularly true of Rome with its numerous small groups of believers. Different Christian teachers and organizers of house-churches offered a variety of interpretations of the faith and attracted particular followings, rather in the way that modern denominations provide choice for worshipers looking for practices that particularly appeal to them on emotional, intellectual, aesthetic or other grounds (15-16).

Today, I actually was reading A History of Christianity, by Paul Johnson, educated at the Jesuit independent school Stonyhurst College, and at Magdalen College, Oxford, author of over 40 books and a conservative popular historian, but liberal here, supposing the epistles were written in the second century, and evidencing a lack of knowledge and of discernment of Scripture, but useful for to a degree for information on historical development.

He states,

Eusebius presents the lists [of successors] as evidence that orthodoxy had a continuous tradition from the earliest times in all the great Episcopal sees and that all the heretical movements were subsequent aberrations from the mainline of Christianity.

Looking behind the lists, however, a different picture emerges. In Edessa, on the edge of the Syrian desert, the proofs of the early establishment of Christianity were forgeries, almost certainly manufactured under Bishop Kune, the first orthodox Bishop.

In Egypt, Orthodoxy was not established until the time of Bishop Demetrius, 189-231, who set up a number of other sees and manufactured a genealogical tree for his own bishopric of Alexandria, which traces the foundation through ten mythical predecessors back to Mark, and so to Peter and Jesus.

Even in Antioch, where both Peter and Paul had been active, there seems to have been confusion until the end of the second century. Antioch completely lost their list; “When Eusebius’s chief source for his Episcopal lists, Julius Africanus, tried to compile one for Antioch, he found only six names to cover the same period of time as twelve in Rome and ten in Alexandria. http://reformation500.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/historical-literature-on-the-earliest-papacy/

...the Church, operating on the principle of collective commonsense, was a haven for a very wide spectrum of opinion. In the West, diversity was disappearing fast; in the East, orthodoxy was becoming the largest single tradition by the early decades of the third century. The Church was now a great and numerous force in the empire, attracting men of wealth and high education, inevitably, then, there occurred a change of emphasis from purely practical development in response to need, to the deliberate thinking out of policy.

This expressed itself in two ways: the attempt to turn Christianity into a philosophical and political system, and the development of controlling devices to prevent this intellectualization of the faith from destroying it. The twin process began to operate in the early and middle decades of the third century, with Origen epitomizing the first element and Cyprian the second. If Paul brought to the ?rst generation of Christians the useful skills of a trained theologian, Origen was the first great philosopher to rethink the new religion from first principles.

He [Origen] slept on the floor, ate no meat, drank no wine, had only one coat and no shoes. He almost certainly castrated himself,..

The effect of Origen’s work was to create a new science, biblical theology, whereby every sentence in the scriptures was systematically explored for hidden [prone to metaphorical] meanings, different layers of meanings, allegory and so forth.....

Cyprian came from a wealthy family with a tradition of public service to the empire; within two years of his conversion he was made a bishop. He had to face the practical problems of persecution, survival and defence against attack. His solution was to gather together the developing threads of ecclesiastical order and authority and weave them into a tight system of absolute control...the confession of faith, even the Bible itself lost their meaning of used outside the Church.

Without the office of bishop there could be no Church: and without the Church. no salvation. The man who determined who was or was not a member of the Church. and therefore eligible tor salvation. was the bishop. He interpreted the scriptures in the light of the Church’s needs in any given situation; the only unambiguous instruction they contained being, to remain faithful to the Church and obey its rules.

With Cyprian, then, the freedom preached by Paul and based on the power of Christian truth was removed from the ordinary members of the Church, it was retained only by the bishops, through whom the Holy Spirit still worked, who were collectively delegated to represent the totality of Church members. They were given wide powers of discretion, subject always to the traditional and attested truth of the Church and the scriptures. They were rulers, operating and interpreting a law. With Bishop Cyprian, the analogy with secular government came to seem very close. But of course it lacked one element: the ‘emperor figure’ or supreme priest...

[Peter was ]the beneficiary of the famous ‘rock and keys’ text in Matthew. There is no evidence that Rome exploited this text to assert its primacy before about 250 - and then, interestingly enough, in conflict with the aggressive episcopalian Cyprian - but what is clear is that in the second half of the second century, and no doubt in response to Marcion’s Pauline heresy - the first heresy Rome itself had experienced - Paul was eliminated from any connection with the Rome episcopate and the office was firmly attached to Peter alone...

The Church survived, and steadily penetrated all ranks of society over a huge area, by avoiding or absorbing extremes, by compromise, by developing an urbane temperament and erecting secular-type structures to preserve its unity and conduct its business. There was in consequence a loss of spirituality or, as Paul would have put it, of freedom... (A History of Christianity, by Paul Johnson, pp. 51-61,63. transcribed using OCR software)