Remembering the Early Church

My interlocutor has usually been reading a book by Garry Wills or Elaine Pagels, who view the events of sacred history as power plays by vested interests. If my weekend controversialist hasn't been reading a heterodox best-seller, he or she has been taking one of those smartly put-together adult Bible classes in Manhattan, which let it be known that the Real Presence and the Sacrifice of the Mass, the papacy, and the episcopate are late Roman inventions.

How, over a glass of chardonnay, does one respond? How does one lightly utter the names of Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, and the Didache? Or mention Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Augustine, and other early witnesses to the fact that the Church in the first centuries was Roman Catholic?

Before there ever was a canon of the New Testament, there was a Church. And its paper trail is Catholic. In his two anti-papal books, Garry Wills is dismissive of these early non-biblical documents, but they are well worth knowing about.

In 95 A.D., a three-man embassy with a letter from the fourth bishop of Rome arrived at Corinth, where there were dissensions in the local church. In that letter, Pope St. Clement speaks with authority, giving instructions with a tone of voice that expects to be obeyed. The interesting point is that the apostle John was still living in Ephesus, which is closer than Rome to Corinth. But it was the bishop of Rome (at the time, a smaller diocese) who dealt with the problem.

Then there are the seven letters of St. Ignatius, who was martyred in Rome in 106. Ignatius was the third bishop of Antioch (Peter had been the first) and a disciple of the apostle John. Because these letters, written en route to Rome, are so Catholic, their authenticity was long contested by Protestant scholars, but now they are almost universally accepted as genuine.

Ignatius was the first to call the Church "Catholic." He writes to the Ephesians that "the bishops who have been appointed throughout the world are the will of Jesus Christ…. Let us be careful, then, if we would be submissive to God, not to oppose the bishop." And his letter to the church at Smyrna attacks those who deny the Real Presence: "They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of Our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins…."

It is noteworthy that in addressing the Church at Rome — a less ancient see than Antioch — Ignatius's tone changes entirely. He is deferential, praiseful: "You have envied no one; but others you have taught."

There is also the Didache, which was a kind of catechism and liturgical manual written some time between 70 and 150. It is a short document that could be used in RCIA today without changing a syllable.

The Didache (which means "teaching") begins with a number of prohibitions (including abortion). Then, after what is probably the text of an early eucharistic prayer, comes the money quote: "Let no one eat or drink of the Eucharist with you except those who have been baptized…. On the Lord's day gather together, break bread and give thanks after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure…. For this is what was proclaimed by the Lord: 'In every place and time let there be offered to me a clean sacrifice….'"

The last line is from Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets, who talks about how God, displeased with the sacrifices of the people of Judah, will accept the "sacrifice… the clean oblation" offered everywhere among the Gentiles. Early Christians considered this passage an anticipation of the Sacrifice of the Mass.

What these documents reveal is a primitive church that is recognizably hierarchical and centered on the Eucharist. Catholics, of course, do not base their faith on these early literary scraps but on the living authority of the Church. Still, it can be fun to broach these ancient names while nibbling an hors d'oeuvre.

Greetings_Puny_Humans

But none of that refutes the notion of the Bishop of Rome having a Primacy. For if he had no primacy at all, the Church of Corinth would have told Clement to get lost.

And as for the statements you quoted that indicated nobody cared who the Bishops were in Rome before the mid-2nd century. My response is where are the Bishops of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Holland? Somebody tell me what lists of Bishops do we have in those countries from the 2nd century. The confusion of the lists of the Bishops of Rome is of course one Philip Schaff’s statements in his commentary on the Letter of Clement, which it seems this Dr. White you are quoting is repeating. This is used, without any merit, to somehow say, well we are not sure if the lists are exactly correct, and so the Church of Rome and the notion of the Primacy then are somehow weakened. That is Poppycock!

And the fact that the word Pope was not used exclusively to the Bishop of Rome really proves nothing. The Word Pope comes From Papa [Latin] from the Greek word for Father [Pappas]. As Chadwick notes on page 163 [footnote 1], Christians used it for any Bishop which they had a filial relationship. Thus, for example, the Christians in Carthage would call their Bishop “Papa” but the Bishop of Rome “Bishop”. Rome began to request, at least in the West, exclusive usage of the term “Papa” in the 6th century and according to Chadwick, a 9th century Pope got his feelings hurt when another Bishop referred to him as Brother!. Oh well. Still, if the word Papa in Latin had never been applied to any Bishop, it would not change the Bishop of Rome had primacy in the early Church.

To say nobody was concerned with who the Bishop of Rome in the 2nd century incorrect. By the time of St. Ireneaus’s Against Heresies, he clearly cites Clements Letter to the Church of Corinth as an example of Rome’s preeminent authority and he does provide a list of all the Bishops from Peter till his day. Granted, Irenaeus “Against Heresies” was written around 180AD, which is still outside of your middle of the 2nd century quotation.

The extant Letter of Bishop Dionysius of Corinth [dated circa 166AD] to Bishop Soter of Rome praising him for the ancient custom of the Rome of urging with consoling words, as a Father does for his children. He also makes reference again to the Letter of Clement of Rome to the Church in Corinth[Fragment in Eusebius, History of the Church Book 2, Chapter 23 and 25]. This Letter gets us closer to the Mid-2nd century, but not there yet.

The Muratorian Fragment [155AD to 200AD] clearly uses the period of the Saint Pius, Bishop of Rome 140AD to 155AD to date why the Shepherd of the Hermas should not be included the NT books to be read in the Church at Rome [earliest NT canonical List!]. Now why is Pius Bishop of Rome important?

The issue of the Gnostic heretic Marcion, who was a wealthy cleric from the East and Son of a Bishop of an Eastern Church in what is now modern Turkey. In 144AD, he was excommunicated “unilaterally” by the Pius and the Church of Rome. There was no council, no protest from the Eastern Churches. So my questions to you are

1)On what authority Did the Church of Rome and Pius act in excommunicating Marcion, who was the son of a Bishop in the Eastern Church, and may have been himself elevated to Bishop?

2)What evidence do we have from any Eastern Churches that Rome acted incorrectly or usurped a role that should have been handled by say the Church in Antioch [which would be the closest major Patriarchal See] or Alexandria?

3)Take the Arius situation. Arius was a Priest Trained in Antioch who moved to Alexandria and preached the doctrine that there was a time when the Father was not a Father, for he was once Alone. The Bishop of Alexandria acting with a Synod of Bishops from all of Egypt “excommunicated Arius”. Arius doctrine had support near Antioch, where he had studied Theology and now you had rival parties, the orthodox, Arians and semi-Arians, and thus the Arian crisis was born [and the crisis was over interpretation of scripture, namely Proverbs 8:22-31].

It would take the Council of Nicea to condemn Arianism and reaffirm Bishop Alexander and the Synod of Bishops in Egypt, and even then, he still had supporters well after Nicea.

So while Arius’s excommunication by Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and the Synod of Egyptian Bishops was affirmed by Nicea in 325, it was still challenged and questioned and the Council of Nicea ultimately had to resolve the crisis [Even after the Council of Nicea, Arius still had supporters]. Conversely, there was never a question that Pius, Bishop of Rome did not have the authority to excommunicate Marcion [who again, was the son of a Eastern Bishop, a wealthy one at that].

So given Pius Bishop of Rome and the Marcion excommunication [144AD], that would get us before the Middle of the 2nd century

So if we date the Apostle John’s death at around 90AD and we date Pius, Bishop of Rome’s tenure from 140 to 155AD, what we are talking about is whether or not we can find in the writings of the Fathers whether anyone cared who was the Bishop of Rome between that 50 year period. It is quite clear, given the Marcion excommunication, that Pius, Bishop of Rome’s authority carried significant weight. So even you have to concede the “Papists” theory of Primacy of the Bishop of Rome is operational in Church practice and discipline by the time of Pope Pius [140AD to 155AD].

Now, the 50 year period between 90AD [Apostle John’s death and Pius tenure as Bishop of Rome, 140D to 154AD]. The only extant writings are the Letter of St. Clement to Rome [93AD] and the 7 extant Letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch. Clements Letter is consistent with Rome having some authority to correct the problems in the Church in Corinth [again a Church in the East]. St. Ignatius Letter to the Romans does not mention the Bishop of Rome at that time [Saint Alexander I 105 to 115AD] but it does state that the Church at Rome “Presides in Love” and “You have envied no one; Others you have taught”

So there are clear examples of the Primacy of the Church of Rome in the late 1st and 2nd century. As Pelikan The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition: 100AD to 600AD ; Chapter 2 Outside the Mainstream] states, it is becoming increasingly that this primitive Catholicism with its movement from kerygma to dogma was far more explicitly at work in the first century than previously thought [p. 71]. He goes on to freely acknowledge in in the later part of Chapter 2 that the Church of Rome was chief among the churches in authority and prestige [p. 118].

Rev. Henry Chadwick, The Anglican Patristic Scholar [Taught at Oxford and Cambridge] writes, with respect to the Church of Rome, that its role as a natural leader goes back to the early age of the Church. Its leadership can be seen in their brotherly intervention in the dispute at Corinth before the end of the first century. Chadwick continues and states that the first seeds of Rome’ s future development can be seen in St. Paul’s independent attitude towards the Church in Jerusalem and his focus on building up a Gentile Christendom focused upon the capital of the Gentile world. The standing of the Church of Rome was enhanced by its important part in the second century conflicts with heresy, and by it consciousness, expressed as early as 160AD in the monuments erected to the memory of St. Peter and St. Paul. By the end of the 2nd century, Pope Victor insisted, in a manner that others thought autocratic , that all churches should observe Easter on the same day as the Church of Rome.. Chadwick continues that before the 3rd century, there was no call for a sustained, theoretical justification of leadership. All were brethren, but the Church of Rome was accepted First among equals. He points out that the Petrine text of Matthew 16:18 cannot be seen to play a Role in Rome’s leadership till the mid-3rd century when there was a disagreement between Cyprian and Stephen, Bishop of Rome over baptism but by the 4th century, Pope Damasus, Rome would then be seen as using this text more and more for the theological and scriptural foundation of Rome’s leadership [Chadwick, The Early Church Revised Edition, 1989, page 237-238].

In volume 2 of Pelikan’s work [The Spirit of Eastern Christendom], he starts out by stating the schism of Western and Eastern Christianity was one of the greatest calamities in the history of the Church [I agree] and it seriously undermined the powers of resistance in the Christian East against the advances of Islam and on the other hand, it hastened the centralization of Western Christendom which resulted in many abuses and provoked widespread discontent so that the Reformation itself, which split Western Christendom into two hostile camps, was one of its consequences. [I tend to agree with his analysis here].

He then goes on to discuss the Orthodoxy of Old Rome starting out by saying dominating the discussion between East and West was the massive fact of Rome’s spotless [or nearly spotless] record for doctrinal orthodoxy. The Pope’s made use of this record quoting the Petrine text [Mt 16:18-19; John 21-15-17] and Pope Agatho [678-681AD] would rely on Peter’s protection, etc. Pelikan then states that the positive evidence of history was certainly cogent and Pelikan cites his earlier work in Volume 1 noting that the East had to admit that Pope Leo [Church of Rome] had been hailed as the “pillar of Orthodoxy” and had been remembered ever since [p. 148 of Volume 2].

Pelikan continues on and notes that Rome had been on the side that emerged victorious from one controversy to another, and eventually it became clear that the side Rome chose would be the one that would emerge victorious. Pelikan continues on by referring to the two issues discussed earlier in this work [Volume 2] and states that in the two dogmatic issues that we have discussed thus far, the person of Christ and the use of images in the Church, the orthodoxy of Rome was a prominent element, in the first of these perhaps the decisive element, so that when the relation of East and West itself became a matter of debate, the Latin Case could draw from the record established in the early centuries and the immediate past [p. 150].

Pelikan goes into the Monothelite issue and notes that even though Pope Honorius was said to have fostered it by his negligence [he never defined it, he said nothing in reality], what Rome had sad in local councils in 649 and 680 became the orthodox definition stated at Constantinople in 681 and states Peter was still speaking thru the Pope.

Iscool:

The Psuedo-Isidorian Decretals and all you site is really not relevant. All it shows is there was a 9th century forged set of documents made by the pseudonymous Isidore
Mercator. It was the Catholic Church itself that realized they were forgies and the Newadvent Catholic site provides the most detailed information on the False Decretals

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05773a.htm

So yes those are forged, I have never made claim they were not and have never used them here. That does not therefore, that everything written prior to the 9th century was also a forgery now does it.

When I cite a Church Father, I generally only cite one whose letters are accepted as genuine by Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants. For example, Ignatius of Antioch’ 7 extant Letters and Justin’s Apology are now universally accepted [were always with Catholics and Orthodox], even among confessional protestant Patristic scholars, as both of them contained such a strong witness to a Catholicity already present in the late 1st and 2nd century. All of the 19th century Protestant Patristic Scholars, Lightfoot, Harnack, Zahn, Funk and Schaff did not dispute their authenticity.

If you start going down that road, how do you know St. Paul wrote the letters he wrote. I take it on the authority of the Catholic Church that NT epistles are of apostolic origin. As for the Patristic Fathers, I take it on the same authority, although I weight the evidence based on scholarship that has been done on the Church Fathers among all 3 major branches of Christendom, Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church and the work of the “Confessional Protestant Patristic Scholars” like the ones I cited above and more recently, the likes of Rev. Henry Chadwick, Anglican Patristic Scholar who taught at Cambridge and Oxford and published the Penguin series on the History of the Early Church and the American Patristic Scholar, J. Pelikan, who wrote a 5 volume set on the Development of Christian Doctrine [I have Volume 1 and 2 and have read both] who when he wrote that series, was a Lutheran, but later in his life he entered the Eastern Orthodox Church..

Petrosius,

You wrote...

"Please do not mistake your private interpretation (and indeed denial) of Scripture with Scripture itself. Jesus clearly said "This is my Body" and this is how the early Church understood it. Any attempts to deny what our Lord said are unconvincing."

1. To be clear. There is absolutely no restriction in Scripture against any believer in Christ interpreting His Word. In fact, Christians are exhorted to work hard at it.
2. Tens of millions of other Christians believe the identical thing, so there is nothing private at all.
3. Christ also said He is the door among other things. Metaphorically He told the truth about both items.

"Nice attempt at trying at avoiding the question at hand. God works through human agents, as He did with Moses and the prophets. Unless you are claiming direct inspiration, how did God communicate to us what is, and is not, Scripture? The early Church gave us the doctrines and praxis of the faith as well as the canon of Scripture. It is either trustworthy in all or in none. If we cannot trust the Church in its doctrine and praxis then we cannot trust it in deciding the content of the Scriptures."

1. Despite your claims for the early Church, it was God who worked to inspire His word, identify it and perserve it. Really, you guys could learn a lot from Baalam's ass - that humble beast that knew God used him, but never bragged that it made him an Infallible Ass, like so many FRomans do on this site.
2. You would like to make God's use of the early church to help preserve Scripture into a blanket endorsement of everything. Church history doesn't back you up on that. Based on my extensive reading, in every age the church has had failures. It also got some things right. During the time, it always managed to think it was right about everything. Don't feel bad about the later Roman church being wrong repeatedly. It is the human state. Israel failed many times also.
3. As it turns out, we now live in 2014. We have a complete Bible. Your faith adds a few more books. My faith felt they did not meet the tests sufficiently to be included. Setting aside the differences, we agree on the lion's share of the Bible. This discussion isn't today about which books are inspired. It is about what they say and what they mean. The great thing about the time since the Reformation is that God's Word has been examined systematically and the truths correlated. While it often has value to read things from the Fathers, often they do not agree with each other. They provide some historical backdrop, but unfortunately not an unbroken chain to the NT church.\ Best

“But none of that refutes the notion of the Bishop of Rome having a Primacy. For if he had no primacy at all, the Church of Corinth would have told Clement to get lost.”

IOW, the lack of evidence for a single Monarchical Bishop of Rome or Primacy in the letter that bares Clement’s name does not refute the notion of a Monarchical Bishop of Rome having a Primacy in the 1st and 2nd centuries. As I wrote in my previous post, we don’t even see this in Gregory the Great, far more powerful than any who came before him, yet who explicitly gave the Primacy of Peter to Antioch and Alexandria.

“1)On what authority Did the Church of Rome and Pius act in excommunicating Marcion, who was the son of a Bishop in the Eastern Church, and may have been himself elevated to Bishop?”

1) The authority to excommunicate is a Biblical one, and is a power every local church has, to remove evildoers from communion with the faithful (though it does not damn them).

2) The heretic in question originated his heresy in Rome.

3) You are claiming that Rome had an absolute authority to do as they pleased, single-handedly, which is historically denied. Rome, for example, had condemned Cyprian for teaching that apostates/converts who had been baptized in heterdox churches, needed to be re-baptized, which Augustine defends on the basis of a council having not determined the matter:

“There are great proofs of this existing on the part of the blessed martyr Cyprian, in his letters,-to come at last to him of whose authority they carnally flatter themselves they are possessed, whilst by his love they are spiritually overthrown. For at that time, before the consent of the whole Church had declared authoritatively, by the decree of a plenary Council, what practice should be followed in this matter, it seemed to him, in common with about eighty of his fellow bishops of the African churches, that every man who had been baptized outside the communion of the Catholic Church should, on joining the Church, be baptized anew.” (Augustine, On Baptism, Against the Donatists Book I)

4) Many opponents of decisions made by Rome have appealed to other Bishops or to Synods, which, if what you say is true, was in contradiction to the sole and absolute authority the church in Rome practiced here. But is not on contradiction if we consider the ancient view, that each church was its own master, with the Bishop beholden only to God, as we see in Ignatius’ quote, and here:

“Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the other provinces, let the Churches retain their privileges.” (Nicea, 6th canon)

5) ALL Apostolic Sees, in those days, have an authority to excommunicate:

“You cannot deny that you see what we call heresies and schisms, that is, many cut off from the root of the Christian society, which by means of the Apostolic Sees, and the successions of bishops, is spread abroad in an indisputably world-wide diffusion, claiming the name of Christians” (Augustine, Letter 232)

And Rome, though falsely called (as neither Peter nor Paul actually founded it), is “an” Apostolic See:

“…because he saw himself united by letters of communion both to the Roman Church, in which the supremacy of an apostolic chair has always flourished.” (Augustine, Letter XLIII).

Compare to Pope Leo, who cleverly changes the “an” to a “the,” and makes it a sole primate, in referencing the same writing of Augustine:

“And for a like reason St. Augustine publicly attests that, “the primacy of the Apostolic chair always existed in the Roman Church” (Ep. xliii., n. 7).

This is part of the reason why the Eastern Orthodox (and I, too) say that most quotes used to support Romish claims are either taken out of context, misquoted, or are outright fraudulent, and that a closer look into the matter usually reveals an argument against Papal claims.

Your comments in quotes

“1) The authority to excommunicate is a Biblical one, and is a power every local church has, to remove evildoers from communion with the faithful (though it does not damn them).

2) The heretic in question originated his heresy in Rome.

No, Marcion was from the East and the Son of an Eastern Bishop. You still can’t refute the fact that Pius of Rome excommunicated the son of an Eastern Bishop with no appeal to a council an there was no protests. And No, I am not claiming Rome did as it pleased, it did what was necessary to strengthen the brethren and other Churches. One would think given he was an Easterner, Rome’s excommunication would have been valid only in Rome [the Local church theory you are implying]. Marcion was excommunicated by Pius of Rome in 144AD and even his father, a Bishop in the East did not welcome him in communion, as Marcion would found his own church as a rival to the Catholic Church.

Your comments in quotes

“4) Many opponents of decisions made by Rome have appealed to other Bishops or to Synods, which, if what you say is true, was in contradiction to the sole and absolute authority the church in Rome practiced here. But is not on contradiction if we consider the ancient view, that each church was its own master, with the Bishop beholden only to God, as we see in Ignatius’ quote, and here:

The canon you are citing is granting a primacy to Alexandria and Antioch, which already exists in Rome.

Take Canons 2 and 3 of the Council of Constantinopile in 381. Canon 2 puts parameters on the Churches in the East and appeals to Canon 6 of Nicea. No such claims are put on Rome. Canon 3, which the Catholic site does not quote since no 4th or 5th century pope ever ratified nor did the Council of Florence in the 15th century. Thus, till this day Canon 3 of Constantinopile and canon 28 of Chalcedon have never been ratified.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3808.htm

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.ix.viii.iv.html

And of course, Constantinopile 381 was not deemed a full council until Chalcedon in 451 [The Creed professed at Ephesus in 431 is in the Nicean Form]. It is interesting at Chalcedon in 451 that the Bishop of Constantinopile inserted his Church to the 2nd rank in what is Canon 28. Again, Pope Leo never ratified it and as numerous Catholic scholars have shown, and there are numerous appeals from the Roman Emperor and the Patriarch Analolius for Leo of Rome to ratify the Canon 28 as the Patriarch new Rome’s rejection of it would never give it full status in the
Catholic Church. Fr. Loughlin’s article in the American Catholic Quartlerly Review [Volume 5, 1880] which is linked below summarizes this entire episode clearly and concisely.

http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/CouncilNicaeaSixthCanon.htm

Schaff’s commentary on Canon 3 of the Council of Constantinople, begrudgingly it seems, states that this canon did not impact Rome, but seriously impacted Antioch and Alexandria as those two had ranked after Rome [which implies that the reading of Canon 6 of Nicea that I put forth is correct, Rome’s primacy and rank was First and it had more authority in the Church practice and discipline in the early Church than any other See]

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.ix.viii.iv.html

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Remembering the Early Church

Lately, I have been hearing a lot about how the primitive Church was not Roman Catholic.