Greetings:
It only destroys “Rome’s claims” in your mind. I don’t share your views, sorry. Now, ok, my bad, you were indeed talking about Gregory [590 to 604AD], for some reason, I just thought Leo I at Chalcedon. I did not process that correctly. Again, My bad.
Still, the notion of monarchial Bishop, was the entire point of one of your earlier your post, it was cited in earlier post that the earliest evidence from several sources of a monarchial Bishop is Pius 1, 140AD-154AD. And strictly on a scholarly level, that is the earliest date that we can get multiple sources to confirm Pius I was the monarchial Bishop of Rome [Irenaeus 180AD, Muratorian Fragment, 155AD-180AD]. Although, with respect to Clement of Rome’s Letter, which was written in the name of the Church, I know of no scholar that has ever claimed it was written by additional Bishops or presbyters along with St. Clement.
Again, Papal primacy does not mean papal dominance. The Bishop of Rome while having a primacy to defend the faith and orthodoxy, that does not mean the Bishop of Rome should micromanage every Diocese, that is nonsense and the Bishop of Rome can be imprudent in the use of this authority. Take for example Pope Victor [189-199] in the late 2nd century, he excommunicated numerous Eastern Churches over the date of celebrating pascha [Easter]. St. Ireneaus, wrote to Victor and pleaded for him not to do this and recalled how during the time of Anicetus as Bishop of Rome, Saint Polycarp went to Bishop Anicetus and while there were disagreements about certain practices that Rome observed and Smyrna and the East did not, and maybe vice versa, they kept peace and Bishop Anicetus made way for Bishop Polycarp to celebrate the Eucharist in his Church and Rome and Smyrna remained in communion with each other. Now, this might not mean anything to you, but the fact that Saint Polycarp, who was a pupil of Saint John, went to talk to Anicetus, Bishop of Rome, to ensure the Church of Smyrna remained in communion with the Bishop of Rome, does that not imply both the principle of communion and respect for the principle that communion with Rome was important, even for an Eastern Church like Smyrna, who still had a Bishop who was a pupil of the Apostle John [probably last living Christian who new an Apostle].
In addition, the Letter of Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus to Pope Victor clearly speaks of Bishops in the East were called together to respond to Victor and they, obviously were not happy with the threat of excommunication. Still, nobody questioned Victor’s authority to do so, but it was clear that many other Eastern Bishops thought that Bishop Victor was not acting in Christian charity and humility. For the record, I think they were correct. No need to excommunicate someone over Liturgical traditions on when to celebrate Easter. Nevertheless, and for the record, at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, the the Church of Rome’s custom for celebrating Pascha/Easter was what was codified as standard practice for the entire Church. So while I think Pope Sylvester thru Bishop Ossius and the Two Papal Priest Legates, Victor and Vicent got this done, it was done in a more charitable method and gave other Churches in the East a chance to hear Rome’s theological and Liturgical reasons for why Easter should always fall on a Sunday. In other words, it was done with the CHristian theological principle of charity, not autocratic methods.
Now as to the development of the Papacy, and more to the time of Gregory I, which you did refer to several times, I am going to defer to the works from both Jaroslav Pelikan and Henry Chadwick and cite their works with respect to the Church of Rome and thus the Bishop of Rome and its development.
Pelikan in the last chapter of The Christian Tradition: The Emergence of the Catholic Doctrine 100AD-600AD summarized the Bishop of Rome and Papacy [352-357]. He states that while earlier Popes, notably Leo I, hand set forth much of the content of the doctrine of papal primacy, there is probably no exaggeration that the teaching and practice of Gregory I as the significant turning point, not only jurisdictionally, but also theologically. Pelikan cites a letter from Gregory I to illustrate this point where Gregory states “To all who know the Gospel, it is obvious that by the voice of the Lord the care of the entire Church was committed to the Holy Apostle and prince of the Apostles, Peter….behold, he had been given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power to bind and loose……And we certainly know that many priests of the church of Constantinople have fallen in a whirlpool of heresy and become heretics…Certainly, in honor of Peter, the prince the of the Apostles the title Universal was offered to the Roman Pontiff by the venerable Council of Chalcedon.
Pelikan notes that the proof text used for the doctrine of primacy of Peter among the apostles and thus the doctrine of the primacy of the Pope in the Church was the Mat. 16:18 and Pelikan notes that the meaning of this passage as it applied to Rome and other Churches had been a matter of controversy going back to Cyprian in the 3rd century, but Gregory had no hesitation in quoting it along with John 21:17 and Luke 22:31, as proof text. Pelikan points out that the all the statement of Gregory were not meant to exalt the place of Peter among the apostles in the first century, but to affirm the place of the Bishop of Rome in the 6th. Peter had been first Bishop of Rome, and the pope was his successor. Even though Peter could be connected to both Alexandria and Antioch as well, everybody new the see of Peter was Rome. When the legates at Chalcedon responded to the reading of Leo’s Tome, “Peter has spoken through Leo” they wee giving voice to this general assumption. Pelikan adds that Rome was where both Peter and Paul had been martyred and were buried, and this had given the Church of Rome a unique eminence as early as the time of Tertullian [155AD to 240AD]. He adds that the title of Universal could not be claimed by Constantinople, even though it was the New Rome. The Church of Rome, Pelikan states, was the mother of other Churches in the Latin West, which were subject to it.
Pelikan continues [p.354] that the Churches of the East, too, owed special allegiance to Rome, including Constantinopile. By hailing the authority of Leo, the fathers of Chalcedon gave witness to the orthodoxy of Rome. One see after another, Pelikan states, had capitulated in this or that controversy with heresy. Constantinopile had given rise to several heretics during the fourth and fifth centuries and other sees had been known to stray from the true faith occasionally. Pelikan continues and states “But Rome had a special position. The Bishop of Rome had the right by his own authority to annul the acts of a synod. In fact, even before a council of called and if there was talk for the need to call one, Gregory asserted the principle that without the authority and consent of the apostolic see, no council had a binding force.” Pelikan notes that while Gregory was willing to draw a parraellel between the 4 Gospels and 4 Councils, he was already formulating a doctrine of the dogmatic authority of Rome, based on the primacy of Peter and corroborated by a record and reputation for doctrinal orthodoxy.
Earlier in Volume 1 [The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition: 100AD to 600AD ; Chapter 2 Outside the Mainstream] Pelikan states, it is becoming increasingly evident 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. 70]. 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].
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 as well as Luke 22:31, as noted earlier] 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 [referring back to his work in Volume 1, which I reviewed earlier] noted 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.
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 summary, the notion of royal city and that language at Chalcedon was of Eastern theological framework. The Bishop of Rome, while yes it was the capitol of the Roman Empire in the 1st century, was not yet ruled by a Christian Emperor. You will find no writings in the Latin Church Fathers that I am aware of off the top of my head, that use “Royal City” to argue for Primacy of the Bishop of Rome.
“I know of no scholar that has ever claimed it was written by additional Bishops or presbyters along with St. Clement.”
What about this Jesuit? Isn’t he a scholar?
From Daniel’s post:
Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4 :
“Nevertheless, concrete claims of a primacy over the whole church cannot be inferred from this conviction. 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)
[Lacking such support for the modern concept of the primacy of the church of Rome with its papal jurisdiction, Schatz concludes that, “Therefore we must set aside from the outset any question such as ‘was there a primacy in our sense of the word at that time?” Schatz. therefore goes on to seek support for that as a development.]
“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).
Schatiz additionally states,
“Cyprian regarded every bishop as the successor of Peter, holder of the keys to the kingdom of heaven and possessor of the power to bind and loose. For him, Peter embodied the original unity of the Church and the episcopal office, but in principle these were also present in every bishop. For Cyprian, responsibility for the whole Church and the solidarity of all bishops could also, if necessary, be turned against Rome.” (Papal Primacy [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996], p. 20)
“Again, Papal primacy does not mean papal dominance.”
That’s exactly what it means, and that is the exact nature of every one of your claims thus far, though you seem to drop your claim and then move on to another assertion, the farther we go into this.
“St. Ireneaus, wrote to Victor and pleaded for him not to do this”
First, I’ll point out that excommunicating large swathes of people doesn’t imply a Papal authority by someone, unless Ecumenical councils or African Synods are, in fact, populated by Popes. From our Jesuit friend again:
“The emperor in turn called a council at Constantinople (the Second Council of Constantinople, 553) made up only of opponents of the three chapters. It not only condemned those three chapters but even excommunicated the pope. This was a unique case of an ecumenical council setting itself clearly against the pope and yet not suffering the fate of Ephesus II. Instead, over time it was accepted and even recognized as valid by the pope. The council got around the papal opposition by referring to Matthew 18:20 (’Where two or three are gathered in my name. . .’): no individual [including the Pope] could therefore forestall the decision of the universal Church. This kind of argument was invalid, of course, because the pope was not alone; the entire West was behind him, and yet it was not represented at the council. Broken in spirit, Vigilius capitulated after the end of the council and assented to its condemnation of the three chapters. The result was a schism in the West, where the pope was accused of having surrendered Chalcedon. A North African synod of bishops excommunicated the pope, and the ecclesial provinces of Milan and Aquileia broke communion with Rome. (Milan returned to communion only after fifty years; for Aquileia the breach lasted one hundred and fifty years, until 700).” (Papal Primacy [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996], p. 53)
I’ll also add that there is no teaching of the Papacy in Eusebius, and Victor is only spoken of as another Bishop, the one presiding over Rome, and not, say, presiding over the whole world.
“Still, nobody questioned Victor’s authority to do so”
Says who? The Papists? Eusubius describes them as “sharply rebuking” him:
“But this did not please all the bishops. And they besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love. Words of theirs are extant, sharply rebuking Victor.” (Eusebius, Book 5, Ch. 24)
Aside from your blind faith, you have no basis to continue assuming that everyone was living in fear of the Bishops of Rome in religious matters.
“Even though Peter could be connected to both Alexandria and Antioch as well, everybody new the see of Peter was Rome. “
Except Pope Gregory, apparently. You should really take the time to read the post I keep referencing, and actually read what he said, rather than vomiting up something you found from someone else.
” By hailing the authority of Leo, the fathers of Chalcedon gave witness to the orthodoxy of Rome.’
As has been demonstrated, the “fathers of Chalcedon” understood Rome’s prestige as one associated with being in the former Royal city.
“You will find no writings in the Latin Church Fathers that I am aware of off the top of my head, that use “Royal City” to argue for Primacy of the Bishop of Rome.”
What about Augustine? Cyprian? They all do this on that basis, and also give contrary interpretations of the “Rock” that Rome embraces today.
I think you need to lay off the Romish propaganda and check out some primary sources from time to time.