So you are Eastern Orthodox? Anyway, I have provided several cites and discussions for the Church Fathers in the 1st and 2nd century. In addition, I have included in certain places, a link to The Church Fathers edited by P Schaff, the 19th century Reformed Patristic Scholar and the introduction which confirms that these are extant.
St. Clement of Rome wrote the letter to the Church in Corinth in 95 AD. He was certainly the Bishop of Rome. I know of no reputable Protestant patristic scholar that questions the authenticity of this latter. Schaff, Funk, Lightfoot, Von Harnack, and Zahn.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ii.i.html
Saint Dionysius of Corinth wrote a Letter to Bishop of Rome Soter and the Roman Church in circa 166 to 174AD which we have an extant copy preserved in Eusebius History of the Church written in early 4th century.
The Letter states from the beginning it has been your custom to do good to all the brethren in various ways and to send contributions to all the Churches in every city, thereby relieving the poverty of the needy and providing for the brethren in the mines. In this way, through the contributions which have ever been made, you Romans have preserved the ancestral customs of the Romans. This custom, your blessed Bishop Soter has not only preserved, but is augmenting, by furnishing an abundance of supplies to the saints and by urging with consoling words, as a loving father his children.
In this same letter, Saint Dionysius also refers to Saint Clement, Bishop of Rome, which was sent to the Church in Corinth some 70 or 80 years earlier and he tells Bishop Soter that Clements Letter is still read in the Church of Corinth till this day.
St, Irenaeus of Lyons list Bishops, and he writes in 180AD [Against Heresies], that would be 2nd century and lists the Bishops of the Church at Rome that succeeded the Blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, these would be Linus, Anencletus, Clement [whose Letter to Corinth is recalled and dicussed by Irenaeus], Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorous, Hyginus, Pius, Anicetus, Soter and Eleutherus.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.i.html
St. Irenaeus Letter to Victor [written circa 190 AD], Bishop of Rome speaks of the time Polycarp was visiting Rome in the time of Anicetus regarding the Quartodeciman practice. The Letter indicates that they remained in communion with each other and Anicetus allowed St. Polycarp to celebrate the Eucharist in his Church and they kept the peace of the Church in tact. It was Irenaeus’s intervention that stoped Victor from excommunicating some Eastern Bishops over the dispute of the celebration of Easter and how it was calculated. Eventually, the Roman custom would win out and be defined for the entire Catholic Church at the Council of Nicea.
The Muratorian Fragment [circa 155 to 200AD] speaks regarding the Shepherd of Hermas that it was written quite recently in the City of Rome when Bishop Pius sat in the chair of the Church in the City of Rome. Pius was Pope of Rome from 140 to 154/155 AD.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.ii.i.html
Saint Hegesipius, Bishop of Corinth, wrote his Memoirs around 180AD. He traveled to Rome around 155 AD when Anicetus was Bishop of Rome. The Letter that has come down to us was from fragments and from Eusebius History of the Church. In this letter he stated he went to Rome and met many Bishops in the West and saw that the Doctrine taught there was the same as in the East at the Church in Corinth. He traveled around the Western world to see what was the consensus orthodox doctrine so that he could battle the Gnostic Heretics. Hegesipius does make mention of the Bishop of Rome Anicetus and makes mention of those he met who would also come after Anicetus, he mention of both Soter and Eleutherus.
So, rather than check the post you suggested, I just went to my Church Father writings and found evidence that clearly contradicts your assertion that it is hard to tell wehter Rome even had Bishops at all during the first and second centuries.
So all of your history comes from Eusebius who wrote that he had copies of these historic Catholics...Your religion doesn't really have any extant manuscripts from these church fathers of yours...
Yet in all of PolyCarp's writings he never once mentions a Eucharist...A little odd don't you think???
“So you are Eastern Orthodox?”
I have heard of Papists, who read too much of the church fathers (on the topic of the Papacy) and question Papist assertions like what you provide, convert to the Eastern Orthodox because they think that they, in fact, have the “tradition” that was really from the days of Christ to the modern age. And all this on the basis of the Pope losing his allure.
The problem with the EOC, however, is that even though they get rid of Roman power presumptions, they still don’t realize that they are only picking and choosing which “Apostolic” tradition to uphold. They’ll reject Augustine, for example, and instead prefer some useless bugger who tickles their ears. And they really, like Papists, don’t truly appreciate how different their religion is compared to the first few centuries.
They’re basically just like Papists in this regard, except, instead of being obsessed with the Pope to the complete ignorance of doctrine, they obsess with their tradition to the complete detriment of holy scripture.
So, I would never be an Eastern Orthodox. That’s like downgrading to a slightly evolved version of Papist.
Give me my Bible, and I am quite happy. That’s the only sure “tradition” you can count on.
“St. Clement of Rome wrote the letter to the Church in Corinth in 95 AD. He was certainly the Bishop of Rome. I know of no reputable Protestant patristic scholar that questions the authenticity of this latter.”
That’s like saying “The Constitution is a living, flexible document. No reputable scholar questions the authenticity of the Constitution.”
It’s stupid, of course, since the letter in question does not support the assertions being made.
“So, rather than check the post you suggested, I just went to my Church Father writings and found evidence that clearly contradicts your assertion that it is hard to tell wehter Rome even had Bishops at all during the first and second centuries.”
Depends on what you mean by “Bishops” and “church fathers.’ As Dr. White observes:
“First and foremost, there is tremendous confusion concerning the early “lists” of the bishops of Rome, and for good reason. Different sources give different renderings. Why? As simple as it may sound, the reason is easily discovered: no one really cared for the first century of the history of the church at Rome. All the lists come from at the earliest many decades later, and show a concern that did not arise until the Church as a whole began struggling with heresy and began formulating concepts of authority to use against heretics. But in those first decades, even into the middle of the second century, no one was particularly concerned about who the bishop of Rome was. Why? Because no one had the concepts that Rome now presents as “ancient.” No one thought the bishop of any one church was above any other, or that the bishop of Rome was somehow invested with any particular authority.
No Monarchical Episcopate
What’s more, there is a fatal historical fact that is overlooked consistently by Roman Catholic apologists. Joseph F. Kelly in his The Concise Dictionary of Early Christianity (The Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 2, notes,
The word “pope” was not used exclusively of the bishop of Rome until the ninth century, and it is likely that in the earliest Roman community a college of presbyters rather than a single bishop provided the leadership.”
http://vintage.aomin.org/1296CATR.html