“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.
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:”
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:
“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)”
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