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
Edit:
Leo of Rome to ratify the Canon 28 as the Patriarch of new Rome’s status as 2nd Rank would never have full recognition given Pope Leo’s rejection
“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”
Let’s read it, capitalization mine:
“Following in all things the decisions of the holy Fathers, and acknowledging the canon, which has been just read...we also do enact and decree the same things concerning the privileges of the most holy Church of Constantinople, which is New Rome. For the Fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of old Rome, BECAUSE IT WAS THE ROYAL CITY. And the One Hundred and Fifty most religious Bishops, actuated by the same consideration, gave equal privileges to the most holy throne of New Rome, justly judging that the city which is honored with the SOVEREIGNTY and the SENATE, and enjoys equal privileges with the old imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is, and rank next after her.” (28th canon of Chalcedon)
What’s fascinating is that they build not Rome on Peter or Paul, but on its location only as a royal city.
“No, Marcion was from the East and the Son of an Eastern Bishop.”
I did not say Marcion was born in Rome. I said he founded and taught his heresy in Rome, where all manner of fornication tends to originate.
“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.”
I refuted your leap which is: “[H]is father, a Bishop in the East did not welcome him in communion” BECAUSE he was told to do it by Rome, rather than, say, by the universal condemnation of all the church fathers who discussed the man.
This you concede to, when you say “I am not claiming Rome did as it pleases,” by which I meant, originally, that it had authority to do this on its own, without consent of the whole church. Your argument can only work if Rome does not require the consent of the whole church, but can excommunicate a person, like Cyprian, and cannot be gainsaid, which all other Bishops are obligated to obey.
Obviously, Rome is gainsaid, historically, quite often. And so your assertions are nothing. For example, yet another one, the Third Ecumenical Council condemning the heretic Nestorious, which the Bishop of Rome Celestine I had already condemned:
“The Pope had pronounced in the affair of Nestorius a canonical judgment clothed with all the authority of his see. He had prescribed its execution. Yet, three months after this sentence and before its execution, all the episcopate is invited to examine afresh and to decide freely the question in dispute.” (Bishop Maret Du Concile General, vol.i p.183)
The next Ecumenical Councils even get WORSE for the Pope!
“Fifth Ecumenical Council
A controversy arose out of the writings known as Three Chapters – written by bishops Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas. Pope Vigilius opposed the condemnation of the Three Chapters. At the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) the assembled bishops condemned and anathematized Three Chapters. After the council threatened to excommunicate him and remove him from office, Vigilius changed his mind – blaming the devil for misleading him.[103] Bossuet wrote
“These things prove, that in a matter of the utmost importance, disturbing the whole Church, and seeming to belong to the Faith, the decress of sacred council prevail over the decrees of Pontiffs, and the letter of Ibas, though defended by a judgment of the Roman Pontiff could nevertheless be proscribed as heretical.”[104]
German theologian Karl Josef von Hefele notes that the council was called “ …without the assent of the Pope”[105]
You also write: “it did what was necessary to strengthen the brethren and other Churches”. But this is only a justification for Rome “doing as it pleases,” and is not actually a denial of Rome doing as it pleases, which is essential to your claim. I think perhaps you string together sentences and hope they’ll work. But, this does not work.
Augustine’s rule still stands, which sees not just one “Apostolic seat,” but many, giving such a name as to those that “received Apostles” or epistles from them, and gives the rule to the majority for major issues, even making the weight of lesser-known churches, in the majority, equal to the majority of Apostolic Sees:
“But let us now go back to consider the third step here mentioned, for it is about it that I have set myself to speak and reason as the Lord shall grant me wisdom. The most skillful interpreter of the sacred writings, then, will be he who in the first place has read them all and retained them in his knowledge, if not yet with full understanding, still with such knowledge as reading gives,—those of them, at least, that arc called canonical. For he will read the others with greater safety when built up in the belief of the truth, so that they will not take first possession of a weak mind, nor, cheating it with dangerous falsehoods and delusions, fill it with prejudices adverse to a sound understanding. Now, in regard to the canonical Scriptures, he must follow the judgment of the greater number of catholic churches; and among these, of course, a high place must be given to such as have been thought worthy to be the seat of an apostle and to receive epistles. Accordingly, among the canonical Scriptures he will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those, again, which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority, to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority. If, however, he shall find that some books are held by the greater number of churches, and others by the churches of greater authority (though this is not a very likely thing to happen), I think that in such a case the authority on the two sides is to be looked upon as equal.” (Augustine, NPNF1: Vol. II, On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 8. See also John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., ed., The Works of Saint Augustine, Part 1, Vol. 11, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P., De Doctrina Christiana, Book II, Chapter 8 (New York: New City Press, 1996), p. 134.)