How the fictional early papacy became real

Beggars All Martin Luther's Mariology ^ | June 7,2010 | John Bugay

[RnMomof7]

"Historically, Catholics have argued that the papacy was a divinely-given institution papacy (Matt 16:17-19) etc., and they have relied on the notion that there have been bishops of Rome extending all the way back to the time of Peter.

This notion of bishops extending all the way back was thought to be actual history. In fact, as Shotwell and Loomis pointed out, in the General Introduction to their 1927 work "The See of Peter":

With reference to the Petrine doctrine, however, the Catholic attitude is much more than a "pre-disposition to believe." That doctrine is the fundamental basis of the whole papal structure. It may be summed up in three main claims. They are: first, that Peter was appointed by Christ to be his chief representative and successor and the head of his Church; second, that Peter went to Rome and founded the bishopric there; third, that his successors succeeded to his prerogatives and to all the authority thereby implied. In dealing with these claims we are passing along the border line between history and dogmatic theology. The primacy of Peter and his appointment by Christ to succeed Him as head of the Church are accepted by the Catholic Church as the indubitable word of inspired Gospel, in its only possible meaning. That Peter went to Rome and founded there his See, is just as definitely what is termed in Catholic theology as a dogmatic fact. This has been defined by an eminent Catholic theologian as "historical fact so intimately connected with some great Catholic truths that it would e believed even if time and accident had destroyed all the original evidence therefore. (xxiii-xxiv, emphasis in original).

So, if the history of the early papacy is disrupted, it should, by all rights, disrupt the dogmatic definition of the papacy. And this is what we have come upon in our era: the most widely accepted historical accounts of the period -- which are now almost universally accepted among legitimate historians of the era -- is that Peter did not "found a bishopric." There was no "bishopric" in that city for 100 years after his death. The history completely contradicts what the "dogmatic fact" has held for more than 1000 years. Now, according to Eamon Duffy, among others, what was thought to be historical accounts were actually fictitious accounts that became passed along as history:

These stories were to be accepted as sober history by some of the greatest minds of the early Church -- Origen, Ambrose, Augustine. But they are pious romance, not history, and the fact is that we have no reliable accounts either of Peter's later life or the manner or place of his death. Neither Peter nor Paul founded the Church at Rome, for there were Christians in the city before either of the Apostles set foot there. Nor can we assume, as Irenaeus did, that the Apostles established there a succession of bishops to carry on their work in the city, for all the indications are that there was no single bishop at Rome for almost a century after the deaths of the Apostles. In fact, wherever we turn, the solid outlines of the Petrine succession at Rome seem to blur and dissolve. (Duffy, pg 2.)

Briefly, on Peter and "the tradition," Reymond talks about the further lack of information about Peter in Scripture:

The Peter died in Rome, as ancient tradition has it, is a distinct possibility (see 1 Peter 5:13, where "Babylon" has been rather uniformly understood by commentators as a metaphor for Rome), but that he ever actually pastored the church there is surely a fiction, seven some scholars in the Roman communion will acknowledge. Jerome's Latin translation of Eusebius (not Eusebius's Greek copy) records that Peter ministered in Rome for twenty-five years, but if Philip Schaff (as well as many other church historians) is to believed, this is "a colossal chronological mistake." Paul write his letter to the church in Rome in early A.D. 57, but he did not address the letter to Peter or refer to him as its pastor. And in the last chapter he extended greetings to twenty-eight friends in Rome but made no mention of Peter, which would have been a major oversight, indeed, an affront, if in fact Peter was "ruling" the Roman church at that time. Then later when Paul was himself in Rome, from which city he wrote both his four prison letters during his first imprisonment in A.D. 60-62 when he "was welcoming all who came to him" (Acts 28:30), and his last pastoral letter during his second imprisonment around A.D. 64, in which letters he extend greetings to his letters' recipients from ten specific people in Rome, again he made no mention of Peter being there. Here is a period of time spanning around seven years (a.d. 57-64) during which time Paul related himself to the Roman church both as correspondent and as resident, but he said not a word to suggest that Peter was in Rome. (Reymond, "Systematic Theology," pg 814)

Schaff, who is cited by Reymond, explicates a little bit further. "The time of Peter's arrival in Rome, and the length of his residence there, cannot possibly ascertained. The above mentioned silence of the Acts and of Paul's Epistles allows him only a short period of labor there, after 63. The Roman tradition of a twenty or twenty-five years' episcopate of Peter in Rome is unquestionably a colossal chronological mistake."

In a footnote, Schaff says, Some Catholics, following the historian Alzog and others, "try to reconcile the tradition with the silence of the Scripture by assuming two visits of Peter to Rome with a great interval." (fn1, pg 252). The operative verse here, Acts 12:17, says only, 'He departed, and went into another place." This gives no details at all, and to posit that Peter took a trip to Rome at this time is irrational, given that just two chapters later (Acts 15) Peter is present back in Jerusalem again for a council.

Schaff continues his work in Vol 1 with two sections: The Peter of History, and the Peter of Fiction.

I won't get into the "history" at this point, other than to say, all that we know about Peter, we know about him from the pages in Scripture, as outlined by Reymond. The summary statement from Duffy, of any further details about Peter's life being "pious romance" is true.

D.W. O'Connor, in his 1968 work "Peter in Rome," looks at the absence of a Petrine presence in the second half of Acts and largely Paul's letters, and gives a reason for why all of this "pious romance" developed:

It has been suggested that Acts is a "selective" history, a fragmentary history, which simply did not include the facts pertaining to the last days and martyrdom of Peter and Paul. This is not acceptable, for such information would have been of great moment in the early church, which a century and a half before the rise of the cult of martyrs, only thirty-two years after the death of the apostles, remembered their martyrdom vividly (1 Clement 5). [But] the Early Church was so eager for details that within another century it created the full accounts which are found in the apocryphal Acts. (O'Connor, 11).

In my next post, I'll provide a catalog of some of these.

[miss marmelstein]

As I said once before, if Jesus came back and read your posts, he’d never stop throwing up.

[Resettozero]

You make a good watchman, metmom. I completely missed this possibility of FR keyword mislabeling. I don’t look for topics this way but many here do.

[Gamecock]

We provide answers. Answers that FRoman Catholics hate.

[verga]

Feel free to have the last word

[metmom]

It wasn’t me. It was Faith Presses On.

However it is something to watch for in the future.

[Resettozero]

As I said once before, if Jesus came back and read your posts, he’d never stop throwing up.

Ya know, in nearly 69 years, that image had never popped in my mind until you brought it up. See? I can learn something new from an RC!

[Springfield Reformer]

Just for you, verga, I have started to listen to Rabbi Denburg. I am only about 6 minutes in and it is painfully obvious he has done little to no research to back anything he is saying. And he is right out of the gate making wildly false claims.  He could find no Christian scholars, via Google, or Wikipedia (his two named sources so far), who dispute Peter being bishop of Rome and the first pope, etc., and according to him, Peter begging to be crucified upside down is in the New Testament.  Really?  Chapter and verse please?

To be fair, he said at the outset he really had no time to prepare for this lesson, and it was all just thrown together last minute.  I am grateful for his honesty, but the evidence that he is reckless in his statements has me anticipating the worst for the rest of the video.  I do find it interesting that his admitted shallowness of research has led him to uncritically accept the Roman view of early church history.  I do reserve the right to modify my opinion of him if he rights his floundering little ship before the end of the video.

Having said all that, I really don't understand why any RC would think this person's sloppy pontifications are in any way meaningful to us Evangelicals/Protestants. But not all rabbis are the same.  Some are creditable scholars, despite their unbelief. We had a former rabbi, Dr. Louis Goldberg, for a teacher at Moody Bible Institute. Brilliant as he was, he too once had a laundry list of reasons why Jews should not believe in Jesus. But he had a persistent friend who stayed at it with him for years, and eventually he came to see Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.  I was in the Jewish Studies major, and Dr. Goldberg was my ethics teacher.  A solid man of God and a solid scholar.  In his class we would never have got away with the unsupportable claptrap Rabbi Denburg is spewing.  

Peace,

SR

[verga]

SR I was able to listen for just over 13 minutes. I had to go out shopping and let he dogs take care of business. In addition to your points I did find his rocking back and forth distracting. I have about an hours worth of ironing to do later on this week so I might give it a retry later. If you get o it before I do let me know if I should give it a shot. If I get to it before you I will do the same.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Valid priesthood and seven sacraments. All you folks have is an empty cross for an empty religion.”

Ah, verga...

No priesthood as a New Testament office.
No sacraments that give grace or contribute to salvation.

An empty cross alone?? Hardly.

Christians have an empty tomb because we have a resurrected Christ.
Christians have an ascended and glorified Christ.
Christians have their sins forgiven.
Christians have a new nature.
Christians have the Life of Christ living inside them.
Christians are sealed and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
Christians are “seated in the heavenlies” with Christ - ready to be revealed when He is.
Christians are baptized into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit.
Christians are the Bride of Christ, awaiting the marriage feast of the Lamb!
Christians will be glorified with Him.
Christians will rule with Him.

That is just the tip of the iceberg! Praise be to God!

And all this through Christ, regardless of denomination.

“Thanks be to God for His indescribable Gift!!”

[Springfield Reformer]

Do you mind if I grab that for future use?

LOL! Sure, but it's not as if it was my idea or anything.

As for whether it will sink in, who knows? On any given effort, the Lord might open a heart, and we may not know until years later. I had the strange experience of walking along in downtown Chicago one day and hearing someone call out my voice. I turned around and there was a young man I had known when we were both teenagers in my old neighborhood. In those old days he was a wild wastrel. I won't go into details. But now, out of the blue, here I was looking at him all grown up, a marine, and he thanked me for my witness in those early days. He had become a Christian, and a man of God. It got through, and I never knew it. The Lord works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.

Peace,

SR

[Faith Presses On]

You’re welcome, metmom. I did see myself the different articles posted on Christianity that are listed as “catholicbashing” and read a couple, seeing nothing directly in them about Catholicism. It actually seems like some articles have gotten that keyword, in part at least, because the poster posting them is known to not agree with Roman Catholicism. On articles posted by Catholics, some, I think might be labeled with “catholicbashing” because of the external source (The National Catholic Reporter) or what’s happening in the story (like a couple where Roseanne Barr says things about Catholicism), while other articles get the label because of disagreement between Catholics. And in articles such as where the MSM covering a priest or the Roman Catholic Church being accused of something, it appears like the “catholicbashing” is supposedly being done by both the MSM and the poster bringing it to people’s attention here.

[Springfield Reformer]

It’s a deal. I’ll let you know if I get to it first.

And yep, the rocking got to me too.

Peace,

SR

[caww]

....”They have been told and absolutely refuse to use legitimate sources for research”....

Using scripture is more than a legitimate source of research and often seen in Protestants posts when debating the issues....Further, catholic ‘literature’ has been proved in error in the past, even they “change” their own history time and again , so it would certainly seem unreliable Historically.

Additionally, what is often seen in catholic writings when they do use scripture, is that they tend to twist and bend scripture to align with their doctrines rather than let scripture determine what their doctrines should be. Which is an abuse of scripture.

The same was done in the Garden and when Jesus was in the wilderness....so it is no surprise that mis-use of scripture continues to this day to justify beliefs, dogma and various other things which Jesus never instituted nor required of his true believers saved by his Grace.

[Gamecock]

Really?

O.K.

Faith alone, by Grace alone, through Jesus alone, as taught by Scripture alone, and to God alone goes the glory!

[miss marmelstein]

I’m glad to educate!

[NYer]

http://www.catholictradition.org/Saints/saintly-quotes23.htm

Perhaps you are not aware but you are referencing a web site from the sspx which is in schism.

Insofar as Mary as intercessor, the saintly quotes you posted, need to be placed in context. Most of the time in the Bible, God chooses to do His work through a human, whether it's Moses, Jacob, Joseph of the Old Testament, or one of the Prophets like Isaiah or Elisha. It's no different with Mary. God allowed salvation in the person of Jesus Christ to enter into the world through Mary, even though he could have just appeared all on his own. In like manner, it shows great humility on our part to approach Jesus in the exact same way that He approached us - Through Mary. After all, if Jesus was obedient to Mary for 30 years of his life here on earth, shouldn't we imitate Him in that respect? If Mary was good enough for Jesus, who are we to say that she isn't good enough for us? Jesus Himself said that "No servant is greater than His Master".

If one is lost and needs to get somewhere, the best thing to do is to find someone who knows the way better than anyone else. Most of mankind is lost, and needs to find Jesus. Mary is the one person who knows the way better than anyone else, because she and Jesus shared the same body for 9 months, Jesus was subject to her for 30 years, they probably even look alike, and they are of one accord. Getting close to Mary is the fastest and best way to get close to Jesus. It's pure folly to even think that by getting close to Mary you are somehow getting farther away from Jesus. Jesus got his sacred Body and his precious Blood from MARY!

... behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. - Lk 1:48

[MamaB]

No, He would be thankful a child of His was posting the truth.

[miss marmelstein]

Jesus had no time for unspiritual, nasty posts although, perhaps, you would like to think so. Pretty sad.

[ealgeone]

Regarding Mary....you did read the quotes?

Are they not from catholics?

Care to explain how mary "intercedes" for us?

Again, there is NOTHING in the Word that even remotely hints at this.

This is why the fifth marian dogma is coming. It will complete the false teaching of the roman catholic cult on mary and replace faith in Jesus as the only way to salvation with faith in Mary.

From the Glories of Mary.....

I render thee my most humble homage, O great Queen, and I thank thee for all the graces thou hast conferred on me until now, especially for having delivered me from Hell, which I have so often deserved. I love thee, O most amiable Lady; and for the love which I bear thee, I promise to serve thee always and to do all in my power to make others love thee also. I place in thee all my hopes; I confide my salvation to thy care.

Now let's contrast that with the Word....

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Luke 12:28-34

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

"It’s not a good reflection of Catholicism, to say the least."

Some unknown person(s), who may be Catholic (or maybe one of your own posse playing games), mislabeling threads (according to you, at least), reflects badly on the entire Catholic faith?

Whoever this mysterious mislabel-ist, s/he sure casts a long shadow.