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.

[Faith Presses On]

Aren’t most of those articles, and maybe even all, posted by RnMomof7? I just looked up some and recognize others as her postings. You neglected to mention that. She has been posting several articles a day on the Catholic Church, which is her perogative, according to the rules here. But she has only been doing so in recent weeks. So, for 2014, in which I spent the last 9 or 10 months following the RF very closely, I have to say that there were nowhere near so many articles posted that were critical of Roman Catholic doctrine as there are presently being posted, and according to what I recollect, there may very well have been more articles critical of Protestantism, which tended to be in the veins of “what Protestantism gets wrong,” and “Why I left Protestantism to become a Catholic.”

[LadyDoc]

I was merely pointing out that the churches whose dogmas was based on the early church fathers disagreed with you. And the links to the early church fathers opinions on this is on the wikipedia article on Orthodoxy that I cited earlier.

You base your theories on experts who came 1500 years later.

Your “heresy” arguments are straw man arguments, and those pushing the argument are “judging (catholics) on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries” to prove your ideas. (quote is JFK).

which is why you quote a snippet from a canon law article from the Council of Trent that you use to “prove doctrine”, ignoring that it is a legal not doctrinal article and probably in toto is full of legal nuances that you have ignored...and of course, it is 500 years old... I notice you aren't quoting Vatican II documents or the recent Catechism.

you then insist that “catholics” who leave and reject the church can be saved, but get annoyed when I point out that this implies no Catholics are saved if they stay in the church. Huh?

as for your using the word “cult”,this is a “name calling” argument and silly. The word “cult” implies monolithic thinking. No one with the least bit of knowledge of Catholics or Catholicism as it is actually practiced would believe this.

[metmom]

“The word “cult” implies monolithic thinking. No one with the least bit of knowledge of Catholics or Catholicism as it is actually practiced would believe this.”

Really? Then what’s the purpose of all the anathemas pronounced by the Council of Trent for those who dare to disagree with their proclamations?

Like some of these......

Canon 9. If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.

Canon 19. If anyone says that nothing besides faith is commanded in the Gospel, that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor forbidden, but free; or that the ten commandments in no way pertain to Christians, let him be anathema.

Canon 24. If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema.

Canon 27. If anyone says that there is no mortal sin except that of unbelief, or that grace once received is not lost through any other sin however grievous and enormous except by that of unbelief, let him be anathema.

[ealgeone]

>I can only imagine catholics have a different definition of prayer as y’all do worship.<

Indeed. Prayer is different from worship. Catholics worship ONLY God. To "pray" is to engage in conversation. I "pray" that the cold weather will soon diminish.

Nobody has said prayer is equal to worship that I'm aware of. I agree that prayer is engaging in conversation.

"to pray" may well have a different connotation in Evangelical vs Catholic Circles. Evangelicals equate "pray" with "worship".

Not sure where you got this definition.

Never in its two thousand year history has the Church ever deified Mary or made her equal to God.

This has been shown to be false on many occasions on this board.

The rcc has declared her to be sinless, to have never sinned.....only one other Person can make that statement. If that doesn't put her on the same level as Christ....

The fifth marian dogma being circulated will complete the deification of Mary in the eyes of many. It will put her on par with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. She will officially be co-redemtrix, helper and advocate....the last two titles are attributed to the Holy Spirit.

So if passed, Mary is equal to members of the Trinity. Yet there's no deification of her.

Catholics already call upon her for salvation and pray directly to her....and please don't say they don't. There are too many sites that indicate otherwise.

That there are four marian dogmas is telling as to how the rcc feels about Mary.

Part of the reasoning for the fifth marian dogma is noted below.

The Blessed Mother in the Amsterdam apparitions called herself “The Lady of All Nations” and warned of a coming age of “degeneration, disaster, and war.” But she offered help if Catholics would petition the Holy Father to proclaim the fifth and final Marian dogma with Mary as “advocate, mediatrix, and co-redemptrix.” That proclamation would be the capstone of the Church’s four “dogmas” or solemnly pronounced doctrines about the Virgin Mary. First, Mary is the Mother of God (Council of Ephesus, 431). Second, she is a Perpetual Virgin (Lateran Council, 649). Third, Mary was conceived without original sin, or her “Immaculate Conception” (Bl. Pius IX, 1854). And fourth, Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven, or her “Assumption” (Pius XII, 1950).

The Lady of All Nations promised that the proclamation of the fifth and final Marian dogma would bring about a descent of the Holy Spirit in a fashion akin to the Pentecost and the founding of the Holy Catholic Church after Christ’s Ascension from earth to heaven. To prepare the world for this mysterious new Pentecost, the Lady of All Nations asked the faithful to share the image of her apparition in Amsterdam and to daily recite a short prayer: http://catholicexchange.com/the-fifth-marian-dogma-the-churchs-unused-weapon

In fact, the Church denounces as idolatry any person or thing worshiped except God alone and denounces any deification of Mary.

Then I guess all those statues, "icons", prayers to Mary and all of the other stuff the rcc does in worshipping Mary will stop immediately.

Or perhaps you will personally renounce all of those as a start.

[LadyDoc]

you just proved my point.

A quote out of context? Check.

A short quote from a very long and nuanced document? Check.

A quote from a 500 year old document? Check.

A quote that equates a legal document that applies to a local problem as being the same as a universal dogmatic one? check.

And let’s just ignore Matthew 25...

[boatbums]

Sarcasm is cloaked aggression. It is intended to mock or convey contempt. I can only conclude that like other non-Catholic freepers in this forum, you are not serious in your questions but use them only to attack Catholic beliefs.

In Christian friendship I ask, do you recognize this "cloaked aggression" among the Catholic freepers in this forum who regularly deliver sarcasm, snark, ridicule and contempt to attack the beliefs of Christians who are not Catholic or do you only see it in non-Catholic freepers?

[HossB86]

What I have done is to point out teaching from Scripture-God’s inerrant word-and juxtapose it with actual teaching of the Roman Catholic Cult (which satisfies your own definition...thank you) particularly from the catechism and asked simple questions.

Why won’t ant Roman Catholic give a straight answer? Has nothing to do with all of church fathers and Vatican I or II or whatever. It’s a simple question... Is Mary a Mediatrix as the catechism clearly states, or is Christ, according to his own statement? Can’t have it both ways.

And, please...don’t be so insulting to my intelligence as to play the straw man game. I’ve seen it played here and called it out for what it is. Someone (was it you or someone else?) accused me of a false dichotomy when there is only one answer and therefore NO false dichotomy.

Rome is heretical because it teaches another gospel. You may not like it but those are the facts.

Nice try but no cigar.

Hoss

[boatbums]

Indeed. Prayer is different from worship. Catholics worship ONLY God. To "pray" is to engage in conversation. I "pray" that the cold weather will soon diminish. "to pray" may well have a different connotation in Evangelical vs Catholic Circles. Evangelicals equate "pray" with "worship". Never in its two thousand year history has the Church ever deified Mary or made her equal to God. In fact, the Church denounces as idolatry any person or thing worshiped except God alone and denounces any deification of Mary.

When Eagleone said, "I don't pray to my mom or dad who are in Heaven; I don't pray to Paul or Peter; I don't pray to Mary.".

You replied with, "Neither do Catholics.".

I hope you can appreciate the confusion YOU instigated.

[Faith Presses On]

There is plenty of ill-will to go around here, including by Catholics.

But that is a relevant question.

You must know it refers to Bill Clinton’s weasly disingenuous reply on whether or not he had sexual relations with an intern around half his age, young enough to be his daughter, and in a subordinate position to him, while also married to someone else, and causing this woman to commit adultery too. “It depends upon what your definition of ‘is’ is.”

Do you think it is (still) a serious matter to God what he did?

And the Catholic position on prayer to Mary and those deemed Catholic saints is just as convoluted, illogical and disingenuous, playing word games with “pray.” That’s what it is. You do pray but deny it. You call it just “asking,” as that’s what you say “pray” means literally, but that means if you ask someone here to pass you the salt or help you out in some way,you are therefore “praying” to them. Come on. Prayer as commonly understood by four year-olds means to communicate with superior beings in the spiritual world in a certain way, usually to make requests of them. And the Catholic prayers to the saints, and especially Mary, go beyond mere intercession, asking them to pray, but to actively do things for the person praying, such as to provide protection. In at least one prayer to Mary, the person pledges to devote themselves fully and completely to *her*, and others express similar sentiments and give her attributes of God.

And did you ever consider, too, that there are differences between saints here and in Heaven, so it is not the same thing to ask a saint here to pray for you than it is to ask a saint in Heaven to pray for you? Our prayers for each other here help build each other’s faith and demonstrate our love for each other, and that is not merely incidental. The Bible talks about how our trials are for the purpose of growing our faith, and our prayers are part of that. They bring us together, and it takes faith to put aside our own trials to pray to God for someone else. That selfless love and concern for each other encourages us, and part of it comes from knowing that other people here, like ourselves, are undergoing trials just as we are, and are living by faith too.

[Faith Presses On]

I should have pinged you to 429 too.

[Faith Presses On]

And on the subject of Mary, there are a few questions or issues regarding the Catholic beliefs on her that have come up for me lately. They both involve the relationship between Joseph and Mary.

The first two have to do with their relationship. As Mary is above the Catholic saints (those Christians whom the Catholic Church recognizes as such), and Joseph is one of them, and Mary is also said to be the mother of all in the Catholic Church, then that would appear to place Mary, the wife, above Joseph, the husband, and begs the question if Joseph would also regard his wife as his mother. I have done a limited amount of looking into these questions, but so far haven’t turned up anything addressing them.

Then, second, in the course of searching on the first questions, I turned up a Catholic web page that states that Jesus got His whole human nature, genetically, from Mary.

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/mary-mother-of-god

It sounds so authoritative and definite, and I’ve heard that elsewhere from another Catholic source, but I’ve also heard from still another Catholic source, stated just as authoritatively and definitively, that Jesus miraculously received the genes of both Joseph and Mary (a possibility I was already aware of and has seemed very likely).

Since, according to the flesh, Jesus was and is male and Mary was female, then by genetics Jesus would have X and Y chromosomes, while Mary would have only X, so that eliminates Him getting His whole human nature from her.

The possibility that Jesus was given the genes of both Joseph and Mary, as I said, seems possible as well as quite likely, but the thing about it is, we just don’t know for sure because God hasn’t definitely revealed that to us. There are too many unanswered questions. As God in human form, Jesus might not have had exactly the same genes and been subject to genetic mutations and disease, for one thing. But while there is no basis for definite conclusions, Roman Catholicism seems to jump to making them anyway.

In the same way, I heard a Catholic radio host (I believe a priest) tell a caller that pets and all animals for that matter don’t go to Heaven as they don’t have souls. Again, this seems to be an area where we don’t know enough to say either way, and a Protestant radio host I heard replying to the question too on a evangelical station seemed to have a better answer - that he didn’t know, but that there seemed to be animals of a sort in Heaven, and whether or not there were, including our pets, we would not feel the loss of anything or feel we’re missing out on anything there.

[caww]

That's pretty much how I see it as well....but as said...it's very telling to me they simply cannot defend their own beliefs , which just shows they are "Clones" of Rome .

[boatbums]

I do believe there are some who sincerely do try and who have the emotional maturity to be respectful while disagreeing, but the majority of those who come onto these threads only seem to want to disrupt, divert, condemn and criticize anyone who dares disagree with Roman Catholicism. Much of what passes as Catholic "apologetics" is nothing more than the same rehashing and reasserting of those so-called evidences that get demolished on a regular basis here. It's almost as if there is a nightly erasing of memory chips which explains, at least partly, why many seem oblivious to having been corrected and who post the same false statements as if they had never heard any differently!

[NYer]

You do pray but deny it. You call it just “asking,” as that’s what you say “pray” means literally,

Have any one of you ever attended a catholic mass? It would be more expedient to resolve the "confusion" boatbums claims I have caused by comparing an example of prayer from our respective places of worship. I am not familiar with how protestants pray. If you would be so kind as to each post an example of a prayer used by your faith community, I will respond with examples of catholic prayer. Can we agree upon this?

[Elsie]

Just wait until I tell jokes about sweaters!

[Elsie]

"2675 Beginning with Mary's unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit,

It's UNIQUE all right!

---

Ok, angel, if you say so; but don't I get a choice in this matter?

[Elsie]

Don’t wanna commit yerself; eh?

[Elsie]

The Pope is the Pope. Vicar of Christ.

[Elsie]

In fact, the Church denounces as idolatry any person or thing worshiped except God alone and denounces any deification of Mary.

Oh for the words we are NOT allowed to use in the Religion Forum!!

---

Denounce away!!!

---

 

 

 

Bernadine: …all gifts, all virtues, and all graces are dispensed by the hands of Mary to whomsoever, when, and as she pleases. O Lady, since thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can ONLY come through thy hands, OUR SALVATION DEPENDS ON THEE.

Bonaventure: …the gates of heaven will open to all who confide in the protection of Mary. Blessed are they who know thee, O Mother of God, for the knowledge of THEE is the high road to everlasting life, and the publication of thy virtues is the way of ETERNAL SALVATION . Give ear, O ye nations; and all you who desire heaven , serve, honor Mary, and certainly you will find ETERNAL LIFE.

Ephem: …devotion to the divine Mother…is the unlocking of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Blosius: To the, O Lady, are committed the KEYS and the treasures of the kingdom of Heaven.

Ambrose: …constantly pray ‘Open to us, O Mary, the gates of paradise, since thou hast its KEYS.

Fulgetius: …by Mary God descended from Heaven into the world, that by HER man might ascend from earth to Heaven.

Athanasius: …And, thou, O Lady, wast filled with grace, that thou mightiest be the way of our SALVATION and the means of ascent to the heavenly Kingdom.

Richard of Laurence: Mary, in fine, is the mistress of heaven; for there she commands as she wills, and ADMITS whom she wills.

Guerric: …he who serves Mary and for whom she intercedes, is as CERTAIN of heaven as if he were already there…and those who DO NOT serve Mary will NOT BE SAVED.

Anselm: It suffices, O Lady, that thou willest it, and our SALVATION is certain.

Antoninus: …souls protected by Mary, and on which she casts her eyes, are NECESSARILY JUSTIFIED AND SAVED.

[Elsie]

The word “cult” implies monolithic thinking.

It DOES?

Well; I guess there are enough 'poorly catechized' Catholics abounding to put the lie to the idea that Rome leads a cult!

Herd them thar cats!