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.

[Marie]

damn. O.O

[CynicalBear]

Did I say I didn’t care about them? I did not however try to hijack a thread about other issues which is not looked on kindly here with them.

[goodwithagun]

Nice try.

[HossB86]

Wrong. The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church has the truth.

Oh, really!? Well, thank you for your honesty; the Roman Catholic Cult has "truth" -- not God. Not his breathed-out scripture.

You prove my point.

Hoss

[MamaB]

Well, you did post something that had nothing to do with the thread.

[MamaB]

Nope, the Bible has the whole truth.

[goodwithagun]

It has everything to do with this thread. Some people are just too busy shoveling out their extremely fancy stables to infer what it means.

[MamaB]

That is only your opinion. I think she is doing a wonderful job.

[miss marmelstein]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

"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.

Mr. Bugay is ignorant of the biblical arguments for the papacy. Cardinal Cajetan made the below argument against the Protestant revolutionaries five centuries ago.

+++

The papacy is mentioned by the early Church Fathers, the succession of popes can be traced back to Peter, and the Bible indicates that Peter held the office of the vice-regent of the eternal, redeemed House of David, i.e., Peter held the office of the representative of the King of the eternal, redeemed House of David, Jesus.

The Bible tells us that Jesus is the King of the eternal House of David:

"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David." (Luke 1:32)

In the ancient Davidic kingdom, the authority of the palace majordomo, or vice-regent, was represented by an over-sized key that the vice-regent would wear around his neck. The vice-regent held plenary authority in the king's absence.

"I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah. I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open." (Isaiah 22:22)

As King of the eternal, redeemed Davidic Kingdom, Jesus holds the "key of David," which he may bestow on His representative or vice-regent.

These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. (Rev. 3:7)

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)

Was Peter's office transferred? History tells us that it was, and so does the Bible, as Isaiah 22 shows the succession in office of vice-regents of the Davidic kingdom, and we see the succession of bishops in Acts, as Matthias replaces Judas in his "bishoprick." (KJV)

[WVKayaker]

These responders are seeking to hijack the thread by any means necessary. They cannot refute the article, so they try anything to get you to look elsewhere. It is a classical response.

Look! Squirrel! (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain TRUTH!)

[MamaB]

Didn’t you post number 67?

[HossB86]

Yes, it’s spam. And you know what I mean. It’s meant with no kindness, no spirituality - it’s meant to chase someone off the thread. I’m getting sick of the cuteness and hypocrisy on these various threads...

Well, stop participating in threads that cause you this discomfort. Truth, God's truth, can often hurt when one has been under the the false gospel of the Roman Catholic Cult. That sick feeling might be Truth trying to knock on your heart.

Or get a thicker skin.

Hoss

[miss marmelstein]

Hoss, I have a thicker skin than Dan Blocker ever had. But I can smell hypocrisy a mile away - and some people here are covered in it.

[miss marmelstein]

Yes, I did. But I still don’t know what you’re talking about.

[WVKayaker]

Don't feed the troll!

That poster has nothing to add!

[HossB86]

Well, smelling hypocrisy might be a skill or it might not be; but I don’t think anyone is allowed to mind-read here... And I think you’d need that skill first in order to ascertain hypocrisy with any respectable level of accuracy.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. If your skin is that thick, then welcome to the debate; refute the issues instead of labeling a poster as a hypocrite.

Hoss

[boatbums]

If you want a chuckle, look at the “keywords” some flustered RCs added to this thread. LOL!

[HossB86]

Love it! Hey look, a squir... Aw! Almost made me look!

Hoss