The Catholic Church IS the living authority of the New Testament she wrote every single word of.I agree that the Universal (i.e., Catholic) Church was used by God to bring the Bible into the world...
But the private interpretation of many that the the Universal Church is centered in Rome, and is accoutable to the "authority" of the Pope, is a personal opinion found no-where in Scripture. Peter himself certainly did not believe any such thing, as Peter's most ancient biographers uniformly acknowledge.
In fact, good interpretive evidence for something very dramatic happening after Jesus’ crucifixion lies in the very fact that Jesus’ brothers didn't believe who He was (would your brothers?) until the resurrection (which would convince anyone!). Suddenly, the oldest surviving sibling is the head of the Jerusalem Assembly of Jesus Movement Jews. -- Jack Kilmon, History and the New Testament
- Clement, the bishop of Alexandria (150 - 215 CE), who confirms in Outlines, Bk. VI: "Peter, James (bar Zebedee) and John, after the ascension of the Saviour, did not claim pre-eminence because the Saviour had especially honored them, but chose James the Righteous as Bishop of Jerusalem."
- Eusebius (263 - 339 CE), Historia Ecclesia ii,23.4: ".....turned their attention to James, the Lord's brother, who had been elected by the apostles to the episcopal throne at Jerusalem."
- Hegesippus (c. 100 - 160 CE), Bk 5: "Control of the Church passed to the Apostles, together with the Lord's brother James...."
- Origen (185 - 254 CE), quoting early Josephus: "These things happened to the Jews in requital for James the Righteous, who was a brother of Jesus, known as Christ."
- Josephus (37 - c. 100 CE), Antiquities xx: "So he assembled a counsel of judges and brought before it James, the brother of Jesus, known as Christ."
- Clement: "When James the Righteous had suffered martyrdom like the Lord and for the same reason, Symeon, the son of his Uncle Clopas, was appointed bishop. He being a cousin of the Lord."
- Eusebius: "A group of heretics accused the descendants of Jude...the brother, humanly speaking, of the Savior...on the ground that they were of David's line and related to Christ himself."
The ecclesiastical accounts of the primitive Jewish "Church" can be found in the writings of Eusebius and Epiphanius which themselves can be traced to the "Hypomnemata" of Hegesippus. Hegesippus apparently belonged to the Jerusalem Assembly, calling it "the Ekklesia" and was able to impart (according to Eusebius) a great deal of information not contained in the NT. In these accounts we learn that James (Y`shua's brother) was the first overseer ("bishop") of the Assembly ("Church") and following his death Simeon, the son of Alfai/Clopas (Joseph's brother and Jesus' uncle) was installed as overseer. This same information also came to Eusebius from another source. Since Hegesippus learned this from direct contact with the apostolic Jewish Christians and the yet living relatives of Y`shua, the historically careful Eusebius trusted the information. The choice of relatives of Jesus known as the DESPOSYNOI, "The Sons of the House," is in keeping with Jewish family feelings and practices and messianic principal. The Jewish followers of Jesus were not only misunderstood but actually slandered by Greek and Roman gentile Christians who, due to cultural differences, did not understand Jesus’ messiahship within the Jewish context. It would have been expected that Jesus’ closest male kinsmen would be nearest the "Throne" of the coming messiah. It is within this context that the discourse between Jesus and the Zebedee boys takes place (Mark 10:35). Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee (James and John) was Mary's sister (John 19:25), therefore Jesus’ cousins, James and John had expectations of dynastic privilege.... This dynastic succession of episcopacy is also suggested by Eusebius account of the descendants of Jude (another of Jesus' siblings) after their return from trial by Domitian as they stood "at the head of every Church." -- Jack Kilmon, History and the New Testament
Peter himself did not believe in "Petrine Supremacy"; rather, Peter reported to James (Acts 12:17) and Peter obeyed James (Acts 15: 13-22) and Peter deferred to James (Acts 21:18) and Peter feared James (Galatians 2:12). What kind of Petrine "Papacy" is this!!
In fact, not a single verse of Scripture suggests any kind of "Petrine Succession", and such a dogma was NOT the practice of the Early Church:
In the epistles (epitomes) attached to the Homilies, Peter calls James "the Lord and bishop of the Holy Church" (tw kuriw kai episkopw thV agiaV ekklhsiaV, to kurio kai episkopo ths agias eklhsias) and Clement addresses him as "the lord, and bishop of bishops (domino et episcopo episcoporum), who rules Jerusalem, the holy Church of the Hebrews and Churches everywhere excellently founded by the provinces of God, with elders and deacons, and the rest of the brethren." ~~ (GLIMPSES OF JEWISH CHRISTIANITY FROM THE END OF ACTS TO JUSTIN MARTYR (A.D. 62-150), J. Julius Scott, Jr, Wheaton College)
Your entire religious superstructure is founded upon an erroneous "private interpretation"... a Lie.
You picked the wrong battlefield for this fight. I have William A Jurgens "The Faith of the Early Fathers" in my home library.
I will NOT engage in a point by point refutation of your falsehoods. I will merely cite your first error re Clement. In his "Who is the rich man that is saved?", a.d. 190/210, St. Clement of Alexandria says this about Peter..."On hearing these words, the blessed Peter, the chosen, the pre-eminnent, the first among he disciples, for whom alone with Himself the Savior paid the tribute, quickly grasped their meaning..."
Cribbing from second hand sources to attack Divinely-constituted authority might seem "Triumphalistic" to some but it is a truimphalism of a very odd sort.
I will not waste my time "debating" such rudimentary facts. Lets those with eyes to see read. The writings of the Catholic Church Fathers are availaable at www.newadvent.com
In fact, not a single verse of Scripture suggests any kind of "Petrine Succession" No, it's not a single verse. It's about 30 of them.
and such a dogma was NOT the practice of the Early Church
Take it up with Irenaeus of Lyons, who laid it out very neatly in Against Heresies. But, I must warn you, he probably has forgotten more about the early church than you know.