Posted on 03/04/2007 8:21:23 AM PST by Iscool
"Was there a Bishop of Rome in the First Century?"...I have expressed agreement with the consensus of scholars that the available evidence indicates that the church in Rome was led by a college of presbyters, rather than by a single bishop, for at least several decades of the second century (Sullivan F.A. From Apostles to Bishops: the development of the episcopacy in the early church. Newman Press, Mahwah (NJ), 2001, pp. 80,221-222).
"ALTHOUGH CATHOLIC TRADITION, BEGINNING IN the late second and early third centuries, regards St. Peter as the first bishop of Rome and, therefore, as the first pope, there is no evidence that Peter was involved in the initial establishment of the Christian community in Rome (indeed, what evidence there is would seem to point in the opposite direction) or that he served as Rome's first bishop. Not until the pontificate of St. Pius I in the middle of the second century (ca. 142-ca. 155) did the Roman Church have a monoepiscopal structure of government (one bishop as pastoral leader of a diocese). Those who Catholic tradition lists as Peter's immediate successors (Linus, Anacletus, Clement, et al.) did not function as the one bishop of Rome (McBrien, Richard P. Lives of the Popes: The Pontiffs from St. Peter to Benedict XVI. Harper, San Francisco, 2005 updated ed., p.25).
To begin with, indeed, there was no 'pope', no bishop as such, for the church in Rome was slow to develop the office of chief presbyter or bishop...Clement made no claim to write as bishop...There is no sure way to settle on a date by which the office of ruling bishop had emerged in Rome...but the process was certainly complete by the time of Anicetus in the mid-150s (Duffy, Eamon. Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes, 2nd ed. Yale University Press, London, 2001, pp. 9, 10,13)
...we have good reason to conclude that by the time of Anicetus (155-66), the church of Rome was being led by a bishop whose role resembled Ignatius or Polycarp (Sullivan F.A. From Apostles to Bishops: the development of the episcopacy in the early church. Newman Press, Mahwah (NJ), 2001, p. 143).
I hope your situation is nothing serious, I will keep you in my prayers.
God Bless
The use of the term "brethren" by anti-Catholics is as open or as restrictive as they need it to be, it just depends on which teachings they are attacking.
"The twenty-five years' episcopate of Peter at Rome is evidently due to the statement of Justin Martyr regarding the labors of Simon Magus at Rome (see above), combined with the tradition of Peter's residence in the same city, especially as it would seem that the Roman Church had actually been formed early in the reign of Claudius through the indirect influence of the Petrine Christianity of Palestine."
Note that the encyclopedia refers to Peter's residence as "tradition" not fact, but "as it would seem", and the phrase "the indirect influence" meaning what? If Peter had been involved in its formation it would have been "direct influence", but the encyclopedia says "indirect" meaning that Peter was not there personally, but what was Petrine Christianity in Palestine made its way to Rome indirectly.
Why don't you finish the sentence:
Why don't you finish the page: "All this giving rise to ... the legend of his twenty-five year residence in Rome"
And this:
"it was not until the middle of the third century that Peter was definitely claimed as bishop of Rome".
So here we have the answer to our question of when Peter became bishop of Rome: Peter became bishop of Rome in the middle of the third century by virtue of the pen of Cyprian and embellished upon a short time later by Eusebius.
Except this theory collapses on one key issue. The Church was the SOLE CUSTODIAN of all Scripture and writings of the early Church fathers for FIFTEEN CENTURIES. If they had engaged in this conspiracy, they would simply have destroyed all of the evidence.
NONE of the original Protestant Reformers questioned the FACT that Peter was the first Pope or that he was in Rome, this Simon Magus theory is a VERY RECENT invention by anti-Catholics. Here are two of Luther's "95 Theses" which clearly indicate that he never questioned the fact that Peter was the first pope (obviously, Luther did question papal authority):
77. When it is said that not even St. Peter, if he were now pope, could grant a greater grace, it is blasphemy against St. Peter and the pope.
78. We assert the contrary, and say that he, and any pope whatever, possesses greater graces, viz., the gospel, spiritual powers, gifts of healing, etc., as is declared in I Corinthians 12:28.
While it is clear that both of these statements question mock the papacy, they also AFFIRM THE FACT that Peter was the first pope.
That is so 2006. Purgatory is "out" now - FYI.
Although that's an accurate statement about the free pass, it appears as tho you just don't get it...
When a person comes to Jesus with nothing but his/her sin, and you ask Jesus to save you because you are to vile to do anything at all to save yourself, He not only says yes, but he sends along the Comforter to dwell within you...
You get that Spiritual operation
Col 2:12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
which results in the Spiritual circumcision
Col 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
which actually separtates your soul from your flesh...
Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
I'm guessing you don't understand that...
I asked earlier if there were any Catholics on the thread that were filled with the Holy Spirit, 24/7...No one replied so I guess you guys are not...
When you have God 'in you', you have constant conviction...You want to do right...And you try to do right...And you fall...And you get back up and try again...Most folks that get filled with the Spirit quit drinking, quit smoking, quit gambling...Not because they have to but because they want to...
You don't have to abide by the Commandments, you don't have to do anything other than what your whim directs.
Col 2:14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Do you understand this verse???
The Bible says so, doncha know?
It certainly does...
Ah yes! A professional roller-coaster rider! yee HAH!
May God prosper the work of your hands, lift you up when you are downcast, and always show you and nourish you with the Hope that lies beyond any hope of this world!
Ignore you??? No chance...We're going to jump on you while your guard is down...
There's an awful lot of Catholics on this thread and out there in the world that don't agree with you...
Let me get this straight: it is "an indisputable historical fact" and yet "the chronology of his arrival and death" are uncertain. And they are saying that as long as he died there, his death in Rome is all the evidence the RCC needs for them to make their subsequent claims of a Petrine Papacy.
They have been reduced from the claim of a 25 year Petrine Roman Episcopacy to merely Peter's death in Rome, and that is supposed to be the foundation of the Church of Rome? So now the whole Petrine Papacy rests on only one claim ---that Peter died there in Rome. And just what is the historical evidence of that, remember "historical" not "theological"? and how long before they back off of that claim as well.
Using their logic, if it can be shown that Peter died in some other city, would that make the church of that city the See of St Peter?
Please note yet another paragraph in the article:
In opposition to this distinct and unanimous testimony of early Christendom, some few Protestant historians have attempted in recent times to set aside the residence and death of Peter at Rome as legendary. These attempts have resulted in complete failure. It was asserted that the tradition concerning Peter's residence in Rome first originated in Ebionite circles, and formed part of the Legend of Simon the Magician, in which Paul is opposed by Peter as a false Apostle under Simon; just as this fight was transplanted to Rome, 80 also sprang up at an early date the legend of Peter's activity in that capital (thus in Baur, "Paulus", 2nd ed., 245 sqq., followed by Hase and especially Lipsius, "Die quellen der römischen Petrussage", Kiel, 1872). But this hypothesis is proved fundamentally untenable by the whole character and purely local importance of Ebionitism, and is directly refuted by the above genuine and entirely independent testimonies, which are at least as ancient. It has moreover been now entirely abandoned by serious Protestant historians (cf., e.g., Harnack's remarks in "Gesch. der altchristl. Literatur", II, i, 244, n. 2). A more recent attempt was made by Erbes (Zeitschr. fur Kirchengesch., 1901, pp. 1 sqq., 161 sqq.) to demonstrate that St. Peter was martyred at Jerusalem. He appeals to the apocryphal Acts of St. Peter, in which two Romans, Albinus and Agrippa, are mentioned as persecutors of the Apostles. These he identifies with the Albinus, Procurator of Judaea, and successor of Festus and Agrippa II, Prince of Galilee, and thence conciudes that Peter was condemned to death and sacrificed by this procurator at Jerusalem. The untenableness of this hypothesis becomes immediately apparent from the mere fact that our earliest definite testimony concerning Peter's death in Rome far antedates the apocryphal Acts; besides, never throughout the whole range of Christian antiquity has any city other than Rome been designated the place of martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul.
I could easily repeat the section I quoted before, but I'll not insult the other readers' intelligence through repetitiveness.
As to the Schaff article, even this non-Catholic source states as its closing sentences for this section: It seems most probable, on the whole, that Peter died a martyr's death in Rome toward the close of Nero's reign, some time after the cessation of the general persecution. Absolute certainty is, however, unattainable.
Your statement,
The Catholic Encyclopedia also says:
"It is an indisputably established historical fact that St. Peter laboured in Rome during the last portion of his life, and there ended his earthly course by martyrdom. As to the duration of his Apostolic activity in the Roman capital, the continuity or otherwise of his residence there, the details and success of his labours, and the chronology of his arrival and death, all these questions are uncertain, and can be solved only on hypotheses more or less well-founded. The essential fact is that Peter died at Rome: this constitutes the historical foundation of the claim of the Bishops of Rome to the Apostolic Primacy of Peter."
YOU think it collapses. I think it collapses. But UC and Diego (and others to be announced later?) don't think so.
It's one thing to be as all-seeingly wise as I indisputably am, it's another to close the sale with somebody not blessed with my innate superiority (and modesty).
It's so very dicey. From MY POV it looks like Diego and UC are claming to know not only that there was a second shooter in the Book Depository or on the grassy knoll, but also the identity of that shooter. Consequently, my antennae are up and I am VERY alert to (or TRY to be alert to), as I said, a string of probabilities being presented as a producing a certainty, or what looks like a misquote or a tendentious editing of sources. That's about what persuades ME. So our friends are not closing the sale, not even close.
After all, if A is 90% probable and B is 90% probable, the probability of both of them being true is less, namely 81%. Give us 6 things which are 90% probable and we drop below 50% in a hurry.
But unless they are pranksters -- and what a boring prank it would be -- they think this stuff so plausible as to justify entertaining the notion that our Church would be wily enough to disguise the truth so well that a lot of very smart and pious people are deceived, but klutzy enough to leave evidence of their lies all over the place.
At least that's how I see it. I don't DO history much. It all looks like a Rorschach test to me most of the time or like people looking down a well and seeing the reflection of their own face.
But I'll listen, for a while anyway.
This verse has nothing to do with salvation, or purgatory...This is the judgement of a Christian...ALL people at this judgement are already in heaven...The judgement is not for salvation...
The judgement is for rewards when you get to heaven...For your good works, you'll get good rewards...Your bad works will be burned...Even the ones you thought were good...A Christian is already in heaven when this judgement takes place...
This objector in the story of yours is right on the money...The Catholic should be listening to the objector...
LOL! Dad Gum! I feel I should warn you: I have a concordance, and I'm not afraid to use it! (Thanks for making me laugh.)
That there is a dubious thought process.
I didn't answer because the phrase "filled with the Holy Spirit" means different things to different people, and I wanted to avoid that dispute.
So? As I already said in this thread, if your view of the Church is NOT a society of the Elect but a hospital for sinners (some of whom will never get well) you are not scandalized by the ignorance and disbelief of some of the patients.
And who are the Catholics on this thread who disagree with her? Come out, come out, wherever you are! Come, let us reason together, heh heh heh.
Naw...Everybody gets the grace to get saved but without faith, you don't get saved...
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
We are in the dispensation of grace...Know what that means??? That means there were other dispensations that did not have grace...
But the questionis: what is the faith spoken of in the verse??? Faith in what???
God gives us the saving grace (He calls us). We respond sacramentally by being baptized.
You mean you do something...How many Catholics on these threads quote these verses to prove that works are required for your salvation???
Mat 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: Mat 25:42 For I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: Mat 25:43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
You guys believe in works for salvation...That's why you keep quoting 'faith without works is dead' from the book of James...'Work out your own salvation'...
You guys have told us constantly that you must 'endure to the end' and then die before you can get salvation...
Those folks in Mat. 25 are not under the dispensation of 'grace'...
It seems to me you have two standards of proof, one easy one for your hypothesis, and a hard one for ours. What's up with that?
And I see nothing whatsoever problematic about the line I underlined. If the thing to be proved (at the micro level) is that so-and-so was in such and such a place, that can be shown without knowing exactly when so-and-so got there or when he left. No problem.
As to the claims of a Papacy, I've tried to address that in my other scintillating posts. (I'm sure the brilliance of my reasoning just dazzled you ... NOT -- hmm, what's IN today's meds?) They might not evan have had the term "Pope". The lines between "bishop" (overseer/supervisor) and "presbyter" ("Scottish Calvinist", uh no, wait, I mean "elder") and the job descriptions and all that were probably not formalized. In any event, they have developed since then. So the absence of a document saying, more or less, "That guy from Judea was made Pope today," is not dispositive."
In my schema, FWIW, all you need is for Peter to have shown up and to have been given deference. He doesn't even need to have established the congregation in Rome to later have served in a supervisory capacity.
I don't think the place of his martyrdom establishes his being Overseer in that place one way or the other.
But, in the land of the probable, how IMprobable is it that when (or IF) Peter, one of the twelve, shows up in the congregation he is NOT given the leadership role?
I think we ought not read the later encrustations of offices and ranks and such on the ferment of early Christianity. We can barely imagine.
Were these people skulking around at night giving signs and counter-signs to one another to make sure persecutors didn't cotton onto them? Or did they conduct their evangelism and ministry more or less openly? I REALLY don't know (Who is this that troubles council with words without knowledge? Why, that would be Dawg!) but while the Episcopal Bishop of Long Island when I was young had exquisitely manicured hands and a homburg hat, I imagine that even the Christians in Rome wouldn't have recognized Peter without an introduction. They would have passed him in the stree, and probably said to themselves nothing more than,"Oh, A provincial. He dresses funny."
And this is all about the kind of contemporaneous evidence one can reasonably expect. I would venture to guess: not much and none of it conclusive.
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