“Your argument is that the Church is divided equally between the Patriarchs of Rome, Antioch and Alexandria.”
Actually, my argument is that Gregory believed the western church was divided equally between the Bishops of Rome, Antioch and Alexandria. (I never said that was MY opinion.) I don’t believe it would be OK to consider Gregory as believing those THREE reigned over ALL the Bishops of the world with the quotes I supplied earlier.
It is enough, however, that it is not ONE reigning over the entire Church. And therefore, the Papacy is not something that always existed, but was an innovation.
Your argument that “Well, you still don’t AGREE with Gregory!!” is pure childishness. You don’t agree with Gregory either, but YOU are the one who claims an unbroken and eternal magisterium. Why do I have to agree with everything Gregory says when your entire premise of authority is undone by him? If the Roman Catholic church is true, then its traditions and history should be unbroken. Instead, we do not see this consistency, and you are, in fact, partaking of “anti-Christ” when you kneel to the Universal Bishop of Rome:
“In every age there have been those who considered the claims of a single bishop to supreme authority to be a sure identification of the corruption of the church, and perhaps even the work of the Antichrist. ~ Pope Gregory I (A.D. 590-604)
Now, do I believe that those three Bishops were in authority over the western church? I cannot tell you what all their doctrines were, (though even Gregory opposed Priestly forgiveness of sins) but the concept of the Primacy of Peter is also an innovation, as no such concept existed in any of the writings of Ignatius, Clement or Polycarp, who lived through the 1st century and into part of the second.
Who should I “submit” to? To Gregory who believed the innovation that Peter was First, and therefore the See of Peter had special authority over the Western Church beneath the feet of THREE Bishops? Or should I believe Ignatius, who argued that the head of the Bishop is God? Or should I believe the Apostles, who declared that the head of the Church is Christ?
If God is all sovereign over salvation, I would do better to follow Christ than any living sinner.
“Ergo, we as Christians have a responsibility to submit ourselves to one of these three.”
You’re free to do so. But since they’re all DEAD and their successors all in REBELLION, you’ll have to settle being a Protestant whose rule of faith is the scripture.
“This whole line of inquiry”
The whole basis of Papal authority is a SMOKESCREEN, I agree.
“Actually, my argument is that Gregory believed the western church was divided equally between the Bishops of Rome, Antioch and Alexandria. (I never said that was MY opinion.) I don’t believe it would be OK to consider Gregory as believing those THREE reigned over ALL the Bishops of the world with the quotes I supplied earlier”
Thank you. Now that we’ve dispensed of that argument, we can move on.
“Papacy is not something that always existed, but was an innovation.”
If it was not always in existance, when was it created?
“but YOU are the one who claims an unbroken and eternal magisterium”
I never claimed any such thing. Not here on earth, no.
I claim that the Catholic church was founded by Jesus who gave his disciples the power to forgive sins and that he appointed Peter as the leader of the Apostles. I claim through Apostolic succession, that the Catholic church now headed by Pope Francis is an unbroken succession of bishops all the way back to St. Peter.
“you’ll have to settle being a Protestant whose rule of faith is the scripture.”
Does one submit to Das Kapital, or does one submit to Marx?