Posted on 02/14/2015 1:16:14 PM PST by 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)
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.
 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.' |
Mighty bold talk for a one-eyed fatman!
Matthew 10:34
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Golly; what 'friends' you have!
Did you meet them at Ecumenical Gatherings?
Catholics CAN'T!!
They are BRAINWASHED to endlessly prattle this mantra:
Hail MARY, Mother of GOD, Pray for us...
Poor ol' Americans!
WhatEVER shall they do??
I appreciate that you appreciate that!
And That'll keep Protestants SO busy that they'll not have TIME to point out CatholicISM's faults!
For later
And using this little tidbit; Rome can make up anything it wants and then claim; "Well... Jesus COULD have said it. He COULD have done it."
...did GOD really say...
Just because a well-known NAZI said this; it doesn't mean it's not true...
So?
That proves nothing and it certainly doesn't give anyone license to make stuff up and pass it off as truth.
The Mormons claim extra-Biblical revelation as well. Why should we believe your church's claims over theirs?
Not to mention all the RC’s who support abortion and homosexual marriage and who have gotten divorces when they couldn’t afford an annulment.
Whoo hoo!!! Preach it, brother!!!
Do you think it acutally may sink in to some RC’s head?
Do you mind if I grab that for future use?
Oh noes......
Now someone is going to sic the mod on you.....
I'm sure he's heard it all before. I know I have. The argument you make may sound good, but upon closer examination (and wider encompassing of fuller considerations of Scripture & history both) falls far short of that argument's apparently intended ends.
Speaking of biblical arguments, perhaps Romanists are blind to the plentiful array of biblical argument against there being one singular, earthly and human, "bishop of bishops" type of thinking to have been imposed upon the Church?
As far as I can tell, "they" sure do seem to block out (of their own minds and considerations) all of that which is opposed to what later developed, as for the office 'papacy', for Rome alone.
When these things (and history, both) are brought to "their" attention, as can be seen evident on this thread --- first --- many and varied forms of hostility (and outright hatreds) towards those who point at the elements which refute Romish claims (as for Supremacy of it's own bishop, and themselves also over all others whom would be considered Christian) come bubbling to the surface.
Christ's Kingdom is not of this world, according to His own words.
Trying to extend earthy, Davidic Kingdom, wherein in some alleged successor to 'Peter', is as a stand-in, a placeholder for Jesus Himself, has been shown by history, in many aspects and instance, to be something of a horror, a sickness in the body of the Church.
Christ did not establish that sort of kingdom -- for Peter, to then be passed singularly to some later line of successors, which would be only those of the bishopric at Rome, leaving all the rest owing some form of unilateral submission to that one office.
The early Church had no such 'papacy' as later developed. They knew of no such thing, but instead there was one Church, wherein all bishops were seen as "successor to Peter" (when that sort of talk first began to surface) as they were inheritors of all of rest which Christ had bestowed upon the disciples.
Yet again, whenever the covers are pulled back, then those of Rome howl something fierce, attacking all those whom would disagree, much as you yourself (more mildly) began by calling men like Bugay "ignorant".
Same to you? I could call you and most every other apologist for 'Rome' the same. But it's not merely ignorance, as much as it is something else, with the truth still denied by those of Rome who present "read-in-between-the-lines" style of Scriptural eisogesis in effort to establish that there was a particular concept (singular papacy, for Rome alone), from the onset of the early, most primitive church.
The concept itself was a stranger among the early Church. I guess all those ECF's were just a bunch of idiots for having not noticed (for so long!) that to Rome was to go the glory? More on that, later...
The Apostles (note the plural?) Great Commission was not to rule as titled king in the earthly manner of David, but instead the authority given was to preach the Gospel (not pervert or edit it, for their own ends, as has many a Roman Church Pontiff since).
24 Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest. 25 And He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ 26 But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves. 27 For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves.If it had instead been something of history, and a singular office that was purposefully established amid the earliest era of the Church --- then the Apostles did an extremely poor job of conveying the validity of Rome's own later arising claims for themselves (and their bishop) to rule like a king.28 “But you are those who have continued with Me in My trials. 29 And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, 30 that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
Compare what is found in Scripture;
with 'Pope' Gregory VII in the 11th century writing that "all princes must kiss his [own] feet".
As one daring Jew put things to be;
But you know what? Much like the apology for having burned Jan Hus (and Jerome of Prague) alive, at the stake;
The gig is up. Busted.
Popes of today's modern era are embarrassed by such things. (Ratzinger was, as far as I could read in between the lines...)
The Reformation helped bring that more closely to their attention --- although among Romish practice the priests still prostrate themselves (at times and places) and the people of the Church are seen always as lesser ranked. To the extent which the members of the RC Church are today -- not seen as "lesser", again, give some thanks for the Protestant Reformation. Without that, there would have been no United States of America as we know it (knew it, once?) either, and God only knows how fiendishly rank Romish Catholicism would have further regressed into being...
Time to start over? Rome has been trying to shed it's own errors of the past, but can't quite seem to fully come clean --- and then let go.
That's what happens when far too much faith is put in "Church", rather than in the power of God, which is His own alone.
The Lord our God is one Lord
From Mark 12 verse 29
He must swear upon Himself, for He can swear by none higher.
Popes can't do that, but rather, as the rest of us should let our yeahs be yeahs and our nays be nays
And now that Valentine's Day is passed...some Bonnie Riatt,
Well, a big amen to that my sister.
We'll continue to pray that the blindness to the truth be healed by the tried and true Healer.
Sorry, LadyDoc... No doubt there are plenty of heretical contentions to be found in the Orthodox Church as well. I was dealing with the Cult of Rome in a thread that dealt with Roman Cultism.
When the opportunity presents itself, I’ll try to be less ethnocentric.
:)
Hoss
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