Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: (sort of) Re: Names of Popes Message-ID: Date: 21 Aug 90 02:48:23 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Labs (Liberty Corner) Lines: 84 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Here is the beginning of the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry under "Linus": All the ancient records of the Roman bishops which have been handed down to us by St. Irenaeus, Julius Africanus, St. Hippolytus, Eusebius, also the Liberian catalogue of 354, place the name of Linus directly after that of the Prince of the Apostles, St. Peter. Then they launch into a discussion of various points of historical evidence pro and con, maintaining at the end that Linus is correct, given the available historical evidence. Here is St. Irenaeus's passage, written around 190 AD: After the Holy Apostles [Peter and Paul] had founded and set the Church in order [in Rome] they gave over the exercise of the episcopal office to Linus. The same Linus is mentioned by St. Paul in his epistle to Timothy. His successor was Anacletus. (Adversus Haereses, 3:3:3) And he goes on to list the rest down to his time. There are three main Scriptural verses that bear on the subject of the Papacy: the one about the rock the one where our Lord tells Peter to feed His sheep the one where our Lord says that He has prayed that Peter's faith may not fail, so that he can confirm his brethren. The passage where Paul rebukes Peter isn't a real objection, because Peter was just behaving badly. He wasn't trying to bind everyone to follow him. There have been some pretty bad Popes, as far as personal behaviour goes, but they've never definitively bound the Church to erroneous faith or morals. There is an excellent little work by John Henry Newman called "An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine," that you might read as a good introduction to the subject. He spent about 15 years doing historical research, to try and figure out who had the correct doctrine; this led to his entry into the Catholic Church, where he eventually became a Cardinal. The development essay is the last work he wrote as an Anglican. I think he was one of the motivating forces behind what is currently the Anglo-Catholic part of the Church of England. He covers a dozen or so things as examples of development of doctrine, such as Purgatory, relics, devotion to our Lady, and more to your point, the Papal supremacy, which he devotes 14 pages specifically to. The Papacy at the beginning was only a seed compared to what it is now. There was a process of development. At first, the Church was mostly organized into local churches, under bishops. Anything else was made impossible by the persecutions. Once the persecutions ended, you see the rise of the Papacy. The role of the bishop of Rome came to the fore to some extent just because the heresies and disputes started to become more widespread, more than a local bishop could deal with. Newman pretty much catalogs the known historical examples. Here are a few of the earliest ones: St. Clement, bishop of Rome, writes to the Corinthians when they were without a bishop, telling them what to do St. Ignatius of Antioch writes to the Church of Rome, "the Church, which has in dignity the first seat, of the city of the Romans." St. Polycarp of Smyrna has recourse to the bishop of Rome on the question of when Easter should be celebrated Marcion, heretic, excommunicated in Pontus, goes to Rome to appeal Soter, bishop of Rome, sends alms to the churches throughout the empire, and, in the words of Eusebius, "affectionately exhorted those who came to Rome, as a father his children" St. Victor, bishop of Rome, threatens to excommunicate the Asian churches Newman goes on for several pages listing such things. You can see that there is something about the bishop of Rome very early on, that gets more and more clear as time passes, until, by the time of the ecumenical councils, a Roman primacy over the Church (of some sort) is apparent.