More about the ancient church at Rome

Sean – (317), you said:

What you are saying is that church fathers are 'muddy' or 'wrong' where they disagree with your theology and 'better' or 'close' or 'good' when they agree with your theology. Its that simple.

No it's not. The studies I've followed and reported on are done by leading, respected theologians. They are very clear about what they say. T.F. Torrance did a significant study on the use of the word “grace” in the Apostolic Fathers, for example. He was not a schlock. And his study was a thorough one. He compared the various uses of the word charis, used (a) in Greek culture, (b) as a translation of the Old Testament concept of hesed (God’s “lovingkindness”, and (c) in the New Testament. Here is Torrance’s assessment of Clement:

Clement definitely thinks of charis as referring to a gift of God without which the Christian would not be able to attain to love or salvation. But there is little doubt that this is held along with the idea of merit before God; for grace is given to those who perform the commandments of God, and who are worthy. He may use the language of election and justification, but the essentially Greek idea of the unqualified freedom of choice is a natural axiom in his thoughts, and entails a doctrine of "works" as Paul would have said. In all His dealings with men, God is regarded as merciful; but the ground for the Salvation He gives is double: faith and ... [ellipses in original].

Clement "thinks of God's mercy as directed only toward the pious" (55)

That concept of being rewarded for being worthy before God is not a concept Paul used; later writers would call that “Pelagian”. But here is “Pope” Clement, a Pelagian before Pelagius. But it wasn’t just Clement whom Torrance analyzed. He analyzed all the writers who wrote during this period, and there was widespread evidence of this phenomenon.

Cullmann agreed with this assessment, and expanded upon it.

Both of these men, especially, are widely regarded by both Protestants and Catholics (Barth had joked that Cullmann, who was one of the few Protestant theologians selected to be an observer at Vatican II, was “an advisor to three popes”), and it is far, far more likely that they “tell it like it is” than that they were writing to support my supposed prejudices. It is unfortunate that their work didn’t get a wider hearing, but the events of Vatican II overshadowed the writings of theologians.

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You said:

It’s worth repeating that for all the bluster of the scholarship you present you are still unable to answer the challenge:

Can you name one piece of historical evidence that meets these two conditions:

(1) it shows that there was no monarchical bishop in Rome until the second half of the second century, and;

(2) it is stronger evidence than is the list of St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies III.3.3)

(Please show why it is stronger evidence than is St. Irenaeus’ list.)

Your challenge, too, is a silly one. Consider the process by which history is written. It's not about a piece of evidence or two that meets some arbitrary conditions, and therefore it overshadows a whole body of research. It's about the weight of research supporting and building a broad understanding of what was happening in that day. And the account that is being written not by one man, but by a whole body of thought, which is now the prevailing understanding. It’s simply not the case that one piece of evidence gets to trump a whole body of work.


Just as an example of all of this, you must have read Eusebius. Eusebius writes at some length about a pair of letters -- one from Abgar (a historical Syriac ruler of the kingdom of Osroene, located at Edessa) to Jesus, the other from Jesus to Abgar.

Two things are evident:

1. Eusebius is so completely convinced of the reliable historicity of these letters that he cites them verbatim as history.

2. The letters are so obviously not authentic that Schaff calls them “a worthless fabrication” and even the 1912 Catholic encyclopedia dismisses them as having no historical value and the "authenticity" "disproved"; these are "legends" with dates established centuries after Christ.

Now, wasn't Eusebius, one of the earliest historians of Christianity, a confidante of that emperor-convert Constantine, worthy of being believed in this case? In many cases, he is our best source, And yet, this very reliable early testimony is completely discounted via critical means.

So critical methods must be employed, even in assessing such an early and generally (but not totally) reliable source as Eusebius.

We have gone round and round about the value of Irenaeus as a historian

First off, his value as a historian is diminished by his statement that the church at Rome was "founded and established by Peter and Paul". This statement looks impressive but it cuts two ways: (a) he is clearly wrong about Paul, who neither founded nor set up the church at Rome. The only chance that Peter would have had to visit Rome would have been the vague mention in Acts 12:17, when he “went to another place”. But in that case, if (as in another Eusebian “whopper”), the “other place” had been Rome, then he would have had to travel, in that world, from Jerusalem to Rome and back for the Jerusalem council in just the space of a few years. That is highly unlikely, given that he was documented to be in other places during those years. Barrett posits an “itinerant ministry”. Marshall, who wrote a commentary on Acts, suggests that accounts that put Peter in Rome during that time are “highly fanciful”.

Aside from that, the whole purpose of the 2nd half of Acts was to talk about how Paul got to Rome. Do you think that if Peter had gotten there first, that it would have been far more important to Luke to note that Peter was there? Yet Paul’s arrival there was the entire focus of the book.

Look at Romans 16:7. What is being said here?

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

In fact, it is very likely that someone like Andronicus and Junia (Rom 16:7) “in Christ before me”, had traveled from Jerusalem to Rome shortly after Pentecost and established one of many house churches there. That Paul mentions that they were “apostles”, but more, they were “outstanding among the apostles”, and also, they were “in Christ before me”. That latter phrase opens a space of about a year before the conversion of Paul, and as “apostles”, it is quite likely that Andronicus was the first (or, at the very least, an early)“bishop” of a Roman church. Thus, contra Irenaeus, it is far more likely that Andronicus and Junia “founded and established” a church at Rome.

Second, even if it Irenaeus’s list does have the names of presbyters from Roman history, its “neatness” betrays the tumult of that era in that city. The Shepherd of Hermas, for example, speaks of “the elders (presbuteroi) who preside (proistamenoi – plural leadership) over the church.” (all at the same time - Vis 2.4). This is a primary source document from within the city of Rome that provides support for all of the “scholarship” that you decry, the “snippets” which speak of a “gap” in the “unbroken succession within the first century of the church”. But this is not all there is. Later, Hermas reiterates the structure of this leadership, and the fact that they are not leading, but rather that they fight among themselves. He calls them “children”.

Now, therefore, I say to you [tois – plural] who lead the church and occupy the seats of honor: do not be like the sorcerers. For the sorcerers carry their drugs in bottles, but you carry your drug and poison in your heart. You are calloused and do not want to cleanse your hearts and to mix your wisdom together in a clean heart, in order that you may have mercy from the great King. Watch out, therefore, children, lest these divisions of yours [among you elders] deprive you of your life. How is it that you desire to instruct God’s elect, while you yourselves have no instruction? Instruct one another, therefore, and have peace among yourselves, in order that I too may stand joyfully before the Father and give an account on behalf of all of you to your Lord.” (Vis 3.9)

That makes it far more likely to believe Irenaeus’s list is an after-the-fact "construct" created from names known to the community, than that it was some sort of on-going list maintained as an on-going record.

And third, the list is offered as evidence that "teaching” at Rome had been “preserved and transmitted” to that time. There was no hint that Irenaeus believed that it would be some kind of “continuous line of succession until the end of time”. There is no warrant for that at all.