First, the “Catholic paradigm” makes it a point to scour the sources for things that can explain Catholic dogma. This quote from Aiden Nichols, “The Shape of Catholic Theology” (253) notes that for the last several hundred years, according to these popes:
“the theologian’s highest task lies in proving the present teachings of the magisterium from the evidence of the ancient sources.”
The real criterion to use is not “explanatory power”. Roman Catholicism self-selects for “explanatory power”. Walter Kasper (now a Cardinal) has traced the origins of this method to the 18th century. So “explanatory power” is not really the criterion to use here. Roman Catholicism writes its history and theology with an eye toward “explanatory power”. That is not the way to get an objective explanation.
The thing to look for is “what really happened?” What really happened at the very beginning, and what was it like being a part of that church?
Jason said:
The harder, and more interesting, and less comfortable question is not, “How do I fit this verse into my theology?”, but “What previously-held views on the part of the author would have given rise to a statement like this?” and, “Would someone who holds the views I do ever think to say something like that?”
This gets to the heart of one of my own struggles over the past several years. I just began to come across more and more passages in Scripture that, while they could fit into my theology, were things that someone holding my theology just would never think to say.
On the other hand, the basics of Catholic teaching on issues like the nature of the church and the nature of salvation, in my view, would give rise very naturally to the actual statements we find in the Bible. Thus there is more explanatory power within the Catholic paradigm than there is in the Reformed one.
Earlier in this thread, I noted many reasons why the letters of Paul are the place to start with any investigation of earliest Christian doctrine and practice. Paul wrote earlier, and the things he wrote, he was already teaching in his churches, on his missionary trips in the 40’s and 50’s. And, the things he wrote in his letters are corroborated in Acts.
Thus, at this point, at the point the Gospels are being written (if you assume in the later 50’s or early 60’s), you’ve already got a body of doctrinal evidence in Paul. Paul is traveling around, founding and teaching churches, and learning of their struggles, and writing to them as to how to deal with their struggles, and in the process, he writes Romans and Galatians. They certainly want and need to know, “how does this work?” And Paul, having been theologically trained, is certainly highly capable of integrating Christ’s teaching with the covenant theology that the first century Jews held. Especially when they ask about it, or when he perceives a need.
[I don’t need to remind you that Galatians was one of Paul’s earliest letters. Once he writes that, and maybe clarifies and extends his remarks in Romans, he never again needs to “re-invent the wheel”. He can and does refer people to his other letters.
It just so happens that the church did not have its “Catholic” identity from the beginning. Any “early catholicism” dates clearly from the second century. The first century church rose up out of the Synagogues. And it just so happens, there has been quite a bit of research on what the Synagogues structure was like – both its worship and its leadership. And when Paul was kicked out of the Synagogues, he went to the Gentiles, and almost always, this involved house churches.
There is an incredible amount of documentation on this:
Roman Background: What the City was Like in the First Century
Augustus Caesar as Pontifex Maximus
the Roman mindset
Leadership structures in the Synagogues:
Elders Chairs Prologue
Elders Teachers Chairs 1
Elders Teachers Chairs 2
Elders Teachers Chairs 3
Elders Teachers Chairs 4
Introduction Households and House Churches in the New Testament
The nonexistent early papacy
House Churches in the New Testament
Households in Ancient Rome
Part 1: Households in Ancient Rome: An Introduction
Part 2: Christians and Jews in First Century Rome
Part 3: Commerce and Household Communities
Aquila, Priscilla, and the accurate history of Acts 18.2
Part 4: Household Leadership as Church Leadership
Part 5: Patronage and Leadership
The People of Romans 16
Aquila, Priscilla, Acts 18:2 and the Edict of Claudius
“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, διάκονον and προστάτις”
Andronikos and Junia, Part 1
Andronikos and Junia, Part 2
I won’t ask you to read all of this (I hope you’ll read some of it), but the thing that happens when I bring this stuff up is that Roman Catholics will say “that’s not wholly incompatible with the Catholic paradigm”. Well, that may be true, at some points, but it is wholly compatible with the notion that Roman Catholicism was not in existence at the beginning, in “seed form” or otherwise.
But what I will tell you, it’s wholly compatible with what actually happened, and it’s wholly compatible with the Reformed view of what the earliest church – this is a very good compendium of what “the Church that Christ Founded®” actually taught and believed, and how they worshipped and otherwise conducted themselves.
Second and third century developments are also “wholly compatible” with this picture of the earliest church, and it’s no accident that someone like Dom Chapman begins his work with a look at the fourth century church. He had absolutely nothing to bite on, and I’d dare say that Adrian Fortescue’s work on Clement and Ignatius has been wholly discredited as a historical source in the historical studies that have come out in the century or so since these two individuals wrote about the “early papacy”.
The earliest church that I’ve presented here is wholly compatible with the facts as they exist. Wholly compatible with the history of ancient Rome. Wholly compatible with the historical evidence provided in the New Testament. Wholly compatible with the Reformed understanding of how the earliest church functioned.
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