Were the earliest Christians united under a papacy?

In a recent video discussing his conversion to Roman Catholicism, Joe Schmid said:

"And then, totally unsurprisingly, given their defective courtless system for church governance, Protestantism turns into a schism fest....You know, Christ wanted people to remain united while preserving the whole truth full and inviolate. Any sensible guy, much less the omniscient Creator of the universe, could foresee that the Protestant system was not going to work for that....Commonsensically, if Christ intended to establish a unified worldwide church that would preserve one faith across nations and centuries, a continuing teaching office is exactly the sort of institution we should expect him to provide. And then when we turn to history, we discover that this is exactly what the earliest Christians adopted."

In the second century, Celsus wrote:

"Christians at first were few in number, and held the same opinions; but when they grew to be a great multitude, they were divided and separated, each wishing to have his own individual party: for this was their object from the beginning....being thus separated through their numbers, they confute one another, still having, so to speak, one name in common, if indeed they still retain it. And this is the only thing which they are yet ashamed to abandon, while other matters are determined in different ways by the various sects." (cited in Origen's Against Celsus 3:10, 3:12)

And see here regarding Origen's response to Celsus, which further illustrates the absence of a papacy in early church history. Or see here regarding the anti-papal ecclesiology of Ignatius of Antioch, among many other examples that could be cited.

Difficulties With The Papacy

One of my posts last week responded to a video by Cameron Bertuzzi about how Protestants view Hebrews, including its canonicity. Catholics often bring up the subject as an example of one or more problems with Protestantism, such as how difficult it is to justify the canonicity of Hebrews from a Protestant perspective. As my earlier post mentioned, there are similar issues in Catholicism, like Catholic disagreements over which papal teachings are infallible. See here for Trent Horn's comments on the subject in a debate he had with Gavin Ortlund, for example. When something like that Catholic disagreement over papal infallibility occurs in a Protestant context, it's often suggested that the disagreement over the subject is an unacceptable form of disunity, it proves that we need an infallible source to settle things for us, it's evidence that Protestantism is a blueprint for anarchy, and so forth. One of the things we're told is that the papacy is the solution. It brings about the clarity, unity, etc. that we need. But what if the papacy is what people are having difficulty with, are disagreeing about, and so on?

Another example was unintentionally alluded to in Cameron's video that I responded to in my earlier post. He refers to how some people have thought that Hebrews was written by the third Pope.

More Soteriological Disagreement Before The Reformation

In the context of discussing baptismal regeneration, I've mentioned that there was widespread disagreement among the extrabiblical sources before the Reformation regarding initiatory rites. Things like regeneration, the forgiveness of sins, and the reception of the Holy Spirit would sometimes be placed at the time of baptism, but often would be placed in some other context instead (faith prior to baptism, prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal laying on of hands, etc.). The extrabiblical sources before the Reformation widely disagreed about baptismal efficacy, despite how popular it is to falsely claim that everybody before the Reformation believed in baptismal regeneration, that almost everybody did, or some such thing. What modern advocates of baptismal regeneration attribute to baptism was often attributed to prebaptismal faith, anointing with oil, foot washing, or something else by many pre-Reformation sources. For a discussion of some patristic examples, see here. On medieval sources, see here. And I've provided other examples in other posts.

The Diversity Of Baptismal Beliefs And Practices In The Medieval Era

It's often claimed that every Christian before the Reformation believed in baptismal regeneration, that only heretics opposed it, that only an extremely small number of Christians did, or some such thing. That kind of claim simultaneously makes the concept of justification apart from baptism look weaker and baptismal regeneration look stronger.

But many people believed in justification apart from baptism prior to the Reformation, as I've documented elsewhere. And among those who assigned some type of soteriological efficacy to baptism, there was widespread disagreement about the sort of efficacy involved, and soteriological efficacy was also attributed to other rituals (or sacraments, ceremonies, or whatever you want to call them): the laying on of hands, foot washing, etc. See here for a discussion of many examples from the patristic era. So, justification apart from baptism was more widely held before the Reformation than is typically suggested, and there wasn't the sort of unified alternative to it that we're told there was. Rather, there was a wide diversity of alternatives.

How Later Church Fathers Disagree With Earlier Ones

Sometimes a disagreement is more obvious, such as the comments of a later church father who explicitly refers to his disagreement with the premillennialism of Papias or Irenaeus. Other times, the disagreement is more subtle.

For example, I've written before about how Irenaeus compares Mary's virginity to the virginity of soil that was "as yet" virgin, but would later lose its virginity. Contrast his comments with those of Maximus of Turin, who wrote more than two centuries later, after the perpetual virginity of Mary had become more popular. I'll quote Irenaeus, then quote Maximus with emphasis added to highlight a difference:

"And as the protoplast himself Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil ('for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not tilled the ground'), and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for 'all things were made by Him,' and the Lord took dust from the earth and formed man; so did He who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3:21:10)

"For Adam was born of the virgin earth and Christ was begotten of the virgin Mary; the maternal soil of the one had not yet been broken by hoes, while the hidden place of the other's maternity was never violated by desire." (Maximus of Turin, Sermon 50A:2, Boniface Ramsey, trans., The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], 122)

Where Irenaeus sees a parallel, Maximus goes out of his way to describe a contrast. (And you can read my post on Irenaeus linked above for further evidence that he didn't think Mary was a perpetual virgin. For more about the larger historical context surrounding Irenaeus, in which we see other opponents of the perpetual virginity of Mary in many places for hundreds of years, see here, here, and here, for example.)

The Suspicious Early Silence About Later Marian Dogmas

In a recent post, I discussed some of the evidence against concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, sinlessness, and assumption. Something to keep in mind when issues like those come up is that the lack of reference to those beliefs among the earliest sources carries some evidential weight against them. Think of the writings of Luke, for example. He wrote the longest gospel we have, said the most about Mary among the earliest Christians, and gave us our earliest church history. That church history doesn't end until the early 60s. Not only does he say nothing of concepts like Mary's perpetual virginity, sinlessness, assumption, praying to individuals like Mary, venerating images of such people, etc., but he even repeatedly uses language that most naturally suggests that he opposed some of those concepts. See here for a discussion of some examples. Or see here for many other examples of early opposition to later Marian beliefs and practices. My main point here, though, is that we should keep in mind that there's a double problem for the advocate of something like a modern Roman Catholic or modern Eastern Orthodox view of Mary. There's a suspicious lack of reference to their view, a view they claim to be so important, accompanied by so many apparent contradictions of it. And that's in a context in which they claim to belong to the one true church founded by Jesus, passing on all apostolic teaching in unbroken succession throughout church history, providing unity, providing doctrinal clarity, etc.

More Pre-Reformation Disagreements Over Baptism And John 3:5

I've written a lot over the years about how diversely John 3:5 was interpreted prior to the Reformation, contrary to the popular suggestion that there was more agreement about the passage. For example, it's sometimes claimed, falsely, that everybody or almost everybody thought the passage teaches baptismal regeneration. I've discussed many examples of Christians who rejected baptismal regeneration before the Reformation, like here. Those who assigned some kind of high efficaciousness to baptism widely disagreed with each other about the sort of efficaciousness involved. Go here for a discussion of some examples. People often lowered their view of baptism in order to heighten their view of something else (prebaptismal faith, prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal anointing with oil, the laying on of hands, etc.). Such tradeoffs would inevitably affect the sort of efficaciousness assigned to baptism in an interpretation of John 3:5. Some people held a highly efficacious view of both prebaptismal faith and baptism. To the extent that they were consistent in maintaining those views, there would have to be a tradeoff. Heightening your view of prebaptismal faith lowers your view of baptism in some contexts, as I've discussed elsewhere. And there were many other issues that influenced how people understood John 3. As I've discussed elsewhere, there was widespread disagreement before the Reformation about types of baptism other than water baptism, such as baptism of desire. And there were disagreements over whether Jesus' comments in John 3:5 were in effect at the time when he spoke the words in that passage or wouldn't go into effect until later. Those who thought John 3:5 wouldn't be applicable until later disagreed over which later point in time that was.

A New Book On 1 Corinthians 15

Sean Luke of Anglican Aesthetics interviewed James Ware about a book Ware recently published on 1 Corinthians 15, The Final Triumph Of God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2025). I've bought it, but haven't read it yet. The interview is worth listening to, since it makes a lot of good points about a lot of significant topics (the physical nature of Paul's view of the resurrection, the unity of the apostles, etc.).

There's Not Much Apostolic Disunity In The Gospels

Critics of Christianity often allege that there was widespread disunity among the early Christians: Paul disagreeing with the Twelve, a Petrine community opposing a Johannine community, and so on. There's a large amount of evidence against such claims. I've written about the evidence for apostolic unity in 1 Corinthians 15:11, in the earliest patristic documents, and elsewhere. I've been struck lately, though, by how much material there is against these claims about disunity in the gospels. In John 13:10-11, for example, why would the author have Jesus commenting on how all of his rivals (or rival communities, etc.) are "clean"? Or think of the sitting on twelve thrones in passages like Matthew 19:28. That isn't just an expression of unity, but even unity in an eschatological context, which rules out a future falling away. (Judas is explicitly and repeatedly referred to as not being included in such comments in one way or another, whereas nothing comparable is said of any other apostle. The authors were capable of communicating that they had exceptions in mind if they wanted to, as their comments on Judas demonstrate.)

Dividing Up Early Christianity Is More Difficult Than Often Suggested

It's common for people commenting on Easter issues, as well as issues in other contexts, to put one strand of early Christianity against another. They'll claim that a particular belief is found in one gospel, but not another. The Pauline letters have one view of a subject, but a contrary view is found in the gospels. And so on. In the context of Easter, we'll be told that Paul had no concept of the empty tomb or that some portions of early Christianity believed in a form of resurrection that didn't involve the transformation of the body that died, for example.

One of the points that ought to be made in these contexts is that the alleged differing strands of early Christianity often express agreement with one another. On the resurrection, Paul refers to how he and the rest of the apostles were in agreement (1 Corinthians 15:11). To cite another example, see here regarding the likely reference to Luke's gospel as scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18. Paul's letters are referred to as scripture in 2 Peter 3:15-16. An example cited less often, but which has a lot of significance, is the early patristic attestation of how highly John viewed the Synoptic gospels. See here concerning what Papias tells us about John's view of the gospel of Mark. (And for more about Papias and his relationship with the apostle John, see here.) Clement of Alexandria cited some elders who commented on John's view of the Synoptics. See here for more about that passage.

Notice, too, that much of what I'm saying here holds up even if the traditional authorship attributions of the New Testament documents are rejected. I explain some of the reasons why in my article on 1 Timothy 5:18 linked above, and those principles apply to other documents as well, not just 1 Timothy. Similarly, even if you think the elder Papias referred to was somebody other than the apostle John, the fact would remain that Papias was highly influenced by the Johannine documents (as I argue in my material linked above), and he held a high view of the Synoptics. Furthermore, saying that the elder Papias refers to wasn't the apostle John doesn't change the fact that he was some sort of prominent early church leader who didn't write the gospel of Mark and seems to have operated largely outside of the circles that gospel's author is usually associated with, yet he held a high view of that gospel. Rejecting something like Pauline authorship of 1 Timothy or the identification of Papias' elder as the apostle John would weaken my argument, but the argument would still carry some weight.

Disunity Predates The Reformation And Is Rampant Among Non-Christians

We're getting the predictable media stories about how the Reformation supposedly brought about such lamentable disunity, like here and here. Stories like these don't mention that it was common for people to complain about widespread disunity in Christianity long before the Reformation occurred. Celsus raised the issue in his treatise against Christianity in the second century. Origen wrote a response to Celsus in the third century, and he made another point there that's ignored by media stories like the ones linked above. As Origen noted, we also find widespread disunity in philosophy, medicine, and other fields, not just in Christianity or only in religious circles. (To read more about what Celsus, Origen, and other pre-Reformation sources said on issues of unity, see here and here.) Maybe the media should run some stories on how lamentable it is that modern journalism is so fractured, with so many reporters and media organizations disagreeing about issues related to journalism, holding differing views of journalistic ethics, competing with each other, hating each other, working to undermine each other, and so on. Yes, there's a lot of disunity in professing Christianity. The same is true of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, atheism, science, medicine, politics, journalism, philosophy, etc.

The Absence Of A Papacy In Early Responses To Christianity

One way to study early Christianity is to look at it through the eyes of its opponents. I've often noted that the early opponents of Christianity describe the religion in a manner that contradicts Roman Catholic claims about church history. It's instructive to observe what men like Trypho, Celsus, and Caecilius tell us about early Christianity and what arguments they bring against the religion. It's also important to notice how individuals like Justin Martyr, Origen, and Minucius Felix respond on behalf of Christianity. Those early interactions between Christians and their critics provide us with a lot of evidence against the claims of Catholicism (and Eastern Orthodoxy, etc.) on the veneration of images, prayer to the dead, and other issues.

One of the most substantial problems for Catholicism in the early responses to Christianity is the absence of any reference to a papacy. Remember, Catholics often tell us how important the papacy allegedly is. We're supposed to think that it's the foundation of the church, central to Christian unity, an infallible source of Christian teaching, and so on. We're told how valuable the papacy is in the abstract and how practical it is, how it's such a good idea on so many levels to have such an office. We're often pointed to John 17:21, as if Jesus was referring there to denominational unity under Roman Catholicism and the papacy. Well, if we need to submit to the papacy "so that the world may believe" (John 17:21), shouldn't we expect the world to know that the papacy exists and to refer to it when discussing Christianity? Isn't that especially true during the earliest centuries of church history, when, according to many Catholics, there was such widespread and consistent unity under the Pope? What if, instead of acknowledging such unity and responding to it along the lines of John 17:21 or focusing on the papacy as one of the most foundational issues to be addressed (as we'd expect if Christianity was Roman Catholic at the time), the early responses to Christianity show no knowledge that a papacy even exists and sometimes make comments suggesting its nonexistence?

Something worth considering in this context is what Celsus, a second-century pagan critic of Christianity, said about Christian disunity and how Origen, a Christian, responded. See here.

Neither Celsus and his Jewish sources nor the other earliest non-Christian sources who comment on the religion refer to a papacy. And we have much more than documents like Justin Martyr's Dialogue With Trypho and Origen's Against Celsus to go by. Larry Hurtado notes:

"Whatever their actual success, clearly some Christians made impressive efforts to disseminate their works, not only among fellow believers, but more widely as well. Here again, it is difficult to find an equivalent effort by other religious groups of the day….Philo of Alexandria's Embassy to Gaius might serve as a kind of precedent. But the sheer number of Christian apologia [apologetic] texts is unprecedented." (Destroyer Of The Gods [Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2016], 132-3, n. 90 on 249)

Men like Aristides and Tertullian wrote apologies in which they responded to objections to Christianity and anticipated potential objections. They address the deity of Jesus, his virgin birth, his resurrection, the second coming, the inspiration of scripture, how to interpret various passages of scripture, Christian moral standards, the apostles, Christian teachers, the nature of the church, and many other topics. But they say nothing of a papacy, to explain it, defend it, anticipate objections to it, or anything else.

“Pope Francis” “departs from Magisterium”; The Battle is on! Time for a little “Resist This Pope”?

Well, it’s been settled. OnePeterFive has spoken, the matter is settled. A pope has made a statement that deviates from the Magisterium!

two grave and deeply serious claims in this new papal document which were not discussed during the previous two Synod sessions in the manner in which they appear in the exhortation. Each represents a deviation from the Catholic Church’s traditional moral teaching, thereby effectively departing from the Universal Magisterium of the Church (emphasis in original).

First:

To Conservative Roman Catholics, “Pope Francis” is Like the Borgia Popes

Conservative Roman Catholics will take some comfort in this. To them, “Pope Francis” is like the Borgia popes – for all the havoc they caused, they are issuing no “teaching”. In fact, that is the message:

Conservative dissent is brewing inside the Vatican

In front of the camera, Burke said he would “resist” liberal changes — and seemed to caution Francis about the limits of his authority. “One must be very attentive regarding the power of the pope,” Burke told the French news crew.

Papal power, Burke warned, “is not absolute.” He added, “The pope does not have the power to change teaching [or] doctrine.”

And yet, many Roman Catholics are not so sure as Burke seems to be. The thought is that the door is still open to havoc; this pope can still move ahead in some “unauthorized” direction, and the “conservatives”" want to help out by taking matters into their own hands:

Burke’s words belied a growing sense of alarm among strict conservatives, exposing what is fast emerging as a culture war over Francis’s papacy and the powerful hierarchy that governs the Roman Catholic Church. …

On Sunday, he called for “every” Catholic parish in Europe to offer shelter to one refugee family from the thousands of asylum-seekers risking all to escape war-torn Syria and other pockets of conflict and poverty.

Yet as he upends church convention, Francis also is grappling with a conservative backlash to the liberal momentum building inside the church. In more than a dozen interviews, including with seven senior church officials, insiders say the change has left the hierarchy more polarized over the direction of the church than at any point since the great papal reformers of the 1960s.

The conservative rebellion is taking on many guises, in public comments, yes, but also in the rising popularity of conservative Catholic Web sites promoting Francis dissenters; books and promotional materials backed by conservative clerics seeking to counter the liberal trend; and leaks to the news media, aimed at Vatican reformers.

In his recent comments, Burke was also merely stating fact. Despite the vast powers of the pope, church doctrine serves as a kind of constitution. And for liberal reformers, the bruising theological pushback by conservatives is complicating efforts to translate the pope’s transformative style into tangible changes.

In reality, there is nothing new here. The liberals, as usual, want “change”. The conservatives, despite many centuries-worth of convoluted “developments” cry semper eadem. It's just one big happy family, with happy, happy, joy, joy, unity.

Antipope Francis: “I feel like saying something heretical…”

“And it comes to my mind to say something
that may be foolish, or perhaps a heresy,
I don’t know.”

Yes, as someone has put it, “Pope Francis” is the gift that keeps on giving. When I say he “keeps on giving”, I mean he “keeps on saying things that his handlers – keepers of the ‘infallibility’ – find distressing because of the confusion they create”.

We remember “who am I to judge?” and “don’t be like rabbits” (when it comes to having children). But based on his latest statement, it seems to me that “Pope Francis” is saying these kinds of things in a calculated way, to heighten the impact.

Look at what he said last week to “a group focused on unity” (source):

Dear brothers and sisters, division is a wound in the body of the Church of Christ. And we do not want this wound to remain open. Division is the work of the Father of Lies, the Father of Discord, who does everything possible to keep us divided.

Together today, I here in Rome and you over there, we will ask our Father to send the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and to give us the grace to be one, “so that the world may believe”. I feel like saying something that may sound controversial, or even heretical, perhaps.

Whoops! A pope uttering a heretical utterance? Is he baiting us?

But there is someone who “knows” that, despite our differences, we are one. It is he who is persecuting us. It is he who is persecuting Christians today, he who is anointing us with (the blood of) martyrdom. He knows that Christians are disciples of Christ: that they are one, that they are brothers! He doesn’t care if they are Evangelicals, or Orthodox, Lutherans, Catholics or Apostolic…he doesn’t care!

The one who “knows” and “doesn’t care” is the Devil. To my knowledge, no Roman Catholic doctrine is based on what the Devil thinks. So a pope can say pretty much anything about “what the Devil thinks” and he would know that it’s not “heresy”.

This raises the question, why would “Pope Francis” bring up the tantalizing possibility that “what I’m going to say may be heresy”?

The possibility that “Pope Francis” wouldn’t know whether or not seems beyond the realm of possibility. According to one “traditionalist” website, it is a pope’s duty “to be informed on these matters”.

So he didn’t not know this. That leaves the other possibility as a live one: he said this intentionally, merely to be provocative.

To these traditionalists, he is “Antipope Francis”.

Bergoglio’s gig this time: intentional deception.

Cardinal Dolan disses “Priests for Life” anti-abortion group

“I ... want nothing further to do with the organization”.

Forget about “Evangelicals and Catholics Together”. Now they can’t even manage “Catholics and Catholics Together”.

Unity Before The Reformation

Then the Protestants came along and ruined it.

"But when the attitude of our foes against us was changed from one of long standing and bitter strife to one of open warfare, then, as is well known, the war was split up in more ways than I can tell into many subdivisions, so that all men were stirred to a state of inveterate hatred alike by common party spirit and individual suspicion. But what storm at sea was ever so fierce and wild as this tempest of the Churches? In it every landmark of the Fathers has been moved; every foundation, every bulwark of opinion has been shaken: everything buoyed up on the unsound is dashed about and shaken down. We attack one another. We are overthrown by one another. If our enemy is not the first to strike us, we are wounded by the comrade at our side. If a foeman is stricken and falls, his fellow soldier tramples him down. There is at least this bond of union between us that we hate our common foes, but no sooner have the enemy gone by than we find enemies in one another. And who could make a complete list of all the wrecks? Some have gone to the bottom on the attack of the enemy, some through the unsuspected treachery of their allies, some from the blundering of their own officers. We see, as it were, whole churches, crews and all, dashed and shattered upon the sunken reefs of disingenuous heresy, while others of the enemies of the Spirit of Salvation have seized the helm and made shipwreck of the faith. And then the disturbances wrought by the princes of the world have caused the downfall of the people with a violence unmatched by that of hurricane or whirlwind. The luminaries of the world, which God set to give light to the souls of the people, have been driven from their homes, and a darkness verily gloomy and disheartening has settled on the Churches. The terror of universal ruin is already imminent, and yet their mutual rivalry is so unbounded as to blunt all sense of danger. Individual hatred is of more importance than the general and common warfare, for men by whom the immediate gratification of ambition is esteemed more highly than the rewards that await us in a time to come, prefer the glory of getting the better of their opponents to securing the common welfare of mankind. So all men alike, each as best he can, lift the hand of murder against one another. Harsh rises the cry of the combatants encountering one another in dispute; already all the Church is almost full of the inarticulate screams, the unintelligible noises, rising from the ceaseless agitations that divert the right rule of the doctrine of true religion, now in the direction of excess, now in that of defect. On the one hand are they who confound the Persons and are carried away into Judaism; on the other hand are they that, through the opposition of the natures, pass into heathenism. Between these opposite parties inspired Scripture is powerless to mediate; the traditions of the apostles cannot suggest terms of arbitration. Plain speaking is fatal to friendship, and disagreement in opinion all the ground that is wanted for a quarrel. No oaths of confederacy are so efficacious in keeping men true to sedition as their likeness in error. Every one is a theologue though he have his soul branded with more spots than can be counted. The result is that innovators find a plentiful supply of men ripe for faction, while self-appointed scions of the house of place-hunters reject the government of the Holy Spirit and divide the chief dignities of the Churches. The institutions of the Gospel have now everywhere been thrown into confusion by want of discipline; there is an indescribable pushing for the chief places while every self-advertiser tries to force himself into high office. The result of this lust for ordering is that our people are in a state of wild confusion for lack of being ordered; the exhortations of those in authority are rendered wholly purposeless and void, because there is not a man but, out of his ignorant impudence, thinks that it is just as much his duty to give orders to other people, as it is to obey any one else. So, since no human voice is strong enough to be heard in such a disturbance, I reckon silence more profitable than speech, for if there is any truth in the words of the Preacher, 'The words of wise men are heard in quiet,' in the present condition of things any discussion of them must be anything but becoming. I am moreover restrained by the Prophet’s saying, 'Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time, for it is an evil time,' a time when some trip up their neighbours’ heels, some stamp on a man when he is down, and others clap their hands with joy, but there is not one to feel for the fallen and hold out a helping hand, although according to the ancient law he is not uncondemned, who passes by even his enemy’s beast of burden fallen under his load. This is not the state of things now. Why not? The love of many has waxed cold; brotherly concord is destroyed, the very name of unity is ignored, brotherly admonitions are heard no more, nowhere is there Christian pity, nowhere falls the tear of sympathy. Now there is no one to receive 'the weak in faith,' but mutual hatred has blazed so high among fellow clansmen that they are more delighted at a neighbour’s fall than at their own success. Just as in a plague, men of the most regular lives suffer from the same sickness as the rest, because they catch the disease by communication with the infected, so nowadays by the evil rivalry which possesses our souls we are carried away to an emulation in wickedness, and are all of us each as bad as the others. Hence merciless and sour sit the judges of the erring; unfeeling and hostile are the critics of the well disposed. And to such a depth is this evil rooted among us that we have become more brutish than the brutes; they do at least herd with their fellows, but our most savage warfare is with our own people." (Basil of Caesarea, On The Holy Spirit, 30:77-8)

Celsus And Origen On Christian Unity

Here's a post I wrote on the subject several years ago, which includes quotations from both sources. Notice that when Celsus criticizes Christian disunity, Origen's response makes no appeal to a papacy, a worldwide denomination every Christian belongs to, or ecumenical councils, for example. Such means of unity, which are often proposed by modern critics of Evangelicalism, aren't mentioned by Origen. As Robert Eno, a Roman Catholic patristic scholar, noted, "a plain recognition of Roman primacy or of a connection between Peter and the contemporary bishop of Rome seems remote from Origen’s thoughts" (The Rise Of The Papacy [Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1990], 43). And for those who want to dismiss Origen as a heretic, schismatic, or something of the like, see here. Origen's response to Celsus regarding Christian unity probably represents common Christian thought at the time.

Unity And The Number Of Denominations

Roman Catholics, as well as other critics of Evangelicalism, often object to the existence of so many denominations, supposedly 30000 or some other high number. We're told that sola scriptura, too low an ecclesiology, or whatever other factor is responsible for such disunity and therefore needs to be avoided. An emailer recently asked me if I knew where he could find Eric Svendsen's material on this subject.

Cardinal’s statement that Council of Trent still “fully valid” in Netherlands casts poo-poo on unity week

It’s “the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” in the Netherlands, but a bad old Cardinal, a card-carrying member of the Roman Magisterium, has cast a poo-poo on all of that by reminding everyone that the anathemas of the Council of Trent are still valid.

An official “Church spokesperson” “expressed shock” and dismissed the Cardinal’s words as “merely theoretical”.

“Does she, or doesn’t she?” **



Dutch cardinal’s defence of Council of Trent casts shadow over Unity week: