Section: 2D1 - Roman Primacy/ “Apostolic Succession”.
Number of quotes: 80
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 151
Section: 2D1
Five or ten years later 170 a Christian writer named Hegesippus, about whom we know little more than that he traveled from somewhere to the east through Corinth to Rome, wrote a treatise in which he laid strong emphasis on apostolic succession, perhaps deriving some of his information about it from the leaders of the church of Jerusalem. As A. Ehrhardt pointed out, the idea, or at least the emphasis, seems closely related to the Jewish concern with the succession of the high priests, and Hegesippus believed that James the Lord’s brother had worn the high priest’s breastplate.{20}[Footnote 20] The Apostolic Succession (London, 1953), 63-66. For the fragments see Eusebius, H. E. 2, 23, 4-18; 3, 7-8; 4, 22, 2-4.
In Hegesippus’ view, heresy arose in the early church only after the apostolic age, and it did not arise everywhere.
Pastor John note: False
Quote ID: 636
Time Periods: 2
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 153
Section: 2D1
The foundation of Irenaeus’ doctrine therefore lies in the apostolic appointment of the earliest bishops. “The blessed apostles....committed the ministry of the episcopate to Linus” at Rome, and at Smyrna to Polycarp. Clement “in the third place from the apostles was given the lot kleroutai, cf. Kleros, Acts I:26 of the episcopate,” at a time when “many survived who had been taught by the apostles.”{21}[Footnote 21] Ibid., 3, 3, I. 4.
Quote ID: 637
Time Periods: 12
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 156
Section: 2D1
It is quite possible that Irenaeus had the theme in mind as he wrote. In addition, he lived among the Celts, as he points out in his preface. This point has suggested to V. White an odd parallel in Caesar where the Roman general describes the succession of chief priests among the Druids. One who has had supreme authority is succeeded by another, and in the middle of Gaul Druids assemble “from everywhere” to decide upon the successor.{22}[Footnote 22] Caesar, Bell. Gall.6, 13; V. White in Dominican Studies 4 (1951), 201-3.
Quote ID: 638
Time Periods: 2
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 158
Section: 2D1
Polycrates of Ephesus [PJ: 130–196] laid considerable emphasis on a kind of family-succession not unlike that advocated in Palestine. In arguing against Victor, he relied on the traditions of his family. “Seven of my kinsmen were bishops, and I am the eighth; and my kinsmen always observed the day when the people put away the leaven.”{23} Another emphasis both Jewish and familial was expressed in his concern for the fact that the apostle John wore the petalon or high priest’s breastplate; similarly Epiphanius probably relying on a source related to Jewish Christianity, says that it was worn by James of Jerusalem.{24} At Rome presbyters and bishops were compared with Jewish priests and high priests,{25}.........[Footnote 23] Ibid., 5, 24, 6.
[Footnote 24] Haer. 29, 4, , 4; cf. 78, 14, I.
[Footnote 25] I Clem. 44; Hippolytus, Apost. Trad. 3-4; Ref. I, praef. 6. See also Didache 13, 3.
PJ Note: see above, p. 151.
Quote ID: 639
Time Periods: 2
Augustus to Constantine
Robert M. Grant
Book ID: 34 Page: 179
Section: 2D1
By the end of the second century, the Christian church at Rome was widely regarded as possessing some kind of primacy among the churches.
Quote ID: 648
Time Periods: 2
Book Of The Popes (Liber Pontificalis), The
Louise Ropes Loomis
Book ID: 200 Page: 3
Section: 2D1
PrefaceJerome to the most blessed pope Damascus: {1}
. . . .
[footnote 1] These letters are obvious forgeries, designed to give the authority of two great names to the ensuing narrative. The author is even naive enough to attribute to Damasus and Jerome a history which covers a century or two beyond their time.
Quote ID: 4517
Time Periods: 4
Book Of The Popes (Liber Pontificalis), The
Louise Ropes Loomis
Book ID: 200 Page: 4
Section: 2D1
1. PeterBlessed Peter,{1} the Antiochene, Blessed Peter, the apostle, and son of John, of the province chief of the apostles, the Antio-of Galilee and the town of chene, son of John, of the Bethsaida, brother of Andrew province of Galilee and the and chief of the apostles, town of Bethsaida, brother of
Andrew, first occupied the seat of the bishop in Anthiocia {2} for 7 years. This Peter entered the city of Rome when Nero was Caesar and there occupied the seat of the bishop for 25 years.
1 month and 8 days 2 months and 3 days
He was bishop in the time of Tiberius Caesar and of Gaius and of Tiberius Claudius and of Nero. {3}
He wrote two epistles which are called catholic, and the gospel of Mark, for Mark was his disciple and son by baptism; afterwards the whole source of the four gospels, which were confirmed by inquiring of him, that is Peter, and obtaining his testimony; although one gospel is couched in Greek, another in Hebrew, another in Latin, yet by his testimony were they all confirmed. {4}
Quote ID: 4518
Time Periods: 13
Book Of The Popes (Liber Pontificalis), The
Louise Ropes Loomis
Book ID: 200 Page: 5
Section: 2D1
He ordained two bishops, Linus and Cletus, who in person fulfilled all the service of the priest in the city of Rome for the inhabitants and for strangers; then the blessed Peter gave himself to prayer and preaching, instructing the people.{1}He disputed many times with Simon Magus both before Nero, the emperor, and before the people, since by magic arts and trickery Simon was drawing away those whom the blessed Peter was gathering into the faith of Christ. And while they debated once at great length Simon was struck dead by the will of God.
He consecrated blessed Clement as bishop and committed to him the government of the see and all the church, saying: {2} “As unto me was delivered by my Lord Jesus Christ the power to govern and to bind and loose, so also I commit it unto thee, that thou mayest ordain stewards over divers matters who will carry onward the work of the church and mayest thyself not become engrossed with the cares of the world but mayest strive to give thyself solely to prayer and preaching to the people.”
After he had thus disposed affairs he received the crown of martyrdom with Paul in the year 38 after the Lords’s passion. {3}
He was buried also on the Via Aurelia, in the shrine of Apollo, near the place where he was crucified, near the palace of Nero, in the Vatican, {4} near the triumphal, district, {5} on June 29.
Quote ID: 4519
Time Periods: 13
Caesars & Saints: The Rise of the Christian State, A.D. 180-313
Stewart Perowne
Book ID: 44 Page: 157
Section: 2D1,3B
Paul of Samosota had been deposed for heresy by a council of the church and Domnus made bishop instead. Paul refused to accept the verdict. The church called upon the emperor, who had arrived in the east in a war against eastern provinces, for a judgment. It is significant that this took place, but Aurelian’s REASON for siding with Domnus is startling. Domnus, decreed the emperor, was the one recognized by the bishops “in Italy and Rome.” A step toward Roman primacy.
Quote ID: 1018
Time Periods: 3
Catechism Of The Catholic Church
Pope John Paul II
Book ID: 48 Page: 254
Section: 2D1
881 The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the “rock” of his Church. He gave him the keys of his Church and instituted him shepherd of the whole flock.[400] “The office of binding and loosing which was given to Peter was also assigned to the college of apostles united to its head.”[401] This pastoral office of Peter and the other apostles belongs to the Church’s very foundation and is continued by the bishops under the primacy of the Pope.
882 The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter’s successor, “is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.”[402] “For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.”[403]
Quote ID: 1105
Time Periods: 7
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 272
Section: 2D1
Rome’s political position within the empire atrophied over the centuries and received a further blow when the first Christian emperor himself set up his new capital at Constantinople. Then, at the Council of Constantinople of 381, Constantinople was made second in honour only to Rome as a Bishopric. What hurt Rome in particular was that this move implied that a bishopric’s authority was based as much on its political importance as on its Christian origins. This was the situation when the empire was split in 395.
Quote ID: 4972
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 273
Section: 2D1
his attempt to formulate his own theology led him to devise specific Latin terms for Greek concepts. One of these was the word Trinitas. (In “his” Trinity the divine logos exists in the mind of God from the beginning of time but is “shot out” at the moment when the cosmos begins.)
Quote ID: 4975
Time Periods: 4
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 273
Section: 2D1
He passes from the scene (his last known writings date from A.D. 212) and the date of his death is unknown but perhaps as late as 240.
Quote ID: 4976
Time Periods: 23
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 300
Section: 2D1
Leo, one of only two popes to be termed “the Great.” He interpreted the Roman law of succession to suggest that he had even assumed the legal personality of Peter by virtue of the unbroken line of bishops of Rome since Peter’s time, an interpretation reflected in his confident dealing with bishops in Africa, Italy, Spain and Gaul.
Quote ID: 4989
Time Periods: 5
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 304
Section: 2D1
“Rome’s world became radically simplified; and the Roman see emerged as the single, isolated, religious centre of the barbarian west.” The history of western Christianity was rewritten so successfully to reflect this fact that many western Christians are hardly aware of the predominantly Greek nature of the early church. In fact, it is still possible to read of the eastern churches “breaking away” from Catholicism. Though the story is necessarily complicated, it seems rather to have been one of “the final detachment of the papacy from Byzantine political allegiance and the creation of a new western empire” in the eighth century.
Quote ID: 4994
Time Periods: 7
Closing of the Western Mind, The
Charles Freeman
Book ID: 205 Page: 314
Section: 2D1,3F
Isolated in the west and free of the imperial presence, Gregory was free to proclaim papal supremacy. When new disputes arose, it was to be the pope, as successor of Peter, who would have the final say, even if a council had made its own decisions: “Without the authority of consent of the apostolic see Rome, ” said Gregory, “none of the matters transacted by council have any binding force.” The supremacy of the pope in all matters of doctrine was now fully asserted.
Quote ID: 5000
Time Periods: 67
Constantine’s Bible
David L. Dungan
Book ID: 67 Page: 45
Section: 2D1
For Irenaeus, the succession of bishops was the ultimate court of appeal: suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us such as what is the true doctrine or whether there were secret gospels, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question?
Quote ID: 1794
Time Periods: 2
Constantine’s Bible
David L. Dungan
Book ID: 67 Page: 47
Section: 2D1
The Catholic Church does not need to worry, Tertullian concludes, when the Marcionites or others accuse it of corrupt doctrine and corrupt sacraments. The Catholic Church can have complete confidence in these matters because of the consistency of its teaching across its multiple international apostolic successions in each of the great centers (Jerusalem, Alexandria, Ephesus, Rome) of the Christian faith.
Quote ID: 1795
Time Periods: 3
Constantine’s Bible
David L. Dungan
Book ID: 67 Page: 49
Section: 2D1
Bishop Hippolytus of Rome (active 210) was a disciple of Irenaeus and, like his master, also went to great lengths to combat what he considered to be false or aberrant systems of thought within the Christian movement. His Refutation of All Heresies also relied heavily on the argument from true succession.
Quote ID: 1796
Time Periods: 23
Constantine’s Bible
David L. Dungan
Book ID: 67 Page: 113
Section: 2D1
Eusebius makes this striking comment: To the Church of God Constantine paid particular personal attention. When some were at variance with each other in various places, like a universal bishop koinos episkopos appointed by God, he convoked councils of the ministers of God. Nor did he disdain to be present and attend during their proceedings, and he participated in the subjects reviewed, by arbitration promoting the peace of God among all.The striking expression “universal bishop” speaks volumes. It shows that Eusebius well knew how strange it was for the Roman emperor to be intruding himself so deeply into every aspect of the church’s life and doctrine. Eusebius seeks both to illustrate, and to justify this intrusion, by inventing a new office in the Catholic church: “universal bishop”.
Quote ID: 1800
Time Periods: 4
Councils: First Council of Nicaea (Online Source)
From Wikipedia
Book ID: 89 Page: 12
Section: 2D1
According to Protestant theologian Philip Schaff, “The Nicene fathers passed this canon not as introducing anything new, but merely as confirming an existing relation on the basis of church tradition; and that, with special reference to Alexandria, on account of the troubles existing there. Rome was named only for illustration; and Antioch and all the other eparchies or provinces were secured their admitted rights. The bishoprics of Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch were placed substantially on equal footing.”{76}
Quote ID: 2356
Time Periods: 4
Councils: Seven Ecumenical Councils, NPNF2 Vol. 14, The Seven Ecumenical Councils
Philip Schaff, Editor.
Book ID: 677 Page: 15
Section: 2D1
Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria has jurisdiction over them all, since a similar arrangement is the custom for the Bishop of Rome. Likewise let the churches in Antioch and the other provinces retain their privileges.PJ footnote reference: The Nicene Creed, Canon IV.
Quote ID: 9711
Time Periods: 45
Documents of the Christian Church
Edited by Henry Bettenson & Chris Maunder
Book ID: 74 Page: 281/282
Section: 2D1
III. THE TRIDENTINE PROFESSION OF FAITH, 1564From the Bull of Pius IV, Injunctum nobis, November 1564:
Mansi, xxxiii. 220 B ff. Denzinger, 994 ff.
. . . .
I recognize the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church as the mother and mistress of all churches;
Quote ID: 2073
Time Periods: 7
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 93
Section: 2D1
The importance of the Roman church rested in part upon its prestige as the church of the imperial capital and in part upon its association with Peter and Paul.
Quote ID: 5273
Time Periods: 24
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 93
Section: 2D1
2nd Century The idea that Peter was the first bishop of Rome was not current in this period. Yet the pre-eminence of the church there is evident from numerous incidents,.....
Quote ID: 5274
Time Periods: 2
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 135
Section: 2D1
By the end of the second century a primacy of honour but not of jurisdiction was being accorded to the bishops of Rome.
Quote ID: 5293
Time Periods: 2
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 136
Section: 2D1
It was Stephen who first used the Petrine text on behalf of the Roman pre-eminence. ‘He contends,’ reports Firmilian, ‘that he holds the succession from Peter, on whom the foundations of the Church were laid.’
Quote ID: 5294
Time Periods: 7
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 248
Section: 2D1,3A1
The Roman primacyThe disruption of the western empire which so affected the role of the diocesan bishop also influenced that of the bishop of Rome, for as organized government broke down the pope emerged as the one stable and dominant figure acknowledged by all. The eighty years from the Council of Constantinople to the death of Leo the Great witnessed the final stages of the growth of the Roman primacy.
Quote ID: 5355
Time Periods: 345
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 249
Section: 2D1
Boniface I (418-22): In his first letter Boniface declared that the Roman see is the see of Peter and that Peter lives on in his see. In his second he wrote of the Roman see that ‘this church, as it were, a head over the members; and if anyone is separate from it he is an alien to the Christian religion as having failed to remain in the body’.
Quote ID: 5356
Time Periods: 5
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 250
Section: 2D1
Leo the Great (440-61): He interpreted the Petrine text to mean that supreme authority was bestowed by Jesus upon Peter. Next he held Peter to have been the first bishop of Rome, and his authority to have been perpetuated in his successors. He further conceived of this authority as enhanced by a mystical presence of Peter in the Roman see. He therefore drew the consequences that the authority of all bishops, other than the pope, is derived not immediately from Christ but mediately through Peter and that it is limited to their own dioceses, whereas his was a plenitudo potestatis over the whole Church.
Quote ID: 5357
Time Periods: 5
Early Christianity - Origins and Evolution to AD 600
Ian Hazlett (Editor)
Book ID: 77 Page: 136/137
Section: 2D1
1 Clement, a letter to the Corinthian church written from Rome round about AD 96, endeavouring to sort out problems of leadership and authority in that turbulent church. Clement appears to act as secretary to the Roman Presbyters, but tradition soon suggested he was the third pope in a direct line from Peter.
Quote ID: 2123
Time Periods: 1
Ecclesiastical Authority And Spiritual Power
Hans von Campenhausen
Book ID: 79 Page: 69
Section: 2D1
The gift of the Spirit which is the basis of each ministry within the congregation cannot be ‘handed on’, but in every instance is directly bestowed by the Spirit himself.
Quote ID: 2153
Time Periods: 1234567
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Books, LCL 153: Eusebius I, Books 1-5
Eusebius
Book ID: 141 Page: 233
Section: 2C,2D1
Book III chapter XI. . . .were then still alive, and they all took counsel together as to whom they ought to adjudge worthy to succeed James, and all unanimously decided that Simeon the son of Clopas, whom the scripture of the Gospel also mentions, was worthy of the throne of the diocese there.
Quote ID: 3081
Time Periods: 12
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCL 265: Eusebius II, Books 6-10
J.E.L. Oulton
Book ID: 142 Page: 223/225
Section: 2D1
But as Paul refused on any account to give up possession of the church-building, the emperor Aurelian, on being petitioned, gave an extremely just decision regarding the matter, ordering the assignment of the building to those with whom the bishops of the doctrine{1} in Italy and Rome should communicate in writing. Thus, then, was the aforesaid man driven with the utmost indignity from the church by the ruler of the world. - FOUND John replaced and put in NPNF2 Vol. 1
Quote ID: 8770
Time Periods: 3
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 129
Section: 2D1
The tradition that Peter suffered martyrdom in Rome is as old and as universal as that in regard to Paul, but owing to a great amount of falsehood which became mixed with the original tradition by the end of the second century the whole has been rejected as untrue by some modern critics, who go so far as to deny that Peter was ever at Rome.
The tradition is, however, too strong to be set aside, and there is absolutely no trace of any conflicting tradition. We may therefore assume it as overwhelmingly probable that Peter was in Rome and suffered martyrdom there. His martyrdom is plainly referred to in John xxi. 10, though the place of it is not given. The first extra-biblical witness to it is Clement of Rome. He also leaves the place of the martyrdom unspecified, (Ad Cor. 5), but he evidently assumes the place as well known,
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, II.xxv.
Quote ID: 9525
Time Periods: 1
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 133
Section: 2D1
The actual order of the first three so-called bishops of Rome is a greatly disputed matter. The oldest tradition is that given by Irenaeus (Adv. Har. III. 3.3) and followed here by Eusebius, according to which the order was Linus, Anencletus, Clement. Hippolytus gives a different order, in which he is followed by many Fathers; and in addition to these two chief arrangements all possible combinations of the three names, and all sorts of theories to account for the difficulties and to reconcile the discrepancies in the earlier lists, have been proposed.
Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, III.iii.
Quote ID: 9526
Time Periods: 23
Eusebius, NPNF2 Vol. 1, Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine
Edited by Philip Schaff
Book ID: 668 Page: 223/225
Section: 2D1
“But as Paul refused to surrender the church-building, the Emperor Aurelian was petitioned; and he decided the matter most equitably, ordering the building to be given to those to whom the bishops of Italy and of the city of Rome should adjudge it. Thus was this man driven out of the church, with extreme disgrace, by the worldly power.”Pastor John’s footnote reference: Eusebius, Church History, VII.xxx.19.
Quote ID: 9530
Time Periods: 3
Fall of Rome: And The End of Civilization, The
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Book ID: 222 Page: 31
Section: 2D1
….Chronicles of 452….….’The Roman state has been reduced to a miserable condition by these troubles, since not one province exists without barbarian settlers; and throughout the world the unspeakable heresy of the Arians, that has become so embedded amongst the barbarian peoples, displaces the name of the Catholic church.’ {38}
Quote ID: 5481
Time Periods: 5
From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopy in the Early Church
Francis A. Sullivan, S.J.
Book ID: 91 Page: 223
Section: 2C,2D1
No doubt proving that bishops were the successors of the apostles by divine institution would be easier if the New Testament clearly stated that before they died the apostles had appointed a single bishop to lead each of the churches they had founded.….
Unfortunately, the documents available to us do not provide such help. They do indicate that in the course of the second century, in the churches of Corinth, Philippi and Rome, there was a transition from the leadership of a college of presbyters to the leadership of a single bishop, but they do not throw any light on how that transition took place. To that question one can only offer what seems the most probable answer.
Quote ID: 2368
Time Periods: 2
God’s Bestseller
Brian Moynahan
Book ID: 98 Page: 104/105
Section: 2D1
Tyndale wrote, as we have seen, of ‘the congregation’, rather than the Church, ‘which is the body of Christ’. The Greek word is a word of particular importance to the papacy. It appears only three times in the gospels, each time in Matthew. The only biblical justification for papal power over the Church lies in a claim made in a single verse in Matthew 16 and nowhere else. Popes claim to be the successors of St Peter. Tyndale translated Jesus in verse eighteen as saying: ‘And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter: and upon this rock I will build my congregation. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ To use ‘congregation’ in place of ‘Church’ was to strip the papacy of its claim to have inherited the leadership of the Church from St Peter.
Quote ID: 2513
Time Periods: 7
God’s Bestseller
Brian Moynahan
Book ID: 98 Page: 105
Section: 2D1
This was not hair-splitting. When King James’s divines came to the Authorised Version, they made two changes to Tyndale’s verse eighteen. One was to replace Tyndale’s ‘gates of hell’ with the weaker ‘gates of Hades’. The other was to substitute ‘church’ – ‘upon this rock I will build my church’ – for ‘congregation’, since the Protestant Church of England was itself now established, powerful and hierarchical enough to claim the same authority over its worshippers that Rome had enjoyed.
Quote ID: 2515
Time Periods: 7
History of Dogma
Adolph Harnack, translated by Neil Buchanan
Book ID: 432 Page: 127
Section: 2D1
(4) The Episcopal constitution of the Church, including the idea of succession….
Quote ID: 8742
Time Periods: 4
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World
Ed. G.W. Bowerrsock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar
Book ID: 126 Page: 88
Section: 2D1
Just as Acts is centered on the missionary work of the apostles, so Eusebius’sEcclesiastical History, the next most important account of the church’s early progress, is built around the the “apostolic succession” of bishops who led the major sees and, by fair means or foul, constantly consolidated and widened their territory.
Quote ID: 2880
Time Periods: 4
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 85
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.Now although the existence of such a general drift in contemporary organizations by no means proves that the Christian communities were borne along with it, still it establishes a basis of probability for the inference that communities which were so largely in harmony with those organizations in other respects, were in harmony with them also in this. The inference is strengthened by the fact that the localities in which there is the earliest contemporary evidence for the existence of a president, are also the localities in which the evidence for the existence of a president in other organizations is most complete. Both the one and the other are chiefly found in the great cities, and in the East even more than in the West.
Quote ID: 6407
Time Periods: 3
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 86/87
Section: 2D1,2C
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.I. In the first place, there were some cases in which an Apostle had been supreme during his lifetime, and in which the tradition of personal supremacy lingered after his death; there were others in which the oversight of a community had been specially entrusted by an Apostle to some one officer; there were others in which special powers or special merits gave to some one man a predominant influence. Rome, Antioch, Ephesus, are examples of such cases. It is, indeed, wholly uncertain how far they are typical; and there is a probability that, where such supremacy existed, it was personal rather than official, inasmuch as those who exercised it do not appear to have had as such any distinguishing appellation. In later times they were entitled ‘bishops:’ the Clementines speak of James, ‘the Lord’s brother, as ‘archbishop’ and ‘bishop of bishops{3}:’ the subscriptions of some versions and late MSS. of the Pastoral Epistles speak of Timothy and Titus as ‘bishops’ respectively of Ephesus and Crete{4}: but there is no early evidence of the use of these titles in this relation{5}: and on the other hand Irenaeus calls Polycarp indifferently ‘bishop’ and ‘presbyter{6}:’ and, what is even more significant in a formal letter to the head of the Roman Church, in which, from the circumstances of the case, he would be least likely to omit any form of either right or courtesy, he speaks of his predecessors by name as ‘presbyters{7}.’
[Footnote 3] Clementin. Recog. I. 73 ‘Jacobus archiepiscopus’ (so in later times, e.g. Conc. Ephes. c. 30 Greek needed here): Epist. Clem. ad Jacob. inscr. (Greek needed here).
[Footnote 4] The earliest MS. which does so is probably the Codex Coislensis of the sixth century: the version which does so is the Peschito: the statement which contains the word is omitted in the greater MSS. and in the early Latin versions.
[Footnote 5] The earliest use of the word with a definite reference to an individual is the inscription of the letter of Ignatius to Polycarp: (Greek needed here): but the absence of the definite article, and the inscription of Polycarp’s own letter, (Greek needed here), are inconsistent with the hypothesis that the word was already specially appropriated to the head of the community. The next earliest use of the word is probably in reference to Polycarp in the letter of Polycrates to Victor, ap. Euseb. H. E. 5.24. It is worthy of note, i. that these earliest uses are in reference to officers of the Asiatic Churches, i.e. in the neighborhood of communities in which (Greek needed here) was already a title of certain secular offices (see Lecture II, notes 26, 28): ii. that Hegesippus does not give any title to the heads of the Roman Church.
[Footnote 6] S. Iren. Epist. ad Florin. ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. 20. 7, (Greek needed here): adv. Haeres. 3. 3. 4 (Greek needed here).
[Footnote 7] S. Iren. Epist. ad Victor. ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. 24. 14 (Greek needed here). So late as the third century, the extant epitaphs of Roman bishops do not give the title episcopus : De Rossi, Bulletino di Archeologia Christ. ann. ii. 1864, p. 50.
Quote ID: 6408
Time Periods: 3
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 88
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.It is a pure theocracy. In our Lord’s own lifetime He Himself had been the visible head of that Kingdom of Heaven which He preached : His Apostles had stood round Him as His ministers - the twelve heads and patriarchs of the tribes of the new Israel : the rest of the disciples - the new people of God - had listened and obeyed. So it was still : the bishop sat in the Lord’s place : the presbyters were what the Apostles had been : it was for the rest of the community to listen and to obey {8}. Upon this theory of ecclesiastical organization the existence of a president was a necessity : and the theory seems to go back to the very beginnings of the Christian societies.
[Footnote 8] S. Ignat. ad Magn. 6. I.
Quote ID: 6409
Time Periods: 3
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 89
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.... the long-delayed Parousia seemed almost to vanish in the far horizon of the unrealized future, and the desolation of the royal city began to turn men’s thoughts from Jerusalem to Rome {12}.
[Footnote 12] The importance to the Christian Church of the fall of Jerusalem (for the completeness of which see especially Aristo ap. Euseb. H. E. 4. 6. 3, S. Hieron. Comm. in Sophon. c. I. 15, vol. vi. p. 692, ed. Vall., S. Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 6, c. 18, vol. i. p. 191, ed. Ben.) was to some extent recognized by Jerome (Epist. I 20 ad Hedib. c. 8, vol. I. p. 27), and has frequently been pointed out by modern writers, e.g. Gfrorer, Allgemeine Kirchengeschichte, Bd. I. p. 253, Rothe, Vorlesungen uber Kirchengeschichte, ed. Weingarten, Bd. I. pp. 75 sqq.
Quote ID: 6410
Time Periods: 35
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 90
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.... the bishops of the third and subsequent centuries claimed for themselves exceptional powers, and that the relation of primacy ultimately changed into a relation of supremacy.
Quote ID: 6411
Time Periods: 3
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 90/92
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.... the works of Philo. To that school all facts past and present were an allegory. Nothing was what it seemed to be, but was the symbol of the unapparent. The history of the Old Testament was sublimated into a history of the emancipation of reason from passion. If Able was described as a keeper of sheep, the meaning was that moral wisdom keeps the irrational impulses under control {14}. If Israel was described as warring against Amalek, the meaning was that when reason lifts itself up away from earth, as Moses lifted up his hands, it is strengthened by the vision of God {15}. If Abraham was described as migrating from Chaldaea to Canaan, the meaning was that wisdom leaves the prejudices and crude ideas of its original state, and seeks a new home among the realities of abstract thought{16}. To those who thought thus, the records of the Gospels were so much new matter for allegorical interpretation. To the lower intelligence, to the eye of sense, Christ was a person who had lived and died and ascended : and the Christian communities were the visible assemblies of His followers : and the Christian virtues were certain habits of minds which showed themselves in deeds. But to the spiritual mind, to the eye of reason, all these things were like the phantasmagoria of the mysteries. The recorded deeds of Christ were the clash and play of mighty spiritual forces : the Christian Church was an emanation from God : the Christian virtues were phases of intellectual enlightenment which had but slender, if any, links with the deeds done in the flesh. Before long the circle widened in which Christian ideas were rationalized. Christianity found itself in contact not merely with mysteries but with metaphysics. But they were the metaphysics of ‘wonderland.’ Abstract conceptions seemed to take bodily shape, and to form strange marriages, and to pass in and out of one another like the dissolving scenery of a dream. ***There grew up a new mythology, in which Zeus and Aphrodite, Isis and Osiris, were replaced by Depth and Silence, Wisdom and Power. Christianity ceased to be a religion and became a theosophy.*** It ceased to be a doctrine and became a Platonic poem. It ceased to be a rule of life and became a system of the universe. It was transferred from the world of human actions in which it had seemed to have its birth into a supersensuous world of unimaginable vastness, and its truths were no longer fixed facts of faith and life, but the gorgeous, and shifting, and unsubstantial pageantry of the clouds of an autumn sky{17}.
[Footnote 14] Philo, I. p. 170, ed. Mang.
[Footnote 15] ibid. p. 124.
[Footnote 16] Philo, i. pp. 436, 437, ed. Mang.
[Footnote 17] The evidence for the opinions of the various schools of Gnostics has mostly to be gathered from the quotations of their writings by their opponents, especially Irenaeus and Hippolytus : the only complete Gnostic treatise which has come down to modern times is a late Valentinian work entitled (Greek needed here), of which the Coptic text, with a Latin translation, was published by Schwartz and Petermann in 1851. The modern literature of the subject is extensive : the first clear view was given by Baur, Die christliche Gnosis, and Geschichte der christlichen Kirche, Bd. i. (Eng. Trans. published in the Theological Translation Fund Library, 1878 pp. 184 sqq.) : the best general view is that of Lipsius in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgem. Encyclopadie, s. v. Gnosticismus, vol. lxxi. pp. 230 sqq. (since printed separately), and the most accurate of shorter summaries, with valuable bibliographical references, that of Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Eng. Trans. in the Theological and Philosophical Library, vol. i. pp. 280-290). English readers will also find some valuable information in Dean Mansel’s posthumous work, The Gnostic heresies of the first and second centuries, London, 1875, and in Dr. Salmon’s articles in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, especially s. v. Gnosticism : Mr. King’s The Gnostics and their remains, London, 1864, is useful for the information which it collects as to the Eastern affinities, and possible sources, of Gnosticism.
Quote ID: 6412
Time Periods: 23
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 93
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.The problem arose and pressed for an answer - What should be the basis of Christian union? But the problem was for a time insoluble. For there was no standard and no court of appeal. It was useless to argue from the Scriptures that this or that system of philosophy was inconsistent with them, because one of the chief questions to be determined was whether the Scriptures did or did not admit of allegorical or philosophical interpretation.
Quote ID: 6413
Time Periods: 23
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 94/96
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.The crisis was one the gravity of which it would be difficult to overestimate. There have been crises since in the history Christianity, but there is none which equals in importance this, upon the issue of which it depended, for all time to come, whether Christianity should be regarded as a body of revealed doctrine, or the caput mortuum of a hundred philosophies - whether the basis of Christian organization should be a definite and definitely interpreted creed, or a chaos of speculations....
Pastor John’s notes: The hope was in humans?!
Quote ID: 6414
Time Periods: 23
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 95
Section: 2D1
Lecture IVThe form which the ‘common sense,’ so to speak, of Christendom took upon this great question is one which is so familiar to us that we find it difficult to go back to a time when it was not yet in being. Its first elaboration and setting forth was due to one man’s genius. With great rhetorical force and dialectical subtlety, Irenaeus, the bishop of the chief Christian Church in Gaul, maintained that the standard of Christian teaching was the teaching of the Churches which the Apostles had founded, - which teaching he held to be on all essential points the same{21}.
Pastor John’s notes: That nut was our hero?!
He maintained the existence, and he asserted the authority, of a fides catholica - the general belief of the Christian Churches - which was also the fides apostolica - the belief which the Apostles had taught{22}. To that fides catholica et apostolica all individual opinions and interpretations were to be referred : such as were in conformity with it were to be received as Christian, such as differed from it were (Greek word needed here) - not the general or traditional belief of the Christian Churches, but the belief of only a sect or party. In this view, which was already in the air, the Christian world gradually acquiesced : henceforth there was a standard of appeal : henceforth there was a definite basis of union.
Thus were the Christian communities saved from disintegration. Upon the basis of a Catholic and Apostolic faith was built the sublime superstructure of a Catholic and Apostolic Church{23}.
Quote ID: 6415
Time Periods: 23
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 96
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.It might reasonably be supposed that in the Christian Churches there had been a similar tradition from one generation of officers to another : that, in other words, the Apostles had definitely taught those whom they had appointed, or recognized, as officers, and what had been so taught had been preserved by those who had succeeded those officers.
Pastor John’s notes: Not true
Quote ID: 6416
Time Periods: 23
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 97
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.The necessity for unity was supreme : and the unity in each community must be absolute. But such an absolute unity could only be secured when the teacher was a single person.
Pastor John’s notes: Jesus!
Quote ID: 6417
Time Periods: 23
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 97
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop....but in the course of the third century it seems to have won its way to general recognition. The supremacy of the bishop and unity of doctrine were conceived as going hand in hand : the bishop was conceived as having what Irenaeus calls the ‘charisma veritatis{26};’ the bishop’s seat was conceived as being, what St. Augustine calls it, the ‘cathedra unitatis{27};’
Quote ID: 6418
Time Periods: 34
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 98
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.St. Jerome, arguing against the growing tendency to exalt the diaconate at the expense of the presbyterate, maintains that the Churches were originally governed by a plurality of presbyters, but that in course of time one was elected to preside over the rest as a remedy against division,
Quote ID: 6419
Time Periods: 35
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 102
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop....but it ultimately became so general that the bishops came to claim the right of readmitting penitents, not in their capacity as presidents of the community, but as an inherent function of the episcopate.
In this way it was that the supremacy of the bishops, which had been founded on the necessity for unity of doctrine, was consolidated by the necessity for unity of discipline.
Quote ID: 6421
Time Periods: 34
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 102
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop....rule should grow up that there should be only one bishop in a community. The rule was not firmly established until the third century. Its general recognition was the outcome of the dispute between Cyprian and Novatian .
Quote ID: 6422
Time Periods: 3
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 103/104
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop....there must be a mingling of good and bad, the puritan party resolved to have a bishop of their own, an elected Novatian. All the elements of a valid election were present. Under ordinary circumstances, or in a newly organized community, the election would have been unchallenged. There was only one point in which it was exceptional. That exceptional point was that Rome already possessed a complete organization. The question arose whether it was competent, under any circumstances, for a new organization to be established side by side with an existing organization in the same city. The question does not seem to have been raised before: and in Asia Minor, in Syria , and in Africa Novatian’s election was for a time held to be valid{41}. But, with the far-sightedness of a great politician, Cyprian saw the bearings of the question on Christian organization. He used the whole weight of his influence, and the whole force of his vehement rhetoric, to maintain that, the election of Cornelius having been valid, the election of Novatian was null. The controversy was keen, but in the end Cyprian prevailed. The necessity for unity outweighed all other considerations. Henceforth, whoever in any city claimed to be a member of the Christian Church must belong to the established organization of that city. The seamless coat of Christ must not be rent. As there was one God, and one Christ, and one Holy Spirit, so there could be but one bishop{42}.
Quote ID: 6423
Time Periods: 3
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 105
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop.[Footnote 47] The view that bishops, and not presbyters, are the successors of the Apostles, appears first by implication in the claim of Zephyrinus and Callistus, during the Montanist controversy, to have the power of absolving penitents from sin (Tertull. De Pudic. I : S. Hippol. IIaeres. 9. 12. p. 458), which appears to have been based on the assumption of their succession to S. Peter (Tertull. De Pudic. 21, where...
Quote ID: 6424
Time Periods: 23
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 106
Section: 2D1
Lecture IV: The Supremacy of the Bishop....the power of ‘binding and loosing,’ which our Lord had conferred on the Apostles, were given to them not personally or as constituting the Church of the time, but in a representative capacity as the first members of a long line of Church officers{48}. Against an early assertion of this view Tertullian raised a vigorous protest: not did the view win its way to general acceptance until the time of the great Latin theologians of the fifth century.
[Footnote 48] The contention of Tertullian (as a Montanist) was that the ‘power of the keys’ was personal to S. Peter (De Pudic. 21, quoted in preceding note).
Quote ID: 6425
Time Periods: 3
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 153
Section: 2E2,2D1
Lecture VI: The Clergy as a Separate Class.2. Side by side with it, but for the first three centuries confined to a still smaller number of persons{37}, was the tendency to live in partial or total isolation from society.
This, like the ascetic tendency, was not confined to Christianity. It had already taken an important place in the religions of both Egypt and the East.
In Egypt there had been for several centuries a great monastery of those who were devoted to the worship of the deity whom the Greeks called Serapis. The monks, like Christian monks, lived in a vast common building, which they never left:
Quote ID: 6432
Time Periods: 23
Organization of the Early Christian Churches, The
Edwin Hatch, M. A.
Book ID: 255 Page: 161/162
Section: 2D1
Lecture VI: The Clergy as a Separate Class.The first book of the Apostolical Constitutions exhorts all Christians to trim their hair becomingly{54}:
. . . .
But, as in other cases, that which had been a primitive rule for all Christians became in time a special rule for the clergy. They must not either shave their heads like the priests of Isis{57}, nor let their hair grow long like heathen philosophers. Then came a more exact and stringent rule : they must not only trim their hair, but trim it in a particular way. The trimming of the hair in this particular way became one of the ceremonies of admission to ecclesiastical office : and, throughout both East and West, clerks became differentiated from laymen by the ‘tonsure{58}.’
Quote ID: 6438
Time Periods: 247
Origins of Modern Europe, The
R. Allen Brown
Book ID: 256 Page: 62
Section: 2D1
. . .‘For the solidity of that faith which was praised in the chief of the Apostles is perpetual: and as that remains which Peter believed in Christ, so that remains which Christ instituted in Peter . . .’ Spoken by Pope Leo I (440-61AD)
Quote ID: 6488
Time Periods: 3
Origins of Modern Europe, The
R. Allen Brown
Book ID: 256 Page: 70
Section: 2D1
The fact, as all believed, that St. Peter was physically present in his tomb at Rome, still speaking and still working through his Vicar, the Pope, was an aspect of the doctrine of Petrine authority that all could grasp and was not the least of the factors which drew men to Rome.{2}
Quote ID: 6494
Time Periods: 34
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 151
Section: 2D1
In his attempts to strengthen the bishop’s office, Cyprian argued for an unbroken succession of bishops that traced back to Peter. {59}
Quote ID: 3585
Time Periods: 3
Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire
Walter Woodburn Hyde
Book ID: 172 Page: 268
Section: 2D1
The silence of various writers and especially of those of the earlier period speaks against the tradition just outlined. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans composed ca. 59 says nothing of Peter in Rome nor of his supervision of the church there but speaks of the faith of the Roman church (1:8) as already “proclaimed throughout the whole world.” None of the later letters which he is supposed to have written during his Roman imprisonment 61-63 mentions Peter, neither Philippians, probably written there (1:13 and 4:22), Philemon, nor II Timothy, the latter expressly dated at Rome (1:8, 16 f. and 2:9).
Quote ID: 3817
Time Periods: 3
Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire
Walter Woodburn Hyde
Book ID: 172 Page: 270
Section: 2D1
Moreover, as Bishop Lightfoot long ago remarked: {26} “If there was any primacy at the time it was the primacy not of Peter but of Paul, for Paul was the foremost figure of the Apostolic Age.” Peter is first definitely named as first Roman bishop, in letters of St. Cyprian {27} who was beheaded in Carthage in 258, and officially in Liberius’ catalogue of 353-354.
Quote ID: 3818
Time Periods: 34
Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire
Walter Woodburn Hyde
Book ID: 172 Page: 271
Section: 2D1
Thus the claim of the Roman Church to universal authority based on the fulfillment of the words of Jesus to Peter (Matt. 16:18-19; cf. John 21:15-17) has little historical basis.
Quote ID: 3819
Time Periods: 37
Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire
Walter Woodburn Hyde
Book ID: 172 Page: 271
Section: 2D1
If all this be idle tradition, it is tradition too solidified in the Catholic heart ever to be destroyed. For nowhere has the spirit of the Greek proverb “Opinions are stronger than the works of the hands” been more potent than in Rome.
Quote ID: 3820
Time Periods: 37
Painting the Word
John Drury
Book ID: 174 Page: 62
Section: 2D1
The striking thing is that Poussin sets the Nativity in his own Rome with its battered and venerable ruins. He had the historical curiosity and awareness to avoid such anachronism. He had already taken pains to set ancient events, such as the death of Germanicus, in the pristine ancient settings which they would really have had. And when, ten years on, he painted a series on the sacraments, Roman ecclesiastical primacy suggested making the background to Ordination - Christ giving authority to Peter, the first Pope - a careful reconstruction of first-century Rome.
Quote ID: 3882
Time Periods: 37
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 19
Section: 2D1
Irenӕus appeals to “the greatest, oldest, and universally known Church, founded and established by the most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul at Rome.” And he says that they “delivered the office of the Episcopate to Linus.” The order, now recognised by experts, is therefore Linus, Anencletus, Clement, Euarestus, Alexander, Xystus, and so forth.
Quote ID: 7918
Time Periods: 3
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 20
Section: 2D1
It is indisputable, to say the least, that before the year 200, the Bishop of Rome was recognised everywhere as the successor of St. Peter, and not only as head of the local Church, but in some degree—to speak with the Clementine Romance—as presiding over Christendom.
Quote ID: 7919
Time Periods: 3
Priest and Bishop (Biblical Reflections)
Raymond E. Brown, S.S.
Book ID: 184 Page: 53/54
Section: 2D1
The latest detailed work on the subject 35 maintains: That Peter founded the Church at Rome is extremely doubtful and that he served as its first bishop (as we understand the term today) for even one year, much less the twenty-five-year period that is claimed for him, is an unfounded tradition that can be traced back to a point no earlier than the third century. The liturgical celebrations which relate to the ascent of Peter to the Roman episcopacy do not begin to make their appearance until the fourth century at the earliest. Furthermore, there is no mention of the Roman episcopacy of Peter in the New Testament, I Clement, or the epistles of Ignatius. The tradition is only dimly discerned in Hegesippus and may be implied in the suspect letter of Dionysius of Corinth to the Romans ca. 170. By the third century, however, the early assumptions based upon invention or vague, unfounded tradition have been transformed into “facts” of history.
Quote ID: 4095
Time Periods: 3
Rome in the Dark Ages
Peter Llewellyn
Book ID: 191 Page: 43
Section: 2D1
Pope Gelasius: (c. 495). . . “God no doubt consented to the affairs of men being settled by men; He reserves for Himself the passing of judgment upon the pontiff of the supreme see.”
Quote ID: 4248
Time Periods: 35
Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, The
R.P.C. Hanson
Book ID: 268 Page: 757
Section: 2D1
The letter is addressed, not as Theodoret and Sozomenus say, to the Illyrian bishops but to the bishops of the Eastern Church generally. The Decree is full of laudatory references to the authority of the bishops of Rome, which could not have been to the liking of many Eastern bishops, but it defines the correct doctrine as ‘the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit of one Godhead, of one power, and of one manner of existence, of one substance.’ {101}
Quote ID: 6787
Time Periods: 345
Secret Archives of the Vatican, The
Maria Luisa Ambrosini & With Mary Willis
Book ID: 269 Page: 29
Section: 2D1
Even before the year 100 Clement had asserted the Roman Church’s claim to the leadership of the Christian world, in a very long letter remarkable for its literary quality.
Quote ID: 6791
Time Periods: 13
Secret Archives of the Vatican, The
Maria Luisa Ambrosini & With Mary Willis
Book ID: 269 Page: 79
Section: 2D1,3A4C
The same day the Pope sent a second letter to Pepin, to the princes Charles and Carloman, and to the Frankish people, written as if by Saint Peter himself: “I, Peter, Apostle of God, that consider you as adopted sons for the defense of Rome and the people entrusted to me by God, implore you for help."Pastor John notes: What!?
. . . .
When Charles had come to Rome the Pope had gone thirty miles to meet him at the gray lake of Bracciano. The papal procession, singing psalms and praises of the king, had included not only children bearing palms and olive branches, but the Roman army. The papacy had sought and accepted the dangerous gift of temporal power.
Pastor John notes: !!!!!!
Quote ID: 6803
Time Periods: 37
Theodosius: The Empire at Bay
Stephen Williams, Gerard Friell
Book ID: 282 Page: 55
Section: 2D1
This attitude was confirmed the following year AD 382 at a council in Rome under bishop Damasus, but it continued to condemn the ruling which ranked the see of Constantinople second to Rome, since this was based purely on the historic and political status of the two capitals. In response to this, Damasus promulgated for the first time a very different argument. The ecclesiastical primacy of the bishop of Rome, he declared, rested not on the City’s standing, nor the decisions of any synods or councils, but on the Roman martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, and the text of Matthew 16:18: ’Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church...’. Thus began a theory of Roman papacy, potent with future consequences.{29}
Quote ID: 7108
Time Periods: 34
Victory Of The Cross, The
Desmond O’Grady
Book ID: 278 Page: 146
Section: 2D1
Stephen denounced Cyprian as Antichrist and then used his Big Bertha: the dissidents had better believe him, he was Peter, holder of the keys of the kingdom. It was the first time a bishop of Rome had invoked “Thou are Peter” to affirm his pre-eminence. Stephen never forgot it, and Cyprian never remembered it. It must have hit him like a thunderbolt from Jupiter, for he considered all bishops equal. The conflict was never resolved, for both bishops died soon afterwards. (Stephen died a natural death in 257, while Cyprian was martyred the following year.
Quote ID: 6990
Time Periods: 3
End of quotes