"This Bridge Should Be Illuminated"

Here's what Vatican I infallibly pronounced about the papacy:

On the permanence of the primacy of blessed Peter in the Roman pontiffs

1. That which our lord Jesus Christ, the prince of shepherds and great shepherd of the sheep, established in the blessed apostle Peter, for the continual salvation and permanent benefit of the Church, must of necessity remain for ever, by Christ's authority, in the Church which, founded as it is upon a rock, will stand firm until the end of time.

2. For no one can be in doubt, indeed it was known in every age that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, the pillar of faith and the foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our lord Jesus Christ, the savior and redeemer of the human race, and that to this day and for ever he lives and presides and exercises judgment in his successors the bishops of the Holy Roman See, which he founded and consecrated with his blood.

3. Therefore whoever succeeds to the chair of Peter obtains by the institution of Christ himself, the primacy of Peter over the whole Church. So what the truth has ordained stands firm, and blessed Peter perseveres in the rock-like strength he was granted, and does not abandon that guidance of the Church which he once received.

4. For this reason it has always been necessary for every Church--that is to say the faithful throughout the world--to be in agreement with the Roman Church because of its more effective leadership. In consequence of being joined, as members to head, with that see, from which the rights of sacred communion flow to all, they will grow together into the structure of a single body.

5. Therefore, if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the lord himself (that is to say, by divine law) that blessed Peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole Church; or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy: let him be anathema.

Note that there is not any sense of doubt in the language used here. This is the reason for Fortescue's sense of assurance. Christ himself instituted this office, and it was, in every age, clearly evident, that there was a primacy over the whole church.

It will be no wonder, then, to see the screechiness with which our partisan Roman Catholic friends will respond.

What follows is the conclusion of Peter Lampe's extensive work, "From Paul to Valentinus," chapter 41, pages 397 ff:

Thesis: The fractionation in Rome favored a collegial presbyterial system of governance and prevented for a long time, until the second half of the second century, the development of a monarchical episcopacy in the city. Victor (c. 189-99) was the first who, after faint-hearted attempts by Eleutherus (c. 175-89), Soter (c. 166-75), and Anicetus (c. 155-66), energetically stepped forward as monarchical bishop and (at times, only because he was incited from the outside) attempted to place the different groups in the city under his supervision or, where that was not possible, to draw a line by means of excommunication. Before the second half of the second century there was in Rome no monarchical episcopacy for the circles mutually bound in fellowship.

It would be presumptuous here to wish to write again a history of the ecclesiastical offices that are mentioned especially in 1 Clement and Hermas. My concern is to describe the correlation between fractionation and one factor of ecclesiastical order, the monarchical episcopate. This bridge should be illuminated. What happens across the bridge in the field of history of ecclesiastical offices can only be here briefly sketched – and perhaps motivate one to further investigation.

1. Fractionation into house congregations does not exclude that the Christian islands scattered around the capital city were aware of being in spiritual fellowship with each other, of perceiving themselves as cells of one church, and of being united by common bonds.

Paul writes to several house communities in Rome (Rom 16; see above, chap. 36) and presupposes that these send his letter, with the greetings, from one to another (cf. similarly Col 4:16). The continually repeated (Greek: aspasasthe “greetings”) receives meaning if there were messengers between the various, topgraphically separate groups. In other words, not only were Eucharistic gifts sent to and fro (see above, chap 40), but also letters and greetings from outside the city were exchanged.

That means that people writing from outside of Rome could address the Roman Christians as a unity. Not only Paul but also Ignatius and Dionysius of Corinth did this. Conversely, the Roman Christians as an entirety could send letters to those outside: 1 Clement and a further letter to Corinth around 170 C.E. (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. 4.3.11). The totality of Roman Christianity undertook shipments of aid to those outside (see above on Dionysius, in Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. 4.23.10). People from the outside consequently spoke of the Roman church (e.g., Ignatius, Rom. Praescr.).

It was useful to assign to someone in Rome the work connected with external communication. Hermas knows such a person by the name of Clement. In Vis. 2.4.3, Hermas prepares two copies of his small book and sends (pempo, “send, dispatch” within the city) one of them to Clement, who forwards it “to the cities outside, for he is entrusted with that task”.

It is important to note that Hermas’s “minister of external affairs” is not a monarchical bishop. In the next sentence, Hermas describes how he circulates his little book within the city. He makes it known “to this city together with the presbyters who preside over the church” (emphasis added). A plurality of presbyters leads Roman Christianity. This Christianity, conscious of a spiritual fellowship within the city, is summed up under the concept of “ecclesia,” but that changes nothing in regard to the plurality of those presiding over it. In Vis. 3. 9.7, Hermas also calls them (Greek proegoumenoi or protokathedipitai – leaders or chief seats).

Hermas knows to report the human side of the presiders: they quarrel about status and honor (Vis. 3.9.7-10; Sim. 8.7.4-6). What are proteia? Are the presbyters wrangling” for first place within their own ranks, for the place of primus inter pares? Whatever the answer may be, Hermas – in the first half of the second century – never mentions the success of such efforts, the actual existence of a single leader. Instead he speaks of (Greek, leaders or chiefs), all in the plural (Vis. 2.4.2f.; 2.2.6; 3.1.8).

Correspondingly, we find in Paul’s and Ignatius’s letters to the Romans nothing of a Roman monarchical leader, even though Ignatius knew of a monarchical bishop’s office from his experience in the east. (Note: whether the monarchical episcopacy was established everywhere in the east is, however, questionable. Ignatius, Phil. 7- (cf. Magn. 6-8) presupposes Christians who do not wish to be under a bishop. In Ancyra around 190 C.E. there was still no bishop presiding but only a group of presbyters; anonymous, in Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. 5.16.5). In the year 144 Marcion, at the Roman synod meeting that he initiated (see above, chap. 40), also saw himself facing “presbyters and teachers” and not a monarchical bishop.

First Clement presupposes the same presbyterial governance: hagoumenoi (1:3), proeoumenoi (21.6) presbuteroi (44.5, 47.6, 54.2, 57.1) episkopoi, (42:4f=Isa 60:17; LXX). As in Hermas (Vis. 3.5.1; Sim. 9.27.1; cf. 9.31.5f.), the word “bishop” is in the plural. And First Clement 44:5 clarifies who exercises episkope: the presbuteroi! A number of them, who simultaneously had episkope in Corinth, were dismissed by the Corinthians. In 47:6, 57:1 the dismissed men are called presbuteroi. In short, by presbuteroi and episkopoi 1 Clem designates the same persons. The two terms are interchangeable, as in Hermas (Vis. 3.5.1).

“Bishops” are presbyters with a special function. With what function are they entrusted? Hermas in Mand. 8.20., Vis. 3.9.2, Sim. 1.8 uses the verb episkeptesthai not in relation to an office but referring to all Christians in the sense of “to care for the needy, to visit them. (Hermas) Sim.9.27.2.f. portrays the official “bishops” correspondingly as those who care for (diakonia) the needy and the widows. In this work they are supported by the deacons (Sim. 9.26.2). Our comparison of episkeptesthai and episkopoi shows that Hermas with the functional term “episkopos” still clearly associates episkeptesthai and its social-diaconal content. The wordkplay episkopoi--eskepasan in Sim.9.27.2 demonstrates the same.

This type of analysis goes on for a number of pages, and if there are questions, then I can provide that analysis on particular points.

To the scoffers, keep in mind that this is a 500 page book, and the analysis provided here has much, much foundational work (literary and archaeological and more) supporting it. It is no wonder that Eamon Duffy says that any future work that deals with this period must begin with this work.

I've published selections such as this one in various places, and I've had some Catholics tell me that this is an obscure work, that it will soon be forgotten. But this body of factual information isn't going anywhere.

Rome has re-calibrated its discussion of the papacy since the heady days of Vatican I and Adrian Fortescue, to lead off with the fact that they are aware of "development." It is clear from the language of Vatican I that they had no concept of development in mind. It is clear from Fortescue, some 50 years after Vatican I, that "Clement commanded" with the assurance of any modern pope. But the situation was far, far more questionable than that. Roman boastfulness has been caught in a snare, and it is evident that it does not know how to squirm out of this.

Ignatius severely contradicts current Roman Catholic teachings

For the next few posts, I'd like to work through Adrian Fortescue's small book, The Early Papacy (to the Synod of Chalcedon in 451). In a previous post, I listed the four "theses to be proved," -- beliefs which the early church held, "as part of her faith," which are essentially supposed to be the same four things that Rome believes about the papacy today.

To do this, he provided a series of "proof texts," texts from early writers suggest that "the plain meaning seems to be that their writer believed what we believe [about the papacy] at some point" (53).

He goes on formally to discuss the methodology, or how these discussions typically have played out over history:

We quote words of which the plain meaning seems to be that their writer believed what we believe, in some point. The opponent then tries to strip his words of this meaning; Catholic writers then have to refute his attempt. (53-54).

Catholics, especially, should have some qualms about what the "plain meaning" of a text is. The Bible can't have "plain meaning"; that would be the Protestant doctrine of perspicuity. We need an "infallible magisterium" to provide the "proper" interpretation." But the church fathers, they can write perspicuously. In Catholic-speak, whenever Rome is mentioned by a church father, that can only be a full proof of a full-fledged papacy.

We won't point out that double standard here; it's been discussed many times.

* * *

Here's the first of Fortescue's four "theses to be proved": The Pope is the chief bishop, primate, and leader of the whole Church of Christ on earth.

From Fortescue's perspective, all of the quotes that he gives to support this thesis "can be understood naturally, supposing that their writers believed in the primacy of the Pope. If you do not admit that, you have to find a different, often a most tortuous, interpretation for each." Invoking a rule of logic, he says that "The rule of good reasoning is that one simple cause that accounts equally for all the phenomena is supposed to be the real one, unless proved false. Now, there is nothing that can be even reasonably suggested to show that the early Fathers did not believe in the [papal] primacy."

He's hedging again. If this is a "thesis to be proved," then beginning with the assumption that what he needs to prove really is just "a vicious circularity." And it's typical of "The Catholic Hermeneutic" that we've written about in the past.

One more qualifier. He says: "There is another general issue here. These early Fathers are witnesses of the belief of their time. Now, the value of evidence increases as it is multiplied. We must take the value, not of one text, but of all put together. Here we have a great number of texts that all make the same point. The fact that all do make for the same point suggests the reasonable interpretation of each. All can be understood naturally, supposing that their writers believed in the primacy of the Pope."

So the value of all these texts together -- whether they are related or not -- increases as more and more of them (supposedly) say the same thing.

At any rate, here is his first proof text for an early papacy:

We have in the first century two expressions of St. Ignatius, the Martyr-bishop of Antioch (d.c. 107). He speaks of "the presiding Church in the place of the land of the Romans," and he calls this Church "the President of the bond of love", meaning the whole body of Christians, if we accept Funk and Harnack's translation. (Fortescue 55).

Keep in mind that Fortescue suggests that "the plain meaning" of these really bare-bones texts that he provides is that "the Pope is the chief bishop, primate, and leader of the whole Church of Christ on earth." Or at least, in the backward Catholic way of reasoning, this statement doesn't explicitly contradict that Ignatius believed in an early papal primacy, so it must not only be true, but it is a firm conviction in support of the papacy.

But that really is beside the point. It is possible to learn a great deal about what Ignatius believed from his letters.

Here is the translation given by Michael W. Holmes, "The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and Translations, Third Edition" Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, © 2007, pg 225, of that same prooftext that Fortescue provided:

Ignatius the Image-bearer to the church that has found mercy in the majesty of the Father Most High and Jesus Christ his only son, the church beloved and enlightened through the will of the one who willed all things that exist, in accordance with faith in and love for Jesus Christ our God, which also presides in the place of the district of Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and presiding over love, observing the law of Christ, bearing the name of the Father, which I also greet in the name of Jesus Christ, son of the Father; to those who are united in flesh and spirit to every commandment of his, who have been filled with the grace of God without wavering and filtered clear of every alien color: heartiest greetings blamelessly in Jesus Christ our God.

It's clear that Ignatius thinks highly of the church that "presides in the place of the district of the Romans." But why? Is it to be assumed (or can it be inferred from the text) that "The Pope is the chief bishop, primate, and leader of the whole Church of Christ on earth"? Or are there other reasons why he may be speaking highly of Rome? I will suggest the latter -- and none of these is "tortuous," and none of these also has anything to do with "papal primacy." These are just good, natural "interpretations" for what these various authors say, that will have nothing to do with "papal primacy."

I should add, this letter was one of seven letters written while Ignatius was under arrest, and being transported by 10 Roman soldiers, for the purpose of standing trial. It was his over-riding goal at this time to become a martyr. And his great fear was, with respect to the church at Rome, that they would somehow exercise their political connections and prevent his martyrdom.

The fact is, for the remainder of this letter of Ignatius to the Romans, for all of the advise that Ignatius is willing to give to other churches about the office of "Bishop," a "bishop" of Rome is not mentioned. But it is possible for a church to be without a bishop: "Remember in your prayers the church in Syria [Ignatius's home church], which has God for its shepherd in my place. Jesus Christ alone will be its bishop--as will your love." (9.1)

But while Rome's "bishop" is not in view at all, the political connections of the church at Rome are repeatedly in view.

1.1 For I am afraid of your love, in that it may do me wrong; for it is easy for you to do what you want, but it is difficult for me to reach God, unless you spare me. [There's that "love" that is, through its political connections, going to either save his life, or, if it holds its tongue, and fails to pull its political strings, along with Christ, going to be "bishop" of Antioch in his absence. So the place of love," which Fortescue considers to be "the whole body of Christians," really has a reference to Rome's political connections.]

2.1 For I will never again have an opportunity such as this to reach God, nor can you, if you remain silent, be credited with a greater accomplishment. For if you remain silent and leave me alone, I will be a word of God, but if you love my flesh [and spare my life], then I will again be a mere voice. [There's that "love" again.]

2.2 Grant me nothing more than to be poured out as an offering to God while there is still an altar ready, so that in love you may form a chorus and sing to the Father in Jesus Christ, because God has judged the bishop from Syria worthy to be found in the west, having summoned from the east.

3.1-2 You have never envied anyone; you taught others. [Many believe this is a reference to 1 Clement.] And my wish is that those instructions that you issue when teaching disciples will remain in force. Just pray that I will have strength both outwardly and inwardly so that I may not just talk about it but want to do it, so that I may not merely be called a Christian but actually prove to be one. [That is, "teach self-sacrifice," and in doing so, "my death will confirm your "teaching" "in force"?]

3.3 Nothing that is visible is good. [Did Ignatius believe in a "visible church"?] For our God Jesus Christ is more visible now that he is in the Father. The work is not a matter of persuasive rhetoric [1 Clement?]; rather, Christianity is greatest when it is hated by the world.

4.1 I am writing to all the churches and insisting to everyone that I die for God of my own free will--unless you hinder me [through your political connections]. I implore you; do not be unseasonably kind to me. Let me be food for the wild beasts; through whom I can reach God.

4.3 I do not give you orders like Peter and Paul: they were apostles, I am a convict; they were free, but I am even now still a slave. [It is important to note that here, as in other places, Ignatius does not see any kind of "succession" of apostolic authority. He acknowledges himself -- he has repeatedly said he is a bishop -- to be far, far less, in every way, than Peter and Paul.]

6.1 It is better for me to die for Jesus Christ than to rule over the ends of the earth. [Of course, the Roman government currently rules over the ends of the earth.]

6.2 Bear with me brothers and sisters: do not keep me from living; do not desire my death. Do not give to the world one who wants to belong to God or tempt him with material things.

7.1 The ruler of this age wants to take me captive and corrupt my godly intentions. Therefore none of you who are present must help him. [That is, you at Rome are eminently capable of doing the wrong thing.]

In this letter alone, Ignatius contradicts a vast range of current Roman Catholic teachings.

In this letter to the church at Rome, does Ignatius see even a bishop, much less someone who might be "the chief bishop, primate, and leader of the whole Church of Christ on earth? When a bishop is mentioned here, that bishop is Christ [And the "love" of the Romans that could either spare him the martyrdom he so desires, or confirm it, and so make Jesus Christ alone the bishop of Antioch.]

When a "visible church" is in view, "nothing that is visible is good." When "teaching" is in view, he fears the Romans will teach wrongly. When "apostles" are in view, there is no succession, but a great gulf between apostle and bishop.

This is the first, and the earliest "proof" that Fortescue gives of an early papacy. Have I tried to "strip Ignatius's words of their plain meaning"? Or have I rather let him speak about an early Roman primacy?

It is not a "Petrine primacy" that is in view in Rome. It is a political primacy. And this political primacy comes into view over and over again in the early church.

What they knew and when they knew it: the Roman Catholic position on the papacy

In comments below, Matthew Bellisario made the following accusation of me:

Bugay is nothing more than an ex-Catholic with a chip on his shoulder as well as a historical revisionist who places his faith in the historical "scholars" of his choice. Quite simply, he has no faith in God, but only in his own ability to wade through the historians who he thinks agree with him, nothing more. Quite sad indeed.

This really isn't about me personally, but I'm willing to put this up for discussion. But I am most interested in talking about "historical revisionism," especially in the context of the papacy, and especially in the wake of my post below, to the effect that the papacy should be abolished. Especially with knowledgeable Catholics who really know what they believe.

Another commenter, from that same thread, accused me of being "clueless as to what [Roman Catholic] positions actually are."

Well then, in this post and in future posts, I want to state, as clearly as I can, using sources that are as reliably Roman Catholic as I can find, as to what the Roman Catholic position actually is.

I've already started to do that. In a recent post, I introduced Father Adrian Fortescue and listed the four "theses to be proved" from his book "The Early Papacy: to the Synod of Chalcedon in 451." These are:

1. The pope is the chief bishop, primate, and leader of the whole Church of Christ on earth.

2. He has episcopal jurisdiction over all members of the Church.

3. To be a member of the Catholic Church, a man must be in communion with the Pope.

4. The providential guidance of God will see to it that the Pope shall never commit the Church to error in any matter of religion.

According to Fortescue, Catholics don't really have to prove that there was an early papacy, because they believe what they do, really, on the authority of the "living authority" today. But nevertheless, he said, "we have all the evidence we can require that the Catholic Church in the first four and a half centuries did believe what we believe about the papacy" (pg 30).

I'm working on posts that look at of each of these issues, because it is important to understand what the early church believed -- "What they knew and when they knew it," to paraphrase a famous Watergate-era senator.

Fortescue said that these four things are all things that the earliest church believed. And he said also that "development" was simply a matter such that "when a point of faith is disputed, when some heresy arises, the Church makes her mind clear by defining more explicitly what she has always held." (35)

So his assumption is that, not only were there snippets and glimmers of a belief in a papacy, but that the four beliefs above were fairly widespread, and only when one of these "points of faith" was "disputed," then did "the Church make her mind clear by defining more explicitly what she has always held."

But all of this depends on something else, he said. "All of this depends further on three more theses, into which we cannot enter here." (Pg 51)

These three theses that he did not touch are:

1. "That our Lord gave these rights to the Apostle St. Peter."

2. "That St. Peter must have a successor in them."

3. "That his successor is the Bishop of Rome."

He said, "To establish these here would take too much space. We must be content to prove our four points directly as set out at the beginning." And of course, as I related, Fortescue said, for some reason, that Catholics get to presuppose some things about "the Church":

All we suppose, before we come to the Church, is that our Lord Jesus Christ was a man sent by God and whom we must follow if we wish to serve God in the proper way; that he founded one visible Church, to which his followers should belong; that this Church is, as a matter of historic fact, the communion of Rome (not, however, supposing anything about the papacy, but supposing only visible unity and historic continuity). This much must be presupposed and therefore does not rest on the authority of the Church. All else does. (Pgs 26-27, the parenthetical note is Fortescue's).

I will grant part of this presupposition to Catholics. I will grant that "Jesus Christ was a man sent by God whom we must follow if we wish to serve God in the proper way." I also understand that Christ founded a church, but I will contest the statement that "his followers should belong" to it.

But I would rather say, Christ promised to build a church, an "assembly," against which the gates of hell would not prevail, and his true followers de facto belong to this assembly, which is also called "his body". That is, once individuals "repent and believe the good news" (Mark 1:15 NIV) or they "Repent and [are] baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins" [Acts 2:38] or they "Believe in the Lord Jesus" [Acts 16:31] or they "see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn" to be healed by God [Acts 28], that Christ himself makes that person "a member of the church" and that this invisible church is the true church.

See John 4:23 for clarification -- "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." That is the "one true church" And as Paul said, it is "us who believe" are the church, the body of Christ (Eph 1:18-19). If anyone wants to contest what I've said here, I'm open to it. But if you want to claim for the church anything more than this, you have to argue for it.

And I will strenuously contest that the church is, "as a matter of historic fact, the communion of Rome." It is vital for Roman Catholics to prove that point, and not to simply assume it.

Let me pause here to ask if any Catholics believe that I have (aside from how you might argue with my characterization of the church) stated this improperly, or if I have misrepresented anything?


Given that Fortescue has listed his "four theses to be proved" separately from the "three more theses" he provided, and given that he says "That our Lord gave these rights to the Apostle St. Peter," it seems that the Catholic argument could be stated more succinctly if we state the three theses in the context of the first four, to come up with something like this:

1. Our Lord gave these rights to the Apostle St. Peter:

1a. To be the chief bishop, primate, and leader of the whole Church of Christ on earth.
1b. He has episcopal jurisdiction over all members of the Church.
1c. To be a member of the Catholic Church, a man must be in communion with the Pope.
1d. The providential guidance of God will see to it that the Pope shall never commit the Church to error in any matter of religion.

2. That St. Peter must have a successor in these rights.

3. That St. Peter's successor is the Bishop of Rome.

Now, do any of you Catholics out there disagree that this is what Roman Catholics of 1920 believed about the papacy? I grew up as a child of Catholic parents whose understanding of Catholicism was shaped in the 1950's, "the real Catholic Moment," according to Patrick Buchanan. And I very much believed these things to be true.

Am I mischaracterizing any of this? Do you think that Fortescue is somehow not reliable reporter of what Catholics believed in the 1920's? (or the 1950's? Or ever? Given that he was a prolific writer for The Catholic Encyclopedia.) That he didn't know what he was talking about?

Do any of you thoroughly knowledgeable Catholics, you "Catholic Champions" have anything to add to this. Do you wish to contest anything as I've portrayed it here? The last thing I want is to be "clueless." Have I represented your case properly?

The Historical Papal Claims as of 1920

By his own admission, for Fortescue to allow that he can "prove" the early papacy, is on a bit of dangerous ground. And so with one hand, he puts all his cards on the table, and with the other hand, he takes those cards back again:

If it could be proved that the early Church believed, as part of her faith, the contrary of what we believe now, or anything logically incompatible with our belief, this would be exceedingly serious; it would, indeed, be the refutation of our position, since we maintain that the faith does not change. But it is not at all the same thing, even if it were true, to say that we could not prove that the early Church did believe what we believe now. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we could find no statement of any kind about some dogma; this would not affect our position. There would then be no proof, either for or against the dogma, in the given period. We should believe it all the same, because of a definition made at another time (29).

In other words, he is saying, "if we don't find anyone supporting our belief, that's ok, because it doesn't actually disprove what we believe, and we can still assume it was there." And those of you who read this blog know that that's a pretty fair summary of how Catholics can tend to argue some things.

Fortescue's "out" here will be the little phrase "as part of her faith." It is extremely difficult to pin down an authoritative doctrinal statement prior to the year 325. He does allow that, "If it could be proved that the early Church believed, as part of her faith, the contrary of what we believe now, or anything logically incompatible with our belief, this would be exceedingly serious; it would, indeed, be the refutation of our position." (29)

As I've studied these issues, I believe there is a whole raft of things that demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the early church had no idea that there was anything like a pope. But let's just play "make-believe" for a moment and allow Fortescue to outline his claims.

What Are the Papal Claims?

Here is his "thesis to be proved": "What we believe about the rights of the Pope is contained in these four points":

1. The pope is the chief bishop, primate, and leader of the whole Church of Christ on earth. "This is the first, the least claim. To a great extent it is admitted by most High Church Anglicans, at least in the sense that the Bishop of Rome is the first bishop of Christendom. The Eastern churches, not in communion with us, admit this too. (40)

2. He has episcopal jurisdiction over all members of the Church. "This is what the First Vatican Council declares, that the Pope has "immediate power of jurisdiction, which is really episcopal,' over people of every rite and rank in the Church. It is not, so far, our object to prove any of these principles; first we want to establish what the Catholic thesis is." (42)

3. To be a member of the Catholic Church, a man must be in communion with the Pope. "This follows from the Pope's universal jurisdiction. It is the one point that the most advanced Anglican cannot concede. If follows also, and more fundamentally, from the visible unity of the Church; this once more, is the root of all difference between us and Anglicans (not the papacy at all). If the Church is one united, visible society, all Catholics must be in communion with one another." (45)

4. The providential guidance of God will see to it that the Pope shall never commit the Church to error in any matter of religion. "This is the famous 'infallibility' of the First Vatican Council." (47)

These are things that he claims the earliest church (prior to 451) believed. But these are the "theses to be proved." It will be useful to go through each of these four at some point -- the arguments that Fortescue has made, and address his reasoning in each of these cases.

In choosing the year 451 as his stopping point, Fortescue quietly covers over a pivot-point that greatly changed life for the bishop of Rome, and that would, of course, be the conversion of Constantine. At that point, bishops of Rome went from a position of at best, neutrality with the state and at times, from being violently persecuted, to being, cording to Roger Collins, "functionaries of the state."

For his evidence in favor of a papacy prior to Constantine, Fortescue relies heavily on Clement, which I mentioned in an earlier post, and Cyprian. Subsequent scholarship -- even Catholic scholarship -- have greatly tempered any notion that these examples support an early papacy. My hope is to discuss all of these things in the coming days and weeks.

One reason why I am focusing on the papacy at this point, and particularly the earliest papacy, is because it is, I believe, the weak, soft underbelly of the Roman Catholic edifice. And it will be important, in the context of all the talk about the Reformation that we'll be seeing as the 500th anniversary of Luther's 95 Theses comes up. Luther began his work by being a loyal subject of a pope. Very many things crept up on him, and in many ways, he had to develop his theologies about them "on the fly."

But if Luther had had a proper understanding of the papacy going into his efforts, it would have clarified things greatly for him, and for the world around him.

What Catholics Always Believed About the Papacy

I just want to get clear what the historical Roman Catholic Church believes about the papacy. That shouldn't be hard.

Adrian Fortescue, a Catholic priest and writer in the early 20th century, [he was a writer for the old Catholic Encyclopedia] made the case in his 1920 book "The Early Papacy to the Synod of Chalcedon in 451," that the Roman Catholic Church has always believed the same things about itself, and about the papacy.

He makes it clear from the outset:

We cannot admit that it is necessary for a Catholic today to examine the documents of the years 1 to 451 in order to know what is the nature of the primacy that Christ gave to his Church. We believe in a Church that exists and lives all days, even to the end of the world, guided by Christ, infallible in faith and morals as long as she exists. We have exactly the same confidence in the divine guidance of the Church in 1870 as in 451. [JB note: and they believe this to be true of the year 33 ad, too.] To be obliged to hark back some fifteen hundred years, to judge for yourself, according to to the measure of your scholarship, what the documents of that period imply, would be the end of any confidence in a living authority….

[If we were to go back to the ancient documents, we would] go on arguing about the meaning of the Fathers even more hopelessly than we have argued for centuries about the meaning of Matthew 16:18, when Jesus said to Peter, "Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Douay-Rheims). The only possible real standard is a living authority, an authority alive in the world at this moment, that can answer your difficulties, reject a false theory as it arises and say who is right in disputed interpretations of ancient documents (22-23 emphasis added).

I was born in 1960 to Catholic parents whose identies were shaped in the Pius XII years of the 1950's -- those years which commentator Patrick Buchanan said were the real "Catholic Moment" (as opposed to J.R. Neuhaus's "Catholic Moment" which began in 1978). I grew up believing that Matt 16:18 said, "Thou art Peter, and on this Rock I will build my Catholic Church." Such was the Catholic identity that came out of those years in ethnic America.

A page later, Fortescue clarified this further, and he set down the rule:

There are two kinds of proof for any dogma. The main proof, the most efficient in every way, the proof that is the real motive for every Catholic, is simply that this dogma is taught now by the Church of Christ, that Christ has given to his Church his own authority, so that we can trust the Church as we trust Christ himself. 'Who heareth you, heareth me' (Lk 10:16). The argument is the same for every dogma (that is why the Catholic position is essentially simple, in spite of apparent complexity); it can be understood by the most ignorant, as the religion of Christ must be (it is impossible for every child and peasant to make up his own Christianity for himself by his interpretation of Scripture or the Fathers down to 451). This position admits no vagaries of private judgment for each dogma. No variety of interpretation is possible as to what the Catholic Church of today teaches, or if such misunderstanding should occur, the Church is there to declare her mind. (26 - parenthetical notes are Fortescue's)

For Fortescue, for Catholics in his day [or our day], even such an established and well-defined doctrine as the Trinity rests ultimately on the teaching of the Catholic Church today.

All we suppose, before we come to the Church, is that our Lord Jesus Christ was a man sent by God and whom we must follow if we wish to serve God in the proper way; that he founded one visible Church, to which his followers should belong; that this Church is, as a matter of historic fact, the communion of Rome (not, however, supposing anything about the papacy, but supposing only visible unity and historic continuity). This much must be presupposed and therefore does not rest on the authority of the Church. All else does (26-27, Fortescue's parentheses, emphasis added).

Well then …

Of two minds
But in a most gracious way, Fortescue does allow that some of the unconvinced won't want to accept that presupposition as the law of the land. They will say "prove it." So he allows that the second type of argument for each dogma does involve "taking each [one] separately and proving that this was taught by Christ and has been believed from the beginning. But for Catholics, "this line of argument is neither so convincing nor so safe. It does now involve our private judgment as to whether the ancient texts do, or do not, really prove what we claim. It requires knowledge of the texts, of dead languages; to be efficient it requires considerable scholarship. It is impossible that our Lord should give us a religion requiring all this before you know what it is" (27)"

So for Fortescue, "the direct proof of each dogma [including the papacy] can be only confirmation of the general argument for all, taken from the present teaching of the church."

But there is a second component, "which we are always ready to offer, as long it is understood that it is not the main reason of our belief."

Fortescue's contention is thus that, while Roman Catholics could go back and "prove" the papacy historically -- "we can do this if we want to" -- he says, essentially, we don't have to do it because we believe the current dogma, and we merely need to assume that this dogma, confirmed by centuries of belief, was simply the way it was when Christ founded the church.

The question of "development"
Some Roman Catholics today, when faced with the kind of evidence that I've been presenting, throw out John Henry Newman's "theory of development," as if to say, "well, the papacy wasn't as well-developed as it is today. It merely existed in seed form. And in fact, Newman said of the development of the papacy, "no doctrine is defined till it is violated" (Newman, "An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine: Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press edition, pg 151).

But for Fortescue, writing in 1920, there was no "seed form." "Development" of the papacy simply meant turning up the dial and just "defining more explicitly" what has always been believed.

When there was confusion in the early centuries about the papacy -- some "dispute":

When a point of faith is disputed, when some new heresy arises, the Church makes her mind clear by defining more explicitly what she has always held. She forbids a false interpretation of the faith, and so she makes it more definite. Hence vague statements, harmless before controversy began, become impossible after the definition. But we do not admit that this development means any real addition to the faith; it is only a more explicit assertion of the old faith, necessary in view of false interpretations (35).

After all, Clement was genuinely an early pope, in every sense of the word, exercising papal power and prerogatives, and the papacy had been "a constant tradition" even in the days of Irenaeus (c. 180 A.D.) The papacy essentially was what it had been from the beginning:

There is constant tradition, from Irenaeus down, that the letter written by Clement, Bishop of Rome. Clement, in his letter, commands the Corinthians to return to the obedience of their lawful hierarchy. He does not advise, he commands. He commands with an authority, one would almost say with an arbitrary tone that has not been exceeded by any modern pope. (66, emphasis added).

I'll have more to say about Clement; that will come later. But for now, I wanted to give some feel for what real Catholics concretely believed about the papacy, in that boastful era between 1870 and 1960, and especially in that "Catholic Moment" of the 1950's, when a pope felt free to define new dogma all by his lonesome.