Posted on 08/21/2007 5:01:42 PM PDT by NYer
Do you deny that Paul said it was better to be single?
bump
And the Church Fathers put more weight on the scriptures than anything else. Name any other primary document cited time and again by the patriarchs other than the scriptures. 90% of the bible can be reproduced from the writings of the church fathers alone. The scriptures were their primary documents, and even Irenaeus said that in matters of importance, the church should defer to the "writings of the apostles".
How Peter's role was actually lived out in the 1st century is a bit of traditional knowledge that we cannot now recover--the people who saw it with their own eyes are long gone. BUT, we have documents that are somewhat later than the NT that shed some light on it--Clement, Irenaeus, etc.
Something as momentuous as Peter's supposed Roman bishopric and no one writes about it for over 100 years??? Please. And there is no mention of it in Clement of Rome's writings, Justin Martyr's writings, Josephus, Tacitus, and hardly a word or two in Irenaeus and Tertullian's writings. It wasn't written about because it never happened. Peter was not the foundation of the early church --- the scriptures that testified of Jesus Christ were.
the people who were taught by the Apostles presumably carried on some of that tradition from Peter's time and--eventually, especially when important matters were in doubt--wrote it down.
You mean "made it up out of whole papyrus" that became apocryphal literature that was then sanitized by Jerome to create the legend of the Roman Peter.
So your court of law analogy is not quite accurate--any court worth its salt is going to look at not only the primary documents themselves (i.e. NT) but also the supporting documents that explain it (i.e. the Fathers), much as we rely on the Federalist Papers to interpret the Constitution.
Except that the author of the Federalist papers was also an author of the Constitution and could write with authority. In a court of law supporting documents are secondary and bow to the primary. They never take their place as they do in the RCC.
And they didn't have land transportation back then and scribes were incapable of making copies??? Get real. Entrepreneurs like Origen employed hundreds of scribes in his manuscript factories churning out bibles.
Recent interpreters assign James to the period A.D. 90-100
He was martyred in Jerusalem circa 64 AD, so that must have been a real feat for him to pen that after his death.
For those christians marching into the Coliseum, there were only fragmentary scraps of Scripture. The New Testament had not been written and the Canon had not been compiled. These new christians went to their death based on oral tradition.
No --- they had the Book of Romans, the Gospel of Matthew, Thessalonians, Galatians, and Luke, all of which by then had separated fact from fiction, putting down in writing only those things that they knew to be true. They left out hearsay and fables and old wives tales.
It was written about, because it did happen.
Peter mentions Rome in his own epistle. He says he is writing "from Babylon", which in Christian parlance referred at that time to Rome and NOT ancient Babylon--that's straight out of Revelations 17.
Then the Fathers. Clement of Rome in around 90 mentions Peter's martyrdom, though not where. Ignatius of Antioch a few years later says to the Romans that he does not "command you as Peter and Paul did". Eusebius cites a letter to Soter written by Dionysius of Corinth (A.D. 170) where he says explictly that Peter and Paul were at Rome. Eusebius also cites a fragment of Gaius's Disputation with Proclus from around A.D. 200) who says that the "trophies" of the Apostles who founded the Church of Rome were at the Vatican and the Ostian Way in Rome. Clement of Alexandria is quoted in Eusebius as saying Peter preached at Rome. Tertullian said explicitly that Peter was in Rome and poured out his doctrine as well as his bloodl this was again around 200
And as for Irenaeus, writing around 180 or so...you call his description of Peter in Rome a "word or two"? How does this description qualify as a "word or two"?
"Matthew also issued among the Hebrews a written Gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church" (Against Heresies, 3, 1:1 [A.D. 189]).My goodness, he sounds practically ultramontane in his description of the Bishop of Rome!"But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the succession of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the succession of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, that church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. With that church [of Rome], because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world, and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition" (ibid., 3, 3, 2).
"The blessed apostles [Peter and Paul], having founded and built up the church [of Rome], they handed over the office of the episcopate to Linus. Paul makes mention of this Linus in the letter to Timothy [2 Tim. 4:21]. To him succeeded Anacletus, and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was chosen for the episcopate. He had seen the blessed apostles and was acquainted with them. It might be said that he still heard the echoes of the preaching of the apostles and had their traditions before his eyes. And not only he, for there were many still remaining who had been instructed by the apostles. In the time of Clement, no small dissension having arisen among the brethren in Corinth, the church in Rome sent a very strong letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace and renewing their faith. ... To this Clement, Evaristus succeeded . . . and now, in the twelfth place after the apostles, the lot of the episcopate [of Rome] has fallen to Eleutherius. In this order, and by the teaching of the apostles handed down in the Church, the preaching of the truth has come down to us" (ibid., 3, 3, 3).
“I believe there was at least one copy of the bible in every household, most people had access to at least some of scripture.”
This is simply untenable in the early centuries of the Church. First, everything had to be hand-written - there were no printing presses at all until the mid-15th Century. Therefore, hand-writing copies of Scripture took lots of time and was expensive to accomplish. Even when considering the Old Testament had plenty of time to be disseminated by the beginning of Christianity, it is not true that even every Jew had a copy. It was only possible for the synagogues and the extremely wealthy individual to have the OT books at hand. In the first centuries of Christianity, the same problems apply, only now you have to add 27 more books and distribute them to a larger group of people. Couldn’t be done. It is simply silly to say that a copy of the Bible was in every household back then, just from the impossible logistics. Add to that that many of the early Christians couldn’t read, many were slaves and couldn’t own a Bible or hide one, and having too many Bibles floating around in an era of widespread persecution would lead to sacrilegious confiscation/destruction, etc. When the NT Christians were “studying Scripture,” they were doing so as communities using the books of the Bible they had, virtually never as individuals.
Exactly!
And I might add this...suppose someone comes to Ephesus one day bearing a letter that says it was from St. Paul. HOW do the Ephesians know it was actually written by St. Paul or under his authority?
Methinks people don't realize how important the Church *as an institution* was in verifying the Scriptures.
To argue that the *entirety* of the oral teachings of the Apostles is contained in the mere 200 pages (if you take out the duplication involved in the four Gospels, barely half of that total is left) or so that the New Testament takes up in modern typesetting is absurd. Why, by the time the NT was compiled definitively in its present form in the late 4th Century, the commentary on it alone had already reached many volumes. The Apostles would have similarly expanded on the often bare-bones nature of the NT text.
You asked, “If the Bible is that instrument, then why didn’t Jesus himself write it, or dictate it to a scribe as Jermiah did ...” Are you seriously denying that the Holy Spirit inspired the writing we have as our New Testament? Is that a Catholic belief there?
Those two posts were most edifying! Thank you for taking the time to post them.
These were in the FORM of scrolls and Codices, individual volumes. A collection of all Scriptures—assuming that it had been settled WHICH books belonged in the collection—would be more like a multivolume encyclopedia than the Bible we have in our house. Only a few men, those who could afford a privare library, would have the whole collection. They or the person whose dwelling served as a house-church. The Scriptures are intended for PUBLIC use, to be read in public to a largely illiterate congregation. The Great Bible of the Middle Ages was a very large book, and highly valuable. The Paris Bible was a kind of revolution in publishing. They look as though they were printed, and it is amazing to learn that these handwritten books were produced by the thousand! They were made for use by the preaching friars.including of course the Austin friars to which Luther belonged. I bet he had one. Their size is explained by the need to fit in the pocket of the gown of a traveling friar. In Latin, of course, but it served as a text for the members of these orders, whose function it was to preach the Gospel, on the steets as often as in churches. In the 15th century, St. Bernadino beaks to crowds as large as those that heard Whitefield and Wesley in the 18th, and to the same sort of person.
This is the extent of the evidence of Peter being in Rome. They knew nothing more than that??? The "Prince of the Apostles" warrants an occasional mention of which even these writers are unsure about their statements of his presence there. He leaves no footprints, no monuments, no church named after him, no decrees, no relics, and no bones ---- just claims that turn out later to be unverifiable.
And as for Irenaeus, writing around 180 or so...you call his description of Peter in Rome a "word or two"? How does this description qualify as a "word or two"? "Matthew also issued among the Hebrews a written Gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church" (Against Heresies, 3, 1:1 [A.D. 189]).
Irenaeus is incorrect here. Paul's letter to the Romans demonstrates that for the church of Rome was founded and established before Paul had even visited it as he wrote in his letter circa 56AD. Irenaeus gets several of his facts wrong, but even he admits that in cases like this one should defer to the scriptures and ignore his statements.
He says that Paul and Peter did this together and yet history has Paul in prison during most of his entire Roman sojourn with no time for evangelizing. And when he was out of prison, tradition says that Paul travelled to Spain. So just when could Peter and Paul have been evangelizing together????
Ask your magisterium how much of what you quoted from Irenaeus is accepted by them to be true.
A formula containing in brief statements, or “articles,” the fundamental tenets of Christian belief, and having for its authors, according to tradition, the Twelve Apostles.
I. ORIGIN OF THE CREED
Throughout the Middle Ages it was generally believed that the Apostles, on the day of Pentecost, while still under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, composed our present Creed between them, each of the Apostles contributing one of the twelve articles.
Those churches that valued the scriptures were able to tell the difference between the real and counterfeit. Those that didn't fell for fraudulent apocryphals, substitutes, secondary documents, and oral claims that led them astray.
Is there any significance to the fact Jesus called Peter "Simon, Son of John" the last time, recorded in Scripture, He spoke to him? (John 21)
No, I am denying that the book itself can serve as a substitute for the Church, the persons whom the Scripture referrs to as “the body of Christ,” and ourselves as his members. As to the Scriptures, the fact that only some Christian writings were included in the canon and were read in the assembles means that some human agency had to decide which writings were revealed truth and which ones were “inspired” in a lesser manner. The difference between Catholics and the Reformers was really only in deciding whose authority in the matter of Scripture was greater.
Clement’s First Epistle to the Corinthians is genuine, written in the 90’s AD. The second one, attributed to him, there is good evidence to believe was not his own. But even that evidence points to a date of about AD 150. It is still useful for the purpose of this discussion, though, since, with such a still relatively early provenience, it is a witness to the already accepted tradition of only 50 years earlier.
But, even apart from Clement, there is a lot of early evidence that Peter’s protracted ministry in Rome and his martyrdom there were universally understood and accepted. Is St. Irenaeus merely a Roman stooge in Against Heresies 3? Is Tertullian merely ignorant when he talks about Clement’s ordination by Peter in Rome? Does Cyprian know what he’s talking about when he states baldy that it was upon Peter that Christ built His Church? Does Pope Victor know what a troglodyte he was when he threw his weight around the universal Church, as Bishop of Rome, during the Quartodeciman controversy?
Look, the primacy of Peter is Christ-established and disciple-confirmed. It is an ecclesiastical exercise in revisionist history to claim that no one in the early Church had any notions of papal primacy until Gregory the Great came along. Sure, that primacy has been used in a heavy-handed manner form time to time, but the principle of its existence is pefectly valid. Thank God that the Church had a visible head amid all of the heresies promulgated, primarily in the East, in the patristic age!
It seems to me that you must belong to a brand of eastern Orthodoxy that likes the trappings of a liturgical Church, but is so hell-bent on denying the legitimacy of Rome’s claims that it must deny much of the early writings and traditions at the same time. Orthodoxy, like Catholicism, finds much of its roots in the early patristic writings. Don’t ignore the legitimacy of many of the early Fathers just to score spurious talking points against Rome.
I have never been able to understand how anyone who read the Bible could doubt that Christ established a Church and put Peter in charge.
I can't understand how anyone could read the Bible and believe Jesus put Peter in charge. Peter never presided over a Council. James did. If Peter was in charge he would be presiding over the Council, not among the participants.
Oy vey. LOL. Yes! That's the extent! And what's the extent of him not being in Rome? What's the extent of the evidence disproving/arguing against all this lineup I posted? Where are the contrary voices?
The Fathers wrote what they knew. And what they knew was more--by far--than what you or I know. Nobody contradicted them...nobody said, nah, Peter was never in Rome. It was simply accepted.
He leaves no footprints, no monuments,
The Tropaion of Gaius at the Vatican is not a monument? It went up probably in 170-180 A.D. Peter's logo is scratched all over the place down there...in the form of a key made of a P and and an E.
And St. Peter's is not a monument? It was purposely--and with no small effort mind you--built overtop of what just happens to be a first century graveyard. The grave area under the altar was left intact, and tons and tons of soil were used to fill it up so that it would not be disturbed. Another part of the Vatican hill was flattened. With the result that Constantine built the main altar DIRECTLY over a particular grave which, according to you, had no importance whatsoever.
no church named after him, no decrees, no relics, and no bones ---- just claims that turn out later to be unverifiable.
LOL...my goodness, Rome is practically an entire monument to Peter!
We're not sure about the bones. They may be Peter's, they may not. And as for decrees, what do you think Peter's Epistle was, chopped liver?
Irenaeus is incorrect here. Paul's letter to the Romans demonstrates that for the church of Rome was founded and established before Paul had even visited it as he wrote in his letter circa 56AD.
So Uncle Chip judges Irenaeus incorrect. Nice. Somehow Uncle Chip knows more about the founding of the Roman See than a guy who knew some of the very people who were there when it happened.
Some sources indicate that Peter was in Rome for 25 years. He is believed to have gotten there around 42 or so. In any case, it's no skin off of anyone's nose to say that there were Christians in Rome prior to his getting there. The point is that when he got there, his Apostolic Authority gave it a dignity it didn't previously have.
And here's another bit of evidence, since you bring up Paul. Paul says in Romans 15: "Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation But as it is written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand. For which cause also I have been much hindered from coming to you.
Somebody was preaching in Rome before he wrote this!
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