Let's not ever consider that concept. Though forwarded by the error-prone Ignatius, it has no foundation in the God-breathed (and by Ignatius' time, completed) Word.
The Apostles planted local autonomous churches which were one based on their unifying instruction verbally and by writing, not by shared leadership of officers. Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus exhorted the Thessalonikans saying, "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions* which ye have been taught, whther by word**, or our epistle" (* = paradoses, precepts delivered by instruction, oral or in writing); (** = logos, the act of speaking) (2 Thess. 2:15). This indicated a complete and sufficient teaching and acceptance of counsel, without any accountability to any external agency. This was according to Paul's gospel which was explicitly thoroughly known and taught by all three authors of this epistle. Silvanus and Timothy needed not to be heard of in further embroidering, adding to, or allegorizing the gospel they had fully committed to the local church at Thessalonika.
In the Apocalypse, the Beloved John was instructed to write individual notes to the angel/preachers of seven of the churches and send each church a bound copy of all the letters. Examining whe commands of Christ in Rev. 2 and 3, nowhere do we see The Lord yielding any of His authority over the churches to John. Furthermore, note that by figurative-literal language, The Christ pictured the churches, not as a candlabrum or menorah (which would have signified an inseparable union of the churches under one central and rule), but as separated, independent, and presumably of the same stature, entities. The suggestion is clearly independent accountability of each angel/messenge/preacher individually to its Head The Lord Jesus Christ, with The Holy Ghost alone being His Voice expressing Himself to each church through His Written Word to the designated messenger of that church.
The first letter to the messenger of the Ephesian church did not entertain or tolerate the doctrine of "overwhelm the ordinary people" Nicolaitans, which is the doctrine of all clergy/lay episcopacies, and which the Lord Jesus Christ hates.
Here, John is not offering second-hand advice to the preacher. No, he is commanded to write and exactly what to day, thus establishing each of the letters as Holy Writ. Further, though each letter is directed toward a specific ordained angel/messenger person, it has to concern his particular local church as to church discipline about to be pronounced and applied by him; but also is shared with all other churches (including those of this age!) as a clear warning by the Holy Ghost against errors in church polity and against untoward behaviors of its messenger/rulers.
There are four things bearing on "catholicity" as a rule of associations of churches:
(1) Here Jesus' words written by John Theologian being God-breathed Sacred Scripture, the Voice of the Holy Ghost, they are not addressed to a "Church" ruling over an association of local churches, nor to a Bishop of such a "Church" diocese; they are written to individual angel/messenger/preachers, each of a separately identified local church, each an individually distinct "candlestick," but in which each individual of each church is to hear that which the Holy Spirit is saying to the churches,
(2) No interference or overruling of any local church is granted to any other local church or church angel/nessenger/ruler, not even as the closest beloved intimate companion of The Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He, and He alone is the head of a legitimate local assembly. The Lord has not delegated authority over any local chuch to any other agency than Himself and His alter ego, The Holy Ghost.
(3) All the churches then and of all time are warned firmly against yielding to the imposition of a sacral society (carrying over a priesthood lording it over "unordained" members of the organization from the OT polity to a NT church); or the superimposition of an external wide-area unionized association of candlesticks inseparably joined yo an incorporated directorship as simply local vendors of another level of mangement beyond local control.
(4) Specific remedies for preacher/pastoral error are set forth (watch for and note the verses directed toward "thee," second person singular, to whom reward or chastisment is inscripturated), especially fo the messenger who has preferred the mundane oversight function (Rev. 2:2,3) above the Fellowship of His Son (Rev. 2:4, 1 Cor. 1:9), for which removal of the local church from the careless messenger is the penalty.
These points are certainly a good arguments for autonomous local churches free of interference from any external agencies in limiting or dictating their conduct and direct accountability to The Son.
In this closing opus, the Final Revelation of the long progress of special revelation to humans of His Will, there is no hint of the establishment of catholicity of the churches. There is no basis for supervision of members of the local church from anyone, other than the Holy Ghost, outside the church.
Is everyone to be a "pope" and to have his doctrine infallible? Yes, he is responsible alone to The God and Father of The Christ The Lord of us. If conviction of error by the Holy Ghost is neglected, correction by the Spirit through local church discipline may result. But so could death be the result of offending The Holy Ghost.
Are the pastor and elders to cultivate more spiritually mature elders? Yes. Various apostles and their verbal and written counsel in this was saved for us as God-breathed. Are we to follow them apart in a direction away from the doctrine of Sola Scriptura? No! Even Jesus did not depart from the so-far revealed-to-humans written Will of The God as an example for us, as shown in Mt. 4:4, where He applied Scripture: "It stands written ...".
There is no circumstance or human predicament that Scripture alone does not cover.
Here is a rule concerning the authority and sufficiency of Holy Scripture:
o Nothing more (Rev. 22:18, Prov. 30:5,6)
o Nothing less (Rev. 22:19. Deut. 8:3)
o Nothing else (Gal. 1:8, 2 Cor. 11:3-4, Is. 8:20)
Under the Blood: Jer. 48:10
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By common agreement, capitalizing statements (as you have) is equivalent to yelling by voice. At this point, I will not answer you in your impolite diatribes unless/until you can modulate your emotion and internet etiquette with maturity.
You haven't checked out and accepted/repudiated the seven baptisms mentioned and dealt with doctrinally in the reference I gave you.
You haven't given me the non-sectarian, 1st-century-understood explained "key" Scripture I requested. I'm waiting.
Reluctantly chiding you for leaping ahead with opinions not supportable by honest exegesis.
i have a lot to say in response to this post, but probably not til tomorrow.
everyone, stay tuned!
one of the problems i find in trying to arrive at truth, especially in theological matters, is you must have the same authority.
for example, if i am discussing who God is with a Muslim, he will refer to the Koran as his authority. since i reject the Koran, and believe it to be devil inspired, the discussion doesn’t get very far.
just like having a great computer software program, but if you put “garbage in”, you will get “garbage out”
so for me, the authority is the same as it was in 33ad, 133ad, 233ad, and every year since then and will be the same until Jesus returns at the end of the world - the authority for doctrine and practice in the Church is the The Apostles. the Apostles received this authority from Jesus Christ Himself and received the power to proclaim the Word of God when they recieved the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
this Apostolic teaching the Word of God, our basis for doctrine and practice, never was, and never will be restricted to the written Scripture they left us ( the doctrine of “sola scriptura” ) as unfortunately you indicated you believe. you quote the Apostle Paul teaching what the Church has believed for 2,000 years:
2 Thessalonians 2:15 “ so then, brethern, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter”
there you have St Paul telling us in Scripture what the standard for the Church is to be for doctrine and practice. this is the same standard that the Church received from the Apostles from the Apostolic or Sacred Tradition.
and we see this standard played out through out the Scriptures and in the practice of the Catholic Church for 2,000 years. in Acts 8, Philip converts the eunuch first by using Isaiah, but then using the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah received orally.
when the Apostle Thomas baptized infants and then passed away, were his successors to end this practice because they never received a letter from Paul instructing them to baptize infants? no, the authority was the Apostles and what they taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter.
now, we must admit, that men came along in the 16th century and rejected this Biblical standard for authority, by ironically enough claiming only the written word of God was to be used for doctrine and practice. they rejected the teaching of apostolic succession that the Church received from the Apostles, both orally and in 2 Timothy 2:1-2.
but the true Church rejected this 16th teaching and held firm to the 1st century teaching.
sola scriptura can be dismissed not only using the Scriptures themselves, but also in asking this question:
since no book that anyone has ever believed to be Scripture contains a table of contents for the Bible, on what basis do we determine which books are canonical and which are not?
for example, we have the gospel of peter, the shepard of hermas, the didache and the epistle of clement to the corinthians. are these books scripture? why or why not?
at various times, people have rejected Hebrews, James and Revelation from the canon, how can we be sure they are Scripture?
you can’t use Scripture to establish Scripture, it’s illogical. the only answer is the authority of the Church using Sacred Tradition.
the doctrine of Apostolic Succession, that the Church received from the Apostles as shown by 2 Timothy and the from Clement of Rome, taught by St Peter and his successor as Bishop of Rome in his epistle to the Corinthians. ( incidentally, this epistle was considered Scripture and read in the churches there for about 100 years )
for you to say “let’s not ever consider” the formation of the Catholic Church is to reject a major tenant of the Apostolic Faith.
notice, the only people who reject Apostolic Succession must reject it, since they don’t possess it.
notice, the only people who reject Sacred Tradition, must reject it, since they don’t possess it.
notice a pattern??
the “churches” were never autonomous, they always were subject to the Apostles and this truth remains today.
so for anyone to say the great martyr St Ignatius, who was put to death in Rome for his testimony and faith in Jesus Christ, who was personally taught the faith by the Apostle John, is “error-prone”, says more about the person making the statement than it does about Ignatius.
Ignatius certainly would have understood what John taught him about baptism, the Eucharist and the person of Jesus Christ. ( just as you seem to have absorbed the teaching of witman very well )
Ignatius famously left 7 Epistles on his way to martyrdom, and one of them tells us the Gnostics abstain from the Eucharist because they do not believe it to be the Body of Jesus Christ. it appears there are many today who hold to this Gnostic position. could the human author of John 6 mislead Ignatius?? i highly doubt it, especially since the Real Presence was believed everywhere and at all times in the Church. error prone indeed, the Gnostics certainly thought so!
now, you accuse the Church of following the “Nicolaitans” mentioned in Revelation and you think they practiced overwelming the laity by the clergy rule or something. of course, Revelation says no such thing, it doesn’t tell us what the Nicolaitans believed, so this clergy rule nonsense, is just that, nonsense. Irenaeus tells us the Nicolaitans were Gnostics, so they probably rejected the Real Presence. uh oh, starting to hit close to home.
what is often not said in these discussions is more important than what is said. so if one rejects the Catholic Faith, and it’s claim of Apostolic authority using word of mouth and written words of the Apostles for doctrine and practice, what does one replace it with???
some say “ local, autonomous churches” OK, lets explore that theory. Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail against his Churc, He said He would be with us always, even to the end of the age, the Scriptures say the elect will not be fooled, and finally Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:8-9,
as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith; but they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of these two men”
“they will not get very far”
ok, let’s look at what happened to these “local autonomous churches” if this truly was the Biblical model for the Church and not the Romanist Nicolaitan clergy rule model, what happened??? where were they in the 1st four centuries after the Apostle John dies. no one can find them.
did they have names? no one can find them and there is a huge reason, it is the 800 lb gorilla in the room, the reason no one can find them is they did not exist. it is a figment of men like witman and others imagination.
you mentioned favorably the Montanists, without apparently realizing that they believed in continual revelations from the Holy Spirit, they did not believe the canon was closed as you stated you believe it is. big contradiction there and one that should eliminate the Montantists as the church ( besides as Paul said their folly was evident and they didn’t get far )
next the Donatists were mentioned favorably as the church. well, the Donatists not only believed in baptismal regeneration, but believed unless the priest was holy, the baptism was useless. i doubt you believe this!! their error was exposed very well by the Bishop of Hippo and again their error was evident for all to see and they did not get very far.
so this “local autonomous” church philosphy has led directly to the confusion and error we see in today’s lost world and has led to 38,000 different denominations in this country alone! what a far cry from Jesus prayer to the Father in John 17 and Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1.
if we want to arrive at truth, we must have the same standard as the Church had in 33ad.
( wow, i went a whole post without Caps, even though i wanted to for emphasis about a hundred times! )