You picked the wrong battlefield for this fight. I have William A Jurgens "The Faith of the Early Fathers" in my home library.
I will NOT engage in a point by point refutation of your falsehoods. I will merely cite your first error re Clement. In his "Who is the rich man that is saved?", a.d. 190/210, St. Clement of Alexandria says this about Peter..."On hearing these words, the blessed Peter, the chosen, the pre-eminnent, the first among he disciples, for whom alone with Himself the Savior paid the tribute, quickly grasped their meaning..."
Cribbing from second hand sources to attack Divinely-constituted authority might seem "Triumphalistic" to some but it is a truimphalism of a very odd sort.
I will not waste my time "debating" such rudimentary facts. Lets those with eyes to see read. The writings of the Catholic Church Fathers are availaable at www.newadvent.com
You picked the wrong battlefield for this fight. I have William A Jurgens "The Faith of the Early Fathers" in my home library.So what?
I will NOT engage in a point by point refutation of your falsehoods. I will merely cite your first error re Clement. In his "Who is the rich man that is saved?", a.d. 190/210, St. Clement of Alexandria says this about Peter..."On hearing these words, the blessed Peter, the chosen, the pre-eminnent, the first among he disciples, for whom alone with Himself the Savior paid the tribute, quickly grasped their meaning..."
What kind of debate tactic is this, playing directly into my hands and proving my own arguments for me??
Sure, Clement calls Peter "pre-eminent" among the Apostles, as he surely was in the early Pentecost/post-Pentecost period (roughly Acts 1-5). And Clement also tells us that Peter deferred his "pre-eminence" to James, who was elected to the "Episcopal Throne" at Jerusalem (NOT Rome) as the "Bishop of bishops".
- Clement, the bishop of Alexandria (150 - 215 CE), who confirms in Outlines, Bk. VI: "Peter, James (bar Zebedee) and John, after the ascension of the Saviour, did not claim pre-eminence because the Saviour had especially honored them, but chose James the Righteous as Bishop of Jerusalem."
- Eusebius (263 - 339 CE), Historia Ecclesia ii,23.4: ".....turned their attention to James, the Lord's brother, who had been elected by the apostles to the episcopal throne at Jerusalem."
- Hegesippus (c. 100 - 160 CE), Bk 5: "Control of the Church passed to the Apostles, together with the Lord's brother James...."
- Origen (185 - 254 CE), quoting early Josephus: "These things happened to the Jews in requital for James the Righteous, who was a brother of Jesus, known as Christ."
- Josephus (37 - c. 100 CE), Antiquities xx: "So he assembled a counsel of judges and brought before it James, the brother of Jesus, known as Christ."
- Clement: "When James the Righteous had suffered martyrdom like the Lord and for the same reason, Symeon, the son of his Uncle Clopas, was appointed bishop. He being a cousin of the Lord."
- Eusebius: "A group of heretics accused the descendants of Jude...the brother, humanly speaking, of the Savior...on the ground that they were of David's line and related to Christ himself."
Cribbing from second hand sources to attack Divinely-constituted authority might seem "Triumphalistic" to some but it is a truimphalism of a very odd sort. I will not waste my time "debating" such rudimentary facts. Lets those with eyes to see read. The writings of the Catholic Church Fathers are availaable at www.newadvent.com
Clement, Eusebius, Josephus, the Bible itself... these are not "second hand sources" or "fabulous tales". The evidence of History is overwhelming, and it is utterly damning to the false Private Interpretation of "petrine supremacy".
Peter himself did not believe in "Petrine Supremacy"; rather, Peter reported to James (Acts 12:17) and Peter obeyed James (Acts 15: 13-22) and Peter deferred to James (Acts 21:18) and Peter feared James (Galatians 2:12). What kind of Petrine "Papacy" is this!!
In fact, not a single verse of Scripture suggests any kind of "Petrine Succession", and such a dogma was NOT the practice of the Early Church:
In the epistles (epitomes) attached to the Homilies, Peter calls James "the Lord and bishop of the Holy Church" (tw kuriw kai episkopw thV agiaV ekklhsiaV, to kurio kai episkopo ths agias eklhsias) and Clement addresses him as "the lord, and bishop of bishops (domino et episcopo episcoporum), who rules Jerusalem, the holy Church of the Hebrews and Churches everywhere excellently founded by the provinces of God, with elders and deacons, and the rest of the brethren." ~~ (GLIMPSES OF JEWISH CHRISTIANITY FROM THE END OF ACTS TO JUSTIN MARTYR (A.D. 62-150), J. Julius Scott, Jr, Wheaton College)
Your entire religious superstructure is founded upon an erroneous "private interpretation"... a Lie.
You post your hit-and-run Links and hope that they constitute an "answer", but the truth is that you have NO counter-argument -- and you know it.
You are grasping at straws, CG, but you cannot save your edifice of Lies from the witness of the Early Church historians, and the Bible Itself.