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To: johngrace

That does not answer my question -— DID AUGUSTINE BELIEVE THAT THE CHURCH OF ROME HAS JURISDICTIONAL AUTHORITY OVER ALL OTHER CHURCHES IN THE WORLD?

The fact that he believed that there were bishops who succeeded the first Bishop does not therefore tell us that Rome now has jurisdictional control over Carthage, Ephesus or Hippo or any other church in the Roman world.

Let’s go back to what Augustine wrote again and what he meant. EMPHASIS MINE.

Christ, you see, BUILT HIS CHURCH NOT ON A MAN BUT ON PETER’s CONFESSION. What is Peter’s confession? ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ There’s the rock for you, there’s the foundation, there’s where the Church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer. (Sermon 229).

Here’s another:

And this Church, symbolized in its generality, was personified in the Apostle Peter, on account of the primacy of his apostleship. For, as regards his proper personality, he was by nature one man, by grace one Christian, by still more abounding grace one, and yet also, the first apostle; but when it was said to him, I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven,’ he represented the universal Church, which in this world is shaken by divers temptations, that come upon it like torrents of rain, floods and tempests, and falleth not, because it is founded upon a rock (petra), from which Peter received his name. For petra (rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, ‘On this rock will I build my Church,’ because Peter had said, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ On this rock, therefore, He said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my Church. FOR THE ROCK (Petra) WAS CHRIST; and on this foundation was Peter himself built. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in the person of Peter, that is to say, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is essentially in Christ, such representatively is Peter in the rock (petra); and in this representation Christ is to be understood as the Rock, Peter as the Church (Commentary on the Gospel of John, Tractate 124.5).

Augustine states that Peter is the first and head of the apostles and that he holds a primacy. However he does not interpret that primacy in a Roman Catholic sense. He believes that Peter’s primacy is figurative in that he represents the universal Church. Again, he explicitly states that Christ did not build his Church upon a man but on Peter’s confession of faith. Peter is built on Christ the rock and as a figurative representative of the Church he shows how each believer is built on Christ. In Augustine’s view, Peter holds a primacy or preeminence, but none of this applies to him in a jurisdictional sense, because he says that ‘Christ did not build his Church upon a man.’

So, putting a list of people who succeeded Peter to become Bishop of Rome does nothing to show that Peter was the Pope (nor does it suggest that succeeding Bishops were popes ).

St. Paul started the church of Ephesus for instance and Timothy was his successor. What does that prove? That Ephesus now has jurisdiction over Galatia or Thessalonica or Philippi? It does not follow.

You mentioned Clement as a successor of Peter for instance.

In his Epistle to the Corinthians, you see that the early church seems to follow the model of a PLURALITY OF ELDERS taught by Paul in his letter to Timothy.

This is how Clement’s first epistle starts:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ii.ii.i.html

“The Church of God which sojourns at Rome, to the Church of God sojourning at Corinth, to them that are called and sanctified by the will of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, from Almighty God through Jesus Christ, be multiplied.”

Where in that salutation does it even suggest that Clement has jurisdictional authority, by virtue of his being from the church on Rome, over Corinth?

It does not. He speaks for the church in one city to another.


193 posted on 05/11/2012 9:08:11 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Photobucket

Lathering Lawyered Revised History. Amazing. Go Back to The Original Documents. It has always been.

194 posted on 05/12/2012 12:41:43 AM PDT by johngrace (I am a 1 John 4! Christian- declared at every Sunday Mass , Divine Mercy and Rosary prayers!)
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