But Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter and James are not mentioned in the fragment, nor perhaps 3 John.
and was part of the Church at Rome’s Tradition
Which does not make the church today to be that of the NT church. It manifestly is not.
by 140AD, the Church of Rome had a Single Leader as Bishop. This would be consistent with NT practice itself as the Acts of the Apostles clearly state that James was the “Leader of the Church of Jerusalem”.
Typical RC polemical extrapolation. Having a local pastor of a church in a city, in which there was only one church therein, while other churches also has pastrors, does not translate into a single pastor being over all the churches from the beginning. All you can do is show it took 9 "successors" of St. Peter, who is extraScripturally alleged to have been the overseer of the church at Rome, for for a single overseer a with monarchial powers over the whole Church to arise,
And rather than it simply being that the evidence is not there definitely, among many others, Catholic theologian and priest Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops (New York: The Newman Press), concludes that “the episcopate [development of bishops] is a the fruit of a post New Testament development,”
I stand with the majority of scholars who agree that one does not find evidence in the New Testament to support the theory that the apostles or their coworkers left [just] one person as “bishop” in charge of each local church...
As the reader will recall, I have expressed agreement with the consensus of scholars that available evidence indicates that the church of Rome was led by a college of presbyters, rather than a single bishop, for at least several decades of the second century... Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops , pp. 221,22
But all of which avoids the issue that it is the NT church in Scripture that is definitive, and manifestly did not look to a leader in Rome as its supreme exalted infallible head, and overall is in the most critical contrast to that of Rome.
daniel1212:
The Muratorian Fragment does not list several books for the simple reason that the NT canon itself was in debate until the 4th century. That is a fact, so it is not surprising that the NT list drawn up at Rome in 180AD was not complete yet for the NT canon was not 100% settled. So the Church up till 200AD had not defined NT canon but it still was the Church guided by the Holy Spirit.
The text clearly states when Pius held the Chair at Rome. That is evidence that by 140 AD there was a single Bishop in Rome. That does not mean there was not one prior to that, there is no evidence to say that there is one way or the other, although the evidence does point to there being a single Bishop in Rome before then.
And you can’t show anything but argue from a Protestant polemical theoretical position 2,000 years later. I can show Saint Ireneaus listing the Bishops of Rome in his work around 175AD, he too was connected to the Apostles via is study under Saint Polycarp who new the Apostle John.
You can cite Francis Sullivan all you want, again, I know him well, he was the Doctoral advisor for Fr. Richard Mcbrien and among his positions are that he does not believe it is impossible for the Catholic Church to ordain women, he is also a dissenter on Humanae Vitae.
While I will not judge his soul, he is among the higher critics who emerged after Vatican II. His work is his work, but I question it and again, he is not saying what you are trying to get him to say. I have seen Fr. Francis cited a lot here lately on the forums, it seems he is the new celebrity Catholic who gets sited a lot.
And again, if it is his opinion that the development of Bishops in the Church was a post NT development, that does not reject that development, all that means is while there were Apostles in place, they were in charge, as they died out, they put men in place to carry on the Apostolic Faith [The Pastoral Epistles themselves attest to this, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, etc] and by the time of the death of the last Apostle John around 90-95AD, the development to Bishops running churches in major cities has taken root across the Mediterranean world. I don’t know what the Scots and Welsh, and English Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Reformed were doing at that time, but the immediate witness of the Church Fathers Clement of Rome, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Saint Polycarp attest to the 3 tiered ministry of Bishop, Priest/Presbyter [a discussion I have already had ad nausem with you before] and Deacon.