Do you perchance have a link to material on the growing body of Christ during the period from after the destruction of Jerusalem, say around 75 or 76 AD, for the ekklesia in Smyrna and Asia Minor, in general, from which Polycarp arose?
No, that would take some research and more material, but while piety and basic faith remained, there was an progressive amount of false teachings adopted under the premise of such traditions being the word of God, yet conspicuously absent in the NT. And it took about just 250 post-apostolic years before we have the likes of Damasus 1 (366-384) who began his reign by employing a gang of thugs in seeking to secure his chair, which carried out a three-day massacre of his rivals supporters. Yet true to form, Rome made him a "saint."
Kelly, J. N. D.:
Upon Pope Liberius's death September 24 A.D. 366, violent disorders broke out over the choice of a successor. A group who had remained consistently loyal to Liberius immediately elected his deacon Ursinus in the Julian basilica and had him consecrated Bishop, but the rival faction of Felix's adherence elected Damasus, who did not hesitate to consolidate his claim by hiring a gang of thugs, storming the Julian Basilica in carrying out a three-day massacre of the Ursinians.
On Sunday, October 1 his partisans seized the Lateran Basilica, and he was there consecrated. He then sought the help of the city prefect (the first occasion of a Pope in enlisting the civil power against his adversaries), and he promptly expelled Ursinus and his followers from Rome. Mob violence continued until October 26, when Damasus's men attacked the Liberian Basilica, where the Ursinians had sought refuge; the pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus reports that they left 137 dead on the field. Damasus was now secure on his throne; but the bishops of Italy were shocked by the reports they received, and his moral authority was weakened for several years...
Damasus enjoy the favor of court and aristocracy,... His magnificent lifestyle and hospitality help to break down the anti-Christian prejudices of upper-class pagan families. He was active in repressing heresies, including Arianism, and did not scruple to call in the secular power..
Damasus was indefatigable in promoting the Roman primacy, frequently referring to Rome as 'the apostolic see' and ruling that the test of a creed's orthodoxy was its endorsement by the Pope. In 378, he persuaded the government to recognize the holy see as a court of first instance and also of appeal for the Western episcopate... In tune with his ideas, Theodosius 1 (379-95) declared (February 27, 380) Christianity the state religion in that form from which the Romans had once [imagined they] received from St. Peter, and Damasus of Rome and Peter of Alexandria now professed; for Damasus this primacy was not based on decisions of synods, as were the claims of Constantinople, but exclusively on his [presumption of] being the direct successor of St. Peter and so the rightful heir of the promises made to him by Christ (Mt. 16:18)
This [false claim to] succession gave him a unique [presumptuous claim to] judicial power to bind and loose, and the assurance of this infused all his rulings on church discipline. -Kelly, J. N. D. (1989). The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 32,34. Comments in [brackets] are mine.
An event of major historical importance for the future of the papacy was the conversion of the king of the Franks, Clovis, to Catholicism. From the historical standpoint it is certainly note-worthy that this conversion (probably in 496) occurred during the period in which many basic papal themes were germinating. The role which Constantine played within the Roman empire and its ecclesiastical organization, was to be played in the West by Clovis, called the new Constantine. While however the real Constantine's ecclesiastical policy was grafted on the ancient Roman structure, the Franks were in course of time to become vital instruments in the hands of the papacy...
Historically speaking, the conversion of Clovis provided the papacy with a platform from which it was able to deploy its own governmental schemes safely. Yet at exactly the same time the first internal ideological fissures began to shake the papacy in Reine. These were to lead to serious faction fights and tensions within the bosom of the Roman church. The significance of this internal papal situation was that two parties had constituted themselves, and these two parties were motivated by distinctly different outlooks, the one realizing the futility of carrying on within the confines and terms of the Roman empire, the other aiming at an appeasement of the imperial government in Constantinople....
This internal papal schism was the occasion which stimulated forgeries on a hitherto unknown scale. One of the so-called Symmachan forgeries (the name did not imply that the pope himself was involved) invented a synod held at Sinuessa during the reign of Diocletian in which speeches and statements were made that were to serve as a justification of the synod held in Rome in 501. Another forgery concocted one more council summoned and chaired by Pope Silvester (who rapidly gained legendary fame) in which the recently baptized Constantine also took part. According to this forgery a great number of decrees were issued, of which the last in particular attracted attention: 'Nobody can sit in judgment on the first (apostolic) see which distributes rightful justice to all. Neither the emperor nor the whole clergy nor kings nor people can judge the supreme judge.'...
_These Symmachan forgeries exercised a very powerful influence, because they dealt with topics of direct concern to the papacy. They were included in a number ol collections of canon law and formed, so to speak, the backbone of the constitutional position of the pope. The sentence 'The first (apostolic) see cannot be judged by anyone' showed persuasively how clearly the forger had grasped the notion of the pope's personal sovereignty: he had not received power from those who had elected him, and hence they could not take it away. The pope, in other words, formed an estate of his own. One cannot be surprised that this statement still forms a vital clement in the present-day canon law (can. 1556}.
...less than two generations earlier two popes, Zosimus and Boniface I, had expressed a view which in substance was identical with the one contained in the forgery (see above p. 18). Where the forger scored was in his better and more concise and impressive diction. - A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages By Waiter Ulmann, A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages, pp. 23,24
The sixth century found Rome sunk too low by war and pestilence for many churches to be built; but at this time took place the transformation of ancient buildings into Christian shrines. Instead of despising the relics of paganism, the Roman priesthood prudently gathered to themselves all that could be adopted from the old world.
The Bishop of Rome assumed the position of Ponlifex Maximus, priest and temporal ruler in one, and the workings of this so-called spiritual kingdom, with bishops as senators, and priests as leaders of the army, followed on much the same lines as the empire. The analogy was more complete when monasteries were founded and provinces were won and governed by the Church. - Welbore St. Clair Baddeley, Lina Duff Gordon, “Rome and its story” p. 176
Even Cath scholarship provides testimony against the propaganda of Rome.
Newman: We are told in various ways by Eusebius [Note 16], that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us.
The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison [Note 17], are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church. {374}
The introduction of Images was still later, and met with more opposition in the West than in the East. John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 8. Application of the Third Note of a True Development—Assimilative Power; http://www.newmanreader.org/works/development/chapter8.html
While Apostles were on earth, there was the display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as being exercised by Apostles....In course of time, first the power of the Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. - (John Henry Newman, Essay on the Development of Doctrine, Notre Dame edition, pp. 165,166).
Jerome"“The presbyter is the same as the bishop, and before parties had been raised up in religion by the provocations of Satan, the churches were governed by the Senate of the presbyters...
If you doubt that bishop and presbyter are the same, that the first word is one of function, and the second one of age, read the epistle of the Apostle to the Philippians. Without doubt it is the duty of the presbyters to bear in mind that by the discipline of the Church they are subordinated to him who has been given them as their head, but it is fitting that the bishops, on their side, do not forget that if they are set over the presbyters, it is the result of tradition, and not by the fact of a particular institution of the Lord. - 4th century RC scholar and priest Jerome, Commentary on Tit. 1.7, quoted. in “Religions of authority and the religion of the spirit," pp. 77,78. 1904, by AUGUSTE SABATIER. A similar translated version of this is provided by "Catholic World," Volume 32, by the Paulist Fathers, 1881, pp. 73,74).
Greg Dues: Priesthood as we know it in the Catholic church was unheard of during the first generation of Christianity, because at that time priesthood was still associated with animal sacrifices in both the Jewish and pagan religions. When the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice [after Rome's theology], the role of the bishop took on a priestly dimension. By the third century bishops were considered priests.
Soon all presbyters were considered priests because they offered the Eucharistic sacrifice. To keep a distinction between them and the Bishops, the latter were called "high priests" [which in Greek is archiereus]. Our word "priest" is directly related to the Greek word presbyteros and the Latin presbyter. This [the] latter was shortened to "prester," giving us our English "priest. (Catholic author Greg Dues in "Catholic Customs & Traditions: A Popular Guide," pp. 166,168)
Eamon Duffy (Former president of Magdalene College and member of Pontifical Historical Commission, and current Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge):
The conversion of Constatine had propelled the Bishops of Rome into the heart of the Roman establishment...They [bishops of Rome] set about [creating a Christian Rome] by building churches, converting the modest tituli (community church centres) into something grander, and creating new and more public foundations, though to begin with nothing that rivaled the great basilicas at the Lateran and St. Peter’s...
These churches were a mark of the upbeat confidence of post-Constantinian Christianity in Rome. The popes were potentates, and began to behave like it. Damasus perfectly embodied this growing grandeur. An urbane career cleric like his predecessor Liberius, at home in the wealthy salons of the city, he was also a ruthless power-broker, and he did not he did not hesitate to mobilize both the city police and [a hired mob of gravediggers with pickaxes] to back up his rule…
Self-consciously, the popes began to model their actions and their style as Christian leaders on the procedures of the Roman state. — Eamon Duffy “Saints and Sinners”, p. 37,38
Catholic theologian and a Jesuit priest Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops (New York: The Newman Press), examines possible mentions of “succession” from the first three centuries, and concludes from that study that,
“the episcopate [development of bishops] is a the fruit of a post New Testament development,”...Hence 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...
“...the evidence both from the New Testament and from such writings as I Clement, the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians and The Shepherd of Hennas favors the view that initially the presbyters in each church, as a college, possessed all the powers needed for effective ministry. This would mean that the apostles handed on what was transmissible of their mandate as an undifferentiated whole, in which the powers that would eventually be seen as episcopal were not yet distinguished from the rest. - Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops , pp. 221,222,224
Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4, finds:
“New Testament scholars agree..., The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative.
That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably 'no.”
If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no." (page 3, top)
Schatz additionally states,
Cyprian regarded every bishop as the successor of Peter, holder of the keys to the kingdom of heaven and possessor of the power to bind and loose. For him, Peter embodied the original unity of the Church and the episcopal office, but in principle these were also present in every bishop. For Cyprian, responsibility for the whole Church and the solidarity of all bishops could also, if necessary, be turned against Rome." — Papal Primacy [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996], p. 20)
American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar Raymond Brown (twice appointed to Pontifical Biblical Commission), finds,
“The claims of various sees to descend from particular members of the Twelve are highly dubious. It is interesting that the most serious of these is the claim of the bishops of Rome to descend from Peter, the one member of the Twelve who was almost a missionary apostle in the Pauline sense – a confirmation of our contention that whatever succession there was from apostleship to episcopate, it was primarily in reference to the Puauline type of apostleship, not that of the Twelve.” (“Priest and Bishop, Biblical Reflections,” Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1970, pg 72.)