From the camel and needle thread (skip to the bottom if you don't feel like reading the history thing I left, since it's kinda long):
(Today 02:17 AM)shiverleaf15 Wrote:
(Yesterday 09:47 PM)Teilhard Wrote:
(Yesterday 09:37 PM)shiverleaf15 Wrote: Well as a Catholic, you would say that 
another Christian might say something about their beliefs and practices being the ones Jesus accepts.
LOL … Well, sure, but I figured ...
… every student of The Gospels knows that The Lord Jesus of Nazareth "accepted" Peter and so appointed him to be The First Bishop of Rome, The Vicar of Christ, the "Rock" on whom The One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church was firmly founded … and still endures to this day, with Pope Francis I in the line of succession as the first among equals …
I don't deny Peter was the earthly president of the earthly Church as soon as Jesus stepped into Heaven, but I don't think Linus was the next one. I think John was the next one, John the apostle, writing epistles to seven churches in Asia with an ecumenical authority that I consider to be greater than that of Clement of Rome when he wrote to Corinth (his authority was more that of mere suggestion, like that of Ignatius or Polycarp when they wrote to other churches). John had the authority of speaking on behalf of JESUS from HEAVEN to the churches in Asia. Like a prophet. Because he had prophetic and apostolic authority over all the churches, he was the real president of the Church after Peter, at least that's what I see.
The Roman Catholic Church didn't exist before the year 1054. This is not me being anti-Catholic, this is history. The Christian Church from around 313 with the Edict of Milan til 1054 was more like the Church of England or the Church of Sweden, it was a state church for the Roman Empire and later Byzantine Empire, the head of the Church was not the Pope, it was the emperor instead, he had the authority to meddle in church affairs and that's why he was the one appointing popes at times, before the Pope decided to get away from the emperor's reach, allying with Charlemagne and breaking from the Byzantine Empire. By 1054 the Pope decided to excommunicate the eastern churches and they excommunicated him back, and that's when the Roman Catholic Church was officially born, unlike the old Imperial Church (which then became the Eastern Orthodox Church) the new RCC never let kings rule its church affairs, though the kings sure tried, and that's what led to the Protestant reformation.
Mind you I'm neither Orthodox nor Protestant so I'm not really having any bias toward them. In fact I don't think even the Imperial Church nor the reformed attempts at recreating it in Protestant Europe were the original Christian Church.
We'll have to continue this discussion in a separate thread. I can make one if you'd like!
1. The "Ancient Communion" and Early Schisms
My understanding is that after the apostles were dead, there was an "ancient communion" if you will (that is my term), of various Christian churches in the Roman Empire and even outside it, these churches were led by bishops and presbytery councils and all had similar beliefs but some differences too, especially over interpretation/opinion of how to understand some traditions. This led to things like the quartodeciman controversy for example over the question of when Easter should be celebrated. But they were actually agreed on certain subjects that were most important, such as the doctrine that Jesus was divine and the Son of God and died for our sins.
Early points of schism:
- EBIONISM: There were some Jewish Christians who decided to break with the Bishop of Jerusalem very early on, because the Bishop of Jerusalem and his flock never broke with the "ancient communion", but these other Jewish Christians began rejecting Paul and denying that Jesus was divine, they were named Ebionites and spread to Arabia, they kept existing til Islam appeared, Waraka ibn Nawfal was a relative of Muhammad and apparently an Ebionite priest. The Ebionites seem to have been around before the year 100 AD when the Elchasaite sect sprung forth from them. Since a certain schismatic leader named Thebutis before 100 AD broke with Simeon of Jerusalem (the second Bishop of Jerusalem) some time after James the Just (the first Bishop of Jerusalem) was dead, and the Ebionites respected James a lot, I think that Thebutis may be a good candidate for their founder.
- GNOSTICISM: From very early on there were circles of Christians who attended church every Sunday and listened to the bishops preach traditions and so forth, who nevertheless would invite other Christians to join them in extra-ecclesiastical secret meetings, where they had their own hierarchies of initiators and initiates, by which method "secret traditions" were delivered and received, and thus supposedly they had been transmitted secretly from the apostles or Jesus without the bishops or anyone ever openly receiving them. These traditions contradicted a lot of what the bishops taught. For example the bishops of the "ancient communion" taught that Jesus was the son of the Old Testament god, but these "secret traditions" taught that the Old Testament god was some evil creator character distinct from Jesus' Father. These circles of Christians were known as Gnostics, there were many different "flavors" of them, and originally they were like a church-within-the-Church, though eventually due to the work of the early apologists, there were schisms and new fully-Gnostic churches appeared, separate from the "ancient communion".
- MONTANISM: Around the late 2nd and early 3rd century there was a "New Prophecy" movement in Asia Minor known as Montanism, it delivered new prophetic revelations that were meant to guide the Church but although many Christians in the Church believed them and endorsed them, eventually there were local councils among the churches that would instead reject Montanism formally, this led to a schism where Montanists made a separate church. Tertullian joined that church, for example, leaving the old "ancient communion" Church.
2. Persecution Period, Rome vs. Carthage, More Schisms
In the year 250, there was a persecution of Christians by Emperor Decius, many Christians apostatized publicly to save their lives, handing scriptures and other Christians to the empire for confiscation and execution respectively. The apostates were called lapsi and traditores. Many of them after the persecution ended tried to come back to the Church. Traditionally heavy sin was supposed to be repented of through continuous penitence to show one was truly sorry. But since the 230s or so (at least according to Hippolytus of Rome) the Bishop of Rome of the time (Callistus) had begun teaching that bishops could forgive sins without the necessary penitence. And this is what happened in 250 and a Christian named Novatian didn't stand for this and got appointed Bishop of Rome in contrast to Cornelius who was also appointed Bishop of Rome and wanted to forgive the apostates. Thus began the Novatianist schism. Now in Africa, Cyprian of Carthage took Cornelius' side only because he opposed schism, because he strongly condemned the leniency with which apostates were being forgiven.
Some points of doctrine Cyprian taught:
- Apostasy requires strong penitence. Bishops can't forgive sins magically. People must repent and the Church must led them in only after they feel, reasonably, that the person has really repented thoroughly.
- Schism is bad. Baptism by schismatics does not bring people into Christ's Body, even if the formula is correct. The Novatianists' baptisms were for naught, according to Cyprian. Rebaptism is necessary for schismatics or heretics or anyone baptized by any baptism other than the true Church's baptism, because those other baptisms don't count. This doctrine was opposed by Pope Stephen because he argued that there was only "one baptism" as per scripture, which meant only one baptism per person in their life was necessary. But for Cyprian, "one baptism" meant there was only one baptism that could work, the baptism given by the Church. Cyprian's argument also was backed up logically like this: the Body of Christ is the same as the Church on Earth, and baptism brings entry both into the Body and Church because they are the same, now if the baptism of heretics is valid just because of the formula being correct, then their heretical churches are also the same as Christ's Church, and that is something that not even Pope Stephen nor supporters of his doctrine would agree to.
- Since it wasn't the formulas that made baptisms valid, Cyprian's doctrine was that something about the authority of the person baptizing had to do with what made a baptism valid. Firstly, the person baptizing HAD to be a priest from Christ's true Church, not a different church. Second, Cyprian believed that a sinful priest should not be allowed to be a priest or exercise authority. Again, it's because Cyprian believed that sinners should not be forgiven unless they repented thoroughly. Furthermore, whoever allowed a sinful priest to exercise authority was himself sinning. Cyprian believed that a sinful priest could not perform sacraments like baptism, until he had repented. Cyprian believed that those who communed with sinful priests knowingly and willingly were sinners themselves. Cyprian believed this was the little leaven that could leaven the whole lump unless taken out, and thus Cyprian believed that sinful priests and anyone willing to commune with them should be removed from the true Church.
In the year 305 Emperor Diocletian began an even worse persecution against Christians which lasted roughly for the next ten years (though it was lessened towards the end). Cyprian was already dead but the church in Carthage was hugely impacted by his teachings, while the church in Rome was hugely impacted by Stephen's teachings (if it counts to mention, Stephen was the first bishop to claim he had authority over the entire Christian Church, which thing Cyprian rejected). When the Bishop of Carthage died during the persecutions, some Carthaginian Christians gathered together and appointed a man named Caecilian as his successor. This was however, contrary to the ancient Christian tradition of Carthage, where the Primate of Numidia (sort of like an archbishop of the region) always appointed new bishops in Carthage. Secundus of Tigisi, the Primate of Numidia of the time, learned of what had happened, rounded up seventy bishops from Africa with him, went to Carthage, and appointed a new bishop instead. The new bishop died soon so they replaced him with Donatus of Casae Nigrae. Caecilian complained to Emperor Constantine and the Bishop of Rome and they sided with Caecilian. This began the Donatist schism. The thing is, if Cyprian's doctrine was right, the Donatists were the true Christian Church and the Caecilianists were the real schismatics. That is my position, if anyone must ask.
The Caecilianists became the Church of the Roman Empire, and the Donatists were officially condemned by Constantine and then persecuted, and then schisms happened in the Donatist church, and it got wiped out. If anyone must ask, that's not a problem to me because I'm a Restorationist Christian. Restorationists believe in a Great Apostasy during which time there was no "true Church". We believe this because we feel history shows it, and in my church's case in particular, we believe scripture foretold it. Anyway that's just a digression.
3. The Imperial Church, the Great Schism, the Protestant Reformation
The Caecilianist church or "Imperial Church" was the Church of the Roman Empire unofficially since the Edict of Milan, though it really only became official beginning with Emperor Theodosius. When the empire broke in two and the Western Roman Empire dissolved, the Eastern Roman Empire was all that was left.
The leader of the Imperial Church was not the Pope. The Pope, eventually, was given a status as the "first among equals" and the most important bishop of the Church. However, he could not meddle in the affairs of the whole Church: he could only meddle in the affairs of the "Patriarchate of the West" as Emperor Justinian would later demarcate it. There was a figure however, who COULD meddle in the affairs of the entire Church, including the removal or appointment of new popes, the calling forth of ecumenical councils, and so forth. That was the Roman Emperor, and later Byzantine Emperor.
The Pope never liked that because Stephen's doctrine was strong in Rome, and they eventually seceded from the Byzantine Empire (yes, the whole Duchy of Rome, a province of the Byzantine Empire, seceded), and joined the Frankish Empire. This led to the Pope basically acting like he was in charge of the whole Christian Church for the centuries that followed. However he really never did have any authority over the churches in the East. When the Byzantine Emperor called an ecumenical council in 879 and the Pope called a separate ecumenical council in 869 and the two contradicted, that's when it really became apparent the Pope was starting to become a separatist because he wouldn't submit to the decisions of the Byzantine Emperor. But it really solidified in 1054 during the Great Schism when the pope excommunicated the eastern churches and they excommunicated him back.
The early Protestant Reformation tried to restore the ancient Imperial Church, but in the West. The Imperial Church after the Pope seceded stopped being altogether "imperial" once the Ottomans conquered the Byzantine Empire. After that point it's continued to exist as the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Martin Luther had a theory that secular offices in society, such as labor roles (like being a blacksmith or a tanner or something like that) and administrative roles (like being a prince or a king) were also "offices" in the Church, on par with ecclesiastical offices like deacon, priest, or bishop...or pope. He believed that if one of the members of the Church, be who it may be, was "offending" the rest (through heresy) he deserved to be taken out. He believed the pope had committed heresy and therefore believed Christians had a right to take him out and be the "Church" without him. He believed that kings had the authority to meddle in the Church within their own kingdoms' borders, which led to state churches like the Church of England or the Church of Sweden. Luther also came up with the "priesthood of all believers" theory by taking Pope Stephen's ideas to the extreme. Since Pope Stephen believed the formula was all necessary to make someone a baptized Christian (rather than being a member of the "true" clergy of the Church like Cyprian believed) Martin Luther used this and other arguments to show that anyone could baptize anyone correctly without needing to be a clergyman with apostolic succession.
The Radical Reformation, in contrast to the Magisterial Reformation, did not believe it was right for kings to meddle in Church affairs. They thus believed there was a great error to what Constantine began and Luther had revived. But they rejected the Pope and affirmed Luther's "priesthood of all believers" theory nonetheless.
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Going back to the beginning, I told Teilhard that I believed John, not the popes at Rome, succeeded Peter. Scripturally, John had a very broad ecumenical authority as shown by how he could preach to the churches in Asia as if on behalf of Jesus Christ himself, through prophetic revelation. Clement of Rome, who would have been the fourth "pope", only had a power of suggestion much like that of Ignatius of Antioch or Polycarp of Smyrna, but John the apostle had something up and beyond that. That's why I think John had the keys over the whole Church after Peter, and not Paul. After the apostles disappeared, I don't believe anyone had authority over the whole Church. I feel the bishops needed to work together. I do believe though, that Cyprian's doctrines were apostolically-derived, either through direct traditions or (in my opinion) the most rational interpretation of scripture. Which means I feel that the Donatists were the "true Church" after the schism with the Caecilianists. The bishops did not have authority to rescind or change apostolic tradition, and I think that's what ended up happening once Roman Emperors got involved where they didn't have any authority to get involved in.
Teil, although I welcome you to share your thoughts from your Catholic perspective, I want to say a few things before you do:
The Pope really wasn't the Imperial Church's leader, nor the leader of the pre-Imperial "ancient communion". This is, I want to contend, established as historical fact. I mean you can go on Wikipedia or any other historical unbiased encyclopedia and read this yourself. It's not anti-Catholicism to point this out, so I hope this doesn't offend you. I think people will disagree with me when I take the side of the Donatists in arguing that the Imperial Church wasn't the "true Church" anymore. But I also did my homework and researched into this and I welcome people to read about Cyprian and Stephen and judge for themselves. I do think, though, that when I say the Imperial Church was really more or less the Eastern Orthodox Church (it wasn't called that yet though), and not the Roman Catholic Church, that's practically an established historical fact. The RCC came from the EOC and not the other way around. Again, I'm not Eastern Orthodox, never was, and don't plan to become one, so I'm not saying this out of some EOC bias against the RCC. Would be glad to hear your thoughts.