No Pope in the 1st Century

[Just Another User]

I might be reading a modern Catholic perspective into the early church. If I were to draw a Venn diagram of current priests and bishops, there would be a large circle that includes the set of all Catholic priests. Within this large circle would be a completely contained smaller second circle that is the set of all Catholic bishops. So all bishops are priests; but not all priests are bishops. This is why seeing the terms used interchangeably in Clement to refer seemingly to the same group of men does not seem a contradiction to me.
There could be another explanation as well. In 1 Clement Chapter 3 it lays out the cause of the current sedition in Corinth as "So the worthless rose up against the honored, those of no reputation against such as were renowned, the foolish against the wise, the young against those advanced in years."

I understand what you're saying but I think I've explained it well. In the Shepard of Hermas that was probably written in the 140s and in Rome, it refers to those in charge of Rome as elders or presbyters. Plural. I think it also refers to the election of said elders too it makes not mention of episkopos. However, in other works such as the Didache for example (though not exclusively) that mention elections, they only refer to bishops and episkopos and don't mention elders or presbtyeros. I think it's good evidence to suggest early on that both terms were similar if not the same.

So the use of presbyter or elder might be just a way of referring to the age of those deposed of their office. It seems evident that these men were appointed to an office and were given the authority and honor due that office at one time and that this has changed; because Clement asks the malcontents to submit to this authority and with contrition seek repentance and reconciliation.

I agree with this. The best people to be elders are the eldest Christians usually. There's some evidence to suggest that elder might literally mean those who are elderly but we know from history that this wasn't always the case.

In chapter 40 in Clement on Church order, Clement uses the Old Testament model to provide an analogue for the NT priesthood and denotes threefold ministry with a high priest that seems separate from priests in general,
"CHAPTER 40 -- LET US PRESERVE IN THE CHURCH THE ORDER APPOINTED BY GOD.

These things therefore being manifest to us, and since we look into the depths of the divine knowledge, it behoves us to do all things in [their proper] order, which the Lord has commanded us to perform at stated times. He has enjoined offerings [to be presented] and service to be performed [to Him], and that not thoughtlessly or irregularly, but at the appointed times and hours. Where and by whom He desires these things to be done, He Himself has fixed by His own supreme will, in order that all things being piously done according to His good pleasure, may be acceptable to Him. Those, therefore, who present their offerings at the appointed times, are accepted and blessed; for inasmuch as they follow the laws of the Lord, they sin not. For his own peculiar services are assigned to the high priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and their own special ministrations devolve on the Levites. The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen."

There's a misunderstanding with the quote. This quote is quite literally referring to the sacrifices at the 2nd temple and the High Priest's job and whatnot. It's probably the best evidence for the letter being around 69AD along with the opening.

I'd have to strongly disagree with that being used to support a three-fold ministry due to the context behind the quote. In fact, the only Catholic comments I've seen on this chapter as well as chapter 41 which again refers to sacrifices is why sacrifices were still "permitted" by Clement and defending that position. I'm not saying that chapter 40 can't be used to defend the three-fold ministry in the 1st century or even Catholic scholars haven't used chapter 40 to defend the three-fold ministry, I just don;t know of one. Again, you may quote one if you do know of a scholar who does take this defence. I'll show an excerpt of chapter 41 to defend the position that it's referring to the 2nd temple exclusively.

"Let every one of you, brethren, give thanks to God in his own order, living in all good conscience, with becoming gravity, and not going beyond the rule of the ministry prescribed to him. Not in every place, brethren, are the daily sacrifices offered, or the peace-offerings, or the sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings, but in Jerusalem only. And even there they are not offered in any place, but only at the altar before the temple, that which is offered being first carefully examined by the high priest and the ministers already mentioned. Those, therefore, who do anything beyond that which is agreeable to His will, are punished with death. You see, brethren, that the greater the knowledge that has been vouchsafed to us, the greater also is the danger to which we are exposed."

All of this seems to miss the mark on whether there was a single bishop to rule in Rome or several at this time. Most of the contentions for this surrounding Clement are not from internal evidence of the text but from external knowledge about the epistle and it's author. The only internal evidence is that the author is not named and refers only to "The Church of God which sojourns at Rome, to the Church of God sojourning at Corinth". So if we accept Clement as the author and equate that Clement with the Pope Clement named by Ireneaus (the dates seem to line up), then it might just be humility on his part to not call himself a bishop when writing a letter to Corinth criticizing them on deposing certain "presbyters". It seems that the seditious in Corinth did not view church authority with impunity.

It's impossible to know who wrote it but it's assumed along with tradition that it was probably Clement. Again I'd like to say again that many different people gave different dates for the Popes of the First Century and I've found it interesting that the first person to list the bishops of Rome is someone doing a theological work against heretics in the 180s and is contradicted by people writing a few decades later.

 

[tz620q]

It's impossible to know who wrote it but it's assumed along with tradition that it was probably Clement. Again I'd like to say again that many different people gave different dates for the Popes of the First Century and I've found it interesting that the first person to list the bishops of Rome is someone doing a theological work against heretics in the 180s and is contradicted by people writing a few decades later.

So, if I were to paraphrase your argument, you are not in fact trying to prove there was no Pope in Rome during this time, since multiples lists seem to argue for that fact even if they are not consistent. The argument that inconsistencies in historical documents invalidate the claims of all the documents is similar to the logical fallacy that you stated before, except that Document A is dissimilar to Document B, is dissimilar to Document C does not disprove all the lists. If that were the case, we do not have a valid genealogy of Christ from the Bible and all links to David or Adam are false. Clearly we accept the inconsistencies here and try to find a reason behind them. And that is what scholars have tried to do, not throw out what scant documentation we have.

It seems you are arguing more for a multiplicity of bishops in Rome during this time or bishops/elders if you prefer. I suppose the other model would be a leaderless church; but all of the documents that you have quoted disprove this claim, since they all either state directly or imply like in the Didache, that Rome did have leadership, even during persecution. I wonder what valid proof of multiple bishops would look like. To me it would have to state that rather directly since it is trying to disprove lists of Popes that make the opposite claim. I suppose if we could prove the validity of something that said, "There was not a singular bishop in Rome at this time. It was ruled by a board of elders."

You might want to browse the article found here

 

[Just Another User]

So, if I were to paraphrase your argument, you are not in fact trying to prove there was no Pope in Rome during this time, since multiples lists seem to argue for that fact even if they are not consistent. The argument that inconsistencies in historical documents invalidate the claims of all the documents is similar to the logical fallacy that you stated before, except that Document A is dissimilar to Document B, is dissimilar to Document C does not disprove all the lists. If that were the case, we do not have a valid genealogy of Christ from the Bible and all links to David or Adam are false. Clearly we accept the inconsistencies here and try to find a reason behind them. And that is what scholars have tried to do, not throw out what scant documentation we have.

Well of cause not. We must answer why there's mistakes and inconsistencies in the first place. It seems unlikely that both people writing in Rome around the same time can make two different lists of Popes in the first century and quite similar from the mid 2nd century onwards. We can assume that they lacked documents to make a conclusive proof but that seems doubtful due to the fact that the early church were usually pretty good at preserving tradition and texts. We must also wonder why contemporaries who would have had the same body of texts to make their lists, construct two widely different lists in some cases. It's also interesting that the only times the early church used lists of bishops was when they were dealing with heretics and trying to construct arguments against them. It just find it interesting that not much care was taken apparently by those who were creating the lists to respect the bishop of Rome. In fact, other lists of bishops are actually more accurate than those about Rome if we use the criteria of

It seems you are arguing more for a multiplicity of bishops in Rome during this time or bishops/elders if you prefer. I suppose the other model would be a leaderless church; but all of the documents that you have quoted disprove this claim, since they all either state directly or imply like in the Didache, that Rome did have leadership, even during persecution. I wonder what valid proof of multiple bishops would look like. To me it would have to state that rather directly since it is trying to disprove lists of Popes that make the opposite claim. I suppose if we could prove the validity of something that said, "There was not a singular bishop in Rome at this time. It was ruled by a board of elders."

(If anyone's claiming that there was a leaderless church during the 1st century, they aren't worth your time)

If I'd be so brazen, I think I've given conclusive evidence to suggest that since they used elder and bishops interchangeably, the Shepard of Hermas talks about the elders being in control of Rome and not a bishop like other later works do too (SoH was also written after Ignatius' time

You might want to browse the article found here

That's an excellent article you've posted. That Duffy's arguments are seriously poor. Some of those arguments are very convincing I must admit to say the very least.

 

[tz620q]

Well of cause not. We must answer why there's mistakes and inconsistencies in the first place. It seems unlikely that both people writing in Rome around the same time can make two different lists of Popes in the first century and quite similar from the mid 2nd century onwards. We can assume that they lacked documents to make a conclusive proof but that seems doubtful due to the fact that the early church were usually pretty good at preserving tradition and texts. We must also wonder why contemporaries who would have had the same body of texts to make their lists, construct two widely different lists in some cases. It's also interesting that the only times the early church used lists of bishops was when they were dealing with heretics and trying to construct arguments against them. It just find it interesting that not much care was taken apparently by those who were creating the lists to respect the bishop of Rome. In fact, other lists of bishops are actually more accurate than those about Rome if we use the criteria of

To which two lists are you referring? I would suppose that one is that of Irenaeus; but the other lists that I have seen are compiled over a hundred years after Irenaeus'. Jerome's De Viris Illustribus is not really a list of Popes; but of notable Christians. The Liber Pontificalis seems to be just a continuation of Jerome's work. Please provide the two lists and what inconsistencies you would like to note.