isshinwhat -
The quotes I provided, each from before the Edict of Milan, give proof that the Roman Church, under her bishop, had "pre- eminent authority" and was "by his [Christ's] own authority the source and hallmark" of the Church's unity.
I would have to dig around in my history notes in order to present a
comprehensive rebuttal to these quotes of yours - but I do have a few snippets on hand which might help to clarify the period of history in question.
This Church "that he entrusts the sheep to feed" was built upon "the Chair of Peter" from Pentecost onward, according to these passages.
I see no reference here to the Papacy, nor to the primacy of the Church of Rome.
Your actual quote was:
" '...thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church' ... It is on him that he builds the Church, and to him that he entrusts the sheep to feed. And although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single Chair, thus establishing by his own authority the source and hallmark of the (Church's) oneness...If a man does not fast to this oneness of Peter, does he still imagine that he still holds the faith. If he deserts the Chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, has he still confidence that he is in the Church?"
Cyprian, De Unitate Ecclesiae(Primacy text),4(A.D. 251),in NE,228-229
No mention of the Papacy; no mention of Petrine primacy; no mention of Rome's primacy. All you have here is a a 3rd Century tradition, and nothing to back it up.
You also quoted:
"Philip, presbyter and legate of the Apostolic See, said: There is no doubt, and in fact it has been known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of the human race, and that to him was given the power of loosing and binding sins: Our holy and most blessed Pope Celestine the bishop is according to due order his successor and holds his place....
Council of Ephesus,Session III (A.D. 431),in GILES,252
But this does not prove your claim of Roman and/or Papal primacy, for Joseph F. Kelly writes:
The word "pope" was not used exclusively of the bishop of Rome until the ninth century, and it is likely that in the earliest Roman community a college of presbyters rather than a single bishop provided the leadership.
Kelly, Joseph F. (1992), The Concise Dictionary of Early Christianity.
So the reference to "Pope Celestine" proves nothing, since this title was not exclusive to the bishop of Rome. In fact, Kelly
vindicates my earlier claim that your Catholic Church did not exist before the 9th Century AD, by noting that the title of "Pope"
only became exclusive
at this time, and
at no time previous!
J. N. D. Kelly lends further weight to my argument:
In the late 2nd or early 3rd cent. the tradition identified Peter as the first bishop of Rome. This was a natural development once the monarchical episcopate, i.e., government of the local church by a single bishop as distinct from a group of presbyter-bishops, finally emerged in Rome in the mid-2nd cent.
Kelly, J. N. D. (1986), The Oxford Dictionary of Popes.
So it was a
tradition, which
emerged in the
late 2nd or early 3rd Century. And this
tradition was itself a
development which sprang from the
change in ecclesiastical order, from a
group of presbyter-bishops, to a
single bishop.
We now move on to your next quote:
"Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere."
Irenaeus,Against Heresies,3:3:2 (A.D. 180),in ANF,I:1415-416
Still no mention of the Pope; still no mention of Petrine primacy (in fact, Irenaeus tells us that
Peter and Paul are the ones who founded and organised the church at Rome!), and only a passing reference to the church in Rome, without any proof that this church ruled over the others.
Thus, in the words of a Catholic historian:
The context of Irenaeus' argument does not claim that the Roman Church is literally unique, the only one of its class; rather, he argues that the Roman Church is the outstanding example of its class, the class in question being apostolic sees. While he chose to speak primarily of Rome for brevity's sake, in fact, before finishing, he also referred to Ephesus and Smyrna.
Eno, Robert (1990), The Rise of the Papacy.
Another Catholic scholar concedes:
It is indeed understandable how this passage has baffled scholars for centuries! Those who were wont to find in it a verification of the Roman primacy were able to interpret it in that fashion. However, there is so much ambiguity here that one has to be careful of over-reading the evidence....
Karl Baus' interpretation [that Irenaeus was not referring to a papacy] seems to be the one that is more faithful to the text and does not presume to read into it a meaning which might not be there. Hence, it neither overstates nor understates Irenaeus' position. For him [Irenaeus], it is those churches of apostolic foundation that have the greater claim to authentic teaching and doctrine. Among those, Rome, with its two apostolic founders, certainly holds an important place. However, all of the apostolic churches enjoy what he terms "preeminent authority" in doctrinal matters.
La Due, William (1999), The Chair of Saint Peter.
Finally, Philip Schaff, writing in his monumental
History of the Christian Church:
The oldest links in the chain of Roman bishops are veiled in impenetrable darkness. Tertullian and most of the Latins (and the pseudo-Clementina), make Clement (Phil. 4:3), the first successor of Peter; but Irenaeus, Eusebius, and other Greeks, also Jerome and the Roman Catalogue, give him the third place, and put Linus (2 Tim. 4:21), and Anacletus (or Anincletus), between him and Peter.
In some lists Cletus is substituted for Anacletus, in others the two are distinguished. Perhaps Linus and Anacletus acted during the life time of Paul and Peter as assistants or presided only over one part of the church, while Clement may have had charge of another branch; for at that early day, the government of the congregation composed of Jewish and Gentile Christian elements was not so centralized as it afterwards became. Furthermore, the earliest fathers, with a true sense of the distinction between the apostolic and episcopal offices, do not reckon Peter among the bishops of Rome at all; and the Roman Catalogue in placing Peter in the line of bishops, is strangely regardless of Paul, whose independent labors in Rome are attested not only by tradition, but by the clear witness of his own epistles and the book of Acts.
Lipsius, after a laborious critical comparison of the different catalogues of popes, arrives at the conclusion that Linus, Anacletus, and Clement were Roman presbyters (or presbyter-bishops in the N. T. sense of the term), at the close of the first century, Evaristus and Alexander presbyters at the beginning of the second, Xystus I. (Latinized: Sixtus), presbyter for ten years till about 128, Telesphorus for eleven years, till about 139, and next successors diocesan bishops.
This looks pretty clear to me.
Therefore, if it was believed that the Roman Church under her Bishop had "pre- eminent authority" and he was entrusted to feed Christ's sheep by his ministry as Peter's successor from at least 180 A.D., then your source's claim that "prior to Toleration in AD 313, there had been no suggestion that the Bishop of Rome exercised any significant influence, much less authority, outside his own domain," and all subsuquent claims which rest upon it, are false.
If all of this was true, then yes, I might have something to worry about.
Fortunately, it's not.
