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This means nothing. I want you to show me the evidence that the RCC was the first Christian Church.
I was not there to take a video of Jesus saying the famous words to Peter.
I am assuming you want to say the first Christians were Jews in the Temple reading the OT while discussing Jesus orally (they did not have the NT yet).
Or maybe you want to say that the Catholic Church did not exist until Constantine. That is a common piece of misinformation passed by ministers to the parishioners. In any event this is very easy to refute because there are hundreds of early Christian documents.
Or perhaps you want to say that Christianity in the 1st century was Protestant.
Or perhaps you are talking about the competition. Those that followed the Gospel of Thomas, the Gnostics, or the followers of Marcion. You tell me.
In any event here is a letter from Ignatius in 110 AD. This is clearly Catholic:
To the Smyrnaeans
Quote:
I extol Jesus Christ, the God who has granted you such wisdom. For I detected that you were fitted out with an unshakable faith, being nailed, as it were, body and soul to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and being rooted in love by the blood of Christ. Regarding our Lord, you are absolutely convinced that on the human side he was actually sprung from David’s line, Son of God according to God’s will and power, actually born of a virgin, baptized by John, that “all righteousness might be fulfilled by him,” and actually crucified for us in the flesh, under Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch. (We are part of His fruit which grew out of his most blessed Passion.) And thus, by his resurrection, he raised a standard to rally his saints and faithful forever — whether Jews or Gentiles — in one body of his Church.
Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.
Once again, I assume you are saying that the Jews were the first Christians when Jesus walked the Earth. And I will gladly give you that.
Second century Christians believed in this concept.
The first thing Constantine did was to build Saint Peters over the tomb of Peter.
However, you do not have to believe this. I get it!
I'm not saying Jesus never said Matthew 16:18.
I am saying not all second century Christians believed in this concept.
I'm not disputing Constantine's actions.
Julian, are you saying you accept Orthodox Sacred Tradition views?
From the Catechism:
Quote:
What does "catholic" mean?
830 The word "catholic" means "universal," in the sense of "according to the totality" or "in keeping with the whole." The Church is catholic in a double sense:
First, the Church is catholic because Christ is present in her. "Where there is Christ Jesus, there is the Catholic Church."
831 Secondly, the Church is catholic because she has been sent out by Christ on a mission to the whole of the human race:310
Who belongs to the Catholic Church?
Quote:
838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter."322 Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church."
With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."
This means nothing. I want you to show me the evidence that the RCC was the first Christian Church.
Actually, the leader of the first Christian church was James the Just, not Peter. However more influence of James the Just filters into the Catholic faith than it does Protestantism.
Hegesippus, who belonged to the second generation of Jesus' followers affirms James' role as head of the Christian community in his five-volume history of the early church. "Control of the church," he writes, "passed together with the apostles to the brother of the Lord, James, whom everyone from the Lord's time till our own has named 'the Just,' for there were many Jameses."
In the Epistle of Peter, a non-canonical work, the chief apostle and leader of the Twelve refers to James as "Lord and Bishop of the Holy Church." Clement of Rome, who would succeed Peter as bishop in the imperial city, addresses a letter to James as "the Bishop of Bishops, who rules Jerusalem, the Holy Assembly of the Hebrews, and all the Assemblies everywhere."
In the Gospel of Thomas dated somewhere between the end of the first century and the beginning of the second (C.E.), Jesus himself names James his successor: "The disciples said to Jesus, 'We know that you will depart from us. Who will be our leader?' Jesus said to them, "Where you are, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.'"
James is the one to whom Peter reports his activities before leaving Jerusalem (Acts 12:17); James who sits in charge of the "elders" when Paul comes to make supplication (Acts 21:18); James who is the presiding authority over the Apostolic Council, who speaks last during its deliberations, and whose judgment is final (Acts 15:13). In fact, all the other apostles disappear from the book of Acts after chapter 15 EXCEPT for James. And it is James who publicly humiliates Paul for his deviant teachings by requiring him to perform a Nazarite vow (the nazarite vow ends with animal sacrifice)--which leads to the climax of the book, Paul's arrest and extradition to Rome.
Paul even chided Peter about refusing to eat with Gentiles when representatives from James showed up in Antioch (Galatians 2:12). Peter had previously been eating with Gentiles, but with the presence of men who came from James, Peter took notice, and knew where authority over him really lay.
The long and the short of it is that Peter was NOT the head of the first church, nor was Paul. But both of them made a more lasting impression because the entire community of Christians in Jerusalem was wiped out by 70 C.E. Only the Christian communities of both Jews and Gentiles, established by Peter and Paul, were left to carry on the story of Jesus.
James was largely forgotten, and the Catholic church itself wanted to forget him because of numerous historical references to James as the brother of Jesus when the early church had founded a tradition that Mary's only child was Jesus. James as a leader, became a black sheep to the early Catholic church. Paul on the other hand, taught a gospel that in no way resembled the one that had come from the early Jewish tradition which was still works bound, and Catholic tradition still has an emphasis on "doing" good, not just "believing" right. In that respect, it is closer in its following to the mother assembly in Old Jerusalem.
A bigger question is, which branch of the original universal church is right and which is wrong? The Roman Catholic Church is just one branch-off from the original. Some say that the Pope of Alexandria or Constantinople are the true and truly authoritative head of all Christendom. What makes them wrong and the RCC right? Then you have the Armenian Church, the Eastern (Assyrian) Church, etc. Each can trace their line of authority directly through Christ's apostles and Christ himself. What makes the Roman Catholic Church right and the other ancient branches of the original Church wrong? After all, they did disagree sufficiently to split and discontinue formal communion with one another. Is the RCC right purely by virtue of attrition? The other ancient apostolic churches were overrun by the Islamic conquests, but Rome was not overrun. Are they more correct today only because they are significantly larger in number? They are most certainly not the only ones claiming line of authority via Peter, saying that Rome is the sole inheritor of the keys given to Peter, while it sounds very nice, requires a lot of jumping to unfounded historical conclusions and making assumptions to fill in the gaps. During the great councils of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, Constantinople was clearly center of Christendom and the great Christian city. When did that change? Did God change it? Was it God who made Constantinople, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem preeminently important in his Church and Kingdom or was it all due to their geopolitical importance? Other than politics and earthly power, why do Rome and Constantinople become the most important? Does God grant authority on the basis of where the Roman Empire chooses to place its capital cities? Does God invest authority on the basis of politics and earthly power at all? And does the age of the religious denomination really matter? If older = truer, then we all need to convert to Judaism.
In the end, there is no denomination in Christendom that is not a branch split off of the original tree and the RCC is no different. You may choose to believe that your religion is the one and only successor of Christ's legitimate original Church, but there isn't enough evidence to prove it beyond all doubt. The business of filling in the blanks, and thereby transferring the keys from Peter to Rome and only Rome -- that is your sacred tradition. Other counter claimants to original linear apostolic authority have a sacred tradition that contradicts yours. But the pre-Constantine Christian Church was as almost diverse Protestantism is today. Most of Protestantism claims there was no need for centralized authority in the hands of an Emperor or a Pope or anything of the sort, but that the priesthood authority from God had been granted equally to all believers. That is their sacred tradition. Restorationism has its own diverse sacred traditions as well.
I think that interdenominational bickering is a direct result of one obvious fact: Every question of doctrine has a correct answer. Either Jesus Christ is the Son of God or he is not. Either Jesus paid the price for the sins of all humankind or he did not. Either the traditional Trinity is an accurate description of God or it is not. Rome either inherited the keys of sole leadership of all Christianity or it did not. The immaculate conception is either a true description of Mary or it is not. Born again Christians formula for salvation is either true or it is not. Either the Bible is inerrant or it is not. There is such a thing as absolute truth. Until the time comes that God gives each of us all of the correct answers to all of humanity, there will never be and end to the business of "My Truth > Your Truth."
I don't like to speculate so it's a good thing I can go to the writings of the Early Church Father Irenaeus of Lyon around 190 A.D.:
Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 3, Verses 1 and 2
1. It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to the perfect apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.
2. 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 preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.
Actually, the leader of the first Christian church was James the Just, not Peter. However more influence of James the Just filters into the Catholic faith than it does Protestantism.
Hegesippus, who belonged to the second generation of Jesus' followers affirms James' role as head of the Christian community in his five-volume history of the early church. "Control of the church," he writes, "passed together with the apostles to the brother of the Lord, James, whom everyone from the Lord's time till our own has named 'the Just,' for there were many Jameses."
In the Epistle of Peter, a non-canonical work, the chief apostle and leader of the Twelve refers to James as "Lord and Bishop of the Holy Church." Clement of Rome, who would succeed Peter as bishop in the imperial city, addresses a letter to James as "the Bishop of Bishops, who rules Jerusalem, the Holy Assembly of the Hebrews, and all the Assemblies everywhere."
In the Gospel of Thomas dated somewhere between the end of the first century and the beginning of the second (C.E.), Jesus himself names James his successor: "The disciples said to Jesus, 'We know that you will depart from us. Who will be our leader?' Jesus said to them, "Where you are, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.'"
James is the one to whom Peter reports his activities before leaving Jerusalem (Acts 12:17); James who sits in charge of the "elders" when Paul comes to make supplication (Acts 21:18); James who is the presiding authority over the Apostolic Council, who speaks last during its deliberations, and whose judgment is final (Acts 15:13). In fact, all the other apostles disappear from the book of Acts after chapter 15 EXCEPT for James. And it is James who publicly humiliates Paul for his deviant teachings by requiring him to perform a Nazarite vow (the nazarite vow ends with animal sacrifice)--which leads to the climax of the book, Paul's arrest and extradition to Rome.
Paul even chided Peter about refusing to eat with Gentiles when representatives from James showed up in Antioch (Galatians 2:12). Peter had previously been eating with Gentiles, but with the presence of men who came from James, Peter took notice, and knew where authority over him really lay.
The long and the short of it is that Peter was NOT the head of the first church, nor was Paul. But both of them made a more lasting impression because the entire community of Christians in Jerusalem was wiped out by 70 C.E. Only the Christian communities of both Jews and Gentiles, established by Peter and Paul, were left to carry on the story of Jesus.
James was largely forgotten, and the Catholic church itself wanted to forget him because of numerous historical references to James as the brother of Jesus when the early church had founded a tradition that Mary's only child was Jesus. James as a leader, became a black sheep to the early Catholic church. Paul on the other hand, taught a gospel that in no way resembled the one that had come from the early Jewish tradition which was still works bound, and Catholic tradition still has an emphasis on "doing" good, not just "believing" right. In that respect, it is closer in its following to the mother assembly in Old Jerusalem.
The NT has huge contradictions, that is no surprise.
As usual it is easy to take opposing points of view by citing different parts of the Bible. However, "it is what it is". Saint Peter was built on the tomb of Peter and many Christian writers in the second century agree with the supremacy of Peter.
I don't like to speculate so it's a good thing I can go to the writings of the Early Church Father Irenaeus of Lyon around 190 A.D.:
Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 3, Verses 1 and 2
1. It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to the perfect apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.
2. 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 preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.
Exactly!!
And the Apostolic Succession was set up to avoid the passage of heretic messages from generation to generation. This was particularly important when the gospel and message was spread by word of mouth.
The NT has huge contradictions, that is no surprise.
As usual it is easy to take opposing points of view by citing different parts of the Bible. However, "it is what it is". Saint Peter was built on the tomb of Peter and many Christian writers in the second century agree with the supremacy of Peter.
I cited a lot of things NOT in the scriptures, too. And when both scriptures and outside sources agree, then that is something that tends to ring a bell of truth!
I cited a lot of things NOT in the scriptures, too. And when both scriptures and outside sources agree, then that is something that tends to ring a bell of truth!
There were a lot of of wacky points of views in Early Christianity. Some followed Marcion who felt the entire OT was wrong and proposed an NT only Bible. Others followed Thomas. Others were not certain of the divinity of Jesus. There were Gnostics and other varieties. You are free to also quote them.
However, 'it is what it is": What eventually emerge out of the visit of Jesus was the Catholic Church. And there is much more written evidence to support this point of view. And of course there is history. After all is said and done the CC was the most formidable force of Western Civilization and responsible for bringing Christianity to the world. I encourage to visit all of Europe as a tourist the influence of the Church is easy to see.
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