History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

of the difference between a bishop and an apostle. "I do not command you," he writes to the Romans,

"as if I were Peter or Paul; they were apostles."

Irenaeus.

Irenaeus calls Rome the greatest, the oldest(?) church, acknowledged by all, founded by

the two most illustrious apostles, Peter and Paul, the church, with which, on account of her more

important precedence, all Christendom must agree, or (according to another interpretation) to which

(as the metropolis of the world) all other churches must resort.

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22 The "more important precedence"

places her above the other apostolic churches, to which likewise a precedence is allowed.

This is surely to be understood, however, as a precedence only of honor, not of jurisdiction.

For when Pope Victor, about the year 190, in hierarchical arrogance and intolerance, broke fellowship

with the churches of Asia Minor, for no other reason but because they adhered to their tradition

concerning the celebration of Easter, the same Irenaeus, though agreeing with him on the disputed

point itself, rebuked him very emphatically as a troubler of the peace of the church, and declared

himself against a forced uniformity in such unessential matters. Nor did the Asiatic churches allow

themselves to be intimidated by the dictation of Victor. They answered the Roman tradition with

that of their own sedes apostolicae. The difference continued until the council at Nicaea at last

settled the controversy in favor of the Roman practice, but even long afterwards the old British

churches differed from the Roman practice in the Easter observance to the time of Gregory I.

Hippolytus.

The celebrated Hippolytus, in the beginning of the third century, was a decided antagonist

of the Roman bishops, Zephyrinus and Callistus, both for doctrinal and disciplinary reasons.

Nevertheless we learn from his work called Philosophumena, that at that time the Roman bishop

already claimed an absolute power within his own jurisdiction; and that Callistus, to the great grief

of part of the presbytery, laid down the principle, that a bishop can never be deposed or compelled

to resign by the presbytery, even though he have committed a mortal sin.

Tertullian.

Tertullian points the heretics to the apostolic mother churches, as the chief repositories of

pure doctrine; and among these gives especial prominence to that of Rome, where Peter was

crucified, Paul beheaded, and John immersed unhurt in boiling oil(?) and then banished to the

island. Yet the same father became afterwards an opponent of Rome. He attacked its loose penitential

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The famous Passage, Adv. Haer. iii. §2, is only extant in Latin, and of disputed interpretation: "Ad hanc enim ecclesiam

propter potentiorem (according to Massuet’s conjecture: potiorem) principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesia, hoc

est, eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conservata est ab apostolis traditio." In the original

Greek it probably read: 

Πρός ταύτην γὰρ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν διὰ τὴν ἱκανωτέραν πρωτεῖαν συμβαίνειν (or, in the local sense,

συνέρχεσθαι) δεῖ (according to others: ἀνάγκη, natural necessity) πᾶσαν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, etc. The stress lies on principalitas,

which stands probably for 

πρωτεία (so Thiersch and Gieseler). Comp. Iren. IV. 38, 3, where πρωτεύει is rendered principatitatem

habet. Stieren and Ziegler (Irenaeus, 1871, p. 152), however, translate propter potentiorem principalitatem: 

ὁιὰ τὴν ἱκανωτέραν

ἀρχαιότητα, " on account of the higher antiquity."Comp. on the whole passage an essay by Thiersch in the " Studien und Kritiken"

1842, 512 sqq.; Gieseler I. 1. p. 214 (§ 51); Schneemann: Sancti Irenaei de ecclesia Romanae principatu testimonium commentatum

et defensum, Freiburg i. B. 1870, and Langen, l.c. p. 170 sqq. Langen (who is an Old Catholic of the Döllinger school) explains:

" Die potior principalitas bezeichnet den Vorrang, welchen die Kirche der Hauptptstadt als solche vor alten übrigen Kirchen

besass ... die Hauptstadt war das Centrum des damaligen Weltverkehrs, und in Folge dessen der Sammelplats von Christen aller

Art."He defends the local sense of convenire by parallel passages from Herveus of Bordeaux and Hugo Eterianus (p. 172 sq.).

But the moral sense (to agree)seems more natural.

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History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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discipline, and called the Roman bishop (probably Zephyrinus), in irony and mockery, "pontifex

maximus" and "episcopus episcoporum."

Cyprian.

Cyprian is clearest, both in his advocacy of the fundamental idea of the papacy, and in his

protest against the mode of its application in a given case. Starting from the superiority of Peter,

upon whom the Lord built his church, and to whom he intrusted the feeding of his sheep, in order

to represent thereby the unity in the college of the apostles, Cyprian transferred the same superiority

to the Bishop of Rome, as the successor of Peter, and accordingly called the Roman church the

chair of Peter, and the fountain of priestly unity,

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23

 the root, also, and mother of the catholic

church.

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24

 But on the other side, he asserts with equal energy the equality and relative independence

of the bishops, as successors of the apostles, who had all an equally direct appointment from Christ.

In his correspondence he uniformly addresses the Roman bishop as "brother" and "colleague,"

conscious of his own equal dignity and authority. And in the controversy about heretical baptism,

he opposes Pope Stephen with almost Protestant independence, accusing him of error and abuse

of his power, and calling a tradition without truth an old error. Of this protest he never retracted a

word.

Firmilian.

Still more sharp and unsparing was the Cappadocian bishop, Firmilian, a disciple of Origen,

on the bishop of Rome, while likewise implying a certain acknowledgment of his primacy. Firmilian

charges him with folly, and with acting unworthily of his position; because, as the successor of

Peter, he ought rather to further the unity of the church than to destroy it, and ought to abide on the

rock foundation instead of laying a new one by recognizing heretical baptism. Perhaps the bitterness

of Firmilian was due partly to his friendship and veneration for Origen, who had been condemned

by a council at Rome.

Nevertheless, on this question of baptism, also, as on those of Easter, and of penance, the

Roman church came out victorious in the end.

Comparative Insignificance of the first Popes.

From these testimonies it is clear, that the growing influence of the Roman see was rooted

in public opinion and in the need of unity in the ancient church. It is not to be explained at all by

the talents and the ambition of the incumbents. On the contrary, the personality of the thirty popes

of the first three centuries falls quite remarkably into the background; though they are all canonized

saints and, according to a later but extremely doubtful tradition, were also, with two exceptions,

martyrs.

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25 Among them, and it may be said down to Leo the Great, about the middle of the fifth

century, there was hardly one, perhaps Clement, who could compare, as a church leader, with an

Ignatius, a Cyprian, and an Ambrose; or, as a theologian, with an Irenaeus, a Tertullian, an

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Petri cathedram atque ecclesiam principalem, unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est. Epist. lv. c. 19 (ed. Bal.) Ad Cornelium

episc. Rom. In Goldhorn’s ed., Ep. lix. 19.

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Ecclesiae catholicae radicem et matricem. Ep. xl. 2 ed. Bal. (xlviii. ed. Goldh.). Other passages in Cyrian favorable to the

Roman see are either interpolations or corruptions in the interest of the papacy.

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Irenaeus recognizes among the Roman bishops from Clement to Eleutherus (177), all of whom he mentions by name, only

one martyr, to wit, Telesphorus, of whom he says: 

ὅς καὶ ἐνδόξως ἐμαρτύρησε, P, Adv. Haer. III., c. 3, §3. So Eusebius, H. E.

V. 6. From this we must judge of the value of the Roman Catholic tradition on this point. It is so remote from the time in question

as to be utterly unworthy of credit.

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Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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