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.
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
224
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.
225
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.