The Pope Shows Up A Couple Hundred Years Early

One of the most frustrating things I've found in my exploration into Catholicism is the apparent lack of scholarly (at best) or honest (at worst) work when it comes to those refuting the claims of the Catholic Church. Now, that's not to say that the Catholic Church is right and that Protestants are wrong. I'm simply saying that when I look for information, I'm finding half-truths that can only be explained by poor research or a convenient hiding of the evidence.

To provide an example, let's look at a quote from Earle Cairns' book Christianity Through the Centuries. This text was handed to me by a co-worker who used the book in college-level religion classes. My co-worker was using the information in the book to dissuade me from my perilous journey into the world of Rosaries and Incense and Holy Water and he specifically directed me to several quotes--quotes he felt would bring me back into the fold, back to my Protestant roots.

One quote in particular he brought to my attention was concerning the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome (who we call today, the Pope). Here's the quote from Cairns' book:

Between 313 and 590, the Old Catholic Church, in which each bishop had been an equal, became the Roman Catholic Church, in which the bishop of Rome won primacy over the other bishops.... The bishop in the early church was considered one of many bishops who were equal in rank, power and function.... But beginning with Leo I's accession to the episcopal throne in 440, the Roman bishop began to claim his supremacy over other bishops.

So, according to Cairns, the Old (that is, the good) Catholic Church saw every bishop as an equal. There was no single bishop over all--no "Pope". All bishops exercised the same authority and power and function. In fact, it wasn't until Pope Leo I, in 440 AD, that the Roman bishop started to exert a role of power or supremacy over the other bishops.

Well, the quote sounds good. It sounds impressive. Cairns' wrote the stuff in a real book. He gives dates and names and he sounds very honest and scholarly. But, his claims simply aren't true. Or, at the very least, they're EXTREMELY debatable.

I've written a much longer rebuttal to the claim that can be found here, but really, to establish that the good Mr. Cairns' is either a half-hearted scholar, or worst, a bit of a sneak, we only need to look at a couple of quotes.

The first (not the first chronologically--see the longer work for ealier references) is from St. Ireneaus (140 - 202 AD). In his Adversus Haeresies, in Chapter 3 he writes about the Primacy of the Church in Rome saying that while it would take too long to enumerate the succession of bishops in ALL the churches, he will make his case by pointing out here:

the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient Church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, that Church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the Apostles. For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all Churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world; and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the Apostolic tradition.

He doesn't have time to list all the bishops throuhgout Christendom so he'll list the bishops of the most ancient Church known to all. This is a very clear, very straight-forward example from the years 180 - 199 AD that the Church in Rome was considered superior to all others, that this church was regarded as being the most ancient and the greatest. It's proof of the existence of an idea that Cairns' claims surfaces much later in history: that all Churches in the world must agree with this church.

Now, I'll admit that Cairns' claim is regarding the BISHOP of Rome and that he didn't rise to power until later. This quote merely shows that the CHURCH in Rome held a position of primacy. But what I'm trying to show is that very clearly, sometime before the year 202 AD, the CHURCH of Rome was viewed as THE superior Church in the Christian world. At that point, we're only a hop, skip and a jump away from seeing that the Bishop of Rome would likewise hold a place of primacy.

But, a "hop, skip and a jump" isn't proof. So, let's move into the world of facts and prove that not only was the Church of Rome viewed as superior by the Christian world well before 440 AD, but that so also was her Bishop. And to see this, we need to look at one more quote--this one from Tertullian.

Now, Tertullian is an interesting case. He died a heretic (as far as we know), but his beginning years were Catholic. In his treatise on Modesty (AD 220), during Tertullian's Montanist period, he makes an interesting attack on the current Bishop of Rome, Callistus I. This attack is a powerful proof for the authority of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome largely because Tertullian was, at that point, no friend of Rome. Therefore, he had nothing to gain by falsifying Callistus' position.

To provide some quick background: Tertullian clashed with Pope Callistus over Callistus' relaxation of the Church's disciplinary procedures. See, Callistus, citing his Petrine authority to "bind and loosen"(which provides evidence of the Primacy of Peter in the early church), allowed repentant adulterers and fornicators back into the Church.

Tertullian, not wanting to let these folks back in (I'm oversimplifying here), was angered and responded with this:

"I hear that there has even been an edict sent forth, and a peremptory one too. The 'Pontifex Maximus,' that is the 'bishop of bishops,' issues an edict: 'I remit, to such as have discharged [the requirements of] repentance, the sins both of adultery and of fornication.' O edict, on which cannot be inscribed, 'Good deed!' ...Far, far from Christ's betrothed be such a proclamation!"

He sarcastically attacks Callistus as the "Bishop of Bishops" and the "Pontifex Maximus", but it doesn't take much sense to realize that the barb has no bite if Callistus wasn't widely held to hold a higher level of authority than all other Bishops. At the very least, we must acknowledge that Callistus himself must have felt he had more authority, because without that acknowledgment, the sarcasm fails miserably.

Secondly, moving past Tertullian's sarcasm, we should also note the Bishop of Rome issues an edict to let these repentant sinners back into THE Church. Not just back into HIS Church in Rome, but back into THE worldwide Church. Who is he to do that if, as Cairns' claims, he is in the same position of power as any other bishop throughout the Christian world?

Now, these are only two quotes, but as I mentioned earlier, there are plenty more. This is a blog and not a book, so I've attached the longer document with a much more thorough examination here for those interested enough to look. But even though these two quotes are short and simple and by no means conclusive, they are enough to call Cairns' claims into question.

To say definitively that there was no Primacy of Rome, no superior position held by the Bishop of Rome until Pope Leo "made it up in the mid 400's" just doesn't seem to wash with the real, historical evidence. And that leads me to conclude, as I mentioned earlier, that Cairns is either a poor scholar or a selective reporter. And sadly, this is the state of much of what I'm finding out there.