What if the Early Church Had No Bishops Distinct from Presbyters and No Single Bishop Over All Rome?

I don't think that's the case.

When St. Jerome opined that presbyters and bishops used to be the same thing and the distinction was introduced in post-Apostolic times, therefore not part of the Deposit of Faith, that was an opinion. It didn't mean he used the powers he supposed he inherently had to ordain, even though he was no bishop. It didn't mean he said "we don't have to obey the bishops, if a presbyter disagrees, his authority is enough for you" ... on the contrary, he personally also had an opinion against books he didn't find in Hebrew, like Maccabees. And yet he translated them in faithful obedience to "the bishops".

So, if it were the case, for the presbyters originally being everything a bishop was, including the power to ordain, I don't think this needs to be of practical importance even among Catholics. The late Father Pulvermacher who got himself elected as "Pope Pius XIII" had this opinion, so, when he and another priest had got the ballots saying he was elected, he authorised the other priest to use his supposedly inherent power to ordain, and even consecrate, to get supposedly consecrated bishop by this priest. He then, supposedly as bishop, consecrated this priest a bishop. Unfortunately for the whole procedure, there already was one pope elected who didn't share the Vatican II errors, namely Pope Michael I. When Pulvermacher died in 2009, Gordon Bateman didn't succeed him.

Whether they said "OK, there was a pope after 40 years' vacancy, now there is a vacancy again, and in 2049 we need a pope" or whether they are discerning to join Pope Michael II, I don't know. If Pius XIII or Lucian Pulvermacher OFM Cap. had a successor, the issue would be more important to Catholics.

But, is there any kind of importance in the Catholic / Protestant dialogue or debate or polemic?

If there had been a Church that actually did claim Continuity since the Apostles, which since the times of whenever howsofar you go back to since before Constantine had been allowing presbyters to ordain and left out a separate office of bishops, and which also claimed cities don't need and Rome didn't have a Monarchic Bishop, that would be a pretty impressive argument that one should maybe take a close look at how the very first Christians had it. But there isn't. Churches which not only claim that one needs no communion with a Monarchic Bishop of Rome (not necessarily always residing in Rome), but even that monarchic bishops and the distinction of bishop and priest were a kind of Novum ... novelty ... one should or is at least free to reject, typically go back no further than 1500 AD. The exceptions are Waldensians, Hussites, Tondrakians. Of these, only the Tondrakians go back to before 1000 AD. Wait, sorry, Tondrakians as now extant don't go back to 800 AD. They are a new version of I think Pentecostals who cosplay as a continuation of the historic Tondrakians. These were eliminated some time after a resurgence in 1045:

After suffering a number of defeats at the hands of Byzantium, most Tondrakians were deported to Thrace in the 10th century. Following the Byzantine conquest of the Bagratuni kingdom of Ani in 1045, the movement experienced a resurgence, this time within large cities like Ani, where they began appealing to the lower ranks of the nobility and the clergy. The Tondrakian movement broke into three different directions during its last years, the most radical of which began advocating atheism as well as doubt in the afterlife and the immortality of the human soul. By the middle of the 11th century, the Byzantine governor of Taron and Vaspurakan, Gregory Magistros, managed to eliminate all remnants of Tondrakians. Historian Aristakes Lastivertsi describes the elimination of Tondrakians in great detail.

So, unlike Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Copts and Armenians and then Assyrians, none of the communities that deny a monarchic episcopate or an episcopal monopoly or near monopoly on ordinations go back before 313 AD. Not even Tondrakians who don't exist any more (and hardly even "once again") and who didn't yet exist in 700 AD.

I think this is a perfect shortcut about the argument.

Even if the early Church had in fact coincided with Protestantism, as to Church polity, no such Protestantism ever continued to the post-Reformation Protestantism. It was "restored" in order to have a low grade entry for Protestantism in 16th C. local clergy, where many bishops were far stauncher Catholics than the priests were. And the Protestantism they had doctrinally, apart from Church polity, was one they could not trace in the previous centuries of the Catholic Church, so, it is not a doctrine that has the promise of Matthew 28:20.

That's my bottom line.

As to monarchic bishops of Rome, it's somewhat more important. The personal authority of Peter cannot have dissolved into a purely collective authority for decades before getting reassembled as a personal authority somewhat later. Fortunately, we do have St. Irenaeus testifying to the first 12 Popes. And fortunately, the arguments against a monarchic bishop of Rome are among the flimsier.

• 1) Pope St. Clement I doesn't claim to be Pope, and uses the phrase "we" meaning (we are supposed to assume) that he was just on occasion an ad hoc spokesman for a priest collective;
• 2) so and so (notably St. Ignatius of Antioch) doesn't mention a specific bishop of Rome;
• 3) archaeologically, early 2nd C. Rome doesn't have a single Cathedral, but rather small house churches.

Here are the answers:

• 1) A de facto ruler can consult and express himself as speaking for all those whom he consulted, nothing proves this was not the case with St. Clement;
• 2) St. Ignatius may not have wanted to betray the identity of the Pope if the letter were intercepted, he could also not be sure the Pope he'd known about hadn't been martyred ... he could theoretically even have arrived and written the letter during a papal interregnum, also known as a sede vacante;
• 3) canonically, the position of a monarchic bishop is not defined by how his Cathedral looks: if he had a house Church, if the man serving as his deacon at Mass had another one (and was not just a deacon), if another priest had a house Church, the archaeologist would not discover any difference of rank from the architecture. Pretty obviously, since the houses where Christians worshipped had to be "just normal private big fortune houses" to the Roman authorities and therefore to the street view. It would even make sense, for a Pope as being most searched after, to himself use one of the smaller houses as his own house church.

So, I tend to be pretty chill on these two matters. If you want someone who had the time and ressources to look into that second issue more in detail, I'm just starting a video with Joe Heschmeyer:

Was there a first century bishop of Rome? (with Joe Heschmeyer)
The Counsel of Trent | 16 Febr. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAmrHtdezqA

Now, I'll resume the viewing.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Vincent of León
11.IX.2025

Legione, in Hispania, sancti Vincentii, Abbatis et Martyris.

PS, while the video is with Joe Heschmeyer, it is on the channel of Trent Horn, it's actually a dialogue./HGL

There Was a Time ... Social Networks were Stabler, and Internet Did Not Exist

I am not trying to assess here whether there is a connexion and which way it goes or if it goes both ways. I am just saying the two have changed the deal when Catholics interact with Protestants.

1924. Catholic on a workplace meets Protestant on a workplace. BOTH probably intend to stay working there. NEITHER probably envisages to quit his job or push the other one out of his job over a religious dispute. BOTH have families to feed, and both priorise this over any kind of missionary duty.

They come to chat over religion. Protestant will say a thing. Catholic will give a simple response.

If the Protestant is at least moderately satisfied, the Catholic thinks he has done his duty, the friendship continues, the question is probably out of the way, for next year, and in the best case scenario the Protestant ends up so satisfied that he converts.

If the Protestant thinks it's baloney, they will probably like each other less, tend to avoid each other a bit more, outside tasks where they are forced together.

Either way, it's not a complete waste of time if the Catholic gives a very superficial answer, though one that satisfies himself. The Protestant won't be a supernerd of amateur theology either. So, while it makes some shortcuts and is not completely true, the Catholic can say "the canon of the Bible was decided at Trent" ... since then, this has backfired longterm into Protestants believing this is all there is to the Catholic teaching. If the Catholic isn't claiming that Tobit or II Maccabees was canon in 1500, the Protestant can get away with saying "II Maccabees was added to the canon in the Council of Trent" as Frank Turek did.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Turek Ill-Informed on More than One Controversy Around S. C. "Apocrypha"
Posted by Hans Georg Lundahl at 8:29 AM Tuesday, April 23, 2024
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2024/04/turek-ill-informed-on-more-than-one.html

My point from that debate is, it pays if the Catholic knows the Fourth Century councils in Rome, Hippo and Carthage. Not just Trent. It pays if the Catholic can say "you got the actual back and forth between Sts Augustine and Jerome wrong, the latter complied by obedience" rather than be totally fallen from the skies by learning Jerome actually opposed their canonicity. It pays if the Catholic can mention St. Jerome didn't just obey St. Augustine as a superior, potentially quasi boss, but obeyed him bc he represented "the bishops" ... (St. Augustine had arguably known all about the synod of Hippo, where he was as yet a monk, not yet ordained, not yet consecrated bishop).

Similar things are true on other controversies we can have over Old Church issues.

Protestant

The Catholic Church didn't exist in AD 33. It was founded in the Fourth Century by Constantine.

Catholic

That's not true. St. Sylvester was the 33rd Pope, starting with St. Peter.

Is it correct as far as it goes? Yes, far more than saying "we had no Bible canon prior to Trent" ...

But does it miss something? Yes, it does that too. Not too bad between two regular blokes on their work in 1924. But it can spell disaster between two blokes on the internet if the Protestant is geekier than that.

So, what exactly does it miss? What would a Protestant answer to such a thing?

Protestant, A

Gavin Ortlund

There was no monarchic episcopacy in Rome, for much of the time. Or anywhere. Jerome admits monarchic episcopacy is a later expedient.

Protestant, B

Ruckman (while he lived)

Sylvester was a heretic and a schismatic. Cornelius was selling out Christian purity and the real Christian Church at this time was often called Novatianism because of his righteous opponent, the rightful pastor in Rome. Sylvester was part of the bastard line started by Cornelius.

Protestants A, B and C

C = Frank Turek

You are aware that Popes had no universal jurisdiction pretensions prior to 500—600 AD or so?

I think it is pretty useful to be able to answer that kind of thing as well. So, I'll try to provide a Catholic answer to each.

Catholic on A

The evidence supposed to be against monarchic episcopacy (as I recall Gavin) can have to do with a tendency of actual wielders of monarchic authority in Rome to step behind assemblies of council.

For instance, if Caesar Nero wanted a law, it is pretty shrewd to guess, the law would not state "Caesar Nero decreed" but "the Senate and the People of Rome decreed" ...

If Gavin would like to invoke details about I and II Clement, perhaps this pope was simply following this Roman custom?

In many sees outside Rome, it could at least in the West be less important who at the moment was its bishop. It could have ten priests and all of them consecrated bishops, and then occasionally if one of them got martyred he was then stated as "our bishop" at this time. It could have only priests and no bishop between getting a bishop martyred and waiting for ordinations and consecrations from elsewhere to be available. It could have no clergy at all and be waiting for the next bishop sent from Rome.

This sort of stuff could contribute to this kind of evidence.

Catholic on B

Ruckman was wrong.

He contradicts Matthew 28:20. There is no line, least of all the one proposed in Trail of Blood, of any actual direct continuity between Novatians back then and Amish now.

Paulicians and Albigensians do not bridge that gap. They were not Christians.

Claudius of Turin was not a bridge between Old Church opponents of a major Catholic dogma and Waldensians, he was a sycofant to Iconoclasts over in the Imperial East.

Catholic on C

First, this is not true. If this had been a central part of my own learning, I would probably not have been part of the Romanian Orthodox from 2006 to 2009, so, let's hear some other guys:

Michael Lofton refers to how St. Athanasius considered the judgement of Pope St. Dionysius as equivalent to a condemnation ... Michael Lofton underlines "by all" = since Dionysius was Pope, his word was the word of all members of the Church.

St. Athanasius on the Papacy | Michael Lofton
Reason & Theology | 22 April 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eDfqvA6XEM

Second, if it had been true, the default for non-papal early Church, as per continuity question, is not some version of Protestantism, it's more sth like Eastern Orthodoxy or Monseigneur Lefebvre. The Protestant making this point would still be obliged to hold to what Catholics have in common with Orthodox, like II Maccabees being canon.

I'm not saying you shouldn't say "St. Sylvester was the 33:rd Pope", but I am suggesting you should be prepared to back that up a bit. Pre-Consiliar resources can be much murer from error than Michael Lofton (whom I recommend only partially), but they can also be deficient in information that has now become relevant in a clime of a more complete debate.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Pope St. Cletus
26.IV.2024

It's also Our Lady of Good Counsel.

Romae natalis beati Cleti, Papae et Martyris; qui, secundus post Apostolum Petrum, rexit Ecclesiam, et martyrio in persecutione Domitiani coronatus est.