Distributism

[Haruo]

[Matto]

[Haruo]

You're quite right, Matto, that the Petrine Primacy predates Constantine; indeed, it can be found, given an appropriate hermeneutic, in the Gospel of Matthew. But it can be read different ways, and the way it's read in the Western Catholic Church is largely conditioned by the symbiosis of Ecclesia and Imperium, plus a little egotism. The churches headed by the other Patriarchs once equal to Rome, and churches outside the sphere of the five patriarchs, naturally read it differently. I didn't say that Constantine invented the Petrine Primacy, but that under his regime the Empire gave its imprimatur to the idea.

[Matto]

[Tim Bonney]

Matto,

Irenaus might have said such things about Protestantism if he had been alive at the Reformation (or not) but the material you are quoting is from Irenaus' work refuting the heresy of gnosticism. I'm not sure the that you can use Irenaus to claim that he is saying that in all things at all times you have to agree with the Roman Catholic Church. For example in later years Irenaus tried to convince the Pope not to excommunicate persons in Asia Minor who differed on their view of the dating of Easter. Why didn't they also have to agree with the church then?

What we can say of Irenaus is that he thought the entire church should agree on the heresy of gnosticism. We can't say what Irenaus would have thought of the Protestant Reformation and the more than a millenium of church history that followed after his death before the Reformation since he had no knowledge of it not could have written about it.

After all, Martin Luther was a good Roman Catholic until he came to believe that the church of his day was wrong in the practice of selling indulgences. Would Irenaus have agreed with Luther or the Pope? Who knows, he wasn't alive. The Lutheran Church today recognizes Irenaus in its sanctorial calendar and I believe Luther himself was known to have quoted Irenaus.

So this brings up the question Matto, what do you do if you believe the Roman Church and the Pope have erred? What do you then do if disagreeing with the Pope garners you excommunication?

You can thank Pope Leo X in part fo the existence of "the separated brethren." Luther didn't leave the Roman Church, he was removed. His excommunication brought to a head a whole set of existing disagreements that many had with Rome, either with its ecclesiastical power or its secular power or both.

[Haruo]

Thanks, Timothy. Well put.

Matto, a "Church Father" and a "Patriarch" are two different things. Irenaeus was a Church Father. The Patriarchs of that era were the (chief) bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem (I'm not sure when the Patriarchate of Constantinople was created; it may not have existed in the second century). Those churches were of an antiquity similar to Rome's; the churches in Jerusalem and Antioch, at any rate, predated Rome. They had every bit as much claim to the apostolic succession as Rome had, maybe more (since Paul and Peter didn't found the church there, but arrived after it had been founded by others).

[Matto]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Matto]

[Matto]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[Matto]

[Matto]

[Matto]

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

[Matto]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Matto]

[Tim Bonney]