The Apostles do not belong to one Church, especially solely to the Roman Church!
“All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”—Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887
The scholar De Rosa, writing on popes, and Peter, wrote: Even the tile of “Bishop of Rome” is now weighted with dignities it did not always have. A leader or overseer of a small early Christian community was scarcely a modern bishop with power and jurisdiction. Many other matters, too, are far from clear. For example, how long did Peter live in Rome? There was a late fourth-century report that he was there for forty-five years, but there is no historical basis for this. What is known is that, about the year 58, Paul the Apostle wrote another of his letters, this time to the Romans. In it, he greeted entire households and mentioned twenty-nine individuals by name. But he did not salute Peter. That is surely an astonishing omission if Peter was residing there and was Bishop of Rome. Further, Eusebius of Caesarea, acknowledged to be the father of Church History, writing about the year 300, said: “Peter is reported to have preached to the Jews throughout Pontius, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia and, about the end of his days, tarrying at Rome, was crucified” … There is no record that he took charge of the community there. It cannot have been automatic. He had not even been bishop in Jerusalem after Jesus’ death. James, the lord’s brother, was. Then there is the startling fact: in the earliest lists of bishops of Rome, Peter’s name never appeared. For example, Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons from 178-200, was the disciple of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who was himself a disciple of John the Apostle. He enumerated all the Roman bishops up to the twelfth, Eleutherius. According to Irenaeus, the first bishop of Rome was not Peter or Paul but Linus. The Apostolic Constitution in the year 270 also named Linus as first bishop of Rome, appointed by St Paul. After Linus came Clement, chosen by Peter. The mystery deepen. In all his writings, Eusebius never once spoke of Peter as Bishop of Rome.
How is this to be explained? It seems that in the minds of the early Christian commentators, the apostles were a class apart. They did not belong to any particular church, not even when they “planted” it, that is, founded it, as Paul did throughout Asia Minor. The apostles belonged to the whole church. Being an apostle precluded a man from being a bishop of one place. Peter, too, whatever momentous decisions he made in Jerusalem, Antioch and elsewhere, remained an apostle of the entire church.
The Catholic Church has made it a point of faith that popes are successors of St Peter as Bishop of Rome. But Peter never had a title; he was only invested with it centuries after he died. Naturally, he would have had immense moral authority in the Jewish-Christian community in Rome but, unlike Paul who was a Roman citizen, he would have been a foreigner there. Almost two thousand years later, another foreigner, a man from far country, sits in what is known as Peter’s chair, as the strains of a *Palestrina motet sour up into the dome. [Peter De Rosa, (1988), Vicars of Christ, The Dark Side of the Papacy, p. 15, Bantam Press, London, New York, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland.]
*The Palestrina motet is a type of sacred choral music composed by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, a renowned Italian Renaissance composer. Characterized by its complex polyphony and rich harmonies, the Palestrina motet is considered a masterpiece of Renaissance music.
What do you say?
Gwen Pugh (Mrs), pp. Jero Jones.
Jero Jones
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