Part II: The Pre-Nicene Church Was Not Roman Catholic

It's not uncommon for modern Christians to assume that shortly after the apostolic era the church became Roman Catholic, ruled and united by an ecclesiastical system headed up by the Pope. I hope we have already seen that the 2nd century church was united not by an ecclesiastical system but by a common life.

However, what sort of leadership did the 2nd century church have in place? Let's begin right at the top, with the bishop of Rome himself.

Simply put, there is no indication that the bishop of Rome was considered “the Pope” until long after the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325. It is difficult to ascertain exactly when there was an official pope, though Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome in A.D. 600, is often listed by Protestant scholars as the first.

At Nicea, three “patriarchs” were established.¹ At that time, each city had its own bishop,² but Canon VI of the Council of Nicea assigns authority over larger areas to the bishops of Alexandria (in Egypt) and Antioch (in modern Syria) and acknowledges extralocal³ authority to the Roman bishop in Italy, which was apparently already established. The question is, how long ago was this extralocal authority established, and how widespread was his authority?

That question is not difficult to answer. According to Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, around A.D. 250, Stephen, the bishop of Rome, attempted to call himself “bishop of bishops” and was condemned by a council of 87 bishops convened by Cyprian. Cyprian was a bishop of great importance and to this day is held in much higher regard than Stephen even by the Roman Catholics.

When Stephen, bishop of Rome, had by his letters condemned the decree of the African council on the baptism of heretics, Cyprian lost no time in holding another council at Carthage with a greater number of bishops....Cyprian said, “Neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience, since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another.”⁴

This decision of the Council of Carthage, occurring 75 years before Nicea, shows that there was an attempt by the bishop of Rome to exert his authority in north Africa, but it was soundly and unanimously rejected. This council is significant specifically because it was led by Cyprian, who is the source of the majority of the quotes used by Roman Catholics to argue for a Pre-Nicene papacy. Clearly, no matter how many quotes are produced to argue that Cyprian considered the Roman bishop to be “the Pope,” the Seventh Council of Carthage proves unquestionably that Cyprian rejected the authority of Stephen, the bishop of Rome in his time.

The numerous quotes pulled from Cyprian's writings in defense of a 3rd century papacy can all be answered with one argument. Cyprian was the first to argue that “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” given to Peter in Matthew 16:19 were passed on to the church. However, Cyprian believed that they were passed on to all the bishops, who represented the unity of the church. Cyprian nowhere specifies that the keys to the kingdom of heaven were given to the Roman bishop. Instead he describes the all the bishops of the churches as one.

And this unity we ought firmly to hold and assert, especially those of us that are bishops who preside in the Church, that we may also prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided....The episcopate⁵ is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole.⁶

Cyprian also rejects the claim of Stephen to hold a succession from Peter. In fact, he refers to himself as “justly indignant” about it. He writes:

In this respect I am justly indignant at this so open and manifest folly of Stephen, that he who so boasts of the place of his episcopate, and contends that he holds the succession from Peter, on whom the foundations of the Church were laid, should introduce many other rocks and establish new buildings of many churches; maintaining that there is baptism in them by his authority.⁷

Cyprian was not alone in his opinion. The Seventh Council of Carthage was attended by 87 north African bishops, all of whom ratified the decision of that council. Seventy-five years later, at the Council of Nicea, Constantine's attempt to gather all the bishops of the Roman empire drew 304 bishops. The 87 bishops at the Council of Carthage must have represented at least 25% of the bishops under the emperor of Rome's dominion.

The role of the Roman bishop is even easier to determine before Cyprian's time. To do so, however, we need to begin in the New Testament itself.

Bishops, Elders, and Deacons

The key New Testament passages on the subject of bishops are Acts 20:17-18, 28 and 1 Peter 5:1-2. They read as follows:

From Miletus [Paul] sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church And when they had come to him, he said to them, “ ... Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers⁸ , to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.

Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight⁹ not under compulsion, but voluntarily.

The first passage has the elders of the church being told that they are bishops (“overseers” and “bishops” are the same in the original Greek) and that they are the ones who shepherd the church of God. In the second passage, Peter tells the elders that they are to “oversee” (Greek episkopeo) and shepherd the flock of God. So twice in the New Testament we are told that the churches of God are led by elders who are made bishops (or, more literally, “overseers) and who are to shepherd the church of God.

There is no separate office of pastor in the New Testament or in the early church. The elders are the shepherds or pastors. In the New Testament, they are also the bishops, and there are a group of them in every church. Luke tells us that Paul and Barnabas “appointed elders ... in every church.”¹⁰

We find similar terminology in what is probably the earliest Christian writing outside the New Testament. Interestingly enough, it is in a letter from the church at Rome to the church in Corinth. It is called First Clement, because it was purported to have been written by Clement of Rome, supposedly the third Pope after Peter and Linus. However, Clement could not have been even the sole bishop of Rome, much less an actual Pope. First Clement, like Acts and 1 Peter, knows only of a group of elders, all of whom are bishops, and deacons (more literally, “servants”).

[The apostles] appointed the first-fruits, having first proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who would afterward believe.¹¹

There, assuming that Clement is really the author, he mentions only bishops and deacons, just as we find in the New Testament. Two chapters later, he ties elders and the office of bishop together, also just as we find in the New Testament.

Our apostles also knew ... there would be strife on account of the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, ... they appointed those already mentioned and afterwards gave instructions that when these should fall asleep [in the Lord], other approved men should succeed them in their ministry. We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by [the apostles], or afterwards by other eminent men with the consent of the whole church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ ... cannot be justly dismissed from their ministry. For our sin will not be small if we eject from the office of bishop those who have fulfilled its duties blamelessly and in holiness. Blessed are those elders who, having finished their course before now, have obtained a fruitful and perfect departure, for they have no fear that anyone will deprive them of the place now appointed them.¹²

Like Paul and Peter, Clement of Rome recognized a group of elders filling the office of bishop and shepherding the flock of God. This being true, it is impossible that Clement was “the Pope” in Rome, as the Pope is nothing more than the bishop of Rome ruling over all the other bishops of the world. In Clement's time, however, around A.D. 95, Rome had no individual bishop to fill that role.

While the role of elders and bishops in Paul's churches, Peter's churches, and in Rome specifically is quite clear, the whole picture is a bit more complicated. Only about 15 years after First Clement was written, Ignatius of Antioch wrote seven letters on his way to being martyred in Rome. In those letters he identifies himself as “the bishop” of Antioch, and sends greetings to “the bishop” of several churches. In fact, one of the most outstanding marks of Ignatius's letters is his strong exhortations to unite around “the bishop.”¹³

Was there a change between A.D. 95 and A.D. 110? That's unlikely. What seems much more likely is that the leadership structure established by the apostle John was different than that established by Peter and Paul. John appointed elders like Peter and Paul, but only one of those elders was “the bishop.”

There are faint indications of this in the New Testament. 3 John 9 and 12 may indicate that the church to which John is writing was used to having just one main leader. There are also some who see indications of an individual bishop in the mention of an “angel” of each of the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3.¹⁴

Whether the New Testament backs this up or not, it is a clear pattern in the post-apostolic writings. Several of the churches that Ignatius writes to are John's churches. Even Ephesus, formed by Paul, is known to have had John living there, perhaps for decades. Tradition has it that Ignatius was appointed to the episcopate by John himself, as was Polycarp of Smyrna, to whom Ignatius also wrote. In each of those letters, there is great emphasis place on the bishop. The one exception to this in Ignatius's letters is the letter to Rome, which is said by numerous writers to have been established and built up by Peter and Paul. In that one letter to Rome, Ignatius makes no mention of a bishop, a notable omission considering the emphasis placed on the bishop in all his other letters.

Polycarp, too, addressed as “the bishop” of Smyrna in Ignatius's letter, fails to mention an individual bishop when he writes to the church in Philippi, another one of Paul's churches. Nor does he identify himself as bishop of Smyrna, though he does introduce himself with the words “Polycarp, and the elders with him ... ”¹⁵ In chapters five and six of that letter, he describes the duties of elders and deacons, never mentioning a bishop, nor bothering to describe the elders as bishops.

Polycarp's letter is believed to have been written around A.D. 155. All the Christian writings after Polycarp's not only refer to an individual bishop, but several backtrack to claim that Rome had one bishop all the way back to the time of Peter. It seems clear, however, that until sometime in the early to mid 2nd century, Paul and Peter's churches, including Rome, had a group of bishops, while John's churches had just one that presided over a group of elders. By somewhere around the mid 2nd century even Paul and Peter's churches had adopted the Johannine leadership structure, and by the late 2nd century it was assumed that this had always been the case.

Apostolic Succession and the Apologists

The Roman Catholic argument-mentioned earlier in this chapter-that Peter received the keys of the kingdom of heaven and then handed those down to each successive bishop of Rome is called the doctrine of “apostolic succession.” In a more general sense, “apostolic succession” also refers to the handing down of certain sacerdotal rights from bishop to bishop in all the churches.

Because Roman Catholics define apostolic succession in this way today, one early reference to apostolic succession is often misinterpreted as an argument for a Roman Pope in the 2nd century. However, apostolic succession in the Pre-Nicene church was simply the argument, common among the apologists, that the apostles taught a body of tradition (known as “the rule of faith”) to the elders they had appointed to lead the churches. If a succession of elders could be traced back to the apostles in any church, that was at least some indication that that church was still in possession of legitimate apostolic teaching.

The “apologists” are Christian writers of the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries who wrote defenses of the faith both against heresies and to the emperor refuting charges against Christians. Irenaeus and Tertullian especially (both introduced earlier) were fond of this argument. Though it would not carry much weight today, after 2,000 years-especially knowing the history of those 2,000 years-it was very effective just a century or two after the apostles. Here's an example from Tertullian's Prescription Against Heretics, written around A.D. 200:

But if there are any [heresies] which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age [i.e., to claim that they were founded by apostles], that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles ... we can say, let them produce the original records of their churches. Let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that the first bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men, a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers. For example, the church of Smyrna records that Polycarp was placed in office by John. The church of Rome also makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit those, whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. Let the heretics contrive something of the same kind. ... But should they even effect the contrivance, they will not advance a step, for their very doctrine, after comparison with that of the apostles, will declare, by its own diversity and contrariety, that it had for its author neither an apostle nor an apostolic man....To this test, therefore, they will be submitted for proof by those churches, who, although they do not derive their founder from apostles or apostolic men-as being of much later date, for they are in fact being founded daily-yet, since they agree in the same faith, they are accounted as not less apostolic because they are akin in doctrine. Then let all heresies, when challenged to these two tests by our apostolic church, offer their proof of how they deem themselves to be apostolic.¹⁶

Tertullian argues in this passage not only that the orthodox churches have passed truth down through the succession of bishops, but he buttresses his argument by pointing out the unified truth that has been handed down. His argument, that “they agree in the same faith,” is explained in a different place in the same work:

Is it likely that so many churches, and they so great, should have gone astray into one and the same faith? No casualty distributed among many men issues in one and the same result. Error in doctrine in the churches must necessarily have produced various issues. When, however, that which is deposited among many is found to be one and the same, it is not the result of error but tradition.¹⁷

It is clear in Tertullian's work that the issue is the transmission of truth and that he is simply trying to prove that the orthodox churches possess the same doctrine the apostles taught. His reference to the apostolic succession argument is rarely quoted by the Roman Catholics because Rome is not singled out, nor is it even mentioned first. Irenaeus, on the other hand, speaks glowingly of the church in Rome, which enjoyed great status in his eyes due to Rome's relationship to both Peter and Paul.

Irenaus's respect for the argument of apostolic succession is evident in his reference to Rome. Like Cyprian's later attempt to correct Stephen on the subject of the baptism of heretics, Irenaeus had also corrected a Roman bishop, Eleuthurus, just a few years earlier. He had also told a story about Polycarp, one of Irenaeus's teachers, having to prevent Anicetus, an earlier bishop, from splitting the orthodox churches over the issue of when to celebrate Passover in the church.¹⁸

Unlike Tertullian, Irenaeus does single out the church at Rome. Here is the passage at question:

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world. We are in a position to reckon up those who were instituted bishops in the churches by the apostles and the succession of these men to our own times ... If the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to 'the perfect' apart and privately from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the churches themselves. ... Since, however, it would be very tedious...to reckon up the successions of all the churches, we ... indicate that tradition derived from the apostles of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, as also the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by the succession of bishops. For to this church, on account of more potent principality, it is necessary that every church-that is, those who are on every side faithful-resort; in which church ever, by those who are on every side, has been preserved that tradition which is from the apostles¹⁹ ... [Irenaeus lists a succession of 12 bishops since the apostles with some commentary here.] ... In this order and by this succession the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles and the preaching of the truth have come down to us. This is most abundant proof that there is one and the same life-giving faith, which has been preserved in the church from the apostles until now and handed down in truth.²⁰

Although Irenaeus singles out the church at Rome here, it is clear that the issue is simply the preservation of truth. He speaks of “that tradition which is from the apostles” which “has been preserved.” He says, “In this order and by this succession the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles and the preaching of the truth have come down to us,” and he tells us that “this is the most abundant proof that there is one and the same life-giving faith, which has been preserved in the church from the apostles until now and handed down in truth.”

Then, lest we make too much of the singling out of Rome, he not only tells us gives us the reason that he is singling out Rome (because it would be “very tedious” to “reckon up the succession of all the churches”) he adds:

Then, again, the church in Ephesus, founded by Paul and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles.²¹

There is really no grounds here to argue that Irenaeus is somehow justifying the rule of the Roman bishop over all other bishops. The issue Irenaeus addresses-the same one Tertullian addressed just a couple decades later-is who is “a true witness of the tradition of the apostles.” On that topic, it is worth noting the way Irenaeus introduced his argument on apostolic succession.

When [the gnostic heretics] are refuted by the Scriptures, they turn around and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous...Yet, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles, which is preserved by means of the succession of elders in the churches, they object to tradition, saying that they are wiser, not merely than the elders, but even than the apostles.²²

Again, the topic of apostolic succession in the apologetic writings is very clear. Apostolic succession is simply the argument that “the tradition which originates from the apostles ... is preserved by means of the succession of elders in the churches.” It is not an argument for the existence of a Pope prior to Nicea.

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Footnotes:

¹ Canon VI, Council of Nicea (re: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 2, Vol. 14). Some have said that Canon VII assigned patriarchal status to the bishop of Jerusalem as well, but both later history and the wording of the Canon make this very unlikely. Return to text

² Note again that “bishop” originally came from the Greek episkopos, which means overseer or supervisor. Beginning about the mid-2nd century, each city had just one bishop. See the discussion on bishops later in this chapter. Return to text

³ Extralocal, in this context, means authority outside his own city. Return to text

⁴ The Seventh Council of Carthage Under Cyprian, from The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5. Return to text

⁵ “Episcopate” means the office of bishop. Return to text

⁶ Treatises of Cyprian I:5 Return to text

⁷ Epistles of Cyprian 73:17; Stephen wanted to accept the baptism of Novationist seperatists, who had left the church of Rome because Rome had accepted lapsed Christians back after persecution had ended. Cyprian violently disagreed with Stephen on this matter, specifically with his attempts to force his opinion on other bishops. Return to text

⁸ Greek episkopos, the word translated by “bishop” Return to text

⁹ Greek episkopeo, the verb form of episkopos, which is the Greek word translated by “bishop” Return to text