Ship of Fools: The world, absent the RCC

Thread: The world, absent the RCC Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by moron (# 206) on :

On a recent Hell thread one of our more exceptionally brilliant posters* wondered what this world would be like if the RCC had never existed.

Your thoughts on the topic appreciated - TIA.

*I won't link to it as he's a humble guy and might be embarrassed by public approbation.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

What do you mean by No Roman Catholic church?

Options:

No East/West split over the filioque and everyone is in a single communion where the Arch-bishop of Rome is the primate for Italy?
No Council of Trent, in which case the moderate Reformers succeed and get to hold a balance of power and Luther does not get excommunicated.
The Reformation happens but for some reason unspecified the Roman Catholic Church post Council of Trent fails and we are left with the diverse Protestant and Orthodox groupings

This is important because each of these I think would lead to different situations today.

Jengie

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

I don't know when the Roman Catholic Church started.

Is it the vestigial 'redundant church' that was left behind when the Church was reformed and carried on as Lutheranism/Anglicanism and its descendants?

Is it, as Rome would claim, the church that has existed since Apostolic times from which many other independent and inferior ecclesiastical communities sprang after 1517?

Is it itself a reformed version of what existed in Luther's day and which he wouldn't recognise if he saw it?

I don't think the question can be answered because it seems to me that that would be like asking what would the world be like if one of my parents never existed?

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

... I meant to say that as a genealogist I would say that the RCC exists in every denomination that we see today. Not one church on this earth was 'invented from scratch' from the Bible blueprint.
We are all inextricably linked to Rome - even The Salvation Army, that unique, heretical, non-sacramental organisation with made-up military titles, is the great-grandaughter of the RCC church and is an inheritor of catholic piety and holiness teaching, structure and ethical positions.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
I don't know when the Roman Catholic Church started.

I'm just gonna throw out Constantine as a possible starting point here. Not going on much besides a bit of vaguely understood history. Others may have a different opinion.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
I don't know when the Roman Catholic Church started.

I'm just gonna throw out Constantine as a possible starting point here. Not going on much besides a bit of vaguely absorbed history. Others may have a different opinion.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

I agree with Mudfrog. No RCC no Protestants, no Protestants no Salvationists, no ... [delete any other Protestant denomination of choice].

I don't think we can say that the RC Church 'started' with Constantine as clearly the Papacy - admittedly in embryonic form - existed before that. The Bishops of Rome were regarded as the Western Patriarch - a title that they have only eschewed comparatively recently if my Orthodox informants are to be believed.

I think Jengie's three scenarios are interesting, but there are other possible scenarios too.

As a pedantic point, though, Luther was excommunicated in 1521. Trent didn't sit until 1545 - 1563. Arguably, by that time all the horses had bolted so what Trent was doing was applying its judgements retrospectively.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

A more interesting question would be, what would have happened if Pope Leo X had read Luther's statements and said, "Oh, OK then, I'll buy all that - let's go for it!"

Had Luther stayed in Rome and the Pope had reformed the church, what would it all look like now?

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

I can't deal with an alternative history in which Jesus never existed.

But if Christianity had never attained political power in either the soft sense (in parts of USA you have to be thought a Christian to get elected) or in the objective hard sense of ability to discipline kings, raise armies (crusades), persecute non-believers (inquisition telling kings who to kill for non-belief), no Holy Roman Empire, if kings had never assumed their subjects must adopt the king's version of Christianity (Henry 8, Germanic states), etc - that could be interesting to ponder how would history and life today be different. -

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

Married clergy would presumably more common, but didn't the RCC ultimately end up discarding the most egregious of the practices highlighted by Luther anyway?

My suspicion is that if the RCC accepted Luther's criticisms, it would start to look like open season on the policies of the church, and the church would have to be very quick to redraw the red lines around that which was inviolable. The use of Latin in worship would swiftly come under attack, for example.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

The RCC has the most thorough teaching on 'the world', especially in its Vatican 2 documents.

When it speaks of evangelisation (not evangelism) it is all about the world - the secular world.

[ 26. August 2013, 17:30: Message edited by: leo ]

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

I think that we already have an exploration of one possibility. Several of the things for which the RCC is blamed (state churches and mass conversions) existed in the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox world.

Posted by CL (# 16145) on :

If the Catholic Church never existed it would be because God never became incarnate.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by CL:
If the Catholic Church never existed it would be because God never became incarnate.

But he would still have had his covenant people.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

As a pedantic point, though, Luther was excommunicated in 1521. Trent didn't sit until 1545 - 1563. Arguably, by that time all the horses had bolted so what Trent was doing was applying its judgements retrospectively.

I know that, I am not making guesses at what will happen, but stating conditions that would prevail for there to be no Council of Trent.

Jengie

Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :

I agree with Mudfrog and Gamaliel, it can't be imagined; it would be like trying to imagine your own life if one of your parents had died before you were conceived!

(Hope it's clear this is a general "you" meaning "one".)

Posted by Al Eluia (# 864) on :

If the Bishop of Rome had never become the central figure in Western Christianity, the whole history of post-Roman Europe would undoubtedly have been quite different. I haven't read any of these, but there are a number of novels listed at uchronia.net (a site dedicated to alternate-history fiction) that sound very interesting, with various dates in the 4th century as the point of divergence from "real" history:

Uchronia.net

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

What would the RC Church of the 16th century have looked like if it had embraced Luther's reforms?

The Church of England?

[Biased]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Then the CoE would be an Orthodox schism! Or more likely we would all be Muslims. It would have meant initially that Papal Supremacy failed in the West, which is impossible, not because it's true, which is meaningless, but because it is so convenient, so corrupting. How could it have failed? It is one of the most toxic memes of all time. Rome would have had to have been destroyed by a comet strike not to have won.

How could the theology and eccelesiology of Constantinople ever have prevailed in Rome? And if it impossibly had, Rome would still have had pre-eminence. There would still have had to have been schism.

A plague of raging haemorrhagic fever in Rome in 1054 at the latest would have done it, would have shifted the balance of power. Left a vacuum at least. Unless we want to go back to Constantine and annihilate Rome then.

What would have filled the vacuum? Not Constantinople. Darkness and Islam. And the Roman Catholic Church from the provinces.

Rome would have had to have been totally destroyed between the third and sixth centuries.

Even though it was! I mean totally. Comet strike. And Charles Martel would have had to lose the Battle of Tours. And ... no, you can't keep a bad meme down.

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Then the CoE would be an Orthodox schism!

No, it would be "autocephalous", like Russia and Bulgaria and the rest of them... :-)

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Then the CoE would be an Orthodox schism!

No, it would be "autocephalous", like Russia and Bulgaria and the rest of them... :-)

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Nice pererin. But would a Roman Orthodox France and a Roman Orthodox Spain have driven out Islam? Would a Roman Orthodox Augustine have come to Britain? Possibly. Is Orthodox culture as martial as Catholic? Would Orthodoxy have undermined the military capabilities of Western Europeans, Rome's heirs? I doubt it. Orthodox Rome would have won. There would have been Roman Orthodox crusades, by the Roman Orthodox Supreme Pontiff.

We'd be Roman Orthodox heretics.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

I think you'd have to go a long way back.

Ever played the children's game of Opposites ? If I say "black" you say "white" and so on ? If I say "Protestant", you say "Catholic".

A world without the RCC is a world where there was no Reformation because Christianity never developed any of the characteristics that the Reformers were protesting at.

No indulgences, then, for starters. But that doesn't seem much of a basis for an alternate history.

How about no professional clergy ? A collection plate that goes entirely to the sick and the poor. A Pauline model of amateur preachers in each community who make their living by their secular day job. Wandering apostles and prophets who move from place to place, never allowing themselves to be set up as having any authority other than personal moral authority which dies with them.

You can have the conversion of Constantine, you can have great cathedrals. But no papal court. No anathemas. No Bible as such - individual gospels and letters and testaments but no canon.

A grass-roots religion that stays as a grass-roots religion. Where the Christian Emperor comes with everyone else to hear the tent-maker (or the candlestick-maker, whatever) preach the Word and consecrate the Body and Blood.

A very different path.

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

I like your 'Imagine' Russ, but why wouldn't it have become Roman Orthodox? Christianity wins by losing and loses by winning.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

Martin,

Orthodox Rome is a perfectly good alternate history, and a valid answer to the original question.

I just don't know enough about the differences between Orthodox and Catholic culture to know where it would go. Sometimes those differences don't seem large.

No crusades ? No Renaissance ? - no idea.

I was suggesting something more radical - a Christianity that remained as Protestants envisage early Christianity to be. That could absorb becoming the State religion of the Roman Empire without losing its apolitical character, that could resist the temptation to set up a religious central authority alongside the Imperial central authority.

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

I saw that Russ and cry 'If only!'. Can we go forward to that?

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

I was suggesting something more radical - a Christianity that remained as Protestants envisage early Christianity to be.

I suspect the problem is that the protestant conception of what early Christianity was like is as much a fantasy as the Roman attempt to project backwards the monarchical papacy.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

I was suggesting something more radical - a Christianity that remained as Protestants envisage early Christianity to be.
I suspect the problem is that the protestant conception of what early Christianity was like is as much a fantasy as the Roman attempt to project backwards the monarchical papacy.

Indeed. Comment of the day.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Meanwhile, Russ, pigs are seen flying across rural Ireland ...

[Biased]

Posted by Ahleal V (# 8404) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pererin:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Then the CoE would be an Orthodox schism!
No, it would be "autocephalous", like Russia and Bulgaria and the rest of them... :-)

I thought that's what we were/are anyway... [Smile]

Would I be wrong in speculating that without 'Western' monasticism, we wouldn't have the ancient universities across Britain and the continent?

x

AV

[ 28. August 2013, 09:35: Message edited by: Ahleal V ]

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

I'm with Martin. The likeliest reason for there being no RCC, as we know it, is that Rome never split from the rest of the Orthodox Church. Had the Bishop of Rome (Hmmm - why not Archbishop, I suddenly wonder?) remained as one among equals, then much could have remained the same. However, I think there would have been less absolutism, because the Pope would no longer be THE living authority, but one among many.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

Ahleal V is likely right. Most European universities come from the mediaeval ferment which produced the Franciscans and Dominicans. There's lots of debate on whether or not the universities of Cordova, Toledo, Seville, and Granada originate in the madrasahs there but I think that the argument is strongly in their favour.

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Nice pererin. But would a Roman Orthodox France and a Roman Orthodox Spain have driven out Islam?

The point I'd make is that they would not be Roman. The Archbishops of Rheims and Toledo would be top dogs on their respective patches. I'd see the whole Islamic business taking a similar course, but there would be a distinct risk of ending up with several people who thought they were Archbishop of Toledo at the same time, much as happened with Alexandria and Antioch.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

I was suggesting something more radical - a Christianity that remained as Protestants envisage early Christianity to be.
I suspect the problem is that the protestant conception of what early Christianity was like is as much a fantasy as the Roman attempt to project backwards the monarchical papacy.

As indeed was the Victorian Oxford Movement imagining of the Medieval English church.

Posted by CL (# 16145) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
I'm with Martin. The likeliest reason for there being no RCC, as we know it, is that Rome never split from the rest of the Orthodox Church. Had the Bishop of Rome (Hmmm - why not Archbishop, I suddenly wonder?) remained as one among equals, then much could have remained the same. However, I think there would have been less absolutism, because the Pope would no longer be THE living authority, but one among many.

Pseudo-historical bollocks.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

The world without the RCC?

A less populous place, perhaps... [Biased]

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
I'm with Martin. The likeliest reason for there being no RCC, as we know it, is that Rome never split from the rest of the Orthodox Church. Had the Bishop of Rome (Hmmm - why not Archbishop, I suddenly wonder?) remained as one among equals, then much could have remained the same. However, I think there would have been less absolutism, because the Pope would no longer be THE living authority, but one among many.

There's two kinds of authority -- as Newman and a slew of historians have pointed out, Rome from very early on had prevailing doctrinal authority, perhaps owing to its distance from the more febrile controversies of the early church. I don't think that this would have changed at all and in theological matters, the Pope would still do his thing, although likely without claims of infallibility.

Administrative and judicial authority is something else, and the post-Reformation Vaticanocentric administrative centralism might easily have developed into something much less intense, with (perhaps) increased primatial authority in Canterbury or Trondheim or Toledo or Krakow or Québec or Rheims/Paris. Much of what we think of as RC practice is actually fairly recent-- 150 years ago, a large number of bishops were named by royal appointment or capitular election.

An earlier poster wondered if they would have had an Archbishop of Rome. Some patriarchs are bishops of their sees, such as Antioch, others are archbishops, such as Alexandria, and a few are neither (Moscow). The exact title is local custom. As the very tattooed young woman who sells me organic calaloo says, "Whatever."

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Nice pererin. But would a Roman Orthodox France and a Roman Orthodox Spain have driven out Islam? Would a Roman Orthodox Augustine have come to Britain? Possibly. Is Orthodox culture as martial as Catholic?

Constantinople was quite good at beating up Muslims until the Venetians did them over in the Fourth Crusade.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Yeah but Jean Parisot de Valette HAD to be RC surely?

And Russ' vision isn't a Protestant one, as Protestant is Catholic. Western.

And AND, if there had been no RCC how would Islam have evolved differently? If at all?

If the church had remained powerless except in numbers, holding all things in common, would it have resisted the twin evils of Hellenization and Romanization? And thus avoided mutually ruinous conflict with Persia. Into the vacuum of which stormed Islam?

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And Russ' vision isn't a Protestant one, as Protestant is Catholic. Western.

What's the Mar Thoma Church then?

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Fascinating!

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
Rome from very early on had prevailing doctrinal authority, perhaps owing to its distance from the more febrile controversies of the early church. I don't think that this would have changed at all and in theological matters, the Pope would still do his thing, although likely without claims of infallibility.

Rome was very much in the middle of the febrile controversies of the early church. It's position was as an arbiter of 'lesser' churches, owing to its preeminent honour and the respect accorded it as the Old Capital. Controversies that local bishops couldn't handle, or that were between local bishops were put before Rome as a (supposedly) neutral, wise, and elder peer. Similar arbitration duties were accorded to other 'elder' churches such as Constantinople.

In terms of doctrinal authority, Rome considered itself, from the 3rd/4th century to have more and more authority to influence and eventually to dictate doctrine, and many in the Western churches seemed to be happy to follow along with such claims. But the practice of the universal church was from the beginning that doctrine could only be considered orthodox when decided by the will of the church in council, not by the will of one bishop, however eminent.

If Rome had not insisted on what it considered to be its sole authority over its co-bishops, then it would have likely continued as a centre of theological study and learning, being considered a wise arbiter of dissent and controversy, along with other similar centres. But no more than that.

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

You can have the conversion of Constantine, you can have great cathedrals. But no papal court. No anathemas. No Bible as such - individual gospels and letters and testaments but no canon.

A grass-roots religion that stays as a grass-roots religion.

Impossible. When the Emperor of the greatest Power the world had ever seen co-opted Christianity as his State Religion the grass-roots religion was already long-changed, and that was the final nail. You'd have to remove Constantine's conversion to have any chance of the anti-history you propose.

Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

I was suggesting something more radical - a Christianity that remained as Protestants envisage early Christianity to be.
I suspect the problem is that the protestant conception of what early Christianity was like is as much a fantasy as the Roman attempt to project backwards the monarchical papacy.
As indeed was the Victorian Oxford Movement imagining of the Medieval English church.

very interesting, Jade.

And Russ, why would it have to be a Christianity that is the way
Protestants envisage early Christianity? Why not the way Catholics do? Or why not something else altogether, that none of us has correctly envisaged....?

Of course this is alternate history, so I guess we can envisage what we like!

Interestingly, re the Oxford Movement, there was a resurgence of interest in very early Christianity then too, as well as in medieval, and there were several Early Christian novels--Cardinal Manning's "Fabiola", Newman wrote one too I think, as did other non-Oxford Movement people including "muscular Christianity" 's Charles Kingsley. Other Shippies will know more..

an interesting study could be done (probably has) on the way certain eras look back on the past, inevitably coloured with their own Zeitgeist....and probably drastically different from the reality.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pererin:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And Russ' vision isn't a Protestant one, as Protestant is Catholic. Western.
What's the Mar Thoma Church then?

In India - claims to have been founded by St. Thomas.

There's a branch in this city because of a high concentration of computer workers who have settled here from India.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
moron: On a recent Hell thread one of our more exceptionally brilliant posters* wondered what this world would be like if the RCC had never existed.

All Christians would be Copts?

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

The Mar Thoma church, in South India, is a protestant type break-off. The Syro-Malabar church, ( also in Kerala), venerates S. Thomas, as well. His major shrine (and hermitage) is about 40 miles from where I stay every winter. The dear man died, unfortunately, when he was visiting Chennai, where his remains are (at least most of them).

[ 30. August 2013, 14:40: Message edited by: PeteC ]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Aye, Hawk, as I said, I said, Christianity wins by losing and loses by winning.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

I wish Christianity hadn't been stripped of its Jewish roots and heritage by anti-Semitic Popes in the early centuries. Easter would be at Passover for a start, and the Eucharist wouldn't have had the 'magical mystery' stuff that was given to it in the couple of centuries after the Apostles.

We have lost so much deep meaning to the Gospel because we lost the Jewish foundations.

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I wish Christianity hadn't been stripped of its Jewish roots and heritage by anti-Semitic Popes in the early centuries. Easter would be at Passover for a start, and the Eucharist wouldn't have had the 'magical mystery' stuff that was given to it in the couple of centuries after the Apostles.

Easter Day is at Passover (or to be pedantic, on the Sunday falling between the 15th and 21st of Nisan). That's what all the stuff about moons and solstices is there to determine. The only slight snag is that the calendar currently used by Jews has become slightly detached from the seasons, so that in three years in nineteen, they observe Passover a month off. Unfortunately, no-one in modern Judaism seems to have the authority to reform the calendar.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I wish Christianity hadn't been stripped of its Jewish roots and heritage by anti-Semitic Popes in the early centuries. Easter would be at Passover for a start, and the Eucharist wouldn't have had the 'magical mystery' stuff that was given to it in the couple of centuries after the Apostles.

We have lost so much deep meaning to the Gospel because we lost the Jewish foundations.

I love it when I read stuff like this. It's complete nonsense, of course, not because the Church didn't disassociate itself from Judaism but rather because of the suggestion that by doing so some kind of authenticity, or whatever you want to call it, was lost. By the time of Jesus' ministry Jusaism was far from the faith of Abraham and by putting our Lord to death it became positively apostate. This is the main reason, as well as the fact that Christianity is universal, not Jewish.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

AD 325
First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. The Christian Church separates the calculation of the date of Easter from the Jewish Passover:
"It was ... declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded.... Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. ... avoiding all contact with that evil way. ... who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. ... a people so utterly depraved. ... Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. ... no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews."

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by pererin:
Easter Day is at Passover (or to be pedantic, on the Sunday falling between the 15th and 21st of Nisan). That's what all the stuff about moons and solstices is there to determine. The only slight snag is that the calendar currently used by Jews has become slightly detached from the seasons, so that in three years in nineteen, they observe Passover a month off. Unfortunately, no-one in modern Judaism seems to have the authority to reform the calendar.

Apologies for replying to myself, but I just noticed another suspiciously Jewish-looking feature of the calendar: with Easter averaging 18th Nisan, Ash Wednesday averages 1st Adar, and Passion Sunday is always the first Sunday in Nisan. This may all be coincidence, but I find it interesting...

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
AD 325
First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. The Christian Church separates the calculation of the date of Easter from the Jewish Passover:
"It was ... declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded.... Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. ... avoiding all contact with that evil way. ... who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. ... a people so utterly depraved. ... Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. ... no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews."

. . . and this demonstrates Papal anti-semitism how, exactly?

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Aye this is US, Christendom. We are all guilty of this foul evil, enshrined every Easter. Have we ever confessed this to the Jews and begged their forgiveness? This specific sin of ours? Not the first, in a long, long list?

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

What sin? That we don't celebrate Easter when the Jews celebrate Passover? Well, call me a sinner because, quite frankly, it doesn't mean much then.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
suspect the problem is that the protestant conception of what early Christianity was like is as much a fantasy as the Roman attempt to project backwards the monarchical papacy.

why would it have to be a Christianity that is the way Protestants envisage early Christianity? Why not the way Catholics do? Or why not something else altogether, that none of us has correctly envisaged....?
[/QUOTE]
If I've understood it right, the classical Protestant view is that the New Testament suffices, and that therefore their view of the early Church is that which an honest enquirer would reach by reading the NT and nothing more. That vision therefore contains nothing of confessionals, indulgences, rosaries etc, which are seen as Catholic add-ons. The question as I see it was asking what the Church would be had there been no such add-ons.

The classical Catholic position is that the RCC is the Church, that St Peter set up the institution of the Papacy as a way of fulfilling the responsibility for the Church given him by Jesus. From this perspective, the question makes no sense. Some Catholics are also tempted to the philosophical error which projects any historical development back into the early church, supposedly preserved by Oral Tradition.

Individual Shipmates may of course have views more nuanced - these are just reference points & I'm not trying to put words in anyone's mouth.

I was kind of expecting someone to make a case that all the Catholic accretions were necessary for the survival of the Gospel.

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Ad Orientem. Bless.

Posted by Anyuta (# 14692) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
suspect the problem is that the protestant conception of what early Christianity was like is as much a fantasy as the Roman attempt to project backwards the monarchical papacy.
why would it have to be a Christianity that is the way Protestants envisage early Christianity? Why not the way Catholics do? Or why not something else altogether, that none of us has correctly envisaged....?

If I've understood it right, the classical Protestant view is that the New Testament suffices, and that therefore their view of the early Church is that which an honest enquirer would reach by reading the NT and nothing more. That vision therefore contains nothing of confessionals, indulgences, rosaries etc, which are seen as Catholic add-ons. The question as I see it was asking what the Church would be had there been no such add-ons.

The classical Catholic position is that the RCC is the Church, that St Peter set up the institution of the Papacy as a way of fulfilling the responsibility for the Church given him by Jesus. From this perspective, the question makes no sense. Some Catholics are also tempted to the philosophical error which projects any historical development back into the early church, supposedly preserved by Oral Tradition.

Individual Shipmates may of course have views more nuanced - these are just reference points & I'm not trying to put words in anyone's mouth.

I was kind of expecting someone to make a case that all the Catholic accretions were necessary for the survival of the Gospel.

Best wishes,

Russ [/QUOTE]

ah, but you see some of those are not viewed as "add ons" but as something which was there from the start, or at least developed extremely early.. perhaps as early as scripture. The idea that scripture describes the way the early Church was set up is a bit silly, don't you think? I mean, why would it? That clearly is not it's intent. it's sharing a history and a message, NOT setting up a worship framework. I would argue that many "Catholic" elements were organically grown allong side (not after) scripture.

True, I know some such were definitely truly later additions, and I know the RCC does indeed justify them. I won't pretend to speak for the RCC. but your question makes a huge assumption which I don't think is at all justified: that the "additions" are something which the RCC clearly superimposed upon the original, and the only debate is whether they can be sufficiently justified.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

They can't be as mandatory, hostile, esoteric exclusives, no. And it's not a huge assumption at all. The opposite is true. Neither Jesus nor Paul nor Peter nor John engaged in services - liturgy - anything like historical Roman or Greek ones. Or had a fraction of their 'distinctives'.

All of which are fine as long as they aren't hostile. But they all are.

Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:

quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
suspect the problem is that the protestant conception of what early Christianity was like is as much a fantasy as the Roman attempt to project backwards the monarchical papacy.
why would it have to be a Christianity that is the way Protestants envisage early Christianity? Why not the way Catholics do? Or why not something else altogether, that none of us has correctly envisaged....?
If I've understood it right, the classical Protestant view is that the New Testament suffices, and that therefore their view of the early Church is that which an honest enquirer would reach by reading the NT and nothing more. That vision therefore contains nothing of confessionals, indulgences, rosaries etc, which are seen as Catholic add-ons. The question as I see it was asking what the Church would be had there been no such add-ons.

The classical Catholic position is that the RCC is the Church, that St Peter set up the institution of the Papacy as a way of fulfilling the responsibility for the Church given him by Jesus. From this perspective, the question makes no sense. Some Catholics are also tempted to the philosophical error which projects any historical development back into the early church, supposedly preserved by Oral Tradition.

Individual Shipmates may of course have views more nuanced - these are just reference points & I'm not trying to put words in anyone's mouth.

I was kind of expecting someone to make a case that all the Catholic accretions were necessary for the survival of the Gospel.

Best wishes,

Russ

ah, but you see some of those are not viewed as "add ons" but as something which was there from the start, or at least developed extremely early.. perhaps as early as scripture. The idea that scripture describes the way the early Church was set up is a bit silly, don't you think? I mean, why would it? That clearly is not it's intent. it's sharing a history and a message, NOT setting up a worship framework. I would argue that many "Catholic" elements were organically grown allong side (not after) scripture.

True, I know some such were definitely truly later additions, and I know the RCC does indeed justify them. I won't pretend to speak for the RCC. but your question makes a huge assumption which I don't think is at all justified: that the "additions" are something which the RCC clearly superimposed upon the original, and the only debate is whether they can be sufficiently justified. [/QUOTE]

Thanks Russ, I see what you meant now.

Problem is, seems to me the question doesn't really make sense, whether you are a Catholic or not. The RCC didn't exist as a separate thing until comparatively recently. There was just Christianity. With many regional variations and so on, of course,(and the split with the eastern churches) but it was Christianity. And yes, over time it changed a bit and some things got added, not to the core message so much as to the practice-- "confessionals, rosaries...").

I (once Catholic) am one of those who feels (without knowing the history in any expert sense) that the Church as it was at the time of the Reformation had indeed lost its way somewhat, and there were many encrustations that obscured the original heart of the Gospel.

BUT. At this distance we cannot easily judge how much of the development of doctrine, how many of the "accretions," etc were in fact guided by the Holy Spirit.
AND we simply cannot really know what the early church was like.

As Anyuta says, how could we possibly know everything about the early church from reading the New Testament! Of course there must have been so much more (is it at the end of St John's gospel that it says so much more could be written and there wouldn't be enough books to contain it all?) that was not written down. Many of the NT texts were written for people who were already believers and there must have been so much about worship/custom/belief that wasn't spelled out there because the readers/hearers knew it already.

So there must indeed be much more that the church has kept down the centuries through oral tradition, and we can't easily know how old each strand is. Of course the church survived on oral tradition alone for a few decades (scholars differ on how many, I prefer J.A..Robinson's earlier dates for the gospels). It was oral tradition that preserved the gospel stories, obviously, until they were written down. So it's only through oral tradition that we have anything.

But the early Christians couldn't possibly write everything down! We don't really even know much about the early forms of worship from the NT--hence the disagreements between scholars.
Didache gives a little more information, as does Justin Martyr...these and other very early texts help, but we can never really know.

So some Reformers, in trying to strip away almost everything that they felt wasn't true to the earliest Christianity, seem to me to have been throwing out the baby along with the bathwater--because by that time, the baby and the bathwater were all mingled.

Even if, for myself, I eventually felt that some Catholic doctrine was indeed "add-on," I feel very strongly that we should study and cherish the early and medieval Christian centuries, and all the richness and beauty of the Christian story through time--it's our heritage.

With its mistakes and distortions and all. Mixed in with them is so much that is valuable and beautiful.

So, though it's fun discussing, the original question doesn't really make sense to me. You simply can't untangle it all enough to posit a Christianity where "the RCC never existed."

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Cara, exclusion, esotericism, hostility and corruption were part of Christian tradition from the start. In Peter. In the Galatians. In the Gnostics. In Pergamum. Withstood by Paul and John respectively. And in Paul. We battle against these institutionalized traditions in ourselves, here to this day.

Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Cara, exclusion, esotericism, hostility and corruption were part of Christian tradition from the start. In Peter. In the Galatians. In the Gnostics. In Pergamum. Withstood by Paul and John respectively. And in Paul. We battle against these institutionalized traditions in ourselves, here to this day.

Well yes, Martin, that's true, of course...flawed from the start, because humans are flawed.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

Seems to me that if you believe in free will then it is meaningful to talk about alternate histories, about other ways that things might have turned out if people collectively had made different decisions, had chosen to apply their effort in different directions.

Of course we cannot know for certain how such an alternative history would turn out - for the same reason, that people later in history had free will, and may have chosen differently in different circumstances.

But just as art requires constraints that are not too tight and not too loose, so there are fruitful speculations about how things might have been, neither too constrained by what really did happen or too ungrounded in how things do tend to work. Drawing together a plausible narrative from the odds and ends that we do know about the past is a worthy art. I don't have the skill, but I can appreciate it when someone does it well.

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
I can't deal with an alternative history in which Jesus never existed.

I must have missed the part where he visited Rome.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

And Peter [Biased]

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And Peter

He wasn't at Rome either. He was after all the first Patriarch of Antioch. It's not his fault the Arabs overran Syria.

(And, yes, both claims fail: the Book of Acts has Peter resolutely in Jerusalem as congregations start in both Antioch and Rome. Indeed, Acts reads as a bit of a whitewash job for his seeming lack of support for Paul and his exploits amongst the heathen. But clearly in both cases, being the successor of Ignatius or Clement just wasn't good enough for some too-big-for-his-boots bishop at some point.)

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

No one seriously believes nowadays that St. Peter never went to Rome. There's just too much evidence that he did, like he's tomb, for instance.

Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
No one seriously believes nowadays that St. Peter never went to Rome. There's just too much evidence that he did, like he's tomb, for instance.

DNA evidence?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Well, people's tombs can be moved after they died, anyway. I was in Hawaii recently and discovered that the remains of a group of chiefs have been moved at least 3 times.

Edit: I'm not expressing a view one way or another, I'm just observing that a tomb isn't conclusive proof of where someone lived, even if you could absolutely prove it really is Peter in Peter's tomb.

[ 06. September 2013, 02:37: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

You can tell 100% for sure who's in a tomb by what's written on the outside. Those inscriptions are never, ever wrong.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

Apropos of nothing, there's a joke I heard. A Dominican, a Benedictine and a Jesuit go to the Holy Land for an archeological dig. They find a tomb marked "Jesus, son of Joseph, who was crucified by Pontius Pilate" with bones inside. The Dominican cries "This changes everything! The Church has all been a lie!"

The Benedictine insists "We must build a shrine to these holy bones."

The Jesuit says "What do you know- he did exist!"

Sorry.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

There's quite a few "Jesus' Bones" jokes like that.

pererin (and Martin) - it might make a bit more sense if you could unpack your belief that Peter "wasn't at Rome" a bit more. Why do you believe this? Which bit of Acts are you referring to?

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

All of it. There is no biblical evidence that he ever was. And objectively one would not infer it from his character.

Posted by pererin (# 16956) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
No one seriously believes nowadays that St. Peter never went to Rome.

That's the RCC's default apologetic position. [Smile]

quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
There's just too much evidence that he did, like he's tomb, for instance.

And the archaeologist who found the alleged tomb had grave doubts (sorry, couldn't resist the pun). But, assuming for sake of argument, that the supposed tomb of St Peter is what he found, the Liber Pontificalis says that the bones were moved there by Cornelius (Bishop of Rome 251-253); so the most that it really can prove is that these are the same relics that a 3rd-century bishop found.

quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
pererin (and Martin) - it might make a bit more sense if you could unpack your belief that Peter "wasn't at Rome" a bit more. Why do you believe this? Which bit of Acts are you referring to?

Okay. First I'll dust off the scriptural basis of the Antioch tradition, because it's simpler: Paul says he met Cephas (=Peter) in Antioch (Galatians 2.11). It's not an enormous leap from that for Antiochene wishful thinking to go on.

The best scriptural case against Peter's having founded the church in Rome is actually Paul's Epistle to the Romans. It's an argument from silence, but it is very strange how, in his epic defence against antinomianism, he doesn't mention Cephas at all (he does mention Linus though). The conclusion that is generally drawn critically is that Peter was not there.

As for Acts, there are three major issues:
1) in chapter 28, it is Paul who evangelizes Rome, and not Peter; note that this isn't an argument from historical reliability — we know from the Epistle to the Romans that the Roman church was not a Pauline foundation — but one from the author of Acts' ignorance of any tradition that Peter was responsible;
2) 11.19 gives a tantalizing glimpse of historical reality: Rome isn't mentioned (Antioch, amusingly enough is), but it is a diaspora of anonymous people fleeing persecution who are given credit for Christianity's spread through the empire, not a named apostle;
3) the other one is more subtle: Jerome translating Eusebius claims (a) that Peter was at Rome for 25 years and (b) that Peter died under Nero; we learn from Galatians 1.18 and 2.1 that the Jerusalem Conference (in Acts 15, the last we see of Peter in Acts) was 17 years after Paul's conversion; given Nero's death in AD68 and Paul's conversion c.AD35, the numbers just don't add up, which casts some doubt on Eusebius.

RC apologists (e.g. S.K. Ray) resort to giving Peter three spells in Rome to try and reconcile these difficulties.

Our earliest evidence for the tradition of Peter's martyrdom being at Rome is the pseudepigraphon 1 Peter (5.13). It seems wholly plausible that at some point late in Nero's reign, Peter was rounded up, taken to Rome, and put to death. But that is not the same as his having had any effect on the church there. And it seems rather elaborate to go to all that bother: it may be that this is a garbled tradition that he was rounded up by the Romans and done in in, say, Caesarea.

These aren't the only difficulties with the early history of the episcopate at Rome (e.g. 1 Clement not claiming to be from Clement is another good one), but I'll keep this to Peter for now.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

This whole discussion is remarkably pointless. It's not that an apostle's presence in Rome makes that apostle pope, or St Paul would have been pope. It is not as if the pope not being in Rome does anything to the papacy. It's just a place. A place with a lot of history by now, but still just a place. St Peter counts as the first pope by virtue of being the head of the original apostles, and his successors in office are the popes henceforth. All we need for the legitimacy of the papacy establishing itself in Rome is that the acknowledged successors of St Peter at some point made it their regular base of operations. That seems fairly undeniable. Whether St Peter acted as bishop of Rome himself, or just got himself killed there, or just had his bones transferred there later on is really not of particular importance. If it wasn't St Peter who took on the office of the bishop of Rome, then it was St Linus. Or St Anacletus. Or St Clement I. Or whoever. There is at any rate no serious doubt possible that a legitimate successor to St Peter set up shop in Rome, initiating the good but still human and in principle changeable tradition of associating that particular bishopric with being the vicar of Christ. The apostolic succession is passed on through people, not places, even though these people minister to specific territories.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
There is at any rate no serious doubt possible that a legitimate successor to St Peter set up shop in Rome,

What makes one a legitimate successor, as opposed to just claiming to be in order to set oneself up as more important than one's fellows?

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

pererin:

quote:
It seems wholly plausible that at some point late in Nero's reign, Peter was rounded up, taken to Rome, and put to death.[...] it seems rather elaborate to go to all that bother...

No more elaborate than taking the kings and chiefs of conquered peoples to Rome for execution in the victorious general's triumph, surely? And we know the Romans did that sort of thing, many times. If Peter was known as a leader of the Christians it is certainly plausible that the Judean governor might arrest him and send him to Rome for execution as a way of currying favour with Nero.

But as you say, even if he was executed there it doesn't mean he had any influence on the local church.

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

Pererin,

Just for the record I'm not an RC. Neither am I claiming that St. Peter was the first pope. The tradition always has both apostles as the founders the Church in Rome, which is confirmed by St. Irenaeus who also tells us that St. Clement heard them preach in Rome.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
There is at any rate no serious doubt possible that a legitimate successor to St Peter set up shop in Rome,
What makes one a legitimate successor, as opposed to just claiming to be in order to set oneself up as more important than one's fellows?

Possibly in that Linus, Cletus, Clement and the others seem to have been accepted as such by the members of the local church and beyond. What is perhaps more debatable is what exactly that means.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
What makes one a legitimate successor, as opposed to just claiming to be in order to set oneself up as more important than one's fellows?

Being elected and/or acknowledged by the apostolic peers as the successor of that person. See Acts 1, which describes the process of Judas' succession. What precisely happened in Rome back then I do not know. If the association of this particular succession with Rome already had been developed by St Peter's death, which is likely if St Peter was active as "bishop" in Rome (scare quotes because this would have been an inchoate version of our modern concept), then quite possibly St Linus was put forward by the local Roman faithful and clergy, and accepted by the still living apostles and their successors explicitly or implicitly (by not raising a protest...). However, we can also simply believe the account given by Irenaeus (in "Against Heresies" III.3.3): "After the Holy Apostles (Peter and Paul) had founded and set the Church in order (in Rome) they gave over the exercise of the episcopal office to Linus. The same Linus is mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to Timothy. His successor was Anacletus." If so, then St Linus was in a sense directly elected by St Peter and St Paul (and through them by the other apostles). One should not forget in all this that with the missionary spreading of Christianity, the apostolic succession probably got very "local" for quite a while, and this most likely contributed to the strong association with particular places. The successor to St Peter became whomever the church in Rome was electing in part because the apostles couldn't simply gather to choose a successor. At some point there was little choice for the apostles but to simply nod off the choices of a far distant church. I see no problem with this, since I believe that the papacy is guarded directly by the Holy Spirit.

Posted by Alt Wally (# 3245) on :

In the alternate history it's probably safe to say there would be no Augustine of Hippo, no Book of Kells, no Chartes Cathedral, no Palestrina, no John of the Cross, no Hopkins, no Sacre Coeur, ....

That doesn't sound a lot better to me. I'm sure one could tick off all the historical ills and evils; but going down that read you could plausibly make the argument of the world being a much better place if there no people at all (if one were so inclined).

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Was Peter the head of the Church in India? Or Spain? Or Britain? Was Rome? Or Constantinople? Or Antioch? The whole concept is as meaningless then as now. Utterly meaningless. Even the ecumenical councils were tainted with vituperation, violence and anti-Semitism.

Paul had a refreshingly, wonderfully real, unsuperstitious view of leadership - especially Peter's compromised version of it - as he writes in Galatians 2.

No popery there.

Posted by SeraphimSarov (# 4335) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Was Peter the head of the Church in India? Or Spain? Or Britain? Was Rome? Or Constantinople? Or Antioch? The whole concept is as meaningless then as now. Utterly meaningless. Even the ecumenical councils were tainted with vituperation, violence and anti-Semitism.
e.

Utterly wonderful how God can work through flawed human beings tainted by all those things and much worse

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Amen. Absolutely. I have no doubt that God was with us in all of it and that He continues to be, here and in the Vatican and Mecca: everywhere. Yearning us all forward.

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