I’m sorry that I came into this conversation without an explanation ready with regard to where I “get my history from”, because my explanation about the actual events of the early history of Christianity is going to be very involved and I am not ready to dive into that just yet. But I have been wanting to get into a discussion on just what the early Church (particularly in Rome) was like prior to the coming of St Peter. I started a thread once that asked what was “the Revelation of the Mystery” that St Paul said he wished Rome would be established in. That tread was a complete disaster! I thought maybe someone here on this thread might like to discuss the issue of what the early Church was, prior to St Peter. Because is it not true that before St Peter the Church could not be “Catholic”? As I understand the definition of “Catholic”, to be Catholic you must at least be “in communion with” St Peter (or Rome, the See of St Peter) to be “Catholic”, is that not correct?
So far, this thread has limited itself to whether the early Church was Catholic or Protestant. No one has considered that it may have been Marcionite, or perhaps Gnostic or even Ebionite. The authority of most Protestant Churches is not based on bishops. Just as Protestants teach that just as Salvation is by Grace alone through Faith alone, the authority to be a Church automatically comes with the authority of the believer. All that is needed is that there be 2 or more believers. Hence, for a Protestant, the authority to be a Church is not much different then that of how St Paul got his authority “not from man”, but by the revelation of Jesus.
Now as to your reference to Acts 13 and the “laying on of hands” of St Paul, I don’t believe that is an accurate history of what happened. It completely contradicts What St Paul said in Galatians, how he said that his authority was not from any man, nor through the agency of any man. Even his attendance at the council in Jerusalem, Paul said, was because God told him in a revalation to go there. No man called him to go there. So his calling and his authority was always independent of St Peter or St James.
I don’t believe that it is documented at all anywhere but in the Catholic version of the Acts of the Apostles. I would be far more inclined to concede your point if in fact you could show that it is documented elsewhere that St Paul was commissioned in any way from other men. All his epistles, especially Galatians, say just the opposite!
I do know who the first bishop of Antioch was. His name was Euodias. To this fact Eusebius, Jerome, and Epiphanius attest to. St Peter was an apostle, not a bishop. Apostles were not bishops, the offices were distinct. For God appointed “first apostles, then prophets, then pastors and teachers,” (1st Cor. 12: 28 & Eph. 4:11). Wherefore Peter could not become a bishop; it would be as great an irregularity, just like as if a bishop were to be made a deacon! The claim that Peter was the first bishop of Antioch came latter on in time. All the earlier authorities (Eusebius, Jerome, and Epiphanius) put Euodias as the first bishop of Antioch. As for who appointed Euodias bishop of Antioch, it might have been St Peter, but it is far more likely to have been St Paul. It is possible that both Peter and Paul appointed competing bishops there, as they did not recognize each others authority.
The story that Paul and Peter were in full harmony with each other was created in the 2nd century because there was really no other way to persuade both the Marcionites (the Gentile Christians) and the Ebionites (the Jewish Christians) to come together in Catholic unity (and more importantly, Christian unity). Knowing what was actually the case is something very important to me personally, but I do feel that the 2nd century Catholic Fathers of the Church did the right thing by creating this farce. They did what they had to do, there was no other way. Just as the Church has taught us that schism is worse than heresy, doesn’t that mean then that unity is more important than truth? To me it does, and I believe that sometimes it is necessarily. But now that some 1800 years have passed since this has happened it shouldn’t hurt to take a look back and consider what really happened. Peter and Paul not only did not accept each others apostolic authority, but they preached two different views of the Gospel and saw Jesus as in two different ways. Of course they put it in much stronger terms, namely a “different Gospel”, and “another Jesus”, but at least Paul backed down a little by saying that Peter’s Gospel “is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ” (Gal. 1:7)
) here is the question:
