And I too need to make a conclusion.
I said I was going to make a summary of my Marcionite thesis. This will have to do:
- The early Catholic Fathers did not accept St Paul, nor his Epistles, until after they made a great deal of redactions to them at about 180 A.D.
I dealt with this in
post 308. The source for it is
here
- There is an early Catholic tradition, that became canon law at the 1st Ecumenical Council, which the early Catholic Church Fathers took very seriously, that there can be only one bishop in one city at a time.
Canon 8 of the 1st Ecumenical Council:
“Concerning those who call themselves Cathari [Novatianists], if they come over to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the great and holy Synod decrees that they who are ordained shall continue as they are in the clergy. …and in the same rank in which they are found. But if they come over where there is a bishop or presbyter of the Catholic Church, it is manifest that the Bishop of the Church must have the bishop’s dignity; and he who was named bishop by those who are called Cathari shall have the rank of presbyter …that there may not be two bishops in the city.”
- There is evidence that there were two different “first” bishops in the city of Antioch, one of them was ordained by Peter and the other by Paul, and they were bishops at the same time! Also, the first bishop of Rome, Linus, was ordained by Paul, and the first bishop in Rome to be ordained by Peter was Clement. Both were considered to be the first bishop of Rome.
It is from the Apostolic Constitutions (the Ethiopic version), a quote from it can be fount
here which reads:
“First in Jerusalem, James… And in Antioch, first, Euodius [ordained] by Peter; and after him Ignatius, by Paul… And in the Church of Rome, first, Linus [ordained] by Paul; and after him Clement, who was ordained by Peter.”
A French Roman Catholic historian named Alexander Natalis, (1639-1724) commented:
“From this indeed it is understood that St. Ignatius was ordained bishop of Antioch by St. Peter, that he might discharge the Episcopal office in that city for a time, but not up to his death. That I may assert this, I infer from a conjecture which I drew from Book VII. of the Apostolical Constitutions …We read there, c. 46, Euodius was created bishop of Antioch by St. Peter and Ignatius, so by St. Paul, not indeed one after another, but at the same time. Which, indeed, I conjecture, was then done when the dissension was excited among the believers who were of the circumcision and those who had come to the faith from the Gentiles. …Then Euodius remained in that sacred office, to whom Ignatius willingly yielded as Clemens did to Linus in the church at Rome.”
Jerome said, “Clement of whom the apostle Paul writing to the Philippians says “With Clement and others of my fellow-workers whose names are written in the book of life,” the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter, if indeed the second was Linus and the third Anacletus, although most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle.”
A quote of this was found
here.
And from
here I get this quote:
Tertullian, around 200 A.D. wrote:
“Anyhow the heresies are at best novelties, and have no continuity with the teaching of Christ. Perhaps some heretics may claim Apostolic antiquity: we reply: Let them publish the origins of their churches and unroll the catalogue of their bishops till now from the Apostles or from some bishop appointed by the Apostles, as the Smyrnaeans count from Polycarp and John, and the Romans from Clement and Peter; let heretics invent something to match this.” (Tertullian. Liber de praescriptione haereticorum. Circa 200 A.D. as cited in Chapman J. Transcribed by Lucy Tobin. Tertullian. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV).
In conclusion, there is a record of bishops of both Peter and Paul in Rome and Antioch, but in both cases a line of authority from one to the other can not be established. Roman Catholic efforts to do this result in confusion in the chronological order and dates of the bishops. It is far easier to conclude that the bishops of Peter and of Paul were separate authorities, and since in is considered a violation of canonical order by the early Catholic Church to have more that one bishop in a city, these separate episcopal authorities did not recognize each other.
In short, the Marcionite Church and the Pauline Church was all the same Church, but this Church was not a part of the Petrine Church and therefore, by definition, was not Catholic. The Pauline/Marcionite Church preceded the Catholic Church in Rome. (The Ebionite Church preceded the Catholic Church as well.)
I, at first, thought I would need to need to post something about Scripture redactions as part of this thesis, but perhaps that should be the subject of another thread.
That is all! Peace!
Adrian