You have correctly identified my bias. I like Irenaeus, but I think both Constantine and Eusebius were both corrupt.
And you may be right. I do think it is good to recognize your own bias, and I commend you for it.
Constatine was a pagan politician and a violent warmonger, not a Christian. He gave Christians their freedom to win their support. A brilliant move politically, but a disastrous move for the Church. The reason it was so terrible is that he required an orthodoxy to be put in place. Not a problem if Christianity had not already become devastatingly splintered.
You start out reasonably, then I think you give in to a very common error in that you reckon that it was Constantine who decided what orthodoxy was, and that before him the Church was a completely fragmented society of believers with little or no common belief among them. You simply give Constantine far too much credit. I am aware of no real historical evidence that anything of the sort every actually happened.
Who is to say that the “Roman Church” was the right one? Constantine, that’s who. It was Rome’s might that did away (eventually) with dissenters. And it was the first time in Christian history that Christians persecuted other Christians because of differing beliefs. What a sad day!! Constantine actually led a campaign of Christians to war against the Donatists in Africa.
I think you are making another major error here in equating Rome with the city of Old Rome. I am not confident that Constantine had any particular love for that city, and rather moved the seat of his empire far to the east to Constantinople. I have little doubt that Constantine wished to exercise his temporal power over the Church, but that he actually ever altered what the Church believed or taught is just not supported. He almost certainly wanted Christianity to be fully Roman, but that is far from making it ruled by a bishop in a city about a thousand miles from Constantine’s own city.
And what about Eusebius? He was a sycophantic follower of Constantine, his flowery biographer, and an unreliable historian to say the least. He was Constantine’s Christian propagandist, and a very effective one at that. Constantine was as much a Pagan as any previous Emperor had been, but for some reason Eusebius thought he was worthy of the highest adoration. Maybe I am being a little harsh. But as a bishop, Eusebius should have been standing up against the ways of Constantine, not propping him up.
I think your focus on Eusebius is somewhat a distraction. I personally know little about him. I did reference him above in relation to St. Linus, whom he mentions, but beyond that I am unaware of any, even remote, relevance he has to the Papacy. If he argued for any primacy I am unaware of it. I was under the impression that he was an Eastern bishop and focussed mostly on Eastern matters. Perhaps you know more about him and could mention just what he wrote that you think is an influence on any papal ideas.
I really never made the argument of whether Linus or Clement was the second Pope. I think they both were probably the most upstanding of men and will have a place with Peter in heaven. I just don’t think either one of them ever claimed or would claim to be anything like a Pope or the Presiding Official in the Church. I think that title was given posthumously.
This is likely true, at least to a point. I think we have to understand that what is present in the very early Church is just the kernel of understanding which flowered with care over time. It is there, but it is not as clearly known or understood because it didn’t need to be fully understood yet. Look at the first Council in the Acts of the Apostles. A new concern arose, and it was answered by the Apostles and the Holy Spirit. Before that moment nobody could say just how the Church would speak about the issues discussed there. But, it doesn’t diminish the authority of the teaching. And anyone looking at that text could see how the foundation of that statement is already present in the teaching of the apostles, both Peter and Paul specifically. So, the truth was already revealed in a kernel form, and more clearly and specifically was unfolded in Council.
The same is true of the papacy. Reading the ECFs it is very clear that there is a clear understanding of reverence and respect regarding certain Apostolic Sees. Foremost among these is that of Rome, due to the death of the two most respected apostles within her boundaries. We can look at Clement, who takes for granted that his office commands respect even at Corinth, or Ignatius who obviously understands some kind of Roman privilege, and of course Irenaeus who takes both even further. Are these and other Fathers speaking of a Papal dogma? No, probably not, but they do seem to reveal the presence of a Roman prerogative, and this is the kernel which later flowers. Why didn’t they know of a Papal dogma? Probably because, just as the people didn’t know exactly what to do about gentiles in the Church in Acts, they hadn’t needed to yet. They hadn’t plumbed the depths of what the Spirit had revealed to them about the earthly Church at that time. But as the world got smaller for Christians, due to the massive growth of the Church over the years, it would become necessary to begin addressing how the Church would manage her affairs, not just locally, but universally. Over the ensuing years that seed of truth in the respect and honour given to Rome would sprout and grow into a fully articulated dogma.
For that reason I doubt very seriously that St. Linus would have known anything about any definite papal authority in the Church. But, would he have doubted the importance, influence and respect due to his office as bishop of the See of Rome? I don’t think so. He would have received his very office from the blessed hands of St. Peter, who walked with our Lord and whose very shadow could heal the sick. He also reigned over a See founded not just on the teachings and blood of Peter, but also of St. Paul too. And Clement does seem to have some ideas of his office beyond his own diocese, though perhaps it is not defined very clearly in his own mind just how far or much that authority can be expected to go. But, the truth of the Papacy is there from the beginning in any case, and though it grows it does so organically as it is revealed in ever deeper and more specific ways through the teaching of Holy Mother Church, the pillar and foundation of the Truth.
