Orthodox View of the Primacy of Peter

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ConstantineTG said:
Provide the link for what? It is a footnote to a book, you can see the book and page number there. You want to read the entire context you’d have to buy the book.
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He also said: “Would the heretics dare to come to the very seat of Peter whence apostolic faith is derived and whither no errors can come?”

Did I misinterpret that too? or, did he not say this?
 
ConstantineTG said:
“For neither did Peter, whom first the Lord chose, when Paul disputed with him afterwards about the circumcision, claim anything to himself insolently, nor arrogantly assume anything, so as to say that he held primacy, and that he ought to be obeyed to novices and those lately come.” Epistle LXX concerning the baptism of Heretics - quoted in Whelton, M., (1998) Two Paths: Papal Monarchy - Collegial Tradition, (Regina Orthodox Press; Salisbury, MD), p.34
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Incidentally (??), here is a response by James Likoudis to Whelton (the author whom you quote I believe):

credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/theodore.htm

Of interest to the topic of the thread may be the citations by Theodore Abu Qurrah, who is not speaking to any dignitary or Pope, therefore the flowery language defense being offered by Cavarodossi and Nine_Two could not be used it would seem.
 
LionHeart777 said:
Incidentally (??), here is a response by James Likoudis to Whelton (the author whom you quote I believe):

credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/theodore.htm

Of interest to the topic of the thread may be the citations by Theodore Abu Qurrah, who is not speaking to any dignitary or Pope, therefore the flowery language defense being offered by Cavarodossi and Nine_Two could not be used it would seem.
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Likoudis’ own words undermine the point he tries to make. I would agree that Theodore Abu Qurrah’s teachings are “extraordinary” precisely for the reason that they are speculative and unique, and unlike the ordinary ideas that the East had about Rome and Peter (for example, most of the well-esteemed exegetes do view, in contradiction of Theodore Abu Qurrah, Christ’s prayer as applying to the person of Peter, for strengthening him that he might be able to approach Christ in repentance after his threefold denial of Christ, becoming the type of repentance). In this, Likoudis misses the forest for the trees.

Theodore Abu Qurrah’s speculative theology (which to my knowledge has never received synodal sanction) simply cannot counter the evidence offered by praxis, such as the lack of any commemorations for the Pope in regular liturgies (if the pope were the chief hierarch of all, one would expect this to be so), and also the custom of a newly-elected pope sending out a typikon to the major patriarchates in the East upon his enthronement, containing a statement of faith and a request for his name to be added to the diptychs.
 
joe371 said:
Now if I share a Cyprian quote with you, you will simply tell me that I am misinterpreting it.I won’t do that to you. I see this quote as supporting you. I say it like it is…Of course, like you, could you please provide the link?
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St. Cyprian’s Epistle LXX can be found here
newadvent.org/fathers/050670.htm

For some fun, here’s is St. Firmilian’s Epistle to St. Cyprian. I am surprised that St. Firmilian has not been quoted yet.
newadvent.org/fathers/050674.htm
 
LionHeart777 said:
Specifically regarding the rebaptism controversy:
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I really have doubts that St. Stephen regarded it merely as being a disciplinary matter. Had he believed so, he would not have attempted to force the Carthaginian Church to cease baptizing schismatics. St. Firmilian likewise did not seem to regard this as being merely a disciplinary matter, as is evidenced by his epistle to St. Cyprian, in which he accuses St. Stephen of undermining the unity of the Church by accepting the baptisms of heretics and schismatics.
 
ConstantineTG said:
Provide the link for what? It is a footnote to a book, you can see the book and page number there. You want to read the entire context you’d have to buy the book.
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Wait a minute…so you provided a qoute…you read it out of context, which supports you…and now you are asking Joe to read it in its entirety to determine the context?
 
Cavaradossi said:
Likoudis’ own words undermine the point he tries to make. I would agree that Theodore Abu Qurrah’s teachings are “extraordinary” precisely for the reason that they are speculative and unique, and unlike the ordinary ideas that the East had about Rome and Peter (for example, most of the well-esteemed exegetes do view, in contradiction of Theodore Abu Qurrah, Christ’s prayer as applying to the person of Peter, for strengthening him that he might be able to approach Christ in repentance after his threefold denial of Christ, becoming the type of repentance). In this, Likoudis misses the forest for the trees.

Theodore Abu Qurrah’s speculative theology (which to my knowledge has never received synodal sanction) simply cannot counter the evidence offered by praxis, such as the lack of any commemorations for the Pope in regular liturgies (if the pope were the chief hierarch of all, one would expect this to be so), and also the custom of a newly-elected pope sending out a typikon to the major patriarchates in the East upon his enthronement, containing a statement of faith and a request for his name to be added to the diptychs.
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Before I move on, I wanted to know what your thoughts are on a passage from the “Decree of Damasus”, attributed to him. It touches on another subject, interrelated; the Divine Origin of the Roman Primacy.

Here is the citation:
…the Holy Roman Church has been placed at the forefront not by the conciliar decisions of other Churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it; and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you shall have bound on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall have loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven…
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Source: Jurgens, Williams A. “The Faith of the Early Fathers Volume 1”, The Liturgical Press. Collegeville, Minnesota: 1970. Pg. 404

I hope we can agree that it is clear what the claim is here in this text.

Also, for a later reply, what specifically do you mean by, “commemorations for the Pope in regular liturgies” ? Do you mean, references , allusions to Papal Primacy, specifically the Catholic understanding, in Eastern Liturgies?
 
Cavaradossi said:
I really have doubts that St. Stephen regarded it merely as being a disciplinary matter. Had he believed so, he would not have attempted to force the Carthaginian Church to cease baptizing schismatics. St. Firmilian likewise did not seem to regard this as being merely a disciplinary matter, as is evidenced by his epistle to St. Cyprian, in which he accuses St. Stephen of undermining the unity of the Church by accepting the baptisms of heretics and schismatics.
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If what you were saying was correct, how is this much different from St. Paul’s rebuke of St. Peter? Can we both agree that, “Peter’s actions had to do with matters of discipline, not with issues of faith or morals” ?

Source: catholic.com/tracts/papal-infallibility
 
LionHeart777 said:
Before I move on, I wanted to know what your thoughts are on a passage from the “Decree of Damasus”, attributed to him. It touches on another subject, interrelated; the Divine Origin of the Roman Primacy.
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It is just that, attributed to Pope St. Damasus. We don’t actually know who wrote it. What good is such evidence when we cannot even establish whether it is genuine, especially given the prevalence of fakes like the Decretals of Pseudo-Isidore? Even if it were true that Pope Damasus believed in this, along with his whole Roman synod, such a decree was never approved of, nor enacted by any of the Ecumenical Councils, nor received into canon law.
LionHeart777 said:
Also, for a later reply, what specifically do you mean by, “commemorations for the Pope in regular liturgies” ? Do you mean, references , allusions to Papal Primacy, specifically the Catholic understanding, in Eastern Liturgies?
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I mean commemorating the Pope during the liturgy, as in mentioning him in the prayer for the hierarchy during the anaphora. The archbishop was commemorated at that point liturgically, but not the pope. If the pope were actually a universal primate with universal jurisdiction, then it should have been the case that he would have been mentioned somewhere in regular liturgies (as is the case today in the modern Roman Catholic Church, and also in Eastern Catholic Churches, which have added this innovation into their liturgies), but outside of patriarchal services (where all of the patriarchs and major archbishops were commemorated by the patriarch present), this was never the case.
LionHeart777 said:
If what you were saying was correct, how is this much different from St. Paul’s rebuke of St. Peter? Can we both agree that, “Peter’s actions had to do with matters of discipline, not with issues of faith or morals” ?

Source: catholic.com/tracts/papal-infallibility
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I think St. Firmilian’s words speak rather clearly. And 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. For they who are baptized, doubtless, fill up the number of the Church. But he who approves their baptism maintains, of those baptized, that the Church is also with them. Nor does he understand that the truth of the Christian Rock is overshadowed, and in some measure abolished, by him when he thus betrays and deserts unity.

To accuse him of abolishing the truth of the Christian Rock goes a bit far for one who is simply fighting over a matter of discipline.

Bringing up Peter’s rebuke to Peter is a red herring of sorts, because it is not immediately relevant. As we are taught by the great exegetes, Paul was rebuking Peter primarily for his hypocrisy, and not because he was a Judaizer. Again, I think St. Firmilian’s rebuke goes beyond just accusing St. Stephen of hypocrisy.
 
Cavaradossi said:
I think St. Firmilian’s words speak rather clearly. And 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. For they who are baptized, doubtless, fill up the number of the Church. But he who approves their baptism maintains, of those baptized, that the Church is also with them. Nor does he understand that the truth of the Christian Rock is overshadowed, and in some measure abolished, by him when he thus betrays and deserts unity.

To accuse him of abolishing the truth of the Christian Rock goes a bit far for one who is simply fighting over a matter of discipline.

Bringing up Peter’s rebuke to Peter is a red herring of sorts, because it is not immediately relevant. As we are taught by the great exegetes, Paul was rebuking Peter primarily for his hypocrisy, and not because he was a Judaizer. Again, I think St. Firmilian’s rebuke goes beyond just accusing St. Stephen of hypocrisy.
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All that Firmilian and Cyprian were doing was arguing tradition with tradition. He told Cyprian’s See that even though rebaptizing was new to them, the Cappadocia See (Firmian’s) has held it as a custom since the very beginning, hence you get tradition fighting what the Pope was declaring.

And yes, Firmian was a little ticked off at what Stephen was doing, but that’s because it was early in Church history and most traditions/beliefs were not all made claim yet so I could bet all the money in the world that controversies like this were common before Nicaea. Stephen, as one could note, held the view of those that developed the Nicene Creed. How? In the creed it says “…I confess ONE BAPTISM FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS…” This view, as we all know, became very popular since the sacrament of Confession was the way to find forgiveness of sins after the ONE BAPTISM.

And since Stephen promoted this view to the Whole Church, as Firmian points out in your quote above, and since it became accepted at the First Council, the view must have been upheld by most everyone, which would help the claim that everyone who listened to the pope and follow his ways on Faith and Morals would not get excommunicated, which Firmian so happened to do.

Now let’s get one thing straight, the pope’s to follow Stephen dropped the excommunication on Firmian because they understood where Firmian was coming from: fighting for his See’s tradition.

You cannot say that arguments with the Pope mean that there is no such thing as Papal authority ESPECIALLY in the Early Church since EVERYONE (yes EVERYONE) was trying to figure out what the Church should Truly believe.
 
Bballer32 said:
All that Firmilian and Cyprian were doing was arguing tradition with tradition. He told Cyprian’s See that even though rebaptizing was new to them, the Cappadocia See (Firmian’s) has held it as a custom since the very beginning, hence you get tradition fighting what the Pope was declaring.

And yes, Firmian was a little ticked off at what Stephen was doing, but that’s because it was early in Church history and most traditions/beliefs were not all made claim yet so I could bet all the money in the world that controversies like this were common before Nicaea. Stephen, as one could note, held the view of those that developed the Nicene Creed. How? In the creed it says “…I confess ONE BAPTISM FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS…” This view, as we all know, became very popular since the sacrament of Confession was the way to find forgiveness of sins after the ONE BAPTISM.

And since Stephen promoted this view to the Whole Church, as Firmian points out in your quote above, and since it became accepted at the First Council, the view must have been upheld by most everyone, which would help the claim that everyone who listened to the pope and follow his ways on Faith and Morals would not get excommunicated, which Firmian so happened to do.

Now let’s get one thing straight, the pope’s to follow Stephen dropped the excommunication on Firmian because they understood where Firmian was coming from: fighting for his See’s tradition.

You cannot say that arguments with the Pope mean that there is no such thing as Papal authority ESPECIALLY in the Early Church since EVERYONE (yes EVERYONE) was trying to figure out what the Church should Truly believe.
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I think the argument wasn’t about having more than one baptism, but whether baptisms by heretics and schismatics are valid, that is, are they really baptisms in the first place? This issue is still being contested today in the Orthodox Church. Remember we have Scriptural support here where St. Paul “rebaptized” a bunch of guys who were baptized not by Baptism into Christ, but by John’s (the Baptist) baptism. So the argument here is, are baptisms by heretics and schismatics the same true baptism of those within the Church?
 
Bballer32 said:
All that Firmilian and Cyprian were doing was arguing tradition with tradition. He told Cyprian’s See that even though rebaptizing was new to them, the Cappadocia See (Firmian’s) has held it as a custom since the very beginning, hence you get tradition fighting what the Pope was declaring.

And yes, Firmian was a little ticked off at what Stephen was doing, but that’s because it was early in Church history and most traditions/beliefs were not all made claim yet so I could bet all the money in the world that controversies like this were common before Nicaea. Stephen, as one could note, held the view of those that developed the Nicene Creed. How? In the creed it says “…I confess ONE BAPTISM FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS…” This view, as we all know, became very popular since the sacrament of Confession was the way to find forgiveness of sins after the ONE BAPTISM.

And since Stephen promoted this view to the Whole Church, as Firmian points out in your quote above, and since it became accepted at the First Council, the view must have been upheld by most everyone, which would help the claim that everyone who listened to the pope and follow his ways on Faith and Morals would not get excommunicated, which Firmian so happened to do.
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You seem not to understand what the nature of the dispute between Ss. Cyprian and Stephen was. The affirmation of one baptism was to affirm the traditional Christian belief that one could only be baptized once for the remission of sins, against those who believed that those already in the church could be baptized again. Neither Ss. Cyprian or Firmilian denied this key doctrine of the Christian faith. Rather, they disagreed with St. Stephen on whether those baptized outside of the Church had received true baptism.
Bballer32 said:
Now let’s get one thing straight, the pope’s to follow Stephen dropped the excommunication on Firmian because they understood where Firmian was coming from: fighting for his See’s tradition.
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Do you have a source that demonstrates this?
Bballer32 said:
You cannot say that arguments with the Pope mean that there is no such thing as Papal authority ESPECIALLY in the Early Church since EVERYONE (yes EVERYONE) was trying to figure out what the Church should Truly believe.
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Sure, but only if you are willing to concede that the use of acquiescence to papal demands in the early church is incapable of demonstrating the existence of papal authority.
 
ConstantineTG said:
Of course. Such order did not exist in the earlier Church. If you look at the canons of the First Ecumenical Council, they were just building up the Metropolitan of Alexandria, similar to how the Metropolitan of Rome was structured. At this point there were no Patriarchs.

Surely there have been many developments in ecclesiology. But the biggest contention from the East is that none of them were ever divinely ordained. They all developed through time as a necessity of governance, not of the faith.
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Cavaradossi, do you agree with this statement, (part in bold) regarding the Orthodox church?
 
Cavaradossi said:
You seem not to understand what the nature of the dispute between Ss. Cyprian and Stephen was. The affirmation of one baptism was to affirm the traditional Christian belief that one could only be baptized once for the remission of sins, against those who believed that those already in the church could be baptized again. Neither Ss. Cyprian or Firmilian denied this key doctrine of the Christian faith. Rather, they disagreed with St. Stephen on whether those baptized outside of the Church had received true baptism.

Do you have a source that demonstrates this?

Sure, but only if you are willing to concede that the use of acquiescence to papal demands in the early church is incapable of demonstrating the existence of papal authority.
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Sometime I wonder if it really even matters. After all salvation via the sacraments aka mysteries, can be found in both the Orthodox and Catholic church. 🤷
 
joe371 said:
Sometime I wonder if it really even matters. After all salvation via the sacraments aka mysteries, can be found in both the Orthodox and Catholic church. 🤷
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They can also be found in Anglicanism and Lutheranism.
 
Do you have a source that demonstrates this?
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Catholic Encyclopedia
“Though he was cut off from communion by Pope Stephen, it is certain that the following popes did not adhere to this severe policy. He is commemorated in the Greek Menæa on 28 Oct., but is unknown to the Western martyrologies. His great successor, St. Basil, mentions his view on heretical baptism without accepting it (Ep. clxxxviii), and says, when speaking of the expression “with the Holy Ghost” in the Doxology.” Catholic Encyclopedia
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Hi all. After my last post, about a week ago, I got busy with over things and didn’t catch up on this thread until this morning. Let me tell, it provides and interesting perspective

Seriously, other than exercising busybodyism (and exercising our finger and eye muscles of course) what are we doing? I’m starting to think that many of us need professional help, or at least a variation of AA. (See also.)
 
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