highrigger1;9217884:
Yes you do. You have completely dodged my challenge to you. Why have you not answered?
He is repeating legends and myths just as you are
Now you are changing your position. You made it VERY CLEAR it was a MYTH started in the early 3rd century,so how could Irenaeus said it in 180 AD? Which one is it?
You are giving yourself very little credence-do you understand?
And if you want to trust modern scholarship…your choice and your loss.
Nicea,
The myth that Peter was a bishop of Rome started in the third century. Irenaeus did not say Peter was a bishop of Rome. He does seem to indicate Peter appointed Linus however. Both are myths. The myths going around were slightly different but myths nevertheless.
Legend? Wow! Care to tell us where such a legend originated from? Israel? Europe? Antioch? Rome? Where?
Hard to say but I have a theory.
1 Clement says that Peter and Paul founded the church at Rome. This of course is known to be false but that was the myth the church at Rome believed. Clement mentioned nothing about Peter being a bishop because Clement himself was not a bishop. There was no bishop of Rome until mid second century. Remember that the Roman christians were wiped out by Nero about 40 years before. No doubt no one knew who really began that church but they did have memories of Peter and Paul being there.so they assumed they were founded by them. Nice theory that sounded good.
At the time of Irenaeus there were bishops list battles going on with the gnostics who had their own bishops lists to prove they were from the apostles and the orthodox were not. Naturally the orthodox churches were coming up with their own to refute the Gnostics. That was still going on in the time of Eusebius. Irenaeus had some of that from the church at Rome. It did not claim Peter was a bishop of Rome. This was added later in the third century. By that time they had bishops so they reconstructed the myth that the first Bishop of Rome was Peter. They had forgotten that there was no bishop of Rome til mid-second century. It was all retrospective as professional historians explain. Remember there was no ordinations or official successions until about that time so they presumed that occured before.when it did not. When they had no name, any name would do. Sometimes the lists were simply a list of names. This is all explained by Andrew Louth in his research into the bishops lists of Rome and elsewhere.
Makes sense to me. Peace, JohnR