The Roman apologists for decades have been using quotes from Church Fathers to claim a papal supremacy. These quotes are either taken out of context (the majority), have been intentionally mistranslated (St Irenaeus comes to mind), are forgeries (one of St Maximus comes to mind at the moment), and others which do not talk about the papacy at all, but once again are taken out of context.
Catholics will quote St. Ignatius’ letter to the Romans:
*“The Church which is beloved and enlightened by the will of Him that wills all things which are according to the love of Jesus Christ our God,
which also presides in the place of the region of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of the highest happiness, worthy of praise, worthy of obtaining her every desire, worthy of being deemed holy, and which presides over love, is named from Christ, and from the Father, which I also salute in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father:”
*
They use that as a “proof” of Roman superiority.
Well, then, what about the following quote from Ignatius to the church in Ephesus?:
“…To the Church which is in Ephesus in Asia deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness & fullness of God the Father and pre-destined before the beginning of time, that it should always be for an enduring and unchangeable glory…”
And Catholics quote St. Irenaeus.
“For with this Church [the Church at Rome], because of her great authority, it is necessary that every Church, that is, the faithful who are everywhere, should agree - because in her the apostolic tradition has always been safeguarded by those who are everywhere.”
St Irenaeus explicitly states that the reason all churches must agree with the church in Rome, is not because of some specific heritage of primacy or power, but because that Church faithfully preserves the apostolic tradition - the same that has been ‘safeguarded by those who are everywhere’. It is apostolic testimony that grounds authority. As much as the church in Rome faithfully preserves this, she is to be a church with which all others must agree - not for her own account, but on account of the tradition she maintains and exemplifies.
As if anticipating misunderstandings, St Irenaeus goes to lengths - a bit earlier in the same book - to note that his discussions on Rome are due to her great fame and antiquity, and apostolic foundation; but he says** the same is true of every church in the world that keeps the apostolic traditions rightly.**
St Irenaeus’ very point is that everyone must agree with the teachings of the Church at Rome, as they must agree also with any
other Church, so long as those teachings are rightly and truly the teachings of the apostles. To claim that he did not make this statement, because of some presumed yet entirely un-foundable claim to a problem of converting his original Greek (which no one has) into Latin, is to rob him of his most important point: that it is precisely in apostolic testimony that authority resides, and apostolic testimony must be heeded and followed, agreed with rather than modified.
The implications for what Irenaeus’ position means in relation to a church that has gone into error, which does not or no longer follows authentically the teaching and tradition of the apostles - whether that be in Rome or anywhere else - is entirely stripped of its meaning if his words are manipulated in this way.
Here is a link I found, called
“The Church Fathers’ Interpretation of the Rock of Matthew 16:18 - An Historical Refutation of the Claims of Roman Catholicism”
Ask yourself this simple question:
There were so many heresies in the early church. Why do not we have any explicit reference of the heretics and papal authority?
The Protestants wrote extensively about papal authority. Surely the
earlier heretics would have, too, right?
You don’t hear about the Montanists and Tertullian saying anything about it or regarding it in any way.
), here is the link:
Perhaps if you could give you your thoughts on some of what I presented to you in my past few posts?