Rev 2-3 Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter garysibio
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
G

garysibio

Guest
If you read the letters to the seven churches, five of them had major doctrinal problems. Why didn’t the pope at the time intervene?
 
  1. We don’t know that he didn’t. There were famously tons of letters going around, for example, and plenty of travelers seem to have carried messages from church to church. Paul’s, for example – he wasn’t shy about poking his nose into business. But even if the Pope showed up in person, even today, there’s not really any way to enforce his interventions on people unless the people freely obey. The Pope doesn’t travel around with a corps of ninja assassins or legbreakers. When you’re talking about an illegal sect worshipping a man executed as a danger to the Empire, your popes can’t really do much about it, in an earthly way.
There’s an old tradition that Revelation was written at the end of Domitian’s reign. If so, pretty much all Christian leaders in Rome were dead or in hiding, because Domitian really went after them.
  1. Generally, the local bishop is responsible for taking care of this stuff. It has to get really really bad for other bishops or the pope to step in and correct him; a bishop is the father and teacher of a city, so it’s usually not anybody else’s place to comment or move on it, any more than it’s the mayor’s business to comment on how my family runs. Paul founded most of the churches that he presumed to poke into, and also seems to have been asked for letters in many cases.
  2. You’ll notice that even Jesus was essentially leaving it up to the particular bishops (the “angels” to the various churches). All he told them was to shape up and make the flocks shape up, or else. Presumably they hadn’t listened to previous messages to that effect from earthly sources.
 
Mintaka said:
  1. We don’t know that he didn’t. There were famously tons of letters going around, for example, and plenty of travelers seem to have carried messages from church to church. Paul’s, for example – he wasn’t shy about poking his nose into business.
  2. Generally, the local bishop is responsible for taking care of this stuff. It has to get really really bad for other bishops or the pope to step in and correct him; a bishop is the father and teacher of a city, so it’s usually not anybody else’s place to comment or move on it, any more than it’s the mayor’s business to comment on how my family runs. Paul founded most of the churches that he presumed to poke into, and also seems to have been asked for letters in many cases.
  3. You’ll notice that even Jesus was essentially leaving it up to the particular bishops (the “angels” to the various churches). All he told them was to shape up and make the flocks shape up, or else. Presumably they hadn’t listened to previous messages to that effect from earthly sources.
Click to expand...
It’s unlikely that some writer would not have mentioned an attempt to intervene by the pope given the mention in the book of Revelation. It’s possible that any reference to the letters disappeared with the letters themselves but I think that’s highly unlikely. At best it’s an argument from silence.

Many of these churches were full of heresy. Clement I wrote to the Corinthians for something a lot less critical than what was going on here. Jezebel, the Nicolaitians, … This wasn’t minor stuff.
 
First, how do we know he didn’t? Certainly St. Peter seems to have been involved with the churches in Asia Minor, to judge by 1 Peter which is written to them, though Revelation may have been written after Peter’s death.

Second, these Churches were dealing with heresy, especially, it seems, with strains of Jewish Christianity which rejected the directives of the “Council of Jerusalem” concerning circumcision and the Mosaic Law. If they already rejected the authority of the Apostles and of Peter specifically, why would they listen to Linus or Anacletus or Clement, if one of them was Pope at the time?

Third, remember that communication and transportation was more limited than they are today. The Pope couldn’t know every particular of what was going on in each local church and deal personally with every issue that came up. That’s one of the reasons we have many bishops, not just one.

Fourth, Revelation was probably written during or shortly after the reign of Nero. There was a great deal of persecution going on, which would presumably put further practical limitations on what Peter or his successor could accomplish.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
First, how do we know he didn’t? Certainly St. Peter seems to have been involved with the churches in Asia Minor, to judge by 1 Peter which is written to them, though Revelation may have been written after Peter’s death.

Second, these Churches were dealing with heresy, especially, it seems, with strains of Jewish Christianity which rejected the directives of the “Council of Jerusalem” concerning circumcision and the Mosaic Law. If they already rejected the authority of the Apostles and of Peter specifically, why would they listen to Linus or Anacletus or Clement, if one of them was Pope at the time?

Third, remember that communication and transportation was more limited than they are today. The Pope couldn’t know every particular of what was going on in each local church and deal personally with every issue that came up. That’s one of the reasons we have many bishops, not just one.

Fourth, Revelation was probably written during or shortly after the reign of Nero. There was a great deal of persecution going on, which would presumably put further practical limitations on what Peter or his successor could accomplish.
Click to expand...
I find it highly unlikely that letters from the Bishop of Rome would not be preserved if they existed. We not only have 1 Clement but a forgery attributed to him. Clearly efforts were made to preserve the writings of Ignatius of Antioch and others who were not the bishop of Rome, how did these disappear?

While travel was more difficult and info did get around. It’s had to believe that Rome didn’t know what was going on in these cities if these cities were aware of the decree of the Council of Jerusalem. Info flowed in both directions. You mentioned that Peter wrote to address problems. If the transmission of info was so bad, how did he know about the problems and he was in prison when he wrote 2 Peter.

PS. Revelation was written around 95 AD, not near the time of Nero.
 
garysibio said:
It’s unlikely that some writer would not have mentioned an attempt to intervene by the pope given the mention in the book of Revelation. It’s possible that any reference to the letters disappeared with the letters themselves but I think that’s highly unlikely. At best it’s an argument from silence.

Many of these churches were full of heresy. Clement I wrote to the Corinthians for something a lot less critical than what was going on here. Jezebel, the Nicolaitians, … This wasn’t minor stuff.
Click to expand...
Where do you get that it’s unlikely a writer would not have mentioned an attempt by the Pope to intervene with these churches? How much do we really know about the early Church anyway? The Bible provides us with snippets, and we get more snippets from early Church Fathers like Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, and later legends which may have had a long oral history, but really there is so much we don’t know. We don’t even know with any certainty who first brought the gospel to Rome.

And this is not the arguement from silence. The arguement from silence would be “there is no record that the bishop of Rome did not intervene in the controvercies in Asia Minor, therefore he did” or “therefore he probably did” or, for that matter, “there is no record that the bishop of Rome intervened in the controvercies of Asia Minor, therefore he did not.”

The reality is we do not know if any of the early Popes did or did not intervene in any way.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
Where do you get that it’s unlikely a writer would not have mentioned an attempt by the Pope to intervene with these churches? How much do we really know about the early Church anyway? The Bible provides us with snippets, and we get more snippets from early Church Fathers like Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, and later legends which may have had a long oral history, but really there is so much we don’t know. We don’t even know with any certainty who first brought the gospel to Rome.

And this is not the arguement from silence. The arguement from silence would be “there is no record that the bishop of Rome did not intervene in the controvercies in Asia Minor, therefore he did” or “therefore he probably did” or, for that matter, “there is no record that the bishop of Rome intervened in the controvercies of Asia Minor, therefore he did not.”

The reality is we do not know if any of the early Popes did or did not intervene in any way.
Click to expand...
My point is this: If the pope is something special as we Catholics make him out to be, isn’t it reasonable to assume that his writings would be preserved? We have the letter written by Pope Clement I to the Corinthians plus a bunch of letters written by bishops other than Rome, it seems to me to be unreasonable to assume that we would not have copies of them or that they would, at least, have been mentioned in someone’s writings, such as church historian Eusebius.

There is no evidence supporting the existence of these writings so to speculate that they existed but we don’t have them is an argument from silence.
 
garysibio said:
I find it highly unlikely that letters from the Bishop of Rome would not be preserved if they existed. We not only have 1 Clement but a forgery attributed to him. Clearly efforts were made to preserve the writings of Ignatius of Antioch and others who were not the bishop of Rome, how did these disappear?

While travel was more difficult and info did get around. It’s had to believe that Rome didn’t know what was going on in these cities if these cities were aware of the decree of the Council of Jerusalem. Info flowed in both directions. You mentioned that Peter wrote to address problems. If the transmission of info was so bad, how did he know about the problems and he was in prison when he wrote 2 Peter.

PS. Revelation was written around 95 AD, not near the time of Nero.
Click to expand...
That date for Revelation is one of many theories. In any case the Church wasn’t exactly operating right out in the open during the range of dates that are commonly claimed (roughly the 60s AD to about 100 AD). And practicing the faith underground can limit what you can accomplish in terms of worldwide administration of the Church from a single location. That’s all my point there was.

How many letters by Clement, if any, have not been preserved? Did Linus or Anacletus write anything? How many letters by Peter and Paul themselves have been lost, for that matter? Various contrary theories not withstanding, it seems very likely the Epistle to the Laodicians has been lost, which we probably would not have even known about if it had not happened to have been mentioned in another epistle. Where did the idea of “the Antichrist” come from? The Bible takes it for granted, that it was already an idea that had spread through Christianity, but from whom?

In the mid-twentieth century many believed that the early Christians celebrated the Lord’s Supper with the presider facing the people, which was one of the reasons for adopting that posture. Today some people contest that theory. I don’t know enough to give a judgment myself, but clearly even very basic elements of Christian practice at the time are not clearly recorded.

In light of the extremely fragmentary records of early Christianity I think we could use a little humility in how much we think we know about what the Church was like at the time and what happened.
 
garysibio said:
My point is this: If the pope is something special as we Catholics make him out to be, isn’t it reasonable to assume that his writings would be preserved? We have the letter written by Pope Clement I to the Corinthians plus a bunch of letters written by bishops other than Rome, it seems to me to be unreasonable to assume that we would not have copies of them or that they would, at least, have been mentioned in someone’s writings, such as church historian Eusebius.

There is no evidence supporting the existence of these writings so to speculate that they existed but we don’t have them is an argument from silence.
Click to expand...
What I’ve already written answers all this, but let me try to say it again, more succinctly.

-If an Epistle of Paul, one endorsed by another Epistle of Paul for that matter, has been lost, why should we be confident no other apostolic or early Papal writings have been lost?

-Pointing out that the lack of a record of something (especially from antiquity) doesn’t mean it didn’t occur is not the argument from silence. Stating that something did not occur because it is not recorded is the argument from silence.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
That date for Revelation is one of many theories. In any case the Church wasn’t exactly operating right out in the open during the range of dates that are commonly claimed (roughly the 60s AD to about 100 AD). And practicing the faith underground can limit what you can accomplish in terms of worldwide administration of the Church from a single location. That’s all my point there was.

How many letters by Clement, if any, have not been preserved? Did Linus or Anacletus write anything? How many letters by Peter and Paul themselves have been lost, for that matter? Various contrary theories not withstanding, it seems very likely the Epistle to the Laodicians has been lost, which we probably would not have even known about if it had not happened to have been mentioned in another epistle. Where did the idea of “the Antichrist” come from? The Bible takes it for granted, that it was already an idea that had spread through Christianity, but from whom?

In the mid-twentieth century many believed that the early Christians celebrated the Lord’s Supper with the presider facing the people, which was one of the reasons for adopting that posture. Today some people contest that theory. I don’t know enough to give a judgment myself, but clearly even very basic elements of Christian practice at the time are not clearly recorded.

In light of the extremely fragmentary records of early Christianity I think we could use a little humility in how much we think we know about what the Church was like at the time and what happened.
Click to expand...
We have plenty of documents from this era. That makes all that more likely that a complete absence of any papal documents or references to them indicates that they never existed. I’m still curious why Rome would be silent.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
What I’ve already written answers all this, but let me try to say it again, more succinctly.

-If an Epistle of Paul, one endorsed by another Epistle of Paul for that matter, has been lost, why should we be confident no other apostolic or early Papal writings have been lost?

-Pointing out that the lack of a record of something (especially from antiquity) doesn’t mean it didn’t occur is not the argument from silence. Stating that something did not occur because it is not recorded is the argument from silence.
Click to expand...
Paul was not the Pope. As Catholics we believe that the Bishop of Rome has a higher level of authority than other bishops. Paul wasn’t even a Bishop. The writings of Paul that we have have been included in Scripture so they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. That has to play a major role in their preservation.
 
If the Pope wrote a letter to my parish castigating the Church and its leaders for doing the wrong thing then you wouldn’t expect those same leaders to put the letter on public show, read it from the pulpit and preserve the letter into perpetuity now would you. 😉
 
abucs said:
If the Pope wrote a letter to my parish castigating the Church and its leaders for doing the wrong thing then you wouldn’t expect those same leaders to put the letter on public show, read it from the pulpit and preserve the letter into perpetuity now would you. 😉
Click to expand...
Following your logic we shouldn’t have Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians or Clement’s letter to them. In other words, yes, we should still have them.
 
garysibio said:
PS. Revelation was written around 95 AD, not near the time of Nero.
Click to expand...
There is wide scholarly support for the position that 68 A.D. is the frame of reference intended by St. John, regardless of the actual date of authorship.
 
garysibio said:
If you read the letters to the seven churches, five of them had major doctrinal problems. Why didn’t the pope at the time intervene?
Click to expand...
Maybe the pope was fine with having Saint John deal with it. John had lived in Asia Minor for some time and he was a recognized leader of this part of the church.
 
ryanoneil said:
There is wide scholarly support for the position that 68 A.D. is the frame of reference intended by St. John, regardless of the actual date of authorship.
Click to expand...
Only by those who wish to deny the prophetic nature of the book.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top