By visible unity, I’m talking about the hierarchy of the Church - bishops, priests and deacons. There certainly were bishops, priests and deacons in the early Church, were there not? We are reminded many times in the early writings to “let nothing be done without the bishop”. A good, early example is in chapter 8 and 9 of St. Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Smyrnaeans.
There were bishops and deacons in the early churches. The author of the “Letters of Ignatius” spoke of how a single parish is united by the bishop. But bishops from the time of the apostles until the 2nd century were not united with each other. Most all the bishops that came from the Apostle Paul were Marcionite Christians. The Marcionite church was in opposition to both the Jewish Christian church and the Catholic Christian church and for a long time was superior to them in power and influence. Celsus, who debated with Origen, understood “Christians”, when he spoke of them, to mean Marcionite Christians, because they were in the majority at that time. Tertullian said that, “Marcion’s heretical tradition has filled the entire world”.
Records of the line of authority of bishops were not kept originally as no one saw the need to do so at first. Tertullian and others in the 2nd century began reconstructing the history of the line of bishops in Rome and other places in order to demonstrate, for the first time, that the Catholic church did go back to the apostles. This, and establishing a canon of scripture, was the beginnings of “Catholic unity”. Marcionite bishops all came from the Apostle Paul because they considered all the 12 apostles to have gone into apostasy. All Jewish Bishops came from the 12 apostles as they did not recognize Paul as a true apostle. Catholic bishops came from Peter and the 12 apostles mainly because the Catholic church was never successful in reconciling the Pauline Marcionite bishops to the Catholic church, but the Marcionites died out finally in the 4th & 5th centuries.
Certainly, however, there was not the same extent of visible unity that we experience today. It seems to me that this was likely a result of the Church being so young at the time, so there were bigger battles to fight than to spend lots of energy communicating extensively between churches. Your thoughts?
Communication was the main weapon for the bigger battles you speak of. Bishops on every side condemned other bishops for heresy. Words were not polite, some calling others “the first born of Satan” and the like! Because the Catholic sect was able to compromise as much as possible in an effort toward unity they ended up gaining the support of the Roman empire under Constantine. Other sects were uncompromising in their stand for what they believed and in time only the Catholic church was left standing. Thereafter followed internal debates on what the Catholic church should believe. The Eastern Catholic churches (the “Orthodox”) were for centuries very strong supporters for the unity of the Catholic church being based on Rome, but because of some issues that never could be fully reconciled between Rome and the East the East and Rome eventually split into two “Catholic” churches. Actually three “Catholic” churches: Rome, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox.
So a visible unity of the Church has to be a goal, rather than a visible reality. The greatest success toward that goal has been Rome and those who where tied in with Rome. But I was taught to believe in my church (Eastern Orthodox) that the unity of the Church has to be a reality at all times, past, present, and future. This is because Jesus prayed to the Father (in John 17) " The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me" ". The idea being that any prayer that Jesus asked the Father for had to be answered! So, where is the unity then, I ask?
As an Orthodox Christian I’m not supposed to believe that the unity of the Church is only spiritual and not physical (as Protestants do - and Marcionite Christians did) but the idea seems very appealing to me. Rome achieved the highest degree of “Catholic unity” in history, but it is still just a degree of unity, not complete unity, and this achievement didn’t exclude bloodshed I’m sorry to say.
If you want to keep the discussion of the visible unity of the Church on a parish level only then it seems pretty much universal that a single bishop made the unity of a local church. But I would like to ask if you feel ok with that being a reality even in a ancient parish of a Marcionite church. They had a very well organised hierarchy and each parish had a bishop who claimed to have a line of authority back to St Paul. But they did not believe in the Trinity, they actually believed in two Gods, a greater and a lesser God, Jesus is the Son of the Greater God. They did not believe that Jesus came in the flesh, He just “appeared” to be here in the flesh. They held one Gospel and ten letters of Paul to be their canon of scripture and did not accept the Old Testament as scripture. - Basically what I am getting at is the question, ‘If they look like Catholics in every respect, but they don’t at all believe like Catholics in any respect (on faith issues) does this count as a valid example of a visible part of the church?’ Today Mormons are very well organised and each parish (they call them “wards”) have one single bishop that claims to have authority that goes back to Peter, James, and John. But they don’t believe in the Trinity. So, would you consider Mormons to be a valid example of the “visible Church”? - Any thoughts?
