Before Vatican I, there was no notion of *ex cathedra * infallibility as such. I don’t want to argue papal primacy in all questions moral, theological, dogmatic and of discipline.
However, it’s obvious how primacy is very different from infallibility - and be it only in very specific circumstances. Catholic apologetics need to perform a lot of mental gymnastics if they are to show how papal infallibility is something which the church “always believed”. Especially considering early church history.
We need it as much as a declaration of the Sancta Dei Genetrix as “co-redemptrix” - not at all.
Sorry if I hurt any feelings.
Saint Irenaeus wrote that it is a matter of necessity that every church should agree with the Church of Rome, citing apostolic succession from Peter and Paul. He didn’t include any sort of warning, “But it’s possible they might screw it up one day.”
I already quoted Saint Cyprian who said faithlessness (which he equates with heresy) could have no access to the Church of Rome.
Saint Jerome held Rome in even higher regard: “For this, I know, is the rock on which the church is built! This is the house where alone the paschal lamb can be rightly eaten. This is the ark of Noah, and he who is not found in it shall perish when the flood prevails.”
newadvent.org/fathers/3001015.htm
Pope Damasus I wrote, “The first see, therefore, is that of Peter the apostle, that of the Roman Church, which has neither stain nor blemish nor anything like it.”
The Edict of Thessalonica required all the empire to submit to “that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter.”
At the Council of Ephesus, it was proclaimed, “There is no doubt, and in fact it has been known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the Apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of the human race, and that to him was given the power of loosing and binding sins:
who down even to today and forever both lives and judges in his successors. The holy and most blessed pope Cœlestine, according to due order, is his successor and holds his place.”
The Formula of Hormisdas declared, " For it is impossible that the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,” [Matthew 16:18], should not be verified. And their truth has been proved by the course of history, for in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been kept unsullied." And again, “And so I hope I may deserve to be associated with you in the one communion which the Apostolic See proclaims, in which the whole, true, and perfect security of the Christian religion resides.”
byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/122063/The%20Formula%20of%20Pope%20St%20Hormisd
Pope Agatho I wrote to the Sixth Ecumenical Council that the Church of Rome, “has never erred from the path of the apostolic tradition, nor has she been depraved by yielding to heretical innovations, but from the beginning she has received the Christian faith from her founders, the princes of the Apostles of Christ, and remains undefiled unto the end, according to the divine promise of the Lord and Saviour himself, which he uttered in the holy Gospels to the prince of his disciples: saying, Peter, Peter, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for you, that (your) faith fail not. And when you are converted, strengthen your brethren.”
newadvent.org/fathers/3813.htm
As late as the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Romans 1:8, “Your faith has gone forth into all the world.” was quoted by the Patriarch of Constantinople as a continuing witness to the Church of Rome, stating, “It is necessary to follow out this witness, and he that would contradict it is without good sense.”
newadvent.org/fathers/3819.htm
For what it’s worth, polytheist thinkers have always been staunch defenders of our immortality.
