A reader sent me this very interesting question for discussion (and, by the way, you can now send questions or comments to eirenikonblog at me.com):
… I was hoping to use this forum to moot an issue that has troubled me relating to the transmission of the Petrine function in the early Church. It involves Clement’s letter to the Corinthians. I have always had difficulty with the traditional Catholic portrayal of the transmission as flowing seamlessly from Peter to Linus and their successors as president of the apostolic see down to our time. How could Linus have exercised the Petrine function (as Catholics understand it) of leadership within the universal Church while many of the apostles remained alive, indeed while Paul himself was not only present in Rome but actually writing from Rome to other churches from the capital (in a classic demonstration of Petrine leadership)? Surely this is only a role that could have been assumed by the bishop of Rome once the apostles had all died. This is why the traditional dating of Clement’s letter made sense to me as by the mid to late 90s, John would have either passed on or been sent on the exile that Tradition links with his martyrdom. If, as Dr Tighe and the current Pope seem to prefer, the letter is to be ascribed to the mid 70s, why would Clement be intervening in Corinth at all when the Apostle John himself could do so with greater ease (being closer at Ephesus) and with so much greater authority? Indeed, it is only the context of John absence or indisposition that Clement’s authoritative language and intervention makes any sense. Such an understanding of transmission (from the apostles as a whole and not just from Peter) to the Church of Rome would seem to explain satisfactorily from the Catholic point of view the otherwise embarrassing absence of demonstrable exercise of Petrine leadership by any Roman bishop between Peter and Clement. An earlier dating of the letter, while consonant with the traditional Catholic view of the chronological assumption of the Petrine role by Peter’s immediate episcopal successors, strikes me as deeply problematic ecclesiologically.
N.B. If I remember correctly, Dr Tighe argues on the basis of George Edmundson’s The Church of Rome in the First Century (the 1913 Bampton Lectures) (available online here). Also, I am not sure that the current Pope argues for the early date of Clement’s letter. Here, in his March 7, 2007 address on Clement of Rome, he seems to accept the later date of Clement’s letter, “immediately after the year 96.” Perhaps the younger Ratzinger argued differently?
Eirenikon 
Perhaps there is more in the background of the letter that remains unknown to we moderns and those blank spaces have allowed some to fill in pieces ex post facto that fit with assumptions argued for on other bases from other sources.
Perhaps there was no issue of immediate jurisdiction and authority implied by the writing of the letter. Perhaps Clement was merely writing as a friend or as a friend of a friend, or as one with respect in the small, still quite interconnected, beleaguered catholic Church of his day, as a holy man as well as bishop (whatever that meant in the Church universal and more particularly in Rome at that time) of the most important (secular, pagan) city in the Empire. Are there not examples in more modern, documented times of bishops, metropolitans and patriarchs writing to other, troubled hierarchs and churches they have no official ‘authority’ or ‘jurisdiction’ over but with which they have a bond of love in communion, culture, personal connections, etc.?
The later date for Clement seems to me not only more consistent with modern scholarship but consistent with the traditional Catholic catalog of popes. Some have argued that Clement was even written before 70 AD since he uses language that seems to assume the Temple is still standing.
But if we date Clement that early we would have some trouble fitting Linus, Cletus and Clement between 67/68 AD and 70 AD. (Not impossible but unlikely). Although Linus & Cletus must have had relatively short and uneventful “reigns” anyhow since they left us no evidence of their episcopacy.
Finally, the “Petrine function” has itself developed of course as needed. There needn’t be a college of cardinals and white smoke at the election of Linus for it to have been organically the same Petrine ministry and certainly not for Linus to be one in a successive line of bishops of Rome.
We don’t have evidence of anyone explicitly arguing the case for the Roman bishop on grounds of Petrine authority until Pope Callistus in the beginning of the third century but with the Easter controversy many years earlier, we know some sort of primacy and even universal jurisdiction was assumed (and not only by Rome).
Certainly, the Catholic Church would regard Peter as exercising his office from within the College of Apostles from the time that Christ conferred it. Therefore, there is no impediment to the exercise of the Petrine Office while any of the apostles remain alive.
Indeed, in the Shepherd of Hermas states that Clement’s duty was to write to the other churches (2, 4, 3)
Chapters 42-44 of 1 Clement make it clear that the ministry of the Apostles is past. Chapter 44 has the presbyters ordained by the Apostles still living. The tradition of early authorship of this letter relies upon these textual clues.
I am rather inclined to think that a lot can be said for the notion (found in some few Fathers, and supported by Edmundson, and at least “hinted at” in an article by Walter Ullmann) that Linus and Cletus may have been made bishops, perhaps simultaneously, and perhaps also Clement as well, by Peter in his lifetime in order to supervise and preside over the Roman Church in his absences (Edmundson suggests around 55 AD)– but that it was Clement alone who became Peter’s “apostolic successor.” (Ullmann’s article suggests that in Irenaeus’s famous succession list of Roman bishops, the wording implies that Linus and Cletus — as Linus’s successor — are in one category, whereas Clement and his successors are in another.)
Contrarywise, I find no evidence to date this anonymous epistle (ascribed by universal and ancient tradition to Clement) to the 90s, save the assumption that, since Clement is said to have been “Bishop of Rome” from ca. 89 to ca. 96 it must come from those years. Otherwise, there is no evidence whatsoever for such a dating, and the fact that it refers to the Neronian presecution in such a way as to imply that it happened fairly recently, that it seems to assume that the Jerusalem Temple is still standing and operative and (on this reading) that the “recent calamities” that delayed the sending of the letter might be a reference to the terrible sacking that Rome underwent in December 69 at the closing of the “year of the three emperors,” all seem to argue against a dating in the 90s.
The epistle is sometimes taken as evidence for the reality of “the persecution of Domitian” in the 90s, but this seems unlikely, as well, for this persecuation seems to have been small beer compared to Nero’s — Domitian had a cousin killed (Titus Flavius Clemens) who may have been a Christian, and possibly a distant kinsman (Marcus Arrecinus Clemens) for thesame reason, and two noblewomen (both of them names Flavia Domitilla, one of them the wife of the aforementioned Titus Flavius Clemens, the other an unmarried kinswoman) banished, and the emperor making it clear that the legal exemptions that Jews enjoyed did not apply to Christians. (Edmundson provides some evidence to suggest that there may have been a tradition of philo-Semitism among the women of the Flavian gens going back to the early first century.)
Cardinal Charles Journet, a Catholic theologian of the 20th century, wrote:
“St. John [the Apostle] was equal to Pope St. Clement with respect to the power of executing Christ’s plan, for example, in founding local churches. St. Clement was superior to St. John with respect to the authority of governing the Church universal‘ (Theology of the Church, pp. 129-130, footnote 27; emphasis in original).”
Keith Mathison, in his The Shape of Sola Scriptura, also raises this same concern about Peter’s “successors” being over living Apostles.
Perhaps Clement was merely writing as a friend or as a friend of a friend…
Nice try, but I don’t see how this can be plausibly maintained. The tone of the letter would seem to rule this out completely. Clement is cordial, but he most assuredly writes as “one having authority.” There’s not the slightest indication that he is merely offering friendly advice, which the Corinthians can take or leave as they please. Heck, even Protestants concede this, while (in the same breath) lamenting it. IIRC, Harnack described Clement’s letter as the earliest example of overweening papal / Roman authoritarianism or some such thing. LOL! Such a description would scarcely have been elicited by a mere piece of friendly advice.
Personally, I’m not sure the dating of the letter matters all that much. Even if St. John were still alive, the successor of Peter would still have greater (i.e., universal) authority…just as Peter himself would have, had be still been alive. The successor of Peter would be the natural person to step in and arbitrate in a thorny situation that was not being resolved locally.
I have no competence whatsoever to judge whether the earlier or later date is likelier to be accurate. And, as I say, I’m not sure it matters either way.
Finally, the “Petrine function” has itself developed of course as needed. There needn’t be a college of cardinals and white smoke at the election of Linus for it to have been organically the same Petrine ministry and certainly not for Linus to be one in a successive line of bishops of Rome.
Exactemente. Thank you!
We don’t have evidence of anyone explicitly arguing the case for the Roman bishop on grounds of Petrine authority until Pope Callistus in the beginning of the third century but with the Easter controversy many years earlier, we know some sort of primacy and even universal jurisdiction was assumed (and not only by Rome).
Again, excellent point. Same goes for Gil Garza’s post. And Dr. Tighe’s is fascinating and informative as always.
Clement is cordial, but he most assuredly writes as “one having authority.”
What the nature of that authority is is the question. There are many ways one can have authority without it being universal and immediate jurisdiction. It is quite possible that we bring various assumptions to the table about what ‘must’ be going on based on our belief in what the papacy was, good or bad. Harnack can see it as overweening papalism for confessional reasons quite apart from the facts. Something as simple as assuming that the letter must have been written during Clement’s pontificate points towards one’s understanding of what his ‘tone’ implies of the papacy – perhaps he was just an ‘overweening’ man prior to being consecrated as Bishop of Rome, or perhaps his authority with them had to do with something other than power or jurisdiction in the ways we have come to understand these terms since the 1st-2nd century. Then again, perhaps he was Bishop of Rome when he wrote the letter and perhaps he and his understanding of that position was ‘overweening’, but Antioch thought it had jurisdiction over Cyprus and Caesarea Maritima in Palestine thought it had Metropolitan rights over Jerusalem – until the Church Universal set these sees and their bishops right.
Then again, perhaps this is proof for the Roman understanding of the papacy. The point is that one must critique one’s own assumptions brought to the facts when trying to understand a difficulty such as this, especially when there is such a paucity of ‘proof’ by modern standards.
“What the nature of that authority is is the question. There are many ways one can have authority without it being universal and immediate jurisdiction.”
In this connection, I highly recommend Dom Gregory Dix’s Jurisdiction in the Early Church: Episcopal and Papal (London: Faith House, 1975).
A few excerpts were posted over at Cathedra Unitatis:
http://cathedraunitatis.wordpress.com/2007/06/11/dix-on-jurisdiction-in-the-early-church/
http://cathedraunitatis.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/dix-on-jurisdiction-2/
In a nutshell, Dix argues that while it may be anachronistic to argue that the earliest Popes exercised something called “universal and immediate jurisdiction” (in the Vatican I terminology), it’s equally anachronistic to argue that any bishop from the same period exercised something called “jurisdiction” in his own local church. Episcopal “jurisdiction” is a concept which only gradually comes into the Church’s consciousness, beginning with the Nicaean crisis.
Anyhow, I can’t argue as convincingly Dix does, so I will just recommend his book (which, of course, was first recommended to me by our esteemed Professor Tighe).
Since some rather sweeping and unequivocal statements have been made regarding the authorship and dating of 1 Clement, I thought it helpful to post some rather boilerplate data regarding the document.
The date of 1 Clement is fixed by the following considerations:
1. Chapter 5 says that the persecutions of Nero are past.
2. Chapters 42-44 say that the ministry of the apostles is past.
3. Chapter 44 says that some of the presbyters ordained by the apostles live.
4. There is no trace of any of the controversies or persecutions of the early 2nd century.
These internal considerations place the letter no earlier than 75 AD and no later than 100 AD.
Hegesippus in Eusebius places the letter during Domitian’s reign. Additionally, Polycarp resorts to the letter in his writing to the Philippians. Both also attest to Clementine authorship.
1 Clement is the earliest piece of Christian literature outside of the New Testament for which the name, position and date of the author are historically attested (Patrology, pg 43). Dionysius of Corinth (170 AD) attests that Clement’s letter was still being read during the Liturgy in his letter to Pope Soter.
The letter is also an important example of Roman primacy. The Roman Church speaks to the Corinthian Church as a superior speaks to a subject. In the 1st chapter the Clement apologizes because of his inability to devote his attention to Corinth earlier. Clement clearly considers it his duty to govern Corinthian affairs. Additionally, Clement considers disobedience to him as sinful (59, 1-2) and his authority to be that of the Holy Spirit (63, 2).
Regarding Clement himself, Irenaeus tells us that he was the 3rd successor of Peter in Rome and a friend of Paul. Eusebius gives us the dates (92-101 AD) of his reign. Tertullian states that Clement was ordained by Peter himself. Epiphanius confirms this and adds that Clement relinquished his office to Linus “for the sake of harmony” and resumed it again after the death of Anacletus. Origen and Eusebius identify him with the Clement mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. The tradition that makes Clement a member of the imperial family of the Flavii are from the pseudo-Clementines and, therefore, lack trustworthiness as does Dio Cassius’ Roman History that tells us that Clement was none other than the consul Titus Flavius Clemens.
“2. Chapters 42-44 say that the ministry of the apostles is past.”
No, it does not. At most, it speaks of the ministry (and lives) of “our apostles” (Peter & Paul, I think) being past. It does speak of apostles appointing bishops and deacons everywhere and then, “by a further enactment appointing others to succeed to their ministry.” It is not really clear whrther this passage means that when the bishops and deacons appointed by the apostles died, the apostles apponted other men to succeed to the ministry of these bishops and deacons, or whether, when the apostles envisaged their own deaths, they appointed other men to succeed to their own (the apostles’) ministry. The Greek grammar supports the latter reading better than the former. And with the Roman provenance and background of the letter, it is unnecessary to assume that each and every apostle, everywhere, had died by the time it was written, but only “our apostles” (whom Corinth as well as Rome might well regard as in a sense their own), Peter and Paul.
In other words, nothing about the letter supports a dating in the 90s (or 80s), save the supposition that as Clement’s “pontificate” was in the late 80s/early to mid 90s it is best placed there.
The name of one of the letter carriers, Claudius Ephebus (which suggests that he was a freedman in the time of the Emperor Claudius [41-54]), and the possibility that “Fortunatus” was mentioned also in one of the Pauline epistles, might incline one to favor an early dating as well.
The letter is also an important example of Roman primacy. The Roman Church speaks to the Corinthian Church as a superior speaks to a subject.
Exactemente.
May we set one thing straight, just for clarity’s sake? No Catholic argues that Clement’s primacy of jurisdiction was exercised in the fully crystallized manner formulated by Vatican I / II. That is not the Catholic position. We do realize that the primitive Church and the primitive papacy did not precisely resemble what we have today. There was development. Obviously. ;-)
But, while the exercise of papal primacy developed over time, the esse of the papacy was right there in Scripture and apostolic Tradition — i.e., in the Depositum Fidei. Which is why the popes began exercising their jurisdictional primacy early on, in a gradually developing way. Clement provides a rather remarkable early example of this. That doesn’t mean he operated like a Tridentine pope or even like the current pope. But it does mean that he had authority encompassing the Universal Church and that he began to exercise this authority, most notably via this letter.
As far as the bearing of the pseudo-Clementines is concerned, Edmundson gives good reason to sugest that there are some genuine, if confused, recollections underlying it. Domitian’s nephew, Titus Flavius Clemens (executed suddenly on Domitian’s orders around 96 AD) had a brother Titus Flavius Sabinus, whom Domitian had executed a couple of years earlier when a herald who was supposed to proclaim TFS “consul” mistakenly proclaimed him “imperator,” were both son’s of Vespasian’s older brother, another Titus Flavius Sabinus, the urban prefect of Rome who was killed in December 69 at the climax of the year of the three emperors. (Tacitus, interestingly, characterizes him as a brave and valiant warrior who in his last years turned contemptibly gentle and mild. Some accounts make the TFS who was killed for the herald’s mistake the son of the earlier TFS and the father of the TFC whom Domitian had executed.) Edmundson asked, why the cognomen “Clemens” in the case of TFC, as it was not a name used by the men of the Flavian gens. In reply, he points to another Roman family, the two successive heards of which were named Marcus Arrecinus Clemens. The elder of these appears to have acted as a patron, when pretorian prefect in the late 30s, to the future emperor Vespasian and his brother Sabinus, who were in impoverished circumstances, and perhaps aided them in beginning their successful military careers. He seems to have died by the late 50s, but once Vespasian was securely established as emperor, he made Marcus Arrecinus Clemens the younger pretorian prefect, and he went on to have a successful, if low-key, career, until Domitian had him arrested and executed around 94. Edmundson also provides some evidence that some of the women in these families may have had leanings towards Judaism and, hence, that the families might have been open to some degree to “Christian penetration.” In fact, he speculates that the “Clement” who wrote the epistle might have been a member of the Arrecini, perhaps even a younger brother of M. Arrecinus Clemens executed in 94.
Ullmann, much more cautiously, is willing to envisage the possibility that the “Epistola Clementis” (the letter supposedly from Clement to James of Jerusalem that precedes and introduces) contains a genuine recollection of St. Peter having handed over his apostolate to Clement towards the end of his life.
The question confuses me.
How could Linus have exercised the Petrine function (as Catholics understand it) of leadership within the universal Church while many of the apostles remained alive, indeed while Paul himself was not only present in Rome but actually writing from Rome to other churches from the capital (in a classic demonstration of Petrine leadership)?
One tradition has Peter and Paul being executed on the same day. If that is the case then Paul would not have been alive let alone writing epistles while Linus was exercising the “Petrine function.” As far as other Apostles being alive (such as John), what difference does that make?
Surely this is only a role that could have been assumed by the bishop of Rome once the apostles had all died.
Why would that be the case? Peter’s office was singular amongst the Apostles so why would his successors’ not be as well? I have heard it argued that the Epistle of Clement is supportive of papal jurisdiction precisely because it is an exercise of authority while an Apostle (John) is still living showing how great that papal authority was.
…why would Clement be intervening in Corinth at all when the Apostle John himself could do so with greater ease (being closer at Ephesus) and with so much greater authority?
Isn’t that the point; that Clement acted when John could have? It could be argued that Clement’s Petrine ministry was of greater authority than even the Apostle John’s ministry.
Such an understanding of transmission (from the apostles as a whole and not just from Peter) [Ah! The crux of the problem. The questioner is assuming transmission from the Apostles as a body and not just from Peter. The bishops are the successors of the Apostles as a body; the Pope is Peter’s successor.] to the Church of Rome would seem to explain satisfactorily from the Catholic point of view [this a different “Catholic point of view” than I’m familiar with :) ] the otherwise embarrassing absence of demonstrable exercise of Petrine leadership by any Roman bishop between Peter and Clement.
I don’t see how this is embarrassing at all. Documents are scarce so maybe there were a lot of things that happened that we just don’t know about. Also, wouldn’t an early dating and thus short reigns for Linus and Cletus also jive well with a lack of activity on the part of Linus and Cletus?
The questioner seems to be approaching the Epistle of Clement and the Petrine Ministry from a point of view I am wholly unfamiliar with. Clarification please.
James G
James G, I share your bafflement. I too cannot see what difference it would make if John were alive at the time Clement wrote his letter. Peter is still Peter, and his primacy is still operative — whether in his person or in his successors. Several centuries later, the Fathers of Chalcedon would affirm: “Peter has spoken through Leo.” Well, he spoke through Clement, too. :)
“Chapters 42-44 say that the ministry of the apostles is past.”
In my haste, I omitted my source. The above quote regarding the dating of 1 Clement (and much else) was taken verbatim from the introduction to 1 Clement from the Loeb Classical Library, edited by GP Gould, Apostolic Fathers I, pg 4. I was offering boilerplate analysis from Harvard. Additional material was taken from, Patrology, VI by Quasten, pgs 42-52.
Mr. Tighe does offer a novel and different interpretation, however.
FOOTNOTES
1. The article by Walter Ullmann is “The Significance of the ‘Epistola Clementis’ in the Pseudo-Clementines,” *Journal of Theological Studies,* n.s., XI (1960), pp. 295-317.
2. George Edmundson’s *The Church in Rome in the First Century: the Bampton Lectures for 1913* (London, 1913: Longmans, Green and Co.) has just been reprinted by Wipf and Stock (Portland, Oregon); see:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=edmundson&bi=0&bx=off&ds=30&sortby=2&sts=t&tn=church+in+rome&x=55&y=21
http://wipfandstock.com/
At $20.00 from Wipf and Stock it is a real bargain.
Tim Troutman: …but with the Easter controversy many years earlier, we know some sort of primacy and even universal jurisdiction was assumed (and not only by Rome).
I don’t see how this statement, including the parenthetical, is at all supported, at least by Eusebius’s account. According to that account, Pope Victor’s attempt at exercising universal jurisdiction was ignored by the Asian bishops he “attempted” (Eusebius’s term) to excommunicate, and quite vehemently opposed by Irenaeus and other western bishops. Joe
Pope Victor, as everyone knows, excommunicated Polycrates of Ephesus and all the dioceses of Asia who followed the practise of observing the Feast of the Resurrection on 14 Nissan instead of on the Sunday proximate (they were called Quatrodecimans).
Irenaeus and others intervened and persuaded Victor to reconsider his excommunication. Victor did so and ordered a series of regional councils throughout the Christian world to resolve the issue. These councils ordered by Pope Victor are some of the first recorded outside of the New Testament. These regional councils did not satisfy Victor, nor did they settle the matter.
Nicea I also dealt with the issue in similar fashion however, some Christians continued to observe the Feast of the Resurrection on 14 Nissan until well into the 5th century.
It is important to note that Victor was rebuked not because he was wrong or had acted beyond his authority but because “they besought him rather to consider the things of peace, of unity with neighbor, and of charity (Hist Eccl 5, 24, 2-8).” No one, therefore, contends with Victor’s authority to settle the matter, rather, they urged Victor to settle the matter in a manner that would leave the Church in peace (as Irenaeus’ letter to Victor demonstrates).
You go, Gil Garza!
How anyone can construe Pope Saint Victor’s actions as anything but the very real exercise of papal jurisdictional authority–and how anyone can costrue the eventual triumph of Victor’s position as anything but the vindication of said authority–is beyond me.
Next we’ll be hearing that Pope Saint Leo’s triumph over Christological heresy was a sign that he really had no jurisdictional authority beyond his own see. [insert rolleyes emoticon]
Methinks certain people really need to read The Primitive Church and the See of Peter, which has an extensive and excellent section on the date-of-Easter controversy.
Gil Garza: It is important to note that Victor was rebuked not because he was wrong or had acted beyond his authority but because “they besought him rather to consider the things of peace, of unity with neighbor, and of charity (Hist Eccl 5, 24, 2-8).” No one, therefore, contends with Victor’s authority to settle the matter, rather, they urged Victor to settle the matter in a manner that would leave the Church in peace (as Irenaeus’ letter to Victor demonstrates).
Gil Garza and Diane-
Eusebius says Pope Victor “attempted” to excommunicate the Asian bishops, and that Irenaeus “sternly rebuked” him. That does not correspond to the account you give, and I will stand on Eusebius’s account.
Eccl Hist 5, 24, 9. “Thereupon Victor, who presided over the church at Rome, immediately attempted to cut off from the common unity the parishes of all Asia, with the churches that agreed with them, as heterodox; and he wrote letters and declared all the brethren there wholly excommunicate.
10. But this did not please all the bishops. And they besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love.”
My version of Eusebius is extremely clear. Perhaps there is a smudge on the version from which you are reading. You should take care to note why Victor was rebuked (this is also in the text perhaps under the smudge).
Irenaeus does not protest that Victor had over reached his power or acted unilaterally or proceeded without provocation or authorization. He says nothing about Victor’s authority to do what he did. Rather Irenaeus “negotiates” with Victor giving reasons to restore communion.
Pope Saint Victor’s actions as anything but the very real exercise of papal jurisdictional authority…
I don’t think anyone would argue that Pope St. Victor and Rome of the first millennium saw themselves as holding an ‘expansive’ view of their own standing in the Church. The question is whether all of the other bishops in the world understood Rome’s standing in the same expansive way, and whether their sidestepping of the issue (“they besought him rather to consider the things of peace, of unity with neighbor, and of charity”, as Gil pointed out) was a tactic acceptance of Rome’s authority or whether it was politic, byzantine diplomacy to themselves ignore such statements in light of other, more pressing matters (unity). One can view his actions in light of “papal jurisdictional authority” or one can view his actions in light of Rome standing as ‘first’ among the numerous ancient, apostolic foundations and exercising his right to a ‘bully pulpit’, his influence. There is a great difference between saying the bishop of Rome is infallible with some early form of universal and immediate jurisdiction and saying that the bishop of Rome holds first place among the bishoprics with ‘authority’ and ‘standing’ in the Church. Much of the early. surviving language and examples could be read in either way – in English, at least; perhaps the Greek and Latin originals (if we have them) say otherwise.
However, actions speak louder than words, to me, in explaining the rest of the Church’s view on Rome’s view of itself.
Ever since I read Dom Gregory Dix’s *Jurisdiction in the Early Church: Episcopal and Papal* (1975) when it came out as a book (Dix died in 1952, and the book originally appeared as a multipartite serialized review in *Laudate* — the quarterly journal of the Anglican Benedictines of Nashdom Abbey — in 1938-39 of B. J. Kidd’s *The Roman Primacy to A. D. 461 [1936]), I have been convinced that that the use of the term (or concept) of “jursdiction” in this context is a source of confusion rather than of clarity.
Dix argues that before the Fourth Century consequences of “the Peace of the Church” began to be felt bishops simply didn’t possess “jurisdiction” of any sort, and that insofar as one can speak of ecclesiastical “jurisdiction” at all, it was exercised by the corporate presbytery of every church over that church — although in all churches the bishop, in addition to being the high-priest and liturgist of that Church, as well as its “father,” was also a co-presbyter. What bishops did possess, however, was “leadership” — a “charismatic” quality that varied from bishop to bishop due to such factors as age, experience, character and the prestige of a particular church in its region — leadership within the church of which he was bishop, and influence, in some cases, over other bishops and churches.
What Dix argues is that the Roman bishop from time to time unselfconsciously exercised “leadership” in regard to other churches — Clement (speaking in the persona of the Church of Rome) over the Corinthinans, Victor over the Asians and Stephen in the conflict with Cyprian of Carthange and Firmilian of Ephesus. In the latter two cases, this exercise of leadership was both criticized and resisted — but in both cases (the Sunday celebration of Easter and the validity of schismatic baptisms) Rome’s position became the orthodox Christian position. He further argues, that the same process of events by which a bishop’s “leadership” within his church became “translated” into the legal concepts and language of “jurisdiction” was operative in the macroecclesial level in regard to the Bishop of Rome’s “charism of leadership” within the Church in general. Dix might have gone on to argue that one difference between the two processes was that while imperial authority throughout the Roman Empire fostered the process of centralizing jurisdiction over the local church in the bishop, imperial authority played no such role with regard to the papacy — or, rather, that while Western Emperors from 395 onwards fully supported the process, Eastern Emperors were mostly indifferent and sometimes hostile to it.
My version of Eusebius is extremely clear. Perhaps there is a smudge on the version from which you are reading. You should take care to note why Victor was rebuked (this is also in the text perhaps under the smudge).
LOL, I have that same smudge-free edition you have. ;-)
Irenaeus does not protest that Victor had over reached his power or acted unilaterally or proceeded without provocation or authorization. He says nothing about Victor’s authority to do what he did. Rather Irenaeus “negotiates” with Victor giving reasons to restore communion.
Bingo!! Father Rivington has an extensive discussion re this.
Diane
Moreover (again re Victor and Irenaeus): One can find countless examples throughout history where people advised the pope, even rather forcefully. (St. Catherine of Siena springs to mind.) No one has ever claimed that papal jurisdiction (or leadership ;-)) means the pope is unresponsive to other bishops’ or even laypeople’s arguments. Or that the advice of others (even strongly worded advice) undercuts papal power.
Thanks, Dr. Tighe. That is a more erudite version of what I was trying to say. The real question for me – and Dix’s book looks as if it will be on my reading list – is how this ‘leadership’ morphed into jurisdictional power.
More broadly, too, is whether the Bishops of Rome wielded ‘leadership’ because of their consistent orthodoxy, or were/are they infallibly preserved in their orthodoxy because they were/are Bishops of Rome?
gilgarza- If you have a smudgeless editon of Eusebius, then what is your excuse for ignoring the word “attempted” in “attempted to cut off…”? Where I come from, to “attempt” to do something means to want to do it, to take steps toward doing it, but not being able to do it.
And, assuming “negotiating” (not Eusebius’s language, of course, but Rivington’s gloss on it) is an accurate characterization, how can someone “negotiate” with a supreme authority? When has the US Conference of Bishops ever “negotiated” with the papacy? Mighty strange language if the authority of the papacy has not changed.
Joe,
What kind of strange fantasy land do you live in? The USCCB never negotiates with the Pope – please. Sometimes it seems that the USCCB only exists to negotiate and obfuscate with the Vatican.
Where do people get this idea that the Pope is some sort of maniacal tyrant? The lived reality of the papacy is nothing like the bugaboo people outside the Church think it is. Some popes have been more authoritarian than others but a big part of that is dependent on circumstances and personality.
Get it through your skull, the Pope presides foremost in love; he acts mildly through fraternal correction whenever possible, harshly only when necessary. The papacy is what it is; it is not what you wish it to be.
Yes, sometimes the Pope has to act firmly with all authority – like when Pope Agapetus marched into Constantinople in 536, put the smack-down on the heretical Patriarch and personally consecrated a new one (talk about exercising jurisdictional authority). Such acts, however, are rare. Just because Victor was “negotiated” into not excommunicating the Quartodecimens does not mean that he didn’t have the power to.
James G
James G — bravissimo!!!!
Christopher: I assume you noticed that, per Dix’s thesis, the bishops’ leadership also morphed into jurisdictional authority (in their respective sees, that is). IOW: Dix’s thesis has implications for both Orthodox and Catholic ecclesiologies.
That’s assuming the thesis fits the historical reality. From the distance of 2,000 years, that’s awfully hard to determine — which is why historians get to argue a lot and write a lot of books and get tenure and stuff.
Don’t forget the part under the smudge: “and he wrote letters and declared all the brethren there wholly excommunicate.” Eccl Hist 5, 24:9-10
Victor’s action was decisive and complete. Had Victor’s attempt been incomplete, Ireneaus’ efforts would have been meaningless. He wouldn’t have had to intervene had Victor changed his mind or had his efforts been rejected somehow.
Let’s pretend that Victor’s excommunication of the Quatrodecimans in the East was seen as a mad abuse of power and jurisdiction. We would expect protests and rebukes of his action as a mad abuse of power and jurisdiction. We do not. No such protest was raised. Why not? If Victor’s ministry was confined to the West or even the Roman provinces why isn’t there a single protest when he reaches across continents in excercise of his ministry?
Thank you, Gil Garza!
I’m so glad you big strong guys are making these forceful points, because Heaven forfend that a woman should chime in…at least according to all the media vetters of Sarah Palin. LOL! :)
Diane, erasing smudges from her copy of the ECFs
“Heaven forfend that a woman should chime in”
Diane,
I’ve always liked the C.S. Lewis quote on the two things in the Bible which should make our blood run cold: One of them is the phrase “the wrath of the Lamb” from the Apocalypse. The other is Our Lady’s Magnificat. There are some pretty scary messages in there for the proud, the mighty, and the rich.
Or as Gov. Palin said last night about pit bulls and lipstick … :-)
james g- What kind of strange fantasy land do you live in? The USCCB never negotiates with the Pope – please. Sometimes it seems that the USCCB only exists to negotiate and obfuscate with the Vatican.
“Fantasy land”? I could cite you to *countless* assertions of the absolute authority of the pope, as you well know. In *Satis Cogitem*, the “communon” and “unity” of the college of bishops with the pope was defined as the bishops’ “obedience” to the pope.
For all your heated rhetoric, you still didn’t cite me to a single instance where a group of bishops “negotiated” with the pope. Peititoned, pleaded, or portested to, sure- “negotiated”, no.
“Maniacal tyrant”- that’s a straw man. I simply said the pope is uspposed to have supreme authority, and one does not “negotiate” with someone with supreme authority. It’s a striaghtforward point, which you apparently can’t address. Joe
>Had Victor’s attempt been incomplete, Ireneaus’ efforts would have been meaningless.
In normal English, there is no such thing as an “incomplete” or “complete” attempt. There are successul and unsuccessful attempts, and when someone *successfully* attempts something, we normally just say that they *did* it. You are simply not taking Eusebius’s language seriously.
>Had Victor’s attempt been incomplete, Ireneaus’ efforts would have been meaningless. He wouldn’t have had to intervene had Victor changed his mind or had his efforts been rejected somehow.
That is nonsensical. His “intervention” is what caused Victor to change his mind. And you betray your argument with your use of “intervention”; a subordinate does not “intervene” with the actions of a superior. It’s significant that, in describing the case of Victor, even the proporents of papal supremacy can’t avoid using language which undercuts their position.
.Let’s pretend that Victor’s excommunication of the Quatrodecimans in the East was seen as a mad abuse of power and jurisdiction. We would expect protests and rebukes of his action as a mad abuse of power and jurisdiction.
Maybe that’s why Eusebius says that the bishops “harshly rebuked” Victor. Just because Eusebius gives an excerpt from Irenaeus’ letter which defends the asian bishops *substantively*, does not mean that he accepts Pope Victor’s authority to unilaterally excommunicate them. That is nowhere said or implied.
Contrary to what you say, it is clear there *was* a protest. Joe
Diane: I’m so glad you big strong guys are making these forceful points, because Heaven forfend that a woman should chime in…at least according to all the media vetters of Sarah Palin. LOL! :)
I must have missed where somebody here objected to a woman contributing comments. Sounds like a red herring to me. Joe
“The other is Our Lady’s Magnificat. There are some pretty scary messages in there for the proud, the mighty, and the rich.”
Perhaps there should be some reflection on this.
Further note- To guide reflection, please consider who has benefited the most in the last eight years in the U.S. The information you may need for this is easily available if a Google search is done for “income inequality in the U.S.”, ” tax cut benefits” etc;etc;.
I get your point, Evagrius … but I do NOT want to get into US presidential politics on this blog. If I hear one more thing about Obama, or McCain, or Palin, I will vomit. :-)
The editors of the Eerdman’s A SELECT LIBRARY OF THE NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH have the following to say concerning the text in question:
1706 There has been considerable discussion as to whether Victor actually excommunicated the Asiatic churches or only threatened to do so. Socrates (H. E. V. 22) says directly that he excommunicated them, but many have thought that Eusebius does not say it. For my part, I cannot understand that Eusebius’ words mean anything else than that he did actually cut off communion with them. The Greek reads κοινων τους π€ντας ρδην τος κεσε νακηρττων δελφος. This seems to me decisive.
Your argument fails to consider that the English given is rendered from another language, namely Greek. The translators of the text in this case want readers to correctly understand their meaning.
Victor did change his mind because or at least in part, Irenaeus, as a brother bishop, intervened with arguments based upon the acts of previous Popes. I’m not sure what you mean by papal supremacy. If your concept does not fit the facts I would warmly suggest that you alter your view.
We don’t have to imagine why Victor was harshly rebuked. The bishops “besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love.” As Rodney King famously quipped, “Can’t we all just get along?”
Agreed. Politics, in any form, ( except, of course, “church politics”) (ha,ha), does not belong on this blog.
I apologize for introducing the Sarah Palin allusion. I was so depressed yesterday, after all the vicious smears of Palin; then, after her speech, I was so elated…I just had to say something.
Seriously, though, blogs like these are very definitely a Man’s World, and it does seem as if articulate, outspoken women are, well, Fair Game. And I don’t say that in a polemical way at all. Where is Andrea Elizabeth when we need her? :-)
Meanwhile, getting back to the res, as Bertie Wooster would say: Evagrius nails it, as usual. My brother Evagrius, whether you’re sound on politics or not, you certain
…oops, that was a boo-boo!
meant to say:
My brother Evagrius, whether you’re sound on politics or not, you certainly do know your papal supremacy. :D :D
And your Fathers..and their historical context.
God bless,
Diane
Eirenekon Editor,
Since you didn’t mention him, is speaking about Ron Paul permissible? :)
I’m sympathetic with Ron Paul, but, no, no politics here. ;-)
Hey, I like you more and more! Go Ron Pau!!!….., oops, (drats). Sorry.
In the interest of fair disclosure, I must point out that I am the one who broached the issue of Clement’s letter to our editor. As I was more interested in hearing from others than in influencing the discussion, I have held back from intervening further until now. This has also given me an opportunity to reflect on what has been said here in response to my original query. I must admit that I found much of this response rather surprising.
First off, I have considerable difficulty accepting the suggestion made by some Catholics here that leadership of the Church (the Petrine function) as a whole would have passed directly upon Peter’s death to Linus whom the Apostle would have assigned as his successor in presiding over the eucharistic assembly at Rome.
According to Tradition, John survived Peter by about a quarter century. While there is little evidence of John actively asserting himself in the Latin West, his mastery of the Gentile (Greek) Church in the East is widely admitted. In fact some Church historians trace the monarchical episcopate to the model he set in his foundations in Asia Minor.
The complete silence regarding any exercise of papal authority by Linus and Anacletus in this context is particularly telling. I am not just referring to an absence of written evidence, but of even oral tradition. The closest one can come is an apocryphal ascription to Linus of an instruction that women should keep their head covered in church; even here there is no necessary inference that this was intended as an instruction to the universal Church (head covering being taken for granted in the East as the cultural norm).
Furthermore, John isn’t just any Apostle. He is a giant. He was “the disciple whom Jesus loved”; the one who had rested his head on the Lord’s breast at the Last Supper; the one who remained with Jesus at the foot of the cross and to whom Jesus entrusted the care of Mary; the witness with Peter to the empty tomb; one of three (along with Peter and Paul) to have received further revelation after Christ’s assumption; and the only apostle to have personally authored a gospel.
Just compare the tone of John’s letter to that of Clement:
“And yet again it is a new command that I am giving you” (1 John 2:8)
“Beloved, we write not only admonishing you, but also reminding ourselves, for we are in the same arena and the same contest is imposed on us” (1 Clement 7:1)
John writes on his own inspired authority. Clement writes only on behalf of the Church of Rome (“The Church of God sojourning at Rome, to the Church of God sojourning at Corinth”) and never uses the first person singular in his letter. If Clement is writing this twenty years before John’s death, his humble tone would hardly be consistent with precedence over an Apostle who lays down “new” commands.
It would have taken a week for a letter from John to have reached Corinth from Ephesus, as compared to two from Clement in Rome. It strikes me as inconceivable that the purged party at Corinth would have appealed to Clement had an appeal to John been at all possible. It strikes me as equally inconceivable that Clement would not have associated John to his missive had the Apostle still been alive. While Clement only explicitly refers to the passing of Peter and Paul, nowhere in his letter is there any suggestion that John or any other Apostle might still be living.
In my view, these observations not only tell in favour of a late (90s) authorship for 1 Clement, but also conform to a model of episcopal and Petrine succession that enhances rather than diminishes our appreciation of Peter’s role in the early Church.
Only the Churches of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem come close to offering us a complete and coherent line of episcopal succession (through the writings of Irenaeus and Eusebius), even though the presence of first century Christians in other major Roman cities can be inferred archeologically. This suggests that Peter, Paul and possibly John, exercised a regionally itinerant leadership reserving, in a practical sense, the power of ordination and confirmation to themselves during their lifetime, while assigning one presbyter (from several) in each community to preside at the eucharistic celebration during their frequent absences. It is possible that their immediate successors (Linus in the case of Rome) would have continued this pattern for a while, in some cases until the second century for which time record of single episcopal succession becomes more common. By the second half of the second century, monarchical episcopacy is the universal norm.
It is only after John’s death that the question of who would lead the Church (i.e. who would exercise the Petrine function) in the post Apostolic age would have been pertinent. Significantly, if we date 1 Clement to the 90s, this role would appear to have been assumed by Rome from the first and this without any recorded protest from Jerusalem or Antioch, or even Ephesus which for some time continued to exercise a regional primacy over the Greek churches in Asia Minor. Despite John’s long residency at Ephesus, Rome seems to have been considered *the* apostolic see par excellence from the start by virtue Of Peter’s (and Paul’s) martyrdom there. The theological “school” they left behind there became the obvious point of reference, and thus locus of the Petrine function, after John’s death. This is strong, almost inarguable, testimony to the importance ascribed to Peter’s original leadership.
Now we could go round and round arguing over what constituted the juridical content of the Petrine function and thus of Rome’s “primacy” in the immediate post apostolic period. I think this is a nonsensical question because there was no such thing as *any* form of “jurisdiction” within the Church at the time, at least in the sense that we understand the term today. The Church had no standing in civil law, and the authority any bishop enjoyed outside his own local community can only have been charismatic rather than legal in nature. There were no ecclesiastical courts, no body of canon law, and no councils; and there wouldn’t be until after Constantine’s conversion two centuries later.
The closest one can come to anything approaching “jurisdiction” in the early Church is the bishop’s presidency at the eucharist, and this ultimately is the historical source of ecclesiastical jurisdiction as we understand it today.
The bishop determines to whom he will or will not extend the eucharist, and all the rest flows from this. The only means a bishop, including the Pope, has of exercising any jurisdiction outside his diocese is to deny or extend eucharistic recognition. Taking up an analogy mooted in the debates at Vatican I, what differentiates the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome and the bishop of Gubbio in this matter is the importance others ascribe respectively to the eucharistic recognitio of the two bishops.
I think it’s fairly safe to say that, for reasons that we can and will almost certainly argue over, no other see in the post-apostolic Church enjoyed the same charismatic impact in its recognitio as Rome. And we see this as early as Clement’s letter.
This is why this discussion over whether Victor had the authority or “jurisdiction” in the late second century to excommunicate whole provinces in the East in order to impose conformity in the dating of Easter just misses the whole point. Of course he had the authority. Even the bishop of Gubbio (if there was one at the time) had this authority.
The pertinent question instead is what import the exercise of this authority by Rome, as opposed to another see, would have had in this particular case. What charisma did Rome enjoy at the time that denial of its recognitio would be sufficient to threaten the unity of the Church? If Irenaeus’ reaction to the threat is any indication, the charisma of Rome’s recognitio was immense, and this before any general council had canonized it, before any identifiable body of canon law existed, before any imperial patronage or favour could have had an impact, and even before bishops of Rome could have stood out from amongst their colleagues as “ancient” and “consistent” defenders of orthodoxy.
There is more to this episode than Victor’s threat to excommunicate the churches of Asia Minor. At Victor’s explicit request, regional synods had been held throughout Christendom, even in Asia Minor itself and beyond the boundaries of the empire, to give witness to when they celebrated Easter. They all reported their witness back to Victor, and it is based on their unanimous consensus (outside of Asia Minor) that they celebrated Easter on a Sunday that Victor proposed to excommunicate Ephesus and its daughter churches. That hundreds of bishops from Gaul to Osrohene should have gathered separately at his request and reported is as much evidence of Rome’s charismatic authority at the time as general compliance in sharing in Rome’s non recognitio would have been.
I agree with Irenaeus’ conclusion that Rome’s non recognitio would have split the Church. Most of the Asian bishops would probably have ignored the excommunication. Victor, after all, could only enforce his authority charismatically. No pagan and largely hostile Roman police or courts were going to force compliance with his decrees. If lack of enforcement power proves an absence of real authority, it proves too much. Victor was also faced with a local schism in Rome itself as it was the continuing insistence of Asian immigrants there to celebrate Easter on 14 Nissan, even when not on a Sunday, that brought the issue to his attention. If continued dissent in Asia Minor is to be proof of an absence of Petrine authority, then continued dissent in Rome itself would have to imply an absence of even episcopal authority. In the event however, the dissidents in Asia Minor (and Rome) ultimately submitted, though we don’t know for sure when this submission occurred.
Similarly, what was it about Clement’s letter that convinced the faithful in Corinth to repudiate the new leaders they had chosen for themselves and reinstate their deposed elders? What was it that prompted them for centuries to read out the letter as part of the local liturgy? I have read the letter several times now, and I can’t believe it prevailed by the force of its arguments alone. It can only have prevailed from the authority implicitly behind it.
The modern concept of “jurisdiction” is but a later attempt to define the scope of this charisma (of Rome and, to a lesser extent, patriarchal and metropolitan sees) in legal terms. The definition, however, is not the substance.
[…] The new Patristics Carnival is up at hyperekperissou which pointed me to a new blog for me, Orthodox Patristics. Speaking of Patristics, Eirenikon has an interesting post from a few weeks ago about the quandary of having Linus as president of the Apostles while the other Apostles were alive. […]
A correct understanding of apostolic succession is important to understanding Petrine succession.
The successor of Peter (say Linus) would have no more and no less authority in his ministry than Peter himself. This is why there is no dilemma to having a successor to Peter exercising Petrine ministry while other apostles are alive.
Clement when writing to the Corinthians (which everybody agrees, is nowhere near Rome) uses his Petrine authority. Clement explains his tardiness in dealing with the Corinthians due “calamities and misfortunes.” Historical events go far to explain the silence of Linus and Anacletus during their respective ministries.
Clement is hardly using humble tones when he writes, for example:
“Accept our counsel, and you will have nothing to regret.” 58, 2
“If anyone disobey the things which have been said by Him through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in sin and no small danger.” 59, 1
He writes of his authority when he says:
“You will afford us joy and gladness if, being obedient to the things which we have written through the Holy Spirit, you will root out the wicked passion of jealousy, in accord with the plea for peace and concord which we have made in this letter.” 63, 2
Even his representatives carry his authority:
“Send back quickly to us our representatives Claudius and Ephebus and Valerius Vito and Fortunatus, in peace with gladness, in order that they may report the sooner the peace and concord which we pray and desire.” 65, 1
Some readers have questions regarding episcopal jurisdiction in the early Church. I would warmly recommend reading 1 Clement more closely because he appeals to episcopal and presbyteral authority many times in his letter, for example:
“Let us then serve in our army, brothers, with all earnestness, following his faultless commands. Let us consider those who serve our generals, with what good order, habitual readiness, and submissiveness they perform their commands. Not all are prefects, nor tribunes, nor centurions, nor in charge of fifty men, or the like, but each carries out in his own rank the commands of the emperor and of the generals.” 37, 1-3
“Shameful, beloved, extremely shameful, and unworthy of your training in Christ, is the report that on account of one or two persons the well established and ancient Church of the Corinthians is in revolt against the presbyters.” 47, 6
“You, therefore, who laid the foundation of the rebellion, submit to the presbyters and be chastened to repentance, bending your knees in a spirit of humility.” 57, 1
“A correct understanding of apostolic succession is important to understanding Petrine succession.
The successor of Peter (say Linus) would have no more and no less authority in his ministry than Peter himself. This is why there is no dilemma to having a successor to Peter exercising Petrine ministry while other apostles are alive.”
The bishops are the successors of the apostles. This much we can readily concede. The difficulty I have is with the suggestion that the successor’s authority must therefore be coextensive with that of his apostolic predecessor. This is not what the Church teaches. I quote from the Catechism:
“860: In the office of the apostles there is one aspect that cannot be transmitted: to be the chosen witnesses of the Lord’s Resurrection and so the foundation stones of the Church.”
This superior, direct and personal witness of John would inevitably trump that of Linus. John’s visions and prophecies, received after Christ’s death, were considered by the Church to be the inspired word of God. No bishop, even Peter’s successor shares in this inspired witness and authority.
We know from John’s letters (the three we have can only be chance remains of a far more voluminous correspondence) that he was an active and detailed manager of a flock extending over several cities. Eusebius describes an extensive and detailed hagiography surrounding the apostle which contrast remarkably with the little we have concerning Clement. Linus and Anacletus are even paler shadows (mere names actually).
I think some conceptual unbundling is required here. Peter’s authority, and that of the apostles generally, involved a number of distinct but closely related strands. Some of these were shared (e.g. binding and loosing), others were particular to Peter (e.g. the power of the keys). Some strands could be transmitted (e.g. holy orders), some could not (e.g. inspiration).
The Petrine function of charismatic leadership, however, is unique in that it exists historically at two levels: within the apostolic college, and within the episcopate which succeeds to some but not all of its funcitons. When Peter died, his leadership within the apostle college could only have been transmitted, by definition, to another apostle and ultimately to John as the last living member of the college. As the apostolic function was superior to the episcopal, the leadership of the Church as a whole must have been in the hands of the apostles until they all passed away or ceased active ministry. The Creed, after all, describes the Church as “apostolic” not “episcopal”. Peter’s episcopal authority and leadership within the lesser episcopal order, on the other hand, would have been transmitted to his personal successors as bishop of Rome. With John’s death and the extinction of the Apostolic college (and thus of the possibility of new direct revelation), leadership of the Church as a whole would have been assumed by Peter’s successors within the episcopal college.
This is not to suggest that Linus would have had no primatial authority to intervene at Corinth had the incident in question occurred during his pontificate. Nor am I suggesting that Linus’ charismatic authority (not to speak of an anachronistic “legal” authority) was in any way less than or fundamentally different from that enjoyed by the current pontiff. I am merely stating what I consider to be the obvious: that Rome’s authority to intervene at Corinth would have been less than, and could only have deferred to, that of John while he remained active. This is why I consider the traditionally accepted date for Clement’s letter (mid to late 90s) makes sense, while the interpolated one (70s) does not.
“Clement when writing to the Corinthians (which everybody agrees, is nowhere near Rome) uses his Petrine authority.”
No disagreement there.
“Clement explains his tardiness in dealing with the Corinthians due “calamities and misfortunes.” Historical events go far to explain the silence of Linus and Anacletus during their respective ministries.”
How so? Paul wrote letters while in prison awaiting trial. Why could Linus and Anacletus not do the same? Even if one allowed this proposition, what bearing does it have? We can accept that they *did* enjoy Petrine authority even if they did not exercise it or if the record of this exercise was never preserved or somehow lost. That’s not the point at issue. What I am putting forward is that John would have inherited Petrine authority in a fuller and superior capacity.
“Clement is hardly using humble tones when he writes…”
He speaks with Petrine authority. I am not contesting this. In fact, this is part of my argument. He is not, however, using the imperial “we”. He uses the plural because he is writing on behalf of the members of the church of Rome and specifically associating them with his missive. He thus implicitly leans on the consensus of his presbyters and of the deceased founder-martyrs of his church — both of them, Peter *and* Paul, yet doesn’t seek to associate John or any other living apostle with his intervention. In my view, this can only mean that John is either dead or in the exile that led to his martyrdom.
Let’s be clear here. The traditional date for Clement’s letter is 96 A.D, not the 70s. It is those who would move the date forward who have to explain why Clement (the traditional dates of his pontificate being 88-99) should be writing as if affairs in Corinth were his business and that of his presbyters, but not that of John living but a short boat ride away on the other side of the Aegean as was the case in the 70s after the fall of Jerusalem and the dispersal of the Apostles.
The letter, far from demonstrating any superiority of Clement’s Petrine authority over that of one of the Twelve, simply demonstrates, to me at least, that it could not have been written while John was still active in his ministry.
I find it interesting that a discussion over chronology should have been transformed into an involved argument over primitive ecclesiology.
“This superior, direct and personal witness of John would inevitably trump that of Linus. John’s visions and prophecies, received after Christ’s death, were considered by the Church to be the inspired word of God. No bishop, even Peter’s successor shares in this inspired witness and authority.”
You imagine a dilemma where none exists. You give many reasons why John must be dead by the time of Clement’s letter however, ultimately, each is argued from silence and isn’t supported by the text.
Don’t forget that Peter’s ministry as Shepherd of the entire Flock of Christ can only be bestowed by Peter to successors and not to any other living apostle or by any other living apostle.
Only a small part of my argument rests on silence. It isn’t actually clear that John was dead in 96 as the traditional date for his death is 101. We have to take these dates with a bit of salt as they are tentative reconstructions by early Church historians. Nevertheless, as we have no more (and probably far less) hard information to work from than they did, we can only test their reasoning in the matter as more or less convincing.
In 96, however, John would have been very old, probably in his late 80s and probably no longer in active ministry. Tradition also tells us he spent some of his last years in exile, possible under close confinement, on the island of Patmos. This sort of situation could explain why the Corinthian elders would have appealed to Clement even if John was still alive. The situation in the 70s where some scholars would put the letter was quite different, however.
“Don’t forget that Peter’s ministry as Shepherd of the entire Flock of Christ can only be bestowed by Peter to successors and not to any other living apostle or by any other living apostle.”
I don’t forget it. I just don’t see any grounds for this rather bold assertion. There is nothing in scripture, Tradition (or the Catechism) to support it. We are also talking about a *function* of charismatic leadership, not an office, and it was shared by all the Apostles with Peter at their head. Paul founded the first Church in Ephesus and appointed Timothy as its bishop. We have this from scripture. Yet in the 70s John establishes his ministry in Ephesus and organizes the churches in Asia Minor from there. He is clearly exercising charismatic leadership above and beyond that exercised by Paul’s appointed successor on the spot. The authority of any Apostle anywhere in the world is clearly of a different and higher order than that of any bishop. John’s Revelation and letters are part of scripture and treated as the inspired word of God (even if the 2 and 3 John are hardly of momentous significance); Clement’s letter, despite it’s far greater practical significance, is not.
I think the root problem of this disagreement is a conflation of apostolic and episcopal authority, along with an unwarranted assumption that the Petrine function of charismatic leadership is rooted exclusively in Peter’s *episcopal* succession in Rome, whereas every Apostle, patriarch and even bishop shares in it to some degree. It is in the absence of Peter and the Apostles that the Petrine function becomes vested principally in the bishop of Rome, and it is thus in their physical absence (and that of Christ, of course) that the Pope exercises this function in the unique way that he does.
Michael
It seems that your primary reason for dating the letter so late is your speculative ecclesiology. That is, you rest your argument on your inability to concieve a world in which a successor to Peter and bishop of Rome intervenes in a Greek affair when at least one apostle is alive and in close proximity.
I prefer to keeping the arguments on textual dating to the text itself. It makes no difference to Catholic ecclesiology whether or not the letter is dated early or late.
I do suggest, however, that an early date to 1 Clement might alter your speculative ecclesiology.
I am happy to get into the Scriptural and historical arguments for the unique role of the Petrine ministry, but that would be outside our scope in this discussion.
Gil,
To restate the matter somewhat differently, my “speculative ecclesiology” is my primary reason for doubting, a priori, that the letter could date from the 70s and to prefer the end of the first century, which is, after all, the traditional date ascribed to the letter.
That said, while I have not found the few arguments that I have read so far particularly convincing in adducing an earlier date from internal textual analysis, I am open to hearing them restated and more thoroughly defended. But I think I would have to be offered some more plausible argument dismissing my scruple than the rather dubious proposition that the authority of Peter’s episcopal successor should have exceeded that of a living Apostle.
You might be better off arguing that John could have been absent from, or not yet settled, in Ephesus at the time the letter was written. You might note that the old Catholic Encyclopedia, sticking to the traditional dates for both the letter (96) and John’s death (101) states the following without explanation or further comment: “St. John indeed was still alive, and Corinth was rather nearer to Ephesus than to Rome.”
The online version of the encyclopedia also has the following interpolation: “In 1996, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI supported a date of A.D. 70, and by 2002 most scholars a date earlier than 96, some agreeing with the A.D. 70 date.” A date of precisely 70 A.D. would do a good job of bypassing my scruple as John and the other surviving Apostles might still have been in distant Palestine, or John himself at any rate not yet settled (with Mary) at Ephesus.
Perhaps Fr. Tighe could enlighten us to whether most 21st century historians do opt for an early date and, if so, why.
W. A. Jurgens in his book, The Faith of the Early Fathers vol I; Liturgical Press, 1970 writes that the primary reasons why the later dating for 1st Clement is almost universally accepted are that the “sudden and repeated calamities which have befallen us” must, it is believed, refer to the co-called persecutions of Domitian and that the traditional dates of Clement’s pontificate coincide with these later dates. The problem with the traditional dates of Clement’s pontificate is that they are entirely speculative and based upon the most thin and controverted evidence. Equally so is the so-called persecution of Domitian in Rome.
Better evidence, according to Jurgens, is given in ch 64 where the names of the legates are given. These legates have names which demonstrate that they must have come from the household of Emperor Claudius and his wife Valeria Messalina. Roman law prohibited the freeing of any slave under 30 years of age. If we accept the later dating of the letter, then these legates were running from Rome to Greece and back in their 90’s. Highly improbable says Jurgens.
More likely, these legates were in their 50’s or 60’s as the letter says that they had, “grown old in their faith.” This puts the letter being composed in the 60’s or 70’s because these men could not have been born prior to 10 CE. The “sudden and repeated calamities” might then refer to Rome’s fire and Nero’s persecution or the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and fire and pestilence in Rome.
Additionally, there are few New Testament quotes in the letter which would make more sense if written earlier before the New Testament was completed. Also, the martyrdoms of Sts. Peter and Paul are referred to as recent, which can only be true if the letter was written earlier.
I personally think that the arguments for an earlier date are interesting and warrant further study. I don’t believe that such evidence should be ruled out simply because the evidence doesn’t fit into one’s ecclesiology.
Is that an implied promotion or demotion for Dr Tighe? ;)
It certainly wouldn’t be a demotion, but in this case is merely a mistake. :-/
I am still mulling a suitable response to Gil. In the meanwhile I would still be very much interested in the views of others regarding the hermeneutic, ecclesiological, historical or epistemological issues raised in this discussion. I note our Orthodox friends have been curiously silent (or at least subdued), which surprises me as 1 Clement is arguably the earliest piece of Patristic writing available to us.
I would say that the early is interpreted by the later, if one holds that the Holy Spirit guides the Church. The later – from slightly later to a few centuries later – shows a pretty consistent consensus on the role of Rome in the Church and how ‘successor to Peter’ is understood. Except for Rome herself and some (not all) of the churches under her in the West, no one holds that Rome held the kind of authority, power or jurisdiction that Rome claimed for itself, either then or since. Given the paucity of resources from the era – and minimal direct discussion of the issue – it is easy to see this or other texts as ‘proof’. Contemporaries and near descendants, however, see the situation differently – both in words and actions.
I haven’t been here since September 18th …
For my part, I think that the arguments produced above in #56 incline me to support an early date; those, and the fact that there really is no evidence of a “Domitianic persecution” beyond the references in Clement’s epistle itself (as opposed to his having had his nephew [or great nephew] and designated heir, Titus Flavius Clemens, executed, and TFC’s wife, Flavia Domitilla, exiled, for “embracing a noxious superstition,” and harassing those who lived like Jews, but were not, for trying to benefit from various Jewish exemptions and privileges). However, you can read Edmundson’s book for yourself online, here:
http://www.ccel.org/e/edmundson/church/