# Rome and Reformed Theology in Church History



## Founded on the Rock (May 3, 2006)

I was talking with a Catholic the other day. Now he immediatley started talking about church history. I told him that I was very deficient in my understanding of church history and that I would rather discuss exegesis of Scripture but I wanted to hear his arguements so it would give me a reference point to do research. Some of the other questions were ones for which I couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer.

1.) Rome was the only church for the first 1500 years of the church? (I know this does not sound right and I appealed to Augustine but I want names and quotes of others in the church)

2.) How can you determine the canon's intergrity without an infalliable church?

3.) Christ promised to send the Holy Spirit into His Church to guide it and protect, saying even the gates of Hell could not prevail against it. Therefore, since Rome is the original church, it is the institution that Christ was talking about.

I know all of these questions have been answered before. I am just looking for the resources to do so. If you have any good resources or thoughts, I would love it if you would post them. Thanks!


----------



## gwine (May 3, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Founded on the Rock_
> I was talking with a Catholic the other day. Now he immediatley started talking about church history. I told him that I was very deficient in my understanding of church history and that I would rather discuss exegesis of Scripture but I wanted to hear his arguements so it would give me a reference point to do research. Some of the other questions were ones for which I couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer.
> 
> 1.) Rome was the only church for the first 1500 years of the church? (I know this does not sound right and I appealed to Augustine but I want names and quotes of others in the church)


But Rome was not the first church. Paul in his epistles sent them to "1Co 1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth", "Gal 1:2 and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia","1Th 1:1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians", etc. Sometimes he just says "to the saints", but you get the point.


> 2.) How can you determine the canon's intergrity without an infalliable church?


The same way it pleased God to have His word put in print - through the Holy Spirit using *fallible* men to write it down.


> 3.) Christ promised to send the Holy Spirit into His Church to guide it and protect, saying even the gates of Hell could not prevail against it. Therefore, since Rome is the original church, it is the institution that Christ was talking about.


See note 1. Rome is not the original church. 

Act 13:1 Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 

Act 15:4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.


> I know all of these questions have been answered before. I am just looking for the resources to do so. If you have any good resources or thoughts, I would love it if you would post them. Thanks!



I trust this will get you started.


----------



## DTK (May 3, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Founded on the Rock_
> I was talking with a Catholic the other day. Now he immediatley started talking about church history.
> 1.) Rome was the only church for the first 1500 years of the church? (I know this does not sound right and I appealed to Augustine but I want names and quotes of others in the church)


Why should you have to prove his assertion? It is patently false. Rome wasn't even the first church. The first NT church was in Jerusalem. The eastern churches never accepted papal primacy, and eventually split from the western church in 1054 AD. But aside from differences between the eastern and western churches (plural), it sounds more to me like it's your friend who is historically challenged. His claim that "Rome was the only church for the first 1500 years" is pure propaganda.


> 2.) How can you determine the canon's intergrity without an infalliable church?


Why does one need an infallible church to determine this? The Old Covenant Church wasn't infallible, but knew its own Scriptures and bequeathed them to the NT church (Romans 3:2), hence why the need for this alleged infallibility? I've yet to meet one Roman aplogist willing to defend the infallibility of ancient Israel. 

You see, this question was created entirely with an apologetic agenda in mind. It reminds me of politicians, particularly democrats in the past. They scream, "there's a crisis here!!!" - and then they run in to address the crisis they've created with a ready-made solution that is very self-serving in nature. Don't let him presuppose the infallibility of Rome without proving it.

We've been discussing the canon in this thread...
http://www.puritanboard.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=18254


> 3.) Christ promised to send the Holy Spirit into His Church to guide it and protect, saying even the gates of Hell could not prevail against it. Therefore, since Rome is the original church, it is the institution that Christ was talking about.


Well, that Rome was *the* church that Christ referenced in Matthew 16, and the only church in view there, simply begs the question. Again, it is a very self-serving claim that such Roman apologists attempt to presuppose without proof.


> I know all of these questions have been answered before. I am just looking for the resources to do so. If you have any good resources or thoughts, I would love it if you would post them. Thanks!



Blessings,
DTK


----------



## BaptistCanuk (May 3, 2006)

These guys are right. Rome was not the first church let alone the only church for 1500 years. 

Christ was talking about THE Church (that the gates of hell would not prevail against it), not just about Rome. Rome was a pagan city if I am correct for hundreds of years. The RC Church didn't start for 300 or so years after Christ.


----------



## Founded on the Rock (May 3, 2006)

Thank you for the responses. Does anyone know when Rome was officially a church? They obviously claim apostolic succession (my friend claimed Pope John Paul the II was the 264th successor, I said that claim was outrageous). Hisotrically, when was the RCC titled as such?


----------



## Ivan (May 3, 2006)

I found the following at a website that says it wasn't until the mid 400's. I don't know how reliable this information is.

"But the first pope, in the real sense of the word, was Leo I (A.D. 440-461), who was a man of great ability and ambition, and who, as Rome was then capital of the political world, sought to make the Roman "œChurch" the mistress of the ecclesiastical world, with himself at its head." --- 

From "œQuestions and Answers" by S. Hassell, The Gospel Messenger, March 1911

Here's a link to the article:

http://www.geocities.com/docsofgrace/ofc/catholic.html


----------



## DTK (May 3, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Founded on the Rock_
> Thank you for the responses. Does anyone know when Rome was officially a church? They obviously claim apostolic succession (my friend claimed Pope John Paul the II was the 264th successor, I said that claim was outrageous). Hisotrically, when was the RCC titled as such?


There are a number of good books that address this question. It is true that the papacy didn't develop until after the first two centuries. But it will not serve you very well to try to argue that the Roman Catholic Church did not appear until the 3rd or 4th centuries. What you need to show is that the early church in Rome had a very different ecclesiastical structure than that claimed by modern Roman theologians and apologists. Peter Lampe, a Professor of New Testament at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, has just come out with a publication that is very scholarly study of the early church in Rome. It's titled _From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries_, trans. Michael Steinhauser (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). He argues the following...


> *Peter Lampe:* Thesis: The fractionation in Rome favored a collegial presbyterial system of governance and prevented for a long time, until the second half of the second century, the development of a monarchical episcopacy in the city. Victor (c. 189-99) was the first who, after faint-hearted attempts by Eleutherus (c. 175-89), Soter (c. 166-75), and Anicetus (c. 155-66), energetically stepped forward as monarchical bishop and (at times, only because he was incited from the outside) attempted to place the different groups in the city under his supervision or, where that was not possible, to draw a line by means of excommunication. Before the second half of the second century there was in Rome no monarchical episcopacy for the circles mutually bound in fellowship. Peter Lampe, _From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries_, trans. Michael Steinhauser (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) p. 397.


There were different groups of Christians meeting in house churches around the vicinity of Rome, who viewed themselves as one church "mutually bound in fellowship." And they had a Presbyterian form of Government.

Remember, too, that in his Epistle to the Romans, when Paul greets a number of people there, as he does in chapter 16, it seems very strange indeed that he made no mention whatever of Peter, which one would have expected if indeed Peter was the apostolic founder and present bishop of that communion. Even the Roman Catholic commentator Joseph Fitzmyer makes the following observations...


> *Joseph Fitzmyer:* A more reliable tradition associated Paul with Peter as "œfounders" of the Roman community, not in the sense that they first brought Christian faith there, but because both of them eventually worked there and suffered martyrdom there (or in its immediate environs), and because their mortal remains were in possession of the Roman church (see Ignatius, Rom. 4.3; Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 3.1.1, 3.3.2 [SC 211.22-23, 32-33]). Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., _Romans, A New Translation with introduction and Commentary_, The Anchor Bible Series (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 30.
> 
> *Joseph Fitzmyer:* In any case, Paul never hints in Romans that he knows that Peter has worked in Rome or founded the Christian church there before his planned visit (cf. 15:20-23). If he refers indirectly to Peter as among the "œsuperfine apostles" who worked in Corinth (2 Cor 11:4-5), he says nothing like that about Rome in this letter. Hence the beginnings of the Roman Christian community remain shrouded in mystery. Compare 1 Thess 3:2-5; 1 Cor 3:5-9; and Col 1:7 and 4:12-13 for more or less clear references to founding apostles of other locales. Hence there is no reason to think that Peter spent any major portion of time in Rome before Paul wrote his letter, or that he was the founder of the Roman church or the missionary who first brought Christianity to Rome. For it seems highly unlikely that Luke, if he knew that Peter had gone to Rome and evangelized that city, would have omitted all mention of it in Acts. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., _Romans, A New Translation with introduction and Commentary_, The Anchor Bible Series (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 30.
> 
> *Fitzmyer* gives his view of the probable origin of the Church at Rome and then states that "we know nothing of its evangelization by an apostle, even though a later tradition associated that with Mark the evangelist (Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 2.16.1)." Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., _Romans, A New Translation with introduction and Commentary_, The Anchor Bible Series (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 30.


Precisely when, in the first century, a church was founded in Rome is, as Lampe points out, "shrouded in haze" (p. 7). But it certainly was not the first NT church founded. It is possible, indeed very much so, that some of the Jews present in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost were from Rome (for Luke tells us in Acts 2:5 that there _were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven_), and that some of these returned to Rome as Christian converts and founded the church there. Indeed, the ancient church father, Ambrosiaster tells us...


> *Ambrosiaster (fl. c. 366-384)* stated that the Romans "œhave embraced the faith of Christ, albeit according to the Jewish rite, without seeing any sign of mighty works, or any of the apostles." _In Epistolam Ad Romanos_, Prologus, PL 17:46.


I think if you want to pursue this seriously, you need to obtain Lampe's book, which I think you'll find very helpful in addressing the origins of the church in Rome from a scholarly perspective.

DTK


----------



## VirginiaHuguenot (May 3, 2006)

DTK

Also, it's worth reading J.A. Wylie's The Papacy: Its History, Dogmas, Genius, and Prospects and History of Protestantism to see how and when the true and false churches have diverged since Apostolic times.


----------



## Founded on the Rock (May 3, 2006)

Thanks, I will read those sources. I greatly appreciate


----------

