From: jhpb@sarto.budd-lake.nj.us (Joseph H. Buehler)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Papacy
Date: 30 Aug 92 07:13:44 GMT
Organization: none

In article <Aug.28.01.21.10.1992.22107@athos.rutgers.edu> wagner@navier.math.uh.edu (David Wagner) writes:

   Steve> I would question the grounds of your identification of "the papacy"
   Steve> with the "see of Peter". The bishop of Alexandria was called "pope"
   Steve> long before the bishop of Rome was, and his title is still today
   Steve> "Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa".

   I second the question.  Eric gave an answer regarding the use of the
   word `pope', but did not make a connection between the `See of Peter'
   and the modern notion of the papacy.  As far as I can tell, the 
   papacy evolved over time.  Eric's explanation, below, seems to confirm
   that.  In the early church there was no supreme pontiff, all the
   bishops had equal standing.  We don't, for example, see Peter
   exercising authority over the other apostles, although he did
   demonstrate a certain amount of leadership.  Later, it seems that 
   the Bishop of Rome became the administrator for the churches of Italy,
   and, according to Canon 6 of the Council of Nicea, the Bishop of
   Alexandria became the administrator of the churches in the East.

I answered your comment about Alexandria elsewhere; I assume you
posted before you saw my answer.

John Henry Newman wrote a book that is must reading for anyone
interested in the history of Catholic doctrine.  He covers the Papacy
as one of his examples.  The book is "An Essay on the Development of
Christian Doctrine."  The work is on the named subject; how doctrine
developed in the Catholic Church since the Apostles.  How to
distinguish between legitimate development and corruption, etc.

Simply put, in the early Church, the primacy of Peter was not much
used because there was simply no need for it.  The office of bishop
underwent development first.  The authority of the local bishop was
sufficient to solve disputes and heresies.  Later, once the Church
received its social freedom, the problems became larger in scope, and
the Papacy started to be exercised.  Here is an apropos quote from
Newman:

"When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local
disturbances gave exercise to bishops, and next ecumenical
disturbances gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the
Pope was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated
until a suspension of that communion had actually occurred.  It is not
a greater difficulty that St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian
Greeks about Popes than that St. Paul does not write to the
Corinthians about bishops.  And it is a less difficulty that the Papal
supremacy was not formally acknowledged in the second century that
that there was no formal acknowledgement on the part of the Church of
the doctrine of the Holy Trinity till the fourth.  No doctrine is
defined until it is violated."

Catholics believe in the development of doctrine.  As Newman notes,
the Trinity was not defined doctrine until the 4th century.  It is
certain that there is a historical tendency in the Church to express
its beliefs more clearly with time.  This happens because of heresies.
Heresiarchs take a wrong stance on doctrinal points not previously
settled.  They force the issue, and oblige the Church to defend
orthodoxy, definitively settling the points controverted in the
process.  This leads to men using terminology and talking of things
that were never much used or talked of before.  For example, the
Papacy.

   I'd like to know exactly what was meant by the word `See'.  Can
   someone give me a dictionary definition for the word as it was
   used in `See of Peter'?

As the moderator explained, "see" is from the Latin word for "seat".
Similar modern usage would be as in "seat of power" or "seat of
government."

Catholic bishops have a chair in their cathedrals (a word itself
coming from Latin for "chair") that they use during liturgical
ceremonies.  This comes from a very early custom in the Church; this
chair, or seat, is a symbol of their authority.  Christ Himself speaks
of the scribes and Pharisees as seated on the chair of Moses (Matt.
23:2); it would seem to be a very old usage.