(If you haven't read it yet, go back and read the first installment of this series of essays, where I define the categories of arguments used to make the claim of "one true church." The piece below focuses on one such category, historical arguments.)
Let’s take the Roman Catholic Church as our case study for the historical angle. Their stance on other Christian communions has softened somewhat since Vatican II, but they still insist on a basic recognition that they are “the” church: the church Jesus founded, the church in which sacramental grace is most abundantly present, and the church which God ultimately wants everyone to join. Since they are among the most vocal about asserting such claims, they make for a good case study illustrating the difficulties in presenting historical, biblical, or experiential arguments for one’s position.
- Historical arguments – The RCC claims that they are an apostolic church, founded in the first wave of Christianity and organized under the apostolic leadership of Peter. That much can reasonably be granted as plausible. Not only was Rome one of the first major churches, but there is good historical evidence that Peter went there, encouraged the Christians there, and died as a martyr there. It’s the further RCC claim that run into historical trouble: namely, that Peter’s apostolic foundation of the church of Rome represented the beginning of a bishopric meant to hold sway over the entire Christian communion; and further, that the RCC should be considered the one true church because it descends in an undeviated line from that apostolic foundation.
Let’s take it one step at a time. Is there reason to believe that Peter’s role as an apostolic founder of the Roman church signified the beginning of a bishopric exalted above all others? Maybe, but probably not. It’s true that Rome was granted a certain sort of primacy from very early on, but most of the early sources do not treat it as the same sort of primacy which the see of Rome now claims for itself. Rome was described as “first among equals,” as having a “primacy of honor,” and as being “the church which presides in love,” but note that each of those statements bears a condition with it—an equality with other sees, a primacy of honor (not of governmental authority), and a presidency exercised in love (not in monarchical superposition). Irenaeus argues that churches must be in communion with Rome (and even ascribes to it a “preeminent authority”), but the main reason he usually gives is Rome’s role as the preserver of the apostles’ doctrine—thus opening the question of what one should do if Rome ever strayed sufficiently far from the core of New Testament doctrine, as the Reformers believed it had. (It’s also worth noting that Irenaeus was within the geographic bounds of the patriarchate of Rome and was writing to address local situations of heresy, so one would naturally expect him to refer matters to Rome’s authority rather than, say, to Jerusalem’s.) Cyprian of Carthage, often quoted as one of the fiercest early defenders of the necessity of being in communion with Rome, is also the church father who most consistently told the pope to butt out of the business of bishops elsewhere (such as in his own native Africa). So while the early records do indicate a form of primacy accorded to Rome, it doesn’t leap off the page as being quite what the RCC now asserts regarding the role of the pope.
Now we'll take a closer look at some of the specific historical arguments involved. First, the association with Peter: we should note that Peter was almost certainly not the founder of the Roman church—at least not in terms of being the one who first began building a circle of believers there. There’s every reason to believe that there were Christians in Rome shortly after Pentecost (Acts 2:10), in the early 30s AD, and Peter likely does not arrive in Rome for several decades thereafter (late 50s or early 60s). Still, we’ll grant the possibility that he may have been the first of Jesus’s twelve apostles to visit the church in Rome, and that upon his arrival he took an active role in organizing the believers there into an institutional form by appointing leaders. One of the problems for this view, however, is that the earliest sources refer to Rome’s authority in the context of Peter and Paul’s apostolicity (that is, not specifically with reference to Peter alone). In some cases, it’s more Paul than Peter. When Pope Clement writes to the church of Corinth in the late first century, he writes his letter as issuing from the whole church of Rome (not from his own personal authority), advises them to submit to their own appointed leaders (again, not to his own authority), and makes reference to the mutual connection they have to Paul’s apostolic authority (not Peter’s). Judging from the earliest references, then, it was not so much the position of Peter’s office that made Rome special, but the clout of having the two heaviest hitters in the apostolic college.
A further argument against making a simplistic connection between a founding by Peter and supreme authority arises from the fact that Peter exercised a similar office for the church in Jerusalem three decades beforehand, and (by good historical authority) in Antioch as well. So we have two other major patriarchal sees which also claim an apostolic foundation from Peter. Why should Rome get the nod over them? In most patristic sources that touch on the subject, Rome is ranked before Antioch and Jerusalem despite them all having an apostolic foundation rooted in Peter’s ministry, and for two main reasons: it was the site of Peter and Paul’s martyrdoms, and it was the imperial capital. The latter reason—based largely in institutional practicality—was also the main reason for adding Constantinople to the list of patriarchal sees, in a position proximate to Rome’s, in the fourth century. The elevation of sees to the circle of the five major patriarchates was not really a function of apostolic founding (though that was assumed), but of practical organization: they represented the major urban centers for their respective regions (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch), plus Jerusalem, which was included for its status as the original mother church. The administrative practicality of the arrangement appears to have been the decisive factor, else one would be hard-pressed to explain why none of the small churches of central Asia Minor (also plausibly founded by Peter—see 1 Peter 1:1) ever rose to the circle of major patriarchates. Constantinople claimed a possible-but-historically-dubious founding from Andrew, but it was really its status as the new imperial capital that sealed the deal for its inclusion. It seems, then, that being the imperial capital carried with it a considerable sway, not only in political affairs, but ecclesiastical ones as well, and the sources openly admit that as a major consideration.
Other reasons raised by modern Catholics in favor of Rome’s historical primacy—like Jesus’s appointment of Peter in Matt. 16:17-19—are not quite as clear-cut as it might seem at first glance (more to come on that passage in the section related to biblical arguments). So it appears that to claim an apostolic foundation from Peter is not really a “case closed” argument, since other patriarchal sees can and do make the same claim, and early texts show that Rome was distinguished from those sees on other grounds. The see of Rome was regarded as “first among equals,” but patristic texts seem to show that while Rome gradually came to think that “first” was the most important word in that phrase, everyone else thought that “equals” was the most important.
It should perhaps also be noted that the Western tradition makes a common error in speaking of this matter, whenever someone labels Peter as “the first pope.” Patristic sources are generally careful to separate the special office of the apostles from that of the institutional bishop, which was derived from their authority but not exactly equated with it. Thus Peter is counted a founding apostle for Jerusalem, Antioch, and Rome, but not the first bishop in any of those places. James (the brother of Jesus) is counted as the first bishop of Jerusalem by patristic texts, a role which can pretty clearly be seen in the records of the original ecumenical council, when his personal assessment is taken as the final form for the council’s ruling, even though Peter is also there in person (see Acts 15:13-21, especially v.19). For Rome, Linus is counted as the first bishop, and thus the first pope. Both Irenaeus and Eusebius speak fairly clearly on the matter—Peter is an apostle, not a bishop. That’s all a bit tangential to the topic at hand, but worth mentioning.
The second little piece of the historical argument—that the RCC should be considered the one true church because it has descended in an undeviated line from its apostolic foundation—is compelling in some respects, but a little incomplete. Other apostolic churches, not in communion with Rome, make the same claim about themselves. Some of those churches even reckon their apostolic foundings earlier than Rome’s, and they also still exist in an unbroken line of descent (the Coptic church of Alexandria is a good example of this). What distinguishes Rome’s claim above theirs? For an outsider, it’s difficult to see any significant distinction in the arguments which should favor one side or the other.
Further, the argument from an undeviated descent only takes into account the institutional process by which each ordained office is filled by an appointed successor. Even the necessity of apostolic succession is open to question, since it is not clearly pointed out as important in the New Testament and only emerges as a consideration gradually over the subsequent centuries. And it’s also worth asking whether the institutional process is actually the most important part of the idea of apostolic succession. While it’s kind of neat to have a chain of ordinations stretching back to the apostles, that institutional narrative says nothing at all about whether the church in question has remained faithful to the doctrine of the apostles. This was the main sticking-point for the Reformers of the sixteenth century. They had no arguments with the historical fact of Rome’s apostolic succession (though some doubted whether it was really that important), but rather with the sense that Rome’s doctrine had gradually shifted into something that was now in significant tension with the doctrine of the New Testament—preeminently, Paul’s apostolic declaration of salvation by grace through faith, and not by works. Even if one were to grant that Peter had founded Rome and that it maintained an undeviated line of succession from him, should one still hold allegiance to it if it began teaching a different gospel than the one taught by the apostles? This matter is a little harder to see clearly now than it was in the sixteenth century, because various reforms from the sixteenth century on have clarified Catholic doctrine and led the RCC to tack back towards a more biblical expression of its theology, but at the time of the Reformation, it was clearly and openly preaching a salvation that could be earned by works. One of the most fundamental questions to discern, then, in the matter of whether a church’s claim to be the one true church is valid, is the question of whether their teaching still matches the doctrine that was “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Given the various doctrinal disagreements between apostolic churches today, one cannot simply assume that apostolic succession guarantees doctrinal faithfulness.
And with that consideration, we’ll shift and examine the biblical arguments in the next piece. As I hope this case study demonstrates, the historical arguments for claiming to being the one true church quickly get bogged down in the messiness of early sources. No church’s claim actually shows up to be nearly as clear-cut in history as they want it to be. Is it possible that Rome (or something else) really is the one true church? Maybe. But history won’t make that case with anything approaching even a basic level of confidence.