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Acknowledgements | Bibliography

We present Part 7 of Tom Lee's manuscript which explores the shift of the Mother Church from Jerusalem to Rome in two segments. Today's segment looks at the emergence of the early structure and leadership and leads into an exploration of the place of women in the early Church — a subject which Tom expands on in the second segment next week.

The shift in focus from Jerusalem to Rome
Part 7.1
by Tom Lee

The Roman Church's push for hegemony…

After 70 the Mother Church of Christianity at Jerusalem passed away. Its remnant ceased to have any effective role in the life of the movement to which it had given birth. The pathetic Jewish descendants were noted with orthodox scorn some three centuries later by Epiphanius of Salamis and St. Jerome, as they believed that their form of Christianity was the ultimate protector of the laws of Sinai and thus completed Judaism.

Soon thereafter the Roman Church flexed its muscles and tried to wrest control. It gradually took precedence, as much. because of its central position, with easy access and communication with all the other major centers of the Empire, as for any other reason. But, although Rome was the political capital of the Empire, and thus of the whole Mediterranean basin, the Christian community in Rome was at first an isolated outpost of Christendom. The Christians in the West were overwhelmingly outnumbered by those in the Middle East and Greece, whose churches were independent of each other, in spite of the Roman Church's tentative and then increasingly strident claims to primacy over all others.

The Gentile Christians ruled the roost and accelerated the disassociation of themselves from the Jewish origins of their faith. Circumcision was soon abandoned totally. It was not too many years before the See of Rome was claiming for itself the mantle of arbiter that previously resided in Jerusalem. Although it does seem inconsistent, after annexing the sacred books of the Jews and using them every day in their devotions, to have nurtured a dislike for the race that produced them, the policy of placating the Romans could not be effectively pursued without anti-Jewish protestations. The rejection of Jewish Christianity in favor of Paulinism, which in any case, to Gentiles, was so much more appealing in its doctrines, was the almost inevitable result.

Paul had done his best to make it plain that his, doctrine of the Christ involved no political threat to Rome. If anything he was extravagant in enjoining total loyalty to the civil power: "You must all obey the governing authorities. Since all government comes from God, the civil authorities were appointed by God, and so anyone who resists authority is rebelling against God's decision, and such an act is bound to be punished." Paul's words could be read as an endorsement of the destruction of Jerusalem, although this passage may have been an editorial addition by another hand at a later date.

Even after Paul's writings were recognized as inspired, those Christians following Petrine traditions were still suspicious of him, as 2Peter 3:16 affirms: "His letters contain some things which are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other scriptures, to their own destruction."

Paul's model of Church catches on…

Paul's model of church however caught on. The incarnation and the resurrection were seen as far more important than Jesus' passion, a position close to that still maintained by the world's two-hundred-fifty million Eastern Orthodox Christian believers.

The memory of those who fell fighting for the Jewish nation's liberty were not cherished by Gentile Christians; they were seen as rebels against their lawful overlord, their fate seen as divine punishment for their blindness in failing to separate themselves from their obdurate countrymen.

The circumstances faced by the infant church demanded a strong leadership that the plight of the Nazorean survivors prevented them from supplying. The Emperor Vespasian commanded that all who were of the family of David were to be sought, that no one might be left among the Jews who was of royal stock. The remaining relatives of Jesus were in hiding.

Vespasian was hailed as restorer of the world and, to him it was said, and not to any Jewish king, the mysterious prophecies of the Jews pointed as the predestined world ruler. A part of his wide appeal was that he didn't look like life tidied up. Stocky and homely of appearance, he was an unmistakable human being having a fallible bash at what the trained expert generally did. He was refreshing, if not very comfortable for those who thought they knew better.

The Romans could afford to be smug. The power of Jupiter was confirmed by the destruction of the Temple of the Jewish God. Why was it, they could reason, that Rome, with its many gods, ruled the land that had a so-called omnipotent God, a wonder that nobody could see? Was it because they accepted or tolerated many gods while the Jews recognized only one?

When Titus returned from Judaea in 71, he took with him the leaders of the Jewish defenders, together with seven hundred young Jews selected for their handsome appearance. The tremendous spoils included the holy relics of the Temple. A joint Triumph was given to Vespasian and Titus, one of the most magnificent of these processional spectacles ever witnessed by Rome.

Vespasian and Titus, having offered prayers to the gods, rode through the Triumphal Gate to pass down the Sacred Way to the Forum and up to the Capitol. They rode in state chariots, each of them crowned with laurel and clad in imperial purple. Behind them marched the Praetorian Guards, the Legions from Judaea, and a company carrying the displayed spoils of the conquered Jews, the gilt table, the golden seven-branched Candelabrum, the Book of the Law, the ceremonial golden bowls and cups. Behind these, jeered at by the delirious mob thronging the processional way, walked the seven hundred naked Hebrew youths in chains. Chief of all, their general, Simon bar Gioras, was splayed high on a chariot, naked and pinioned.

When the victors and vanquished reached the foot of the Capitol there was a pause. Simon and his men were detached while the procession marched on up to the Capitol. Bound and scourged, Simon was taken into the dungeon of the Mamertine Prison (reputedly Peter's pre­martyrdom jail) and executed. His death was announced to the acclaiming multitude. After him the leading Jewish warriors were put to the sword. Thus in a welter of blood and exultation ended the Triumph. It must have made a tremendous impression upon any Christian onlookers that day in the streets of Rome.

The emergence of Bishops…

Linus is recorded to have been the bishop of Rome, according to Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 180) who was privy to many of the early writings and records of the Church, since lost. Neither Peter nor Paul was ever bishop of Rome, but it was implausibly claimed that the two founders installed Linus. According to Eusebius (264­340), Linus took office as bishop from 55 to 67, while others claim he died in 76. Paul does mention a Linus in one of his epistles to Timothy written from Rome. Little is known about him except that he was not a Jew. He was said to have come to the imperial city from Volterra in Tuscany.

The poet Martial (c.40-102), who unblushingly described erotic behavior in Rome with the thoroughness of a first-century Kinsey, also took time to comment on the social scene. He wrote at this time of a beautiful British princess, Claudia, living at Rome and wedded to a noble Roman, Pudens. She was the daughter of Caracticus a hostage British king who died at Rome in 54. Excavations have revealed that the house of Pudens was used for Christian worship and that it had been bought from Paul's old friends Aquila and Priscilla. The Church of St. Pudentiana now stands on the site. The Pudens and Claudia of Martial are clearly the Pudens and Claudia of II Timothy, "Eubulus salutes thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren."

Following the death of Linus in either 67 or 76, the next bishop of Rome was Cletus (or Anacletus - St. Jerome used both names). He is recorded as being a Roman and remained leader of the Christian community there until he was martyred in 88. The Roman Church credits him with settling the regulations for the consecration of bishops and with the establishment of an oratory near St. Peter's tomb intended for the burial of martyrs.

Roman Catholic scholars urge that a Roman primacy was deeply embedded in the early Christian tradition. But it was perceived less as a personal primacy of the Bishop of Rome than as a primacy of the local Church of Rome, based upon the claimed martyrdom in Rome of both Peter and Paul.

Paul's understanding of Bishop…

Paul, referring to the office of bishop had not meant a bishop in anything approaching the modern sense of a man ordained to supervise a large number of Christian communities. A bishop to Paul meant the senior member of a local church and the best translation of his words is not bishop but presiding elder or president. His first letter to Timothy lays down the qualifications for such a person.

"The president must have an impeccable character. He must not have been married more than once, and he must be temperate, discreet and courteous, hospitable and a good teacher, not a heavy drinker, nor hot-tempered, but kind and peaceable. He must not be a lover of money. He must be a man who manages his own family well and brings his children up to obey him and be well-behaved: how can any man who does not understand how to manage his own family have responsibility for the church of God? He should not be a new convert, in case pride might turn his head and then he might be condemned as the devil was condemned. It is also necessary that people outside the Church should speak well of him, so that he never gets a bad reputation and falls into the devil's trap."

The first letter of Peter concludes with a greeting from Babylon. It is alleged that "Babylon" is a code-word for Rome; but since it is addressed to "all those living among foreigners in. the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bythinia," and since it was the apostles' strategy to disperse in different directions, as they traveled along the trade routes, the presumption now is that it was just as probably written from the actual city of Babylon in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq).

It was probably not written by the apostle, but gives instructions to the Elders:

"Be the shepherds of the flock of God that is entrusted to you: watch over it, not simply as a duty but gladly, because God wants it; not for sordid money, but because you are eager to do it. Never be a dictator over any group that is put in your charge, but be an example that the whole flock can follow. When the chief shepherd appears, you will be given the crown of unfading glory."

The elevation of a class of Christians to a status of superiority that puts others in subjection to them is alien to the Gospel and counter to the original tradition, which became unworkable. Even Paul, for reasons of pastoral strategy, failed to maintain this principle in his practice. From the earliest non­canonical church writings it is clear that in each Christian community there was a tendency towards one-man (or one-woman) rule, leading to the emergence of the bishop from an earlier collegial presbyterate. The influence of Old Testament models, and rival pagan examples, led to bishops, and later, presbyters, being called priests.

"Apostolic succession", an old professor in Oxford used to maintain, "is a matter of bums on thrones, not miters on heads." The insight is correct. The bishop derives his authority from his seat or chair. We don't know when it originated, but it must have been very early. The Church quickly became an urban institution. Apostolic See comes from sedes, seat. We call the church where the bishop has his cathedra, or chair, the cathedral. A bishop becomes a bishop in the full sense of the word when he "takes possession of his see," i.e. sits in his chair.

The deacons…

From the qualifications for president Paul passes straight on to the qualifications for the junior leaders, the deacons. Exactly what the deacons were supposed to do is not clear but presumably they assisted the president and probably also looked after the local church's charitable and pastoral affairs: they included members of both sexes.

An overlooked fact is that many early churches had a female president. New Testament accounts show that women naturally assumed administrative duties in the apostolic period. All assemblies of Christian communities mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles of St. Paul are said to be in the houses of women. In Galatians 3:28, Paul teaches the radical equality of women as images of Christ who by their baptism represent Christ. "All of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or citizen,, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus."

Thus, baptism made women fully qualified to represent Christ. But nowadays Catholic Church authorities use the metaphor of Christ as bridegroom and the church as the bride to justify an all-male celibate priesthood, though Christ did not use this image to limit the role of his female disciples, and a metaphor should not be taken literally.

ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 7.1
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INTRO | PART 1.1 | PART 1.2 | PART 1.3 | PART 1.4 | PART 1.5 | PART 1.6 | PART 2.1 | PART 2.2
PART 2.3 | PART 2.4 | PART 4.0 | PART 5.1 | PART 5.2 | PART 5.3 | PART 5.4 | PART 5.5 | PART 6.2
PART 6.3 | PART 7.1 | PART 7.2 | PART 8.1 | PART 8.2 | PART 8.3 | PART 8.4 | PART 8.5 | PART 8.6
PART 8.7 | PART 9.1 | PART 9.2 | PART 9.3 | PART 10.1 | PART 10.2
PART 31.1 | PART 31.2 | PART 31.3 | PART 31.4
Acknowledgements | Bibliography

Tom Lee is an Australian, now semi-retired in Phoenix, Arizona, who has had an illustrious international career as an actor, writer, and broadcast commentator. He does not claim to be a professional theologian, nor an historian, but he undertook this study because, like many of the people who are attracted to what we're doing here at Catholica Australia, he was simply inquisitive about the history of Christianity and trying to better understand what he had been brought up to believe. In a sense, his book is a one-man journey seeking to better understand who Jesus was and what his own faith was about.

What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

©2008 Tom Lee (Star Concepts LLC) 15633 N. 17* Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85023-3409

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