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[Begin Word Count Here]
If you were to walk into a Church
today, how would you know what kind of Church it was? I
suppose you could look at the sign over the door, but if there
was no sign, how would you know? Most people would answer,
"Well, you ask the folks what they believe, and determine
their theological beliefs from that." Such would seem to be
a proper procedure.
If you walk into a Church today
that is in harmony with the teachings of the Roman Catholic
Church, what distinctive doctrines would you expect to
hear? Well, certainly, you would hear about the Bishop of Rome.
You would hear about the Papacy, and how the Bishop of Rome is
the head of the visible Church, the very Vicar of Christ on
earth. You would also hear about the doctrine of Papal
Infallibility, defined at the First Vatican Council. You would
hear much about Mary, including doctrines like the Immaculate
Conception and Bodily Assumption, both dogmas defined finally and
infallibly within the past two centuries. In your conversations
you would learn that the Bible is not a sufficient guide in and
of itself (one must have "Sacred Tradition"), and you
would also learn about purgatory, indulgences,
transubstantiation, priestly celibacy, and the like. Taken as a
whole, these doctrines would set that Roman Catholic Church apart
from any other.
So the question before us can be
rather easily resolved: if you walked into a Church in the year
325, say, in Alexandria, would the people there hold the same
views as modern Roman Catholics? Or would fundamental, definitional
doctrines that separate Roman Catholicism from all other groups
be utterly absent from the everyday faith, life, and
teaching of the Nicene Church? If, in fact, we discover that the
Church of Nicæa did not hold to definitional doctrines
that make Rome what it is today, then the debate is, for all
practical purposes, over. Surely many modern Roman Catholics will
agree with me in asserting that the ancient Church differed with
the modern Roman Church on these topics: isn’t that what
Newman’s "development hypothesis" was all about?
Many Roman apologists have realized the impossibility of tracing
many modern Roman dogmas to the primitive Church and have, as a
result, abandoned the historical field of battle at this point.
But a few die-hards remain who continue to believe (certainly as
the majority at Trent believed) that the doctrines and teachings
of the Roman Catholic Church are truly apostolic in the
obvious and historical meaning of that term; that is, that they
derive from the actual teachings of the Apostles and were
passed down from the beginning as "oral
traditions." Hence, for the person who really believes this,
the necessity of historical defense is obvious.
I have undertaken to defend the
thesis that the Church of the Council of Nicæa was not, in fact,
the Roman Catholic Church. A few definitions are needed. When I
say the Church of Nicæa is not Rome, what I mean is that there
is a fundamental disjunction between the teachings and
beliefs of the Nicene Church and those of the modern Roman
Catholic Church. I am not saying that Rome cannot trace some kind
of ecclesiastical genealogy back to that time period. She makes
that claim all the time. What I am saying, however, is that such
a claimed genealogy is irrelevant, since it only speaks to a
succession of names not a succession of teaching or
truth. Not only does such a succession beg the questions
raised by such historical events as the Babylonian Captivity of
the Church (14th century) and the Great Papal Schism,
but it ignores the fact that while President Clinton, for
example, stands in the succession of Presidents, one would not
wish to assert that his views, and his "teachings," are
in any way reflective of someone such as Abraham Lincoln. The
mere historical "connection" guarantees nothing
regarding fidelity to the truth itself.
The Church of Nicæa was not the
Roman Catholic Church because that Church did not hold to certain
fundamental, definitional beliefs that mark Roman
Catholicism today. Specifically, the Church of Nicæa did not:
1) look to the Bishop of Rome as
the Vicar of Christ, the head of the universal Church, the pastor
of all Christians;
2) believe in the Marian doctrines
that set Rome apart, such as the Immaculate Conception of Mary
and her Bodily Assumption;
3) embrace such concepts as the thesaurus
meritorum, purgatory, and indulgences;
4) believe in the Roman concept of
authority, replete with extra-biblical, revelatory or inspired
"traditions" that add to the "deposit of
faith" items and beliefs not found in Scripture;
5) nor practice the necessary
devotions to reserved, consecrated hosts that would substantiate
the leap from a belief in "real presence" to the much
later belief in "transubstantiation."
My opponents, then, should have an
easy task, if, in fact, their position is correct. One need only
demonstrate, using historically valid and scholarly sources, that
the Church of Nicæa believed in these five concepts that set
Rome apart from other communions, and the debate is over. It is
not enough, of course, to present an isolated quote here, and
another there. Context, both literary and historical, must be
observed carefully. I am well aware of the "cut and
paste" methods of many Roman Catholic apologists who use
patristic sources in a willy-nilly fashion. Serious concern for
accurately representing patristic materials should be present in
this debate.
Let us look, then, briefly at each
of these five areas. If we discover that, in fact, these are
beliefs that were not a part of the fabric and makeup of the
Church that existed at the time of the Council of Nicæa, then
the debate is won.
The Church and the Bishop of Rome in A.D. 325.
The Council of Nicæa itself is a glowing example of how modern
Roman Catholic claims fly in the face of historical reality. The
Council was not called with the authority of a Pope—indeed,
the bishop of Rome had nothing to do with its convocation, and
little more to do with its outcome. Sylvester was too aged to
attend, and was represented by two presbyters. Later tradition,
attempting to "fix" the obvious problem history
presents with reference to the very first (and arguably,
greatest) Church Council, assigned to these presbyters authority
that was not theirs at the Council.
The very fact that a Council was
necessary to determine this theological issue is a conundrum for
the proponent of the Papal system. Why not just appeal to the
final say of the bishop of Rome? The answer is amazingly simple:
no one had yet thought that such an appeal would have final
authority over the entire Church. John Henry Cardinal Newman, in
his work An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,
quoted approvingly from Barrow’s 1836 work against Papal
supremacy. He noted that it was quite right for the Protestant to
point out that there are historical facts that are contrary to a
functioning, widely recognized Papacy in the early Church. For
example, he agreed with Barrow that had the pagans been aware of
the institution of the Papacy, they would surely have raised
great objections to it, but such objections are not to be found
anywhere. And very importantly he quoted with approval
Barrow’s statement,
It is most prodigious that, in
the disputes managed by the Fathers against the heretics, the
Gnostics, Valentinians, &c., they should not, even in the
first place, allege and urge the sentence of the universal
pastor and judge, as a most evidently conclusive argument, as
the most efficacious and compendious method of convincing and
silencing them.
The same is true regarding
Arianism. The position of the bishop of Rome was known: why
didn’t that end the controversy? Because no one believed the
bishop of Rome was the universal head of the Church. He was the
bishop of the greatest see in the West—but not the head of
the Church. And the Nicene Council itself made this plain in its
famous sixth canon:
Let the ancient customs in
Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of
Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is
customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch
and the other provinces, let the Churches retain their
privileges.
Despite some incredibly strained
attempts at getting around the plain meaning of these words, the
import is clear: the bishop of Rome is seen as having
jurisdiction in his own territory, which, plainly, is not
worldwide, but is geographically limited, just as Alexandria,
Antioch, etc. Nothing has changed since Cyprian had said eighty
years earlier in the Council of Carthage:
For neither does any of us set
himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror
does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience;
since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty
and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no
more be judged by another than he himself can judge another.
Therefore, we see that the Church
of Nicæa was not the Roman Catholic Church, for Rome cannot be
defined outside of a functioning Papal system, and no such system
existed in A.D. 325. Indeed, in the decades following Nicæa, it
was not Rome that led the way. It was not Rome that provided the
necessary strength and leadership to withstand the Arian resurgency. Indeed,
Liberius, bishop of Rome, caved in under
Imperial pressure, and signed the Arianized Sirmium Creed. It was
Alexandria, under the noble leadership of Athanasius, that led
the way and eventually led to the defeat of Arianism.
The Nicene Church and the Marian Doctrines. If
the Papacy is not evident at Nicæa, surely the Marian dogmas
that define Roman Catholic worship are even more conspicuous by
their absence from the same time period. One need only consult
the work of Roman Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott (hardly a
liberal!) to realize this. For example, with reference to the
Immaculate Conception Ott admits on page 201:
Neither the Greek nor the
Latin Fathers explicitly teach the Immaculate Conception of
Mary.
Instead, he asserts an
"implicit" teaching based upon Mary’s holiness and
the contrast between her and Eve. Yet, I note that J.N.D. Kelly
asserts that Ireneaus, Tertullian, and Origen all felt Mary had
sinned and doubted Christ (Early Christian Doctrines,
493). In any case, Ott asserts on the same page that the first explicit
assertion of the doctrine as believed today is found in the
British monk Eadmer at the beginning of the 12th
century! Even then, he notes it ran into much opposition,
including the rejection of Bernard of Clairvaux. Certainly,
it’s a doctrine absent from the early 4th century
and the Church of Nicæa.
Likewise, the Bodily Assumption of
Mary is a doctrine unknown to the Fathers of the Council of Nicæa. Ott says of it, "The idea of the bodily assumption
of Mary is first expressed in certain transitus-narratives of the
fifth and sixth centuries. Even though these are apocryphal they
bear witness to the faith of the generation in which they were
written despite their legendary clothing" (pp. 209-210).
What Ott does not note is that these
"transitus-narratives" were deemed heretical by the
Church of the day and anathematized by Gelasius, bishop of Rome!
Hence, the first documentable reference to the doctrine is from a
heretical source, and that at least two and a half
centuries after the Council of Nicæa! The doctrine,
plainly, had no part in the Church in A.D. 325, and hence, again,
the point is proven: the Church of Nicæa was not the Church of
Rome.
The Nicene Church and Purgatory, the Treasury of
Merit, and Indulgences. Here again we encounter a series of
related doctrinal beliefs that were a long time coming in the
history of Roman Catholicism. Historically, the concepts of
purgation and merit came together to create the doctrine of
purgatory, and then, later, the thesaurus meritorum, or
"treasury of merit." Once these concepts were in place,
indulgences could develop. But no one can seriously suggest that
the bishops who gathered at Nicæa spoke of purgatory in a
doctrinal sense, nor do they ever speak of a "treasury of
merit," let alone a concept of indulgences.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of
purgatory, and the related concepts of merit, forgiveness, etc.,
and what all of these things mean to the concept of grace and
salvation, is central to defining the differences between
biblical Christianity and the Roman Catholic "gospel"
as defined by Trent. When one believes in indulgences, one
believes in an entire framework of beliefs that are
inter-connected and held together by the glue that is Rome’s
dogmatic authority. Yet, Rome didn’t have such an authority
in A.D. 325, and hence it is hardly surprising that one can read
the doctrinal works of the bishops who were in attendance at the
Council and never encounter the ideas that now define Rome’s soteriology. Some might point to the view of martyrs during the
persecution as a possible pre-cursor of later doctrinal concepts,
but the dogmatic teaching of a place of purgation after death
where the temporal punishments of sins were removed by
meritorious suffering (i.e., the concept of satispassio)
was not a part of the doctrinal structure of the Nicene Church.
While the full doctrine of indulgences awaited the eleventh
century for definition, only two centuries earlier than Nicæa
Clement of Rome had written:
They all therefore were
glorified and magnified, not through themselves or their own
works or the righteous doing which they wrought, but through
His will. And so we, having been called through His will in
Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through
our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we
wrought in holiness of heart, but through faith, whereby the
Almighty God justified all men that have been from the
beginning; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen
(Clement of Rome, 32)
Such words hardly flow from a
belief in the modern Roman dogma, to be sure.
The Nicene Church and Authority. Here we can but
touch briefly upon the simple fact that Roman Catholic apologists
engage in the most egregious misrepresentation of patristic
truths when they attempt to portray a monolithic acceptance of
modern Roman concepts of tradition and authority in the primitive
Church. The simple fact of the matter is, the Church of Nicæa
was neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox.
It was, well, the Church of Nicæa, with its own strengths and
weaknesses. I, as a Protestant, do not have to make the early
Fathers into Protestants. They can be just who they were. But the
Roman Catholic who insists Rome’s doctrine has been the constant
and universal faith of the Church, does not have that luxury.
We have already seen that the
Roman concept of Papal authority was not in place at the time of Nicæa. In the same way, the concept of tradition—whether we
identify this as "Sacred Tradition, Tradition, or
tradition—that fuels Roman theology today, was not the
driving force behind the Nicene Council either. This can be seen
in many ways. The Nicene Council does not make its definition in
the name of a Roman bishop; neither does it say, "Tradition
states thus and so, and hence we define this doctrine." No,
the Council, instead, is vitally interested in expressing
themselves, as much as possible, in the language of Scripture,
not the language of tradition.
Now, before my opponents blow a
gasket, there are certainly references to "tradition"
in the period prior to, and coinciding with, Nicæa. One can
hardly open a copy of any Roman Catholic apologetic resource
today without finding such references. But even a brief perusal
of the patristic sources in their own context reveals
immediately that what the early Fathers meant by
"tradition" is not what Rome means by
"tradition" today. For example, Irenaeus is often cited
as being supportive of the concept of "tradition," yet
rarely will one find any discussion of just what he meant by
the term "tradition." What was Irenaeus’
"tradition"? Let’s see:
These have all declared to us
that there is one God, Creator of heaven and earth, announced
by the law and the prophets; and one Christ, the Son of God.
If any one do not agree to these truths, he despises the
companions of the Lord; nay more, he despises Christ Himself
the Lord; yea, he despises the Father also, and stands
self-condemned, resisting and opposing his own salvation, as
is the case with all heretics (Ad Her. III:1:2).
One God, Creator, one Christ,
Jesus, the Son of God. Such hardly qualifies as being very
supportive of extra-biblical, oral "traditions"! No
Bodily Assumption, no Papal Infallibility here.
When we speak specifically of the
Nicene Church, we can find no greater example of that Church than
the great Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. And yet, his view of
Scripture, and his view of tradition, and his view of authority,
is far removed from anything a modern Roman Catholic would
wish to present. Space does not permit but a few points. First,
remember that Athanasius in the years following Nicæa at times
stood alone against the vast majority of the hierarchy of
the visible Church of his day in remaining true and faithful to
the deity of Christ. He defended his faith by reference to Scriptural
passages, not by reference to some nebulous, oral tradition.
His was a biblical argument for the deity of Christ—all
other "sources" are subserviated to the highest
authority, that of Scripture. Nicæa was the very "word of
the Lord" for only one reason: Nicæa spoke in concert with
Scripture. This is Athanasius’ faith. And we can see this in
his statements. I provide only a few representative samples:
...for the tokens of truth are
more exact as drawn from Scripture, than from other
sources.... (De Decretis, 31).
But since holy Scripture is of
all things most sufficient for us, therefore recommending to
those who desire to know more of these matters, to read the
Divine word, I now hasten to set before you that which most
claims attention, and for the sake of which principally I
have written these things (Ad Episcopos 4).
Vainly then do they run about
with the pretext that they have demanded Councils for the
faith's sake; for divine Scripture is sufficient above all
things; but if a Council be needed on the point, there are
the proceedings of the Fathers, for the Nicene Bishops did
not neglect this matter, but stated the doctrines so exactly,
that persons reading their words honestly, cannot but be
reminded by them of the religion towards Christ announced in
divine Scripture (De Synodis, 6).
The Holy and Inspired
Scriptures are sufficient of themselves for the preaching of
the Truth. (Contra Gentes, I:1)
These [canonical] books are
the fountains of salvation, so that he who thirsts may be
satisfied with the oracles contained in them: in these alone
the school of piety preaches the Gospel; let no man add to or
take away from them. (Fest. Ep. 39).
The simple fact of the matter is
that the Nicene Church did not function on a Roman Catholic model
of ultimate authority. Hence, the Nicene Church was not the Roman
Church.
The Church and the Host. I would imagine my
opponents will be somewhat surprised that I present this
particular issue. It is assumed, by many, that history is simply
beyond question in support of the Roman Catholic concept of the
Mass from the first days on. However, it isn’t. Not only can
a case be made against the later, physically-oriented concepts of
"real presence" that one will find in medieval writers,
but the idea that the early Fathers would have understood, or
embraced, the modern concept of transubstantiation simply finds
no solid basis in the early Church. When Tertullian wrote against
Marcion’s gnostic denials of the physical nature of
Christ’s body during His earthly ministry, he used the
Lord’s Supper as an illustration of how absurd it would be
to believe as Marcion does. At one point Tertullian says,
When He so earnestly expressed
His desire to eat the passover, He considered it His own
feast; for it would have been unworthy of God to desire to
partake of what was not His own. Then, having taken the bread
and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by
saying, "This is my body,"
If one were to find such a
paragraph in the pages of most modern Roman Catholic works, one
would expect to find it being read with the full-blown concept of
the modern Roman Catholic Mass, replete with transubstantiation.
"Here we find yet another witness to the early faith of the
Church" we might expect to hear. Yet, as you may note, there
is but a comma at the end of the sentence, not a period. For the
rest of Tertullian’s statement is,
that is, the figure of my
body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless
there were first a veritable body. An empty thing, or
phantom, is incapable of a figure (Latin: Acceptum panem et
distributum discipulus corpus suum illum fecit, Hoc es
corpus meum dicendo, id est figura mei corporis.
Figura autem no fuisset, nisi veritatis esset corpus. Ceterum
vacua res, quod est phantasma, figuram capere non posset.)
If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread
was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily
substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us.
It would contribute very well to the support of Marcion's
theory of a phantom body, that bread should have been
crucified! But why call His body bread, and not rather (some
other edible thing, say) a melon, which Marcion must have had
in lieu of a heart! He did not understand how ancient was
this figure of the body of Christ…
As is so often the case, the
reality of what is said by Tertullian (and many other early
Fathers) is a good bit different than what we might be led
to believe by the citation of just a part of the passage.
Tertullian had no problems speaking of symbols and
representations when speaking of the Supper. Of course, he never
speaks of transubstantiation or anything that would lead us to
believe that he thought in the Aristotelian categories of
accidence and substance, either. In the same way Cyprian, fifty
years later, could write an entire epistle regarding the Supper,
and never once hint at the modern Roman concept. For example, he
can write as follows:
Know then that I have been
admonished that, in offering the cup, the tradition of the
Lord must be observed, and that nothing must be done by us
but what the Lord first did on our behalf, as that the cup
which is offered in remembrance of Him should be offered
mingled with wine. For when Christ says, "I am the true
vine." the blood of Christ is assuredly not water, but
wine; neither can His blood by which we are redeemed and
quickened appear to be in the cup, when in the cup there is
no wine whereby the blood of Christ is shown forth, which is
declared by the sacrament and testimony of all the Scriptures
(Epistle LXII).
These are surely not the words we
would expect from a modern Roman Catholic bishop. Often
those who embrace the authority of Rome have a difficult time
removing from their thinking the basic presuppositions that are
presented with such force so that even when examining historical
information they end up reading it as Rome would have them to,
not as the original authors would have intended. This is most
true when reading the early Fathers and how they spoke of the
Supper. A common example can be drawn from Ignatius, who, when
writing to the Smyrneans, said,
They abstain from eucharist
(thanksgiving) and prayer, because they allow not that the
eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which
flesh suffered for our sins, and which the Father of His
goodness raised up.
To the ear trained to hear the
Fathers as Roman Catholics, Ignatius sounds as if he is
referring to transubstantiation. He is not. Going back to the
context, one finds he is making the same argument that Tertullian
made above. He is arguing against the docetic gnostics who denied
the reality of the physical incarnation of Christ. It is
foolishness to participate in the Supper, which calls us to
remembrance of the flesh and blood of Christ, broken for us, if,
in fact, there never was such flesh! Only by reading a doctrine
that would take a thousand years to crystalize back into Ignatius
can one come up with a Roman understanding. Interestingly enough, Irenaeus, likewise, in his Against Heresies (5:2:2), is
making the exact same argument, not teaching transubstantiation,
but instead fighting against the docetic gnostics who denied the
physical reality of Christ’s incarnation.
But there is another direction
from which I wish to briefly approach this issue: that of the
reserved host. If the doctrine of transubstantiation is, in fact,
the proper understanding of the phrase "real presence"
in patristic sources, then it would follow that consecrated hosts
would be treated as later councils would demand. We should expect
to find tabernacles in the churches of the days of Nicæa, and
should expect to find worship of the reserved hosts. Yet, Roman
Catholic sources are quick to admit that tabernacles did not
develop for at least another six hundred years after Nicæa! Why? For the same reason the term
"transubstantiation" did not appear until about the
same time: the concept of "real presence" as found in
modern Roman dogma was not a part of the ancient faith of the
Church. And if you don’t have transubstantiation as a part
of the faith of a Church, I submit you do not have the Roman
Catholic Church.
In Conclusion
What, then, must we conclude on
the basis of the facts of history? First, that there are certain
doctrines and dogmas that set Roman Catholicism apart from all
other communions. That these doctrines are, allegedly, based upon
apostolic tradition. Furthermore, we assert that without these
doctrines, you do not have Roman Catholicism. We have asked the
question, "Did the Church which produced the Nicene Council
exhibit these fundamental hallmarks of Roman Catholicism?"
The answer provided by the facts themselves is quite simply,
"no." Hence, we propose to the reader that the Church
of Nicæa was not the Church of Rome, and that the changes that
have taken place in the nearly 1700 years since then are not a
matter of natural progression and "evolution," but are,
instead, degenerations and perversions of the
Church that so clearly defended the deity of Christ so long ago.
[ End Word Count Here: total
words, 4490 ]
Submitted April 17th,
1997
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