Thursday, March 16, 2023

Robert Lee Williams on the Bishop of Rome as First Among Equals (primus inter pares)

  

Roman Bishop as Bishop primus inter pares

 

Africanus’s bishop lists may have suggested to Hippolytus a certain primacy enjoyed by the Roman bishop. As monepiscopus of Rome by 235, he could be considered primus inter pares, “first among equals,” in certain respects. Rome enjoyed special prestige in written documents from outside Rome for a half century. About 180 Irenaeus had written from Gaul that the Roman church was a model church in preserving doctrinal orthodoxy, “the tradition of the apostles” (Haer. 3.3.2). Grant explains of Irenaeus, “he is setting forth what he views as facts, not describing Roman claims to primacy” (Grant, Augustus, 156) Then in 221 Africanus seemed to represent the Roman episcopal succession as the source of the Alexandrian succession in placing Peter as the founder in Rome and Mark as the founder in Alexandria. . . . Africanus’s tracing the Roman episcopacy from Peter and the Alexandrian one from Mark implied that the Alexandrian church was a derivative of the Roman church according to Papias’ record that Mark was Peter’s interpreter. Again we are dealing with what is considered fact outside Rome, not a claim from Rome.

 

Secondly, the opinion of the external secretary for Roman churches had already carried special weight among his episcopal peers. In the Easter controversy at the end of the second century all attention was focused on the opinion of the Roman spokesman Victor. Would Rome be persuaded to maintain fellowship with churches of variant traditions regarding Easter (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.24.9-18)? Later, in the middle of the third century, Cyprian of Carthage reflects a certain subordination to Cornelius in Rome. Cyprian renders to Cornelius an account of his actions (Ep. 54.9). (Quasten, Patrology, 2:377) In the same letter Rome is termed the “leading church.”

 

The Roman presbyter-bishop acting as representative spokesman to other churches in the late second century and the early third century enjoyed special status as a senior peer, primus inter pares, in various respects short of outright primacy as superior authority. In light of this status, we propose that when Demetrius asked Pontianus in 232 to break communion with the eastern bishops supporting Origen (Jerome, Ep. 33.4) Demetrius was appealing to Rome monepiscopus as more than simply a peer. He was requesting the support of an episcopate not claiming superior authority but enjoying a superior status.

 

Hippolytus does nothing to diminish whatever heightened position the Roman bishop may have with respect to Alexandria or other churches. In his episcopal list he adopts Africanus’s perspective of a Petrine foundation for the Roman Church. (Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 1:255)

 

Hippolytus continues Africanus’s perspective on the authority of the Roman bishop. Furthermore, we may speculate that Hippolytus’s perspective had one other implication. We have seen that Hippolytus probably supported Pontanius in affirming Demetrius’s objection to Origen’s ordination. That action notwithstanding, our chronicler may have reestablished relations with Origen and his episcopal admirers in the east before the deportation in 235. The actions by the new emperor Maximin against Alexander’s ecclesiastical constituency no doubt conceal part of the story. (Robert Lee Williams, Bishop Lists: Formation of Apostolic Succession of Bishops in Ecclesiastical Crises [Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 16; Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2005], 174-75)

 

In a footnote to the above, we read that:

 

If a spirit of cooperation between Hippolytus and Palestine existed between 232 and 235, such may account for some of the disparate references to Hippolytus in Eusebius and hold potential for better explanation than the earnest but unconvincing attempts of Nautin (Hippolyte et Josipe) and others. (Ibid., 175 n. 72)