Concerning official letters of the bishops
Narcissus of Jerusalem and Polycrates of Ephesus and how these letters, written
in the late 2nd-century, show the presence of different theories
about apostolic succession, Arnold Ehrhard noted that:
The matter under
discussion was the date of Easter, and the recipient of both these letters was
Pope Victor I of Rome. This matter certainly called for reference to the authorities
from which it had received support through the tradition of an unbroken succession
of bishops, beginning at the time of the Apostles. This indeed was the force of
the argument of bishop Narcissus, who referred to “the Apostolic tradition come
down through succession unto us”; but it is surprising that bishop Polycrates
did not use this argument, but referred to “the tradition of my relatives, some
of them I have succeeded: for even of my relatives have been bishops and I am
the eight” Euseb., H.E. 5.25 [Narcissus]; ib. 5.24 [Polycrates]).
This should go a long way toward proving that at the time of Victor I, in the
last two decades of the second century, some of the Churches in Asia Minor had
not yet a settled theory of the Apostolic succession. (Arnold Ehrhard, The
Apostolic Succession in the First Two Centuries of the Church [Lutterworth
Press, 1953], 66)
This incident (the Quartodeciman Controversy) is very problematic to Roman Catholic truth claims. As we read in Edward Siecienski's excellent study of the Papacy and the Eastern Orthodox:
The orthodoxy of the Roman See might be praiseworthy, but praise of Rome did not always translate into obedience to its bishop. This was certainly true during the debate over the dating of Pascha (i.e., the Quartodeciman Controversy)—that is, whether Pascha should be celebrated on the fourteenth of Nissan (the Jewish Passover) or on the following Sunday, which was the Roman custom. The first signs of trouble occurred during a visit of Polycarp of Smyrna (c. 156) to Anicetus of Rome (c. 153-68), but according to the sources, after arguing back and forth they simply “agreed to disagree” and maintained communion despite their differences. However, forty years later, Victor of Rome (c. 189-99) requested that synods be held to settle the issue, and attempted to excommunicate Polycrates of Ephesus and the bishops of Asia when they refused to adopt the Roman custom. While most synods did follow the Roman dating, Polycrates, “unafraid of threats,” vehemently defended his church’s ancient practice and refused to conform. In the end it appears that Victor, rebuked by Irenaeus and others for overreacting, never carried through with this threat and that communion was preserved. Rome emerged from the date with its prestige unscathed—after all, “convoking a series of regional councils to try and pressure the Asians into conformity is a tribute to Roman prestige” (Eno, The Rise of the Papacy, 42)—but it is clear that respect did not equal obedience. (A. Edward Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate [Oxford Studies in Historical Theology; New York: Oxford University Press, 2017], 148-49)
