I'm happy to accept 1 Peter as probably pseudonymous.
That doesn't necessarily imply he wasn't in Rome at some point. Nor does the fact that he isn't mentioned in Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
Whilst there are no NT references to the Apostle Peter being in Rome - other than, perhaps the cryptic allusion to 'Babylon' - that doesn't preclude the possibility of him going there and being martyred there.
Romans is an early Epistle, if I understand the chronology correctly. He could have moved to Rome after it was written. As I've said upthread, the Apostles appear to have found themselves ministering to existing groups of Christians as well as starting churches in virgin territory.
Most early Christians came from the synagogues so wherever there were Jews throughout the Roman Empire one might expect some of them to show an interest in the 'Jesus Movement' as it spread from Palestine.
So no, I don’t believe St Peter 'founded' the church in Rome but that doesn't mean he didn't play a significant role in its oversight or development at a later stage.
I don't accept the authority of the Papacy either - particularly as it developed over the centuries. That doesn't mean I don't accept the antiquity or 'apostolicity' of the Church of Rome nor, unlike @Ex-Organist, deny them the right to include St Peter in their roll-call as it were.
The Eastern Patriarchs seemed happy enough to accept that at the Council of Chalcedon. 'Peter has spoken through Leo!'
All I'm saying is that the Petrine link was claimed early on, by St Clement of Rome around 94CE and by St Iranaeus of Lyons in the 2nd century. It seems to have been widely accepted across Christendom as a whole.
They may have been wrong. But I don't see how it is beyond the realms of possibility for St Peter to have some kind of input to the church in Rome beyond his martyrdom- if indeed that took place as you seem to suggest it didn't.
That's quite a different matter to building a kind of medieval Papal edifice and the Vatican, Curia and Magisterium as it later developed.
I don't accept the authority of the Papacy either - particularly as it developed over the centuries. That doesn't mean I don't accept the antiquity or 'apostolicity' of the Church of Rome nor, unlike @Ex-Organist, deny them the right to include St Peter in their roll-call as it were.
St Peter's place of honour in Rome is given by his martyrdom there.
Sure. But both St Clement of Rome and St Iranaeus of Lyons, early figures which carry weight in the Orthodox world, claimed that he had an episcopal role in Rome alongside the Apostle Paul.
I'm not saying they were right or wrong about that. I'm simply acknowledging it as an early tradition.
My question is this. If we Orthodox reject that early tradition are we doing so through 'lack of evidence" or for political reasons? As if by accepting that St Peter was Bishop of Rome are then sanction the Papacy as it later developed?
And are we being inconsistent also? Heck, we accept various extra-biblical traditions. On what grounds do we reject this one? Selectivity?
I'm not carrying a candle for the idea that St Peter was the first Pope or anything of the kind. I'm simply questioning why you might be challenging it on the grounds of insufficient evidence when as an Orthodox Christian you would accept other ancient traditions that might appear just as flimsy.
I'm thinking aloud. Thinking allowed.
It's not as if I'd do what @Martin54 has done with the pericope adulterae - if that's the right term - and reject the entire Christian faith on the grounds that it was a late addition to the NT and therefore undermines the whole thing.
It doesn't alter my view of the Papacy as it later developed if St Peter was or wasn't Bishop of Rome in the sense that this has traditionally been claimed by the RCC.
My respect and high regard for individual RCs doesn't depend on it.
Nor do my ecumenical hopes for greater cooperation and rapprochement between the Orthodox and the RCC and all Christian churches of whatever stripe.
GG: That doesn't necessarily imply he wasn't in Rome at some point. Nor does the fact that he isn't mentioned in Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
-There is no contemporaneous, first hand evidence whatsoever that Peter was ever in Rome. But it could have happened. Uh huh.
GG: Whilst there are no NT references to the Apostle Peter being in Rome - other than, perhaps the cryptic allusion to 'Babylon' - that doesn't preclude the possibility of him going there and being martyred there.
-The cryptic allusion is anachronistically in the pseudonymous epistle. But he could have gone and died there. Uh huh.
GG: Romans is an early Epistle, if I understand the chronology correctly. He could have moved to Rome after it was written. As I've said upthread, the Apostles appear to have found themselves ministering to existing groups of Christians as well as starting churches in virgin territory.
-All of this says far more about you and how you believe than it does about history.
-Paul was in Rome from 60-64 AD at least, according to Acts and history; up to 68, ministering to Jewish Christians there since 31, over 30 years before, in Acts 1. Romans was written prior to that in 55-57. Why did the Holy Spirit send Peter to Rome to die with Paul and it's recorded nowhere contemporaneously? As for what you've said upthread, and?
GG: Most early Christians came from the synagogues so wherever there were Jews throughout the Roman Empire one might expect some of them to show an interest in the 'Jesus Movement' as it spread from Palestine.
-And?
GG: So no, I don’t believe St Peter 'founded' the church in Rome but that doesn't mean he didn't play a significant role in its oversight or development at a later stage.
-Why speculate about Paul of Antioch's occult, utterly unnecessary mission in Rome?
GG: I don't accept the authority of the Papacy either - particularly as it developed over the centuries. That doesn't mean I don't accept the antiquity or 'apostolicity' of the Church of Rome nor, unlike @Ex-Organist, deny them the right to include St Peter in their roll-call as it were.
-The apostolicity of Rome is obviously Paul's. But that wasn't good enough for them. Not that apostolicity is historically meaningful outside the West.
The Eastern Patriarchs seemed happy enough to accept that at the Council of Chalcedon. 'Peter has spoken through Leo!'
-Uh huh. 400 years later.
GG: All I'm saying is that the Petrine link was claimed early on, by St Clement of Rome around 94CE and by St Iranaeus of Lyons in the 2nd century. It seems to have been widely accepted across Christendom as a whole.
-St. Clement was alive 30 years after Paul and may well have known him. But Peter?
1Clem 5:3
Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles.
Peter
1 Clem 5:4
There was Peter who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one
not one but many labors, and thus having borne his testimony went to
his appointed place of glory.
Paul
1 Clem 5:5
By reason of jealousy and strife Paul by his example pointed out the
prize of patient endurance. After that he had been seven times in
bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached in
the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the
reward of his faith,
1 Clem 5:6
having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached
the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony
before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the
holy place, having been found a notable pattern of patient endurance.
-No personal claims whatsoever are made.
GG: They may have been wrong. But I don't see how it is beyond the realms of possibility for St Peter to have some kind of input to the church in Rome beyond his martyrdom- if indeed that took place as you seem to suggest it didn't.
-I don't suggest it didn't. Reality does. Why do you suggest it did? On what historical basis?
GG: That's quite a different matter to building a kind of medieval Papal edifice and the Vatican, Curia and Magisterium as it later developed.
-Not if Peter was in Rome. They'd be fully justified.
Not according to Orthodox tradition he weren't. He was an older stepbrother through Joseph, whose first wife left him child(ren) and died.
See, I knew there would be differences. You cite tradition. The Rome accepts that too. But the Bible only identifies him as a brother. Mark also talks about Jesus' brothers. I don't think the two writers were all that concerned about the differentiation.
Does ANYONE imagine that the apostles appointed bishops in the currently accepted sense with all that implies in terms of a worked out sacramental theology and canonical authority? These things developed over a great deal of time under the influence of many things, not least contemporary political structures in the Roman Empire.
For me this is where the whole apostolic succession falls flat on its face. In RC terms it depends on both handing on the baton and what is actually intended to be handed on. Intention is crucial. There is no way that Paul for example would have intended to confer all that is conferred in later ordinations.
Not according to Orthodox tradition he weren't. He was an older stepbrother through Joseph, whose first wife left him child(ren) and died.
See, I knew there would be differences. You cite tradition. The Rome accepts that too. But the Bible only identifies him as a brother. Mark also talks about Jesus' brothers. I don't think the two writers were all that concerned about the differentiation.
No, as with Peter in Rome, there's a self serving agenda, this time both agree as there are no placist implications. Power rests on, preferably arcane, knowledge. Here was something that worked in early-ish (C2nd) folk Christianity, so institutionalize it (431).
We hear many voices in Christendom lamenting the lack of Church Unity. But when it comes to compromise for the sake of that unity, entrenched positions always Trump sanity. Two big compromises wouldn't be anything like enough to unite the "two lungs" of Christianity, as Pope St John Paul II put it, but they would show abundant good faith on which to build.
Firstly the filioque has to go. I've read theological arguments on both sides, but I personally come down against the double procession. In John 14.16, Jesus says, "And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate." He the Father will give it. But theology aside, the clause is a late addition to the Creed, imposed by Rome and leading to the Great Schism. The East could never be required to accept it. The West, however, can live without it, as many posts on this thread have shown. I remember the installation of Justin Welby as AOC in 2013. The Nicene Creed was said sans filioque so it can't be a necessity.
I also personally believe that the filioque distorts the Trinity. The Father, who eternally begets the Son, and from whom the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds, is the origin or "senior partner" in the Trinity. Augustine's formula of the Holy Spirit as the love which binds the Father and Son, inverts the whole think IMO. So we would all be far better without it.
However, I think Orthodox Christianity should make a big compromise in return, and adopt the Gregorian Calendar. The monks of Mt Athos would froth at the mouth at such a suggestion. They would correctly point out that the Julian Calendar predates the Gregorian, but this is a matter of expediency. It's daft having different dates for Christmas and Easter, and the overwhelming concensus in the world is the Western dating.
As I said before, it would require a lot more than those two gestures to heal the rift, but they would at least show some commitment to obeying Christ's command that they should all be One.
@Martin54. You are absolutely right. I think most Christians would acknowledge that the appallingly fractured state of the Church is in disobedience to Christ's command in John 17. 21-23, but there is little will to do anything about it.
@Martin54. You are absolutely right. I think most Christians would acknowledge that the appallingly fractured state of the Church is in disobedience to Christ's command in John 17. 21-23, but there is little will to do anything about it.
Most Christians by a country mile haven't the faintest idea, aren't aware of it in any way.
What about Itenaeus, Martin? In writing “Against Heresies” his primary target is Gnosticism. The traditions about Peter and Paul are a given in his writings, and interlaced with recognisably New Testament quotes and commentary. Sure, he is writing about a century later, but his intention is not to establish those traditions, simply to assert them as commonly understood background to his arguments.
I don’t think his writings are zero evidence and they predate the ecumenical councils by about two centuries.
Of course I accept that there was considerable diversity of understanding in Christendom before the ecumenical councils sought to establish an authoritative framework. But I think the writings of Irenaeus are pretty powerful evidence of the pre-existence of beliefs which later became seen as orthodox and authoritative.
Of course one can argue that the entire process doesn’t really prove anything other than merely human creation of the tenets of Christian faith. Lots of historians have done that. But the writings of Irenaeus are pretty powerful evidence of pre-existing traditional beliefs. Including those about Peter.
I think you overstate your case. There is evidence of both babies and bathwater.
What about Itenaeus, Martin? In writing “Against Heresies” his primary target is Gnosticism. The traditions about Peter and Paul are a given in his writings, and interlaced with recognisably New Testament quotes and commentary. Sure, he is writing about a century later, but his intention is not to establish those traditions, simply to assert them as commonly understood background to his arguments.
I don’t think his writings are zero evidence and they predate the ecumenical councils by about two centuries.
Of course I accept that there was considerable diversity of understanding in Christendom before the ecumenical councils sought to establish an authoritative framework. But I think the writings of Irenaeus are pretty powerful evidence of the pre-existence of beliefs which later became seen as orthodox and authoritative.
Of course one can argue that the entire process doesn’t really prove anything other than merely human creation of the tenets of Christian faith. Lots of historians have done that. But the writings of Irenaeus are pretty powerful evidence of pre-existing traditional beliefs. Including those about Peter.
I think you overstate your case. There is evidence of both babies and bathwater.
Nicely put rhetoric @Barnabas62. Beliefs is the magic word. A hundred years then are like a thousand now. Nobody knew anybody who knew. Odd that. Even over a just one hundred years. It's as if it were a thousand... It's all Telephone Game.
Rome has a vested interest in Peter turning up. So he did. One hundred years after he died in Antioch. As any historical or police investigation or government enquiry would conclude, (with every caveat in brackets).
I should say that the Nicene Creed (with or without) always seems more attractive to me when I compare the objections to it with the devotion to it by the only saint I ever encountered.
But a question: the Athanasian "Creed" (not an "I believe", but a "believe this or else"), contains:
"The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten; but proceeding."
(Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio: non factus, nec creatus, nec genitus, sed procedens.)
which looks implicitly filioque to me. How does this relate to the dispute, if at all?
It has since been widely accepted by modern scholars that
the creed was not authored by Athanasius,[6]
that it was not originally called a creed at all[7]
and that Athanasius's name was not originally attached to it.[8]
Athanasius's name seems to have become attached to the creed as a sign of its strong declaration of Trinitarian faith.
The reasoning for rejecting Athanasius as the author usually relies on a combination of the following:
The creed originally was most likely written in Latin, but Athanasius composed in Greek.
Neither Athanasius nor his contemporaries ever mention the Creed.
It is not mentioned in any records of the ecumenical councils.
It appears to address theological concerns that developed after Athanasius died (including the filioque).
It was most widely circulated among Western Christians.[3][9]
The use of the creed in a sermon by Caesarius of Arles, as well as a theological resemblance to works by Vincent of Lérins, point to Southern Gaul as its origin.[6] The most likely time frame is in the late fifth or early sixth century AD, at least 100 years after Athanasius lived. The Christian theology of the creed is firmly rooted in the Augustinian tradition and uses the exact terminology of Augustine's On the Trinity, published 415 AD.[10][incomplete short citation] In the late 19th century, there was a great deal of speculation about who might have authored the creed, with suggestions including Ambrose of Milan, Venantius Fortunatus and Hilary of Poitiers.[11]
The 1940 discovery of a lost work by Vincent of Lérins, which bears a striking similarity to much of the language of the Athanasian Creed, has led many to conclude that the creed originated with Vincent or his students.[12] For example, in the authoritative modern monograph about the creed, J. N. D. Kelly asserts that Vincent of Lérins was not its author but that it may have come from the same milieu, the area of Lérins in southern Gaul.[13]
The oldest surviving manuscripts of the Athanasian Creed date from the late 8th century.[14]
It wasn’t intended to be rhetoric, Martin. Are the writings of Irenaeus supportive of the tradition you dismiss as supported by zero evidence? I am inclined to believe they are. They are hardly evidence to be dismissed as inconsequential.
Your Chinese whispers assertion? Now that is definitely rhetorical. As is your playing around with time. “Against Heresies” is impressive writing, by any standards, and is of major importance in seeking to understand early Church history.
On the main purpose of the thread, I don’t see why the Filioque addition confuses or clarifies our understanding of the Trinity. We are confused in any case. The early church Fathers admitted our human limitations in attempting to comprehend.
However, I think Orthodox Christianity should make a big compromise in return, and adopt the Gregorian Calendar. The monks of Mt Athos would froth at the mouth at such a suggestion. They would correctly point out that the Julian Calendar predates the Gregorian, but this is a matter of expediency. It's daft having different dates for Christmas and Easter, and the overwhelming concensus in the world is the Western dating.
The majority of local Orthodox Churches (but not a majority of Orthodox faithful) currently use the Revised Julian Calendar for everything except the date of Easter *. This coincides with the Gregorian Calendar at present, but in the long term (from the year 2400) will drift apart, with the Revised Julian Calendar being astronomically more accurate than the Gregorian Calensar.
* (The Church of Finland is an outlier in using the Western date of Easter)
Why on earth should anyone expect to understand the inner nature of the divine Trinity? Most Chrisyians surely accept inas a 'given', not a stick yo beat one another with.
It wasn’t intended to be rhetoric, Martin. Are the writings of Irenaeus supportive of the tradition you dismiss as supported by zero evidence? I am inclined to believe they are. They are hardly evidence to be dismissed as inconsequential.
Your Chinese whispers assertion? Now that is definitely rhetorical. As is your playing around with time. “Against Heresies” is impressive writing, by any standards, and is of major importance in seeking to understand early Church history.
On the main purpose of the thread, I don’t see why the Filioque addition confuses or clarifies our understanding of the Trinity. We are confused in any case. The early church Fathers admitted our human limitations in attempting to comprehend.
@Barnabas62. I withdraw the rhetoric comment, for now, but retain my own. Irenaeus wrote his impressive attack on heresies at least 106 years after Peter was supposed to have been in Rome. He discussed the founding of the Church in Rome by Paul and Peter, emphasizing the importance of apostolic tradition and the succession of bishops from the apostles. He had a power agenda. The necessary myth of Peter in Rome was well established. For thou art Peter.
As for the fundamentalism of the Trinity, it does not work. But the filioque is heterodox.
Why on earth should anyone expect to understand the inner nature of the divine Trinity? Most Chrisyians surely accept inas a 'given', not a stick yo beat one another with.
It's not about the truth, it's about pride and prestige. In those circumstances any stick will do.
I don't think that Irenaeus had a power agenda. He was offended, rightly so, by the Gnostic dismissals of those martyred for refusing to deny their faith. His clear aim was to correct and warn about Gnostic and other distortions. I doubt very much whether he had any hidden agenda.
It's fair to argue that his writings were used in support of a power agenda. But unfair to him to see that as a motivation. So far as parroting traditions of myths from the first century is concerned, he really does not strike me as someone who would do that. His demolition of Gnostic mythologies (demiurges etc) suggest that he could distinguish clearly between myth and traditional understandings. Did he allow for the possibility that those traditions were themselves mythological? I suppose he might but I think he was too deeply impressed by the faith of martyrs (compared with the utilitarianism of Gnostics) to consider that they had died to support a myth.
On Trinitarian beliefs I don't blame anyone for seeing them as speculative assertions based on sincere reflection. And I think the Arians got a raw deal.
I think the Arians got a raw deal too, but I don't think they were right.
The problem with any of this, as @Alan29 and others have pointed out - and I like what @pablito1954 says too - is that any sticking point can be become a stick to beat others with. See what I did there? Prod, prod. Beat, beat. Stickety-stick.
I'd love to see rapprochement and reconciliation on all sides, but not at the expense of the Orthodox being required to accept an addition to the Creed that was never there in the first place and which can lead to even more confusion and misunderstanding.
That doesn't mean I don't believe the Orthodox shouldn't give ground on some things. We could benefit from being less arsey towards other Christians for a start.
The thing is, we can't have any concept of Big O Orthodox or small o orthodox Christianity without a corollary of seeing some things as heretical - such as Unitarianism - or heterodox.
The trick, if we are to maintain concepts of orthodoxy, is to hold to what we believe to be orthodox whilst exercising charity towards those who take a different view.
In the overall scheme of things, of course, we have more in common than those things on which we differ. So, for instance, @Barnabas62 is on a similar page to myself in his understanding of Iranaeus irrespective of what differences we might have on other issues.
@Martin54 over-reacted, in my view, to my thought-experiment/speculative posts upthread but I won't rehearse or reframe my points for fear of going round in circles and getting into territory likely to derail the thread. This isn't another 'Does God exist?' thread.
Even if union between the East and Western forms of christianity isn't on the cards, I think brotherly cooperation rooted in love would be a big step forward. (Had a sudden thought that it would be a decent start within denominations too!)
We don't use it. @mousethief made that clear upthread. That doesn't mean we disapprove of it necessarily, it's just that it isn't conciliar. It's never been ratified by an Ecumenical Council.
It's a bit like asking why the Orthodox don't sing Charles Wesley's hymns, for instance. It's not that we don't 'like' them or find them objectionable theologically necessarily. It's just that they aren't part of our tradition (or Tradition Big T).
There's nothing to stop me singing them around the house or in the car. I'd sing them if I visited a church where they were sung.
Some Orthodox wouldn't but I would.
At any rate, not all non-Orthodox churches use the Athanasian Creed. I can't remember ever hearing it in Anglican settings although I was aware of it. I suspect many Anglicans, RCs and others aren't aware of it though.
In the Orthodox Church his title is "Brother of God", by analogy with Mary being the "Mother of God".
I thought Mary's title in Orthodoxy is Theotokos, 'bearer of God'. 'Mother of God' I've always thought of as an RC appellation. Isn't the Greek for mother 'metera'?
In the Orthodox Church his title is "Brother of God", by analogy with Mary being the "Mother of God".
I thought Mary's title in Orthodoxy is Theotokos, 'bearer of God'. 'Mother of God' I've always thought of as an RC appellation. Isn't the Greek for mother 'metera'?
Can't speak to the RCC part, but in my experience of Orthodoxy, "Theotokos" is left untranslated, even in slavic and slavic-origin churches.
Yes, but you will often hear people refer to Mary as the 'Mother of God' in Orthodoxy.
Yes, 'Theotokos' - God-bearer is more technically correct but in popular parlance 'Mother of God' can often be heard.
I don't have an issue with it provided it's understood in a Theotokos way and doesn't imply that Mary is the source as it were of the Eternal Word, as if the Son proceeds from Mary rather than the Father.
I've never come across anyone who thinks that. There are certainly excesses I think in some Marian approaches, and we Orthodox tend to see that as a feature on the RCC side, I'm afraid rather than looking at ourselves.
But as has been said on Marian threads, Mariology is always inextricably linked to Christology.
The Arians have been mentioned on this thread. Raw deal or not, I've long been intrigued by a somewhat outrageous - and stretching it somewhat? - comment by a Church in Wales Anglo-Catholic priest, that if you are not a 'good Marian' you are in danger of becoming a 'good Arian.' 😉
There's the line in the liturgical hymn to the Theotokos which goes, 'all blessed and all blameless and the Mother of our God' before concluding, 'and art truly Theotokos we magnify thee.'
There are renderings in more contemporary language but we seem fond of a kind of cod-Elizabethan/Jacobean in English translations.
Don't get me started on liturgical Greek and Church Slavonic ...
Most reasonable @Barnabas62. And I apologize to the Greek Bishop of Lyons. He'd have been a right makes might man? Power is corrupting even in the most upright. Reason being the slave of the passions and all. Jesus cryptic remark involving Peter may well have had the straightforward meaning of starting the church with Peter. How that is connected with Rome is hearsay, myth. But let's go with it. It's naturally possible, but the thing that emerged from the C2nd in Rome, either way, is too. Why that thing insisted on the fundamentalistically heterodox filioque half a thousand years later is a mystery.
Mary is referred to in Latin as 'Genetrix Dei' which is 'Theotokos.'
Assuming that the stories of the childhood of Jesus are true then Mary did provide all the usual services of a mother, including the carrying of the child in the womb and the giving birth to the child. She can therefore be legitimately entitled as Mother of God (if we believe that her son was indeed God the Son).
Mary is referred to in Latin as 'Genetrix Dei' which is 'Theotokos.'
Assuming that the stories of the childhood of Jesus are true then Mary did provide all the usual services of a mother, including the carrying of the child in the womb and the giving birth to the child. She can therefore be legitimately entitled as Mother of God (if we believe that her son was indeed God the Son).
Or otherwise divine. God being a substance. Although colloquially a 'person': If Jesus were divine in nature and will, but not as a brain generated consciousness suffused with those divine essences, that would do, surely? Mother of God does not require that he be God the Son, which is a superfluous, impossible, meaningless but orthodox (i.e. textual, fundamentalist) construct.
The Athanasian Creed is in the 1662 Church of England Prayer Book - "At Morning Prayer".
The wording there, that I quoted, implies the filioque. Hence my question about its use in churches that reject the filioque.
"Whatever"? Well it is a text that, whoever wrote it, would be better called a Threat than a Creed.
Indeed. It's quite a scary Creed.
Was Athanasius the author of it? Or would that be to go off on a tangent?
@Martin54 I admire your chutzpah. Of course it is 'impossible' but if there is a God and 'nothing is impossible with God' then surely anything is possible?
If one is an atheist of course than all of this is a load of baloney and hot air.
All these titles and names demand a certain level of faith and trust. Without that terms like Mother of God, Ecumenical Council and even filioque have no real meaning.
I have never really heard the term 'Godbearer; used in English in RC circles. Do the Orthodox use this in English or must they use the Greek term.
On the other hand' Gottesgebaererin' (female bearer of God) is used commonly in RC circles in Germany along with Mutter Gottes.
Mary was not just the bearer of God but also the mother and nurturer and present at significant moments in the life of her son.
Mother of God does not require that he be God the Son, which is a superfluous, impossible, meaningless but orthodox (i.e. textual, fundamentalist) construct.
We know what you think about the Second Person of the Trinity. You really don’t need to remind us in every thread.
There's no 'must' about it. Most Orthodox, as @mousethief observed upthread use the Greek term 'theotokos' irrespective of whether they speak Slavonic languages or English.
In popular parlance and in conversation you will hear the term 'Mother of God' used quite frequently, at least in the circles I move in.
Nobody is saying that we have to exclusively use the term 'Theotokos.' Nobody is going to pick you up if you say 'The Virgin Mary' or use any other term.
The term 'Theotokos' - which translates literally into English as 'God-bearer' - is left untranslated from the Greek in English translations of the Liturgy.
What it does is convey the idea that the Eternal Word, God the Son, was pre-existent from eternity and didn't just suddenly materialise or 'begin' in Mary's womb. Christ derived his humanity from Mary.
By using the term 'Theotokos' we aren't saying that Mary was simply a 'pipeline' or channel. We aren't saying that she didn't nurture our Saviour or didn't play a part in significant moments in the life of her son.
The language choice which was resolved by the Council of Ephesus (431 AD) was between Theotokos (God bearer) and Christotokos (Christ bearer), the latter term favoured by the Nestorians who wished to emphasise the humanity of Christ. The later Council of Chalcedon clarified the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ (fully God and fully human) and effectively confirmed the Ephesus decision. Neither Council was I think concerned to clarify Mary's role as mother beyond carrying in her womb and giving birth. The argument was primarily about Christ's nature; Ephesus anathematised all who denied His Divinity.
Not content with the 'Donation of Constantine' the Vatican foists pseudonyomous Creeds upon an unsuspecting world such that even the compilers of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is taken in ...
Rome has 'form' here.
In fairness, the rest of us aren't squeaky clean either.
But the main 'objection' to the Athanasian Creed isn't that it isn't actually by Athanasius but that it isn't conciliar.
Neither is the filioque clause.
I keep saying that but the RCs here don't seem to be taking any notice, thereby confirming stereotypes about the Papacy, that it thinks it can ride roughshod over Councils and make things up as it goes along to suit its own overweening sense of its own power and importance.
One way to demonstrate that things have changed and it no longer thinks that way would be to drop the clause.
But I've been saying that for pages and pages now. Just as the Orthodox have been saying for centuries to little avail. Although it is gratifying to notice that Popes do waive it on occasion and so do the Anglicans at times and other Protestant groups.
Mind you, its ommission at Welby's enthroning ceremony didn't ensure that his Archepiscopate didn't end badly.
Perhaps it wouldn't have done if they'd included it? 😉
Comments
That doesn't necessarily imply he wasn't in Rome at some point. Nor does the fact that he isn't mentioned in Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
Whilst there are no NT references to the Apostle Peter being in Rome - other than, perhaps the cryptic allusion to 'Babylon' - that doesn't preclude the possibility of him going there and being martyred there.
Romans is an early Epistle, if I understand the chronology correctly. He could have moved to Rome after it was written. As I've said upthread, the Apostles appear to have found themselves ministering to existing groups of Christians as well as starting churches in virgin territory.
Most early Christians came from the synagogues so wherever there were Jews throughout the Roman Empire one might expect some of them to show an interest in the 'Jesus Movement' as it spread from Palestine.
So no, I don’t believe St Peter 'founded' the church in Rome but that doesn't mean he didn't play a significant role in its oversight or development at a later stage.
I don't accept the authority of the Papacy either - particularly as it developed over the centuries. That doesn't mean I don't accept the antiquity or 'apostolicity' of the Church of Rome nor, unlike @Ex-Organist, deny them the right to include St Peter in their roll-call as it were.
The Eastern Patriarchs seemed happy enough to accept that at the Council of Chalcedon. 'Peter has spoken through Leo!'
All I'm saying is that the Petrine link was claimed early on, by St Clement of Rome around 94CE and by St Iranaeus of Lyons in the 2nd century. It seems to have been widely accepted across Christendom as a whole.
They may have been wrong. But I don't see how it is beyond the realms of possibility for St Peter to have some kind of input to the church in Rome beyond his martyrdom- if indeed that took place as you seem to suggest it didn't.
That's quite a different matter to building a kind of medieval Papal edifice and the Vatican, Curia and Magisterium as it later developed.
St Peter's place of honour in Rome is given by his martyrdom there.
I'm not saying they were right or wrong about that. I'm simply acknowledging it as an early tradition.
My question is this. If we Orthodox reject that early tradition are we doing so through 'lack of evidence" or for political reasons? As if by accepting that St Peter was Bishop of Rome are then sanction the Papacy as it later developed?
And are we being inconsistent also? Heck, we accept various extra-biblical traditions. On what grounds do we reject this one? Selectivity?
I'm not carrying a candle for the idea that St Peter was the first Pope or anything of the kind. I'm simply questioning why you might be challenging it on the grounds of insufficient evidence when as an Orthodox Christian you would accept other ancient traditions that might appear just as flimsy.
I'm thinking aloud. Thinking allowed.
It's not as if I'd do what @Martin54 has done with the pericope adulterae - if that's the right term - and reject the entire Christian faith on the grounds that it was a late addition to the NT and therefore undermines the whole thing.
It doesn't alter my view of the Papacy as it later developed if St Peter was or wasn't Bishop of Rome in the sense that this has traditionally been claimed by the RCC.
My respect and high regard for individual RCs doesn't depend on it.
Nor do my ecumenical hopes for greater cooperation and rapprochement between the Orthodox and the RCC and all Christian churches of whatever stripe.
-So, it's objectively, consensually, disinterestedly pseudonymous.
GG: That doesn't necessarily imply he wasn't in Rome at some point. Nor does the fact that he isn't mentioned in Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
-There is no contemporaneous, first hand evidence whatsoever that Peter was ever in Rome. But it could have happened. Uh huh.
GG: Whilst there are no NT references to the Apostle Peter being in Rome - other than, perhaps the cryptic allusion to 'Babylon' - that doesn't preclude the possibility of him going there and being martyred there.
-The cryptic allusion is anachronistically in the pseudonymous epistle. But he could have gone and died there. Uh huh.
GG: Romans is an early Epistle, if I understand the chronology correctly. He could have moved to Rome after it was written. As I've said upthread, the Apostles appear to have found themselves ministering to existing groups of Christians as well as starting churches in virgin territory.
-All of this says far more about you and how you believe than it does about history.
-Paul was in Rome from 60-64 AD at least, according to Acts and history; up to 68, ministering to Jewish Christians there since 31, over 30 years before, in Acts 1. Romans was written prior to that in 55-57. Why did the Holy Spirit send Peter to Rome to die with Paul and it's recorded nowhere contemporaneously? As for what you've said upthread, and?
GG: Most early Christians came from the synagogues so wherever there were Jews throughout the Roman Empire one might expect some of them to show an interest in the 'Jesus Movement' as it spread from Palestine.
-And?
GG: So no, I don’t believe St Peter 'founded' the church in Rome but that doesn't mean he didn't play a significant role in its oversight or development at a later stage.
-Why speculate about Paul of Antioch's occult, utterly unnecessary mission in Rome?
GG: I don't accept the authority of the Papacy either - particularly as it developed over the centuries. That doesn't mean I don't accept the antiquity or 'apostolicity' of the Church of Rome nor, unlike @Ex-Organist, deny them the right to include St Peter in their roll-call as it were.
-The apostolicity of Rome is obviously Paul's. But that wasn't good enough for them. Not that apostolicity is historically meaningful outside the West.
The Eastern Patriarchs seemed happy enough to accept that at the Council of Chalcedon. 'Peter has spoken through Leo!'
-Uh huh. 400 years later.
GG: All I'm saying is that the Petrine link was claimed early on, by St Clement of Rome around 94CE and by St Iranaeus of Lyons in the 2nd century. It seems to have been widely accepted across Christendom as a whole.
-St. Clement was alive 30 years after Paul and may well have known him. But Peter?
1Clem 5:3
Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles.
Peter
1 Clem 5:4
There was Peter who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one
not one but many labors, and thus having borne his testimony went to
his appointed place of glory.
Paul
1 Clem 5:5
By reason of jealousy and strife Paul by his example pointed out the
prize of patient endurance. After that he had been seven times in
bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached in
the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the
reward of his faith,
1 Clem 5:6
having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached
the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony
before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the
holy place, having been found a notable pattern of patient endurance.
-No personal claims whatsoever are made.
GG: They may have been wrong. But I don't see how it is beyond the realms of possibility for St Peter to have some kind of input to the church in Rome beyond his martyrdom- if indeed that took place as you seem to suggest it didn't.
-I don't suggest it didn't. Reality does. Why do you suggest it did? On what historical basis?
GG: That's quite a different matter to building a kind of medieval Papal edifice and the Vatican, Curia and Magisterium as it later developed.
-Not if Peter was in Rome. They'd be fully justified.
Why do you ask?
Not according to Orthodox tradition he weren't. He was an older stepbrother through Joseph, whose first wife left him child(ren) and died.
See, I knew there would be differences. You cite tradition. The Rome accepts that too. But the Bible only identifies him as a brother. Mark also talks about Jesus' brothers. I don't think the two writers were all that concerned about the differentiation.
For me this is where the whole apostolic succession falls flat on its face. In RC terms it depends on both handing on the baton and what is actually intended to be handed on. Intention is crucial. There is no way that Paul for example would have intended to confer all that is conferred in later ordinations.
No, as with Peter in Rome, there's a self serving agenda, this time both agree as there are no placist implications. Power rests on, preferably arcane, knowledge. Here was something that worked in early-ish (C2nd) folk Christianity, so institutionalize it (431).
Firstly the filioque has to go. I've read theological arguments on both sides, but I personally come down against the double procession. In John 14.16, Jesus says, "And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate." He the Father will give it. But theology aside, the clause is a late addition to the Creed, imposed by Rome and leading to the Great Schism. The East could never be required to accept it. The West, however, can live without it, as many posts on this thread have shown. I remember the installation of Justin Welby as AOC in 2013. The Nicene Creed was said sans filioque so it can't be a necessity.
I also personally believe that the filioque distorts the Trinity. The Father, who eternally begets the Son, and from whom the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds, is the origin or "senior partner" in the Trinity. Augustine's formula of the Holy Spirit as the love which binds the Father and Son, inverts the whole think IMO. So we would all be far better without it.
However, I think Orthodox Christianity should make a big compromise in return, and adopt the Gregorian Calendar. The monks of Mt Athos would froth at the mouth at such a suggestion. They would correctly point out that the Julian Calendar predates the Gregorian, but this is a matter of expediency. It's daft having different dates for Christmas and Easter, and the overwhelming concensus in the world is the Western dating.
As I said before, it would require a lot more than those two gestures to heal the rift, but they would at least show some commitment to obeying Christ's command that they should all be One.
I don’t think his writings are zero evidence and they predate the ecumenical councils by about two centuries.
Of course I accept that there was considerable diversity of understanding in Christendom before the ecumenical councils sought to establish an authoritative framework. But I think the writings of Irenaeus are pretty powerful evidence of the pre-existence of beliefs which later became seen as orthodox and authoritative.
Of course one can argue that the entire process doesn’t really prove anything other than merely human creation of the tenets of Christian faith. Lots of historians have done that. But the writings of Irenaeus are pretty powerful evidence of pre-existing traditional beliefs. Including those about Peter.
I think you overstate your case. There is evidence of both babies and bathwater.
Nicely put rhetoric @Barnabas62. Beliefs is the magic word. A hundred years then are like a thousand now. Nobody knew anybody who knew. Odd that. Even over a just one hundred years. It's as if it were a thousand... It's all Telephone Game.
Rome has a vested interest in Peter turning up. So he did. One hundred years after he died in Antioch. As any historical or police investigation or government enquiry would conclude, (with every caveat in brackets).
I should say that the Nicene Creed (with or without) always seems more attractive to me when I compare the objections to it with the devotion to it by the only saint I ever encountered.
But a question: the Athanasian "Creed" (not an "I believe", but a "believe this or else"), contains:
"The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten; but proceeding."
(Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio: non factus, nec creatus, nec genitus, sed procedens.)
which looks implicitly filioque to me. How does this relate to the dispute, if at all?
Wiki
Your Chinese whispers assertion? Now that is definitely rhetorical. As is your playing around with time. “Against Heresies” is impressive writing, by any standards, and is of major importance in seeking to understand early Church history.
On the main purpose of the thread, I don’t see why the Filioque addition confuses or clarifies our understanding of the Trinity. We are confused in any case. The early church Fathers admitted our human limitations in attempting to comprehend.
The majority of local Orthodox Churches (but not a majority of Orthodox faithful) currently use the Revised Julian Calendar for everything except the date of Easter *. This coincides with the Gregorian Calendar at present, but in the long term (from the year 2400) will drift apart, with the Revised Julian Calendar being astronomically more accurate than the Gregorian Calensar.
* (The Church of Finland is an outlier in using the Western date of Easter)
In the Orthodox Church his title is "Brother of God", by analogy with Mary being the "Mother of God".
@Barnabas62. I withdraw the rhetoric comment, for now, but retain my own. Irenaeus wrote his impressive attack on heresies at least 106 years after Peter was supposed to have been in Rome. He discussed the founding of the Church in Rome by Paul and Peter, emphasizing the importance of apostolic tradition and the succession of bishops from the apostles. He had a power agenda. The necessary myth of Peter in Rome was well established. For thou art Peter.
As for the fundamentalism of the Trinity, it does not work. But the filioque is heterodox.
It's not about the truth, it's about pride and prestige. In those circumstances any stick will do.
It's fair to argue that his writings were used in support of a power agenda. But unfair to him to see that as a motivation. So far as parroting traditions of myths from the first century is concerned, he really does not strike me as someone who would do that. His demolition of Gnostic mythologies (demiurges etc) suggest that he could distinguish clearly between myth and traditional understandings. Did he allow for the possibility that those traditions were themselves mythological? I suppose he might but I think he was too deeply impressed by the faith of martyrs (compared with the utilitarianism of Gnostics) to consider that they had died to support a myth.
On Trinitarian beliefs I don't blame anyone for seeing them as speculative assertions based on sincere reflection. And I think the Arians got a raw deal.
The problem with any of this, as @Alan29 and others have pointed out - and I like what @pablito1954 says too - is that any sticking point can be become a stick to beat others with. See what I did there? Prod, prod. Beat, beat. Stickety-stick.
I'd love to see rapprochement and reconciliation on all sides, but not at the expense of the Orthodox being required to accept an addition to the Creed that was never there in the first place and which can lead to even more confusion and misunderstanding.
That doesn't mean I don't believe the Orthodox shouldn't give ground on some things. We could benefit from being less arsey towards other Christians for a start.
The thing is, we can't have any concept of Big O Orthodox or small o orthodox Christianity without a corollary of seeing some things as heretical - such as Unitarianism - or heterodox.
The trick, if we are to maintain concepts of orthodoxy, is to hold to what we believe to be orthodox whilst exercising charity towards those who take a different view.
In the overall scheme of things, of course, we have more in common than those things on which we differ. So, for instance, @Barnabas62 is on a similar page to myself in his understanding of Iranaeus irrespective of what differences we might have on other issues.
@Martin54 over-reacted, in my view, to my thought-experiment/speculative posts upthread but I won't rehearse or reframe my points for fear of going round in circles and getting into territory likely to derail the thread. This isn't another 'Does God exist?' thread.
They'd see 'denomination' as purely a Protestant concept.
We don't use it. @mousethief made that clear upthread. That doesn't mean we disapprove of it necessarily, it's just that it isn't conciliar. It's never been ratified by an Ecumenical Council.
It's a bit like asking why the Orthodox don't sing Charles Wesley's hymns, for instance. It's not that we don't 'like' them or find them objectionable theologically necessarily. It's just that they aren't part of our tradition (or Tradition Big T).
There's nothing to stop me singing them around the house or in the car. I'd sing them if I visited a church where they were sung.
Some Orthodox wouldn't but I would.
At any rate, not all non-Orthodox churches use the Athanasian Creed. I can't remember ever hearing it in Anglican settings although I was aware of it. I suspect many Anglicans, RCs and others aren't aware of it though.
The filioque clause isn't conciliar. Do we don't use it.
Simples.
That's what some of us have been trying to say. Others will accuse us of intransigence.
Why should we say it? The clause was never there in the first place. It's been introduced and slipped in without conciliar authority.
That's what this whole argument is about, as civil and constructive as it has largely been.
Can't speak to the RCC part, but in my experience of Orthodoxy, "Theotokos" is left untranslated, even in slavic and slavic-origin churches.
Yes, 'Theotokos' - God-bearer is more technically correct but in popular parlance 'Mother of God' can often be heard.
I don't have an issue with it provided it's understood in a Theotokos way and doesn't imply that Mary is the source as it were of the Eternal Word, as if the Son proceeds from Mary rather than the Father.
I've never come across anyone who thinks that. There are certainly excesses I think in some Marian approaches, and we Orthodox tend to see that as a feature on the RCC side, I'm afraid rather than looking at ourselves.
But as has been said on Marian threads, Mariology is always inextricably linked to Christology.
The Arians have been mentioned on this thread. Raw deal or not, I've long been intrigued by a somewhat outrageous - and stretching it somewhat? - comment by a Church in Wales Anglo-Catholic priest, that if you are not a 'good Marian' you are in danger of becoming a 'good Arian.' 😉
There's the line in the liturgical hymn to the Theotokos which goes, 'all blessed and all blameless and the Mother of our God' before concluding, 'and art truly Theotokos we magnify thee.'
There are renderings in more contemporary language but we seem fond of a kind of cod-Elizabethan/Jacobean in English translations.
Don't get me started on liturgical Greek and Church Slavonic ...
The wording there, that I quoted, implies the filioque. Hence my question about its use in churches that reject the filioque.
"Whatever"? Well it is a text that, whoever wrote it, would be better called a Threat than a Creed.
Assuming that the stories of the childhood of Jesus are true then Mary did provide all the usual services of a mother, including the carrying of the child in the womb and the giving birth to the child. She can therefore be legitimately entitled as Mother of God (if we believe that her son was indeed God the Son).
Or otherwise divine. God being a substance. Although colloquially a 'person': If Jesus were divine in nature and will, but not as a brain generated consciousness suffused with those divine essences, that would do, surely? Mother of God does not require that he be God the Son, which is a superfluous, impossible, meaningless but orthodox (i.e. textual, fundamentalist) construct.
Indeed. It's quite a scary Creed.
Was Athanasius the author of it? Or would that be to go off on a tangent?
@Martin54 I admire your chutzpah. Of course it is 'impossible' but if there is a God and 'nothing is impossible with God' then surely anything is possible?
If one is an atheist of course than all of this is a load of baloney and hot air.
Perhaps it's just as well it isn't conciliar, fond as I am of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
I have never really heard the term 'Godbearer; used in English in RC circles. Do the Orthodox use this in English or must they use the Greek term.
On the other hand' Gottesgebaererin' (female bearer of God) is used commonly in RC circles in Germany along with Mutter Gottes.
Mary was not just the bearer of God but also the mother and nurturer and present at significant moments in the life of her son.
In popular parlance and in conversation you will hear the term 'Mother of God' used quite frequently, at least in the circles I move in.
Nobody is saying that we have to exclusively use the term 'Theotokos.' Nobody is going to pick you up if you say 'The Virgin Mary' or use any other term.
The term 'Theotokos' - which translates literally into English as 'God-bearer' - is left untranslated from the Greek in English translations of the Liturgy.
What it does is convey the idea that the Eternal Word, God the Son, was pre-existent from eternity and didn't just suddenly materialise or 'begin' in Mary's womb. Christ derived his humanity from Mary.
By using the term 'Theotokos' we aren't saying that Mary was simply a 'pipeline' or channel. We aren't saying that she didn't nurture our Saviour or didn't play a part in significant moments in the life of her son.
Whatever gave you that idea?
Checks Wikipedia. It dates from the fifth century, about a hundred years later than Athanasius, probably somewhere in what is now southern France
Rome has 'form' here.
In fairness, the rest of us aren't squeaky clean either.
But the main 'objection' to the Athanasian Creed isn't that it isn't actually by Athanasius but that it isn't conciliar.
Neither is the filioque clause.
I keep saying that but the RCs here don't seem to be taking any notice, thereby confirming stereotypes about the Papacy, that it thinks it can ride roughshod over Councils and make things up as it goes along to suit its own overweening sense of its own power and importance.
One way to demonstrate that things have changed and it no longer thinks that way would be to drop the clause.
But I've been saying that for pages and pages now. Just as the Orthodox have been saying for centuries to little avail. Although it is gratifying to notice that Popes do waive it on occasion and so do the Anglicans at times and other Protestant groups.
Mind you, its ommission at Welby's enthroning ceremony didn't ensure that his Archepiscopate didn't end badly.
Perhaps it wouldn't have done if they'd included it? 😉
Ok, apologies for being facetious.