History of the challenge to apostolic authority (esp Peter)

[rgprice]

Looking for good sources on the history of challenges to apostolic authority, especially to the claim that Peter was "the first Pope". I'm not looking so much for the current state of scholarship, but rather a history of when these challenges began and how they developed over the years.

[StephenGoranson]

Not sure you can easily separate history and "the current state of scholarship."
But, maybe,
The invention of Peter: apostolic discourse and papal authority in late antiquity
George E. Demacopoulos.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, c2013.
And book reviews of it.

[rgprice]

Thanks, looking at that now.

I'd like to know when arguments against the claim that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, or that Peter conveyed authority to a successor, were first made. What did those first arguments look like? How has this question been addressed over the years and what have the implications been? Are there any published Catholic theologians who have questioned the foundation of the Roman Church by Peter? Have the apostolic foundations of specific churches, other than Rome, been challenged?

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

.
Erich Dinkler, Die Petrus-Rom-Frage: Ein Forschungsbericht, Theologische Rundschau, NEUE FOLGE, Vol. 25, No. 3 (1959), pp. 189-230 (42 pages)

google-translation

The Peter tradition that developed and consolidated between the author of the first letter to Clement and Leo I actually only became a 'Peter question' when it was questioned by the Waldensians and by Marsilius of Padua in his Defensor Pacis. On the one hand, it was intended solely to serve historical truth, but on the other hand, it could not avoid including consequences for the doctrine of the primacy of Peter and his successors on the Roman see. After Protestant criticism tried to answer the Peter question with a clear no to Peter's stay in Rome in the anonymous text 'Tractatus quod Petrus apostolus nunquam Romae fuerit', which appeared after the Leipzig Disputation of 1520, the Catholic Church has the dogmatic fixation of the tradition in Session 4 of the Vatican Council decided in the so-called Constitutio dogmatica de ecclesia Christi, and here tried to eliminate the 'question' as such by saying yes to tradition.

DinklerPetri.jpg (205.81 KiB) Viewed 415 times

[rgprice]

That has led me to : https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/han ... sAllowed=y

In 1550 the Protestant theologian and later editor of the Magdeburg Centuries, Matthias Flacius Illyricus, published a discourse against the Dominican Preacher in Augsburg, Johannes Fabri, that contested Fabri’s support of papal primacy. Flacius presented a first edition of a Confutatio primatus papae that had supposedly been published at the time of the Council of Basel in 1443. Since the fifteenth century, this Confutatio had been regarded as the most famous discourse against the papacy. In his Scriptum contra primatum papae, Flacius argues on the basis of biblical, theological, and historical sources that the papacy was not instituted by Christ, and that the pope cannot claim any supremacy over other bishops. He also aims at proving that the Apostle Peter did not have any primacy, and even if he did that this did not imply that the popes should also have it.4 Flacius’ arguments presented a historiographical challenge to a premise that the Roman Curia had upheld since Late Antiquity, and which had defined the hierarchy of ecclesiastical government, placing the pope at the head of the whole administration of the Church. Flacius essentially revived a similar debate to the one Johannes Eck had fought out with Martin Luther two years after the famous Leipzig Disputation in 1521, when Eck had published his De primatu Petri adversus de Ludderum libri tres. Eck’s treatise was uncommonly concerned with historical evidence, especially that provided by the formal acts and decrees of the Church councils and by the writings of the Church Fathers, eventually paving the way for future Protestant theologians, such as Matthias Flacius Illyricus, to take issue with Rome’s supremacy and to challenge it historiographically. These efforts by the Protestants to expose the fault lines of papal and curial claims concerning St. Peter’s arrival and sojourn in Rome, which were supposed to confirm papal primacy as well as its ecclesiastical supremacy in general, would ultimately make it possible for Flacius Illyricus’ most important enterprise, that of editing the thirteen-volume Ecclesiastica Historia of the Magdeburg Centuriators, to become the official version of Protestant Church Historiography.

Which is quite helpful. It would be nice to be able to read some of these tracts, but...

[MrMacSon]

The Catholics claimed Peter as the first Pope.
Protestants have tried to undermine and dispel that claim.
While it seems Matthias Flacius Illyricus aimed "at proving that the Apostle Peter did not have any primacy" -

That has led me to : https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/han ... sAllowed=y

In 1550 the Protestant theologian and later editor of the Magdeburg Centuries, Matthias Flacius Illyricus...presented a first edition of a Confutatio primatus papae ... Flacius argues on the basis of biblical, theological, and historical sources that the papacy was not instituted by Christ, and that the pope cannot claim any supremacy over other bishops. He also aims at proving that the Apostle Peter did not have any primacy, and, even if he did, that this did not imply that the popes should also have it. Flacius’ arguments presented a historiographical challenge to a premise that the Roman Curia had upheld since Late Antiquity ... Flacius essentially revived a similar debate to the one Johannes Eck had fought out with Martin Luther...when Eck had published his De primatu Petri adversus de Ludderum libri tres. Eck’s treatise was uncommonly concerned with historical evidence, especially that provided by the formal acts and decrees of the Church councils and by the writings of the Church Fathers ...

- one would probably have to engage with his and similar arguments and the information/'data' they're based on: likely 'the formal acts and decrees of the Church councils and by the writings of the Church Fathers' that Johannes Eck would have been referring to [and what 'the Roman Curia' had upheld and why] ...

Furthermore, such Protestant v Catholic discourse ignores both what Orthodox churches what views they might have about the early development of Christianity including what they might have to say about such proposed "apostolic authority."

---

eta

4. ... See Hartmann, Humanismus und Kirchenkritik, 118–120; Meier, “Zur Frage,” 559–562; Stadtwald, Roman Popes, 48–51; Weigel,
Ordensreform, 121–147. For a general assessment of the debate over papal primacy in the early Quattrocento see Stieber, Pope Eugenius IV, 109–110; Jedin, Geschichte, 1: 18–19.
5. ... On the debate between Eck and Luther see most recently Bagchi, “The historical argument,” 87–88; Schreiner, Are You Alone Wise?, 156–165. Concerning the importance of historicity in Protestant theology in respect to the genesis of the Magdeburg Centuries see also Lyon, “Badouin, Flacius,” 253–272; Bollbuck, Wahrheitszeugnis, 66–79, 279–337; Bollbuck, “Searching,” 101–103.
[p.4, https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/han ... sAllowed=y]

[MrMacSon]

On February 24, 1550, Pope Julius III appointed the Cardinal Protector of the Augustinians, Marcello Cervini, as Cardinal Librarian of the Biblioteca Vaticana. But before his appointment as the Vatican Library’s first Cardinal Librarian, Cervini had started...papal printing presses in Rome ... These ventures certainly attracted a number of scholars and both of Cardinal Cervini’s printing companies gradually became a gravitational point of reference that would eventually establish a new atmosphere of curial erudition in Cinquecento Rome.

Among the works that were specifically composed with the intent to be printed and sold through Cervini’s printing presses was Onofrio Panvinio’s De primatu Petri,...a discourse relating to St. Peter’s primacy, and this work was, indeed, the first fruit of Panvinio’s efforts to have his works published in Rome by a papal press.

But the genesis of this discourse has a more remarkable background. Panvinio’s De primatu Petri represents the Augustinian’s turning point from profane chronology towards Church Historiography, for Panvinio was at that time working on the compilation of the Fasti, the ancient chronicle of the chief magistrates of the Roman Republic from the early fifth century BC to the Emperor Augustus ... Cervini suggested that Panvinio use the summer holidays to dedicate himself to his studies of chronology in order “to further pursue other ventures he had started.”8 Cervini seems to have recognized that such chronological studies concerning the history of Roman magistrates might provide a suitable foundation for clarifying crucial issues concerning the history of the papacy and the Roman Church. Panvinio’s De primatu Petri was therefore primarily meant to clarify the question of the precise date when the Apostle Peter had arrived in Rome.

... The issue which Panvinio aimed at clarifying for Cervini was the question of whether the Apostle Peter had been in Rome. Panvinio observed that this fundamental issue, which the Protestant theologians north of the Alps had already seemed to have resolved by denying St. Peter’s presence in Rome, was inextricably linked with the archaeological foundations of St. Peter’s Basilica. For Panvinio, the church of the First Apostle provided the necessary 'evidence' of St. Peter’s presence in Rome. The original theological debate surrounding the proof over the presence of Rome’s First Apostle was thus transformed into an archaeological question concerning the history of St. Peter’s Basilica. Proving the papacy’s claims of its Petrine primacy was instantly linked to the basilica’s importance within the larger landscape of Christian Antiquity ...

... In 1551, the German humanist Georg Fabricius (1516–1571) published his archeologically guide to Rome, in which he pointed out this crucial relationship [between the issue of Petrine primacy and the basilica of 'the Prince of the Apostles'] that had already been presumed in the preceding century by the Augustinian Maffeo Vegio (1407–1478): “If anyone wished to know more about the liturgical offerings of St. Peter’s Basilica and about its papal sepulchers, one should read Maffeo Vegio’s book.” The specific reference to Vegio establishes the first reference to the Augustinian’s most important work, his discourse entitled De rebus antiquis memorabilibus basilicae S. Petri Romae which he had composed for and dedicated to Pope Nicholas V around mid-century ...

the Augustinian friar...explored how St. Peter’s Basilica had been endowed not only by a biblical tradition that had been supported by the dictum, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church” (Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, Matthew 16:18), but also by a pontifical as well as imperial tradition which affirmed Rome’s apostolic heritage, and which had started to be fashioned by the Emperor Constantine the Great. Panvinio’s description of the basilica of one of Rome’s primary apostles sets out to present how the church edifice represented a visible manifestation of a union between St. Peter’s status in the biblical canon of the Holy Scriptures as the First Apostle and the existing archaeological evidence of the Vatican basilica.

[excerpts from pp.5-10, https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/han ... sAllowed=y]

[andrewcriddle]

There is an interesting discussion by a 17th century Protestant in William Cave's Lives of the Apostles He holds that Peter was martyred in Rome but was not the First Pope.

Andrew Criddle

[Leucius Charinus]

Looking for good sources on the history of challenges to apostolic authority, especially to the claim that Peter was "the first Pope". I'm not looking so much for the current state of scholarship, but rather a history of when these challenges began and how they developed over the years.

I think it is most important to understand that many of the good sources on the history of challenges to apostolic authority, especially to the claim that Peter was "the first Pope" involve the exposure of documents and manuscripts which were forged by the church in order to support the contention.

For example have a quick read through the first letter of Clemens which was believed to be genuine for about 8 centuries from the 9th century through until the 17th century when, in 1628 the Protestant Blondel published his decisive study, "Pseudo-Isidorus et Turrianus vapulantes".

Here is the letter and links to the Latin sources:
viewtopic.php?p=162920#p162920

This letter actually purports to represent a personal hand-over of the Roman apostolic succession from Peter to Clemens. So the history of challenges to apostolic authority, especially to the claim that Peter was "the first Pope" can be both positive and negative. Positive challenges in the sense that other information is presented by those who challenge the contention. Negative challenges in the sense that the information and manuscripts which the church has put forward in support of the contention are in reality abysmal forgeries of the church.

[Secret Alias]

Peter wasn't the first Pope because Papa came from Alexandria.