The “established” position of Peter being the chief bishop of Rome, the Pope, presiding as head over all of Christendom “stands” on an extremely weak and nebulous “foundation”. I examined the Catholic misinterpretation of Peter’s actual position and function as the rock in the last days of the Mosaic Age in my essay, “Peter the Pope – the myth”. Now consider this other murky, fluid, and man-made position of Roman Catholicism.
Catholicism presents an overwhelmingly self-confident and arrogant pedigree of its supposed God-appointed establishment. A true and proper examination of the facts presents the exact opposite.
After fundamentally misinterpreting the meaning of Jesus’ declaration to Peter, that he was the appointed rock to functionally gather the Jews of Israel and especially those of the Diaspora back to God in the last days of the Age of the Law of Moses, Roman Catholicism continued in its founding of massive error and division.
Roman Catholicism claims that God firmly established Peter as the first Pope and that all succeeding Bishops of Rome continue the line of the Papacy as they sit in Peter’s Chair. This only works if you ignore history and allow Catholicism to rewrite it. What happened historically?
Immediately after the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, prominent men rose to power and usurped spiritual reality with false doctrines of their own devisings. While some things were noble per se and were not in this category, for example, defining and defending the nature of Jesus Christ against Arianism, it is the detrimental issues that demand our attention now.
In the second century leading and highly influential men, Dionysius of Corinth and Irenaeus of Lyons, made the claim and, therefore, built the platform - without and against the Holy Spirit - that all Bishops of Rome were the honorable heads of the churches, deriving this prestige from Peter, the supposed head of the Roman church and, by extension, of all the churches. This honorable position was one of counselor and advisor to all of the churches. Immediately thereafter, this place of honor was quickly transformed by the Roman Bishops into that of authority to rule and make final decisions regarding all of the churches.
The petty and highly irrelevant squabbles among the various bishops of the various “sees” escalated into classic works of the flesh, at least regarding the Bishop of Rome. Of leading and paramount importance in the mind of Victor of Rome at the end of the second century was the question of when the churches should celebrate Easter. This was also the shift to authority and the focal point of the beginning of demanded submission. The Bishop of Rome was at odds with other bishops on the date and finally resorted to threatening to cut off or excommunicate the other bishops and their followers who did not submit to his decision. He made this claim based upon the fact that he was Peter’s spiritual descendant, and as such, stood in final authority over all of Christendom. At this point, the petty squabbles transformed into the sin of division, an iniquitous position that remains until this day and a work of the flesh which by itself cuts off from the Kingdom of God all those who practice it. Smoothing it over, as is done today, with polite theological softness does not remove the core iniquity of division. Ironically, in this act alone the Bishop of Rome cut himself off from the grace of God by determining that those who did not obey him were to be cut off from Christ’s redemption. This is the beginning of the continued “firm foundation – the rock of the established building!”
Although the initial history of Catholicism as rendered by its champions is rather linear and smooth, the reality is that it was anything but the case. For the first few centuries their man-made councils, the so-called ecumenical councils, did not grant this authoritative right and position to the Roman bishops. There was significant back and forth – disagreement, agreement, but mainly disagreement – among the Bishops of Rome, the Eastern Catholic Bishops (referring here to geography – not theology, which prefers the name Orthodox), and the Councils concerning the headship and final authority of the Roman Bishop over all of the churches. Even in the fifth century with the appearance of Leo the 1st (the Great), who was a very authoritative, academic, and successful Bishop of Rome, the Council that he was best known to influence, Chalcedon, did not yield the prized headship to him! In fact, it is not until one-thousand years after the coming of the Kingdom of God that the Roman Bishop became successful as the Pope of Rome, demanding universal submission from all of the churches. He forthwith excommunicated all of the Catholics of the eastern persuasion who would not submit to him and to his rule and teachings. Leo the 1st had stated that he held such a position and right over one-half a millennium earlier, but he was actually powerless to bring it to pass. It was Leo the 9th who in 1054 formalized the division and effectively and finally became the universal Pope. However, he was only successful regarding Roman Catholics because eastern Catholics rejected his position and ruling.
Such is an abbreviated yet real history of the Roman Catholic Bishop as universal Pope over all of the churches. The starting and standing place is extremely weak. It is also a classic case of begging the question – assuming as true what one is trying to prove. It is nothing but circular reasoning. (In spiritual matters begging the question is highly destructive and long lasting because, in the nature of the case, spiritual issues are open to everyone’s evaluation and interpretation. Spiritual matters are only truly understood by spiritual people. The Bishops of Rome and their supporters were not spiritual people. They, and their supporters were dominated by fleshly understanding and interpretation.)
There were various additional divisions and authoritative pronouncements of the would-be popes after this aforementioned start. All I have endeavored to do here is to encapsulate the real history, beginning and evolution of the Roman Catholic Pope as universal and authoritative head over all of Christianity.
Taken together, the false claims that Peter was the first Pope of many subsequent Popes and that this “office” had a God-appointed and endorsed platform shows that to follow such a line is to walk off the cliff into flesh and error. All of this is the result of man-made delusion; a complete rewriting of spiritual history and reality. Roman Catholic devotees have traded the truth for the lie and God's reality for man-made fantasy.