The Early Roman Church's Polyepiscopate unto the Third Century

    The central truth-claim of the Roman Catholic Church is that it is a continuation of the primitive Church of the New Testament on account of its geographical right to authority as exclusively possessing the keys of the Apostle Peter passed down from one bishop to the next in an unbroken line of succession to the Pope today. Among various issues with this claim is that the consensus of patristic scholars generally agrees that early Rome, like many other Christian communities, originally had a polyepiscopate with no centralized authority:

    “The first witness to monepiscopacy (only one bishop at the head of each local church) is found in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. . . . Ignatius’s reference to himself as ‘bishop of Syria’ (Rom. 2.2) probably means ‘from Syria,’ or it may be an indication that Antioch was the only church in Syria that had evolved a single bishop in his time. That monepiscopacy was a recent development is indicated by the tradition that he had only one predecessor at Antioch (Eusebius, H.E. 3.22). Furthermore, Ignatius may provide negative support for the evidence of Clement and Hermas (Vis. 2.4f.; 3.5.1) that monepiscopacy came somewhat later to Rome, for his letter to Rome makes no mention of church order, which is such a preoccupation of his other letters.”1     Nor should this scholar's status as a member of the Church of Christ be thought to have colored his perception of the matter; even modern Roman Catholic patristic scholars are inclined to agree on these points, and this despite the counterpoint of Roman Catholic apologists who appeal to the earliest bishop lists as indicative of a monepiscopate in early Rome:

    “At the time of the composition of the text titled Prima Clementis (i.e., the First Epistle of Clement—ca. 96), the communities of Rome and Corinth were directed by a college of presbyters, who were likewise called ‘bishops’ . . . .     “Birth of the monarchical episcopate. In the 2nd c[entury], the collegial form of government was disappearing; this phenomenon did not appear suddenly or simultaneously in every place. The type of organization that prevailed in the 2nd half of the 2nd c[entury] consisted of a community governed by one sole bishop, who was assisted by presbyters and helped by deacons. One of the first testimonies to the monarchial episcopate and the hierarchical gradation between bishops, presbyters and deacons are the letters of Ignatius of Antioch . . . The chronological list of bishops of Rome presented by Irenaeus of Lyons (Adv. haer. 3,3,3) around the year 185 is significant. Irenaeus traces the list of Roman bishops back to Linus, who was ordained as a bishop by the apostles Peter and Paul; the names that Irenaeus lists from Linus to Anicetus must correspond to noteworthy individuals of the presbyterial college that governed the Roman church in those years. The objective of this list was to demonstrate the authentic origin and the faithful transmission of the apostolic preaching in the church . . . .     “Strengthening of the monarchical episcopate. This institution reached its full formalization in the 3rd c[entury], as one learns from the Traditio Apostolica (Apostolic Tradition—ca. 215)”2

    This last point regarding the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus warrants deeper investigation. While many patristic scholars have previously hypothesized that Rome made the shift to a monepiscopate in the mid to late 2nd century, the theory alluded to here is that this didn't actually transpire until the early 3rd century. One of today's leading Hippolytean scholars elucidates on the current dialogue with his peers thusly:

    “The reconstruction of the growth of a monepiscopate at Rome has recently been undertaken by [Allen] Brent and [G. W. H.] Lampe; both chart a path within Roman Christianity which originates with a series of diverse Christian communities and ends with the unification of the Roman church under a single bishop, although they differ with regard to the date to be assigned to the final establishment of a monepiscopate. The reconstruction of Brent is of particular interest, as he correlates his reconstruction to the ordination rites to be found in Apostolic Tradition, which is for him a ‘crown witness’ in reconstructing the social setting and the history of the Hippolytean community. . . .     “That the origin of Christianity at Rome lay in a series of entirely independent communities is clear from the various greetings to different households to be found in Paul’s letter to the Roman churches. A similar picture of diversity is to be found in the frequent references which both Hermas and Clement make to the leaders of the church, and the constant appeals which Hermas makes that there should be unity among these leaders. The use of the plural, and the diversity of terms employed by both writers to refer to the leaders of the churches, indicate not only a variety of churches but a variety of understandings of the nature of office. Continued diversity is shown in the references made by Justin [Martyr] to the variety of different Christian communities to be found throughout the city, and in the diverse approaches to the keeping of Pascha at the time of Victor (on which see below). Roman Christianity thus consisted of a number of self-governed churches. Because the churches were self-governing individual communities, there was no single bishop with responsibility for a number of churches, but each church would have its own leader, probably known as an episkopos, a word generally translated as ‘bishop.’ . . .     “Brent suggests, the monepoiscopate at Rome cannot be said to be established until the time of Pontianus who, according to the Liberian catalogue, was martyred alongside Hippolytus, a presbyter, in 235. Brent points out that Pontianus is the first bishop in the Liberian catalogue whose dates are accurately given rather than simply being dated by consular years, which for him is decisive evidence in the settlement of a monepiscopate at Rome, and the common exile and martyrdom of these two figures, as well as the record of Hippolytus as a presbyter alongside the bishop Pontianus, is to be taken as evidence of reconciliation between the Hippolytean community and the wider Roman church under a single bishop. . . .     “If Brent's reconstruction is correct, then the dispute between the author of the Refutation and Callistus is to be understood as a dispute between two principal leaders, both bishops, in Roman congregations, and in no way a formal schism, which is the way in which it has been understood in the past. This has obvious consequence for any historian attempting to trace a life of Hippolytus or the life of the Hippolytean community. Thus Apostolic Tradition was dated by Dix with reference to this schism; indeed much of Dix's introduction is concerned to trace the schism between Hippolytus and the Roman church, to which we must reply that not only is the dating dependent on a schism which did not occur, but that such a schism could not have taken place because there was no single Roman bishop at this time from which 'Hippolytus' might secede. As [D. L.] Powell points out, there is nothing in the Refutation which points to a formal schism and, during the Novatian schism, which occurred in the third century, there is no reference to any precedent.     “What we can say positively is that the Hippolytean community at the time of Callistus was particularly opposed to the growth of monepiscopacy, and that this opposition is given voice in the Refutation. . . . According to this reconstruction, however, the author of the Refutation cannot be the same Hippolytus who was exiled alongside Pontianus. The former considered himself a bishop among others, the latter was a presbyter in communion with a single bishop in the city.”3

Footnotes

1: Everett Ferguson, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed., pp. 182-183

2: Albert Viciano, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 1:361-362

3: Alistair Stewart, Popular Patristics 54:16-20