A Brief Consideration of

The Distinction Between A Bishop and an Apostle in Christianity

A Response to A Challenge From An Anonymous Roman Catholic By Ronnie Bray

Anonymous Challenged Christians: Paul talked of this constantly about the teaching and Traditions to be passed on by the Apostles. Let me pose a question to all that think that the Catholic Church does not have the full teaching of the Apostles and early Church Fathers. The CC has the writings and teaching of the Apostles and Church Fathers, and have [sic] followed them to this day. Present me with any manuscript you have in YOUR, YOUR Pastors, or YOUR Churchs possession, that is from any of the Church Fathers. From Peter to say 500 AD would be good enough. Anonymous

Ronnie Bray Answered: An interesting question, and one that is worth asking, and well worth answering. However, you have opened the hornets nest if for no other reason than the simple fact the those called Hearers, Sub-apostolic Fathers, Early Fathers, and Late Fathers did not speak with a single voice on all matters, and most of them changed their perspective from time to time. The collections of their writings whether recorded in the Patrologi Grec or Latin show what a remarkable group of men they were, but they also show the development of their thoughts and how some went from orthodoxy to heresiodoxy and sometimes back again during the courses of their lives and work. Moreover, this being so, I ask you, when are we to believe that they were sincere? Do we accept the early writings of Tertullian only to have to reject them when he became a Montanist? Likewise, the later Fathers departed from many of the traditions of the earlier Fathers, and most from the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ and his apostles as taught in the documents of the New Testament. Let us take one Catholic teaching to begin with: the Infallibility of the bishop of Rome, who came to be called the Pope, father or supreme pontiff of all Christendom. On this point, Dollinger, a Roman Catholic writer of "unrivalled knowledge" and great ability (excommunicated for his refusal to accept the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope), is quoted as declaring: "Of all the Fathers who interpret these passages in the Gospels (Matt. 16:18; John 21:17), not a single one applies them to the Roman Bishops ... not one of them whose commentaries we possessOrigen, Chrysostom, Hilary, Augustine, Cyril, Theodoret, and those whose interpretations are collected in catenashas dropped the faintest hint that the primacy of Rome is the consequence of the commission and promise to Peter! Not one of them has explained the rock or foundation on which Christ would build His Church of the office given to Peter to be transmitted to his successors, but they understood by it either Christ Himself, or Peter's confession of faith in Christ; often both together. Or else they thought Peter was the foundation equally with all the other Apostles, the Twelve being together the foundation-stones of the Church."

The scriptures unequivocally prove that Peter was not a bishop; he was an apostle. As an apostle he could perform, if he chose to do so, the functions of a bishop, because the greater Churchwide apostolic authority embraced the lesser locale-specific authority of the bishop. There is no word in the canonical scriptures justifying a claim that the supreme apostolic authority can be possessed or exercised by any lesser authority in the Church other than by the full Apostleship. There is no record in these scriptures of the conferring upon anyone of only a part or particular division of the apostolic authority. The only scriptural record showing that the apostles conferred their authority upon any one was upon Matthias, and this was the full authority for he was made a member of the Twelve. The indisputably canonical Acts and Epistles clearly show that in the Primitive Church, bishops were local officers with the function of caring for the needs of their local flocks, and hence exercised a lesser authority than that held by members of the apostolate. Further, the scriptures show that bishops were under the direction and jurisdiction of the Apostles who were in general charge of the whole Church, being so ordained, set apart, and commissioned by Jesus Christ himself. It is a basic ecclesiastical principle that a lesser ecclesiastical officer does not possess the authority and cannot exercise the functions of a higher ecclesiastical officer. This principle is fully recognised by the Roman Church. This situation presents the Western Church with this dilemma: Since the Roman Pope claims as Bishop of Rome the apostolic authority they allege is derived from Peter 1and if not already a bishop, the Pope must, before coronation, receive "the orders which are still owing to him inclusive of the priestly consecration" there must be found further scripture, further revelation from God, in addition to the accepted canonical scriptures authorising a bishop in perpetuity to act lawfully as an apostle. However, this approval or direction not appearing anywhere in canonical scripture, such authorisation could come only, as has all other scripture, by distinct Divine revelation from God. Since the Primitive Christian Church was built on the direct revelation and exercise of the Divine will of Jesus Christ it is self-evident that there must be further Divine revelation to change, to add to, or to take from, the Divine revelations already received by the Lords Church. Therefore, the Roman Church, which the challenger seeks to defend, must either produce the revelation from God authorising a bishop to exercise the apostolic calling (and it is understood the Roman Catholic Church does not admit the principle of continuous revelation from God, nor claim it), or it must surrender the claim of the alleged divine apostolic authority of the Pope, for which it has no such authorising revelation. In addition, in this relation we may observe that argument is not revelation, and neither is tradition, however old, either accepted or ex part.

Prior to the time of Gregory VII, 1073 to 1085, the title pope "continued to be bestowed on bishops in general" in countries of the West. In Eastern usage the title "was commonly restricted to the bishops of Rome and Alexandria"
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