TDB 11 The Conversion of Marcus Grodi part 6

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January 27, 2020

00:05: And this is very significant, not one, not even one of those Eastern bishops disputed or questioned the
00:13: Pope's authority. I mean the
00:19: Eucharistic, let's just say this, the Eucharistic abuses are abuses to Jesus' DNA, his body and blood.
00:35: As I continued to study my early church father, older brothers and sisters, I started to realize that God had a plan for me that was bigger than any plan that I'd ever had for myself.
00:47: And before you know it, it turned to the Catholic Church. When I made that decision to become
00:52: Catholic, everything began to fit. It was like a puzzle with the four sides that I put together, with the papacy and the
01:01: Blessed Mother and tradition in the Eucharist. Let's say there's a person watching this program right now from where you were.
01:16: Why should they make the same journey home that you made? I would say investigate the history for yourself, because the famous line from Cardinal Newman is to be deep in history is to cease to be
01:27: Protestant. And that's pretty much what happened to me. So I would say take the Catholic Church's claims, investigate them, and as my father always told me, go wherever Jesus leads you.
01:39: And maybe it would end up in the Catholic Church. Hello to everyone.
01:46: This is your host, Timothy F. Kaufman, and you're listening to The Diving Board. A podcast that focuses on the conversion testimonies of Protestants who convert to Roman Catholicism, thinking that to be deep in history is to cease to be a
01:59: Protestant. But getting deep in history is something a Roman Catholic cannot do, because Roman Catholicism itself is a novelty 300 years removed from the
02:09: Church of the Apostles and their followers. Its roots do not go back any further than the end of the 4th century.
02:15: And as we continue to show in each episode, those Roman Catholics who think that they are getting deep in history are actually very shallow in it, embracing a late 4th century and medieval novelty as if it were the
02:28: Church of Christ. This is episode 11, the final episode we'll be doing on the conversion of Marcus Grodi, and next time we'll be analyzing another testimony of a convert to Roman Catholicism.
02:41: Mr. Grodi is the host of the Journey Home show, a regular broadcast on the Coming Home Network, a
02:47: Roman Catholic ministry that focuses on the return of wandering Protestants back to the fold of Roman Catholicism.
02:53: Marcus Grodi has provided citations from the early Church Fathers that influenced his decision to return to Rome, and we encourage our listeners to go back and listen to his entire testimony.
03:03: He divided his citations into four main categories. The Church Hierarchy, the Eucharist, which is to him the
03:09: Lord's Supper and the Roman Sacrifice of the Mass, the Primacy of Rome, and the Unity of the
03:14: Church. We have covered the Church Hierarchy and the Eucharist already, and today we will address his misperceptions on the
03:20: Primacy of the City of Rome, or the Bishop of Rome, and the presumed unity of the
03:25: Church that is based on unity under the Bishop of Rome. Now some of his material we have discussed in our analysis of the conversion testimony of Father Ray Ryland in the first three episodes of this podcast, and we will see a lot of this going forward.
03:40: The Roman Catholic apologists tend to cite the same data and make the same arguments, and to refute them all repeatedly would be repetitive, so we will attempt merely to summarize the arguments here and then point to the episode that addresses the specific point in more detail.
03:55: So, let's get started. On the matter of the Primacy of Rome, Mr. Grodi cites Clement of Rome from the first century, and Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyons from the second century, and Cyprian of Carthage from the third century.
04:09: An interesting selection of Church Fathers representing three continents, Asia, Africa, and Europe, ostensibly in support of Rome.
04:17: He also includes some citations from the late fourth century and the early fifth, but those are of very little concern to us since they arose in the latter part of the fourth century, as we have stated at various times.
04:29: In this podcast, we address citations from the first three centuries to show what a novelty
04:34: Roman Catholicism really is. Okay, let's get started with Clement. Here is
04:39: Marcus Grodi with his first citation on the Primacy of Rome, from the letter of Clement to the
04:45: Corinthians in the first century. Now I'm going to another subject that was important to me, and this has to do with, all right, what about Rome?
04:54: What about the importance of Rome? And I'm taking you back to St. Clement. Now, he is the Bishop of Rome writing to the church at Corinth, and the significance of that is, it isn't a church next door.
05:07: He's writing from essentially Italy over to Greece. So what authority does he have to tell the church at Corinth to do anything?
05:16: If there's no connection between the churches and the hierarchy, then is there any authority between the
05:21: Bishop of Rome and the people over in Corinth? Here is this quote from St.
05:27: Clement. St. Clement, the
06:07: Bishop of Rome, is speaking with authority to the people over in Greece in that church, the
06:14: Church of Corinth, an earlier church established by Paul, but he's to obey his command, saying that they will give him great joy if they obey us.
06:27: It's interesting that whenever the Pope writes an encyclical, he uses this phrase, us, meaning that he is speaking not just for his own authority, but as the man appointed by Christ as the head of the church.
06:41: Clement is doing that in this very early document. And you'll see lots of things in this that imply that there's an authority in the
06:49: Bishop of Rome over the leaders in Corinth. Okay, so his first argument is that because Rome was such a great distance from Corinth, and yet Corinth appealed to Rome for help, it must have some significance regarding Rome's authority.
07:05: Yes, it is true. The church at Corinth wrote to the church at Rome, which was across the
07:10: Adriatic Sea, and Clement wrote back to the church at Corinth and asked the Corinthians to write back and let him know how they were progressing.
07:18: That's from Clement to the Corinthians, paragraph 65. Ignatius, the
07:24: Bishop of Antioch, wrote letters to Ephesus, Tralas, Magnesia, Rome, Philadelphia, and Smyrna, and asked them to write letters back to him, for example,
07:32: Ignatius of Antioch, to the Smyrnaeans, paragraph 11, and also to send delegates who could journey to the church at Antioch, as in his letter to Polycarp, chapter 7.
07:42: The church at Philippi, which was just a stone's throw from Thessalonica, wrote instead to Polycarp, Bishop of the church at Smyrna, which was, in fact, across the
07:51: Aegean Sea, to ask advice, and Polycarp of Smyrna wrote back to Philippi to answer them.
07:57: That's Polycarp to Philippi, paragraph 3. In their letter to Polycarp, the church at Philippi requested that their letter to him be duplicated and forwarded to Antioch, and further requested that copies of Ignatius' letters be sent to Philippi, and Ignatius wrote to Polycarp requesting that the letter from Philippi be forwarded to him.
08:17: Polycarp agreed to all of these requests, as indicated in Polycarp to the Philippians, paragraph 13.
08:24: And when Polycarp died, the church at Smyrna wrote to Philomelium, and requested that the letter be copied and sent to other churches that were even more remote.
08:33: That's paragraph 20 of the Martyrdom of Polycarp. The fact is, the early churches wrote to each other constantly, seeking advice, offering counsel, occasionally offering rebuke, and always eagerly receiving news from their sister churches throughout the world.
08:48: Corinth seeking advice from Rome across the Adriatic Sea, when they could have written to Ephesus, is no more evidence of Roman primacy.
08:56: Then the church at Philippi seeking advice from Smyrna across the Aegean Sea, when they could have written to Thessalonica, is evidence of Smyrnaean primacy.
09:06: The only way someone like Marcus Grodi could be persuaded of Roman primacy by Clement's letter to Corinth is if he himself was ignorant of the history of the early church, and he very clearly is.
09:17: And that brings us to our second point. It is important to know about this history because, just as Rome wrote to Corinth to correct the schismatic element there, sometimes other churches would write to Rome to admonish their erring presbyters and rebuke them for creating a schism, and then the bishop of Rome would write back to that bishop thanking him for correcting his erring flock.
09:37: Marcus Grodi does not mention those letters, and in fact may not even be aware of them. In any case, it is a common deception in which
09:44: Roman apologists rely on your ignorance of history, or in fact displays his own ignorance of history, so that you will conclude that you too are deep in history, when in fact you are still in the very shallow end of the history pool with the
09:59: Roman apologist. You can hear more of our arguments on this point in our first episode when
10:05: Father Ray Ryland attempted to make this similar point, but for now let me remind the listener that there was a similar schism in Rome in the third century, and Cyprian of Carthage wrote to the schismatics in Rome, commending that they acquiesce in these my letters, and demanding that they behave in a more orderly fashion, more in keeping with the truth of the gospel.
10:26: That's Cyprian to the Roman schismatics, epistle 43. Afterward, the
10:32: Roman bishop wrote to Cyprian, letting him know that the schism had ended, that's epistle 45, and the schismatics wrote to Cyprian to notify him of their repentance and return to the unity of the church, that's epistle 49.
10:46: On another occasion, Christians imprisoned in Rome because of their confession of faith wrote to Carthage to inform
10:52: Cyprian that we have been lifted up by the receipt of your letter, and it was their chief consolation, and that in the duty of his episcopate he had frequently confirmed the confessors by your letters, that's epistle 25 to Cyprian from the
11:07: Roman confessors, paragraphs one and six. And I know what you're thinking, why would the
11:13: Roman church seek advice and receive counsel and correction, comfort and instruction from across the
11:20: Mediterranean Sea in Carthage when the Roman church was so much closer to Rome?
11:26: I think we can all agree that Rome is in fact very close to Rome, geographically speaking of course, it's exactly zero miles away, and yet a bishop from all the way across the sea,
11:37: Cyprian of Carthage, intervened from a great distance to settle Rome's affairs and comfort its confessors.
11:44: So we here at the Diving Board believe in second chances and we're going to give Marcus Grodi another go at this.
11:50: In epistle 25 of the library of Cyprian's epistles, the Roman confessors wrote to Cyprian to thank him, and in epistle 43
11:58: Cyprian intervenes in the affairs of the Roman church and demands that they acquiesce to his instructions, and there's obviously only one possible reason in the world for a bishop in Africa to tell a congregation in Rome what to do.
12:09: That's right, you guessed it, Carthaginian episcopal primacy, obviously. The bishop of Carthage obviously must have had universal powers in the early church.
12:19: Okay, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Grodi is now in possession of the communications between Cyprian and the
12:25: Roman church, and we have the rare opportunity to hear Mr. Grodi think through this live as he concludes the obvious, that the church at Carthage had universal episcopal authority from the very earliest days of the church.
12:37: Let's listen in as Marcus Grodi asks, what about Carthage? What about the authority of Carthage?
12:45: Now I'm going to another subject that was important to me, and this has to do with, alright, what about Carthage?
12:51: What about the importance of Carthage down in Africa? I'm taking you back to St. Cyprian of Carthage, writing to the church at Rome, and the significance of that is, it isn't a church next door.
13:03: He's writing from essentially Africa over to Italy. So what authority does he have to tell the church at Rome to do anything?
13:12: If there's no connection between the churches and the hierarchy, then is there any authority between the
13:18: Bishop of Carthage and the people over in Rome? St. Cyprian of Carthage, the
13:23: Bishop of Carthage down in Africa, is speaking with authority to the people over in Italy, and that church, the church at Rome, is a very, an earlier church established by Paul, but he's calling them to obey his command.
13:41: Cyprian of Carthage is doing that in this very early document, and you'll see lots of things in this that imply that there's an authority in the
13:50: Bishop of Carthage over the leaders in Rome. Okay, okay, we are in fact being facetious, obviously, because Mr.
14:01: Grodi did not say those things. At least, he did not say those things in that order.
14:06: It is all Mr. Grodi edited to have him make the same argument about Carthage based on the letter from Cyprian as he made about Rome based on the letter from Clement.
14:16: Our point is simply that the Roman apologist's argument is foolish and empty to anyone who has read the correspondence of the early church, and you might ask why
14:24: Marcus Grodi would not mention this incident. The incident of Cyprian intervening when the schism at Rome where the
14:31: Roman confessor is writing to Cyprian to tell him how appropriate it was for him to be writing to them to comfort them or Philippi's request for help from Smyrna and Smyrna's response.
14:42: Why indeed would Marcus not mention these things? It's because for all of his arguments from the early church fathers,
14:48: Marcus Grodi is still waiting in the kiddie pool, still wearing his floaties, and frankly, not only does he prefer to remain in ignorance, but he also insists that you remain in ignorance with him, because if you got too deep in history, his whole house of cards would fall apart.
15:05: Okay, one more example, just for fun, bishops Basilides and Martialis in Spain had stumbled in sin and were forced out of the ministry, and the
15:13: Spanish congregation had since appointed other bishops in their place. But Basilides and Martialis had second thoughts and consulted with Bishop Stephen in Rome.
15:23: Stephen took their side and ordered the church at Spain to reinstate them, but the Spanish congregation would have none of it, and wrote to Cyprian of Carthage for advice.
15:32: Cyprian responded that the Spanish congregation was exactly right to do what it did and further that they did not have to listen to Stephen because Stephen was wrong to maintain communion with Basilides and Martialis, and by doing so had become a partaker of their sins.
15:47: Besides, Stephen had been deceived by them and wasn't thinking clearly, having been surprised by fraud, in Cyprian's words.
15:55: You can read the whole story in Cyprian epistle 67 to the clergy and people abiding in Spain. Now why do you suppose the congregation in Spain did not obey
16:05: Stephen? And why did they write to Cyprian for a second opinion? And why did Cyprian tell them they could ignore
16:12: Stephen because he didn't know what he was talking about? It's because Rome wasn't the chief episcopate of Grodi's imagination, that's why, and it is simply ridiculous for Grodi to try to establish
16:22: Roman primacy from that letter from Rome to Corinth. To do so is evidence of his ignorance, not of his knowledge.
16:30: Okay, the next thing he said was that Clement claimed that the Holy Spirit was writing to the Corinthians through the letter from Rome, that is, by him through us.
16:39: And here again is Marcus Grodi making that point. If anyone disobeyed the things which have been said by him through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and in no small danger.
16:55: You will afford us joy and gladness if, being obedient to the things which we have written through the
17:00: Holy Spirit, you will root out the wicked passion of jealousy. St.
17:06: Clement, the bishop of Rome, is speaking with authority. Okay, we actually covered this in our first episode, but the long and the short of it is that Clement is not asking them to submit to him, but to the scriptures, and then goes on to cite a lot of scriptures in which the
17:23: Holy Spirit is mentioned. Some English translations make it sound like Clement said the Holy Spirit had written the letter from Rome to Corinth, but as we pointed out in episode one on Fr.
17:33: Ray Ryland, that makes Clement's letter inconsistent because Clement, in his original Greek, actually uses the plural
17:39: Greek definite article to describe the scriptures as the truths of the
17:44: Holy Spirit. To say that the Holy Spirit had written that very letter, as well, makes it appear that Clement thought his own letter, too, was scripture.
17:53: But there is more. There is a question of whether the letter is even translated correctly at that point. For example, in James A.
18:00: Kleist's 1949 translation of chapter 63, verse 2, Clement is asking the
18:06: Corinthians to be obedient to what we have written through the Holy Spirit. And J .B.
18:12: Lightfoot's 1890 translation rendered it similarly. Render obedience unto the things written by us through the
18:18: Holy Spirit. But as we pointed out in episode one, Kleist was a Jesuit and Lightfoot was an
18:24: Anglican who conceded early primacy to the Bishop of Rome, and both of them saw Clement's words here as evidence that the
18:31: Bishop of Rome recognized his universal authority. Both translators attach the phrase, through the
18:36: Holy Spirit, to the things written by us, to make Clement appear to claim that his own letter is inspired by the
18:42: Holy Spirit. But two other Protestant translators rendered it differently and attached the phrase, through the
18:48: Holy Spirit, to the repentance that Clement seeks from the Corinthians. Charles Houle's 1885 translation renders it, obedient to the things that have been written by us, you put an end, by the suggestion of the
19:01: Holy Spirit, to the unlawful wrath of your discord. And John Keith's 1896 translation renders it, if you become obedient to the words written by us, and through the
19:12: Holy Spirit, root out the lawlessness of your jealousy. Houle's and Keith's translations are obviously more consistent with Clement's, since throughout the letter he has invoked the
19:21: Holy Spirit's movement in the believer toward an attitude of repentance, as you can see in paragraphs 7, 8, 13, 16, 56, and 57 of the same letter.
19:31: So it is a very weak argument to say that Clement claimed his own letter was written to Corinth by the Holy Spirit, through the
19:37: Bishop of Rome. Like I said, you can go back to episode 1 on Father Ray Ryland and give that another listen.
19:43: Okay, let's move on to Ignatius of Antioch, from the early 2nd century. Marcus Grodi makes the tired old argument that Ignatius used very special, deferential language, reserved only for Rome, and addressed the
19:57: Roman congregation in very reverent terms, terms that he did not use when he addressed other congregations.
20:03: Here is Marcus Grodi making the case. Let's go to St. Ignatius of Antioch again.
20:08: He's writing in 110 AD, a letter to the Romans. He wrote a lot of letters to churches on his way to Rome, but when he wrote the letter to Rome itself, listen to how he addresses that church.
20:19: He's the Bishop of Antioch, and he writes, Ignatius, to the church also which holds the presidency in the place of the country of the
20:27: Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification.
20:36: And because you hold the presidency in love, named after Christ and named after the
20:41: Father. The Bishop of Antioch, traveling from the
20:47: Middle East towards his martyrdom in Rome, he addresses the church in Rome as the church that's the presidency, the church that's of great significance amongst the other churches.
21:01: Wow, the congregation at Rome holds the presidency in love. Really? Well, pack your bags and bring your swimmin' trunks, boys, because we're swimmin' the timer tonight.
21:13: Oh, goodness gracious, what are we to do with poor Marcus Grodi? You must think we haven't read Ignatius' letters.
21:19: Or what is more likely? Perhaps Mr. Grodi has not read Ignatius' letters.
21:25: If we read every other letter by Ignatius, the same way Mr. Grodi has read the letter to Rome, we'd have to readjust the
21:31: Antinocene Episcopal hierarchy with each letter. Every Antinocene church would have a claim of Episcopal primacy.
21:39: What for example are we to infer from Ignatius' use of the word Sanhedrin to describe the authority of the presbyters at the church at Trallis?
21:47: The Sanhedrin was the highest judicial body and council of elders in ancient Jerusalem. And yet Ignatius refers to the
21:54: Trallian presbyters alone as the Sanhedrin of God. The Sanhedrin of God, people!
22:01: Now citing from Ignatius to the Trallians, chapter 3. In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the son of the
22:12: Father, and the presbyters as the Sanhedrin of God and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no church.
22:20: Again, Ignatius of Antioch to the Trallians, chapter 3. Wow, apart from the leaders of Trallis, the very
22:28: Sanhedrin of God, the very assembly of the apostles, there is no church? Maybe Trallis was to be that strong central episcopate that emerged early in the church to guide the sheep into all truth.
22:39: Their presbyters were as the Sanhedrin and the assembly of the apostles. There can be no higher ecclesiastical authority on earth than the
22:47: Sanhedrin of God. All hail Trallis, the strong central episcopate of the universal church, where Christ built his church upon Peter.
22:57: Or what are we to infer from the fact that in Ignatius' six letters to the churches, he salutes every church except Ephesus.
23:06: He salutes Magnesia in the greeting and in chapter 15. He salutes
23:11: Trallis in the greeting and in chapters 12 and 13. He salutes Rome in the greeting and in chapter 9.
23:18: He salutes Philadelphia in the greeting and in chapter 11. And he salutes Smyrna in chapters 11 and 12.
23:26: But in his letter to the church at Ephesus, he extends no formal salutation and instead calls
23:31: Ephesus predestinated before the ages of time that it should be always for an enduring and unchangeable glory.
23:38: That's from the greeting of Ignatius of Antioch's letter to the Ephesians. No other congregation in Ignatius' letters is addressed in this way.
23:48: Maybe Ephesus was to be that strong central episcopate that emerged early in the church to guide the sheep into all truth.
23:55: To such a church as this, no salutation is necessary, none is warranted. The salutation of the whole
24:00: Christian church is already implied by its very existence. All hail to Ephesus, the strong central episcopate of the universal church.
24:08: Honestly, what else could such a greeting possibly mean? That he should call them predestinated before the ages of time and not insult them with such a common salutation.
24:19: Or what are we to infer from Ignatius' selective description of how established each church was? He says the church of Ephesus is established in safety, that's chapter 12.
24:30: He says the church in Smyrna is established in love, that's chapter 1. But for the church in Philadelphia, Ignatius reserves the highest honor.
24:39: It is doubly established in harmony and in security, as he indicates in his greeting to that church.
24:47: But Magnesia, on the other hand, is not yet established and must still study to be established. That's from chapter 13.
24:55: What is worse, neither the church of Rome nor the church of Trallis are established at all.
25:01: At least, he does not use that word to describe them in his letters to them. What else can this possibly mean but that Philadelphia was doubly established in its primacy over all the churches?
25:12: Small wonder, therefore, that Ignatius believed himself to be greatly enlarged in loving the Philadelphians, that's from his letter to the
25:19: Philadelphians, chapter 5. An epithet assigned to no other church in any of his letters.
25:25: Maybe Philadelphia was that strong central episcopate that emerged early in the church to guide the sheep into all truth.
25:32: This is surely confirmed by the fact that Philadelphia alone is excluded from Ignatius' prayers for an abundance of happiness.
25:39: He wishes an abundance of happiness for Ephesus and Magnesia, Trallis, Rome, Smyrna, and Polycarp in his respective greetings to each.
25:47: But he withholds such a wish for Philadelphia. Surely this is because he knows that the bishop there had already achieved the perfection of happiness and was already an example of infinite meekness, as he states in his letter to the
26:01: Philadelphians, chapter 1. This could hardly speak of anything else but the emergence of a Philadelphian primacy that would be so necessary to shepherd the fledgling church into all truth.
26:12: All hail to Philadelphia, the strong central episcopate of the universal church!
26:19: Now we jest, of course. I hope that our facetious display has demonstrated just how desperate the
26:24: Roman apologist is to find evidence of Roman primacy in the early church. Our point is simply that if someone looks long enough and hard enough, he will find something
26:32: Ignatius describes to one church and to no other. And in that uniqueness, he will find what he is looking for.
26:40: The only primacy the Roman apologist can find in Ignatius is the Roman primacy the apologist carried with him into the text.
26:47: But we know better. A plain reading of Ignatius has him, as just one bishop among many, writing to the various congregations to encourage them and to ask them to encourage him.
26:59: That's it. But there is one more thing that we want to mention about this. Marcus Grodi has attempted to show that Ignatius deferred reverentially and submissively to the bishop of Rome, but that is just wishful thinking, as we have shown.
27:12: In fact, Ignatius did not believe the bishop of Rome was the chief shepherd of all the churches. He believed the chief shepherd of each congregation was
27:20: Christ himself. For example, when he wrote to the congregation at Rome, he acknowledged that he had left the congregation of Antioch without a bishop, and therefore that God himself and Jesus Christ would have to be their shepherd.
27:32: He wrote, That's Ignatius of Antioch to the
27:44: Romans, paragraph 9. And then when he wrote to Polycarp, he said that the church at Smyrna has
27:50: Polycarp for a bishop, but Polycarp has his own bishop, God himself, or Jesus Christ himself.
27:58: Polycarp, bishop of the church of the Smyrnaeans, or rather, who has as his own bishop, God the
28:03: Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's from the greeting of Ignatius' letter to Polycarp.
28:10: In other words, Ignatius did not believe that the bishop of Rome was the bishop of bishops. Smyrna's bishop has
28:16: God for a bishop. In his own absence, the church at Antioch has God for a bishop. That is,
28:22: Ignatius thought God was the bishop of bishopss. There was no sense in which he thought that the bishop of Rome occupied that role.
28:29: So not only do we not find in Ignatius a unique reverential, deferential tone reserved only for the bishop of Rome, we also find that when
28:38: Ignatius does explicitly refer to the bishop over the other bishops, it is Jesus Christ who is the bishop over the bishops, not the bishop of Rome.
28:46: Remember that. We'll be coming back to it later in this episode. Okay, let's move on to Marcus Grodi's next argument, this time from Irenaeus of Lyons.
28:56: Well, let me read a long passage from St. Irenaeus. I would like to condense this, but this is a very important early witness to the authorities of the bishops in Rome, again from his book
29:10: Against Heresies, writing about another 90 years later from the last quote.
29:16: St. Irenaeus of Lyons, it is possible then for every church who may wish to know the truth to contemplate the tradition of the apostles, which has been made known throughout the whole world.
29:32: And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishop by the apostles and their successors to our own times.
29:40: In other words, St. Irenaeus could go through the whole list of all the bishops of the different churches, but then he goes on.
29:45: But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the successions of all the churches, we should confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self -satisfaction or vain glory or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops in the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles,
30:13: Peter and Paul. That church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles.
30:23: For with this church, because of its superior origin, all churches must agree.
30:30: That is, all the faithful in the whole world. And it is her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition.
30:41: You know, that quote from St. Irenaeus reads just as clear today as it did in 190
30:51: A .D. He was speaking for the fact that there was this connection of churches all over Europe, Asia, around the
31:01: Mediterranean. They were all in union together following Christ's installation of the church, recognizing that for them to know for sure that what they were believing and teaching was true, they had to recognize that how did they believe or teach in relationship to what the church at Rome taught.
31:20: And so Irenaeus is recognizing that authority of that church in Rome.
31:27: Okay, Marcus Grodi is citing from Irenaeus' five -volume work called Against Heresies, Book 3,
31:33: Chapter 3, Paragraph 2, in which he is alleged to say that all churches must agree with Rome.
31:38: Well, the argument is full of problems for the Roman apologists for a lot of reasons, but there are four main reasons, and we have covered this in other episodes, but we'll summarize here.
31:47: The first problem is that it is known that Irenaeus himself disagreed with Rome, as we have discussed on many occasions.
31:54: This is reported to us by Eusebius, who reminds us that Irenaeus strongly rebuked the bishop of Rome when
32:00: Pope Victor tried to excommunicate the Asian churches because they refused to celebrate Easter on the date he preferred.
32:06: That was in the last decade of the second century. Second, not only did
32:11: Irenaeus rebuke Victor for his presumption, but many other bishops joined Irenaeus in that rebuke.
32:17: So here we have a situation in which the bishops of Asia Minor disagree with Rome, and Rome attempts to excommunicate them, and instead of appealing to the bishops of Asia Minor and insisting that they must agree with Rome, as Marcus Grodi would imagine,
32:31: Irenaeus rebukes the bishop of Rome. So not only did the bishops of Asia Minor disagree with Rome, and not only did many other bishops in Europe disagree with Rome, but they were joining
32:41: Irenaeus, who issued a strong rebuke of Bishop Victor of Rome. That's recorded for us in Eusebius' Church History, Book 5,
32:48: Chapter 24, Paragraphs 10 -11. That doesn't sound like Irenaeus thought every church must agree with Rome.
32:55: The third point is that Irenaeus reported favorably of the incident in which Polycarp himself came to Rome and disagreed with a bishop there three decades earlier, in the 160s
33:06: AD. This is from Irenaeus' own written account of it, as recorded for us by Eusebius.
33:13: And when the blessed Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little about certain other things, they immediately made peace with one another, not caring to quarrel over this matter.
33:25: For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John, the disciple of our
33:31: Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated, neither could Polycarp persuade
33:37: Anicetus to observe it as he said he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him.
33:43: But though matters were in this shape, they communed together and Anicetus conceded the administration of the
33:48: Eucharist in the church to Polycarp, manifestly as a mark of respect. That's Eusebius' Church History, Book 5,
33:55: Chapter 24, Paragraphs 16 -17. And remember, this comes to us by the hand of Eusebius, but it is a quote of Irenaeus' own written account of it.
34:05: So not only did Irenaeus disagree with Rome, but other bishops joined with him in disagreeing with Rome, and Irenaeus also reported favorably, not only of the fact that Polycarp disagreed with Rome, but also that the churches continued in fellowship even though they could not come to an agreement with Rome.
34:22: Fourth, Marcus Grodi is citing from the Latin version of Irenaeus' work, which is hardly his fault because that's the only version that currently exists for that particular section of Against Heresies.
34:34: But Irenaeus wrote in Greek, and Against Heresies only exists in fragments in the original language.
34:40: The only complete copy of it is in Latin, and that's why Marcus Grodi is citing that particular portion.
34:47: But scholars know that the Latin version of it is barbaric. That's the word the scholars actually used for it.
34:53: Whoever translated Irenaeus from Greek into Latin was not very good at it, and he absolutely butchered
34:59: Irenaeus' work in the process, as is evident wherever fragments of the original Greek exist to make the comparison.
35:05: Unfortunately for this particular section of Irenaeus, we do not have the original Greek. But obviously, since there is so much evidence against the proposition that Irenaeus believed that all churches must agree with Rome, it is clear that this is just one more case of the
35:18: Latin translator butchering Irenaeus' original work. Now those four points should be enough to tell us that Irenaeus did not really believe that every church must agree with Rome.
35:28: In fact, it's enough evidence to show that he would never advance such an opinion in the first place. There is simply too much evidence to the contrary for all of us to fall for a barbaric
35:38: Latin translation of a missing Greek original. We are certainly not as eager to be fooled by the barbaric
35:43: Latin as Marcus Grodi is, but he swallows the gross historical inconsistency hook, line, and sinker.
35:49: But he goes even further than that and concludes that not only must all churches agree with Rome, but that all churches must compare their own teachings against what
35:56: Rome is teaching in order to be sure that they are in line with the truth. Here is Marcus Grodi again explaining that the early churches all must have measured their own teachings against a
36:06: Roman standard. This connection of churches all over Europe, Asia, around the
36:14: Mediterranean, they were all in union together following Christ's installation of the church, recognizing that for them to know for sure that what they were believing and teaching was true, they had to recognize that how did they believe or teach in relationship to what the church at Rome taught.
36:34: Oh goodness, you almost have to laugh to keep yourself from crying. Marcus Grodi's naivete knows no bounds.
36:42: There is simply no way you can possibly conclude such a thing from Irenaeus unless you are chronically ignorant.
36:48: To demonstrate just how silly Grodi's conclusion is, I want to walk through a few centuries of Roman error, heresy, obstinacy, presumption, and impudence, and you decide if all other churches in the ancient world were measuring themselves against the standard of Rome.
37:04: It was in fact Rome that was teaching error, and the other churches had to go to Rome to correct her erring popes and restore the
37:10: Roman church to apostolic orthodoxy. And it was in fact Rome that had to compare herself to other churches to determine if she herself was actually the one holding the apostolic truths of scriptures.
37:21: Let us first remember why Irenaeus had visited Rome in the first place. Irenaeus was a bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, or modern -day
37:28: Lyons in France, when he received word that the heirs of Marcian and Valentinus were taking root in Rome.
37:35: What is a bishop in the remote regions of the continent to do when such a heresy is taking root across the mountains in Italy?
37:41: Should he leave the matter to the infallible chief shepherd residing in Rome? Not at all. The Gallic bishop hurriedly ran to Rome with letters of correction to halt the advance of heresy in the capital of the empire.
37:53: And what a dismay it must have been for him when he found upon his arrival that the heresy that was of so much concern to him was actually being underwritten by no less than Pope Eleutherius himself.
38:07: Now, citing from Philip Schaff's Antonyine Fathers, Volume 1, Introductory Note to Irenaeus Against Heresies.
38:16: Irenaeus was sent to Rome with letters of remonstrance against the rising pestilence of heresy, but he had the mortification of finding the mountainous heresy patronized by Eleutherius, the bishop of Rome.
38:28: Again, that's Philip Schaff from his Introductory Note to Irenaeus' Work Against Heresies.
38:33: This formative event was the inspiration of Irenaeus' greatest work, Against Heresies. In this work, he explained that he was not the first bishop who had to come to Rome's aid in such a manner.
38:44: Others before him had come to Rome to correct her errant ways and to shore up the foundations of the wavering church there.
38:51: Among those who had to come to the aid of Rome was Polycarp of Smyrna, and his weapon of choice was the sole truth from the apostles, which had been handed down to him by the church at Smyrna, from the apostle
39:03: John. Now citing from Irenaeus' Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 3,
39:08: Paragraph 4. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Bishop Anicetus, caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles, that namely, which is handed down by the church.
39:27: Again, Irenaeus' Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 3, Paragraph 4, describing how
39:32: Polycarp of Smyrna had to bring the teaching of the apostles from John over to Rome to shore up the church there.
39:40: Here we have Irenaeus already obliged to travel to Rome from Gaul to correct the monotonous heresy that was thriving under the blessing of Pope Eleutherus, and he reminds his audience that Polycarp before him also had to come to Rome from Smyrna to correct the heresies then prospering under the administration of Pope Anicetus.
39:59: Chrysostom, we recall, also noted the providential transit of Ignatius from Antioch to Rome. Rome, it seemed, required more help, in Chrysostom's words, than the
40:09: East because of the great impiety there, as he wrote in his homily on St. Ignatius, Chapter 4.
40:16: Tertullian, in his letter against Praxeas, observed that the bishop of Rome had adopted the latest popular heresy.
40:22: That's from Chapter 1 of that letter. We also found Hippolytus complaining that Popes Zephyrinus and Callistus were constantly advancing heretical views, but we have frequently refuted them and have forced them reluctantly to acknowledge the truth, only to find them repeatedly wallowing in the same mire again.
40:41: That's Hippolytus' refutation of all heresies, Book 9, Chapter 2. Origen too had gone to Rome, according to Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men, Chapter 54, and that was in the days when the truth had been corrupted under Zephyrinus, according to Eusebius, Church History, Book 5,
40:58: Chapter 28, Paragraph 3. And having seen the squalor in Rome, Origen returned to Alexandria, more eager than ever to shore up the defenses of the church by teaching men the scriptures.
41:10: In this same vein, Eusebius also relates this very telling episode. The churches in Asia had seen the ravages of montanism firsthand, and after some consternation in several synods throughout
41:21: Asia, they addressed the heresy and condemned it outright. That's from Eusebius, Church History, Book 5,
41:27: Chapter 16, Paragraph 10. Gaul too, in the west, had seen the ravages of the new heresy and set forth their own prudent and most orthodox judgment in the matter, according to Eusebius, Church History, Book 5,
41:40: Chapter 3, Paragraph 4. From both sides, east and west, the apostolic churches were responding to the error and seeking to halt its advance.
41:49: But one apostolic church was flatly oblivious to the problem and instead of restraining it was actually writing letters in support of it.
41:56: That apostolic church was no less than the church at Rome under the dithering and infallible guidance of Pope Eleutherius.
42:02: The Catholic Encyclopedia euphemistically refers to his conscientious and thorough study of the situation prior to his ruling on the matter.
42:11: That's Catholic Encyclopedia and the entry on Pope St. Eleutherius, which is laughable on his face.
42:18: Eleutherius had written in support of the heresy. One does not issue letters of support for a heresy while one is conscientiously and thoroughly studying the situation.
42:29: Only under pressure did he ultimately rescind the letters he had written in support of the heresy, according to Tertullian against Praxeas, Chapter 1.
42:37: To this litany of Roman errors, we add Eusebius' account of the Passover controversy. Some churches wanted to celebrate
42:44: Passover on the fourteenth of the month and some wanted to celebrate it on the Lord's Day. In the spirit of Diotrephes in 3
42:51: John 9, Victor had directed all Episcopates to conform to one rule. In response,
42:57: Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, told Victor that his opinions carried no weight outside of his own Episcopate and that the churches of Asia were unmoved by his presumptuous tone.
43:07: I, therefore, brethren, who have lived sixty -five years in the Lord, and have met with the brethren throughout the world, and have gone through every holy scripture, am not affrighted by terrifying words.
43:17: For those greater than I have said, We ought to obey God rather than man. That's Eusebius, Church History, Book 5,
43:25: Chapter 24, Paragraph 7, quoting Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus, who's quoting
43:31: Acts, Chapter 5, Verse 29. Yes, that is Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus quoting
43:37: Peter authoritatively to inform the Bishop of Rome that he was unmoved by his empty threats. Essentially, Polycrates pulled rank on Victor, using the scriptures, testifying that a great multitude of bishops stood with him, and that I did not bear my gray hairs in vain, but had always governed my life by the
43:54: Lord Jesus, according to his own words. He clearly, clearly was unaware of any chief bishop across the
44:00: Adriatic, but understood that there was one above him in heaven. Polycrates' deferral to the scriptures as his guide and to the
44:07: Lord as his shepherd, instead of a fallible man in Rome, was more than Victor could stomach. In a petulant response,
44:14: Pope Victor issued a wholesale excommunication of the Asian bishops and those who agreed with him. For this, he earned a sharp rebuke from the bishops on every side, even from those who agreed with his dating of Passover.
44:26: That's Eusebius, Church History, Book 5, Chapter 24, Paragraphs 9 to 11. Irenaeus went on to explain that there was no scriptural mandate that any bishop could impose on the matter, and that various churches had formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode.
44:44: That's Eusebius, Church History, Book 5, Chapter 24, Paragraph 13. The congregations were to be left to themselves in the spirit of Romans 14 .5.
44:54: One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
45:02: To this, we must add the case of Cyprian writing to point out Pope Stephen's error in endeavoring to maintain the cause of heretics against Christians.
45:10: That's from Epistle 73, Paragraph 1. And in response, Formilian, Bishop of Caesarea, wrote to Cyprian, complaining that they who are at Rome vainly pretend the authority of the apostles.
45:22: Formilian's complaint highlights in particular Pope Stephen's audacity and pride in the things that he has wickedly done, and includes thanks to Cyprian because he had settled this matter of an upstart
45:33: Roman bishop thinking above his station. That's Cyprian, Epistle 74, from Formilian, against the letter of Stephen, Paragraphs 3 and 6.
45:44: We recite this sordid history of the successors in Rome to show just how foolish Marcus Grodi is to think that the early churches looked to Rome for the standard of truth and orthodoxy.
45:54: In reality, anyone familiar with the early church knows a much different story, a history of Rome's propensity for error, pride, audacity, petulance, wickedness, and heresy, and of the surrounding church's persistence in correcting that city's bishops and forcing them to return to apostolic truth and to act like men and start resisting heresy instead of advancing it.
46:17: And with that in mind, what are we to think of Marcus Grodi's assessment? The entire one church, one soul, looked to Rome to protect the faith, to make sure their beliefs were true.
46:30: This, ladies and gentlemen, is Marcus Grodi wallowing in the shallow end of the history pool and insisting that you join him there.
46:38: Only the deeply, chronically, perpetually ignorant could possibly make such an argument. Okay, one last quote, and this is from Cyprian of Carthage, from whom we heard a little bit earlier.
46:49: Now, Marcus Grodi. And one more quote from St. Cyprian of Carthage, this is around the year 251 in his letter,
46:59: The Unity of the Catholic Church, and let me read this. The Lord says to Peter, I say to you, he says that you are
47:08: Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and on him he builds the church.
47:14: To him he gives the command to feed the sheep, and although he assigns a little power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair, and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity.
47:30: Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was, but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one church and one chair.
47:43: So too all are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the apostles in single -minded accord.
47:51: If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith?
47:58: If he desert the chair of Peter, upon whom the church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the church?
48:08: Again, we have a quote that reads just as clear today as it did in the year 250.
48:15: Here he's using those famous passages from Matthew 16. I remember when I first read this,
48:20: I realized that the use of Matthew 16 to defend the authority of the
48:26: Pope was not merely something that modern apologists did, or that Trent did as a reaction to the
48:31: Reformers, but in fact, in the early church. Okay, clearly
48:37: Marcus Grodi thinks Cyprian of Carthage is writing about Rome when he speaks of the chair of Peter.
48:43: After all, this is the answer to Mr. Grodi's question, what about Rome? What about the importance of Rome?
48:51: Alright, what about Rome? What about the importance of Rome? But what is funny is that Cyprian's treatise on the unity of the church makes no mention of Rome at all.
49:01: All Cyprian did in this treatise was talk about the unity of the Episcopate of Peter. And incidentally,
49:07: Cyprian believed that all bishops of the church throughout the world occupied the Episcopate of Peter together.
49:13: This is from his first treatise on the unity of the church, paragraph five. And this unity we ought firmly to hold and assert, especially those of us that are bishops who preside in the church, that we may also prove the
49:27: Episcopate itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by falsehood.
49:33: Let no one corrupt the truth of the faith by perfidious prevarication. The Episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole.
49:42: Again, that's Cyprian of Carthage, treatise one on the unity of the church, paragraph five.
49:49: That's right, all the bishops in the church preside together in a single Episcopate, each part of which is taken for the whole.
49:55: And that means that the bishop of Carthage fully occupied the chair of St. Peter and fully administered the one
50:02: Episcopate of Peter, just as much as the bishop of Smyrna or Ephesus or Rome.
50:08: As evidence that Cyprian believed that he himself sat in the chair of Peter, a rock upon which
50:14: Christ had built his church, we need only read his epistles on the schisms that had engulfed both
50:19: Rome and Carthage when both congregations were embroiled in strife and schism.
50:25: The controversy in each city had to do with how the church should handle the large number of professing
50:31: Christians who had stumbled in the recent persecutions. Some Christians had resisted unto death, but others, called the lapsed, had stumbled into sin by offering sacrifices to false gods.
50:43: The lapsed now wanted to repent of their sin and to return to full communion with the churches. What was to be done with such a large group of repentant sinners throughout the empire?
50:54: Was their repentance sincere? Should the church welcome them back without question? Or should the church wait to see which of the lapsed were sincere in their repentance?
51:03: This was no small issue, and the bishops of the world gathered together to determine a proper course of action, according to Cyprian, epistle 51, paragraph 4.
51:12: The assembled bishops decided upon a moderate course, lest the penalty be so harsh that the truly repentant were driven to despair, or so light that the unrepentant should rashly rush to communion with the rest.
51:26: That's from epistle 51, paragraph 6. From this decision arose the two related schisms, one led by Novatian in Rome, who thought the decision too lax and would not receive even the repentant into communion, and another led by Philosysimus of Carthage, who thought the decision too severe and received the lapsed unconditionally.
51:48: According to Cyprian, Novatian was so obstinate as to think that repentance was not to be granted to the lapsed, or to suppose that pardon is to be denied to the penitent.
51:58: That's from epistle 51, paragraph 22. But on the other hand, Philosysimus in Carthage erred in the opposite extreme, promising to bring back and recall the lapsed into the church unconditionally.
52:10: That's Cyprian of Carthage, epistle 39, paragraph 5. Because Philosysimus did not cease to communicate with the lapsed, he was now interfering with their repentance, according to epistle 54, paragraph 13.
52:24: Thus, while Cornelius in Rome was suffering an attack upon his episcopate in Rome because Novatian thought the decision too light,
52:32: Cyprian was suffering an attack upon his episcopate in Carthage because Philosysimus thought the decision too severe.
52:38: And to our point, Cyprian understood both schisms to be attacks directly upon the chair of St. Peter. Novatian was attacking the chair of St.
52:46: Peter in Rome, and Philosysimus was attacking the chair of St. Peter in Carthage. Rather than finding papal primacy or Roman primacy in Cyprian, we instead find the heart and soul of Cyprianic theory, which is that the whole church is a single episcopate, and each part may presume to be understood as the whole, and every bishop, everywhere, sat in the chair of St.
53:06: Peter. Cornelius had been duly elected bishop in Rome and attained the episcopate and took the place of Peter, according to Cyprian, epistle 51, paragraph 8.
53:16: And there he occupied the priestly chair, paragraph 9. Novatian had instigated a revolt against the church, paragraph 12, which was therefore an attack upon St.
53:26: Peter's chair. Cyprian, too, had been duly elected bishop in Carthage, and therefore he, too, occupied a priestly throne, according to epistle 72, paragraph 2.
53:37: But because Philosysimus had retained that ancient venom against my episcopate, that's epistle 39, paragraph 1, he was now exhorting the members of the flock not to agree with their bishop to the ruin of the lapsed, that's paragraph 2.
53:51: This was not merely an attack upon Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, but upon the chair of St. Peter in Carthage, the very rock upon which
53:58: Christ had established his church. Now citing from Cyprian of Carthage, epistle 59, paragraph 5, a letter to his own congregation about the schism of Philosysimus against Bishop Cyprian.
54:09: And notice, Cyprian thinks the attack against Cyprian is an attack against the chair of Peter.
54:17: They are promising to bring back and recall the lapsed into the church who themselves have departed from the church.
54:23: There is one God, and Christ is one, and there is one church, and one chair founded upon the rock by the word of the
54:29: Lord. Another altar cannot be constituted, nor a new priesthood be made, except the one altar and the one priesthood.
54:37: Whosoever gathers elsewhere scatters. That's epistle 39, paragraph 5.
54:43: This is Cyprian complaining that Philosysimus and his followers in Carthage were rending the church by opening its doors to the unrepentant lapsed, which was an offense against the chair of St.
54:54: Peter in Carthage. So let us remind the listener here that Marcus Grodi cited
55:00: Cyprian's treatise on unity, assuming that by a unified single episcopate, Cyprian must have been referring to the
55:06: Bishop of Rome sitting in St. Peter's chair in Rome. But in the context of Cyprian's own writings,
55:13: Cyprian also viewed himself as occupying the seat of St. Peter in Carthage. And in the case of Philosysimus, he was writing to the clergy of Carthage in order to defend the throne of St.
55:23: Peter in Carthage from the attacks. Cyprian believed in the unity of the church, with a unified truth handed down from the apostles, not a church unified to any man or to any church or congregation in any particular city.
55:36: And we know this because Cyprian believed the church would survive just fine, even if it had to separate itself from Rome and the
55:44: Bishop of Rome. Remember Cyprian's treatise on unity as quoted by Marcus Grodi just a few moments earlier?
55:51: Well, Cyprian asks a very important question in chapter 8. He asks, who then is so wicked and faithless, who is so insane with the madness of discord that either he should believe that the unity of God can be divided or should dare to rend it?
56:07: The garment of the Lord, the church of Christ. That's treatise on unity, paragraph 8. Well, in epistle 73,
56:15: Cyprian provides the answer to that very poignant question. Who would destroy the unity of the church?
56:21: The Bishop of Rome, that's who. Cyprian's conviction was that the church could be one and undivided as a single episcopate, even if the
56:28: Bishop of Rome was corrupting the truth by perfidious prevarication and had himself separated from the unity of the church.
56:35: The truth of the church would march on without Rome, if Rome had walked away from the faith, as Cyprian believed she had.
56:42: Thus could Cyprian point out Pope Stephen's error in endeavoring to maintain the cause of heretics against Christians, epistle 73, paragraph 1, and complain that Pope Stephen was forgetful of unity and had adopted lies and contagion instead, that's paragraph 2, and that Pope Stephen had demonstrated obstinacy and presumption by preferring human tradition to divine ordinance, paragraph 3, and that the church of Rome had descended to this point of evil, that she follows the examples of heretics, causing
57:13: Christians to do that which antichrists do, and further, that Pope Stephen's blindness of soul and degradation of faith had caused him to refuse to recognize the unity, that's paragraph 4, and that things would not go well for Stephen on the day of judgment because he does not hold the unity and truth that arise from the divine law, but maintains heresies against the church, paragraph 8.
57:36: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Cyprian riding against a pope in unqualified terms of condemnation, and yet in spite of this evidence that is plainly available to Marcus Grodi, Grodi has concluded that Cyprian believed the unity of the church was entrusted by Christ to the bishop of Rome.
57:56: But we know better, Cyprian believed in the unity of the church and the primacy of the chair of St.
58:02: Peter, he just didn't believe the chair of St. Peter was exclusively in Rome. Or that exclusively the bishop of Rome sat in it.
58:10: In fact, he believed the unity of the church would go on in purity and truth even if the church of Rome and her bishop separated from the catholicity of the unified church.
58:19: What we have on display here from Grodi, who concluded the exact opposite of Cyprian's position, is the presumptuous arrogance of the
58:27: Roman apologist who starts with the assumption that St. Peter's chair exists only in Rome, and then reads
58:32: Cyprian's treatise on Petrine unity and takes that to mean Cyprian believed in Roman primacy.
58:38: And this from a treatise by Cyprian in which the name Rome is not even mentioned. Okay, so much for Cyprian of Carthage.
58:46: Let us go on to Marcus Grodi's last topic, which is the unity of the church. And now on a different topic.
58:53: And the first comes from St. Ignatius of Antioch, again back, he wrote around 110
58:58: AD. In his letter to the Philadelphians, he's on his way to Rome to be martyred. And this is what he writes.
59:06: For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop, and as many as shall in the exercise of repentance return unto the unity of the church, these too shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ.
59:22: Do not err, my brethren, if any man follows him that makes a schism in the church, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
59:33: If anyone walks according to a strange opinion, he agrees not with the passion of Christ.
59:41: In this letter, St. Ignatius addressed those that cause schism in the church, that lift themselves up above the authority of the bishops and the priests and the deacons in union with the bishop of Rome.
59:55: They set themselves up as their own interpreter of Scripture, their own doctrines, their own organization of the church.
01:00:02: And he is saying that those who follow those schismatics themselves are in danger of their own salvation.
01:00:12: Marcus has cited Ignatius' letter to the Philadelphians, paragraph 3, and it is an accurate citation.
01:00:19: For this we want to ask our listeners, if they want, to go back to the second episode on Marcus Grodi and listen to the part where I talk about, do nothing apart from the bishop.
01:00:28: It is relevant here because the Gnostic heresy had spread throughout Asia Minor and it explicitly called for the sheep to cast off their bishops and deacons, claiming that they were not truly instituted by God.
01:00:39: So revisiting the matter briefly here, about ten years before Ignatius' death, a
01:00:44: Gnostic document called the Apocalypse of Peter was circulating and it was advancing the Gnostic error that Jesus had not really taken on a physical body.
01:00:52: It swept through Asia Minor and caught up a lot of people in its errors. In the Apocalypse of Peter, Peter is allegedly told that Jesus had an incorporeal body, that is, not a fleshly one, but a spiritual one, and therefore he had no real blood, had not suffered on the cross, and had not risen from the dead.
01:01:09: Now citing from the Gnostic document, the Apocalypse of Peter. But what they released was my incorporeal body, but I am the intellectual spirit filled with radiant light.
01:01:23: Again, that's the Apocalypse of Peter. Jesus allegedly claiming that he had no incorporeal body, but was only spirit.
01:01:30: That is very interesting to us here because in his letter to the Philadelphians, Ignatius is very focused on that particular issue, as he repeatedly dwells on the flesh and the blood of Christ.
01:01:40: His passion is in the greeting in which he says, So there is an element of Ignatius' warning against the
01:01:59: Gnostics here, but as we noted in our second episode on Marcus Grodi, the Apocalypse of Peter also called into question the divine origin of the hierarchy of the church, as in this section from the
01:02:09: Apocalypse of Peter. And there shall be others of those who are outside our number who name themselves bishop and also deacons, as if they have received their authority from God.
01:02:22: So Ignatius opens his letter with a reminder that we are to remain in unity with the bishop, the presbyters and the deacons.
01:02:29: He writes, Again, that's the greeting of Ignatius in his letter to the church at Philadelphia.
01:03:00: All this is to say that there is a context in which Ignatius wrote these letters, and part of that context is the rapid spread of the
01:03:07: Apocalypse of Peter, in which the incarnation is denied, as is the institution of church officers by the apostles through the
01:03:13: Holy Spirit. So, yes, there is an appeal to unity by remaining united to the bishops, presbyters and deacons and maintaining unity in the confession of Christ's incarnation, passion, death and resurrection.
01:03:25: In that context, that is, in the context of Gnostics claiming that the bishops and deacons are not really instituted by the authority of God, yes,
01:03:34: I would say that we need to stay unified with our bishops and deacons and presbyters too. Which is funny on its own because of how very conservative
01:03:41: Roman Catholics, after years of telling Protestants they are supposed to be in unity with the Pope, are now actively calling for the laity to rise up from under the authority of their bishops, presbyters and deacons and cast them off in order to bring about a reformation in the church, the very thing
01:03:56: Ignatius said not to do. This is a papal document, a mors lititia, it contains theological error that contradicts the plain words of Jesus Christ.
01:04:07: We're talking about the death penalty and the recent change made by Pope Francis in August of 2018 to the
01:04:15: Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 2267. It's amazing that the bishops, the cardinals haven't stood up in a way that the faithful can see.
01:04:25: The laity have to speak for this. And ultimately this all goes back to Pope Francis. His entire papacy is simply going down in flames.
01:04:34: And it would be best for the church if he simply laicized all of those cardinals.
01:04:40: Get rid of all of them and then resign yourself. This is pathetic. It's absolutely pathetic.
01:04:48: Those are some examples from an earlier episode on Marcus Grodi, I just threw them in there for their comic relief.
01:04:54: If those Roman Catholics are not in line with Ignatius' teaching that they should be in unity with the bishop, are they?
01:05:02: And on that note, I'll actually say I agree with Ignatius here, even though clearly some Roman Catholics aren't so sure.
01:05:08: But it is important to know the context in which he was writing what he wrote. And he was rejecting a
01:05:14: Gnostic teaching that bishops and deacons were not truly instituted by God. They were, the scriptures say so.
01:05:20: And on that note, there is something else in the letter to the Philadelphians. Something very interesting. In addition to the
01:05:26: Gnostic error spreading through Asia Minor, the church at Philadelphia was also facing pressure by the
01:05:31: Judaizers, who were not convinced that the Christ had come. So, in addition to his warning against those who believed that Jesus had come, but not physically,
01:05:41: Ignatius also warned against those who believed in the Old Testament, but denied that Jesus had come at all. Now citing from paragraph six of his letter to the
01:05:49: Philadelphians. But if anyone preached the Jewish law unto you, listen not to him, for it is better to hearken to Christian doctrine from a man who has been circumcised than to Judaism from one uncircumcised.
01:06:03: But if either of such persons do not speak concerning Jesus Christ, they are in my judgment but as monuments and sepulchres of the dead, upon which are written only the names of men.
01:06:13: That's Ignatius of Antioch to the Philadelphians chapter six. So clearly Philadelphia is facing at least two threats,
01:06:21: Gnosticism and Judaism. So Ignatius goes on and addresses that Jewish threat and in particular the fact that they held to the
01:06:28: Old Testament but did not receive the New Testament. Now citing from Ignatius of Antioch to the
01:06:33: Philadelphians paragraph eight. When I heard some saying, if I do not find it in the ancient scriptures,
01:06:40: I will not believe the gospel, on my saying to them, it is written, they answered me, that remains to be proven.
01:06:47: That's Ignatius to the Philadelphians paragraph eight, responding to the Jewish arguments that they were only going to go by the
01:06:55: Old Testament scriptures. It is written, that is what Ignatius said to them.
01:07:01: Ignatius is obviously referring to the New Testament and the gospels as the source of what he teaches and not just an oral history passed down by the previous bishops but actually a written record and he refers to those scriptures as the source of our unity.
01:07:17: In his letter to the Ephesians paragraph 12 he said, you are initiated into the mysteries of the gospel with Paul, who in all his epistles makes mention of you in Christ Jesus.
01:07:28: To the Magnesians chapter 13, study therefore to be established in the doctrines of the
01:07:33: Lord and the apostles. To the Trallians chapter 7, continue in intimate union with Jesus Christ our
01:07:40: God and the bishop and the enactments of the apostles. To the Romans paragraph four,
01:07:46: I do not as Peter and Paul issue commandments to you. And now in his letter to Polycarp paragraph three, let not those who seem worthy of credit but teach strange doctrines fill you with apprehension.
01:08:00: And again to the Philadelphians paragraph three, if anyone walks according to a strange opinion he agrees not with the passion of Christ.
01:08:09: And now an extended quote from his letter to the Smyrnaeans paragraph one, being fully persuaded with respect to our
01:08:15: Lord that he was truly of the seed of David according to the flesh and the Son of God according to the will and power of God, that he was truly born of a virgin, was baptized by John in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled in him, and was truly under Pontius Pilate and Herod the
01:08:30: Tetrarch nailed to the cross for us in the flesh. Of this fruit we are by his divinely blessed passion that he might set up a standard for all ages through his resurrection to all his holy and faithful followers, whether among Jews or Gentiles, in the one body of his church.
01:08:49: That's again the first paragraph of his letter to Smyrna indicating that all Ignatius was teaching was what the scriptures contain.
01:08:58: Now I cite all of these not only to show that Ignatius believed the doctrines that we are to embrace are in fact written, as he himself so says, but that his audience has access to them and is encouraged to study them as well, as it is clear that he himself has also done.
01:09:14: His extended citation from the first paragraph in his letter to the Smyrnaeans shows ample evidence that he has indeed read the
01:09:21: New Testament. It is his conviction that the churches to whom he writes ought to study them just as diligently.
01:09:27: They are written down for them, and those written documents will serve as a handy reference guide in order to determine which opinions and doctrines are strange and which ones are in fact apostolic.
01:09:39: The written commandments, decrees, and statutes of the apostles and the gospels and the epistles are sufficient to that end.
01:09:45: It is not just by the oral teachings of the bishop that we are to find the truth. It is in the scriptures, and those bishops who deviate from the teachings of the apostles in their oral teachings are to be dismissed because their teachings are inconsistent with the statutes and doctrines and decrees of the apostles that were plainly available to the early church.
01:10:05: And that is why I highlighted earlier the fact that Ignatius did not believe that the bishop of Rome was over all the churches.
01:10:11: He did not see union with the bishop of Rome as the test and measure of truth. He knew that the scriptures served that purpose.
01:10:18: But listen again to Marcus Grodi throwing in a gratuitous reference to Ignatius' imagined conviction that the bishop of Rome was the standard of all teaching in the early church.
01:10:28: In this letter, St. Ignatius addressed those that cause schism in the church, that lift themselves up above the authority of the bishops and the priests and the deacons in union with the bishop of Rome.
01:10:43: In union with the bishop of Rome? The schismatics set themselves up above the clergy and the bishop of Rome in their own interpretation of scriptures, their own doctrines, and their own organization?
01:10:54: Well don't tell me that, Marcus Grodi. Tell it to the schismatic movement in your own church that is currently criticizing
01:11:00: Pope Francis' interpretation of scripture, his interpretation of tradition, his changes to the catechism and his papal decrees, and are demanding that he fire the clergy and then resign himself.
01:11:10: Tell it to Michael Voris, Taylor Marshall, Timothy Gordon, and John Henry Weston, from whom we just heard that the bishops and pope are pathetic and that it is time for the laity to rise up.
01:11:21: Hey, wasn't the pope supposed to solve all this division and schism instead of create it? Well, I'll let
01:11:27: Marcus Grodi go tell that to his compatriots and see if he can convince them that they should do nothing apart from the bishop of Rome.
01:11:35: Well, the truth is, Ignatius knew the source of the church's unity was and still is the chief shepherd in heaven and the standard of who unity was and still is the scriptures.
01:11:45: Marcus Grodi has imagined otherwise, but that is because he is not very deep in history at all.
01:11:51: And that is where we will wrap up episode 11 of The Diving Board and the sixth installment on the conversion of Marcus Grodi.
01:11:57: It's our final installment on Marcus. So let's summarize. Marcus Grodi provided citations from the early church fathers that influenced his decision to return to Rome, and he divided his citations into four main categories.
01:12:10: The church hierarchy, the Eucharist, which to him is the Lord's Supper and the Roman sacrifice of the mass, the primacy of Rome, and the unity of the church.
01:12:18: In our first episode on Marcus Grodi, we highlighted his use of Clement of Rome to support the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
01:12:25: In that episode, Grodi mischaracterized Clement of Rome as saying that the church at Corinth ought to obey the bishop of Rome by submitting to the bishop in Corinth.
01:12:33: In fact, Clement was insisting that they not submit to the bishop of Rome, but rather that they should submit to the scriptures by submitting to the plurality of their duly elected elders, and that the schismatics should do whatever the majority of the congregation had decided.
01:12:48: Then we addressed Grodi's unscriptural and historically unviable assumption that apostolic secession is a guarantee of orthodoxy, and showed from the scriptures and from the historical record that neither the apostles nor the early church shared
01:13:00: Grodi's unwavering trust in the bishops, often warning about bad ones, confronting sinful ones, and dismissing others when their lives and teachings were at odd with the scriptures.
01:13:10: In the second episode on Marcus Grodi, we picked up on his citation of Ignatius of Antioch's admonition that bishops, presbyters, and deacons were instituted by God and that nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing should be done apart from the bishop.
01:13:22: We then showed from history that nobody has ever actually believed or practiced that, and certainly not modern
01:13:27: Roman Catholics who have only lately discovered under Francis that they can disagree with the
01:13:32: Pope if he says things contrary to their personal, private interpretations of tradition, the magisterium, and the scriptures.
01:13:39: We showed rather that Ignatius was simply responding to a contemporary Gnostic teaching from a document called the
01:13:44: Apocalypse of Peter, in which the author thought that Christians needed to reject bishops and deacons because they are not instituted by God.
01:13:51: After that, we addressed Irenaeus' writings on the authority of tradition and Marcus Grodi's attempt to have
01:13:56: Irenaeus support apostolic tradition as a higher and earlier authority than the scriptures. As we showed from Irenaeus himself, he believed emphatically that the scripture is the apostolic tradition, which is why he believed that apostolic tradition is authoritative.
01:14:11: Using Irenaeus' definition of apostolic tradition, I think it is authoritative as well, and Ignatius would agree with that.
01:14:18: Okay, we then spent the next three episodes on Marcus Grodi's second topic, the Eucharist, and that took us deep into the liturgy of the early church.
01:14:27: Marcus believed that he had to convert back to Roman Catholicism to go back to celebrating the Eucharist the way the early church did, which is to say by offering consecrated bread and wine to the
01:14:36: Father and by worshiping the consecrated bread and wine that had been offered. And all of this because Marcus Grodi could not refute the deep, deep history of the
01:14:45: Roman Catholic apologists who confronted him with fabricated evidence from the early church fathers. But as it turns out, not only did the early church not offer the abominable
01:14:54: Roman Catholic sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, and not only did the early church not worship the elements of the supper, and not only did the early church not believe in the real presence of Christ in the
01:15:05: Eucharist, but also the scholars and apologists who have attempted to convince us that it did, have been engaged in one of the most destructive, deceptive, abominable, and heretical campaigns in the history of the church, confounded by a lack of evidence to support the early practice of Rome's sacrifice of the
01:15:21: Mass, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the practice of Eucharistic adoration, and confounded by the stark difference between the early liturgy of the
01:15:29: Apostolic Church of Christ and the late 4th century novelties of the Roman Catholic religion, professional theologians, scholars, and apologists have attempted to create the evidence out of whole cloth.
01:15:40: They have accomplished this by actually changing some of the original words in the Greek, by intentionally mistranslating others, by deferring to Latin translations that are known to be wrong, and by suppressing, ridiculing, and marginalizing other evidence that they could not ignore.
01:15:54: The effect of the campaign has been to collapse the early church's tithe offering of thanks and the first fruits of the harvest, that is, the
01:16:01: Eucharist, into the epiclesis, the invocation, the consecration, in order to make it appear that the early church offered consecrated bread and wine to the
01:16:10: Father in the Lord's Supper, and believed that the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ were really present in the
01:16:16: Supper. In short, they have so obscured and clouded the historical record that the simple, the ignorant, and the gullible, the double -minded, are convinced that their only option is to return to Roman Catholicism, to offer
01:16:29: Christ's body and blood to the Father, and to worship a piece of bread. And the only way to convince people of that is to keep people in ignorance and darkness, which is precisely what happened to Marcus Grodi.
01:16:40: And finally, in this final episode on Marcus Grodi, we covered his alleged evidence for the authority of Rome in the early church and his insistence that the unity of the church is in the traditions as taught by the bishops, in unity with the bishop of Rome, and showed rather that Ignatius believed that the unity of Christ's church is maintained by our chief bishop in heaven, and the standard of that unity is not in Rome, but in the scriptures.
01:17:04: And Marcus Grodi would know this if he was truly deep in history.
01:17:11: Okay, that's where we will wrap up today. This is your host, Timothy F. Kaufman, and you've been listening to the sixth and final installation on the conversion of Marcus Grodi and the eleventh episode of The Diving Board.