In late September I joined William Albrecht and Erick Ybarra on Reason and Theology to talk about the monarchial episcopate in the early Church. Together we looked at the early documents to show that in fact, the Church of Rome had a monarchial bishop from the very beginning. The idea was to disprove the revisionist theory that the early Roman Church was governed by a college of presbyters as opposed to having one monarchial bishop above the presbyters.
In this interview, St. Jerome was raised. Also, recently a Protestant who I dialogue with sent me an article on the supposed absence of an early monarchial episcopate. The article is by Michael J Kruger and he provides the same quote by St. Jerome. I wasn’t really expecting this in the interview because I had prepared my case based on primarily first and second century documents and St. Jerome is a fifth century witness. However, after doing more research and reading the argument by Kruger, I have a response. Regardless, here is the quote from St. Jerome as found in Kruger’s article:
The presbyter is the same as the bishop, and before parties had been raised up in religion by the provocations of Satan, the churches were governed by the Senate of the presbyters. But as each one sought to appropriate to himself those whom he had baptized, instead of leading them to Christ, it was appointed that one of the presbyters, elected by his colleagues, should be set over all the others, and have chief supervision over the general well-being of the community. . . Without doubt it is the duty of the presbyters to bear in mind that by the discipline of the Church they are subordinated to him who has been given them as their head, but it is fitting that the bishops, on their side, do not forget that if they are set over the presbyters, it is the result of tradition, and not by the fact of a particular institution by the Lord
This is from St. Jerome’s commentary on Titus 1:7. Dr. Kruger’s article can be found here:
First of all, I’m going to say that I don’t agree with St. Jerome. He’s simply wrong on this and provides no proof. Despite being a great theologian and Bible translator he dropped the ball on this one. However, it’s not as bad as we think because if it happened the way St. Jerome describes it’s not too bad if it happened in the New Testament period. If it happened in the New Testament period it’s a legitimate development. If this transition happened in the year 100 or 150 AD we have a problem. If it happened in 40 or 60 AD then it’s okay. The evidence in St. Jerome’s other writing shows that this happened in the New Testament period; specifically in the 30s or early 40s which are the earliest years of the Church.
In his book De Virus Illustribus he writes:
Simon Peter the son of John, from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, brother of Andrew the apostle, and himself chief of the apostles, after having been bishop of the Church of Antioch and having preached to the Dispersion – the believers in circumcision, in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia – pushed on to Rome in the second year of Claudius to overthrow Simon Magus, and held the sacerdotal chair there for twenty-five years until the last, that is the fourteenth, year of Nero.
Claudius became emperor in 41 AD so the second year of Claudius would be 42 AD. This is the year that St. Peter went to Rome and held the sacerdotal chair(presumably the Roman bishopric) for 25 years. This is 42 AD and we need to keep in mind that he was already the bishop of Antioch prior to this. This means that the conversion from a church government from a college of presbyters to a monarchial bishop happened before 42 AD and most likely in the 30s. In other words the apostolic period; the earliest days of the Church. Of course this is assuming what St. Jerome says is true which is highly unlikely. Still, this hypothetical conversion happened while the apostles were alive and hence it’s 100% legitimate. It doesn’t pose a problem to the Catholic position or the other apostolic churches that hold to monarchial bishops. Dr. Kruger should have made this known to his readers.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.