The Pope of the Gaps

We always have an implicit "outside interpreter" in so far as we interpret scripture against the background of our culture, our concerns, and often the historical tradition in which we grew up and which shapes our understanding of scripture.

It is interesting that in the discussions on the "New Perspective" on Paul, the implicit traditions of various strands of Protestantism have become more explicit, because they are taking their reading of justification primarily from Luther, and his reading of Galatians.

With regard to the primacy of Rome, there are certainly texts in the New Testament which can be cited in favour of the primacy of Peter (which have been mentioned in this discussion)

From a background of form criticism, this would suggest a community in which Petrine authority was important so that (for the moment bracketing out the historicity of these stories) these stories achieved a popular circulation in oral tradition and the gospels.

The hiatus in the tradition however comes when we move from this community to Rome. Irenaeus with his list of Bishops of Rome comes late in the 2nd century, and while his list must have come from somewhere, it is clear that the name Anacletus is doubtful.

Moreover, Irenaeus is making a polemic point, putting the succession of the bishops (and their authority) as a bulwark against heresy. So we have to ask: was this the case earlier, or did the situation change (and was reinterpreted) under pressure from, for example, Gnosticism.

The earliest possible source outside the NT is probably Clement, and this has nothing to say about Peter being in Rome, and little about the authority of the bishops of Rome. Clement notably does not use the same kind of argument as Irenaeus suggests was his to make.

So my problem is this: even given that there were New Testament communities which had a tradition of Petrine authority, there is a historical gap between that and both (a) the establishment of Peter as Bishop of Rome (b) the kind of authority that is claimed later by the Bishop of Rome, but which is not in evidence in the early historical record.

That is not to disallow developments in the primacy of the bishop of Rome as somehow illegitimate, for as Newman pointed out "all great ideas are found, as time goes on, to involve much which was not seen at first to belong to them, and have developments, that is enlargements, applications, uses and fortunes, very various". But I think it means the legitimacy of Papal authority should be established on other grounds.