(May 16, 2016 at 5:10 pm)Minimalist Wrote: No, not the current jackoff. I mean the whole concept of a papacy which seems to have been back dated into the so-called early history of the church...such history being no more historical than that of paul and jesus.
It's an human institution that evolved just like any other, and as with the New Testament authors, people went looking, after the fact, for justification:
Quote:41 (1) BECAUSE of the sudden calamities that have followed one another in turn and because of the adverse circumstances which have befallen us, we think, brethren, that we have returned too late to those matters which are being inquired into among you, beloved, and to the impious and detestable sedition . . . which a few rash and presumptuous men have aroused to such a degree of insolence that your honorable and illustrious name . . . is very much reviled. . . . In order to remind you of your duty, we write. . . . (57) You, therefore, who have laid the foundations of this insurrection, be subject in obedience to the priests and receive correction unto repentance. . . . (59) But if some will not submit to them, let them learn what He [Christ] has spoken through us, that they will involve themselves in great sin and danger; we, however, shall be innocent of this transgression. . . . (63) Indeed you will give joy and gladness to us, if having become obedient to what we have written through the Holy Spirit, you will cut out the unlawful application of your zeal according to the exhortation which we have made in this epistle concerning peace and union.
http://patristica.net/denzinger/
Early on little was made about the head of the Church of Rome; that idea came much later. It should be noted that Popes have had little real power; most Popes during the Middle Ages spent much of their Pontificates in hiding. In today's World, they are basically political hot potatoes; politicians will politely listen to them (except for Putin, of course) and then proceed to ignore them and what they said entirely.
