Part One

The Part Played By Religious Persecution

Under Roman auspices, Judaism persecuted the church at Jerusalem right after its beginning in the first century.  Both were Jewish, the religion of Israel and the church, and the Roman Empire didn’t distinguish between the two.  To Rome, the church was a mere sect of the Jewish religion.  With more conversion to Christ and the spread of churches across the then-known world, Rome began persecuting churches across its Empire.

Subservience to Jesus Christ threatened allegiance to Rome.  This replayed in future centuries under nations and other governments where states required devotion and sought to eliminate their competition.  The Roman Empire became steeped in polytheism, including worship of the Roman emperor.  This clashed with New Testament churches of the first century, threatening the Roman view of the world and presaging an uprising.

As Christianity began to spread, it faced increasing hostility from both local populations and the Roman state, which viewed it as a challenge to traditional religious practices and societal norms. The need for cohesion became paramount as churches sought to protect themselves from external threats.  The decentralized nature of early and biblical Christianity, characterized by local congregations each led by a single bishop, seemed inadequate to address the challenges posed by the power of the secular government.

Consolidation of Power and Pragmatism

Leaders of churches consolidated power into prominent pastors and churches, leading to a hierarchy among churches and their elders.  This resulted in the emergence of bishops who could oversee multiple congregations and coordinate responses to persecution, thereby fostering a sense of unity across different regions.  They reinvented church government by adding layers of extra scriptural authority, in part so they could disseminate information more efficiently regarding threats across regions to cope with persecution.

Newly conceived extra-scriptural and hierarchical networks organized mutual support among churches to share resources, send aid to persecuted members, or coordinate collective actions against oppressive measures imposed by local authorities of the Roman Empire.  The idea here was that New Testament government wasn’t suitable to face its opposition.  This new type of government was superior and more efficient.  Rather than biblical, it was pragmatic.  To defend this pragmatism with scripture necessitated reassigning new definitions to the already plain meaning of the text of the New Testament.

Altering Scriptural Roles

The term “bishop” (from the Greek word episkopos, meaning overseer) began to be used to describe leaders who had authority over multiple congregations.  This altered the scriptural role of the bishop over only his congregation, not other pastors and churches.  Nothing substantial in the first two centuries in historical writings advocates for something more than local leadership of pastors in separate churches.  Since Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire, the church at Rome took on prominence in this new iteration of ecclesiological organization.

Skilled and successful pastors, actual ones, shepherding their congregations according to the New Testament could become marked for higher authority in these newly devised positions.  Bigger is very often thought to be better.  Seeking for greater things meant something beyond local only, even if that’s what the Lord Jesus Christ started and the New Testament taught.  Men rationalized these new offices with a need to help the churches.  They could both complement and supplement the churches in a protective and helpful manner.  This meant though also deferring to these more powerful offices.

Human government doesn’t tend toward shrinking.  The tendency is toward something bigger and even intrusive, exerting power over people.  Many suggest that Nicolaitism represented an early form of clerical hierarchy where church leaders exercised dominion over laypeople.  Etymological analysis supports this notion.  When breaking down “Nicolaitan” into Greek components, it means “conquering” (nike) and “people” (laos), implying a conquering authority over the laity.  Revelation 2:6 and 15 chronicle the rise of Nicolaitism in the first century.

Defenses of New Positions and Perverting Doctrine

New theories emerged about the nature of the church to justify innovations in governance of churches.  All of this, men deemed, would work better, but it meant finding this in scripture too.  The Petrine theory emerged from passages in the New Testament, particularly Matthew 16:18-19, saying that Jesus referred to Peter as the rock upon which He will build His church. This presented Peter with a unique role among the apostles.

The concept of apostolic succession began to develop, suggesting that Peter, as one of Jesus’ closest disciples, passed on his authority to his successors in Rome.  Early ecclesiastical leaders such as Irenaeus and Clement of Rome acknowledged a connection between Peter and the bishopric of Rome.  They deemed regional power over churches like the apostles.  In his writings, Against the Heretics (3:3:2), Irenaeus writes:

We point out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient Church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, 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. With that Church, because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world, and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition.

Irenaeus held up Polycarp as an example of apostolic succession.  By the late second century, figures like Ignatius of Antioch acknowledged the special status of the church in Rome due to its association with Peter and Paul. This recognition laid groundwork for later claims about papal authority.

More to Come