sotto voce

By people who watch cartoons.

Iskander

Yes, I have phoned Jerome today and he has confirmed that Papa is reserved for the bishop of Alexandria.

sotto voce

Isn't it strange. When it comes to Bible scrutiny, free thought, the latest free thought, even wild thought, is most acceptable, even if rationality is scarce; while conventional wisdom, based on hundreds of years of tested scholarship, is ignored and even derided. When it comes to authoritarianism, the history of suppression of Christianity, even of killing people in the name of the Bible deity, free thought never gets a look in. Resort is made to dictionaries!

Iskander

“The name patriarch was at first, particularly in the East, an honorary title for all bishops, and was not till the fourth century exclusively appropriated to the bishops of the three ecclesiastical and political capitals of the Roman Empire, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome, and also to the bishop of Jerusalem honoris causa, and the bishop of Constantinople or New Rome.

So in the West the term papa afterwards appropriated by the Roman bishop, as summus pontifex, vicarious Christi, was current for a long time in a more general application.”


History of the Christian Church
Philip Schaff

sotto voce

No better than the dictionary.

Try free thought?

stephan huller

i haven't come across jerome calling any other bishop "pope" save for the bishop of rome (= pope damascus)

stephan huller

I found an address to the bishop of Alexandria "Pope Theophilus" which is to be expected (as the title originated with the tradition of St Mark). http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001114.htm But Salamis is not an important enough see. It's puzzling.

sotto voce

It's of great importance to lick the right buttocks.

stephan huller

In this letter the bishop of Jerusalem is simply called 'bishop' but Epiphanius is 'Pope':

Surely the see of Jerusalem is more apostolic than Salamis.

stephan huller

Here's a typical Protestant from the nineteenth century trying to use this reference to 'Pope Epiphanius' to attack the Papacy in Rome. Yet the only examples he can find it seems for the use of 'Pope' as a title is (a) Rome (b) Alexandria) and (c) Cyprus. http://books.google.com/books?id=i8Y...ius%22&f=false

Yet this only proves that the use of the title with Epiphanius is an anomaly. Again, the title of Pope originated in Alexandria, it is first used with Heraclas at the beginning of the third century, it was taken over by the Romans at the turn of the fifth century. Something is definitely unusual about Jerome's appropriation of the title for Epiphanius.