Some Christians argue that there was no single bishop who governed the Church of Rome in the first and early to mid-second century. They assert this historical claim as a challenge to the early papacy because the Catholic claim concerning the papacy involves Peter’s headship being part and parcel of Christ’s Church, as well as a permanent institution located in the bishopric of Rome.
Robert Eno, former professor of church history at the Catholic University of America, puts the challenge this way in his book The Rise of the Papacy:
In the first century and into the second, there was no bishop of Rome in the usual sense given to that title. . . . If there were no bishop of Rome, in what sense can one speak of a Petrine succession? (28-29).
Similarly, Kenneth J. Collins and Jerry L. Walls, on page 242 of their book Roman but Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years After the Reformation, argue that papal infallibility cannot be true because the episcopacy and apostolic succession “appeared sometime in the second century at the earliest, not the first century, where Rome needed it for the establishment of its papal office in Peter.”
Now, one line of evidence that some have proposed in confirmation of this thesis comes from an early Christian document called The Shepherd, written by a freed Roman Christian named Hermas. The document dates from as early as A.D. 70 to 155. The argument appeals to passages in The Shepherd that speak of multiple bishops in the Church of Rome. If there were multiple bishops governing the Church of Rome, so the argument goes, then there couldn’t have been a single bishop of Rome, as the papacy requires.
A key text is found in Book Three of The Shepherd, Similitude 9, chapter 27, where Hermas receives instruction concerning the meaning of the tenth mountain among the twelve mountains he sees in his vision. Here’s what we read:
From the tenth mountain, where were trees which overshadowed certain sheep, they who believed were the following: bishops given to hospitality, who always gladly received into their houses the servants of God, without dissimulation. And the bishops never failed to protect, by their service, the widows, and those who were in want, and always maintained a holy conversation.
How might we respond?
First, what Hermas sees in these visions involving the twelve mountains at this point in The Shepherd is interpreted as a reference to the “Church of God” at large, not the local church at Rome. Hermas tells us explicitly what those mountains are: they represent the twelve tribes or nations that inhabit the whole world, to whom the Son of God was preached by the apostles (Sim. 9.17). Each mountain, therefore, stands for a category of believers drawn from the universal Church across the world.
Furthermore, the title given by various translations to the Ninth Similitude, from which the quotation comes, is “The Great Mysteries in the Building of the Militant and Triumphant Church.” This fits with what Hermas says elsewhere about the general office of bishops within the Church.
For example, Vision 3, chapter 5 reads this way:
Those square white stones which fitted exactly into each other, are apostles, bishops, teachers, and deacons, who have lived in godly purity, and have acted as bishops and teachers and deacons chastely and reverently to the elect of God.
Notice that the interpreter of the vision speaks of “bishops” in the plural in the same sense in which she speaks of “apostles.” Surely, there weren’t multiple “apostles” in the Church of Rome at the time this vision was given and written down. Therefore, “apostles” must be referring to the apostolic office in the Church at large. Likewise, “bishops” must refer to the office of bishop in the Church at large, not specifically to the local church of Rome.
Given that we have reason to think that “bishops” in the plural is referring to bishops in the Church at large, the mention of “bishops” in the plural is not evidence for a collective leadership of bishops in the church of Rome at the time the visions were given to Hermas and written down in The Shepherd.
Now, someone might counter that Vision 2 specifies that these bishops are from the church in Rome. The aged woman in the vision instructs Hermas to “read [the book] to this city [Rome] along with the elders that preside over the Church.” Since the terms “bishops” and “elders” were still being used interchangeably at this time, as they were in the New Testament, the vision could be understood as localizing the “bishops” to Rome.
But let’s grant for the sake of argument that the “presbyters” in Vision 2 are identical to the “bishops” spoken of in the Ninth Similitude. Even then, that still doesn’t mean there was no single bishop of Rome who governed the rest.
There could have been multiple “bishops” spread throughout the city, governing individual Christian “churches,” much like how a priest “oversees” a parish, while these bishops remained subject to the single bishop of Rome. This is reasonable, given the size of the city of Rome, which was about 14 square miles, not counting outlying areas, with a population of about 1 million.
In fact, some have suggested that there were multiple house churches spread throughout Rome. Each of these house churches, or a cluster of them, could have been governed by a bishop.
German Protestant theologian Peter Lampe confirms this idea of multiple house churches throughout Rome in his study on the matter, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries.
We also have a biblical hint for this thesis. For example, in Romans 16:5, Paul instructs the Christians to “greet also the church in [Prisca’s and Aquila’s] house.” Surely, the church of Rome was not restricted to the house church of Prisca and Aquila. There must have been other house churches as well, all of which together made up the “church of Rome.”
The Catholic understanding of the papacy doesn’t exclude the possibility that there could have been multiple bishops serving these different congregations throughout the city. There’s no essential difference between a bishop governing a geographical area within the boundaries of a city, a geographical area that is the city itself, or a geographical area that contains multiple cities. There’s nothing intrinsic to the office of a bishop that specifies the exact amount of geographical territory that must be governed or the number of people who must be governed.
A second response is that we have historical attestation that there was, in fact, a single bishop of Rome during the time frame scholars date Hermas as receiving these visions: A.D. 70-155.
If we go with the later dating of The Shepherd—A.D. 140-155—then the bishop would have been Pope Pius I.
This later dating is confirmed by the Muratorian Fragment. The Muratorian Fragment contains the oldest list of New Testament books believed to be inspired at the time. Notably, it leaves out Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter and includes the false writing of the Apocalypse of Peter.
Now, the fragment includes a statement referring to Hermas, the writer of The Shepherd, which gives us a hint at its dating. Here’s what is said in the fragment:
Hermas wrote The Shepherd very recently, in our times, in the city of Rome, while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the [episcopal] chair of the church of the city of Rome.
Notice that the author says Hermas wrote The Shepherd at the time when his brother, Pius, was “occupying the chair of the church of the city of Rome.” The historical record of the succession of the bishops of Rome tells us that this was Pius I, who reigned from A.D. 140 to 155. This is why many scholars date The Shepherd to this time period.
Now, if we go with the earlier dating of The Shepherd—the first century, A.D. 70-90—then the bishop of Rome would have been either Linus or Clement, the Clement who most think was Clement of Rome, the author of the first-century Letter to the Corinthians. Here’s the relevant passage (Book 2, Vision 2, chapter 4):
Thou shalt therefore write two little books, and shalt send one to Clement, and one to Grapte. So Clement shall send to the foreign cities, for this is his duty; while Grapte shall instruct the widows and the orphans.
If this is Clement of Rome from the first century, the author of the Letter to the Corinthians, then The Shepherd was written in the first century, anywhere from A.D. 70 to A.D. 97. The reason for this date range is that Clement of Rome was probably a secretary of sorts in the church of Rome around A.D. 70 and, according to the historical record, was bishop of Rome from A.D. 88 to 97.
If The Shepherd was written at the time when “Clement” was a secretary of sorts, before he became bishop, circa A.D. 70, then The Shepherd would have been written during the time of Pope Linus, the immediate successor to St. Peter as Bishop of Rome, who reigned from A.D. 67 to 76. We know this succession from Irenaeus, who, in Against Heresies, writes,
The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric (Bk. 3, ch. 3).
If, however, The Shepherd was written at the time when “Clement” was already bishop of Rome, which would have been sometime between A.D. 88 and 97, then the single bishop of Rome would have been, of course, Clement.
So, according to the historical record, regardless of where we date The Shepherd within the first century, there would have been a single bishop of Rome at the time The Shepherd was written. This being the case, the plural reference to “bishops” can’t be evidence that there was no single bishop of Rome at the time The Shepherd was written.
Given the arguments I’ve presented here, we can conclude that the challenge from The Shepherd of Hermas fails to provide support for the thesis that there was no single bishop of Rome in the first to mid-second century.