Did the early papacy have a monarchial structure?

Critics of the Catholic Church generally try to go to the source of the Church's teachings itself when it comes to the controversial position of the Roman Pontiff. They argue and assess that the early church fathers did not have a monarchial understanding of the Bishop of Rome. Fr. Raymond Brown, a Catholic actually,* writes "[t]he development of the papacy at Rome is related to the image of Peter in the NT, but it would be anachronistic...to think of...Peter functioning as a later Pope" (Antioch and Rome, 131). Later, it is argued that this development took several centuries and "the Roman episcopal list shows confusion" citing St. Irenaeus and Tertullian as examples (163). Nevertheless, it's admitted that the primacy of Rome does seem to remain prevalent as "it regarded itself as the heir to the pastoral care of Peter and Paul for the respective Gentile missions" (165-166).

Indeed, Roman primacy is acknowledged by both the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches. This was affirmed in a Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church back in 2016. The document Synodality and Primacy During the First Millenium lists the major sees as Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem "with Rome occupying the first place" (15). In fact, evidence exists that the Roman Pontiff was necessary for maintaining a council as binding as the document references Nicaea II and lists the criteria as "the agreement...of the heads of the churches, the cooperation...of the bishop of Rome, and the agreement of the other patriarchs" (18). Likewise, the East, in the first millenium made many numerous appeals to the bishop of Rome which indicated communion though the bishop of Rome had no canonical authority over the East (19). So the primacy of Rome in the Church is significant and well-established by the extant historical evidence that we have. Let's get back to the early church's monarchial (or lack thereof) structure.

Eamon Duffy, looking at the existing evidence, writes of the early church, "there was no 'pope', no bishop as such, for the church of Rome was slow to develop the office of a chief presbyter" (Saints and Sinners, 9, Third Edition). It would not be until a little later that a monarchial structure emerges. But he also admits, "[t]here is no way to settle on a date by which the office of a ruling bishop had emerged in Rome, and so to name the first Pope, but the process was certainly complete by the time of Anicetus in the mid-150s" (13). Roger Collins hinges on the assumption that St. Irenaeus and Tertullian somehow invented the idea of the apostolic succession through to Rome (Keepers of the Keys of Heaven, 19-20). Or, as Charles Coulombe has aptly been able to put it, "[t]he major presumption here is that Christian doctrine was not taught by Christ and his disciples, but rather, according to H.G. Wells, it was a simple ethical notion to which a religion later accreted" (Vicars of Christ, 7).

Indeed, reading certain biases into what the evidence says gives us two different understandings. But Duffy seems to be the one most inclined toward the evidence in the answer that there is no determining way to settle on the date for the establishment of a monarchial episcopal structure in Rome! But how is it that the conflicting lists of Popes can even be attributed as evidence against this monarchial structure? Is there some sort of conflict with what early fathers were saying? Duffy asserts that St. Ignatius's "letter to the Roman church...says nothing whatever about bishops" indicates that the office of bishop in Rome did not exist (10). That is entirely an argumentum ex silentio. If a letter to the Church in Rome is written today but does not specifically mention the Pope as a recipient, would it mean that the office of the Papacy does not exist? Perhaps one can conclude from the absence of mention that there is an absence of the office, but it does not necessarily follow.

Further, the earlier statements were that St. Irenaeus and Tertullian had conflicting lists of popes in their chronologies. But this is an odd argument to make to begin with. What it reflects is that the Church had a well-established belief in a monarchial structure of the Church in Rome. How did they end up with such a view though? Did it randomly appear overnight or something? Did it randomly just appear out of the blue? Was it already embedded in their thought process? Did they just invent it to combat heresies? These arguments seem to be irrational. One that does not seem to be irrational is that the Church deliberately kept hidden during the earlier days that there was a monarchial structure of episcopacy in Rome. Rome was a persecuted Church in the earliest days of ecclesiastical development so it makes sense that the Church fathers would not want to make such a structure public. I have never encountered such an explanation before for the silence but it would seem presumable. Especially when one considers much of the early silence regarding the Church's current Mariology.

Which list is accurate, though? The list given by St. Irenaeus mentions Linus, Anacletus, Clement, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telephorus, Hyginus, Pius, Anicetus, Soter, and Eleutherius (Against Heresies, III.3.3). This is probably the accurate list as St. Hippolytus's list is virtually identical with the exception that Cletus is doubled into Anicletus and the order of Pius and Anicetus are flopped but such can be attributed to copyist errors (New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, "Chronological List of Popes"). According to the article, Eusebius doubles down on the list given by St. Hippolytus. Tertullian is problematic since he ended up in an heretical group. Tertullian is well worth reading as a church father just as much as Origen but both must be taken with caution. The conflicts of their sources are thus irrelevant since St. Irenaeus was the orthodox of the two.

*The work cited is co-authored with another Catholic, John P. Meier, so it may not have been Brown but possibly Meier.