{"id":11483,"date":"2020-10-07T23:43:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T23:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=11483"},"modified":"2020-10-07T23:43:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T23:43:00","slug":"diocletian-as-the-first-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/11483\/diocletian-as-the-first-pope\/","title":{"rendered":"Diocletian as the First Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Would it be a stretch to say Diocletian was the first Pope?\u00a0 In\u00a0<u>Cesar and Christ<\/u>\u00a0(pg 640-641), I&#8217;m interpreting Durant&#8217;s work as showing how Diocletian laid the imperial and civil framework that would act as the foundation for institutional Catholicism and the cult of apostolic succession.\u00a0 Firstly, he reinstituted the right of absolutism in the hands of imperial seat, probably the most successful of all Emperors to bypass the role of the Senate.\u00a0 From there, he elevated the personality of emperor as the &#8220;embodiment of Jupiter&#8221; &#8230; and &#8220;assumed a diadem &#8211; a broad white fillet set with pearls &#8211; and robes of silk and gold&#8230; Visitors were required to kneel and kiss the hem of his robe&#8221;.\u00a0 He encouraged such pomp and ceremony in order to transcend his power beyond this world in hope to win the test of time (the beginning of apostolic succession).\u00a0 As both God and King, he called himself\u00a0<em>dominus<\/em>\u00a0and established a social, political and religious contract between him and the Roman empire that the Catholic church would gradually assume over the next century.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Diocletian is a perfect example of blending of the gods and the proof that the concept of apostolic succession was invented by Rome to preserve the absolute right of power in the hand of the emperor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Michael<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">============<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#3366ff;\">Thanks, Michael for the question.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#3366ff;\">Much of Diocletian&#8217;s supremely arrogant attitude and some elements of his re-organization of the empire were adopted later by leaders of the Catholic Church, but I think it is too much to call him the first Pope.\u00a0 The fact that Popes seemed like him is due, not to him trying to be Pope-like, but to Popes (when they came on the scene some years later) wanting to be like him, in earthly glory and authority.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#3366ff;\">I am working on the Iron Kingdom now, when I can, so that the truth of the matter may be known.\u00a0 Thank you for your prayers and participation in this holy work!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><span style=\"color:#3366ff;\">Pastor John<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pastor John, Would it be a stretch to say Diocletian was the first Pope?\u00a0 In\u00a0Cesar and Christ\u00a0(pg 640-641), I&#8217;m interpreting Durant&#8217;s work as showing how Diocletian laid the imperial and civil framework that would act as the foundation for institutional Catholicism and the cult of apostolic succession.\u00a0 Firstly, he reinstituted the right of absolutism in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}