User talk:193.37.33.31

Hello,

I had recently revised the list a little haphazardly. I think that a separate page devised for, what is traditionally called, the "Great Church" and also a separate page for the "Apostolic Church" would be good for a list of people excommunicated by the body of Christian believers and leaders throughout the centuries.

For example, Simon Magnus, mentioned in the New Testament Book of Acts should be designated as being excommunicated within the time period of the Apostolic Church. At that time, no such entity/denomination/group headed by a monarchial Roman bishopric existed. It was simply a church being headed chiefly by itinerate apostles (and prophets) with a council of elders acting as local leaders in local churches. One of these apostles, Peter/Cephas, rebukes Simon Magnus for Simony.

In the time of Marcion, post-apostolic, there was a developing of what is called the "Great Church" or the "Pentarchial" Church. This is after the institution of the bishopric which replaced both the council of elders at local churches and also the ministry and leadership of itinerant apostles and prophets as described by the "Didache" and the Apostle Paul in his various letters. This time is when the emergence of five bishops out of the whole college of bishops occurred (the bishops of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople) and all local churches were put under the authority of these 5 bishops through a decree by the Emperor Justinian in the Council of Constantinople. This is what set up the conditions for what we call the modern day Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic denominational churches to develop and rise up.

To call an excommunication of someone from the first century as being performed by the Roman Catholic Church, which is a denomination developed out of the churches that were under the theology and influence of the Bishop of Rome/Pope, as well as an assumption that their interpretation and application of the practice today is/was the ancient practice of Pauline anathematization, is misleading and paints a picture that there was a Bishop in Rome who had universal authority over the whole body of Christian believers in the 1st century who handed down excommunication to a Jew (Simon) living in the time of the Apostles in the 30s and 40s AD or a Greek Gentile (Marcion) in the later centuries. It is simply not accurate and this is why I deleted it off the page.

Wmesfin21 (talk) 16:44, 29 September 2020 (UTC) Wmesfin