A Pauline pope?

According to Christian tradition, saints Peter and Paul were both martyred in Rome, from which the Catholic church draws the authority of Rome as the 'apostolic see'. Paul seems to have jostled with Peter for precedence in the early church, and does seem to have achieved rather more lasting impact. Yet Peter's memory has massively eclipsed Paul's in Catholic eyes, with the pope of course being viewed as Peter's successor.

Is there any way that Paul could be similarly venerated, perhaps in a diarchy with both a Petrine and a Pauline 'pope' in Rome?
 
You'd have to change the dynamic of how it all went down in the earliest period. Paul wasn't really a Bishop in a meaningful sense (what would later become the notion of a diocesan Bishop), whereas Peter was. Paul was something of a missionary Apostle. Paul was in Rome but the nature of his presence was entirely different than Peter's. You can read about it in Acts and I suppose in some history books, but he was hauled off there in chains and then under house arrest due to an incident that occurred in Jerusalem (if I recall correctly).

Besides, Paul was never really considered to be chief of anything in his day or by contemporary/later Christians, so a Pauline Papacy wouldn't work
 
You'd have to change the dynamic of how it all went down in the earliest period. Paul wasn't really a Bishop in a meaningful sense (what would later become the notion of a diocesan Bishop), whereas Peter was. Paul was something of a missionary Apostle. Paul was in Rome but the nature of his presence was entirely different than Peter's. You can read about it in Acts and I suppose in some history books, but he was hauled off there in chains and then under house arrest due to an incident that occurred in Jerusalem (if I recall correctly).

Besides, Paul was never really considered to be chief of anything in his day or by contemporary/later Christians, so a Pauline Papacy wouldn't work

But the New Testament never gives Peter much more than Jesus saying he was the rock the church would be built upon. Peter being the Bishop of Rome is certainly an early tradition, but not one based on scripture hence why many Protestants reject it (one bit of Protestant thought holds Peter as moving from Rome to Parthian Persia where he either dies or is martyred in old age).

Blame my Protestant bias, but certainly if Paul met a different fate, he could end up being the first Bishop of Rome?
 
But the New Testament never gives Peter much more than Jesus saying he was the rock the church would be built upon. Peter being the Bishop of Rome is certainly an early tradition, but not one based on scripture hence why many Protestants reject it (one bit of Protestant thought holds Peter as moving from Rome to Parthian Persia where he either dies or is martyred in old age).

Blame my Protestant bias, but certainly if Paul met a different fate, he could end up being the first Bishop of Rome?

at the risk of getting into an internecine conflict in the pre-1900 forum I disagree with you - he holds a place of honor at the Council of Jerusalem and additionally is the most talked about of anybody in the narrative New Testament (aka 4 gospels + acts) aside from Jesus, and almost always in a positive light. of course, tradition and indeed the events of the 60s predate the writing of the Gospels so it may have been because people knew about Peter and wanted to know what he was doing/his place in all of it
 
tradition holds that bother peter and paul were executed the same day in Rome. Imagine a WI where Peter is executed but Paul isn't. Paul could in theory become the successor to Peter and have a more lasting impact.
 
According to Christian tradition, saints Peter and Paul were both martyred in Rome, from which the Catholic church draws the authority of Rome as the 'apostolic see'. Paul seems to have jostled with Peter for precedence in the early church, and does seem to have achieved rather more lasting impact. Yet Peter's memory has massively eclipsed Paul's in Catholic eyes, with the pope of course being viewed as Peter's successor.

Is there any way that Paul could be similarly venerated, perhaps in a diarchy with both a Petrine and a Pauline 'pope' in Rome?

Not in any way I can think of. You see St Peter and the rest of the Twelve all have the distinction of being "called" by God. St Paul never was - even the Damascus road experience is only recounted in Acts, never in any of Paul's own letters that made it into the canon (his own account speaking as if of someone else only occurs once (2 Corinthians 12:2)). Added to that, St Paul refers to himself in several places as "the least of the apostles" etc (1 Corinthians 15:9; Ephesians 3:8)

almost always in a positive light

Except when he's being crapped out by St. Paul in Galatians for his hypocrisy. Yes, according to the canonical scriptures it's quickly made up and papered over. But it's very unlikely that it was - it caused a split in the early church between the so-called Pauline (Gentile) and Jewish (Petrine) Christians. And basically, the Church said you could only be Christian or Jewish. St. Jerome is still writing about it, which seems to indicate that it wasn't an easily forgotten or set-aside quarrel.
 
Except when he's being crapped out by St. Paul in Galatians for his hypocrisy. Yes, according to the canonical scriptures it's quickly made up and papered over. But it's very unlikely that it was - it caused a split in the early church between the so-called Pauline (Gentile) and Jewish (Petrine) Christians. And basically, the Church said you could only be Christian or Jewish. St. Jerome is still writing about it, which seems to indicate that it wasn't an easily forgotten or set-aside quarrel.

St. Peter was certainly not in the camp of the Judaizers - he sided against them definitively at Jerusalem and spent his time in Antioch and Rome (and evidently Alexandria). Both of these had large Jewish populations relative to the world but he was not in Jerusalem. The most Judaizer-aligned of the Apostles was probably St. James
 
Setting aside the time of the apostles themselves, which is veering away from alternate history into alternate theology, is there any chance of Pauline bishop or patriarch emerging in parallel to the papacy? If Paul were believed to have died somewhere apart from Rome (Spain?), could it provide the west with another clear patriarchate? The east ultimately settled on Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem, whilst the west only got Rome. In this world, it could end up with Rome and a Pauline Patriarch both in the west.

I was sort of imagining after the East/West schism a situation where you had the *Bishop of Rome and the Pauline Patriarch as joint primus inter pares over the other bishops, with the *Bishop of Rome then holding seniority over the Pauline Patriarch to preserve Petrine supremacy. Parallels jumping to mind are the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, or the Dalai and Panchen Lamas. Quite apart from anything else, it could make church history interesting should the two be rivals.
 
Setting aside the time of the apostles themselves, which is veering away from alternate history into alternate theology, is there any chance of Pauline bishop or patriarch emerging in parallel to the papacy? If Paul were believed to have died somewhere apart from Rome (Spain?), could it provide the west with another clear patriarchate? The east ultimately settled on Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem, whilst the west only got Rome. In this world, it could end up with Rome and a Pauline Patriarch both in the west.

I was sort of imagining after the East/West schism a situation where you had the *Bishop of Rome and the Pauline Patriarch as joint primus inter pares over the other bishops, with the *Bishop of Rome then holding seniority over the Pauline Patriarch to preserve Petrine supremacy. Parallels jumping to mind are the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, or the Dalai and Panchen Lamas. Quite apart from anything else, it could make church history interesting should the two be rivals.

my point is that you actually have to have Paul be a Bishop (or community leader, if you don't buy into Catholic historiography), and have him be somewhere for awhile...there aren't any Pauline Sees IOTL, period, so you have to change what he ended up doing with himself/how he was remembered
 
my point is that you actually have to have Paul be a Bishop (or community leader, if you don't buy into Catholic historiography), and have him be somewhere for awhile...there aren't any Pauline Sees IOTL, period, so you have to change what he ended up doing with himself/how he was remembered

Ah yes, I see what you're saying. Surely Paul is considered a bishop, even if he's a slightly unusual one, since he's appointing elders and rebuking churches? The difficulty is, as you say, finding some sort of office that can be succeeded to, either a traditional city where he can found a church or else a sort of roving bishopric.
 
St. Peter was certainly not in the camp of the Judaizers - he sided against them definitively at Jerusalem and spent his time in Antioch and Rome (and evidently Alexandria). Both of these had large Jewish populations relative to the world but he was not in Jerusalem. The most Judaizer-aligned of the Apostles was probably St. James

I never said that St. Peter was a Judaizer, merely that St. Paul criticized him for his hypocrisy. In Galatians it is very clear - Peter used to eat with the Gentiles, and then, when the Judaizers were around, he drew back from eating with the Gentiles. Paul's criticism is for this. Peter may have been the middleman between Sts. James and Paul, but it's he that got the brunt of Paul's wrath.

Ah yes, I see what you're saying. Surely Paul is considered a bishop, even if he's a slightly unusual one, since he's appointing elders and rebuking churches? The difficulty is, as you say, finding some sort of office that can be succeeded to, either a traditional city where he can found a church or else a sort of roving bishopric.

More like an early missionary, he's involved in founding churches, spreading the word of God, and making converts. The most likely Pauline see that I can think of - in the west - is Paul taking James' place at Santiago de Compostela. But, based on the canonical Pauline letters, any Pauline see is gonna be in the east, in one of the places mentioned in his epistles - Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi or Macedon. My money's on Corinth (since he wrote them four letters - last three are jumnled in the canon).
 
And then there's the ever so slightly problematic issue that Christianity is Pauline, not Petrine. After Jesus Christ, Paul is the most important New Testament figure, so while the Apostolic Succession is Petrine and stretches back to the so-called Prince of the Apostles, it's not necessarily a Petrine construct. How it appoints bishops, rebuking etc, is all based on Paul's writings AFAIUI. Which means that there might be a tradition that says Peter was the "called" first pope, but Paul was the "actual" first pope.
 
And then there's the ever so slightly problematic issue that Christianity is Pauline, not Petrine. After Jesus Christ, Paul is the most important New Testament figure, so while the Apostolic Succession is Petrine and stretches back to the so-called Prince of the Apostles, it's not necessarily a Petrine construct. How it appoints bishops, rebuking etc, is all based on Paul's writings AFAIUI. Which means that there might be a tradition that says Peter was the "called" first pope, but Paul was the "actual" first pope.

Yeah, I don’t agree with your reading of this. St. Peter is the primary character in the first half of Acts until Paul is introduced and is, functionally, the primary non-Jesus character in all four Gospels. Paul’s status as a prolific letter writer didn’t make him the authority - surely, if we are to go this route, would not the church be Johannine? John was a prolific letter writer as well and established a boatload of Churches (in Asia Minor, especially). If we’re looking to pick somebody else as a matter of AHC, John would be a better bet than Paul (he is “the beloved disciple”) after all, and then subsequently perhaps James since he lead the Church in Jerusalem. Paul’s mission to the Gentiles was important considering the West developed into Christianity’s seat, but to say that the Church is Pauline or that he was the most important of his contemporaries is a stretched claim.
 
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