Jesus was not a priest: Jesus did not ordain anybody.
Jesus was critical of the Jewish priesthood.
Jesus’ theology was more in line with the Pharisees – rabbis (married teachers who believed in life after death) than the priests – Sadducees (married Temple officials who believed in accepting money, animal sacrifice, reserving the best portions of the offerings for themselves and did not believe in life after death) Jesus did not ordain anyone at the Last Supper because there was no priesthood yet and no sacraments yet.
The Last Supper was not the First Mass but possibly a Passover meal, however not the same as a contemporary Passover Seder. There was no church, no sacraments, no priesthood at this time. They were followers of Jesus gathered together for a meal that turned out to be the last one they shared.
The four Gospels are not biographies but theological reflections and as such they tell us sometimes more about the context, audience, and concerns of the author than the historical life of Jesus.
Paul was not an Apostle.
Paul was a Jewish Pharisee/Rabbi in training, not a priest.
Paul never met Jesus.
Paul’s letters were written earlier than the Gospels.
Paul was the reason that Christianity survived and flourished not Peter.
Peter was never the leader of the first community of Christians in Jerusalem.
Peter was married (he refers to his mother-in-law) as were the rest of the Apostles, excepting perhaps John who was the youngest.
Peter was never the leader of the Church in Rome, therefore cannot historically be claimed as the first Pope.
The term Pope simply meant leader in the sense of Bishop in today’s terminology.
Who was Jesus? A Jewish rabbi, prophet, the Messiah of prophecy, a crazy man? The Gospels reflect a growing faith in Jesus as more than a rabbi/healer (Mark), but someone who God created specially, “Son of Man,” “Messiah,” “Virgin Birth,” “Son of God,” (Matthew and Luke), or even the pre-existent Word of God, present at Creation (John).
The New Testament didn’t really settle the issue of who Jesus was and how he could be God. The debate about the nature of Jesus continued in the early Church and was so acrimonious that factions actually set about killing each other. How could Jesus be God and Man, he had to be one or the other. And how could the immutable, perfect, unchanging God be present fully in an imperfect human body and, change, suffer, and die? And if Jesus was God doesn’t that make two Gods, Creator, Father God and Jesus his Son?
There was no immediate answer to these questions. Belief in Jesus identity as God was not settled by John’s Gospel, by any means. It took the church hundreds of years and multiple councils.
The first Council of the Church was not Nicea but Jerusalem, at which the main issue was the inclusion and circumcision of non-Jews. Jesus was not being worshipped as Divine yet, but was being remembered as the Messiah.
The Council of Nicea was convened by the Emperor Constantine, an unbaptized pagan who claimed authority over the church in order to deal with the opposing factions and resulting unrest in the Empire.
Beliefs/later deemed heresies about Jesus that developed in the second through fifth centuries included:
- Docetism: Jesus did not have a real body, it was a vision, unreal, so he didn’t really die, because God can’t suffer and die and we think Jesus was God. So Jesus was not really human.
- Adoptionism: Jesus was a righteous man who became the Son of God by adoption. He was not pre-existent, therefore was not there when God created the universe. A man cannot also be a God, and there was only One God, the Creator.
- Arianism: Jesus was a demigod—less than God, more than man. Jesus was created, finite, and could sin. Because a man could not be God. It took 18 church councils to resolve the issue. It was finally condemned in 325 at the Council of Nicea.
- Apollinarianism: Jesus had no human mind or soul, having instead a divine mind. Jesus had all the other parts of a human however: spirit, body, and animal soul (the animating force but not the intellect or spirit). If Jesus was God and Man in One Person, there could only be one Mind/Spirit in charge. Condemned in 381 at the First Council of Constantinople.
- Monophysitism: Jesus had only one divine nature and no human nature. The divine nature absorbed and nullified any human nature. Jesus is both divine and human, but not “fully” human. Condemned at the Council of Chalcedon 451.