Also
I don’t need to quote Catholic historians who could be accused of bias, to prove you wrong.
Adolf von Harnack, one of the most influential Protestant historians of early Christianity, provides substantial evidence against your sweeping and unsubstantiated assertion.
His History of Dogma, Volume II, is particularly relevant because he examines both the emergence of ecclesiastical authority in the second century and Origen’s own understanding of the Church.
1. Harnack explicitly recognizes the existence of the Catholic Church before Origen
In History of Dogma, Volume II, Chapter I, p. 1, Harnack describes the development of ecclesiastical Christianity during the second century.
Having explained the emergence of a Christian communion grounded in apostolic doctrine, apostolic writings, and ecclesiastical organization, he concludes:“This institution was the Catholic Church.” This also answers to @Arvis
Source: Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. II, Chapter I, p. 1
This is not a description of the post-Nicene Church. Harnack is discussing developments that preceded, or were already underway during, Origen’s lifetime.
According to his historical reconstruction, the Church had developed a recognizable doctrinal identity, a body of authoritative writings, and an ecclesiastical organization claiming apostolic continuity.
He certainly doesn’t describe Christianity at the beginning of the third century as a collection of communities without any common doctrinal authority.
2. Apostolic tradition and episcopal succession were already recognized standards of authority
In Chapter II, pp. 18–20, Harnack examines the criteria through which early Christians distinguished apostolic Christianity from competing interpretations.
He identifies three standards, including: “the apostolic doctrine, the apostolic canon of Scripture, and the guarantee of apostolic authority”
He explains that the third standard was associated with the Church’s organization and episcopal succession.
Source: Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. II, Chapter II, pp. 18–20
3. The Rule of Faith was a binding doctrinal standard
In Chapter I, p. 9, Harnack explains the consequences of the Church’s struggle against Gnosticism.
He states that teachings claiming ecclesiastical authority: “had henceforth to be in harmony with the rule of faith and the canon of New Testament Scriptures.”
Source: Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. II, p. 9
This is very important, because the Rule of Faith was not simply one theological opinion among many, it functioned as a criterion by which doctrinal claims were assessed.
Harnack also discusses its role in the interpretation of Scripture. In Chapter II, pp. 65–66, he explains that the Rule of Faith provided a guiding framework for ecclesiastical Christianity..
Source: Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. II, pp. 65–66
4. Harnack explicitly states that Origen recognized the authority of the Church’s Rule of Faith
This brings us to the most relevant passage.
In Chapter VI, §2, The System of Origen, p. 335, Harnack discusses Origen’s understanding of ecclesiastical Christianity.
He explains that Origen regarded the Church as the custodian of divine revelation, and that the Scriptures preserved by the Church possessed a uniquely authoritative status.
Harnack then writes: “But, in addition to these, every possession of the Church, and, above all, the rule of faith, was authoritative and holy.”
Source: Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. II, Chapter VI, §2, p. 335
Notice what Harnack is saying.
He is not merely claiming that Origen happened to agree with certain Christian doctrines.
He is describing Origen as someone who recognized the religious and doctrinal authority of the Church’s received faith.
That is a substantial distinction.
Origen’s theology was extraordinarily speculative, and Harnack certainly did not consider every aspect of it orthodox.
Nevertheless, Harnack recognized that Origen’s theological activity took place within a framework in which the Church’s received faith possessed normative authority.
5. Even more importantly, Harnack identifies the preservation of ecclesiastical faith as a fundamental principle of Origen’s exegesis
In the same chapter, p. 347, Harnack goes further.
He explains that Origen’s exegetical method began from the principle that the faith professed by the Church, as distinguished from heretical teachings, was not something the interpreter was entitled simply to alter.
Source: Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. II, Chapter VI, §2, p. 347
For verification, search the linked text for the paragraph beginning “The first methodical principle of his exegesis”.
I consider this one of Harnack’s most important observations concerning Origen’s relationship with ecclesiastical authority.
6 Harnack explicitly acknowledged Rome’s primacy from the end of the first century
In The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, Excursus III, Harnack states: “From the close of the first century the Roman church was in a position of practical primacy over Christendom.”
Original source — Harnack, The Primacy of Rome in Relation to the Mission
This wasn’t merely a matter of prestige.
Rome assisted other churches, intervened in ecclesiastical disputes, and played a significant role in maintaining Christian unity.
Harnack discusses evidence extending from Corinth to communities in Asia Minor and beyond.
7 Harnack recognized that Rome contributed decisively to the unification of the Church
In History of Dogma, Volume II, in the excursus Catholic and Roman, Harnack develops this argument further.
He writes: “All these causes combined to convert the Christian communities into a real confederation under the primacy of the Roman Church”
Original source — History of Dogma, Vol. II, p. 160
That is an extraordinary acknowledgment.
Harnack is describing a historical process through which Christian communities developed an increasingly recognizable institutional unity, with Rome occupying a position of particular importance.
He supports this reconstruction by examining several early witnesses.
He interprets 1 Clement as evidence that Rome already felt responsible for intervening in the affairs of another Christian community toward the end of the first century, and he discusses Irenaeus, who gave the Roman Church a particularly important place in his argument concerning apostolic tradition and succession.
what he actually acknowledged is straightforward: Rome already possessed an exceptional position within a developing, interconnected Catholic Church long before Nicaea.
8 Harnack described the separation of Scripture from ecclesiastical tradition as a sixteenth-century revolution
Perhaps the most interesting passage concerns the relationship between Scripture and Tradition.
In History of Dogma, Volume III, p. 207, Harnack discusses the authority of Scripture in the ancient Church.
He observes that the Fathers attributed extraordinary authority to Scripture.
Nevertheless, he distinguishes this ancient understanding from the later attempt to separate biblical authority from ecclesiastical tradition.
He explicitly describes that separation as a revolution that occurred in the sixteenth century. These are his words: “The authority of Holy Scripture frequently appears in the Fathers as something wholly abstract and despotic. It contained, in fact, a latent tendency to assert its independence of the conditions out of which it had arisen. But the revolution which was characterised by the isolation of the Bible, its deliverance from the authority of ecclesiastical tradition, and the annihilation of the latter, only took place in the sixteenth century, and even then it was, we know, not completely successful. In ecclesiastical antiquity, on the contrary, the bond was by no means severed which connected Scripture with the maternal organism of the Church. The Church, its doctrine, institutions, and constitution, were held, in and by themselves, to constitute the source of knowledge and the authoritative guarantee of truth.”
Original source — History of Dogma, Vol. III, p. 207
What remains of you claim, now? Tell me.
I have cited a famous and respect Protestant Church historian and theologian, not a Catholic apologist. A Catholic historian, no matter how accurate his work is, would easily be dismissed as biased. It’s not even a conscious process, or something done in bad faith. People have the natural tendency to dismiss as biased someone defending his own perspective, which is why I have cited a famous Protestant.
Tell me what remains of your claim that there was no authoritative Church at the time of Origen.
CONFRONT THE EVIDENCE, PLEASE. IF YOU THINK VON HARNACK IS WRONG, EXPLAIN HOW AND WHY AND SHOW EVIDENCES OF HIS ERRORS. YOU HAVE MADE AN ASSERTION, IT’S TIME TO BACK IT UP.