[safisoft]

If you study the history of Christianity, you will not find "sola sciptura," "sola fides," rejection of the sacraments, rejection of the priesthood/celibacy, rejection of intercessory prayer, etc., prior to Martin Luther.

Wow. Your history gets wilder and wilder. You need to get out more. You think Luther invented the ideas of Reformation? Truth be told, the excesses of the Papacy from 1200 to 1500 had a greater effect.

Put aside whether Luther was right or wrong (I am not a Luther fan myself), your history must be coming from the same source that says burning at the stake only hurts mildly. Sheesh. There is a LONG list of people exterminated by the Roman Church for very much the same things that the Reformation pressed.

Peter Waldo predated Luther by almost 400 years. He taught many of the same things that Luther/Calvin/Zwingli did 400 years later - and it brought the Waldensians the same harsh and murderous treatment as the Jews would receive in Spain 300 years later. Tell me, what excuses does your "All Saints' Excuses, A Catholic History" book say for the treatment of the Waldensians? There are many more, and many more earlier, but you are welcome to your revisionism.

[SJackson]

Peter Waldo predated Luther by almost 400 years. He taught many of the same things that Luther/Calvin/Zwingli did 400 years later - and it brought the Waldensians the same harsh and murderous treatment as the Jews would receive in Spain 300 years later....

and gave rise to the establishment of the Inquisition in the early 13th century

[mike182d]

Wow. Your history gets wilder and wilder. You need to get out more. You think Luther invented the ideas of Reformation? Truth be told, the excesses of the Papacy from 1200 to 1500 had a greater effect.

You're confusing the sins of men who failed to live the teachings of the Catholic Church and doctrines of the Catholic Church. Martin Luther's goal of reforming the corruption within the Church was not a new idea, as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Ignatius of Loyola later became advocates of. No Catholic should have a problem with the fact that there were some terrible sinners in the Church and that they needed to mend their ways. But that wasn't the end of Martin Luther's mission. He argued against Church doctrine, not just sins of men within the Church. When he argued against doctrine, he presupposed his own authority to supercede that of every Church council before him. He went against 1500 years of Christian theology originating from the very first Christians and that was the Church's problem. If Martin Luther hadn't been in theological heresy, he might have become a Saint within the Church for his attempts to rectify the sinner within, but such was not Luther's sole intent.

Seriously, study the history of Christianity and you will find that, apart from officially denounced heretics, no one believed in the theology taught by Martin Luther prior to his reformation.

In the words of St. Augustine in the 5th Century: "I would not believe in the Truth of the Gospels if it were not for the authority of the Catholic Church."

Right there, from one of Christianity's most brilliant theologians, is a clear rebuttal to Martin Luther's sola scriptura and there are plenty more against him. The fact of the matter is that Christianity prior to Martin Luther most definitely was not in line with Protestant theology.