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To: kosta50
Mark, you would be hard pressed to show me what the Church always believed. The Church, the doctrine, and even the New Testament evolved. There was no Catholic Church in 33 AD, as we know it, and that includes its beliefs, teachings and hierarchy. Remember, when we speak of the “Fathers” the pre-Nicene Fathers and the post-Nicene Fathers are not exactly a perfect match. The Church and its dogmatic core, as we know it, is a post-Nicene 4th century Church, not a first century creation.

Very good. What I had meant to say is that the Church from the beginning had used (as far as we can tell) the Greek Septuagint exclusively or almost exclusively, which goes along quite well with something that we do know - that the NT was written (except possibly for a first draft of Matthew) exclusively in Greek.

To claim that there was a Catholic Church in 33 AD is no different than for the Protestants to claim that the KJV Bible dropped from the sky, bound and indexed.

There was a very basic Church structure that Ignatius called Catholic in his letter to the Smyrneans ca. 100 A.D.

63 posted on 11/06/2009 1:31:29 PM PST by MarkBsnr ( I would not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)
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To: MarkBsnr
What I had meant to say is that the Church from the beginning had used (as far as we can tell) the Greek Septuagint exclusively or almost exclusively, which goes along quite well with something that we do know - that the NT was written (except possibly for a first draft of Matthew) exclusively in Greek

No argument there, but what is written in LXX and the NT is not exactly dogma. It depends how one reads them, for we know form Pauline Epistles that the Church was not of the same mind from day one.

There was a very basic Church structure that Ignatius called Catholic in his letter to the Smyrneans ca. 100 A.D.

Yes, but far from clear-cut definitions of Trinity, Christology or Mariology. +Ignatius calls Mary a "suitable vessel." That' night and day from Origen's Theotokos!

You also have to understand that, besides some of the Catholic sayings he made, +Ignatius's epistles have made greater impact on Arians than any other early Christian group because, strangely, although he was ordained by +Peter and was a disciple of "John" (presumably the Apostle), his canon does not include John's. And it is John's Gospel that makes Jesus divine, so naturally Arians would be inclined to quote +Ignatius, and they did.

64 posted on 11/06/2009 4:47:13 PM PST by kosta50 (Don't look up, the truth is all around you)
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