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To: matthewrobertolson; redleghunter; Springfield Reformer
It is well known that many documents containing the lists of successors have been lost over time, but that does not mean there weren’t any, much less that it wasn’t believed. In fact, we have hardly any records of the ordination history of bishops beyond Cardinal Scipione Rebiba, but that hardly means the doctrine was invented then. The early Christians were unanimous on apostolic succession and used it as a means of argument when disputes arose.

It means that Scripture, tradition and history (and "unanimous') means whatever Rome says they do. As Rome presumes that since God is the author of both her doctrine and Scripture, then there simply can be no conflict since she autocratically defines what a contradiction is.

Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for, seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church... it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church. - (Providentissimus Deus; http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimus-deus_en.html)

Thus forbidding bowing down to graven images and attributing uniquely Divine attributes to created beings, such as the ability to hear from heaven virtually infinite amounts of mental prayer from earth, which only God is shown able to do, and there is not a single prayer among the approx 200 in Scripture to anyone else in Heaven except the Lord, simply cannot be held to contradict such a thing as kneeling before a statue and praising the entity it represented in the unseen world, including as having Divine powers and glory, and making offerings and beseeching such for Heavenly help, directly accessed by mental prayer.

Moses, put down those rocks! I was only engaging in hyper dulia, not adoring her. Can't you tell the difference?

And thus even though church "fathers" do contradict both each other and Rome , she either must define them as not, or define "unanimous" as being non-unanimous

Thus when faced with challenges, no less than Bellarmine argues,

It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine... may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves...The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour." — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, “The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation,” (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228. .

Thus,

The mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as definitely true is a guarantee that it is true.” — Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), p. 275.

For history is seen as showing the deviations of Rome from it, which is why Newman had to work at the theory of the Development of Doctrine due to lack of actual unanimous consent ” of the fathers.

Thus Webster states,

At first, this clear lack of patristic consensus led Rome to embrace a new theory in the late nineteenth century to explain its teachings — the theory initiated by John Henry Newman known as the development of doctrine. In light of the historical reality, Newman had come to the conclusion that the Vincentian principle of unanimous consent was unworkable, because, for all practical purposes, it was nonexistent. To quote Newman:

It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius must be considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem. — John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., reprinted 1927), p. 27.

Like Orthodox:

Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith [context] and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of "doctrinal development."

Following the philosophical spirit of the time (and the lead of Cardinal Henry Newman), Roman Catholic theologians began to define and teach the idea that Christ only gave us an "original deposit" of faith, a "seed," which grew and matured through the centuries. The Holy Spirit, they said, amplified the Christian Faith as the Church moved into new circumstances and acquired other needs....

On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of "papal infallibility" and "the immaculate conception" of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation. http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html

Rome's traditions such as the Assumption (never recorded or prophesied), prayer to departed saints (not one example in all Scripture, or Divine hearing ability shown by the latter), NT pastors distinctively titled priests (never done so), assured infallibility (never seen or necessary), etc. never made it into Scripture, and the veracity of them do not rest upon the weight of Scriptural substantiation, but upon her own self-proclaimed assured veracity.

In addition, the NT knew nothing of all revolving around the Lord's supper as the source and summit of their faith, and in the only place that it is manifestly mentioned in the life of the church then it is the church which is the focus as the body of Christ that needed to be recognized, by showing the Lord's death toward each other in their sharing of the communal meal. (1Cor. 11:17 ff)

Nor do we see the NT church looking to Peter as the first of a line of exalted infallible popes in Rome reigning autocratically (unhindered power, needing no agreement from the Bishops in speaking "from the chair") over the church, nor even the necessity of promise of a perpetual assured infallible magisterium.

Instead, both writings and men of God were recognized and established as such, and Truth provided and preserved, and faith, long before a church of Rome would presume itself infallible and essential for this.

And truth was established upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, not the premise of the assured veracity of Rome.

And Peter was the street level leader among brethren, and one of those who were manifest pillars, exercising a general pastoral role, yet who could err in leadership, and did not deliver the final verdict in Acts 15.

Meanwhile, nowhere were perpetual apostolic successors promised, unlike under the Law, and only one is seen, even though James was martyred, (Acts 12:1,2) and only one, as this was to maintain the number of the original apostles (Acts 1:15ff; Rv. 2:14)

For even Catholic research provides evidence against the idea of the early papacy:

The Catholic historian Paul Johnson (author of over 40 books and a conservative popular historian), writes in his 1976 work “History of Christianity:”

Eusebius [whose history can be dubious] presents the lists as evidence that orthodoxy had a continuous tradition from the earliest times in all the great Episcopal sees and that all the heretical movements were subsequent aberrations from the mainline of Christianity.

Looking behind the lists, however, a different picture emerges. In Edessa, on the edge of the Syrian desert, the proofs of the early establishment of Christianity were forgeries, almost certainly manufactured under Bishop Kune, the first orthodox Bishop, and actually a contemporary of Eusebius...

Orthodoxy was not established [In Egypt] until the time of Bishop Demetrius, 189-231, who set up a number of other sees and manufactured a genealogical tree for his own bishopric of Alexandria, which traces the foundation through ten mythical predecessors back to Mark, and so to Peter and Jesus...

Even in Antioch, where both Peter and Paul had been active, there seems to have been confusion until the end of the second century. Antioch completely lost their list...When Eusebius’s chief source for his Episcopal lists, Julius Africanus, tried to compile one for Antioch, he found only six names to cover the same period of time as twelve in Rome and ten in Alexandria. 

Catholic theologian and  Jesuit priest Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops (New York: The Newman Press), examines possible mentions of “succession” from the first three centuries, and concludes from that study that “the episcopate [development of bishops] is a the fruit of a post New Testament development,” and cannot concur with those (interacting with Jones) who see little reason to doubt the notion that there was a single bishop in Rome through the middle of the second century:

Hence I stand with the majority of scholars who agree that one does not find evidence in the New Testament to support the theory that the apostles or their coworkers left [just] one person as “bishop” in charge of each local church... 


“...the evidence both from the New Testament and from such writings as I Clement, the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians and The Shepherd of Hennas favors the view that initially the presbyters in each church, as a college, possessed all the powers needed for effective ministry. This would mean that the apostles handed on what was transmissible of their mandate as an undifferentiated whole, in which the powers that would eventually be seen as episcopal were not yet distinguished from the rest. Hence, the development of the episcopate would have meant the differentiation of ministerial powers that had previously existed in an undifferentiated state and the consequent reservation to the bishop of certain of the powers previously held collegially by the presbyters. — Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops , pp. 221,22,24

Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4 :

“New Testament scholars agree..., The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative. 
 
That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably 'no.” 
 
“....that does not mean that the figure and the commission of the Peter of the New Testament did not encompass the possibility, if it is projected into a Church enduring for centuries and concerned in some way to to secure its ties to its apostolic origins and to Jesus himself. 
 
If we ask in addition whether the primitive church was aware, after Peter’s death, that his authority had passed to the next bishop of Rome, or in other words that the head of the community at Rome was now the successor of Peter, the Church’s rock and hence the subject of the promise in Matthew 16:18-19, the question, put in those terms, must certainly be given a negative answer.” (page 1-2) 


• American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar Raymond Brown (twice appointed to Pontifical Biblical Commission):

“The claims of various sees to descend from particular members of the Twelve are highly dubious. It is interesting that the most serious of these is the claim of the bishops of Rome to descend from Peter, the one member of the Twelve who was almost a missionary apostle in the Pauline sense – a confirmation of our contention that whatever succession there was from apostleship to episcopate, it was primarily in reference to the Puauline tyupe of apostleship, not that of the Twelve.” (“Priest and Bishop, Biblical Reflections,” Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1970, pg 72.) 
 
Raymond Brown [being criticized here], in “Priest and Bishop: Biblical Reflections,” could not prove on historical grounds, he said, that Christ instituted the priesthood or episcopacy as such; that those who presided at the Eucharist were really priests; that a separate priesthood began with Christ; that the early Christians looked upon the Eucharist as a sacrifice; that presbyter-bishops are traceable in any way to the Apostles; that Peter in his lifetime would be looked upon as the Bishop of Rome; that bishops were successors of the Apostles, even though Vatican II made the same claim.. (from, "A Wayward Turn in Biblical Theory" by Msr. George A. Kelly can be read on the internet at http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Dossier/Jan-Feb00/Article5.html)

M o r e .

38 posted on 06/20/2014 10:46:06 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: daniel1212
It must be rough being a JW.

Chased off porches and barely mentioned then ignored in FR threads...


 

If you have cable TV, there won’t be much on to watch.


 

 

 

 

If there isn’t much on to watch, you will answer your door whenever someone rings.


 

 

 

 

If you open your door, you will see mormons.


 

 

 

 

If you talk to mormons, they will trick you into “praying about whether something is true”.


 

 

 

 

If you rely on your feelings, you may become a mormon.


 

 

 

 

If you become a mormon, you will have to wear magic underwear!


 

 

 

 

If you wear magic underwear, people will immediately label you as a cultist.


DON’T be a cultist!
Get DirectTV.

45 posted on 06/20/2014 11:48:38 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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