Posted on 01/21/2015 4:47:04 PM PST by RnMomof7
As a church history professor, I am sometimes asked how certain practices developed in church history. For example: When did the Roman Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) emphasis on praying to saints and venerating relics and icons begin?
A somewhat obscure, but extremely helpful, book by John Calvin answers that question directly.
In his work, A Treatise on Relics, Calvin utilizes his extensive knowledge of church history to demonstrate that prayers to the saints, prayers for the dead, the veneration of relics, the lighting of candles (in homage to the saints), and the veneration of icons are all rooted in Roman paganism. Such practices infiltrated the Christian church after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.
Here is an excerpt from Calvin’s work that summarizes his thesis:
Hero-worship is innate to human nature, and it is founded on some of our noblest feelings, — gratitude, love, and admiration, — but which, like all other feelings, when uncontrolled by principle and reason, may easily degenerate into the wildest exaggerations, and lead to most dangerous consequences. It was by such an exaggeration of these noble feelings that [Roman] Paganism filled the Olympus with gods and demigods, — elevating to this rank men who have often deserved the gratitude of their fellow-creatures, by some signal services rendered to the community, or their admiration, by having performed some deeds which required a more than usual degree of mental and physical powers.
The same cause obtained for the Christian martyrs the gratitude and admiration of their fellow-Christians, and finally converted them into a kind of demigods. This was more particularly the case when the church began to be corrupted by her compromise with Paganism [during the fourth and fifth-centuries], which having been baptized without being converted, rapidly introduced into the Christian church, not only many of its rites and ceremonies, but even its polytheism, with this difference, that the divinities of Greece and Rome were replaced by Christian saints, many of whom received the offices of their Pagan predecessors.
The church in the beginning tolerated these abuses, as a temporary evil, but was afterwards unable to remove them; and they became so strong, particularly during the prevailing ignorance of the middle ages, that the church ended up legalizing, through her decrees, that at which she did nothing but wink at first.
In a footnote, Calvin gives specific examples of how Christians saints simply became substitutes for pagan deities.
Thus St. Anthony of Padua restores, like Mercury, stolen property; St. Hubert, like Diana, is the patron of sportsmen; St. Cosmas, like Esculapius, that of physicians, etc. In fact, almost every profession and trade, as well as every place, have their especial patron saint, who, like the tutelary divinity of the Pagans, receives particular hours from his or her protégés.
You can read the entire work on Google Books.
Calvin’s treatment includes a historical overview, quotes from the church fathers, and even citations from sixteenth-century Roman Catholic scholars. The result is an air-tight case for the true origin of many Catholic practices.
Calvin’s conclusion is that these practices are nothing more than idolatrous superstitions, rooted in ancient Roman paganism. Even today, five centuries later, his work still serves as a necessary warning to those who persist in such idolatry. Hence his concluding sentence: “Now, those who fall into this error must do so willingly, as no one can from henceforth plead ignorance on the subject as their excuse.”
Well, let's take a close look at your statements. Here is what your church says.
From newadvent.org The belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is founded on the apocryphal treatise De Obitu S. Dominae, bearing the name of St. John, which belongs however to the fourth or fifth century.
If we consult genuine writings in the East, it is mentioned in the sermons of St. Andrew of Crete (740AD)
And again from newadvent.org.
"In the West, St. Gregory of Tours (593 or 594) (De gloria mart., I, iv) mentions it first.
So your statement "Not one of the apostles, not one of the Apostolic Fathers or the next generation or the next or the next." is rather misleading isn't it. Why would we see any of those speak out against the belief if the belief didn't even surface until 100s of years later?
Now re-read the last four sentences of your post again. You're simply building on a false premise. Is that how you teach your parishioners? How gullible do you really think people are?
While the acts are indeed older I can’t find anything except for the CoT that makes them binding for Salvation or that they impart Grace themselves. So studying your Church history it still wasn’t handed down in any apostolic succession as you suggest. Note the comments below there wasn’t even and official definition of the word sacraments for at least 1200 years. It was over 1200 years before it was nailed down to any formal teaching. You are intentionally trying to throw the conversation off of my original comments. CoT changed the 7 Sacraments meaning and definition if you have evidence contrary please share.
The Councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1438-1445) taught there are only seven sacraments, the ones we know today. The Council of Trent reiterated this teaching in response to Protestant rejection of some of the sacraments. But the concept of a sacrament was insufficiently developed in the ancient Church, and there was dispute about which Christian rituals and practices should be called sacraments. Sometimes the term was used by the Fathers to embrace practices we would deem sacramentals today. Sometimes its use was wider still, so that anything which could have a religious symbolism was called a sacrament. Why this multiplicity of definitions? Because agreement hadn’t been reached on what the word sacraments should mean. As a result, many things were called sacraments in the early Church which subsequently were not identified as such.
1 Corinthians 15:22For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Mary is covered in that all have died because all have sinned part.
She's born of a human mother and father, she has a sin nature and therefore died.
That has got to be one of the most idiotic questions asked about her.
Why would they go to the trouble of writing that something which happens to all people happened to her? It would be presumed that she died, just like every one else.
It would only be noteworthy if she hadn't died, and that ought to have been recorded if it had been the case.
There's simply no point in reiterating the obvious.
*Hey folks. Mary died* Wow. who would have thought?
DUH!!!!
Well, considering the number of people who buy into that teaching.......
A sad commentary for sure.
“Do they or do they not know what “sola scriptura” means?”
I don’t know who “they” are or what “they” know or don’t know.
But I was addressing your post.
I don’t believe you understand the theological term, based on your post.
Also what’s so amazing is that the writings of John doesn’t
say more than a few words about her. Their very own Bible is included in that record (lack of).
John 19:26-27 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
This obsession with refusing to eat, or denying the body pleasure and embracing “suffering” (of the self) as a means for removing sin seems to be the logical extension of Pelagianism (or, rather, the age old attraction of man towards works-righteousness) that, though it was condemned by the Council of Orange under the influence of Augustine, ended up becoming the dominant view of the Catholic Church despite protestations to the contrary.
It is so ingrained in the Catholic Church’s nature that the idea of self-starvation, of whippings and torturing of oneself, is completely natural and befitting of a Saint. Gone is any sense of Grace, or if they speak of grace, they mean something that has no power within the human being, and which is inevitably the reward for human merit.
Because a true Apostle and Disciple of Jesus Christ doesn’t really care about one of his servants except of the message they brought foward. The focus, attention, and Worship is of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It's exactly what we are warned about in Scripture.
Colossians 2:21-23 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings?
These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
AMEN!!!!!!!!!!
It is truly amazing to compare and contrast Orange with Trent.
Sometime between 529 and 1545 something went seriously wrong in Rome.
An honest reading of the two of them should send any Roman Catholic fleeing for the waters of Lake Geneva, which are cool, clear and refreshing, as opposed to the turbulent and muddy flow of the Tiber.
I can tell you how it’s used. Everything revealed by Jesus Christ was written down in some part of the New Testament. Any proposition or practice that is not taught in the New Testament is the invention of Popish priests, in order to further their agenda of genocide, accumulation of unimaginable wealth, world domination, and Satanism.
That’s about it, right?
“The end justifies the means”
“appears”
If Satan has to give a little Glory to God for your soul that would be a good trade don’t you think?
If Satan performs a miracle and you attribute that to a Saint and not the real miracle worker God then you have gave Honor, Respect, and Glory to Satan.
2 Corinthians 11:13-15 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
13 For such boasters are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it is not strange if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. Their end will match their deeds.
1 John 4:1 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
A statement that bears no relation to anything in the gospels or epistles. It's just a description of "discipleship" carefully tailored to conform to the ideological position that when people die and go to heaven, they turn into doorstops, with no ability to pray for or assist their brothers and sisters on earth.
Proclaiming that Mary has died is hardly idiotic if people are spreading the claim that she didn’t.
In fact, YOU devote a good deal of effort to proclaiming that Mary is dead.
But there is no evidence that, until the 16th century, there was any opposition to the belief that Mary either did not die at all, or was assumed into heaven body and soul after death.
Once again, we’re back to that central mystery of Protestantism: How did it happen that a whole catalogue of monstrous heresies and idolatries were introduced into Christianity in the 3rd and 4th centuries, and virtually nobody noticed until the 16th century?
Refinement and clarification of dogma is not the same as “invention.”
You will find everything taught by Trent in the Summas of Thomas Aquinas, laid out in excruciating detail, with copious theological sources.
The dogma was all there, during that 1200 years.
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