Haven't I warned you about watching that H2 program??
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.”
Haven't I warned you about watching that H2 program??
Is it true that to get this stuff; they take plain, ol' water and just boil the hell out of it??
Is it true that some of the relics the Church has, are rosary beads the ECFs used?
There is no 'holy Water" in the scripture...in truth what makes it "holy" is the water has had a "priest" pray over it and cast out the demons in the water.. an exorcism ..
You can actually make your own :)
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own-Holy-Water
I CAN make Holy Water. You can’t, no matter what Wikipedia says.
How is it that this form of idolatry was introduced into Christianity in the Fourth Century, and nobody objected to it for another 1200 years?
Do you not read the responses to that question or similar that you have posited multiple times now? History tells us that the Catholic Church eliminated many who opposed it's teachings as well as burned their writings. We also know that error was already in the churches by what we read in Revelation.
BTTT for you.
Think --- sports announcer saying "he_may_go_all_the_way" (to the top, to the heavens).
Meanwhile, may He come to you from there, and within yourself, deep call unto deep, that which is from on high and is alive within yourself, commune with Him who sent His own Spirit to abide with you forevermore
Was not introduced from (generally) in the 4th century you say?
Au contraire, me ah-mee-go (and 'bonus notches' too, while we're at it), I had intended to address that contention previously, yet did not then, but have returned to show some evidence for how, as CB quoted from the article;
From NPNF2-07. Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen;
9. Then we commemorate also those who have fallen asleep before us, first Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, that at their prayers and intercessions God would receive our petition2490. Then on behalf also of the Holy Fathers and Bishops who have fallen asleep before us, and in a word of all who in past years have fallen asleep among us, believing that it will be a very great benefit to the souls2491, for whom the supplication is put up, while that holy and most awful sacrifice is set forth.
So far, so good, eh? It would seem like "lookee there", Cyril is establishing that prayer and intercession on the part of those who have fallen asleep aspect was among the prayers of the Church, at least in the 4th century.
So -- why not assume it was always there, and that particular aspect --- which as I took pains to attempt to precisely isolate in previous note to you on this thread (#203), was there all along?
In the attempt to isolate (conceptually) just what the change was; which there is evidence of having occurred, I posed to you the following (as-yet unanswered) question;
Can you show that in the first generations of Christians (what would that be -- 120 to 150 years perhaps, for more than a few "generations"?) that it was common to pray TO saints, in seeking those 'saints' own direct intercession (in the affairs of men) rather than the prayer and veneration be more about them, like as in loving remembrance & gratitude directed towards God for those souls for having been leading personages of the Church --- in those earliest generations after the Apostles?
The answer to that, my FRiend, is not blowing in the wind, but instead is in the footnotes.
Let's have a look at one of those...
2490 In the Liturgies of St. James and St.
Mark, and in the Clementine, there are
similar commemorations of departed
saints, especially “patriarchs, prophets,
apostles, martyrs,” but nothing
corresponding to the words,“that at their prayers and intercessions God would receive our petition.”
See Index, Prayer and Intercession.
Can you see there how; not that it was remembrance and "veneration" itself which was necessarily introduced in the 4th century, but we do find clear enough evidence that praying to them for their own direct intercession was something of a development, at the precise juncture which I just (quite literally) underlined...
As for Church prayers previously having been more limited to being about departed saints, and this in remembrance of them, rather than towards them, as in seeking their own divine or semi-divine "heavenly" and direct & personal intersession, there is no contest.
The next footnote
2491I would be willing to further discuss, yet there too I perceive something of a shifted sense between the compared liturgies, for in Chysostom's (if one could find one of those in unadulterated form -- good luck with that) there is logical possibility that those whom would be seen to profit, or else gain from prayers concerning the departed, would be those whom are doing the praying, instead of those being prayed towards God concerning.
If those prayers having come from genuine Apostolic source, if such could be better identified, then evidence for that attitude should be honestly searched for, by any and all those concerned with establishing one way or another, which way it more originally went.
Why would God need anyone to pray for the departed?
Are not His saints present with Himself, even as we speak? Does He not have the matters well enough in hand?
If that not be so -- then how would it be that a "saint" could themselves hear us, and also themselves respond to prayers of those yet upon earth, while themselves being able to in some fashion "gain" from the prayers of those now living upon the earth?
Is His grace, and His blood, somehow not sufficient for those whom have passed on, and requires a booster-shot of intercessory prayer from us -- for them, even the departed whom are perceived to be truly "saints"?
If those whom are departed are in need of our own prayers --- then where are they?
What now? Will notions of a Purgatory© be invoked, that half-way house to the stars, where some are stopped short of the eventual destination and require a pushing from below as it were (prayers of those still upon the earth) to get 'em over the big 'ol hump, above the sky?
You tell me.
But before doing so...know this.
I am tempted to go back through the comments and make a collage of the various posing and posturings which you have shifted from, to then assume and argue various ways --- including -- seeming to have there at the end having chiefly staked or anchored your own position as towards prayers to departed saints alleged to have been being actually sourced from the Apostles themselves (rather than having been a later development, though one still in early centuries -- like say ---- near to the 4th century? that's 300 years, man, a lot can happen to people's ways of thinking in that much time) despite the lack of positive evidence, yourself depending then upon lack of negative evidence.
That lack of negative evidence can be patently illogical (from the moment's inception) if all there is elsewhere in positive support indeed comes from later centuries (like say -- the 4th century, and onwards from there?) for that was the very argument which was presented in this thread --- which as far as I can determine, no one has yet defeated.
Which leaves things to be, so far, not exactly
Christians 0
but more as
John Calvin 1
Roman Catholics -1
>>Well Done!<<
>>>You may be a Kandy Atz, but you are also a valiant and well-spoken upholder of God’s own truth.<<<
Thank you both for your kindness. I only regret not having more time to participate on this forum. It saddens me to see so much confusion, and so much “religion” on this forum. ALL the answers are in God’s Word. It was written to unveil God’s Wisdom to even the simple among us. You will never find the true treasure if you don’t dig deep, and keep on digging. And the moment you think you know it all, that is when you are in trouble.
God Bless You Both!
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