The True Church and the Bible

Towards the end of the world, tyrants and hostile mobs will rob the Church and the clergy of all their possessions and will afflict and martyr them. Those who heap the most abuse upon them will be held in high esteem. At that time, the Pope with his cardinals will have to flee Rome in tragic circumstances to a place where they will be unknown. The Pope will die a cruel death in his exile. The sufferings of the Church will be much greater than at any previous time in her history. But God will raise a holy Pope, and the Angels will rejoice. Enlightened by God, this man will rebuild almost the whole world through his holiness. He will lead everyone to the true Faith.

~ John of the Cleft Rock

As early as 110 A.D., not even fifteen years after the book of Revelation was written, while on his way to execution St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote:

“Where the bishop is present, let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church”. The Church believes that when the bishops speak as teachers, Christ speaks; for he said to them: “He who hears you, hears me; and he who rejects you, rejects me” (Lk 10, 16).

Amen.

As usual, a collection of falsehoods...

.....Ignatius - Never build a doctrine based on an uninspired, undatable, clearly changed, apocryphal manuscript......

From: Philip Schaff: Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, Introductory Note To The Epistle Of Ignatius To The Ephesians.
"The epistles ascribed to Ignatius have given rise to more controversy than any other documents connected with the primitive Church. As is evident to every reader on the very first glance at these writings, they contain numerous statements which bear on points of ecclesiastical order that have long divided the Christian world; and a strong temptation has thus been felt to allow some amount of prepossession to enter into the discussion of their authenticity or spuriousness. At the same time, this question has furnished a noble field for the display of learning and acuteness, and has, in the various forms under which it has been debated, given rise to not a few works of the very highest ability and scholarship. We shall present such an outline of the controversy as may enable the reader to understand its position at the present day.
There are, in all, fifteen Epistles which bear the name of Ignatius. These are the following: One to the Virgin Mary, two to the Apostle John, one to Mary of Cassobelae, one to the Tarsians, one to the Antiochians, one to Hero, a deacon of Antioch, one to the Philippians; one to the Ephesians, one to the Magnesians, one to the Trallians, one to the Romans, one to the Philadelphians, one to the Smyrnaeans, and one to Polycarp. The first three exist only in Latin: all the rest are extant also in Greek.
It is now the universal opinion of critics, that the first eight of these professedly Ignatian letters are spurious. They bear in themselves indubitable proofs of being the production of a later age than that in which Ignatius lived. Neither Eusebius nor Jerome makes the least reference to them; and they are now by common consent set aside as forgeries, which were at various dates, and to serve special purposes, put forth under the name of the celebrated Bishop of Antioch.
But after the question has been thus simplified, it still remains sufficiently complex. Of the seven Epistles which are acknowledged by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., iii. 36), we possess two Greek recensions, a shorter and a longer. It is plain that one or other of these exhibits a corrupt text, and scholars have for the most part agreed to accept the shorter form as representing the genuine letters of Ignatius. This was the opinion generally acquiesced in, from the time when critical editions of these Epistles began to be issued, down to our own day. Criticism, indeed, fluctuated a good deal as to which Epistles should be accepted and which rejected. Archp. Usher (1644), Isaac Vossius (1646), J. B. Cotelerius (1672), Dr. T. Smith (I709), and others, edited the writings ascribed to Ignatius in forms differing very considerably as to the order in which they were arranged, and the degree of authority assigned them, until at length, from about the beginning of the eighteenth century, the seven Greek Epistles, of which a translation is here given, came to be generally accepted in their shorter form as the genuine writings of Ignatius.
Before this date, however, there had not been wanting some who refused to acknowledge the authenticity of these Epistles in either of the recensions in which they were then known to exist. By far the most learned and elaborate work maintaining this position was that of Daillé (or Dallaeus), published in 1666. This drew forth in reply the celebrated Vindiciae of Bishop Pearson, which appeared in 1672. It was generally supposed that this latter work had established on an immoveable foundation the genuineness of the shorter form of the Ignatian Epistles; and, as we have stated above, this was the conclusion almost universally accepted down to our own day. The only considerable exception to this concurrence was presented by Whiston, who laboured to maintain in his Primitive Christianity Revived (1711) the superior claims of the longer recension of the Epistles, apparently influenced in doing so by the support which he thought they furnished to the kind of Arianism which he had adopted.
But although the shorter form of the Ignatian letters had been generally accepted in preference to the longer, there was still a pretty prevalent opinion among scholars, that even it could not be regarded as absolutely free from interpolations, or as of undoubted authenticity. Thus said Lardner, in his Credibility of the Gospel History (1743): "have carefully compared the two editions, and am very well satisfied, upon that comparison, that the larger are an interpolation of the smaller, and not the smaller an epitome or abridgment of the larger.... But whether the smaller themselves are the genuine writings of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, is a question that has been much disputed, and has employed the pens of the ablest critics. And whatever positiveness some may have shown on either side, I must own I have found it a very difficult question."
This expression of uncertainty was repeated in substance by Jortin (1751), Mosheim (1755), Griesbach (1768), Rosenmüller (1795), Neander (1826), and many others; some going so far as to deny that we have any authentic remains of Ignatius at all, while others, though admitting the seven shorter letters as being probably his, yet strongly suspected that they were not free from interpolation. Upon the whole, however, the shorter recension was, until recently, accepted without much opposition, and chiefly in dependence on the work of Bishop Pearson above mentioned, as exhibiting the genuine form of the Epistles of Ignatius.
But a totally different aspect was given to the question by the discovery of a Syriac version of three of these Epistles among the mss. procured from the monastery of St. Mary Deipara, in the desert of Nitria, in Egypt. In the years 1838, 1839, and again in 1842, Archdeacon Tattam visited that monastery, and succeeded in obtaining for the English Government a vast number of ancient Syriac manuscripts. On these being deposited in the British Museum, the late Dr. Cureton, who then had charge of the Syriac department, discovered among them, first, the Epistle to Polycarp, and then again, the same Epistle, with those to the Ephesians and to the Romans, in two other volumes of manuscripts.
As the result of this discovery, Cureton published in 1845 a work, entitled, The Ancient Syriac Version of the Epistles of St. Ignatius to Polycarp, the Ephesian, and the Romans, etc., in which he argued that these Epistles represented more accurately than any formerly published what Ignatius had actually written. This, of course, opened up the controversy afresh. While some accepted the views of Cureton. others very strenuously opposed them. Among the former was the late Chev. Bunsen; among the latter, an anonymous writer in the English Review, and Dr. Hefele, in his third edition of the Apostolic Fathers. In reply to those who had controverted his arguments, Cureton published his Vindiciae Ignatianae in 1846, and his Corpus Ignatianum in 1849. He begins his introduction to the last-named work with the following sentences: "Exactly three centuries and a half intervened between the time when three Epistles in Latin, attributed to St. Ignatius, first issued from the press, and the publication in 1845 of three letters in Syriac bearing the name of the same apostolic writer. Very few years passed before the former were almost universally regarded as false and spurious; and it seems not improbable that scarcely a longer period will elapse before the latter be almost as generally acknowledged and received as the only true and genuine letters of the venerable Bishop of Antioch that have either come down to our times, or were ever known in the earliest ages of the Christian Church."
Had the somewhat sanguine hope thus expressed been realized, it would have been unnecessary for us to present to the English reader more than a translation of these three Syriac Epistles. But the Ignatian controversy is not yet settled. There are still those who hold that the balance of argument is in favour of the shorter Greek, as against these Syriac Epistles. They regard the latter as an epitome of the former, and think the harshness which, according to them, exists in the sequence of thoughts and sentences, clearly shows that this is the case. We have therefore given all the forms of the Ignatian letters which have the least claim on our attention. The reader may judge, by comparison for himself, which of these is to be accepted as genuine, supposing him disposed to admit the claims of any one of them. We content ourselves with laying the materials for judgment before him, and with referring to the above-named works in which we find the whole subject discussed. As to the personal history of Ignatius, almost nothing is known. The principal source of information regarding him is found in the account of his martyrdom, to which the reader is referred. Polycarp alludes to him in his Epistle to the Philippians (chap. ix.), and also to his letters (chap. xiii.). Irenaeus quotes a passage from his Epistle to the Romans (Adv. Haer., v.28; Epist. ad Rom., chap. iv.), without, however, naming him. Origen twice refers to him, first in the preface to his Comm. on the Song of Solomon, where he quotes a passage from the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, and again in his sixth homily on St. Luke, where he quotes from the Epistle to the Ephesians, both times naming the author. It is unnecessary to give later references.
Supposing the letters of Ignatius and the account of his martyrdom to be authentic, we learn from them that he voluntarily presented himself before Trajan at Antioch, the seat of his bishopric, when that prince was on his first expedition against the Parthians and Armenians (a.d. 107); and on professing himself a Christian, was condemned to the wild beasts. After a long and dangerous voyage he came to Smyrna, of which Polycarp was bishop, and thence wrote his four Epistles to the Ephesians, the Magnesians, the Trallians, and the Romans. From Smyrna he came to Troas, and tarrying there a few days, he wrote to the Philadelphians, the Smyrnaeans, and Polycarp. He then came on to Neapolis, and passed through the whole of Macedonia. Finding a ship at Dyrrachium in Epirus about to sail into Italy, he embarked, and crossing the Adriatic, was brought to Rome, where he perished on the 20th of December 107, or, as some think, who deny a twofold expedition of Trajan against the Parthians, on the same day of the year a.d. 116.
Philip Schaff: Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, Introductory Note to the Syriac Version of the Ignatian Epistles:
Some account of the discovery of the Syriac version of the Ignatian Epistles has been already given. We have simply to add here a brief description of the mss. from which the Syriac text has been printed. That which is named a by Cureton, contains only the Epistle to Polycarp, and exhibits the text of that Epistle which, after him, we have followed. He fixes its age somewhere in the first half of the sixth century, or before the year 550. The second ms., which Cureton refers to as b, is assigned by him to the seventh or eighth century. It contains the three Epistles of Ignatius, and furnishes the text here followed in the Epistles to the Ephesians and Romans. The third ms., which Cureton quotes as g, has no date, but, as he tells us, "belonged to the collection acquired by Moses of Nisibis in a.d. 931, and was written apparently about three or four centuries earlier." It contains the three Epistles to Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans. The text of all these mss. is in several passages manifestly corrupt, and the translators appear at times to have mistaken the meaning of the Greek original.

I don’t claim to know all that Schaff wrote on the subject, but if he considered all the letters attributed to Ignatius to be forgeries, then he was wrong. Schaff’s “scholarship” doesn’t match up well with recent standards on this issue.

See, for instance, Paul Foster, “The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch (Part I),” The Expository Times, 117 (2006), 487-492.

Or read Apostolic Fathers, edited by Jack N. Sparks, (Light and Life Publishing Co. published by Thomas Nelson Press in 1978), page 75:

Sometime in the fourth century the original collection of Ignatius’ letters was tampered with, and extra material was added. The forger (probably an Arian or an Apollinarist heretic) also composed six completely fictitious letters. These circulated for a time, but both the spurious set and the originals dropped out of sight in the West sometime during the Middle Ages.

In the fifteenth century a Latin edition of the spurious set of the letters was published. Theses were the “Letters of Ignatius” known to the Reformers of the sixteenth century. Then in the seventeenth century the Anglican archbishop Ussher discovered the authentic letters, and a storm of controversy arose. Careful study and research eventually established the authenticity of the letters as we have them today.

Or read Clayton N. Jefford, Reading the Apostolic Fathers, An Introduction (Hendrickson Publishers, 1996), who clearly states the usual letters considered by scholars to be authentic are in fact authentic (that’s on p. 54).

Of course, that passage from St. Ignatius provides much stronger support for the Orthodox notion of catholicity than for the Latin — the bishop, any bishop, with the faithful gathered around him constitutes the catholic Church — catholic in its primary sense “according to the whole”. The Church as a Eucharistic organism exists completely wherever the bishop, as the proper president of the Eucharist (though by delegation from a bishop, priests have the grace to celebrate the Eucharist), is, with the faithful around him, just as the Body and Blood of Christ are completely present wherever the Eucharist is celebrated.

Vladimir,
That is probably the best post you ever addressed to me. I appreciate it on many levels.

I am not an expert on the Letters of Ignatius, nor do I wish to devote my life to something like that.

By the way, the quote from Schaff came from this set on the Fathers (but I’m guessing here):

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ante-Nicene-Fathers-Volume-Set/dp/1565630823

It seems a solid resource. If this is the one the quote is taken from, it is fairly recent - 1994. This was published after the work by Sparks you quote.

In any case, there remain serious issues as delineated by Schaff - multiple versions in circulation (long and short), uncertain dates, etc. Those are not resolved, to my knowledge. Utmost in this regard is that we do not know who (for all we know the Vatican ordered it) created either a long or a short version, nor who added to the purported works of Ignatius. Nor do we know what material was added and what was original. Nor do we know Ignatius wrote any of it.

What we do know is that the body of work, whoever wrote it, and whenever it was written, was later altered. We also know it was not inspired.

No one can say authoritatively which, if any, are accurate.

In short, it does not seem to me to be the kind of historical document one should place much confidence as an accurate source. Certainly not the stuff any doctrines should be based upon.

Best

vlad,
In reading the reviews of the set, it appears it is republished from somewhere around 1885, so it is an older resource.

Obviously, this does not change the collections of the fathers, nor the issues I delineated above.

If you have anything from later works to throw in the pot to clarify any of those issues and make a case for them, please feel free.

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life everlasting and I will raise Him up on the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:54-56) "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" they argued. (John 6:53) "And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. THIS IS MY BODY. And taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD." (cf. Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20).

In the most unequivocal language the Apostles affirmed that the bread and wine duly consecrated on the altar did in fact become the actual Substance of the Savior. Declared the Apostle Paul: "The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?" (1 Cor. 10:16)

....Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." (John 20:19-23). "Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven." (Matt. 18:18) "Take heed to yourselves, and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the church of God ..." (Acts. 20:28) "And when they had ordained to them priests in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, in whom they believed." (Acts 14:22). " He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth Him that sent me." - Luke 10:16

Catholic Church is the church most united in Christ. The spectacle of one billion Catholics, three-fifths of all professed Christians, perfectly, indomitably united in belief, in organization, and in worship - the historical fact that Catholics, consistently the largest body of Christians in the world, have always been thus perfectly united - was evidence nobody can not ignore. Here is the unity of Bible prophecy - nowhere else on the Christian scene was there a unity nearly so compact, nearly so long-lived. Nowhere else on the Christian scene was there a unity so obviously permanent.

Wrote the great St. Cyprian in the third century: "God is one and Christ is one, and one is His Church, and the faith is one, and one His people welded together by the glue of concord into a solid unity of body. Unity cannot be rent asunder, nor can the one body of the Church, through the division of its structure, be divided into separate pieces" (St. Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church, chap 23).

Like His glorified body in Heaven, Christ's Mystical Body on earth never was and never will be a disjoined body. St. Paul said, a member of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. (Eoh. 5:30) ...Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. ...That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us... I in them, and thou in me; that they maybe made perfect in one." (John 17:1-23).

You can see in Sacred Scripture that Christ's true church is not the "learning" church but is manifestly a TEACHING church. Moreover, it is evident that Christ's true church is an INFALLIBLE teacher, never liable to teach false doctrine "All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching then to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." (Matt.28:18-20). "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you." (John 20:21). Here again is a clear, unmistakable reference to the teaching mission of His Church; for here He is telling the Apostles that they had fallen heir to His own teaching mission. His Church was to be no less of a teacher than He was.

Here is another evidence that Catholic Church is an INFALLIBLE teacher, never liable to teach false doctrine: "These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you. ... when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me. And you shall give testimony, because you are with me from the beginning." (John 14:25-26; 15:26-27).

The is only one Catholic Church- successors to Peter.

And yet somehow, catholics have managed to inject false teaching into the church.

“No one can say authoritatively which, if any, are accurate.”

Sure they can. Internal markers help. You never did any manuscript studies of any sort did you? Paleography? Philology? Anything at all? I did.

“Obviously, this does not change the collections of the fathers, nor the issues I delineated above.”

You really don’t understand how this works do you? Schaff worked in a time when, for instance, many scholars denied the Hittites ever existed - because there was no record of them outside of scripture. Then evidence was found around the turn of the 20th century. Now no one can deny the one-time existence of the Hittites. Schaff was a man of his time and only could work with what he had. He was wrong.

“If you have anything from later works to throw in the pot to clarify any of those issues and make a case for them, please feel free.”

Already done. The vast majority of experts and scholars believe the letters of Ignatius to Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Rome, Smyrna, Philadelphia, and to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna are genuine. As Patrick J. Hamell mentions in his Handbook of Patrology (Alba House, 1968), the authenticity of those letters is verified by Polycarp and Eusebius who give the contents and order of the letters.

“And yet somehow, catholics have managed to inject false teaching into the church.”

That never happened historically - or in your case, at the very least, grammatically.

So are you a glutton for punishment or what? Having just added to your continuous record of posting refuted polemics, and with your last parroting of prevaricating propaganda resulting in your nuking of the NT church, you ignore that and proceed to post more refuted Roman specious sophistry.

"Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.

Which, as with other "verify, verily" statements, is an absolute imperative, meaning that eating the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking his blood, is unequivocally required in order to obtain spiritual life.

Which means, if consistent with literalistic interpretation, that one must take part in the Lord's supper to obtain spiritual life, and those who knowingly reject the so-called Cath "Real Presence" (though apparently this originally was an Anglican term), cannot be born again. But which contradicts modern RC teaching.

In the most unequivocal language the Apostles affirmed that the bread and wine duly consecrated on the altar did in fact become the actual Substance of the Savior. Declared the Apostle Paul: "The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?" (1 Cor. 10:16)

WRONG. Only the metaphorical view is consistent with the rest of Scripture, and as examination of the next chapter will reveal, this refers to believers showing fellowship with Christ in His death through their communal sharing in that meal done in remembrance of Christ's death, not by eating His flesh. For in context the apostle teaches that this fellowship is analogous to the fellowship pagans have with their gods in their commemorative feasts, participation by believers in which the apostle is condemning:

But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. (1 Corinthians 10:20,21)

And how would they have fellowship with devils? Not by consuming the transubstantiated flesh of devils, but by taking part in a feast done in dedication to demons. For they which eat of the sacrifices are partakers of the altar, showing union with the object of this feast and each other, but not because the food has been transubstantiated into that of the entity it is offered to.

The overall context here is the church as the body of Christ, and that what one has liberty to eat or do is restricted by how it will affect others. Thus “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31-32)

And which is the context in the next chapter, in which Paul reproves Corinthian church for coming together to eat the Lord's supper, as he charges them with not actually doing so because they were eating what is supposed to be a communal meal, the “feast of charity,” (Jude 1:12) independently of each other, so that “in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken,” and thus what they were doing was to “shame them that have not.” (1Co. 11:20-22)

Therefore Paul proceeds to reiterates the words of Christ at the institution of the Lord's supper, ending with “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew [kataggellō=preach/declare] the Lord's death till he come.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

For while they were supposed to be showing/declaring the Lord's unselfish sacrificial death for the body by unselfishly sharing food with other members of the body of Christ, whom Christ purchased it with His own sinless shed blood, (Acts 20:28) instead they were both eating independently and selfishly. And thus were effectively treating other members as lepers, and as if the body was not a body, and as if others were not part of the body for whom Christ died. This lack of effectual recognition is what is being referred to as “not discerning the Lord's body,” that of the body in which the members are to treat each as blood-bought beloved brethren, as Christ did. Because they were presuming to show the Lord's death for the body while acting contrary to it, therefore they were eating this bread and drinking the cup of the Lord unworthily, hypocritically, and were chastised for it, some unto death. (1Co. 11:27-32)

Because this was the case and cause of condemnation — that of not recognizing the nature of the corporate body of Christ in independently selfishly eating — versus not recognizing the elements eaten as being the body of Christ — then the apostle's solution was, “Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come.” (1 Corinthians 11:33-34)

"And when they had ordained to them priests in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, in whom they believed." (Acts 14:22). "

More deception and disrespect of the Holy Spirit and the word of God, as ordained to them "priests" is not what the Holy Spirit said, as in fact the distinctive word for priests is never used by the Spirit for NT priests. Nor are they shown as having a uniquely sacrificial function, which imposed functional equivalence is how Cath pastors came to be distinctively titled "priests." See here to save me time explaining this, again.

Catholic Church is the church most united in Christ. The spectacle of one billion Catholics, three-fifths of all professed Christians, perfectly, indomitably united in belief, in organization, and in worship

What? Is the author on drugs? One billion Catholics perfectly, indomitably united in belief, in organization, and in worship??? The reality is that Rome counts as members in life and in death even proabortion, prosodomote promuslim, prooccupy-movement pols, as well as the multitudes which supply them.

And Caths widely disagrre with their church, and are far less unified in basic conservative values and beliefs than those who most strongly affirm the authority of Scripture as the wholly inspired and accurate word of God.

Like His glorified body in Heaven, Christ's Mystical Body on earth never was and never will be a disjoined body

But which is not what one billion Catholics belong to, while this body also includes many Prots.

Moreover, it is evident that Christ's true church is an INFALLIBLE teacher, never liable to teach false doctrine

More evidence of drugs. It is not evident, but instead, Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.

. Teaching then to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." (Matt.28:18-20). "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you." (John 20:21). Here again is a clear, unmistakable reference to the teaching mission of His Church; for here He is telling the Apostles that they had fallen heir to His own teaching mission. His Church was to be no less of a teacher than He was.

Which manner of charge is not new, but flows from the OT, and for which an ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility was never required. Instead, souls discerned both men and writings as being of God in the light of Scriptural substantiation in word and in power

Here is another evidence that Catholic Church is an INFALLIBLE teacher, never liable to teach false doctrine: "These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you. ... when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me. And you shall give testimony, because you are with me from the beginning." (John 14:25-26; 15:26-27).

Which also is not new or novel, for an assuredly (if conditionally) infallible magisterium was never essential for God to provide or preserve Truth, but by arguing that ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility is essential, and that being the historical instruments and stewards of Divine revelation (oral and written) means that Rome is that assuredly infallible magisterium, then the RC effectively nukes the NT church (habit forming).

.

For contrary to the Roman model, the church actually began in dissent from those who sat in the seat of Moses over Israel, (Mt. 23:2) who were the historical instruments and stewards of Scripture, "because that unto them were committed the oracles of God," (Rm. 3:2) to whom pertaineth" the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises" (Rm. 9:4) of Divine guidance, presence and perpetuation as they believed, (Gn. 12:2,3; 17:4,7,8; Ex. 19:5; Lv. 10:11; Dt. 4:31; 17:8-13; Ps, 11:4,9; Is. 41:10, Ps. 89:33,34; Jer. 7:23)

And instead they followed an itinerant Preacher whom the magisterium rejected, and whom the Messiah reproved them Scripture as being supreme, (Mk. 7:2-16) and established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation in word and in power, as did the early church as it began upon this basis. (Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12, etc.)

In contrast, Truth claims being established upon the weight of Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, and the allowance of dissent from those who claim (Rome) or who do sit in power, validates the Reformation in principal. And indeed, it is abundantly evidenced that the word of God/the Lord was normally written, even if sometimes first being spoken, and that as written, Scripture became the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.

And which testifies (Lk. 24:27,44; Acts 17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23, etc.) to writings of God being recognized and established as being so (essentially due to their unique and enduring heavenly qualities and attestation), and thus they materially provide for a canon of Scripture (as well as for reason, the church, etc.)

Dan the man. You done did it now 😎🇵🇭

Boom!!!

All bishops are successors to Peter. The one chair St. Cyprian wrote of is the episcopate, not the papacy. Of course, you will find, if you read the Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1848, that we Orthodox agree that there is only one Catholic Church, but we disagree with you Latins as to where it is to be found since you adopted the heretical doctrine of the dual procession of the Spirit in the 11th century and started forcibly installing bishops into occupied sees in the East in the 12th.

I think we all know how Photias conned the then Pope to further his ambitious plans.

>>”When did the Church established by Jesus Christ get the name Catholic?” <<

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It didn’t!

The ‘catholic’ church tried to persecute the true church out of existence, but of course it failed. But it has led billions that prefer man made ‘religion’ to an eternity in the lake of fire.

Follow the money!
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