Their belief had little to do with whether or not the Catholic Church adopted them as their own, as long as they didn’t renounce the Church to the point they had to be excommunicated.
There isn’t one early Church father whose beliefs in total would be accepted by your Church today, Augustine included.
Augustine believed that Christ death didn’t opened heaven for everyone, but that only a few were given the gift of faith and the promise of eternal life, in short he believed in predestination, which I’m sure your Church doesn’t agree with today.
Here is what Saint Augustine says regarding your claim that they believed the Bible was the sole authority, using Mat. 4:6, He says: "Heretics quote Scriptures as the devil does here, in a wrong and forced sense. The Church cites them, like Jesus Christ, in their true sense and to confute their falsehood."
This was handled perfectly by both Christ and Satan. Satan tried to spin Gods word to his advantage by quoting the scripture, and Jesus used the scripture to correct him, just as we should be doing today, and if you noticed, Satan accepted the written word as the ultimate truth.
Just think, if Jesus had been a Catholic, He’d have told Satan, we have a tradition to cover that, but since your not a Catholic, you’ll never understand it. Lol
It is on this account, that the Catholic Church wishes persons to come to the study of the most mysterious and difficult book ever published, should bring with them some preparations of mind and heart, convinced that the abuse of the strongest and best food may be converted into deadly poison."
These are just spiritual sounding words that mean nothing to a non-Catholic, try using scripture instead. :)
Using Luke 4:10, The Church says: We have the devil here again citing scripture, which shows how very dangerous a thing it is to put the Scripture, in the first instance, indiscriminately into every, even the most illiterate person's hands, without any previous disposition of the mind and heart, by study and prayer. How much more satisfactory must it be to be guided by the church of God, which Christ has promised to secure against all error, and which He comands all to obey.
There is nothing dangerous about anyone quoting scripture, because they’ll usually accept your scripture in rebuttal. It’s those who base their faith on traditions that its hard to discuss anything with because we have no common ground to work from.
JH :)
Another Quote of Saint Augustine: "Outside the Catholic Church one can have everything except salvation. He can have honor; he can have the Sacraments; he can sing ‘Alleluia’; he can answer, ‘Amen’; he can hold the Gospel; he can have faith in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and preach; but never, except in the Catholic Church can he have salvation."
Your claim that the Catholic church adopted them is a result of your mis interpretations because the Church willingly invites all into Her fold as adopted children - but where you stumble is in the fact that it is they who have not only adopted the RCC for their own, they did it because they knew that She is the only way to God.