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."
Augustine never referred to the church at Rome as the “Catholic Church” a noun, and if he had lived another 50 years, he’d have probably have denounced the whole thing.
He understood that the church Christ established was a group of believers who were the members of the body of Christ, but Christ was the head, and not some man.
Had you been able to read it, when he actually wrote it, it would have probably said, “except in the universal assembly can a man have salvation.” At the time he said it, I may have agreed with him, but your Church is no longer that assembly.
What is the earliest extant copy you have of that quote you posted from Augustine? I’d be interested in seeing it.
I see you’ve followed “Catholic Apologetics 101,” pretty well. You managed to divert the subject from Mary giving birth of four other boys and a couple of girls, then to Sola Scripture, and now finally into your Church History, which is all smoke and mirrors that could easily leave a sane person babbling to him self and cutting out little paper dolls. :)
The subjects has gotten too general for a discussion, but if you care to go back and work on whether or not Mary remained a virgin, I’ll be glad to accommodate you.
JH :)