Back to the Beginning: A Brief Introduction to the Ancient Catholic Church

The culture is now flooded with bogus scholarship whose main purpose is to put Christianity — and especially orthodox Catholicism — on the defensive. But most Catholics have no idea how to respond, and more than a few take these books and documentaries at face value. After all, they have the imprimatur of the History Channel or a large publishing house like Doubleday.

Macaulay keeps laying it on, awestruck by the Church's perdurance through the centuries. The rhetorical excess is particularly striking coming from an agnostic who regarded history as a steady climb from religious obscurantism to secular enlightenment. But Macaulay's point is always worth making: No institution in history is remotely comparable to the Catholic Church. It is a subject that well repays study. And yet most Catholics know very little about their own history.

This is unfortunate for many reasons, but especially today, when a dinner-party conversation can suddenly turn to some specious best-seller that presumes to rewrite Church history. The culture is now flooded with bogus scholarship whose main purpose is to put Christianity — and especially orthodox Catholicism — on the defensive. But most Catholics have no idea how to respond, and more than a few take these books and documentaries at face value. After all, they have the imprimatur of the History Channel or a large publishing house like Doubleday.

The media have a sharp appetite for this recycling of 19th-century, anti-clerical scholarship, and so books by scholars like Gary Wills and Elaine Pagels get maximum exposure. And then there is The Da Vinci Code, which has sold a staggering nine million copies. Both the New York Times and National Public Radio seem to think that it is based on historical fact. Even its author appears to think so. But a book that claims that Christians did not believe in the divinity of Christ until the fourth century, that a Roman emperor chose the four Gospels, that the Church executed five million witches, and that Opus Dei has monks is obviously little more than a farrago of nonsense.

We live in a sea of false historiography, and so it is worth asking: What exactly happened during the first centuries of Christianity? How did a small band of believers, starting out in a despised outpost of the Roman Empire, end up the dominant institution of the Mediterranean world? What was "primitive Christianity"? John Henry Newman became a Catholic in the course of answering that question. History, he said, is the enemy of Protestantism. It is also the enemy of the newly vigorous anti-Catholicism that circulates among our cultural elites.

The word gospel means "good news," and the first thing to say about the early Church is that its members had an urgent message for a civilization that already contained the seeds of its own demise. Early Christianity was above all a missionary enterprise, an evangelical movement in a world ripe for its teachings. At the end of his public life Christ had said to His disciples, "Go"; and, in addition to the journeys recorded in the New Testament, tradition has the apostles spreading all over the map: Thomas to Parthia and India, Andrew and John to Asia Minor, Bartholomew to south Arabia. Each may have undergone exploits as spectacular as St. Paul's, but unfortunately there was no St. Luke to record them.

Early Church Fathers like St. Augustine believed that Providence had arranged ancient history so that Christianity could spread as rapidly as possible. The Pax Romana was a remarkable achievement, and the general law and order, combined with Roman road-building, made it easier to get around Europe at the time of Tiberius and Claudius than it would be a thousand years later. There was also a widespread Hellenistic culture, which meant that many people spoke Greek. This was the legacy of Alexander the Great, who not only spread a common tongue but, like other rulers of that era, had a mania for building cities. The large concentration of urban dwellers made evangelization more efficient, and within the space of about a century we find Christianity flourishing in all the vital nerve-centers of the Roman empire, which had a population of about 60 million.

The great tipping points of history often occur beneath the radar, and it is doubtful that anyone in the year 51 noticed an itinerant rabbi from Tarsus crossing the Aegean Sea into Macedonia. But this was Christianity's entrance into Western Europe, with incalculable consequences for the future. Christopher Dawson writes that Paul's passage from Troas in Asia Minor to Philippi did more to shape the subsequent history of Europe than anything recorded by the great historians of the day. Put simply: The Faith created modern Europe, and Europe created the modern world.

What Paul and other missionaries found everywhere in the Roman Empire was a spiritual vacuum: The Roman gods, practically speaking, were dead, the victims of much scoffing from intellectuals and poets. The upper orders had turned to Stoicism — self-cultivating itself in aristocratic isolation — but this spoke only to a small minority. Others with spiritual hankerings went to more dubious sources: mystery cults, Asiatic magic, exotic neo-Platonisms, whose goal was ecstatic visions and emotional release. There was a lot of philosophical mumbo jumbo in an atmosphere of tent revivalism, with a dash of emperor worship on the side. But no matter where it turned for solace, the late classical mind was steeped in melancholy, a kind of glacial sadness; it was utterly lacking in what Catholics would call the theological virtue of hope.

Since The Da Vinci Code and other dubious best-sellers claim that early Christianity was anti-feminist, it's worth recalling that large numbers of women during these centuries thought otherwise. The Church's teachings about marriage and family, along with its strictures against divorce, abortion, and the exposure of newborn babies — all of which a pagan husband could force his wife to do, no questions asked — resonated with women who were treated like chattel under the old dispensation. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke goes out of his way to mention female converts like Lydia and Damaris. Even at this early date, women played a key role in the Church's evangelical mission. No world religion has ever given women a more important place than Roman Catholicism. Even Protestantism would turn out to be largely a male enterprise.

These early Christians were conscious of a single responsibility that transcended and sustained all others. They were bound to preserve with the utmost fidelity what had been taught by the apostles. Long before there was a New Testament, there was a deposit of faith concerning the nature of God, His threefold personality, His purpose in making man, the Incarnation. It is already presupposed in the early letters of Paul as well as ancient documents like the Didache. Any departure from these teachings provoked the strongest possible response, and the Acts of the Apostles and most of Paul's letters show the Church facing her first doctrinal and disciplinary problems.

The determination to hold fast to "what has been handed on" (tradere, hence "tradition") is one explanation for the early Christian's veneration of the episcopal office. If there has been a revelation, then there must be an authoritative teaching office to tell us what it is. And so the role of bishops — whose job was, and still is, to teach, govern, and sanctify — was crucial from the beginning.

We do not know the precise details of how the Church's internal authority evolved in the first century. It is one of the most debated points of Church history. Protestants have an obvious bias toward an early congregationalism, but there is little evidence for this. We do know that from the original "twelve" there soon emerged a hierarchical church divided into clergy and laity. It seems that at first there were apostolic delegates, people like Timothy and Titus, who derived their authority from one of the apostles — in this case, Paul. These men governed the local churches under the apostles' direction, and, while some apostles were still on the scene, this arrangement naturally evolved into the college of bishops.

Within each city there was a single church under a bishop, who in turn was assisted by priests in the spiritual realm and deacons in the administrative. The latter devoted themselves especially to alms-giving, and a striking feature of primitive Christianity is its organized benevolence. These local churches were largely self-sufficient but would group around a mother church in the region — Antioch, Alexandria, Rome — and the bishops of each region would occasionally meet in councils. But they all considered themselves part of a universal Church — the Catholic Church, as Ignatius first called it — united in belief, ritual, and regulation.

From the earliest times we find one of these churches exercising a special role, acting as a higher authority and final court of appeal. We don't know much about the early development of the Roman church, and the lists of the first popes are not always consistent. But we do know that around the year 90 a three-man embassy bearing a letter from Rome traveled to Corinth, where there were dissensions in the local church. In that letter, Pope St. Clement speaks with authority, giving instructions in a tone of voice that expects to be obeyed. The interesting point is that the apostle John was still living in Ephesus, which is closer than Rome to Corinth. But it was Rome (at the time, a smaller diocese) that dealt with the problem. Here was the prototype of all future Roman interventions.

It is not difficult to find even liberal Catholic scholars who endorse the early primacy of Rome. In his popular history of the papacy, Saints and Sinners, Eamon Duffy writes that the apostolic succession of the Chair of Peter "rests on traditions which stretch back to the very beginning of the written records of Christianity." Around the year 180, St. Irenaeus, battling heretics who presumed to correct and supplement the Faith with their Gnostic speculations, wrote that if anyone wishes to know true Christian doctrine, he has only to find those churches with a line of bishops going back to one of the apostles. But it is simpler, and suffices, to find out the teaching of the Roman see: "For with this Church all other churches must bring themselves into line, on account of its superior authority."

The early Church was not only hierarchical, it was liturgical and sacramental. But it was above all Eucharistic. St. Ignatius, in his letter to the church at Smyrna, attacks local heretics who "abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of Our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins...." By the year 150, when St. Justin Martyr described the Sunday liturgy in some detail, all the principal elements of the Mass are in place: Scriptural readings, prayers of intercession, offertory, Eucharistic prayer, and communion. There was no need back then to remind the faithful that Sunday Mass attendance was obligatory, since they regarded the liturgy as absolutely central to their lives as Christians. It would not have occurred to them to forgo Sunday Mass for a brunch date or ballgame.

The readings at these early Masses were from both the Old Testament (then simply called "Scripture") and from many (but not all) of the documents that eventually would comprise the New Testament. And how did the New Testament canon come together? Although some Protestants seem to think otherwise, this was not a spontaneous process. Humanly speaking, it involved a lot of institutional machinery. The 27 books themselves were a kind of providential accident. Christ Himself did not write anything, nor (so far as we know) did He tell His disciples to write anything. There is, after all, something about hearing, rather than just reading, the Christian message. "Faith comes by hearing," writes Paul, who, even though a scholar, does not say "by reading." Books are wonderful evangelical tools, but it is still true that most conversions are brought about by personal witness.

In the ancient Middle East, the preferred medium for passing on the teachings of a religious master was oral, and people had strongly trained memories. Christ spoke in the traditional rhythms of Jewish speech, often using parallelisms that are easy to remember: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The Old Testament is shot through with this kind of mnemonic device. Christ's immediate disciples probably did not write down His words during His lifetime. Being a close-knit Jewish community with a strong oral tradition, they didn't have to.

But as time went by and the Church spread out, the danger of inaccurate reporting grew. This was especially true when Christianity moved into the Greek-speaking cities of Asia Minor and Macedon, where the habit of oral transmission was not strong. So the practice of giving the earliest Christian missionaries little books, or manuals, with the sayings and miracles of Jesus may have arisen. If there was such a document, it has not survived. Yet scholars reasonably posit an ur-document they call Q, which is said to be a sourcebook for the Gospels.

But we may leave the Jesus Seminar to find out what really happened. First, the scholarly consensus is that the three synoptic Gospels were written much earlier than heterodox "experts" wish us to think: Between 50 and 65 A.D. John's Gospel was written last, perhaps as late as 95, when John, the only apostle not martyred, was a very old man. More than any documents in history, these four books have been the target of the "hermeneutics of suspicion." It is therefore worth pointing out that the four evangelists were closer to their material than were most ancient historians. The biographers of the caesars — Tacitus and Suetonius — were not better placed to get accurate information about their subject than were the evangelists about the life of Christ.

Even though the four Gospel writers differ markedly from one another and have diverse agendas — Matthew is proselytizing his fellow Jews, Luke is fact-gathering for Gentile converts, Mark relates Peter's version of events, John is responding to heresies that deny the Incarnation — the striking thing is how strong, consistent, and identifiable the personality of Christ is in all four books. C. S. Lewis remarks that in all the world's narrative literature, there are three personalities you can identify immediately if given a random and even partial quotation: Plato's Socrates, Boswell's Johnson, and Jesus Christ of the Gospels.

Most of the documents in the New Testament are ad hoc; they address specific issues that arose in the early Church, and none claims to present the whole of Christian revelation. It's doubtful that Paul even suspected that his short letter to Philemon begging pardon for a renegade slave would someday be read as Holy Scripture. Moreover, there is no list of canonical books anywhere in the Bible, nor does any book (with the exception of John's apocalypse) claim to be inspired.

Who, then, decided that these books were Scripture? The Catholic Church. And it took several centuries to do so. It was not until the letters and decrees of two popes and three regional councils near the end of the fourth century that the Catholic Church had a fixed canon. Prior to that date, scores of spurious gospels and "apostolic" writings were circulating around the Mediterranean basin: The Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, Paul's Letter to the Laodiceans, and so forth. Moreover, some texts later judged to be inspired, such as the Letter to the Hebrews, were controverted, and there were also cogent arguments to jettison the Old Testament. All these issues were sorted out by the hierarchy, and, as Augustine logically remarks, it is only on the authority of the Catholic Church that we accept any book of Scripture.

Mired in the evil of creation, the Gnostic sought liberation by joining an elite band of believers who through gnosis — arcane speculation, philosophical pirouetting, secret verbal formulas — sought to obtain Promethean control of the spiritual realm. The object was a mystical knowledge that separated the believer not only from the corrupt world but also (and even better) from his neighbors. The initiate, moreover, was above sexual taboos, since the body is of no account. The resulting mixture of hedonism and mystical exclusivity was heady stuff, and the power of Gnosticism to assimilate elements from any source — Platonism, Persian dualism, even Judaism — made it very dangerous when it encountered Christianity and tried to subsume it into a higher and more beguiling synthesis.

Gnosticism's attempt to insert itself into Christianity involved the production of its own scripture, which it tried to smuggle into the Christian canon. The most famous Gnostic text, the Gospel of Thomas, comprises 114 "secret" sayings of Jesus. You don't have to read more than a few of them to recognize that the author has simply skimmed material from the original Gospels and given it a strange "spiritual" twist. Christ is now something of a Magus, a shadowy dispenser of puzzles and gnomic utterances. He bears no resemblance to the Christ of the four evangelists.

In her best-selling books, Pagels makes much of these "forbidden gospels" whose message — despite the occasional anti-feminist hiccup — gives her a fuzzy inner feeling. It seems that the modern Gnostic can retreat into a cozy realm of the spirit and then do whatever he or she pleases. There are no dogmas or commandments to scandalize the post-Christian academic mind. Pagels plays down the intellectual rubbish in these documents, and she's not entirely forthcoming about their elitism and anti-Jewish bias. And finally, it's ridiculous to speak of the Church's exclusion of these spurious second-century documents as a power play by a self-appointed male hierarchy bent on eliminating genuine spiritual impulses. Pagels ought to read the lives of the saints, which include not a few early popes and bishops.

The Church did Western civilization a huge favor in beating back these esoteric, anti-humanist ideas, as it would in the 13th century when it crushed the Cathar heresy, another nihilistic doctrine that had blown into Europe on the winds from Persia. In fact, no institution has done more for the surrounding culture than the Catholic Church. And it is identifiably itself from the beginning. To paraphrase Hilaire Belloc, there was no such thing as a religion called "primitive Christianity." There is and always has been the Church, founded by Christ around the year 30 A.D. That Church has always been hierarchical and sacramental. And it saved Western Europe from both pagan barbarism and Eastern nihilism.

In fact, almost everything we value in our civilization — hospitals, museums, universities, the idea of human rights — is by origin Catholic. These things did not come from the Vikings or northern German tribes; they certainly did not come from the Gnostics. But our modern secular culture displays a willful amnesia on the subject of our Catholic patrimony. The technocrats currently drafting a new constitution for the European Union don't even want to hear about it. As Chesterton quipped, first Catholic, then forgotten. Perhaps we can change that by getting out a clearer picture of the splendors and perils of the early Church.

...For the Orthodox, the essence and the purpose of this primacy is to express and preserve the unity of the Church in faith and life; to express and preserve the unanimity of all churches; to keep them from isolating themselves into ecclesiastical provincialism, losing the catholicity, separating themselves from the unity of life.

So how, in practice, is this achieved? Waving magic wands? The reality on the ground (rather than esoteric theological speculations) is that men disagree on issues. Even men who believe they are guided by the Spirit. Consider EVEN ONE heresy. Without one man acting as the official "referee", Church leadership by committee doesn't work and was NOT the sole practice of the Church. All one has to do is read the history of how the Eastern Bishops treated the Pope. The fact of the matter remains that if a bishop IS teaching false teaching, how does another "equal" remove him? Common sense DICTATES that one man HAS this power. Otherwise, how is the heretical bishop removed?

In practice, local bishops with total control doesn't work. And finally, this is not the definition of the "CATHOLIC" - UNIVERSAL Church. We are not a series of local churches united in name alone. Christ knew that sinful men, including bishops, would never totally agree. Thus, the theoretical idea of local bishops in total union with other bishops WITHOUT a higher human authority is a dream. It has never happened in Christian history. Even in the East, there are different ranks of "bishops" who have authority over other "bishops", an attempt to duplicate the role of Peter.

Regards

Augustine was the author of the Filioque? Please post me a source that quotes Augustine as saying this so that I can read it.

If you are interested to know what doctrine issues separate the churches and which actions of the churches separate one another and thus gain perspective on the nature of discussions between Metropolitan Kirill and Cardinal Kasper you must understand the different position of the Orthodox church on these issues, instead you're throwing out straw men, and proclaiming the pope is always right.

So rather than come out and summarize, I am supposed to wade through thousands and thousands of words taken from the Orthodox point of view on what Catholics believe? I suppose if you bury me with details and links, I will be compelled to believe what you do? I already know what the Church teaches. I don't need the Orthodox's view on Catholicism to tell me (wrongly) what they teach. It is not what you claim, for example, that the Pope is "always right". This line of polemics is outdated and ignorant. Leading me to sources that claim this is the Catholic Church's teachings doesn't lead me to think that your posts will "enlighten me" on the TRUE Orthodox position. Thus, I still will insist on you getting rid of the straw man.

Regarding ex Cathedra. Again, you don't know the Catholic position. It is extremely limited. It has been used TWICE in 150 years. Note this is called an EXTRAORDINARY teaching of the Church. The ORDINARY teachings of the Church are ALSO considered infallible - or will you now say that the Orthodox do not believe that Councils are infallible - which, by the way, was not "defined" at a council.

The Orthodox reject the view of the original sin by Augustine also, and thus have no need to patch around the Virgin Mary to sew together a hole in the doctrine.

The reasons given by you are not convincing. I am to believe that because Mary was declared immaculate by the Church, she must not be fully human? If the Orthodox take that stance, then I suppose they are declaring that Christ, TOO is not fully human, since HE was born immaculate as well. The Church Fathers of 200 AD and before clearly believe that Mary was not born into sin. She is the Second Eve. The First Eve was ALSO not born into sin... So if you disagree that Mary was born without sin, you are going against the Church's teachings for nearly 2000 years. And WE are heretics?

By claiming that the Catholic Church is heretical is to say that the Gates of Hell have prevailed against the Church built on the foundation of Peter. What more can I say about such talk? All we can do is hope that the good Metropolitan Kirill has a better understanding of Church history than you. All it takes to prove Rome's point of view is to look at the writings of the Church Fathers. THEY seemed to believe that the Pope had primacy over other bishops.

What I find interesting about the Orthodox Church is that they currently find Ecumenical Councils as constitutive of ultimate authority - yet the East has never convoked one nor can they. If the universal church is conciliar in structure, then the Eastern Orthodox do not have either a "true church constitution or a regular church government" because they CANNOT summon an ecumenical council (Soloviev, The Russian Church and the Papacy, pg 19). I find this a contradiction. Be careful who you call a heretic.

Regards

Actually, no.

Look, if Paul actually did preach against the Torah, he would be in disagreement with our Lord, who said:

Do not think that I have come to destroy the Torah or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, Till the heaven and the earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall in any way pass from the Torah until all is fulfilled. Therefore whoever shall break one of these commandments, the least, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven. But whoever shall do and teach them , the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven. (Mt. 5:17-19)

Therefore, if you think that they were actually in disagreement, great. You follow Paul; I'll follow Jesus.

But they weren't. Paul's argument was that we were no longer under the Law in the sense of being judged by it, since we are saved by God's grace as revealed in Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Christ, received by trusting in Him (Eph. 2:8-9). Yeshua said the same thing: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes on Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death to life" (Jn. 5:24).

However, it stretches credulity to suppose that Sha'ul (Paul), who remained a Pharisee to the end of his days (Ac. 23:6), who himself took a Nazrite oath in order to prove that he still observed and taught Torah and who saw nothing wrong with offering sacrifices in the Temple (Ac. 21:20ff), and who told others to imitate him as he imitated the Messiah (1 Cor. 11:1), would ever say that the Torah was done away with. On the contrary:

For not the hearers of the Torah are just before God, but the doers of the Torah shall be justified. (Rom. 2:13)
Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the Torah, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the Torah, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the Torah? (Rom. 2:26-27)
Do we then make void the Torah through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish (i.e., uphold) the Torah. (Rom. 3:1)
Therefore the Torah is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. (Rom. 7:12)
For we know that the Torah is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. (Ro 7:14)
For I delight in the Torah of God according to the inward man. (Rom. 7:22)
For Christ is the end (telos, goal) of the Torah for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Rom. 10:4)
Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters. (1 Cor. 7:19)
Therefore the Torah was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. (Gal. 3:24)
But we know that the Torah is good if one uses it lawfully . . . (1 Ti. 1:8)
All Scripture (including the Torah) is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Ti. 3:16-17)

Sha’ul was never opposed to the Torah, nor to keeping it. What he was opposed to was the misuse of the Torah, in Torah-keeping as an end unto itself, as if one could keep God’s Law well enough to earn the salvation that God has freely offered by His grace.

Now, it is true that the early believers didn't require Gentiles to become circumcised, which would have put them not simply under the Torah, but also under those parts of the Torah which only circumcised Jews were required to keep (e.g., kosher), as well as under the "Oral Torah," the traditions of the Jews that eventually formed the basis of the Talmud. They also preached that since the Jews, who knew what God's requirements were and had been shown such a great grace in receiving God's forgiveness in the Messiah, should likewise show grace to those who had not known God's commands but who had also been saved by faith in the Messiah instead of marginalizing those who weren't "Jewish enough."

But the Apostles themselves kept the Torah, and based all their teachings on it.

They certainly didn't reject the Torah to replace it with another "Law" of their own making. They didn't move the Sabbath to Sunday, they didn't pray to saints, they kept all the Feastdays of the Lord which God Himself gave at Sinai. All that came later, after the failed 70 AD and 135 AD rebellions which made Jews persona non grata in the Empire, and built up even more rapidly when the tables turned and the pagans were forced into the Church, bringing many of their old traditions with them: Saturnalia, which became Christmas; Easter, which replaced Passover; praying in the direction of the rising sun, an overemphasis of the idea of the Mother of God, etc.

So long as Rome continues to teach people to disobey even the least of the commandments of the Torah, it is not teaching the doctrine or traditions of Jesus Christ and the Apostles.

To be fair, most Protestant denominations are in the same boat--but they don't make the claim that they are the sole guardians of the supposed traditions of the Apostles.

Paul wasn't preaching against the Torah per sec. He was preaching that it could not save. Following the demands of the Torah IN ADDITION to belief in Christ was the demand of the Judaizers, which implies that Christ's work was insufficient. Christ AND the Apostles declared that the dietary laws were merely signs pointing to the real Law. Circumcision merely pointed to Baptism. There was no need to become circumcised - as the real thing had arrived. I never said that Paul and Jesus were in disagreement.

Paul did all as you describe because at that time, Christianity was a sect of Judaism. The Apostles continued to worship in the synagogue. It was only after the fall of Jerusalem where the Jews felt it necessary to come together and claim the Christians as heretics in a forceful manner. Thus, it is not unusual to find Peter or Paul at the synagogue worshiping. BUT, they also continued to break the bread. There is a transition period that I see here.

Also, Paul calls the Law a divine teacher. He uses the example of the master's slave who watches over the master's son and ensuring he is taught. But once the child is taught, the slave is no longer above the child. Sorry, I don't have time to look up the verses I am thinking about - it is time to plan T-Day and all of that.

Also, don't confuse the "torah" with the "law". They are not necessarily the same thing. Sometimes, Torah applies to ALL the traditions passed down, both oral and written, and other times, it refers to the Decalogue. I highly doubt that Paul refers positively to the traditions of hand-washing as important to being a Christian.

I agree.

They didn't move the Sabbath to Sunday, they didn't pray to saints, they kept all the Feastdays of the Lord which God Himself gave at Sinai. All that came later, after the failed 70 AD and 135 AD

I don't find any support for that claim. When refering to these practices, the later Church Fathers consider these practices as "from the Apostles". Perhaps this is not meant literal - but there is ultimately no proof that the third generation made up all of that. That is pure speculation based on an argument from absence within the Scriputures. Note that the Scriptures are not the totality of Christian revelation. This was NOT believed by ANYONE up until Luther.

So long as Rome continues to teach people to disobey even the least of the commandments of the Torah, it is not teaching the doctrine or traditions of Jesus Christ and the Apostles.

Rome teaches that hand-washing ceremonies are not important or necessary for Christians for the purpose of salvation. As an ethnical custom, if one is Jewish, so be it. But we are free of such Laws. They do not save. Thus, we are not required to do them. Since the Church has the power to bind and loose, the argument falls on deaf ears. The Church in Acts 15 already began to "loosen" those dietary rules of the "Torah". The Apostles...

They realized that we are not bound to the Laws of the Torah, but to the Law of Christ. Some of the Law of Christ matches the Torah (such as loving thy neighbor and loving God), but we don't follow "love thy neighbor" because it is in the Torah, but because CHRIST gave us this Law. Christ FULFILLS the Law, not abrogates it.

Regards

As I said before, we should be careful with the word "heresy". You seem to throw it around quite freely.

Augustine's teaching on the Trinity is in line with the teachings of the Church. Namely, that the Father and the Son's relationship bring about the Third Person, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father THROUGH the Son. There is ONE divine principle within the Godhead. That was initially the issue with the Orthodox disagreement with the Filioque. The Orthodox felt that the West believed that there were two divine principles moving within the Godhead. There isn't. BUT, realize that "the Father and the Son" is more accurate then just "the Father" because the Spirit doesn't proceed ONLY from the Father. The Son MUST be involved in this procession. While "And" is not the best word, it is NOT heretical, but it explains that BOTH persons are involved in the procession of the Holy Spirit, both within and without the Divine Godhead. Christ AND the Father send the Spirit to the Church as well. Whatever one does, the other is doing as well.

What the West says in the Nicean Creed is NOT heresy. It is a misunderstanding of terminology between us and the East. But if you can get past the name-calling and huffing and puffing that we left the Church and are heretics, you will see that we don't believe in TWO divine principles within the Godhead, just as the Coptics have now said they were misunderstood in the useage of words.

On the subject of heresy. Be aware that heresy is finally official when the Bishop of Rome says it is heresy. Don't believe me? Consult the history and writings on such matters. Rather than making assertions, I will let the Church Fathers speak for themselves. If two opposing factions call each other heretics, who decides whom is correct and who is heretical? The decision for such matters was refered to Rome, not Constantinople, not Alexandria, not Antioch, not Jerusalem. Over and over, bishops write to ROME. Even Bishops in Alexandria. Interesting. WHY? History doesn't beat around the bush. All one must do is read the Development of Doctrine and how something becomes called a heresy. It was always ASSUMED that Rome was the ultimate guardian of the faith. Ultimately, bishops would complain about heretics directly to Rome. Consider reading the Great Ecumenical Father, Saint John Chrysostom, or perhaps, St. Athanasius. Maximus the Confessor. When faced with a great heresy, these men turned to Rome. This cannot be denied. The issue for you is "WHY"? If he was merely an equal, why would heretics even CARE about Rome's decision? Think about it. Even the heretics KNEW that Rome's decision was final. There are numerous letters available written to the Pope from heretics trying to get their viewpoint declared as orthodox. When declared heretics, it was the POPE who forgave the heretic WHEN the man recanted.

On this subject, one must ALSO be aware that just because there is a disagreement in theology doesn't make something "heretical". You will have to show that something was "believed by everyone, for all time, in all places" and then refuted. This is not the case on original sin. The East and West didn't discuss the nuances of disagreements - thus, one would be hard pressed to say that there WAS an "official" DOCTRINE of what original sin was. Just because the East comes to believe that original sin is one thing doesn't make it true for the entire Church. The universal Church's determinations on the matter are first made at the 2nd Council of Orange, and then at Trent - in reference to Pelagius and the Protestants. WE hadn't discussed our disagreements - so how could either one be called "heretics" on the matter? This is how theology is fleshed out - bishops come together to determine what exactly the people believe. Was this done regarding Original Sin BEFORE the Schism? Not to the degree we are discussing. Thus, it isn't correct to call Catholics heretics over this matter.

While familiar in the West, this way of speaking was virtually unknown in the Greek-speaking, Eastern Roman Empire."

This is an example of the self-important, pompous, and arrogant attitude of claiming one's opinion over and above another's opinion without exploring the other's point of view. Yes, that's fine that it was "virtually unknown" in the East. And the West? Frankly, I didn't realize that the Greeks were the center of docrinal determination. What goes on in Constantinople is how it will be done throughout the universal church? Ridiculous.

There are a number of things that the West did and the East had "not heard of it" and vice versus. SO WHAT??? That's the point of getting together to flesh out what the UNIVERSAL CHURCH believes, not the Church of Constantinople. What arrogance. When was the Church of Constantinople ever determined to be the center of the Catholic Church - the ultimate authority for determining proper doctrine? Not the first millenium, I will assure you of that. Look at the major heresies of the Church - they come from the Emperor and his court. St. John Crysostom, Athanasius, Maximus, Flavian, and so forth. All orthodox bishops who were either banned, exiled or killed by the Emperor and his flunky bishops. We are to listen to them for doctrinal purity??? They tried to slip that in at Chalcedon - the Pope saw it and promptly removed it. The Greeks didn't like that. But it was never questioned, "Leo, how dare you do that. Who are you?". No. Rome had spoken, the case was closed. Rather than calling people heretical based on YOUR opinion, have you considered exploring the ENTIRE CHURCH'S opinion on the matter? Have you considered that in the West (yes, we were part of the Church then...) we DID believe just that about original sin? One can only pray that the Orthodox who are seeking to come to a reunion with Rome will have a more open idea of what the Church "believes", rather than thinking that their opinions ONLY represent the will and faith of the Church. I leave you with that thought.

Regards

"Augustine's teaching on the Trinity is in line with the teachings of the Church. Namely, that the Father and the Son's relationship bring about the Third Person, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father THROUGH the Son."

I'm afraid I have to differ. I assume you are referring to +Augustine's On the Trinity. Interesting, if a bit odd, reading. +Augustine's Neo-Platonic explanation of the inner workings of the Trinity are not "From the Father through the Son", but rather a quite different explanation which could lead to "Trinities" with more than three hypostasia.

The fact of the matter is that the Latin Church and the popes resisted the innovation of the filioque for a very long time before succumbing not to theological reason, but rather to political realities. It is, in fact, a heresy which has infected much of the theology and even ecclesiology of the Latin Church. Now we all understand that we are to refrain from labeling this notion as heretical since that is a loaded term and frankly isn't helpful in any dialog between Latins and the the rest of The Church (Greek, Armenian and Arabic speaking Churches in communion with Rome , save the most Latinized of them, do not now nor have they ever to my knowledge, used the filioque). Add to that the fact that the Latins agree that the Creed without the filioque is normative and it is that which should be used for translations and more importantly catechesis, and using the term heresy becomes destructive. On the other hand, continuing attempts by Latins to justify the use of the filioque, rather than simply to let it die off as an ill conceived theologumenon, might well make it necessary to call a spade a spade.

" On the subject of heresy. Be aware that heresy is finally official when the Bishop of Rome says it is heresy."

This is complete and utter hogwash. The popes had no more, or less, power to, sua sponte, declare something heresy than any other bishop. Councils declared heresies and condemned heretics, including at least one pope (6th Ecumenical Council). After the failed Council of Florence and the still born reunion, the bishops and Patriarchs of the East declared the Pope and those in communion with him to be heretics:

"We have excised and cut them [the Latins] off from the common body of the Church, we have, therefore, rejected them as heretics, and for this reason we are separated from them; they are, therefore, heretics, and we have cut them off as heretics."

The Fathers regularly condemned those who they had determined were teachers of heresy from the very beginning. Indeed the first writings on the subject are from +Ignatius of Antioch who professed to recognize heresy when he saw it and "presumed" to condemn it, all apparently without reference to some Vicar of Christ on Earth over in Rome!

"The East and West didn't discuss the nuances of disagreements - thus, one would be hard pressed to say that there WAS an "official" DOCTRINE of what original sin was. Just because the East comes to believe that original sin is one thing doesn't make it true for the entire Church. The universal Church's determinations on the matter are first made at the 2nd Council of Orange, and then at Trent - in reference to Pelagius and the Protestants"

Excuse me!!!!???? "Official doctrine"???? You mean something proclaimed ex cathedra by a man acting as the Vicar of Christ on Earth????? +Augustine's doctrine of Original Sin is not at all in accord with the consensus patrum. But Rome doesn't care about that, do they? After all, on this subject +Augustine the infallible Father was explicated by +Aquinas, the infallible Father who instructed that his works be burned because they were so much worthless straw...but Rome knew better didn't it. And so you bequeathed to the West the seeds of Calvinism.

The Council of orange was a council of the universal Church? Even Rome doesn't claim that Council was ecumenical. And Trent? What presumption!

I must say that if an educated Roman Catholic layperson like you, JK, can have such a view of the theology of The Church and maintain such an absolutist concept of the Petrine Office, there is very, very little hope that there will be any reunion of the Latin Church with Holy Orthodoxy which will last any longer than that of Florence.

I must say that if an educated Roman Catholic layperson like you, JK, can have such a view of the theology of The Church and maintain such an absolutist concept of the Petrine Office, there is very, very little hope that there will be any reunion of the Latin Church with Holy Orthodoxy which will last any longer than that of Florence.

I humbly submit that I am not as educated as you believe. First, I wasn't aware of the nuances of Augustine's teaching not being in line with the East-West understanding of ONE principle. I was under the assumption that he was without reading "on the Trinity". I AM aware, however, of the confusion throughout the period - for example, the DEFINITION of hypostasis and nature (essence) often had interchangeable meanings between different Fathers.

Add to that the fact that the Latins agree that the Creed without the filioque is normative and it is that which should be used for translations and more importantly catechesis, and using the term heresy becomes destructive. On the other hand, continuing attempts by Latins to justify the use of the filioque, rather than simply to let it die off as an ill conceived theologumenon, might well make it necessary to call a spade a spade.

Kind sir, I am not justifying the Filioque. Have I not suggested that the Creed would more accurately reflect our theology by changing "And" to "through"? I have mentioned this on numerous occasions. I will repeat again that the Filioque is a misunderstanding of the Latin position.

On the subject of heresy. Be aware that heresy is finally official when the Bishop of Rome says it is heresy.

I didn't do very well with that one. What I meant to imply or the meaning I was trying to get across was that heresy is not declared in opposition to what the Pope lays down as normative. Of course, this discounts private opinion or such. But when speaking in his official capacity, I see the Bishop of Rome as the referee who was consulted throughout Christian history during the first millenium. You are absolutely correct that Bishops can and do declare people within their diocese as heretics. However, if a "heretic" takes umbrage with the title, doesn't he write to Rome? That is what I had meant, and I apologize for implying that ONLY the Bishop of Rome could declare a person a heretic. That was not my intention, and history flatly rejects that idea.

After the failed Council of Florence and the still born reunion, the bishops and Patriarchs of the East declared the Pope and those in communion with him to be heretics:

Which means little considering that the Church had never considered that a Patriarch could declare the Bishop of Rome as a heretic. There is no precedent. On the other hand, the Bishop of Rome HAS removed Bishops at Constantinople, such as immediately following the Robber Council. Leo ALSO declared the "Council" as null and void. Did any other bishop have this authority given by the Church faithful? Where is the Church precedent for the actions you mention at the Council of Florence??? Where is your criticism of the East's presumption to take up new powers that it never had to begin with?

+Augustine's doctrine of Original Sin is not at all in accord with the consensus patrum

Are you ready to cite Western Bishops, or do only Eastern Bishops count to determine the "consensus patrum"? Here is what St. Augustine says to the Pelagian Bishop Julian of Eclanum: "It is not I who have invented original sin, which the Catholic Faith holds from of old, but thou, who denies it, thou art without doubt a new heretic" (De nupt, et concup. II 12, 25). St. Augustine, in his Contra Julianum adduces a formal proof from Tradition, in which he quotes St Ireneaus, St Cyprian, Reticius of Autun, Olympius, St Hilary, St Ambrose, Innocent I, St Gregory of Nazianus, St. John Crysostom, St Basil, and St Jerome as witnesses to the Catholic teachings. Many assertions of the Greek Fathers who insist on personal responsibility for sin and appear entirely to prescind from original sin, are to be understood as being in opposition to Gnostic-Manichaean dualism and to Origenistic pre-existentianism. St Augustine defended the teaching of St John Crysostom against its misinterpretation by the Pelagians.

Irrefutable proof of the conviction of the primitive Church as to the reality of original sin is the old Christian practice of the baptism of children "...for the remission of sin" (St. Cyprian), not "merely" to be welcomed as a Child of God.

As to the specifics, there are unresolved issues that I am aware of. For example, there is a controversy as to whether the wounding of nature consists exclusively in the loss of the preternatural gifts, or whether human nature in addition is intrinsically weakened in an accidental manner. Thus, the doctrine is NOT completely settled.

After all, on this subject +Augustine the infallible Father was explicated by +Aquinas, the infallible Father who instructed that his works be burned because they were so much worthless straw...but Rome knew better didn't it.

Hmm. Let's change "Augustine" and "Aquinas" to "Greek Fathers", then it will be considered infallible by the Orthodox... Trent was an Ecumenical Council, called just as Chalcedon was called. If the East continues to believe that such Councils are infallible, then yes, the teaching on Original Sin is infallible. Perhaps in the course of discussion, again, the East can interject their disapproval of the parts they disagree with and the West will then re-work the dogma to reflect this. But until then, the definitions of Trent represent our correct beliefs. Infallible definitions from an Ecumenical Council are not heretical, unless you are claiming that the Spirit no longer guides the Church in a Council, as in Acts 15.

And so you bequeathed to the West the seeds of Calvinism

Quite unfair. How soon some forget that I have defended both the West and East against the very same Calvinists who are certain innovators of beliefs NEVER held by either side.

The Council of orange was a council of the universal Church? Even Rome doesn't claim that Council was ecumenical. And Trent? What presumption!

If I am not mistaken, the Council of Orange 2 WAS declared an Ecumenical council. But perhaps I am mistaken. Correct me if I am wrong. As to Trent, what can I say? It was a properly convened Council representative of the Catholic Church (what's left of it at the time). Did the Catholic Church stop convening Councils when the Coptics left? When the Armenians left? What makes you think that Councils can no longer be convened because Constantinople left? What I find ironic is all of the above Churches only follow the Councils they were present at as having ANY authority. As if THEY were the ultimate factor behind the Church's power to convene councils. And Rome is arrogant? Be careful of the wood in your own eye, brother, before you start telling us we are heretical and arrogant.

I am trying not to be presumptuous. Forgive me if I appear to be. I have the utmost respect for the devout Orthodox. As such, seeing that my words are offensive to you, I must respectably bow out from this conversation. I would rather be thought wrong but charitable, then correct and uncharitable. As I began this letter, I end it humbly begging your forgiveness - clearly, I am not as educated as you believe, especially in the Church Fathers. But I stand by my Church's infallible decisions. I hope that those more educated then I am can come together and settle the matters before us. I'll leave it at that.

Brother in Christ

"Which means little considering that the Church had never considered that a Patriarch could declare the Bishop of Rome as a heretic. There is no precedent."

Councils and Synods removed hierarchs, not the Pope. Of course there is precedent for that, as the minutes of many of the Councils demonstrate. The minutes of the 6th Ecumenical Council also demonstrate the declaration of Pope Honorius as a monthelite heretic by the Fathers at that Council. In orthodoxy, Synods still remove hierarchs.

" Are you ready to cite Western Bishops, or do only Eastern Bishops count to determine the "consensus patrum"?...."

of course we accept the Western Fathers as contributing to the consensus patrum. Which ones shared +Augustine's semi-manicheanism? The fact that he defended +John Chrysostomos against the real or imagined heretical statements of Pelagius does not mean that +John Chrysostomos shared +Augustine's views on the Sin of Adam. In fact it is quite clear that he did not, though he was certainly no Pelagian. The same goes for the other Fathers you cite. +Augustine was blazing an entirely new path when he wrote his concepts of Original Sin.

"Irrefutable proof of the conviction of the primitive Church as to the reality of original sin is the old Christian practice of the baptism of children "...for the remission of sin" (St. Cyprian), not "merely" to be welcomed as a Child of God."

+Cyprian's comments actually are almost exclusively his. I am aware only of Origen who shared this conviction and he of course was anathemized. Even +Augustine doesn't recommend infant baptism because infants are little sinners, though one might expect he would given his Original Sin notion. Even +Cyprian speaking of this talks in terms of a sinless child needing baptism because he was "... born of the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of that old death from his first being born." The foregoing notwithstanding, I know of no Father who taught that baptism was merely a sort of "welcoming ceremony" into the Church.

" Hmm. Let's change "Augustine" and "Aquinas" to "Greek Fathers", then it will be considered infallible by the Orthodox."

The only infallibility which Orthodoxy recognizes with regard to the Fathers is the consensus patrum. You know that Orthodoxy doesn't consider any individual Father infallible! There is no Father in the East who has been elevated to even near the heights Rome has elevated +Augustine and +Aquinas (despite +Aquinas' own words!)

"Trent was an Ecumenical Council, called just as Chalcedon was called."

Actually it wasn't but I understand your point. From Orthodoxy's stand point, there has been no Ecumenical Council since the 7th because of the Great Schism, though I know some Latins say Florence was the 8th. All other Councils have been local because the Church was riven by schism, with one of the sine qua nons of a valid Ecumenical Council, the Pope, gone. Similarly, without the remainder of the Churches in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church absent, those Councils called by Rome could not be anything but local.

"Infallible definitions from an Ecumenical Council are not heretical, unless you are claiming that the Spirit no longer guides the Church in a Council, as in Acts 15."

The Spirit guarantees infallibility to the whole Church in council, not to simply a part of it. That said, I think you may be right that a true Ecumenical Council could never proclaim heresy (though there certainly are teachings to the contrary), but it if its pronouncements were never accepted by the laity, then those pronouncements wouldn't be dogma.

"Quite unfair. How soon some forget that I have defended both the West and East against the very same Calvinists who are certain innovators of beliefs NEVER held by either side."

When I used the word, "you", I meant the Roman Church and its Augustinian concept of Original Sin which lies at the root of Calvinism. I know both you and the Roman Church completely reject Calvinism.

"If I am not mistaken, the Council of Orange 2 WAS declared an Ecumenical council. But perhaps I am mistaken. Correct me if I am wrong."

With all due respect, you were wrong.

"As to Trent, what can I say? It was a properly convened Council representative of the Catholic Church (what's left of it at the time)."

One of course can argue about what was left. In the end, only Rome thinks Trent was Ecumenical. All the rest of The Church thinks it was a perfectly legal local council. But this points to the Roman notion that the fullness of the Faith rests solely with it in an exclusive and ontological sense. To the extent that the rest of us possess the Faith, it is only derivative of Rome. The rest of us don't buy it. s for the Copts, it turns out they likely believe the same things as the orthodox East so "no harm, no foul".

Too bad this thread turned out the way it did. You were gracious to apologize. You needn't have. But I do suggest that its often a good thing to consider the implications of what we all say to each other in light of the movement in both the Roman Church and Orthodoxy towards a relationship (I'll call it that for now for lack of a better word)with each other which will be rather dramatically different from that which has existed these past 1000 years or so and which has so formed our opinions of each other.

Too bad this thread turned out the way it did. You were gracious to apologize. You needn't have. But I do suggest that its often a good thing to consider the implications of what we all say to each other in light of the movement in both the Roman Church and Orthodoxy towards a relationship (I'll call it that for now for lack of a better word)with each other which will be rather dramatically different from that which has existed these past 1000 years or so and which has so formed our opinions of each other.

There were several things that I disagreed with on this most recent post. However, as I said before, I prefer to be thought of as wrong and gracious. Knowledge puffs up but love builds up... Yes, I needed to apologize; unfortunately, being called a heretic does not sit well with me, so please understand. And the other gentleman that I have been posting with didn't make matters any easier when he kept getting Catholic teachings wrong - and calling us heretics based on that straw man. But I regress.

Yes, we should consider what we say to each other. It is clear that we don't fully understand each other's point of view. I hope this is not a microcosm of what will happen in the upcoming discussions. I am hopeful progress will be made, but I fear it will take a number of years for this to occur. What MUST stop is the idea that EITHER Church is heretical. THAT will not do. If we consider the Orthodox heretical, we are wasting our time - and vice versus. The catholic faith (small 'c') has room for diversity of thought. I do realize that doctrine is often given wide leeway in interpretation. Councils set the boundaries of thought - not necessarily precise and narrow definitions. I believe original sin is one example of diversity of thought. It is apparent that the concept developed independently beginning with Ambrose in the West (even Tertullian can be said to have original sin ideas). But enough of that. By the way, are you sure that Origenism was anathemized, rather than Origen himself?

As I have said before, I appreciate our discussions, as I always learn from them. I have only been in the faith for 5 years now, so I still have lots to learn about the Fathers. It is all quite daunting, and I have tried to look to the Scriptures with a higher priority, until I get a good "handle" on them. I do enjoy reading about the development of doctrine, and how the Church came to believe what it believes. But as to reading individual Fathers, I wouldn't know where to begin...

Again, I hope I did not cause you any anger. I apologize if I sounded defensive. The following comes to mind (I'm better with the Scriptures then the Fathers) "...He (bishops) should not be a recent convert, so that he may not become conceited and thus incur the devil's punishment" (1 Tim 3:6). "Knowledge puffs up, love builds up" (1 Cor 8:1). This is easier said than done. Paul was a wise man.

Brother in Christ

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.