Posted on 01/27/2007 6:12:35 AM PST by NYer
The Early Church Fathers were the leaders and teachers of the early Church. They lived and wrote during the first eight centuries of Church history. Some of their writings were composed to instruct and / or to encourage the faithful. Other writings were composed to explain or defend the faith when it was attacked or questioned. The writings of the Early Fathers are widely available and studied. They are accepted by Catholic and non Catholic scholars alike. Thus they provide common ground in establishing the beliefs and practices of the early Church.
The earliest of the fathers are known as the Apostolic Fathers. Their writings come to us from the first two centuries of Church History. They were the immediate successors of the Apostles. Three of them were disciples of one or more of the Apostles. Clement of Rome was a disciple of the apostles Peter and Paul. Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna were disciples of the Apostle John. Naturally we would expect that those who were taught directly by the Apostles would themselves believe and teach correctly.
Protestantism is based on the allegation that the Catholic Church became corrupt shortly after 312 AD. That’s when the emperor Constantine converted and made Christianity the state religion. It is alleged that pagan converts came into the Church bringing with them many of their pagan beliefs and practices. According to Protestant historians the pagan practices that were brought into the Church became the distinctive doctrines of Catholicism. Thus the Catholic Church was born and true Christianity was lost until the Reformation. But history tells us a different story.
Shortly after the death of the apostle John, his disciple, Ignatius of Antioch, referred to the Church as the Catholic Church. In his Letter to the Smyrnaeans he wrote: "Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church" (8:2 [A.D. 107]).
In reading the Early Fathers we see a Church with bishops in authority over priests and deacons. We see a church that baptized infants and believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. We see a Church that believed in the primacy of Rome, the intercession of the saints in heaven and the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Thus we are lead to the inescapable conclusion that the early Church was the Catholic Church.
As you can see, the writings of the Early Fathers are especially helpful in refuting the Protestant claim that many Catholic doctrines were invented in later years. Although they are wrong concerning the age of Catholic doctrines their reasoning is sound. If a teaching appears after the apostolic age without evidence of previous support it must be false. Curiously enough though, they abandon this line of reasoning when it comes to many of their own beliefs such as the doctrine of Scripture Alone (mid 1500’s), The Rapture (late 1800’s), the licitness of artificial contraception (1930) and many others.
It is important to note that some doctrines existed in a primitive form during the early years. These doctrines would develop over time. One example is the Doctrine of the Trinity. All of its elements were present at the beginning but it wasn’t clearly defined the way it is today. It wasn’t until later that it was fully understood. This would not make it a late teaching as all of the information was there from the beginning. Other doctrines were developed in this same way.
Also worthy of note is the fact that the Early Fathers occasionally disagreed on minor issues that were not yet settled by the Church. This does not present us with a problem as we do not claim that the Fathers were infallible. While they were not infallible they were unmistakably Catholic. They clearly illustrate the fact that the early Church had no resemblance to Protestantism.
John Henry Newman was one of the more famous converts to Catholicism. After studying the Early Fathers he wrote: "The Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth it is this, and Protestantism has ever felt it so; to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant" (An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine).
Christianity was started by Christ 2000 years ago and it has existed for 2000 years. It didn’t go away for 1200 years and come back. Indeed that would have rendered Jesus’ words impotent. In Matthew 16:18 as He was establishing His Church Jesus gave us a guarantee. He said: "I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." If the Protestant hypothesis is correct, the gates of hell did some serious prevailing and Jesus Christ is a liar. But of course such is not the case.
Have you ever heard "And Can It Be" sung loudly and with feeling?!
Amazing Love!
As long as the Caucus speaks to its own confession and does not speak of or for another confession - there is no question whether the thread can remain closed.
Well, NYer, I've now read 59 posts on this thread. The reaction of some of the Protestants to it is exactly why I have in the past remarked about the use of the term "Catholic" on these threads when the subject is the theology of The Church, especially if one is going to discuss the Fathers. It ALWAYS leads to some attack on the Roman Church when an otherwise interesting and potentially valuable discussion of patristics, from an era long before the Reformation and having little or nothing to do with the excesses of the Medieval Latin Church against which the Protestants revolted, could have occurred.
And no doubt a Protestant Caucus might present statements it considers as "thoughtful addressing of the [Catholic] POV." Nevertheless, if any Catholic were to find the statement to be false, incomplete, a strawman argument - the thread should be opened for his rebuttal.
The author's statement seems to imply that the only way Protestants can be correct is for Christ to be a liar, an assertion which is difficult to ignore.
I disagree. Most news articles concerning the Church, the Catechism, items in the Catholic Encyclopedia and Catholic web pages would be eligible for a Catholic Caucus designation.
I agree that a "caucus thread" is difficult. It is not impossible, however.
If the discussion involves another group, then it is not a caucus.
If it discusses doctrine that is peculiar to your group and disagreed with by another group, that is different, and it should be a legitimate caucus. If the caucus members start bashing the other groups, then they've violated the caucus. Their best bet is to request the poster to ask for his "bashing" posts to be deleted by the Mod.
You could, for example, have a caucus around the "Assumption of Mary." It would only be a problem if your people start bashing others who don't accept that doctrine.
That raises a question for the mod: What if a "devotional thread" starts in a polemical direction against another "confession?"
"Have you ever heard "And Can It Be" sung loudly and with feeling?!
Amazing Love!"
Indeed I have. I've sung it myself that way. When I was a teenager I went to Phillips Exeter. We had chapel everyday and sang almost all of C. Wesley's hymns, including "And Can It Be". That's where I developed a lifelong love of them. I actually have a multi cd set of his hymns which we listen to here at home and in the car. What strikes me most is the profund theological poetry and confidence of the hymns. Its almost as if he were a later, Western version of +Romanos the Melodist.
Right now, however, I am listening to some chanting from the Divine Liturgy in Old Slavonic. :)
Likewise I'm sure there are statements a Protestant Caucus might make about the Catholic Church that would sound like a recounting of history to me - but in the eyes of a member of the Catholic confession might be seen as false, incomplete, a strawman argument, etc. And in that case, I would open the Protestant Caucus for rebuttal also.
The "Assumption of Mary" thread is one I would have declared a Catholic Caucus had I posted it, to keep it reverent.
If it is not labeled as a closed thread, then it is open for rebuttal.
If it is labeled as a closed thread, and is unjustly disrupted, then my take is that the RM will delete the offensive posts and warn the disrupter.
I would say they are not iron cast fact facts, but opinions of the author regarding another confession. Since the post repeatedly mentions Proddies by name the thread should be open to Proddies.
It's the equivalent of the convention on FR that if you mention a poster, you ping the poster. I'm not saying they should ping us, but they shouldn't be able to talk about us without us being able to throw our 00.2 cents in....
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