Posted on 03/04/2007 8:21:23 AM PST by Iscool
This is incredible. These letters are always brought up by Catholics as being evidence of their faith in their Church and yet these are admittedly spurious and corrupted.
On another website I read that there is a discrepancy between the Latin version of Ecclesiastical History and the Eusebius' original written in Greek, and that Jerome, who translated it from Greek to Latin, made certain additions when he did so. It makes one wonder about a lot of those oft-cited quotations attributed to the early Church fathers and how many are really the words of their translators?
In case you might have the notion that I "figured it all out" on my own:
John O'Brien, Ph.D., LL.D.: "But since Saturday, not Sunday, is specified in the Bible, isn't it curious that non-Catholics who profess to take their religion directly from the Bible, and not the Church, observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Yes of course, it is inconsistent; but this change was made about 15 centuries before Protestantism was born, and by that time the custom was universally observed. They have continued the custom, even though it rests upon the authority of the Catholic Church and not upon an explicit text in the Bible. That observance remains as a reminder of the Mother Church from which the non-Catholic sects broke away - like a boy running away from home but still carrying in his pocket a picture of his mother or a lock of her hair." Faith of Millions, pp. 543 and 544.
"The Sabbath was Saturday, not Sunday. The Church altered the observance of the Sabbath to the observance of Sunday. Protestants must be rather puzzled by the keeping of Sunday when God distinctly said, 'Keep holy the Sabbath Day.' The word Sunday does not come anywhere in the Bible, so, without knowing it they are obeying the authority of the Catholic Church." Canon Cafferata, The Catechism Explained, p. 89.
Strange as it may seem, a lot of my faith is based on the teachings of these Catholic authoritarians.
Nice try. What is this, a war of attrition? There's more to reasonable discussion than mere persistence.
When you guys account frankly for your previous distortions, MAYBE I'll take the time to do the research to evaluate your next crop of assertions.
I will not respond to the tactic of making a claim and then, when that claim is debunked, making another one and challenging others to debunk it and so on again and again.
Yeah, I'll cop to taking a cheap shot, but golly, when you lob one over the plate like that, it's hard to resist.(Footnote: It's actually a paraphrase of the punch line of an old joke about a Catholic and an Anglican archbishop)
Once in early 1973, I was in the hospital with a virus in my heart lining. I was having bouts of quite excruciating pain and was zonked out of my gourd on whatever they were giving for pain in those days. It was in the days where nobody told the patient anything for fear he might have and dare to express an opinion. And we had yet to learn that I have a very weird set of responses to drugs. If your agenda for the evening is anesthesia I am your cheap date. I had an arrest once under a a low dose of Sodium Pentathol (or is it Pentothal, I never can remember). I hope Jack Bauer reads my medic-alert bracelet before he tortures me. If not I'll just die-- and GO to PURGATORY AND BE HAPPY THERE --as Catherine of Genoa saw, darn it!.
So the drugs they were giving me were basically making me emotionally a WRECK! I know one of the things they were doing was trying to keep me calm because they feared some kind o' cardiac complications (BTW I'm fine. NO lasting anything from this episode) But it was having the opposite effect.
I was also in my first year at (get ready) The Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia, and I had my Greek testament with me in my hospital room.
So some seventh day Sabbatarian PHYSICIAN decides that this would be a good time to argue me into taking a seventh day line of thought. This clown wasn't even MY doctor -- just some random doctor. I didn't know him from Adam. He just breezes into my room and starts arguing with me.
You wanna talk to me some more about inappropriate uses of authority? You can talk, but my EXPERIENCE is that seventh day Sabbatarianism presents a lot like septic brain disease or Asberger's -- it's characterized by perseveration and social ineptness and inappropriateness. And I think that doc should lose his license. What is it about taking a weird point of view and then being so driven by the need to a have others validate it that courtesy, reason, prudence, justice, and discretion all go out the window to get one more adherent to Sabbath day worship? I don't know about you but as far as I can tell we did not so learn Christ.
In other words just on the basis of my experience, I ain't buying. And furthermore, NOTHING on FR has encouraged me to change my assessment. If you checked you'd see that I have ducked every direct approach to the question. And I will continue to do so.
Now I really have no clue what these guys you cite think they're showing, but my take on the NT is that the early Church did worship on the Lord's Day not on the Sabbath. It comes down to a debatable interpretation of some idiomata in NY Greek and I see no possibility of conclusive argument either way.
I think the cardinal's argument, Mr. O'Brien's article, and Canon whatchamacallit's argument are bogus. BUT I think there is not enough lexical info to reach a persuasive conclusion so YMMV and, I can think of no way to refute it. So I don't try.
For me it comes down to whether or not a church has the authority to change God's law. I will never accept that.
And that previous distortion is what? the bones under St Peter's basilica turning out to be those of a woman, horse, mouse, chicken and a man with all those extra leg bones that don't match that famous skull on display for centuries at St John's Lateran??? LOL
Well, maybe there is another skull somewhere that can match those bones, and the magisterium is operating on the assumption that: "two heads, or skulls in this case, are better than one". And a few extra tibias and fibulas would of course, give their bone find "a leg up on the competition".
Yeh, you're smart not to try to explain away that Dominus Flevit discovery. Those in the RCC who want to keep their integrity intact ignore it and just hope that it will go away. But it won't.
Any chance you could make a separate thread on this subject? I'd like to read the responses. Of course you'd run the risk of having "Catholic Bashing" charges leveled against you. However, I seriously think it would be educations to read the attempts at debunking this.
educational not educations. lol.
I think that a separate thread with the newest archeological information on the discovery at Dominus Flevit would be very enlightening to all. Diego posted an article on "Peters Tomb in Jerusalem" at Post #1936 on this thread. The facts of the find are hard to dispute and so very few Catholic apologists will acknowledge it since it shatters the foundation of those ancient claims of that magisterium at the Vatican.
Ya that would be the article to post as a thread it seems. Anybody want to do it? If I do it it'll just be dismissed out of hand. :-)
Bump for place mark.
You guys are apparently yellow. :-)
Nope, just the ones who show the same perseveration, among whom I do not (so far) include you.
A makes a claim. B researches it and finds it at least dubious or flat out false. A make another claim. B researches it and finds it dubious or flat out false. A makes yet another claim. B refuses to play. A says that B's afraid he'll lose the argument and that's why he won't follow up the third claim. The more B declines, the more offensive A gets. IN my background, that's about A liking to get B do to A's bidding, not unlike a physician who aggressively tries to convert a sick and drugged patient.
More than once I trusted you enough to research your claims. I don't want to be made a fool of again. You will not make your point any more credible by abusing or taunting me.
Oh, and if UC or Diego post it, it will be seriously pondered by the many "mainstream" backyard theologians here on FR?
Lol. Come to think of it no matter who posts it would probably go over like a porkchop in a synagogue. :-) I read an old one that Uncle Chip sent me which suffices.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
I'm sorry --- but that discussion was not with me. Check your facts before making a claim like the one above. As a matter of fact my only interjection into that discussion was to help set the record straight. So save the lecture on the difference between a claim and a proven fact for yourself.
Lectures? I am asked to consider a bizarre conjecture. To entice my interest claims are made which are without foundation and misleadingly presented. That's just what happened, and I am noting it to explain why I no longer follow up our claims when you attribute my reluctance to fear that I might find something I don't like. If you don't want to read why I don't do as you ask, don't attribute my lack of cooperation to bogus reasons.
I'll stop in this afternoon -- going to set up for Daily Mass right now.
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