Posted on 07/31/2007 4:19:37 PM PDT by NYer
Thinking that Catholicism is *actually* an earth goddess religion might be excusable given your RCIA experience, but surely you must have known that, had you dug deeper on your own initiative...
...I really doubt that the good farmer had any ready reserve of ‘initiative’ to delve into...if he believed that Catholics worship an ‘earth goddess’(the probablility of learning that in RCIA is virtually non-existant)his mind was already made up before the beloved Evangelicals rescued him...
Without those men, you wouldn’t be posting this message now, on an open forum, in English. You would still be buying indulgences and suffering the ravages of feudalism...
...ah, how happy I am that I and my fellow Catholics have been saved by the Reformation, which I’m completely certain came about strictly for that purpose, so that we stupid and obtuse serfs could learn how to speak our minds, simplistic as they may be...how blessed are we that fora such as these exist, where our misbegotten views can be corrected entirely by no more that snide, throwaway lines from such learned individuals as yourself...how we existed for 2000 years without your slurs to guide us to the ‘light’...one of the great mysteries of all time...
Oh my, that's hilarious. No details to establish that you lied? Is that what you mean?
I invite the readers to examine what you attempted in #89 of this thread: to support your assertion that "even Catholic scholars admit that there is no evidence for Peter's mythical sojourn to Rome" you posted a partial quote.
Compare that with the reality as reflected in #92 and the link therein, which shows the complete quote (your deletion in bold): Although the fact of St. Peter's activity and death in Rome is so clearly established, we possess no precise information regarding the details of his Roman sojourn.
QED.
Fascinating discourse.
Would you be a follower of those men who popped out of the aether in the 1500s at the behest of the Holy Spirit because the Catholic Church turned into a Satanic institution; or those men who popped out of the aether in 1800s at the behest of the Holy Spirit because the Reformationist dudes turned into either tapioca or a copy of the Catholic Church; or those men who popped out of the aether in the 1900s because the Restorationist dudes turned into either tapioca or a copy of the Reformationist churches or were put into jail for fraud; or those con artist dudes who popped out of the aether in the last few years because the con artist dudes of the 1900s turned into either tapioca or a copy of the Restorationist churches or were put into jail for fraud?
Or do you sit at home or in the local beer joint and make it all up as you go along? Inquiring minds would like to know, in order to formulate a meaningful response.
The English, too. Don’t forget the English.
I'll note that your infamous post #89 also omitted a link to the Catholic source material, where some of those details are set forth.
It is only indisputable to those who have no historical evidence that he was ever there. Contrast that with all the evidence that Paul was there --- the Book of Acts, the letters that he wrote from there, people who met with him there, ...
First, Peter's Epistle was written from "Babylon". That has always understood to be a reference to Rome...and Revelations shows clearly that "Babylon" was identified by the early Christians with Rome, not the OT Babylon, which by that point was defunct as a civilization.
Rome was not termed "Babylon" until after John's Book of Revelation began to circulate at the beginning of the 2nd century.
Clement's letter to the Corinthians, ca. A.D. 90 contains reference to the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in a context which strongly suggests they were in Rome.
He never mentions "where" either Peter or Paul were martyred.
Eusebius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius all said Peter was in Rome.
And their accounts all disagree with each other. They provide no source for their statements. The reader is left to having to accept them at face value, and yet the magisterium of the church does not accept everything that these writers said at face value.
Furthermore, there is no competing tradition of him dying anywhere else.
Did you ever hear of Dominus Flevit???
Everyone assumed from the earliest days of Christianity that Peter died in Rome.
Everyone??? Did Josephus, Tacitus, Justin Martyr, and a whole array of other church patriarchs and historians??? The first we hear of it is Irenaeus in the late 2nd century and his account is not accepted verbatim by the later writers and the magisterium. If he was so factual, why don't later writers accept his words at face value??? Instead each writer adds a little more and a little more to the legend.
And then the archaeological evidence.
The bones found under the Vatican turned out to belong to man shorter and younger than Peter the Apostle, and three out of four of Paul VI's archeologists admitted that they could not be those of Peter the Apostle.
There are inscriptions around the grave suggesting it was believed to be Peter in there, and one (unfortunately damaged) inscription which some scholars have reconstructed "Petros eni" = "Peter is here." That last one is disputed however, as some of the letters are missing.
"Peter" was a common name in Rome, especially amongst sorcerers who were buried in that pagan graveyard under the Vatican.
Contrast that with the ossuary with the bones of a 6'2" 85 year old man inside, buried at Dominus Flevit in Jerusalem with the name "Simon Bar Jona" on it. Where does the evidence point to and away from???
When people talk about no precise details, they mean not that he wasn't there, but that we don't know precisely how long he was there, if he went elsewhere, or what he did there.
No --- they have no details of his Roman sojourn --- no evidence that he was ever there, just mere assumptions and wishful thinking. Once again contrast that with the details available for Paul's visit to Rome ---- the Book of Acts, Paul's letters to and from Rome, visits from others who met him there. There is undeniable documentation for Paul ---- but nothing for Peter.
There are apocryphal stories about Peter's disputes with Simon Magus at Rome and before the Emperor Nero, etc....but they are not always historically reliable.
All those are fables that some later writers, like Hippolytus, fell for. We should all take a lesson.
Which is exactly what that sentence you posted was saying: as Petronski already noted, you wrenched the second half of it out of context.
No ---I quoted the second half verbatim, and it is the true part of that sentence.
Where on earth are you getting that? The fact is, it WAS used to refer to Rome in 100 *in the New Testament.* That's solid, concrete evidence it was already used by Christians of the 1st century. And their accounts all disagree with each other..
But they don't disagree on the most important detail, do they, that he was in Rome?
They provide no source for their statements. The reader is left to having to accept them at face value
They are passing on something that was universally known. If I asked someone who was President before Bush, they'd say Clinton, and if I said "what's your source on that?" I'd be an idiot. Common knowledge doesn't get a source.
The bones found under the Vatican turned out to belong to man shorter and younger than Peter the Apostle, and three out of four of Paul VI's archeologists admitted that they could not be those of Peter the Apostle.
But I didn't bring up the bones. I brought up the archaeology of the building itself, that in the 3rd century Constantine went through this massive trouble to put the basilica PRECISELY in this spot.
All those are fables that some later writers, like Hippolytus, fell for. We should all take a lesson.
Yeah fables. Hippolytus, who lived at Rome in the 3rd century, only knew "fables" of what happened there...which, coincidentally, happen to be the same fables that all the other Roman clergymen knew. Uncle Chip, living in 2007 in the United States of America....yeah, HE knows if Peter was in Rome or not during the reign of Nero.
"...we possess no precise information regarding the details of his Roman sojourn"
?????????
even Catholic scholars admit that there is no evidence for Peter's mythical sojourn to Rome.THAT's the part that's untrue--the "even Catholic scholars" bit. The very Catholic scholars you quoted said that we possess no precise DETAILS of the sojourn, but the evidence is indisputable that he was there.
BRAVO!
Very True Dear Friend.
Holy Scripture does, in fact, say that Peter was in Rome.
Peter wrote.....
“The Church which is at Babylon, chosen together with you, greets you, and so does my son Mark.” 1Pet 5:13.
Where is this Babylon? By the time the New Testament was written, the city of Babylon, in what is now Iraq, was of almost no importance. Its days of glory were long past in the Old Testament.
Christians were under constant persecution by both the Jews and the Romans from the very beginning and had to practice the faith underground in the homes of believers, and in the catacombs of Rome. In order to recognize one another as fellow Christians, they used code words and symbols. The fish symbol (icthos) was used for recognition, and Babylon was the code word for Rome.
If Peter had said he was writing from Rome, then no doubt, the Romans would have begun an intensive search for him.
Holy Scripture tells us that the Roman Emperor Claudius (41-54) ordered all Jews to leave Rome (Acts 18:2). Peter was a Jew, but the Church was an underground Church in hiding at the time.
Well that charge to leave Rome, even implies that Peter could have been in Rome doesn’t it?
Eusebius wrote in “The Chronicle” (Ad An Dom 42), that Peter, after establishing the Church in Antioch, went to Rome where he remained as Bishop of Rome for 25 years. We know from other early writings that Peter was crucified upside down in Rome in 67 A.D.. That date, minus 25 years would put him in Rome in the year 42, during the reign of Claudius. Again, this charge can be dismissed for the same reasons given already, that the Church was forced to practice the faith in an underground situation in order to avoid persecution. The Romans had a policy of hunting down and persecuting all of the Apostles.
Here is a very good and detailed link from New Advent
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11744a.htm#IV
That's a lie.
Which brings up another point not proving Rome necessarily, but definitely consistent with it. Mark was by universal tradition the interpreter of St. Peter who wrote His Gospel based on Peter's teaching in Rome.
Which is why it is intriguing that Mark's Gospel--unlike the other three--is chock full of Hellenized Latin terms:
4:27 modios/modius (a measure)
5:9,15: legiôn/legio (legion)
6:37: dênariôn/denarius (a Roman coin)
15:39, 44-45: kenturiôn/centurio (centurion; both Matthew and Luke use ekatontarchês, the equivalent term in Greek).
It's not as solid as the other evidence, but it is definitely very much consistent with a Roman setting, and it tends to disfavor a setting in the East.
Dear friend ,thank you for pointing this out. I never picked up on that before.
I wish you a Blessed Day!
No. That was a half-truth by inclusion. Mine was the full truth by omission.
The first half was the lie: [Although the fact of St. Peter's activity and death in Rome is so clearly established,]. The second half is the truth: [....we possess no precise information regarding the details of his Roman sojourn.]
I simply extracted the truth from the half truth so that it could stand on its own.
LOL
You’re just making stuff up now.
If I were you, I’d have #89 pulled. Combined with #92, it exposes you like no one or nothing else could.
Where on earth are you getting that? The fact is, it WAS used to refer to Rome in 100 *in the New Testament.*
Ummm 100 AD is the "beginning of the 2nd century.
That's solid, concrete evidence it was already used by Christians of the 1st century.
Name them ------
But they don't disagree on the most important detail, do they, that he was in Rome?
Is that really the most important detail??? How would a trip through the city of Rome make him the first Pope of the Catholic Church. It takes a vivid imagination to make that leap ---
They are passing on something that was universally known.
If it was universally known, why is it not universally written down somewhere before that, and why are all the details universally absent???
It wouldn't. Jesus did that. Matthew 16
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