I would never say that the Protestant world as a whole is without root.
I would be interested in how you might divvy that up, exactly. I am already aware that you would accredit the pastorship of certain individual churches, and certain individuals. Would you not grant any hierarchy, any branch, that access to the root?
I would also suggest that the root is not the Apostles, but that the Root is Christ.
But Protestantism as awhole is built upon a denial of the apostolic root, so as a whole it is without authority.
No, the Protestant churches are a denial of Catholic authority over that root, and in that sense (with no offense meant), I would propose that it (Protestantism) embraces the Root in lieu of the vine.
Any who possess the New Testament are not without the sure and certain guidance of the first of the apostles, those who were in fact the very closest to the Root itself.
In that we have the words of Christ Himself, and of His apostles, in that they all together provide that which is necessary for the individual Christian heart, and that they also provide for the constructions and instructions of the Church, along with exhortations and cautions in that regard, who can claim other than the bare fact that the apostles are capable in their words, of planting churches even unto this very day?
Who can deny the apostolic authority of the very first apostles of Christ themselves in this work? Who can claim an ascension of authority higher than theirs? What elaboration is proved necessary beyond that which they taught, and how does that edify the Church to the glory of Christ?
You really are not talking about that -- you instead focus on the fruits of the Holy Spirit undoubtedly present in some Protestants individually. I do not deny that either, nor did I claim that the fruits of the Holy Spirit are in evidence in every Catholic.
It is the movement of the Spirit that defines the Church. He is the evidence of authority. The work of those He inhabits combine in aggregate to become the power and authority of the Church, in the singular sense. The combination of Spirit filled people in spirit filled churches in multiplicity lend credence to the branch, and this is extrapolated in much the same sense into the denomination. In that way, evidence of the Spirit, and the authority of the Church, are one and the same thing.
Whatever single voice emerges from all Protestant branches, is denial of Catholicism. You don't have any unity other than in that negative sense.
That is entirely in error, my FRiend. There is far more that unifies us than divides us. Our battles are all about application of sacraments, application of law, and differences in focus. There is no doubt that the message of the Gospel is the very same throughout the greatest portion of Protestantism, and is, no doubt, the very same message that is the root of the RCC. That is the true Catholic sense, as opposed to the Roman Catholic definition thereof.
To offer a convenient example, The messy conglomeration that makes up the body of political discussion here on FR is indistinct, cacophonous, irreverent, argumentative, loud, obnoxious, factional, and etc. It's factions are quite quarrelsome, moderation is impossible, and trying to find agreement is like trying to herd cats, as has often been said. But even in it's creation of an arguably lethal environment, I would ask you one question:
Which more clearly sounds the call of Conservatism, and where can Conservatism be found: freerepublic.com or the more official and sanctioned gop.com?
Is there a need for it? Christ thought so: re-read John 17.
I do not think that the Christian Church Universal is without unity.
The scripture uses the word "presbyteros" [...] There is no other purpose to mistranslate like this other than to remove a prooftext for clericalism. What, do you think, would be an objective translation?
What would then differentiate between presbyteros and hiereus, archiereus, and hiereus magas, all words specifically defining 'priest'?
But as to your greater statement, I see your point.
but a study of the Church fathers would rarely find anything discordant with the inspired scripture and even more rarely will it please a Protestant.
I particularly disagree. It is just that the Protestant looks toward the translation, which was in the sole control of the RCC for many hundreds of years, with a jaundiced eye.
Since the original works are unaccounted for, the Church must rely upon copies. Since we must rely upon the RCC as the sole arbiter of translation and veracity, and since some of the ante-nicene fathers show competing translations, even within the RCC, it is not incumbent upon us to believe the written word as evidence at all, as the Church had many hundreds of years to alter the texts to suit their fancy. That is *not* to say they did, but to outline a basis for disagreement.
And one cannot overlook the fact that these writers are not inerrant. Irenaeus as an example, goes into the Prophecy in some detail, and is inarguably wrong in his assumptions. So they are *not* infallable on their face. Not that these texts are without value, but to claim historicity of the RCC by way of documents controlled by the RCC is a circular redundancy remarkably tilted in the RCC's favor that cannot be used as evidence.
I am already aware that you would accredit the pastorship of certain individual churches, and certain individuals. Would you not grant any hierarchy, any branch, that access to the root?
I would grant access to apostolic root to those communities of faith that have unbroken apostolic succession and whose theology has not drifted away from the understanding of ordination, confession and the Eucharist. They do not have to be in agreement or communion with Rome, but they have to have valid priesthood and valid sacraments. The Orthodox and various pre-Chalcedon Churches have that. The Anglican Church had apostilicity till the change in their consecration rites broke it. For details, see Leo XIII's bull proclaiming the Anglican See's breach. There may be some extant continuing Lutheran branches, but surely not the large Lutheran denominations of today. That is about it.
I do not think that the Christian Church Universal is without unity
By that you mean everyone who professes Christ and the Lord and Savior. No, in that sense, of course there is no unity of which Christ prayed, saying "may they be one as my Father and I are one". We don't even agree on what is a valid baptism, the true mark of the visible Church.
What would then differentiate between presbyteros and hiereus, archiereus, and hiereus magas, all words specifically defining 'priest'?
Hiereus, correct me if I am wrong, only refers to Hebrew priests, and perhaps pagan priests, and context is usually sufficient to disambiguate those in English.
I am glad you see my larger point though, that a lot in the translations is loaded one way or another. Here is another example: "kecharitimeneh" is a neologism in Greek, sort of like "overgraced" or "begraced". Protestant translations have it invariably a construct of "favored", e.g. "most favored one". The substitution of "favor" for "grace" trivializes the unique blessing of Mary, but is of course in line with the latter-day Protestant mariology which does not see in Mary anything all that unique. In John 19, the original literally says that the disciple "took her [Mary] with his own". The phrase seems clipped in translation, so for the ease of reading it is often rendered "took her to his home". That, again, trivializes the adoption of John as a mere economic arrangement, which happens to be the Protestant thinking. I don't see either side compromizing here, although Catholic translations exist that for whatever reason follow the Protestant version in these two cases.
Since we must rely upon the RCC as the sole arbiter of translation and veracity, and since some of the ante-nicene fathers show competing translations, even within the RCC, it is not incumbent upon us to believe the written word as evidence at all
Textual variations exist, but no matter which variant you take, you won't find Protestant fundamental doctrines either proclaimed or condemned, when you find a lot of heresies described in detail and condemned. What you have here is a conglomeration of two arguments: that the Fathers were all infected by Judaizers and pagans (while being invariably hostile to both the Jews of the Gospel and the pagans), and that all evidence of proto-Protestantism was redacted (while any other heresy descriptions were not redacted). Both are arguments from non-evidence.