That would be the Bible.
Posted on 05/26/2008 4:50:16 AM PDT by NYer
The Catholic Church teaches that in the Eucharist, the wafer and the wine really become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Have you ever met anyone who finds this a bit hard to take?
If so, you shouldn’t be surprised. When Jesus spoke about eating His flesh and drinking His blood in John 6, the response was less than enthusiastic. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (v. 52). “This is a hard saying who can listen to it?” (v.60). In fact so many of His disciples abandoned Him that Jesus asked the twelve if they also planned to quit. Note that Jesus did not run after the deserters saying, “Come back! I was just speaking metaphorically!”
It’s intriguing that one charge the pagan Romans lodged against Christians was that of cannibalism. Why? They heard that this sect met weekly to eat flesh and drink human blood. Did the early Christians say: “Wait a minute, it’s only a symbol!”? Not at all. When explaining the Eucharist to the Emperor around 155 AD, St. Justin did not mince his words: “For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Sav-ior being incarnate by God’s word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the word of prayer which comes from him . . . is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.”
Not till the Middle Ages did theologians really try to explain how Christ’s body and blood became present in the Eucharist. After a few theologians got it wrong, St. Thomas Aquinas came along and offered an explanation that became classic. In all change that we normally observe, he teaches, appearances change, but deep down, the essence of a thing stays the same. Example: If, in a fit of mid-life crisis, I traded my mini-van for a Ferrari, abandoned my wife and kids to be a tanned beach bum, bleached and spiked my hair, buffed up at the gym, and made a trip to the plastic surgeon, I’d look a lot different. But for all my trouble, deep down I’d still substantially be the same confused, middle-aged dude as when I started.
St. Thomas said the Eucharist is the one change we encounter that is exactly the opposite. The appearances of bread and wine stay the same, but the very essence of these realities, which can’t be viewed by a microscope, is totally transformed. What starts as bread and wine becomes Christ’s body and blood. A handy word was coined to describe this unique change. Transformation of the “sub-stance”, what “stands-under” the surface, came to be called “transubstantiation.”
What makes this happen? The Spirit and the Word. After praying for the Holy Spirit to come (epiklesis), the priest, who stands in the place of Christ, repeats the words of the God-man: “This is my Body, This is my Blood.” Sounds like Genesis 1 to me: the mighty wind (read “Spirit”) whips over the surface of the water and God’s Word resounds. “Let there be light” and there was light. It is no harder to believe in the Eucharist than to believe in Creation.
But why did Jesus arrange for this transformation of bread and wine? Because He intended another kind of transformation. The bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ which are, in turn, meant to transform us. Ever hear the phrase: “you are what you eat?” The Lord desires us to be transformed from a motley crew of imperfect individuals into the Body of Christ, come to full stature.
Our evangelical brethren speak often of an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus. But I ask you, how much more personal and intimate than the Eucharist can you get? We receive the Lord’s body into our physical body that we may become Him whom we receive!
Such an awesome gift deserves its own feast. And that’s why, back in the days of Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi, the Pope decided to institute the Feast of Corpus Christi.
Have you read any Aristotle? He's about as mystical as the sports section of the NY Daily News. Less so if anything.
Time after time after time you guys accuse us of lying about your church in claiming that you pray to Mary...
We see how you are...
LOL
The Catholic Church began at the Pentecost, circa 33AD.
You wrote:
“Just because something is called something, does not make it so.”
See, I would expect a man to say what he means and mean what he says. If you use words you don’t mean, then how can anyone have a reasonably intelligent conversation with you?
Originals? Where? What source? This is study that most church members of all “denominations” are ignorant about because the CLERGY wants the believers ignorant, and so do the Bible publishers.
Before the internet, it was easy to get by with lies and half-lies. Someone could assert anything and if you didn’t have the resources it became a matter of faith rather than truth..
I wasn't aware anyone actually believed that anymore.
But sola scriptura is.
True enough. Now the problem is that some people think anything on the internet is true!
The first known Baptist Congregation was formed by a number of these fleeing separatists in Amsterdam, Holland in 1608.
For the Old Testament, the Septaguint, of course, as that is the one that Christ Himself (and his Apostles) used and taught from (and the one eviscerated by the post-Christian Jews, and which Martin Luther adopted). There is some disagreement on the New Testament, but certainly the canon of the New Testament was complete by ca. 400AD. The RC Bible is unchanged from that time to present day.
All outside of the Communion of Rome are heretics. I'm a heretic, every pastor and church member in my town is a heretic (cause there are no Catholic churches in my town). We ain't got a chance, us Anathematized wee folk. We are damned, headed for Hell by the councils of Catholicism.
It is just too easy to throw the word “heretic” around.
Now, if there are people like me today, then there is a 100% probability that there were people just like me in 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350 AD. We have the Scriptures, we evangelize people by preaching the Gospel of the Grace of God, we plant independent and autonomous congregations of believers. We were converted to Jesus Christ by the preaching of the Bible, found that it works (the Holy Ghost still works), and we know Christ personally; we have Him residing within — and we KNOW it. It is impossible that there were not such from the days of the Apostles.
There are plenty of histories written by both Christian and secular historians that document autonomous local Christian congregations all over Asia Minor and up through the Caucuses, and even eastward long before Nicea.
People who want the history will find it. I am in a Japanese coffee shop in Shanghai at the moment and I haven't had access to my personal library for 18 months now. There is a good set on the History of the Christian Church published in Pensacola, Florida, that I will recommend to any (including you, WW) who will send me a private response. I'll start with that one.
Oh my this is an enjoyable thread. LOL
The Huguenots were a vicious and bloodthirsty group. Many of them were from Normandy and were seafarers - they ranged up and down the coast of Spain and Portugal, slaughtering entire villages of Spaniards and Portuguese, destroying the churches and religious items, stealing everything they could get, and capturing ships at sea. They were violent pirates who terrorized the Atlantic for many, many years, and in fact spread as far as the Caribbean. These were free-lancers, but other Huguenots were sent out on official voyages of depredation and terror by the French king.
There was nothing sweet and innocent about the Huguenots. But they were pragmatic, if nothing else: while their hatred of Catholics was their defining feature, they were the allies of the French king (widely rumored to be Protestant, although he was not) and many essentially functioned as privateers during his reign.
Incidentally, the Huguenots are credited with having made life miserable for Brazilians by destroying the majority of the Portuguese mission force: they captured a small fleet of ships bringing some 40 Jesuits to Brazil and killed them all, either slashing them up or simply throwing them overboard. It left the Brazilian Indians without their only defenders against the ravages of uncontrolled colonial exploitation.
You wrote:
“I wasn’t aware anyone actually believed that anymore.”
Incredibly it is still believed in by some Baptists even though there’s evidence for it. Even Baptists have repeatedly debunked it - including the former head the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:
http://books.google.com/books?id=V68OAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=William+Heth+Whitsitt
Whitsitt was tossed out of office for his research. Ironically, however, the grip that Landmarkism/Trail of Blood had on Baptists has steadily eroded since then.
That would be the Bible.
No historical proof for a BC Septuagint; probably 200 AD. Same error made by Protestant seminaries. No Orthodox temple or synagogue would use a Greek OT. Why would the Jews of Christ day use one?
But then claiming a BC Greek OT, you can only go back to 400 for your NT ?? That is because the Catholic NT came from Alexandria after 325 AD. It had been sitting being mutilated and corrupted by Origin and his ilk in N. Africa until Constantine ordered 50 copies of it, which ended up in Rome. Original? Not by a long shot. Byzantine/Antiochan NT copies were all over Asia Minor, along with a Latin OT (160 AD) long before that.
You do realize the source for some of these claims is a highly discredited, horribly ridiculous book called “Two Babylons” by Alexander Hislop, a Reformed Scottish minister, who pieced together bits of various ancient mythology willy nilly and tried to tie it to catholicism.
Several “Christian” websites of extreme Protestant opinion quote freely from it, including www.biblebelievers.com and www.chick.com
And I quote, from Wikipedia (on the article Two Babylons by Hislop):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Babylons
It was later expanded in 1858 and finally published as a book in 1919. Its central theme is its allegation that the Roman Catholic Church is a veiled continuation of the pagan religion of Babylon, the veiled paganism being the product of a millenia old conspiracy.[1] It is has been recognized by scholars as discredited and has been called a “tribute to historical inaccuracy and know-nothing religious bigotry” with “shoddy scholarship, blatant dishonesty” and a “nonsensical thesis”. [2] [3]
Although scholarship has shown the picture presented by Hislop to be absurd and based on an exceedingly poor understanding of historical Babylon and its religion, his book remains popular among some fundamentalist Christians.[4]
Here is a ink to the Christian Research Institute and it’s examination of this book, which is widely quoted and considered authotitative in Protestant circles.
http://www.equip.org/site/c.muI1LaMNJrE/b.2713769/k.B1E9/DC187.htm
One has to be a licensed contortionist to stretch far enough to believe that one.
This is a myth. There were no Baptists before John Smith.
There were the Anabaptists, and the Wladeneses (Sp?) Started by Peter Waldo, but if you are a Baptist and do some research, you would not the Baptist religion associated with eitehr of these cults.
Please don't take my word or the word an any other Catholic for it. I want you to check out independent secular sources. I strongly suggest the Encyclopedia Britanicca, they are no friend of the Catholic Church. I would also suggest checking out a history writtne from the Anglican point of view about Smith.
Seriously, Foxes book of Martyrs, and Trail of blood are complete fabricatons.
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