This is the sixth in a series of seven posts.
Here are the previous threads:
Introduction: Heresy [The Great Heresies]
Chapter 1: Scheme of This Book [The Great Heresies]
Chapter 2: The Arian Heresy [The Great Heresies]
Chapter 3: The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed [The Great Heresies]
Chapter 4: The Albigensian Attack [The Great Heresies]
I'm sorry that this chapter may be controversial, but I am posting it only because I am posting the rest of The Great Heresies.
The Great Heresies is a very interesting book, and I recommend reading the chapter on Islam in particular.
Ping!
If you really want to go there we could hold a discussion on the morality of the Spanish or other inquisitions.
Or we could discuss simony which resulted in boatloads of clergy who didn’t even understand the Latin being said in the Masses.
How does one defend the idea of burning people at the stake for merely possessing a Bible in, horror of horrors, their own language; i.e., English.
The Roman Catholic Church had certainly engaged in gross heretical behaviors. Castigating Protestant behavior without fully explaining the behavior of the Roman Catholic Church prior to the its own counter-reformation is the worst kind of straw man argument. These things must be discussed in historical context.
As a Protestant who does not normally engage in attacking the Roman Catholic Church I find having my branch of the Church attacked objectionable. How did you like it?
BWA HAHAHAHAHA
Note for future reading........
Just imagine all the crying, screaming, whining and cursing and yelling of “foul play” if this were an article talking about the heresy of the Roman catholic church. It would only take about 2 posts before someone would call it catholic bashing. :)
It questioned the authenticity of the four Gospels, particularly the two written by eyewitnesses to the life of Our Lord and more especially that of St. John, the prime witness to the Incarnation. It came to deny the historical value of nearly everything in the Old Testament prior to the Babylonian exile; it denied as a matter of course every miracle from cover to cover and every prophecy. That a document should contain prophecy was taken to prove that it must have been written after the event. Every inconvenient text was labelled as an interpolation. In fine, when this spirit (which was the very product of Protestantism itself) had done with the Bible — the very foundation of Protestantism — it had left nothing of Protestantism but a mass of ruins.
Yes!!!
Hoorah!!
I agree that it is interesting. Is there a free downloadable version?
Belloc is fascinating and far too much of a Catholic partisan. Nevertheless, the material is well worth reading. Thanks for putting on FR.
Thanks so much for posting. I’d forgotten how compelling Belloc could be.
Catholic ping!
Good post. Thanks!
As an Evangelical Christian, with a particular interest in the history of the Reformation, I enjoyed reading the post, fully recognizing that it was written from a Roman Catholic perspective. Obviously, Belloc saw things through the “prism of his own ideology”, namely Catholicism. I do come to the conclusion that he must have been an intellectual heavyweight. I note that he died in 1953,
I noted his reference to the English attempt to destroy Catholicism in Ireland and the French attempt to do the same to Protestantism in France. What he didn’t state was the absolute failure of the English and the success of the French through the revocation of The Edict of Nantes in 1685.
It’s a shame that he isn’t alive today. I’d love to get his take on things like Vatican II, the collapse of at least “cultural” Christianity in Western Europe, the growth of Islam in so called “Christian” countries and the rapid growth of Evangelical Christianity in Latin America.
Thank you for the posting and God Bless.
It’s simple: some seed fell on shallow soil and sprouted, but withered away when the growing conditions got tough— and some seeds were carried away by evil birds. The winnowing out continues to this day.
The faithful have stayed and flourished and will be running this race to the very end, secure in the promises of Christ for His Church.
The Reformation, unlike all the other great heresies, led to no conclusion, or at least has led to none which we can as yet register, although the first upheaval is now four hundred years behind us. The Arian business slowly died away; but the Protestant business, though its doctrine has disappeared, has borne permanent fruit. It has divided the white civilization into two opposing cultures, Catholic and anti-Catholic.
........
I dropped out of the essay here.
The Arian Heresy has killed the protestant church in Europe and sapped the Catholic church of congregants in europe and latin america. The arian heresy is behind the slow steady decline of american liberal protestant churches.
Interestingly, without the Church, there would not be the Bible.
What a disgusting waste of time. I would love to join the Mother Church but in good conscience cannot as long as it promulgates lies like this. Until the Catholic church repents of its lies about the Lutheran reformation it stands convicted by its own corruption and deceptiveness.
History is clear. Luther did not "Uprise." He sought to "speak truth to power," within the bonds of the church; was excommunicated by a corrupt and apostate papacy as a result; and had a price placed on his head for his faithfulness to the Gospel.
Luther was to the church as the Tea Party is to the GOP. The parallel is so close as to be downright scarey.
And this is what passes for "conservatism" in the Catholic world? Blech.
Belloc's fulminations against Biblical criticism ring hollow in that 1)he doesn't seem to disagree with it to any appreciable degree, and 2)the Catholic Church has embraced Protestant higher criticism wholeheartedly precisely because it discredits Protestantism's religious authority. Plus, if one is going to criticize Protestants for "worshiping the text of scripture" then obviously one's attitude was higher critical to begin with.
Belloc ping (though you probably already noticed).