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To: BlueDragon

Though one might need read it entirety (my apologies) to fully grasp his position, Webster again, to explain my mention of Augustine, I’ll bring here this small portion;

However, the theological giant who provided the most comprehensive and influential defense of the symbolic interpretation of the Lord’s Supper was Augustine.13 He gave very clear instructions and principles for determining when a passage of Scripture should be interpreted literally and when figuratively. Passages of Scripture must always be interpreted in the light of the entire revelation of Scripture, he concluded, and he used John 6 as a specific example of a passage that should be interpreted figuratively.14
Augustine argued that the sacraments, including the eucharist, are signs and figures which represent or symbolize spiritual realities. He made a distinction between the physical, historical body of Christ and the sacramental presence, maintaining that Christ’s physical body could not literally be present in the sacrament of the eucharist because he is physically at the right hand of God in heaven, and will be there until he comes again. But Christ is spiritually with his people.15 Augustine viewed the eucharist in spiritual terms and he interpreted the true meaning of eating and drinking as being faith: ‘To believe on Him is to eat the living bread. He that believes eats; he is sated invisibly, because invisibly is he born again.’16

>>Webster is selectively reading the concept of Sola Scriptura into St. Augustine’s writings. Perhaps, St. Augustine believed in the primacy of scripture as all of the Fathers did, but he didn’t believe that scripture alone was sufficient.

He is either uninformed or dishonest.

“For in the Catholic Church, not to speak of the purest wisdom, to the knowledge of which a few spiritual men attain in this life, so as to know it, in the scantiest measure, indeed, becuase they are but men, still without any uncertainty...The consent of peoples and nations keep me in Church, so does her authority, inaugerated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The SUCCESSION of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the APOSTLE PETER, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave it in charge to feed his sheep, down to the present EPISCOPATE...The epistle begins thus:—’Manicheus, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the providence of God the Father. These are the wholesome words from the perennial and living fountain.’ Now, if you please, patiently give heed to my inquiry. I do not beleive Manichues to be an apostle of Christ. Do not, I beg you, be enraged and begin to curse. For you know that it is my rule to beleive none of your statements without consideration. Therefore I ask, who is this Manicheus? You will reply, An Apostle of Christ. I do not beleive it. Now you are at a loss what to say or do; for you promised to give knowledge of truth, and here you are forcing me to beleive what I have no knowledge of. Perhaps you will read the gospel to me, and will attempt to find there a testimony to Manicheus. But should you meet with a person not yet beleiving in the gospel, how would you reply to him were he to say, I do not beleive? For MY PART, I should NOT BELEIVE the gospel except moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. So when those on whose authority I have consented to beleive in the gospel tell me not to beleive in Manicheus, how can I BUT CONSENT?”
C. Epis Mani 5,6

“Wherever this tradition comes from, we must believe that the Church has not believed in vain, even though the express authority of the canonical scriptures is not brought forward for it”
Letter 164 to Evodius of Uzalis

“To be sure, although on this matter, we cannot quote a clear example taken from the canonical Scriptures, at any rate, on this question, we are following the true thought of Scriptures when we observe what has appeared good to the universal Church which the authority of these same Scriptures recommends to you”
C. Cresconius I:33

“It is obvious; the faith allows it; the Catholic Church approves; it is true”
Sermon 117:6

“If therefore, I am going to beleive things I do not know about, why should I not believe those things which are accepted by the common consent of learned and unlearned alike and are established by most weighty authority of all peoples?”
C. Letter called Fundamentals 14:18

“Will you, then, so love your error, into which you have fallen through adolescent overconfidence and human weakness, that you will seperate yourself from these leaders of Catholic unity and truth, from so many different parts of the world who are in agreement among themselves on so important a question, one in which the essence of the Christian religion involved..?”
C. Julian 1:7,34

“The authority of our Scriptures, strenghtened by the consent of so may nations, and confirmed by the succession of the Apostles, bishops and councils, is against you”
C. Faustus 8:5

“No sensible person will go contrary to reason, no Christian will contradict the Scriptures, no lover of peace will go against the CHURCH”
Trinitas 4,6,10
http://www.cin.org/users/jgallegos/trad.htm


95 posted on 01/08/2012 11:47:25 AM PST by rzman21
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To: rzman21

Luther brought a much needed correction on some issues, particularly the sale of indulgences, but where did that get him with the Church, but to be much maligned and hated to this very day?

When we see "the church" going against what is plainly written, then it is by reason one must oppose such, even if only by words and discussion.

Authors like Webster help peel up the musty layers, allowing one to get another peek at how some doctrines and dogmas, slipped and slid away from original, earliest usage, not to mention the sense of meaning one gets from a plain reading of the scriptural texts themselves.

Compare the Didache to what came about later. There wasn't an wholesale change, but one of degrees, leading away from the communion of believers and their thanks giving which in later years changed the meaning of the root form of the greek, to the capitalized "Eucharist" with all it's freighted meanings, for example. This later freight, and cargo of other kinds (of that not explicitly found in scripture) one can all but see being constructed bit by bit.

From one of the links again, for the man has addressed points which you raise, and the circular logic in evidence supporting them.


111 posted on 01/08/2012 1:13:04 PM PST by BlueDragon (who-oah.. c'mon sing it one more time I didn't hear ya)
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