Yes, I have read a great deal of Early Church history, and I know that the Christian Church, or at least the majority of it has been hierarchical since the end of the first century with Clement and certainly by 50 years later with Justin Martyr. It is nonsense to suggest that Early Christians believed in sola scripture when they did not have much scripture to be solo about until the 4th Century. And yes, the very cannon that not only does not comment on solo scriptura was compiled by none other than the Roman Church in its councils. That same Roman Church recognized very early that when Christians interpret scripture without any authority then what you get is a “my interpretation is as good as yours” result. Also, one must recognize that the Roman Church is almost 2K years old and comprises 1/6 of humanity. You have to ask yourself, would our Lord allow 1/6 of humanity to pursue a falsehood in His name? Not likely.
However, this is a very old and tired argument and we must all be united against an evil (Godless humanism) that will destroy all Christians if we are not together. Anyone who accepts Jesus and believes in The Trinity is not the enemy to another Christian, in my opinion.
“You have to ask yourself, would our Lord allow 1/6 of humanity to pursue a falsehood in His name? Not likely.”
Quite likely:
“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: “ (Matthew 7:13)
“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. “ (Matthew 7:22-23)
“For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. “ (Matthew 24:5)
“We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty...” Pope Leo XIII, in Praeclara Gratulationis Publica” June 20, 1894
As for history, you must compete with the EOs, and scholars:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2891087/posts?page=450#450
I'm tired of this same old and tired argument about the Roman Church "giving" Christians the New Testament or that "Early Christians didn't have much Scripture to be solo about". In all the great deal of study of early church history, have you read anything like this:
We say that this immediate placing of the new books — given the church under the seal of apostolic authority — among the Scriptures already established as such, was inevitable. It is also historically evinced from the very beginning. Thus the apostle Peter, writing in A.D. 68, speaks of Paul’s numerous letters not in contrast with the Scriptures, but as among the Scriptures and in contrast with “the other Scriptures” (II Pet. iii. 16) — that is, of course, those of the Old Testament. In like manner the apostle Paul combines, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Luke under the common head of “Scripture” (I Tim. v. 18): “For the Scripture saith, ‘Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn’ [Deut. xxv. 4]; and, ‘The laborer is worthy of his hire’” (Luke x. 7). The line of such quotations is never broken in Christian literature. Polycarp (c. 12) in A.D. 115 unites the Psalms and Ephesians in exactly similar manner: “In the sacred books, . . . as it is said in these Scriptures, ‘Be ye angry and sin not,’ and ‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.’” So, a few years later, the so-called second letter of Clement, after quoting Isaiah, adds (ii. 4): “And another Scripture, however, says, ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners’” — quoting from Matthew, a book which Barnabas (circa 97-106 A.D.) had already adduced as Scripture. After this such quotations are common.
What needs emphasis at present about these facts is that they obviously are not evidences of a gradually-heightening estimate of the New Testament books, originally received on a lower level and just beginning to be tentatively accounted Scripture; they are conclusive evidences rather of the estimation of the New Testament books from the very beginning as Scripture, and of their attachment as Scripture to the other Scriptures already in hand. The early Christians did not, then, first form a rival “canon” of “new books” which came only gradually to be accounted as of equal divinity and authority with the “old books”; they received new book after new book from the apostolical circle, as equally” Scripture “ with the old books, and added them one by one to the collection of old books as additional Scriptures, until at length the new books thus added were numerous enough to be looked upon as another section of the Scriptures.
The earliest name given to this new section of Scripture was framed on the model of the name by which what we know as the Old Testament was then known. Just as it was called “The Law and the Prophets and the Psalms” (or “the Hagiographa”), or more briefly “The Law and the Prophets,” or even more briefly still “The Law”; so the enlarged Bible was called “The Law and the Prophets, with the Gospels and the Apostles” (so Clement of Alexandria, “Strom.” vi. 11, 88; Tertullian, “De Præs. Hær.” 36), or most briefly “The Law and the Gospel” (so Claudius Apolinaris, Irenæus); while the new books apart were called “The Gospel and the Apostles,” or most briefly of all” The Gospel.” This earliest name for the new Bible, with all that it involves as to its relation to the old and briefer Bible, is traceable as far back as Ignatius (A.D. 115), who makes use of it repeatedly (e.g., “ad Philad.” 5; “ad Smyrn.” 7). In one passage he gives us a hint of the controversies which the enlarged Bible of the Christians aroused among the Judaizers (“ad Philad.” 6). “When I heard some saying,” he writes, “‘Unless I find it in the Old [Books] I will not believe the Gospel,’ on my saying, ‘It is written,’ they answered, ‘That is the question.’ To me, however, Jesus Christ is the Old [Books]; his cross and death and resurrection, and the faith which is by him, the undefiled Old [Books] — by which I wish, by your prayers, to be justified. The priests indeed are good, but the High Priest better,” etc. Here Ignatius appeals to the “Gospel” as Scripture, and the Judaizers object, receiving from him the answer in effect which Augustine afterward formulated in the well-known saying that the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is first made clear in the New. What we need now to observe, however, is that to Ignatius the New Testament was not a different book from the Old Testament, but part of the one body of Scripture with it; an accretion, so to speak, which had grown upon it.
This is the testimony of all the early witnesses — even those which speak for the distinctively Jewish-Christian church. For example, that curious Jewish-Christian writing, “The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs” (Benj. 11), tells us, under the cover of an ex post facto prophecy, that the “work and word” of Paul, i.e., confessedly the book of Acts and Paul’s Epistles, “shall be written in the Holy Books,” i.e., as is understood by all, made a part of the existent Bible. So even in the Talmud, in a scene intended to ridicule a “bishop” of the first century, he is represented as finding Galatians by “sinking himself deeper” into the same “Book” which contained the Law of Moses (“Babl. Shabbath,” 116 a and b). The details cannot be entered into here. Let it suffice to say that, from the evidence of the fragments which alone have been preserved to us of the Christian writings of that very early time, it appears that from the beginning of the second century (and that is from the end of the apostolic age) a collection (Ignatius, II Clement) of “New Books” (Ignatius), called the “Gospel and Apostles” (Ignatius, Marcion), was already a part of the “Oracles” of God (Polycarp, Papias, II Clement), or “Scriptures” (I Tim., II Pet., Barn., Polycarp, II Clement), or the” Holy Books “or “Bible” (Testt. XII. Patt.).
The Canon of the New Testament was completed when the last authoritative book was given to any church by the apostles, and that was when John wrote the Apocalypse, about A.D. 98. Whether the church of Ephesus, however, had a completed Canon when it received the Apocalypse, or not, would depend on whether there was any epistle, say that of Jude, which had not yet reached it with authenticating proof of its apostolicity. There is room for historical investigation here. Certainly the whole Canon was not universally received by the churches till somewhat later. The Latin church of the second and third centuries did not quite know what to do with the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Syrian churches for some centuries may have lacked the lesser of the Catholic Epistles and Revelation. But from the time of Irenæus down, the church at large had the whole Canon as we now possess it. And though a section of the church may not yet have been satisfied of the apostolicity of a certain book or of certain books; and though afterwards doubts may have arisen in sections of the church as to the apostolicity of certain books (as e. g. of Revelation): yet in no case was it more than a respectable minority of the church which was slow in receiving, or which came afterward to doubt, the credentials of any of the books that then as now constituted the Canon of the New Testament accepted by the church at large. And in every case the principle on which a book was accepted, or doubts against it laid aside, was the historical tradition of apostolicity. (The Formation of the Canon of the New Testament)
In any study of history, a well-rounded one looks at many sources. I hope you will take the time to read this.
Canon means nothing. They had Scripture, and it was called Scripture, at the time of the apostles. Paul's writings were called Scripture by Peter and there was the entire OT.
There are plenty of other doctrines that the Catholic church adheres to that are not any more explicitly spelled out in Scripture than sola Scriptura so that argument against it is not a valid one. It cannot be applied in a case by case basis. If a doctrine like the Trinity can be established by proof texts, so can sola Scriptura.
That same Roman Church recognized very early that when Christians interpret scripture without any authority then what you get is a “my interpretation is as good as yours” result.
The Catholic church is not unified in doctrine. There are significant differences of opinion between the Orthodox and the Roman rite. Not to mention the number of other Catholic rites which exist.
Also, one must recognize that the Roman Church is almost 2K years old and comprises 1/6 of humanity. You have to ask yourself, would our Lord allow 1/6 of humanity to pursue a falsehood in His name? Not likely.
Might doesn't make right.
It's a meaningless argument to make a claim of being right on.
Anyone who accepts Jesus and believes in The Trinity is not the enemy to another Christian, in my opinion.
Anyone does that IS a Christian.
We must be united in purpose, not necessarily denominational affiliation.