Did the Early Church Fathers Believe in Sola Scriptura?

Reclaiming the Mind ^ | April 25,2015 | C Michael Patton

[terycarl]

>>Then I take it you reject the entire New Testament as the Jews do?<< Um, the apostles were all Jews.

So was Jesus until He founded the Catholic church on the Apostles...

[terycarl]

Christ started the Protestant movement, and they killed him for it

Martin Luther was Christ....whooda thunk it?????

[Petrosius]

There were five equal Bishooprics following the death of the last Apostle.

I believe you are referring to Pentarchy or the Five Patriarchs: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. But this is an idea that did not develop until 6th century. Originally a city of any size had its own bishop. Constantinople was not even recognized as a patriarchal see until the 4th century.

There was no Petrine authority. That was fabricated to give the Rome Bishopric top authority. That was only achieved when the Emperor of Rome appointed Leo as ‘The Primate of all Bishops.’

Pope St. Leo I was in the 5th century. Note that Augustine was speaking of Petrine authority prior to this. Around A.D. 80 Pope St. Clement gives instruction to the church in Corinth. In the 1st century Pope Victor I exercised his authority over the church in mandating that the eastern bishops accept the date for Easter, threatening them with excommunication.

[terycarl]

How silly. The RCC did not even exist at that time. Proven over and over again on this forum.

Proven to whom???A lot of idle chatter proves nothing to anybody...

[terycarl]

The Priest mentioned above, he not only believes in OSAS, he knows it as fact in his life. I have also known other Priests who are sadly unable to know that in their lives.

He's wrong....they are right.

[MHGinTN]

"The False Decretals make as it were the dividing point between the Papacy of the first eight and that of the succeeding centuries. At this date, the pretensions of the Popes begin to develop and take each day a more distinct character."

...

Rome, jealous of Constantinople, was soon to crown Charlemagne Emperor of the West, and thus to break all political ties with the East. The Pope enjoyed great temporal authority in that city under the protection of the Frankic kings; he was rich, and he was ambitious to surround his see with still greater magnificence, and splendour. Adrian therefore replied arrogantly to the respectful letter he bad received from the court of Constantinople. He insisted upon certain conditions, as one power dealing with another, and particularly upon this point: that the patrimony of St. Peter in the East, confiscated by the iconoclastic emperors, must be restored in toto. We will quote from his letter what he says respecting the Patriarch of Constantinople: "We are very much surprised to see that in your letter you give to Tarasius the title of Ecumenical Patriarch. The Patriarch of Constantinople would not have even the second rank WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF OUR SEE; if he be cumenical, must he not therefore have also the primacy over our church? All Christians know that this is a ridiculous assumption."

Adrian sets before the Emperor the example of Charles, King of the Franks. "Following our advice," he says, "and fulfilling our wishes, he has subjected all the barbarous nations of the West; he has given to the Roman Church in perpetuity provinces, cities, castles, and patrimonies which were withheld by the Lombards, and which by right belong to St. Peter; he does not cease daily to offer gold and silver for this light and sustenance of the poor."

Here is language quite new on the part of Roman bishops, but henceforth destined to become habitual with them. It dates from 785; that is, from the same year when Adrian delivered to Ingelramn, Bishop of Metz, the collection of the False Decretals. [3] There is something highly significant in this coincidence. Was it Adrian himself who authorized this work of forgery? We do not know; but it is an incontestable fact that it was in Rome itself under the pontificate of Adrian, and in the year in which he wrote so haughtily to the Emperor of the East, that this new code of the Papacy is first mentioned in history. Adrian is the true creator of the modern Papacy. Not finding in the traditions of the Church the documents necessary to support his ambitious views, he rested them upon apocryphal documents written to suit the occasion, and to legalize all future usurpations of the Roman see. Adrian knew that the Decretals contained in the code of Ingelramn were false. For he had already given, ten years before, to Charles, King of the Franks, a code of the ancient canons, identical with the generally received collection of Dionysius Exiguus. It was, therefore, between the years 775 and 785 that the False Decretals were composed.

The time was favorable to such inventions. In the foreign invasions which had deluged the entire West with blood and covered it with ruins, the libraries of the churches and monasteries bad been destroyed; the clergy were plunged in the deepest ignorance; the East, invaded by the Mussulman, had now scarcely any relations with the West. The Papacy profited by these misfortunes, and built up a power half political and half religious upon these ruins, finding no lack of flatterers who did not blush to invent and secretly propagate their forgeries in order to give a divine character to an institution that has ambition for its only source.

The False Decretals make as it were the dividing point between the Papacy of the first eight and that of the succeeding centuries. At this date, the pretensions of the Popes begin to develop and take each day a more distinct character. The answer of Adrian to Constantine and Irene is the starting point.

The legates of the Pope and those of the Patriarchal churches of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, having gone to Constantinople, Nicea was appointed as the place of assembling the council. The first session took place September twenty-fourth, 787. This second Council of Nicea is reckoned the seventh Ecumenical, both by the Eastern and Western churches. [4] Adrian was represented by the Archpriest Peter, and by another Peter, Abbot of the monastery of St. Sabas at Rome. The Bishops of Sicily were the first to speak, and said, "We deem it advisable that the most holy Archbishop of Constantinople should open the council." All the members agreed to this proposition, and Tarasius made them an allocution upon the duty of following the ancient traditions of the Church in the decisions they were about to make. Then those who opposed these traditions were introduced, that the council might hear a statement of their doctrine. Then were read the letters brought by the legates of the Bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, for the purpose of ascertaining what the faith of the East and the West might be. The Bishop of Ancyra had shared the errour of the iconoclasts. He now appeared before the council to make his confession of faith, and commenced with the following words, well worthy of being quoted: "It is the law of the Church, that those who are converted from a heresy, should abjure it in writing, and confess the Catholic faith. Therefore do I, Basil, Bishop of Ancyra, wishing to unite myself with the Church, with Pope Adrian, with the Patriarch Tarasius, with the Apostolic sees of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and with all Catholic bishops and priests, make this confession in writing, and present it to you, who have power by apostolic authority."

This most orthodox language clearly proves that at that time the he Pope of Rome was not regarded as the sole centre of unity, the source of Catholic authority; that unity and authority were only recognized in the unanimity of the sacerdotal body.

The letter of Adrian to the Emperor and Empress, and the one be had written to Tarasius were then read, but only in so far as they treated of dogmatic questions. His complaints against the title of cumenical and his demands concerning the patrimony of St. Peter, were passed over in silence. Nor did the legates of Rome insist. The council declared that it approved of the Pope's doctrine. Next were read the letters from the Patriarchal sees of the East whose doctrine agreed with that of the West. That doctrine was compared with the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, in order to verify not only the present unanimity, but the perpetuity of the doctrine; and the question was also examined, whether the iconoclasts had on their side any true Catholic tradition. After this double preparatory examination, the council made its profession of faith, deciding that according to the perpetual doctrine of the Church, images should be venerated, reserving for God alone the Latria or adoration, properly so called.

The members of the council then adjourned to Constantinople, where the last session took place in the presence of Irene and Constantine and the entire people.

The Acts of the seventh Œcumenical council, like those of the preceding ones, clearly prove that the Bishop of Rome was only first in honour in the Church; that his testimony had no doctrinal weight, except in so far as it might be regarded as that of the Western Church; that there was as yet no individual authority in the Church, but a collective authority only, of which the sacerdotal body was the echo and interpreter.

This doctrine is diametrically opposed to the Romish system. Let us add, that the seventh Œcumenical council, like the six that preceded it, was neither convoked, presided over, nor confirmed by the Pope. He concurred in it by his legates, and the West concurred in the same way, whereby it acquired its Œcumenical character.

The Roman Catholic Church is a fabrication based upon forgeries and deceptions, greed and the blood of Rome's perceived enemies.

[MHGinTN]

One such historian is Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger. He was the most renowned Roman Catholic historian of the last century, who taught Church history for 47 years as a Roman Catholic. He makes these important comments:

In the middle of the ninth century—about 845—there arose the huge fabrication of the Isidorian decretals...About a hundred pretended decrees of the earliest Popes, together with certain spurious writings of other Church dignitaries and acts of Synods, were then fabricated in the west of Gaul, and eagerly seized upon Pope Nicholas I at Rome, to be used as genuine documents in support of the new claims put forward by himself and his successors.

That the pseudo–Isidorian principles eventually revolutionized the whole constitution of the Church, and introduced a new system in place of the old—on that point there can be no controversy among candid historians. The most potent instrument of the new Papal system was Gratian’s Decretum, which issued about the middle of the twelfth century from the first school of Law in Europe, the juristic teacher of the whole of Western Christendom, Bologna. In this work the Isidorian forgeries were combined with those of the other Gregorian (Gregory VII) writers...and with Gratia’s own additions. His work displaced all the older collections of canon law, and became the manual and repertory, not for canonists only, but for the scholastic theologians, who, for the most part, derived all their knowledge of Fathers and Councils from it. No book has ever come near it in its influence in the Church, although there is scarcely another so chokeful of gross errors, both intentional and unintentional (Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, The Pope and the Council (Boston: Roberts, 1870), pp. 76-77, 79, 115-116).

The Protestant historian, George Salmon, explains the importance and influence of Pseudo–Isidore:

In the ninth century another collection of papal letters...was published under the name of Isidore, by whom, no doubt, a celebrated Spanish bishop of much learning was intended. In these are to be found precedents for all manner of instances of the exercise of sovereign dominion by the pope over other Churches. You must take notice of this, that it was by furnishing precedents that these letters helped the growth of papal power. Thenceforth the popes could hardly claim any privilege but they would find in these letters supposed proofs that the privilege in question was no more than had been always claimed by their predecessors, and always exercised without any objection...On these spurious decretals is built the whole fabric of Canon Law. The great schoolman, Thomas Aquinas, was taken in by them, and he was induced by them to set the example of making a chapter on the prerogatives of the pope an essential part of the treatises on the Church...Yet completely successful as was this forgery, I suppose there never was a more clumsy one. These decretal epistles had undisputed authority for some seven hundred years, that is to say, down to the time of the Reformation.

If we want to know what share these letters had in the building of the Roman fabric we have only to look at the Canon Law. The ‘Decretum’ of Gratia quotes three hundred and twenty-four times the epistles of the popes of the first four centuries; and of these three hundred and twenty–four quotations, three hundred and thirteen are from the letters which are now universally known to be spurious (George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church (London: John Murray, 1914), pp. 449, 451, 453).

[MHGinTN]

ping

[MHGinTN]

In addition to the Pseudo Isidorian Decretals there were other forgeries which were successfully used for the promotion of the doctrine of papal primacy. One famous instance is that of Thomas Aquinas. In 1264 A.D. Thomas authored a work entitled Against the Errors of the Greeks. This work deals with the issues of theological debate between the Greek and Roman Churches in that day on such subjects as the Trinity, the Procession of the Holy Spirit, Purgatory and the Papacy. In his defense of the papacy Thomas bases practically his entire argument on forged quotations of Church fathers. Under the names of the eminent Greek fathers such as Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria and Maximus the Abbott, a Latin forger had compiled a catena of quotations interspersing a number that were genuine with many that were forged which was subsequently submitted to Pope Urban IV. This work became known as the Thesaurus of Greek Fathers or Thesaurus Graecorum Patrum. In addition the Latin author also included spurious canons from early Ecumenical Councils. Pope Urban in turn submitted the work to Thomas Aquinas who used many of the forged passages in his work Against the Errors of the Greeks mistakenly thinking they were genuine. These spurious quotations had enormous influence on many Western theologians in succeeding centuries. The following is a sample of Thomas’ argumentation for the papacy using the spurious quotations from the Thesaurus:http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/forgeries.html

[MHGinTN]

From Aquinas's Thersaurus

Chapter thirty-five

That he enjoys the same power conferred on Peter by Christ. It is also shown that Peter is the Vicar of Christ and the Roman Pontiff is Peter’s successor enjoying the same power conferred on Peter by Christ. For the canon of the Council of Chalcedon says: “If any bishop is sentenced as guilty of infamy, he is free to appeal the sentence to the blessed bishop of old Rome, whom we have as Peter the rock of refuge, and to him alone, in the place of God, with unlimited power, is granted the authority to hear the appeal of a bishop accused of infamy in virtue of the keys given him by the Lord.” And further on: “And whatever has been decreed by him is to be held as from the vicar of the apostolic throne.”

Likewise, Cyril, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, says, speaking in the person of Christ: “You for a while, but I without end will be fully and perfectly in sacrament and authority with all those whom I shall put in your place, just as I am also with you.” And Cyril of Alexandria in his Thesaurus says that the Apostles “in the Gospels and Epistles have affirmed in all their teaching that Peter and his Church are in the place of the Lord, granting him participation in every chapter and assembly, in every election and proclamation of doctrine.” And further on: “To him, that is, to Peter, all by divine ordinancebow the head, and the rulers of the world obey him as the Lord Jesus himself.” And Chrysostom, speaking in the person of Christ, says: “Feed my sheep (John 21:17), that is, in my place be in charge of your brethren" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Against the Errors of the Greeks. Found in James Likoudis, Ending the Byzantine Greek Schism (New Rochelle: Catholics United for the Faith, 1992), pp. 182-184).

With the exception of the last reference to Chrysostom all of Thomas’ references cited to Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria, Chrysostom and the Council of Chalcedon are forgeries.http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/forgeries.html

[Petrosius]

A complete misrepresentation of the history of the False Decretals. Rather than being a work of the 8th century used in the dispute with the Eastern Emperor, they were a work of the 9th century. They were composed in France for the purpose of strengthening the position of the bishops against the king. They would not be received in Rome until the 11th and 12th centuries where they were believed to be authentic. They were also concerned with questions of ecclesiastical trials rather than theology and played no role in the development of the Papal authority. Papal primacy was claimed by Pope Stephen I as early as the 3rd century and was also acknowledge by St. Cyprian. The False Decretals were an unfortunate episode in church history but it would be wrong to walk in the footsteps of the forger and present them as something they are not.

[MHGinTN]

2 Thessalonians 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

[GeronL]

He sent Golden Pelicans...

[MHGinTN]

LOL I forgot about the golden pelicans.

[MHGinTN]

The authority claims of Roman Catholicism ultimately devolve upon the institution of the papacy. The papacy is the center and source from which all authority flows for Roman Catholicism. Rome has long claimed that this institution was established by Christ and has been in force in the Church from the very beginning. But the historical record gives a very different picture. This institution was promoted primarily through the falsification of historical fact through the extensive use of forgeries as Thomas Aquinas’ apologetic for the papacy demonstrates. Forgery is its foundation. As an institution it was a much later development in Church history, beginning with the Gregorian reforms of pope Gregory VII in the 11th century and was restricted completely to the West. The Eastern Chruch never accepted the false claims of the Roman Church and refused to submit to its insistence that the Bishop of Rome was supreme ruler of the Church. This they knew was not true to the historical record and was a perversion of the true teaching of Scripture, the papal exegesis of which was not taught by the Church fathers (ibid)

[GeronL]

I so need to add a Church of the Golden Pelican to one of my stories.

[MHGinTN]

And share it with us, fer shur.

[Petrosius]

The Eastern Chruch never accepted the false claims of the Roman Church and refused to submit to its insistence that the Bishop of Rome was supreme ruler of the Church.

Not true. Pope Hormisdas demanded that the Eastern bishops sign what is know as the Formula of Hormisdas to end the Acacian schism. In 519 two hundred Eastern bishop came to Constantinople and did so. This is what they signed:

The first condition of salvation is to keep the norm of the true faith and in no way to deviate from the established doctrine of the Fathers. For it is impossible that the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,” [Matthew 16:18], should not be verified. And their truth has been proved by the course of history, for in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been kept unsullied. From this hope and faith we by no means desire to be separated and, following the doctrine of the Fathers, we declare anathema all heresies, and, especially, the heretic Nestorius, former bishop of Constantinople, who was condemned by the Council of Ephesus, by Blessed Celestine, bishop of Rome, and by the venerable Cyril, bishop of Alexandria. We likewise condemn and declare to be anathema Eutyches and Dioscoros of Alexandria, who were condemned in the holy Council of Chalcedon, which we follow and endorse. This Council followed the holy Council of Nicaea and preached the apostolic faith. And we condemn the assassin Timothy, surnamed Aelurus [”the Cat”] and also Peter [Mongos] of Alexandria, his disciple and follower in everything. We also declare anathema their helper and follower, Acacius of Constantinople, a bishop once condemned by the Apostolic See, and all those who remain in contact and company with them. Because this Acacius joined himself to their communion, he deserved to receive a judgment of condemnation similar to theirs. Furthermore, we condemn Peter [”the Fuller”] of Antioch with all his followers together together with the followers of all those mentioned above.

Following, as we have said before, the Apostolic See in all things and proclaiming all its decisions, we endorse and approve all the letters which Pope St Leo wrote concerning the Christian religion. And so I hope I may deserve to be associated with you in the one communion which the Apostolic See proclaims, in which the whole, true, and perfect security of the Christian religion resides. I promise that from now on those who are separated from the communion of the Catholic Church, that is, who are not in agreement with the Apostolic See, will not have their names read during the sacred mysteries. But if I attempt even the least deviation from my profession, I admit that, according to my own declaration, I am an accomplice to those whom I have condemned. I have signed this, my profession, with my own hand, and I have directed it to you, Hormisdas, the holy and venerable pope of Rome.

The claims of the Orthodox that they never accepted the claims of Rome are not true.