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To: G Larry
Who decided what the canon of Scripture should be and on what basis?

Even before the First Council of Nicaea formally canonized the New Testament, the common belief about which writings were holy scripture was to include things written by eyewitnesses of resurrected Jesus and their close associates. That hasn't changed.

It's amazing that Nicaea (early AD 4th century) was over a century before the first real pope (Leo in mid 5th century) consolidated all the western church's political power under see of Rome (himself) and 7 centuries before pope Gregory defined what we today call "papal authority". Basically, in many ways the church at the time of Nicaea (era of Bible canonization) fell in line with more of what we today call Protestants than what we today call Catholicism. Even the Latin word "catholic" meant universal or encompassing the world (all of God's Christians all over the world), not like Catholics use it today (meaning a subset of Christians).

11 posted on 01/23/2023 8:37:08 PM PST by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Tell It Right
"first real pope"

Now that you've demonstrated complete ignorance of church history as well as Scripture.

Matt 16:17-19, Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Messiah.

St. Cyprian
In the middle of the third century St. Cyprian expressly terms the Roman See the Chair of St. Peter, saying that Cornelius has succeeded to "the place of Fabian which is the place of Peter " (Ep 55:8; cf. 59:14).

St. Clement The first witness is St. Clement, a disciple of the Apostles, who, after Linus and Anacletus, succeeded St. Peter as the fourth in the list of popes. In his "Epistle to the Corinthians", written in 95 or 96, he bids them receive back the bishops whom a turbulent faction among them had expelled. "If any man ", he says, "should be disobedient unto the words spoken by God through us, let them understand that they will entangle themselves in no slight transgression and danger" (Ep. 59).

12 posted on 01/24/2023 6:33:04 AM PST by G Larry ( "woke" means 'stupid enough to fall for the promotion of every human weakness into a virtue')
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