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To: RobbyS
Certainly they did not think thee doctrines--such as the perpetual virginity of Mary, or her standing as theotokos, or the invocation so Mary and the saints were inconsistent with the Scripture.

Something to think about:

The Nicene Church and the Marian Doctrines.

If the Papacy is not evident at Nicæa, surely the Marian dogmas that define Roman Catholic worship are even more conspicuous by their absence from the same time period. One need only consult the work of Roman Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott (hardly a liberal!) to realize this. For example, with reference to the Immaculate Conception Ott admits on page 201:

"Neither the Greek nor the Latin Fathers explicitly teach the Immaculate Conception of Mary."

Instead, he asserts an "implicit" teaching based upon Mary’s holiness and the contrast between her and Eve. Yet, I note that J.N.D. Kelly asserts that Ireneaus, Tertullian, and Origen all felt Mary had sinned and doubted Christ (Early Christian Doctrines, 493).

In any case, Ott asserts on the same page that the first explicit assertion of the doctrine as believed today is found in the British monk Eadmer at the beginning of the 12th century! Even then, he notes it ran into much opposition, including the rejection of Bernard of Clairvaux. Certainly, it’s a doctrine absent from the early 4th century and the Church of Nicæa.

Likewise, the Bodily Assumption of Mary is a doctrine unknown to the Fathers of the Council of Nicæa. Ott says of it, "The idea of the bodily assumption of Mary is first expressed in certain transitus-narratives of the fifth and sixth centuries. Even though these are apocryphal they bear witness to the faith of the generation in which they were written despite their legendary clothing" (pp. 209-210).

What Ott does not note is that these "transitus-narratives" were deemed heretical by the Church of the day and anathematized by Gelasius, bishop of Rome! Hence, the first documentable reference to the doctrine is from a heretical source, and that at least two and a half centuries after the Council of Nicæa! The doctrine, plainly, had no part in the Church in A.D. 325, and hence, again, the point is proven: the Church of Nicæa was not the Church of Rome.

The Nicene Church and the Marian Doctrines.
7,600 posted on 11/12/2001 7:38:27 PM PST by OLD REGGIE
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To: OLD REGGIE
Why not link us to the whole "debate" while you are at it?

debate

7,610 posted on 11/12/2001 10:15:54 PM PST by RobbyS
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