Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
January 25, 2008
ESV Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In recent days I have spent time in Lima and Sullana Peru and Mexico City and I have discovered that people by nature are the same. Man has a heart that is inclined to selfishness and idolatry. Sin abounds in the remotest parts of the land because the heart is desperately wicked. Thousands bow before statues of Mary and pray to her hoping for answers. I have seen these people stare hopelessly at Mary icons, Jesus icons, and a host of dead saints who will do nothing for them. I have talked with people who pray to the pope and say that they love him. I talked with one lady who said that she knew that Jesus was the Savior, but she loved the pope. Thousands bow before Santa Muerte (holy death angel) in hopes that she will do whatever they ask her. I have seen people bring money, burning cigarettes, beer, whiskey, chocolate, plants, and flowers to Santa Muerte in hopes of her answers. I have seen these people bowing on their knees on the concrete in the middle of public places to worship their idol. Millions of people come into the Basilica in Mexico City and pay their money, confess their sins, and stare hopelessly at relics in hope that their sins will be pardoned. In America countless thousands are chained to baseball games, football games, material possessions, and whatever else their heart of idols can produce to worship.
My heart has broken in these last weeks because the God of heaven is not honored as he ought to be honored. People worship the things that are created rather than worshiping the Creator. God has been gracious to all mankind and yet mankind has hardened their hearts against a loving God. God brings the rain on the just and unjust. God brings the beautiful sunrises and sunsets upon the just and unjust. God gives good gifts unto all and above all things he has given his Son that those who would believe in him would be saved. However, man has taken the good things of God and perverted them unto idols and turned their attention away from God. I get a feel for Jesus as he overlooked Jerusalem or Paul as he beseeched for God to save Israel. When you accept the reality of the truth of the glory of God is breaks your heart that people would turn away from the great and awesome God of heaven to serve lesser things. Moses was outraged by the golden calf, the prophets passionately preached against idolatry, Jesus was angered that the temple was changed in an idolatrous business, and Paul preached to the idolaters of Mars Hill by telling them of the unknown God.
I arrived back at home wondering how I should respond to all the idolatry that I have beheld in these last three weeks. I wondered how our church here in the states should respond to all of the idolatry in the world. What are the options? First, I suppose we could sit around and hope that people chose to get their life together and stop being idolaters. However, I do not know how that could ever happen apart from them hearing the truth. Second, I suppose we could spend a lifetime studying cultural issues and customs in hope that we could somehow learn to relate to the people of other countries. However, the bible is quite clear that all men are the same. Men are dead in sin, shaped in iniquity, and by nature are the enemies of God. Thirdly, we could pay other people or other agencies to go and do a work for us while we remain comfortably in the states. However, there is no way to insure that there will be doctrinal accuracy or integrity. If we only pay other people to take the gospel we will miss out on all of the benefits of being obedient to the mission of God. Lastly, we could seek where God would have us to do a lasting work and then invest our lives there for the glory of God. The gospel has the power to raise the dead in any culture and we must be willing to take the gospel wherever God would have us take it. It is for sure that our church cannot go to every country and reach every people group, so we must determine where God would have us work and seek to be obedient wherever that is.
It seems that some doors are opening in the Spanish speaking countries below us and perhaps God is beginning to reveal where we are to work. There are some options for work to be partnered with in Peru and there could be a couple of options in Mexico. The need is greater than I can express upon this paper for a biblical gospel to be proclaimed in Peru and Mexico. Oh, that God would glorify his great name in Peru and Mexico by using a small little church in a town that does not exist to proclaim his great gospel amongst a people who desperately need the truth.
I give thanks to the LORD for allowing me the privilege of going to these countries and broadening my horizons. The things that I have seen will be forever engraved upon my heart. I will long remember the pastors that I spent time with in Peru and I will never forget Adolfo who translated for me in Mexico. I will relish the time that I spent with Paul Washer and the others. When I think of church I will forever remember being on top of that mountain in Sullana at that church which had no electricity and no roof. I am convinced that heaven was looking down on that little church on top of that mountain and very few people on earth even know that it exist. Oh, God I pray that the things of this world will continue to grow dim and that God’s people will be caught up in his glorious presence.
Because of the truth: Pastor: J. Randall Easter II Timothy 2:19 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases."(Ps. 115:3) "He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will."(Eph. 1:5) Those who have been saved have been saved for His glory and they are being made holy for this is the will of God. Are you being made holy? Spurgeon says, "If your religion does not make you holy it will damn you to hell."
An excellent source of out of print christian books displayed as eBooks..
http://www.the-tribulation-network.com/ebooks/
True.. I should lump in EO's with RCC's.. The EO's had to deal more severely with Muslims too.. I know.. Sorry for any slight in that way.. But I'm not a fan most any religion christian or not.. A cynic?.. Maybe..
crr: shouldn’t
You say that like it's a good thing. 8~)
Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, semper refermata, ad verbum Dei.
Well, I think we have completely different ideas about what constitutes "leadership" by the Spirit. I simply look to verses such as the following:
Rom 8:13-14 : 13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
[Who are "those", and what sort of leading is being referenced here? I think you are forced to say believers are led to only a superficial and "minimal" degree, since so much power must be reserved for the Magisterium.]
Gal 5:18 : But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. [A clear reference to salvation in terms of what a true believer looks like. This is much greater than nudges and suggestions.]
John 16:13-15 : 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
I know the standard Apostolic position is that verses like this were only directed to the Apostles, and by extension many hundreds of thousands of priests throughout the ages, regardless of their personal worthiness(es). As with other verses also so interpreted, it really leaves the Spirit's leading of the laity to be much of a joke, IMO. For anything that actually matters, my understanding is that the hierarchy of the Church claims SOLE authority to receive and interpret any messages from God. By all appearances, that would leave the job of the laity to pretty much follow the men of the Church before following any other entity. If God ONLY leads the hierarchy of the Church on important matters, then what can a layman do? He either conforms, or he is excommunicated and, in his mind, is condemned to hell forever.
The Spirit may lead in stages, but not in conflict.
Sure, but to then claim that your particular Church THEREFORE holds ALL TRUTH doesn't make sense. There are tons of examples of hierarchs of your Church disagreeing with the majority. Are the positions of your official Church based on a majority vote of hierarchs?
As to conflict, we learn early in the NT that a personal conflict led greatly to the further spreading of the Good News. That isn't automatically a bad thing.
The new age movement blended into Christianity “IS” the protestant reformation.
There was new age thought that was fought against by Saint Irenaues and others,but “new age” is a movement was brought about by people like John Calvin who was guided by evil that denied the full Bodily presence of Christ in Eucharist.
You have no pre reformation history or any denial by any holy person to support the denial of the Eucharist being the literal Body and Blood of Christ.
The FACT is that every single early Church father without even one single exception believed this and All of the Church Fathers who gave you Bible canon believed this.
I would be willing to suffer for others to become Catholic and have Faith in His Eucharistic Presence.
That is how confident and strong my faith is.
stfassi,
Of course, any reasonable person knows one cannot prove a negative. History does record, however, several church fathers claimed by the RCC that have denied the heresy known as transubstantiation. This one notion is, perhaps, the most egregious assault on the person of the Lord Jesus.
Of the Eucharist, he (Claudius) writes in his commentary on Matthew (A.D. 815) in a way which shows that he stood at the greatest distance from the opinions which Paschasius Radbertus broached eighteen years afterwards. Paschasius Radbertus, a monk, afterwards Abbot of Corbei, pretended to explain with precision the manner in which the body and blood of Christ are present in the Eucharist. He published (831) a treatise, “Concerning the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.” His doctrine amounted to the two following propositions:—1. Of the bread and wine nothing remains after consecration but the outward figure, under which the body and blood of Christ are really and locally present. 2. This body present in the Eucharist is the same body that was born of the Virgin, that suffered upon the cross, and was raised from the grave. This new doctrine excited the astonishment of not a few, and called forth several powerful opponents—amongst others, Johannes Scotus. [11] Claudius, however, thought that the Lord’s Supper was a memorial of Christ’s death, and not a repetition of it, and that the elements of bread and wine were only symbols of the flesh and blood of the Saviour. [12] It is clear from this that transubstantiation was unknown in the ninth century to the Churches at the foot of the Alps. Nor was it the Bishop of Turin only who held this doctrine of the Eucharist; we are entitled to infer that the bishops of neighbouring dioceses, both north and south of the Alps, shared the opinion of Claude. For though they differed from him on some other points, and did not conceal their difference, they expressed no dissent from his views respecting the Sacrament, and in proof of their concurrence in his general policy, strongly urged him to continue his expositions of the Sacred Scriptures. Specially was this the case as regards two leading ecclesiastics of that day, Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, and the Abbot Theodemirus. Even in the century following, we find certain bishops of the north of Italy saying that “wicked men eat the goat and not the lamb,” language wholly incomprehensible from the lips of men who believe in transubstantiation. [13]
Notes:
[11] See Mosheim, Eccles. Hist., cent. 9. [12] “Hic [panis] ad corpus Christi mystice, illud [vinum] refertur ad sanguinem.” (MS. of Com. on Matthew.) [13] Allix, chap. 10
Claudius of 815 and Scotus were NOT early Church Fathers.
Ahhhh . . . yes . . .
you must be referring to the outrageously extrapolated splinters from balsa wood toothpicks that the RC edifice has constructed so many skyscrapers on.
I guess that’s the wonderful thing about smoke and mirrors . . . pile em high on not much at all.
Given such a paucity of evidence of such . . . I suppose I could extend some courtesy benefit of the doubt . . . except that the rubber Bibles, histories, logic books etc. have trashed so many tanker fulls of the benefit of the doubt, I’m afraid I’m fresh out.
Ditto for Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen and Clement of Alexandria. They would be heretics along with Tertullian and anyone else who found a smidgen of truth in Enoch. And like Tertullian, most of their works would also have to be "eliminated."
Indeed, if Peter were found a heretic for believing Enoch about angels chained under darkness until judgment and citing it in his epistle - then the foundation of Matthew 16 for the supremacy of Rome based on Peter as a rock like Abraham - but now deemed "heretic" - would melt away.
Enoch is a theological "catch 22" for the Catholic Church underscored by hard archeological evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The carbon dating of the copies found there show that Enoch was in currency and used and believed at least 200 years before Christ and through the writing of the Gospels and Epistles - all the way up until the Church decided to eliminate it (Philastrius et al.)
BTW, for my Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ reading along here - the word from the scholars is that Enoch was in oblivion to the West at the time of Martin Luther through 1775. Further, that they relied on the Jewish "canon" for the Old Testament and the Jews had since the second century A.D. (Simeon ben Jochai et al) also "eliminated" Enoch because of its clear references to the Messiah as more than the earthy king they expected and other prophesies in Enoch which would have pointed to Jesus Christ as the Messiah.
INDEED!
Though I wouldn't recommend holding one's breath waiting for assent to the facts you so clearly stated. All RELIGIONS of man have warehouses full of rationalizations to insulate them from facts as we have seen hereon redundantly.
Thanks big, LUB,
Yet another proff that the RC edifice did not believe a seamless unchanging body of TRULY TRUEST TRUTH FROM ANY POINT IN HISTORY AND CERTAINLY NOT FROM 3XX AD or earlier.
God did not create hell for man. Man can be redeemed. Fallen angels cannot.
The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that both the elect and the lost enter into the presence of God after death, and that the elect experience this presence as light and rest, while the lost experience it as darkness and torment.[10] The Orthodox see this doctrine as supported by Scripture and by the patristic tradition.”
Yes it is. It is appointed for man to die but once and then the judgment says the author of Hebrews. This is where the Church (both Latin and Greek) draw this. There is no "underworld" of "Sheol" (as Luke believes) but an intermediate state of the soul which has been judged.
This judgment is known as the particular judgment (based on our deeds). Because we believe the soul lives it knows its fate after the judgment, namely if it is condemned or saved.
Those who die with "baggage" so to say will have it exposed before God and all the saints and the shame they will experience when their true selves is the the torment (shame) that the spirit "feels."
Since they can't repent after physical death, they experience various degrees of darkness (separation from God) and the prayers and services are intended to provide enough "light" for them to not feel lost. Being in the dark can be disheartening.
The particular judgment is therefore an intermediate state of the soul and the final salvation or damnation does not take place until the Final Judgment.
That's Christianity, as it was taught for 2,000 years, by the Church. What heretics taught or teach is of no concern to me.
i>There is a difference between testing/trials and temptation
Tempting exploits our weakness. The tempter profits from it. Those who are attached to passions can be tempted.
Unlike temptation, testing is done entirely for our benefit. It tells us where we are. If we ask God to test us, as the Psalimists do, we believe God will test our resolve (be careful what you ask for).
But this is entirely for our assurance. God being God would already know if our resolve is true or false. He doesn't need to test us to find out. He profits nothing from your strength or weakness.
And if per chance we do succomb to temptation, He has made a further way back, 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That is Christianity.
Yes, that is Christianity as taught by the Church. That's why confession is an integral and regular part of our church life. That is not the Reformed way of life, which believes that your sins are forgiven for all eternity when you "allow" Christ not only to pay your bill but carry your luggage as well.
Wow.
OK...
Thanks for reminding me why I'm a Protestant, SFA.
You're a protestant because you want to be confused and only want to follow the rules according to your own self.
It's not that easy to be a Christian and the rules of self our failing this world!
I wish you a Blessed Evening.
Take your pick of the of the following, as I cannot keep track of which ancient folk ya’ll claim - seems to vary. But of course, the notion of transubstantiation has its origins in ancient pagan religions, as do many of the celebrations and rituals embraced by many churches, including the RCC.
Tatian (110-172 AD)
“...It is not we who eat human flesh - they among you who assert such a thing have been suborned as false witnesses; it is among you that Pelops is made a supper for the gods, although beloved by Poseidon, and Kronos devours his children, and Zeus swallows Metis.”17
Here, Tatian pointedly confutes the claims of pagans in his day who attacked Christianity by misconstruing its teachings (a phenomenon as old as the faith itself). In fact, many of the very early Christian writers pointedly refused the charge that Christians “banqueted on blood”, etc., a charge which very likely originated from pagan misunderstanding of the teaching of the Lord’s Supper18. At any rate, Tatian certainly seemed quite opposed to the idea of eating anybody’s flesh, Christ’s or otherwise.
Irenaeus (120 - 200 AD)
“Then, again, how can they say that the flesh, which is nourished with the body of the Lord and with His blood, goes to corruption, and does not partake of life? Let them, therefore, either alter their opinion, or cease from offering the things just mentioned. But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit. For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.”20
Irenaeus here argues for a dualism between the physical and spiritual natures both of the bread of the Eucharist and the body of the Christian who partakes of that Eucharist. While Irenaeus does seem to follow the error of sacramental efficacy in attaching salvatic power to the Eucharist, he clearly establishes that the bread of the Eucharist, when it receives the invocation of God, attains to a dual nature, both earthly and heavenly, which would seem to be much closer to the consubstantial view of Luther than the transubstantial view of Rome. He never once mentions it becoming the body of Christ, nor does his dualistic view of the consecrated Eucharist accord with the dogma of the “real presence”. The logical understanding of his view is that our bodies, upon taking the Eucharist, have an incorruptibility which is spiritual, obviously, for it is apparent to all that they remain physically corruptible even after taking the Lord’s Supper. Irenaeus’ position cannot in any reasonable way be construed to support the belief in transubstantiation.
Clement of Alexandria (153-217 AD)
“And the blood of the Lord is twofold. For there is the blood of His flesh, by which we are redeemed from corruption; and the spiritual, that by which we are anointed. And to drink the blood of Jesus, is to become partaker of the Lord’s immortality; the Spirit being the energetic principle of the Word, as blood is of flesh.”23
Clement draws a distinction between the physical and spiritual aspects of the Lord’s blood. While he seems to be advocating the obtaining of immortality by partaking of the Lord’s Supper, an error, he correctly distinguishes between the spiritual and physical aspects of the Lord’s existence and connects this partaking of the blood and immortality with the Spirit, not the flesh. His dual view of the blood of Christ, further, is at odds with the “real presence” dogma which states that the host and wine are fully the body and blood of Christ.
“And entertaining this view, we may regard the proclamation of the Gospel, which is universally diffused, as milk; and as meat, faith, which from instruction is compacted into a foundation, which, being more substantial than hearing, is likened to meat, and assimilates to the soul itself nourishment of this kind. Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: “Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood;” describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both,—of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood. For in reality the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle.”24
Thus, Clement entertains a very symbolic, non-literal understanding of the Lord’s discourse in John 6. His interpretation has somewhat Protestant overtones to it, in its understanding that “eating the flesh and drinking the blood” are to be taken as exercising of faith in Christ and growing in the hope of the Lord.
Eusebius (260-341 AD)
“And there was one energy of the Divine Spirit pervading all the members, and one soul in all, and the same eagerness of faith, and one hymn from all in praise of the Deity. Yea, and perfect services were conducted by the prelates, the sacred rites being solemnized, and the majestic institutions of the Church observed, here with the singing of psalms and with the reading of the words committed to us by God, and there with the performance of divine and mystic services; and the mysterious symbols of the Saviour’s passion were dispensed. At the same time people of every age, both male and female, with all the power of the mind gave honor unto God, the author of their benefits, in prayers and thanksgiving, with a joyful mind and soul. And every one of the bishops present, each to the best of his ability, delivered panegyric orations, adding luster to the assembly.”25
In this passage, Eusebius is describing the establishment of open Christian worship after toleration was extended by Emperors Constantine and Licinius. In this chapter, he describes part of what can be taken as a typical Christian worship service. Included in this service was the dispensation of the elements of the Lord’s Supper, which Eusebius simply says were “symbols of the Saviour’s passion”, something with which Bible-believers today could generally agree.
Augustine (354-430 AD)
“To be sure, we often speak in the following way: As Pascha approaches, we say that tomorrow, or the day after, is ‘the Passion of the Lord,’ although He suffered so many years before, and His Passion occurred only once. Indeed, on that particular Lord’s Day we say ‘Today the Lord has risen,’ although many, many years have passed since the time when he arose. Why is it that there is no one so foolish as to accuse us of being liars when we speak in this way? It is because we name these days according to a likeness to the days on which those events took place. Thus a day, which is not the actual day, but like to it in the circle of the year, takes its name from the actual day because of the celebration of the sacrament which occurred, not on the very day of the celebration, but long ago....For if sacraments did not have a certain likeness to the things of which they are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all....Therefore....in a certain way the sacrament of the body of Christ is the body of Christ”26
Here, Augustine himself makes a relatively simple argument. Just as Christians may refer to the day of Pascha (what we call “Easter” today), the day of His resurrection, as “the day He has risen”, quite obviously the day which they speak of is not ACTUALLY that day, as the Lord’s rose many years ago, and His passion occurred only once (as Augustine points out). Likewise, the elements of the sacraments, by which here he means the bread and wine, are spoken of as having a certain likeness to what they represent in figure, these being the body and blood of Christ. This is the sense, Augustine says, in which the sacraments should be understood as “the body of Christ”.
“And because He walked here in very flesh, and gave that very flesh to us to eat for our salvation; and no one eateth that flesh, unless he hath first worshipped: we have found out in what sense such a footstool of our Lord’s may be worshipped, and not only that we sin not in worshipping it, but that we sin in not worshipping. But doth the flesh give life? Our Lord Himself, when He was speaking in praise of this same earth, said, ‘It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.’ ...But when our Lord praised it, He was speaking of His own flesh, and He had said, ‘Except a man eat My flesh, he shall have no life in him.’ Some disciples of His, about seventy, were offended, and said, ‘This is an hard saying, who can hear it?’ And they went back, and walked no more with Him. It seemed unto them hard that He said, ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you:’ they received it foolishly, they thought of it carnally, and imagined that the Lord would cut off parts from His body, and give unto them; and they said, ‘This is a hard saying.’ It was they who were hard, not the saying; for unless they had been hard, and not meek, they would have said unto themselves, He saith not this without reason, but there must be some latent mystery herein. They would have remained with Him, softened, not hard: and would have learnt that from Him which they who remained, when the others departed, learnt. For when twelve disciples had remained with Him, on their departure, these remaining followers suggested to Him, as if in grief for the death of the former, that they were offended by His words, and turned back. But He instructed them, and saith unto them, ‘It is the Spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.’ Understand spiritually what I have said; ye are not to eat this body which ye see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth. I have commended unto you a certain mystery; spiritually understood, it will quicken. Although it is needful that this be visibly celebrated, yet it must be spiritually understood”27
And here, Augustine presents us with a very standard Protestant, anti-transubstantiational interpretation of the Lord’s words in John 6. Augustine even goes so far as to say that those who interpreted Christ’s words literally were receiving it “foolishly” and that their thoughts were “carnal”, as he employs a reductio ad absurdam to make the point that their thinking was wrong. He essentially turns the entire Catholic argument against Protestants, this being that Protestants are like those who left the Lord because they were offended at His teaching, on its head.
“`Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man,’ says Christ, `and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.’ This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us.”28
Augustine seems to be recognising that to literally eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ would be to commit a “crime or a vice”. He likely recognised that such a teaching in reality violated the Law of God where it condemns the ingesting of blood, and thus argues, logically, that the meaning of the passage MUST be symbolic to remain in accord with the testimony of the rest of Scripture.
Gelasius I (d. 496 AD)
“The sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, which we receive, is a divine thing, because by it we are made partakers of the divine-nature. Yet the substance or nature of the bread and wine does not cease. And assuredly the image and the similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the performance of the mysteries.”30
Perhaps most embarrassing of all for Catholic apologists is the revelation that even Gelasius, touted as one of the greatest early “popes”, quite openly refers to the bread and wine as a “similitude”, meaning a figure, a picture, of what they represent. He also pointedly rejects the transubstantiation of these elements into the literal body and blood of Christ. He says that the bread and wine remain just that: bread and wine.
The church historian, Kelly, has been much misused by the Catholic religion to try to substantiate its claim for the apostolic origin of the “real presence” view of the Eucharist. Oft-quoted by Catholic apologists on this point, he says,
“Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestionable realistic, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be....the Saviour’s body and blood.”31
This would seem to speak in Rome’s favour, would it not? Yet, let us look and see what Kelly then continues on to say right after this:
“Among theologians, however, this identity [i.e., the “real presence”] was interpreted in our period [fourth and fifth centuries] in at least two different ways, and these interpretations, mutually exclusive though they were in strict logic, were allowed to overlap. In the first place, the figurative or symbolic view, which stressed the distinction between the visible ELEMENTS and the reality they REPRESENTED, still claimed a measure of support...”32
Notes:
(17) - Tatian, Address to the Greeks, cap. xxv
(20) - Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Lib. IV, cap.xviii,5
(23) - Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, Lib. II, cap. ii
(24) - Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, Lib. I, cap. vi
(25) - Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Lib. X, cap. iii-iv
(26) - Augustine, Letters XCVIII, cap. ix
(27) - Augustine, Exposition on the Psalms, Psalm XCIX
(28) - Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Lib. III, cap. xvi, 24
(30) - Gelasius, Bishop of Rome, in his writing against Eutyches and Nestorius
(31) - J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p.440
(32) - J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p.441
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