Many, many, many times, Kosta. The Greeks and the Jews here experienced a very similar immigrant experience and we kids, Greek and Jewish, had to go to Greek and Hebrew school after American school got out. All the other kids got to play. We attended their festivals and dances, they ours. Our parents grew up together. They came to our devotions, funerals, weddings, etc and we to theirs. We played basketball at the Jewish Community Center. There were three great "powers" in my town. Nothing happened without their OK... the rabbi, the senior Irish Catholic monsignor and the Greek Priest. The rabbi was just about my grandfather's best friend. I, like all the Greek and even Irish kids, almost grew up at the temple. I'll tell you, Kosta, any of us, to this day, are very comfortable at the temple. When you hear a cantor chant the psalms, don't you think immediately of Great Vespers and Great Week?
I don't know, Kolo, the Gospels are pretty clear that those who don't are the goats. That's what the Church taught for 2,000 years until the age of political correctness. You think the Church could have been wrong all these millennia?
Blessed Augustine taught, who knows:
"How many sheep there are without, how many wolves within! [The Church]?", Kosta. +Peter says:
"Truly I perceive God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him" at Acts 10:34-35. Above our pay grade, Kosta.
"In fact, Christ calls the unbelieving Jews the sons of the devil!"
No doubt the unbelieving Jews were.
"Why, didn't the Church even proclaim by an Ecumenical Council (I believe maybe the VI) that Christians were not allowed to choose Jewish doctors?"
Indeed a council did, the Quinisext not the 6th. We call it Ecumenical. The West doesn't. The purpose of such a restriction, and others, was to prevent conversion to Judaism, which was a real or imagined problem at the time."
"Kolo, it is sad but John 3 is as phony as a $3 bill."
Kosta, +Ignatius of Antioch, John's disciple, apparently didn't think so:
"For though some would have deceived me according to the flesh, yet the Spirit, as being from God, is not deceived. For it knows both whence it comes and whither it goes."
Kolo, I hate to disagree with you, believe me, but the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. The Jews gather in synagogues where no offering is made. There is no Jewish temple anywhere.
Blessed Augustine taught, who knows: How many sheep there are without, how many wolves within!
Matthew 25 says otherwise. Not all are included. John doesn't think so either. You have to eat his body and drink his blood in order to have life everlasting, Kolo. And there is much more...
Truly I perceive God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him"
He shows no partiality except for those who fear him, Kolo? That seems pretty partial to me, don't you think?
The purpose of such a restriction, and others, was to prevent conversion to Judaism, which was a real or imagined problem at the time."
Why? Was there any real tendency, even "danger" (in 692 AD!) for Christians to convert to a hated religion en masse? Somehow that seems a little hyperbolic, Kolo. Sorry.
Kosta, +Ignatius of Antioch, John's disciple, apparently didn't think so: "For though some would have deceived me according to the flesh, yet the Spirit, as being from God, is not deceived. For it [sic] knows both whence it comes and whither it goes."
Ignatius doesn't even quote form John. By all accounts he wasn't even aware John wrote anything. In fact he quotes only from Gospel according to Matthew, Luke, Acts, Romans, I Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, and I Thessalonians.
Anyway, the quote you use has nothing to do with John 3. But it does say something about Ignatius' concept of the triune God. He calls the Spirit an "it." Faith once delivered and believed everywhere and always?