You do yourself a gross disservice by ignoring the blasphemous writings that were attributed to Ignatius, and to which I was replying.
If Ignatius really wrote that vile letter (which he probably didn’t) he most certainly was a lost soul!
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This is the reason why many of the non-Church fringe groups like your own group of a few hundred(strangely enough VERY well represented here, while the mainstream Protestant groups are not) are egotistical and worldly.
is an example of typical non-Church loony ego -- some guy 2000 years later thinks to pass judgement on and thinks he know more about First Century Christians than +Ignatius who was taught by the Apostle John, just a generation after Christ Himself.
Just as you say that +Ignatius is a lost soul because in his letter to the Magnesians he saidWhoever is separated from this Catholic Church, by the sin of being separated from the unity of Christ... but the Wrath of God rests upon him.
"This Church is Holy, the One Church, the True Church, the Catholic Church, fighting as she does against all heresies. She can fight, but she cannot be beaten. All heresies are expelled from her, like the useless loppings pruned from a vine. She remains fixed in her root, in her vine, in her love. The gates of hell shall not conquer her." Sermon to Catechumens, on the Creed, 6,14, 395 A.D.
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"He who does not have the church as his mother does not have God as his Father." .
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"But in regard to those observances which we carefully attend and which the whole world keeps, and which derive not from Scripture but from tradition, we are given to understand that they are recommended and ordained to be kept either by the Apostles themselves or by plenary Councils, the authority of which is quite vital to the Church."
Letter to Januarius 54,1,1, 400 A.D.
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"What they found in the Church they kept; what they learned, they taught; what they received from the fathers, they handed on to the sons."
Against Julian, 2,10,33, 421 A.D.
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"Since by Christ's favor we are Catholic Christians:"
Letter to Vitalis, 217,5,16, 427 A.D.
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"The Catholic Church is the work of Divine Providence, achieved through the prophecies of the prophets, through the Incarnation and the teaching of Christ, through the journeys of the Apostles, through the suffering, the crosses, the blood and the death of the martyrs, through the admirable lives of the saints. When, then, we see so much help on God's part, so much progress and so much fruit, shall we hesitate to bury ourselves in the bosom of that Church? For starting from the Apostolic Chair down through successions of bishops, even unto the open confession of all mankind, it has possessed the crown of teaching authority."
The Advantage of Believing, 391 A.D.
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"What the soul is to man's body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church.
The Holy Spirit does in the whole Church what the soul does in all members of one body.
But see what you must beware of, see what you must take note of, see what you must fear.
It happens that in the human body, or rather, off the body, some member, whether hand, finger, or foot, may be cut away. And if a member be cut off, does the soul go with it?
When the member was in the body, it lived; and off, its life is lost. So too, a Christian man is Catholic while he lives in the body; cut off, he is made a heretic; the Spirit does not follow an amputated member."
Sermons, 267, 4, 391-430 A.D.
In like manner let everyone respect the deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, and just as they respect the bishop as a type of the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God and college of the apostles. Without these, it cannot be called a church. I am confident that you accept this, for I have received the exemplar of your love and have it with me in the person of your bishop. His very demeanor is a great lesson and his meekness is his strength. I believe that even the godless do respect him (ibid., 3:12).
He that is within the sanctuary is pure; but he that is outside the sanctuary is not pure. In other words, anyone who acts without the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons does not have a clear conscience