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To: BenKenobi
Seeing as you’ve accused us of being slaves to the Pope, I should think you’d be looking for Papal evidence.

What papal evidence? The earliest writings about it are NON Christian? Have you ever read the Transitus by Pseudo Melito? It is a Gnostic or Collyridian fable sounding more like myths of King Arthur than anything Christian.

R.P.C. Hanson gives the following summation of the teaching of the Assumption, emphasizing the lack of patristic and Scriptural support for it and affirming that it originated not with the Church but with Gnosticism:

This dogma has no serious connection with the Bible at all, and its defenders scarcely pretend that it has. It cannot honestly be said to have any solid ground in patristic theology either, because it is frist known among Catholic Christians in even its crudest form only at the beginning of the fifth century, and then among Copts in Egypt whose associations with Gnostic heresy are suspiciously strong; indeed it can be shown to be a doctrine which manifestly had its origin among Gnostic heretics. The only argument by which it is defended is that if the Church has at any time believed it and does now believe it, then it must be orthodox, whatever its origins, because the final standard of orthodoxy is what the Church believes. The fact that this belief is presumably supposed to have some basis on historical fact analogous to the belief of all Christians in the resurrection of our Lord makes its registration as a dogma de fide more bewilderingly incomprehensible, for it is wholly devoid of any historical evidence to support it. In short, the latest example of the Roman Catholic theory of doctrinal development appears to be a reductio ad absurdum expressly designed to discredit the whole structure (R.P.C. Hanson, The Bible as a Norm of Faith (University of Durham, 1963), Inaugral Lecture of the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity delivered in the Appleby Lecture Theatre on 12 March, 1963, p. 14).

1,107 posted on 12/20/2010 10:26:17 AM PST by bkaycee
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To: bkaycee

“What papal evidence? The earliest writings about it are NON Christian? Have you ever read the Transitus by Pseudo Melito? It is a Gnostic or Collyridian fable sounding more like myths of King Arthur than anything Christian.”

If your assertion has basis we would have seen some Papal reference thereof. Seeing as you would have quoted said Papal evidence if you knew it existed I can only conclude two things.

One, you are unaware of any Papal statement that confirms what you have stated here, or:

Two, such a Papal statement doesn’t exist because your assertion is entirely false.

We as Catholics aren’t bound to accept any of your citation. We are, however bound to accept the proclamation from the Pope. So until you have Papal evidence to confirm your statement, you are wasting your time. Except of course, to preach to the choir.


1,109 posted on 12/20/2010 10:31:27 AM PST by BenKenobi (Rush speaks! I hear, I obey)
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