Posted on 01/06/2013 3:56:49 PM PST by NYer
Bl. John Henry Newman said it best: “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.” History paints an overwhelming picture of St. Peter’s apostolic ministry in Rome and this is confirmed by a multitude of different sources within the Early Church. Catholic Encyclopedia states, “In opposition to this distinct and unanimous testimony of early Christendom, some few Protestant historians have attempted in recent times to set aside the residence and death of Peter at Rome as legendary. These attempts have resulted in complete failure.” Protestantism as a whole seeks to divorce Christianity from history by rending Gospel message out of its historical context as captured by our Early Church Fathers. One such target of these heresies is to devalue St. Peter and to twist the authority of Rome into a historical mishap within Christianity. To wit, the belief has as its end the ultimate end of all Catholic and Protestant dialogue – who has authority in Christianity?
Why is it important to defend the tradition of St. Peter and Rome?
The importance of establishing St. Peter’s ministry in Rome may be boiled down to authority and more specifically the historic existence and continuance of the Office of Vicar held by St. Peter. To understand why St. Peter was important and what authority was given to him by Christ SPL has composed two lists – 10 Biblical Reasons Christ Founded the Papacy and 13 Reasons St. Peter Was the Prince of the Apostles.
The rest of the list is cited from the Catholic Encyclopedia on St. Peter and represents only a small fraction of the evidence set therein.
It is an indisputably established historical fact that St. Peter laboured in Rome during the last portion of his life, and there ended his earthly course by martyrdom. As to the duration of his Apostolic activity in the Roman capital, the continuity or otherwise of his residence there, the details and success of his labours, and the chronology of his arrival and death, all these questions are uncertain, and can be solved only on hypotheses more or less well-founded. The essential fact is that Peter died at Rome: this constitutes the historical foundation of the claim of the Bishops of Rome to the Apostolic Primacy of Peter.
St. Peter’s residence and death in Rome are established beyond contention as historical facts by a series of distinct testimonies extending from the end of the first to the end of the second centuries, and issuing from several lands.
That the manner, and therefore the place of his death, must have been known in widely extended Christian circles at the end of the first century is clear from the remark introduced into the Gospel of St. John concerning Christ’s prophecy that Peter was bound to Him and would be led whither he would not — “And this he said, signifying by what death he should glorify God” (John 21:18-19, see above). Such a remark presupposes in the readers of the Fourth Gospel a knowledge of the death of Peter.
St. Peter’s First Epistle was written almost undoubtedly from Rome, since the salutation at the end reads: “The church that is in Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you: and so doth my son Mark” (5:13). Babylon must here be identified with the Roman capital; since Babylon on the Euphrates, which lay in ruins, or New Babylon (Seleucia) on the Tigris, or the Egyptian Babylon near Memphis, or Jerusalem cannot be meant, the reference must be to Rome, the only city which is called Babylon elsewhere in ancient Christian literature (Revelation 17:5; 18:10; “Oracula Sibyl.”, V, verses 143 and 159, ed. Geffcken, Leipzig, 1902, 111).
From Bishop Papias of Hierapolis and Clement of Alexandria, who both appeal to the testimony of the old presbyters (i.e., the disciples of the Apostles), we learn that Mark wrote his Gospel in Rome at the request of the Roman Christians, who desired a written memorial of the doctrine preached to them by St. Peter and his disciples (Eusebius, Church History II.15, 3.40, 6.14); this is confirmed by Irenaeus (Against Heresies 3.1). In connection with this information concerning the Gospel of St. Mark, Eusebius, relying perhaps on an earlier source, says that Peter described Rome figuratively as Babylon in his First Epistle.
Another testimony concerning the martyrdom of Peter and Paul is supplied by Clement of Rome in his Epistle to the Corinthians (written about A.D. 95-97), wherein he says (chapter 5):
“Through zeal and cunning the greatest and most righteous supports [of the Church] have suffered persecution and been warred to death. Let us place before our eyes the good Apostles — St. Peter, who in consequence of unjust zeal, suffered not one or two, but numerous miseries, and, having thus given testimony (martyresas), has entered the merited place of glory”.
He then mentions Paul and a number of elect, who were assembled with the others and suffered martyrdom “among us” (en hemin, i.e., among the Romans, the meaning that the expression also bears in chapter 4). He is speaking undoubtedly, as the whole passage proves, of the Neronian persecution, and thus refers the martyrdom of Peter and Paul to that epoch.
In his letter written at the beginning of the second century (before 117), while being brought to Rome for martyrdom, the venerable Bishop Ignatius of Antioch endeavours by every means to restrain the Roman Christians from striving for his pardon, remarking: “I issue you no commands, like Peter and Paul: they were Apostles, while I am but a captive” (Epistle to the Romans 4). The meaning of this remark must be that the two Apostles laboured personally in Rome, and with Apostolic authority preached the Gospel there.
Bishop Dionysius of Corinth, in his letter to the Roman Church in the time of Pope Soter (165-74), says:
“You have therefore by your urgent exhortation bound close together the sowing of Peter and Paul at Rome and Corinth. For both planted the seed of the Gospel also in Corinth, and together instructed us, just as they likewise taught in the same place in Italy and at the same time suffered martyrdom” (in Eusebius, Church History II.25).
Irenaeus of Lyons, a native of Asia Minor and a disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna (a disciple of St. John), passed a considerable time in Rome shortly after the middle of the second century, and then proceeded to Lyons, where he became bishop in 177; he described the Roman Church as the most prominent and chief preserver of the Apostolic tradition, as “the greatest and most ancient church, known by all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul” (Against Heresies 3.3; cf. 3.1). He thus makes use of the universally known and recognized fact of the Apostolic activity of Peter and Paul in Rome, to find therein a proof from tradition against the heretics.
In his “Hypotyposes” (Eusebius, Church History IV.14), Clement of Alexandria, teacher in the catechetical school of that city from about 190, says on the strength of the tradition of the presbyters: “After Peter had announced the Word of God in Rome and preached the Gospel in the spirit of God, the multitude of hearers requested Mark, who had long accompanied Peter on all his journeys, to write down what the Apostles had preached to them” (see above).
Like Irenaeus, Tertullian appeals, in his writings against heretics, to the proof afforded by the Apostolic labours of Peter and Paul in Rome of the truth of ecclesiastical tradition. In De Præscriptione 36, he says:
“If thou art near Italy, thou hast Rome where authority is ever within reach. How fortunate is this Church for which the Apostles have poured out their whole teaching with their blood, where Peter has emulated the Passion of the Lord, where Paul was crowned with the death of John.”
In Scorpiace 15, he also speaks of Peter’s crucifixion. “The budding faith Nero first made bloody in Rome. There Peter was girded by another, since he was bound to the cross”. As an illustration that it was immaterial with what water baptism is administered, he states in his book (On Baptism 5) that there is “no difference between that with which John baptized in the Jordan and that with which Peter baptized in the Tiber”; and against Marcion he appeals to the testimony of the Roman Christians, “to whom Peter and Paul have bequeathed the Gospel sealed with their blood” (Against Marcion 4.5).
The Roman, Caius, who lived in Rome in the time of Pope Zephyrinus (198-217), wrote in his “Dialogue with Proclus” (in Eusebius, Church History II.25) directed against the Montanists: “But I can show the trophies of the Apostles. If you care to go to the Vatican or to the road to Ostia, thou shalt find the trophies of those who have founded this Church”.
By the trophies (tropaia) Eusebius understands the graves of the Apostles, but his view is opposed by modern investigators who believe that the place of execution is meant. For our purpose it is immaterial which opinion is correct, as the testimony retains its full value in either case. At any rate the place of execution and burial of both were close together; St. Peter, who was executed on the Vatican, received also his burial there. Eusebius also refers to “the inscription of the names of Peter and Paul, which have been preserved to the present day on the burial-places there” (i.e. at Rome).
There thus existed in Rome an ancient epigraphic memorial commemorating the death of the Apostles. The obscure notice in the Muratorian Fragment (“Lucas optime theofile conprindit quia sub praesentia eius singula gerebantur sicuti et semote passionem petri evidenter declarat”, ed. Preuschen, Tübingen, 1910, p. 29) also presupposes an ancient definite tradition concerning Peter’s death in Rome.
The apocryphal Acts of St. Peter and the Acts of Sts. Peter and Paul likewise belong to the series of testimonies of the death of the two Apostles in Rome.
Not only do they become literally, physically hungry and thirsty, they also teach that you have to repeatedly partake of the host because Jesus is only in you as long as the host is and that if you sin, He's gone.
So they quote *never hunger and never thirst* but teach and practice otherwise. Otherwise, one would only have to partake of communion once to be saved.
How despicable.
That's EXACTLY how the church dealt with it until they got caught doing it.
What's despicable is that it took the WORLD to correct the RCC, which claims it is the only one true church established by Jesus?
Since when is/should the world supposed to be more righteous than the church? At least the world knows how to deal with pedophiles.
Something tells me that means the Catholic church cannot be the one true church.
Something tells me that means the Catholic church cannot be the one true church.
LOL ya think?
There sure is a bunch of “somethings”
John 17:20-23 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
Colossians 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Too bad you've chosen to start HERE; instead of 2 verses back...
John 6:28-29
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
1 John 3:21-24
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Like these verses?
John 6:35-36 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.
Looks like Jesus is saying he's made out of bread. Why isn't that taken literally?
John 37-39 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
Jesus promises that we wouldn't lose our salvation here. Why don't they take that literally?
40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Oh, look at that. Salvation through faith. Ought we not to take that literally?
John 6:47-51 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Again Jesus is saying He's bread. Taken literally, that means He is made out of bread dough.
And He promises that those who eat will never die. That should be taken literally, physically as well. And yet I don't think I've ever met anyone whose body hasn't died. If we're going to take Jesus' words literally, that should mean never die, just like Jesus said.
John 6:53-58 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
So taking communion should be a one time only deal and our physical bodies will never die. Right?
John 6:63 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.”
And here Jesus says that the words He has spoken are spirit and life, the FLESH is no help at all, and yet Catholicism teaches it's all about the flesh. They are teaching something contradictory to what Jesus Himself is recorded in Scripture as saying.
Let me guess who I'm going to believe.
John 6:67-69 67 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
Even a carnal mind can see there’s something wrong with that deal. The Jesus we true believers worship is surely much more complete and loving than the “always have to renew” person they purport to serve. The weak god they serve is certainly not the Jesus that said “it is finished” on the cross. Denying the truth of the rent veil is surely a slap in the face of the Jesus we serve.
You can say it all you want but it doesn't make it the truth. In fact, your statement here is provably false because the Eastern Orthodox Church is NOT in unity with the Roman Catholic Church on some MAJOR dogmas the Roman rite insists MUST be believed in order to gain salvation. It's okay for them to reject your dogma but "Protestants", who hold to the doctrines believe from the start, are rejected, mocked and ridiculed? Seems to me the "strange beliefs" are all on you guys' side, at least according to what Scripture says.
Please delete my account. I no longer wish to expose myself to the sin that pervades the Religion Forum and concede the cesspool to those who created it.
Those who have been here longer know who, among only a few, has been one the RCs here who has been most prone to engaging in personal attacks, not even when provoked by the same, and even unapologetically making blatantly false charges, which have been substantiated, and then lecturing others against taking the low road in debate.
Resigning is sometimes the closest thing to an apology that we ever see from such, if in deed that happens without registering under a new name.
First used??? You mean like Ignatius made it up? No, he didn't, in fact:
The combination "the Catholic Church" (he katholike ekklesia) is found for the first time in the letter of St. Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, written about the year 110. The words run: "Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal [katholike] Church." However, in view of the context, some difference of opinion prevails as to the precise connotation of the italicized word, and Kattenbusch, the Protestant professor of theology at Giessen, is prepared to interpret this earliest appearance of the phrase in the sense of mia mone, the "one and only" Church [Das apostolische Symbolum (1900), II, 922]. From this time forward the technical signification of the word Catholic meets us with increasing frequency both East and West, until by the beginning of the fourth century it seems to have almost entirely supplanted the primitive and more general meaning. The earlier examples have been collected by Caspari (Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols, etc., III, 149 sqq.). Many of them still admit the meaning "universal". The reference (c. 155) to "the bishop of the catholic church in Smyrna" (Letter on the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, xvi), a phrase which necessarily presupposes a more technical use of the word, is due, some critics think, to interpolation. On the other hand this sense undoubtedly occurs more than once in the Muratorian Fragment (c. 180), where, for example, it is said of certain heretical writings that they "cannot be received in the Catholic Church". A little later, Clement of Alexandria speaks very clearly. "We say", he declares, "that both in substance and in seeming, both in origin and in development, the primitive and Catholic Church is the only one, agreeing as it does in the unity of one faith" (Stromata, VII, xvii; P.G., IX, 552). From this and other passages which might be quoted, the technical use seems to have been clearly established by the beginning of the third century. In this sense of the word it implies sound doctrine as opposed to heresy, and unity of organization as opposed to schism (Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II, vol. I, 414 sqq. and 621 sqq.; II, 310-312). In fact Catholic soon became in many cases a mere appellative--the proper name, in other words, of the true Church founded by Christ, just as we now frequently speak of the Orthodox Church, when referring to the established religion of the Russian Empire, without adverting to the etymology of the title so used....
Although belief in the "holy Church" was included in the earliest form of the Roman Creed, the word Catholic does not seem to have been added to the Creed anywhere in the West until the fourth century. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03449a.htm)
So, just as we can know what the TRUE church of Jesus Christ believes and that all believers in that same truth are members of the "universal" church, the Body of Christ, we can also know which groups are NOT members of the genuine Body of Christ. The truths contained in the Holy Scriptures are the authority by which all truth claims must be measured - and God does not leave such intrinsic tenets cloudy or unknown. He has clearly and unambiguously revealed the GOSPEL and all those who receive Jesus Christ and believe in his atonement ARE members of His body. NOBODY gets "dibs" on the name of those who belong to Christ. He knows those that are His and His own know Him and follow Him.
3. "Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in ME FIRST Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a PATTERN to them which should HEREAFTER BELIEVE on Him to life everlasting." (1 TIm. 1:14-16).
Got that? Paul says through the Holy Spirit, the he was the FIRST to obtain this mercy. Not 13th, not after the 12, the FIRST. For a PATTERN. A guide. To who would he be the first to be a guide? Those who HEREAFTER Paul believed on Christ. Not the 12. Paul was chosen by Christ to be the pattern everyone after him believed.
It is difficult to understand how anyone can read this portion of Scripture without seeing that God began a NEW DISPENSATION with the conversion of Saul. When Christ was seen by Stephen STANDING on the right hand of GOd, it meant one thing. Judgement was about to fall. When Israel killed Stephen, God's wrath was ripe to be poured out. Christ stands. But instead of wrath being poured out, Christ reached down and SAVED Saul. WHAT? This was never prophesied. A Hebrew Roman who laid waste the believers? Rather than judging Israel and the world immediately, the rejected Lord demonstrated His infinite love by saving Saul and sending him forth with "the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24). This "dispensation of the grace of God" by Paul is the dispensation under which we now live. It is our pattern for this age. It will not be brought to a close until the Lord Himself comes to call the members of His body to heaven. THEN the prophetic program which John the Baptist, Christ, Peter and the 11, and all believing Israel will again be resumed and the bowls of God's wrath will be poured out upon a Christ-rejecting world.
But what about the 12 you ask? Read Matt. 19:28. THAT is what they were looking for. And were commissioned to preach. And will fulfill when Christ returns to set up His Messianic Kingdom. Until then, The Authority of Christianity is Centered on The Body of Christ, and the pattern set forth as was given to Paul by the risen Jesus Christ. It has nothing to do with nations, or organizations, or political reasons. It has everything to do with individuals, and the finished work of Christ. And God reconciling fallen man to Himself, not imputing their sins unto them, because of the death of Christ in our stead. II Corinthians 5:14-21.
Indeed! Paul is the first of the Gentile believers. It was he who Christ assigned the task of apostle to the gentiles. The Catholic Church has perverted most every teaching of scripture.
God bless you all.
NL has nothing to apologize for from what I can see .
NL is just following what Jesus did....Even Jesus eventually gave up on the Pharisees.
What’s an apology?
JESUS never denied HIS Holy Spirit inspired WORD was the FINAL authority!! Repent of that! Never use the Name of Jesus and deny the power of the Holy Spirit for your own agenda.
Jesus spoke of the hypocrites and how their lips honored HIM but their hearts are far from him because of the teachings of man!
Now you can apologize and repent.
Pharisees...noted for strict observance of rites and ceremonies of the written law and for insistence on the validity of their own oral traditions concerning the lawThese points made it difficult to have reasoned debate.
"Perisha" (the singular of "Perishaya") denotes "one who separates himself," or keeps away from persons or things impure, in order to attain the degree of holiness and righteousness required in those who would commune with God
The Pharisees formed a league or brotherhood of their own who...pledged themselves to the strict observance of Levitical purity, to the avoidance of closer association with the "ignorant and careless boor"
The Pharisees placed considerable emphasis upon the rigorous upholding of the law, particularly the traditional forms in which the law had been established by their predecessors.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves.
A Jewish religious party whose members required a very strict adherence to the ritual law and to the traditions of their predecessors. They were hostile to the teaching of Jesus Christ, which they regarded as compromising their interpretation of the law.
arrogance
Proud and unpleasant behaviour towards other people, based on a belief in one’s own superiority or greater importance.
A sense of being of greater importance or value in comparison with others, which can lead to arrogance and boasting.
Natural Law is gone.
Long live Natural Law!
Amen!
I believe He used Paul because Paul was ‘hot’ for what he ‘knew to be truth’ according to the law. Paul was never lukewarm. All he needed was the Truth about Jesus and he would be just as hot, if not more, for Jesus. And he certainly was and had the power, the Spirit of The Lord within as his authority and not man.
Truly this is the age of grace and our sins are not imputed to us - JESUS took it all on Himself and we either receive it and live for Him or reject it. Not believing His Word is the Final authority is rejecting Him because Jesus is The Word!
Did you happen to see his next to last post at 2458? Here, I'll repeat what he said:
"Your first mistake was expecting an honest and civil discussion with these people. Thankfully, they do not represent the vast majority of our separated brothers and sisters who are honestly Christian enough to be honest in their discussions."
"What you will get from these people is lies and insults carefully couched in the rules of the forum and outrageous accusations that have been responded to many, many times. If we allow ourselves to be troubled by the liars, to be goaded to respond in kind or to rise to anger they will have succeeded in thier incitements to sin. Concede the mud hole to the pigs but continue to love and serve the lord."
Is this how you see the non-Catholics on this forum as well? I think NL has MUCH to apologize for and he said far worse and insulting things as exampled here than ANYONE gave him in return. He had said in the past that this forum was a "near occasion of sin" for him and he demonstrated his lack of self control and discipline by what he said in his swan song here. Hopefully this WILL be last we hear from those who would turn a discussion on the gospel of Jesus Christ into a hateful, outrageous and vile tantrum - carefully couched in the rules of the forum - because he couldn't get his way!
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