Schaffs more extensive work as to ECF's shows how needful the work he and others did was, and how wrong guys like Newman were.
To be deeper in history than Newman was, is to not come up with the excuses for Romish alterations and additions (to Christian theology) which Newman had to...
If one had been paying attention, reading carefully to see if their own assumptions, along with statements such as the Newman quote could be falsified (or need some modification), then it should have been obvious by now Newman was engaging in wishful thinking -- to justify his own conversion. But then again, Newman was operating under assumptions based in part upon limited work (from Oxford) in regards to ECF's that favored Romish perspective (a kind of cherry-picking of quotes and citation) which the more thorough work of Schaff and Co., revealed was not only lacking, but misleading -- and quite possibly deliberately so. And so the conversation continues to echo...much of the same old same old. But thank you, and other Romanists for providing the ample (and daily) opportunities for rebuttals of various aspects of Romanism.
Any theory -- including theology -- which is refuted by facts in evidence, stands to be reconsidered or adjusted, if only as to wording.
From there...it gets even more interesting, for various RCC wordings can mean different things to different people, being possibly true enough in one regard, but not so true if particular assumptions as to word definitions and in particular --- identification -- are not carefully enough weighed and considered.
Vatican II, anyone? How many times have [Roman] Catholics pointed at that RC magesterium product as being either a work of evil, or "misinterpreted" even by their own clerics?
It must be confusing to be a [Roman] Catholic. I feel sorry for 'em [sometimes].
“It must be confusing to be a [Roman] Catholic. I feel sorry for ‘em [sometimes]”
Pardon me. We all know the 40,000 or so PROTESTants churchs that have been around for a couple of hundred years, with a new one popping up on every street corner in the country that some loudmouth shyster can pay rent on, are the real church and they all have it right. Just Pastor Billy Bob or Deacon Jerome. All good men of the cloth, gonna get you to heaven.
Well, they're the schismatics according to the EO, who themselves claim to be the original, one true Catholic church from which the Roman rite split off.
I do feel sorry for anyone who thinks a denomination = the OTC. That's an awful lot of deception to not even know what the body of Christ is really all about.
From there...it gets even more interesting, for various RCC wordings can mean different things to different people...
...wordings of just about everything documented on earth means different things to different people...including the charters of all the distinct Protestant sects and denominations...but thanks for pointing out the obvious...