Posted on 01/21/2015 4:47:04 PM PST by RnMomof7
As a church history professor, I am sometimes asked how certain practices developed in church history. For example: When did the Roman Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) emphasis on praying to saints and venerating relics and icons begin?
A somewhat obscure, but extremely helpful, book by John Calvin answers that question directly.
In his work, A Treatise on Relics, Calvin utilizes his extensive knowledge of church history to demonstrate that prayers to the saints, prayers for the dead, the veneration of relics, the lighting of candles (in homage to the saints), and the veneration of icons are all rooted in Roman paganism. Such practices infiltrated the Christian church after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.
Here is an excerpt from Calvin’s work that summarizes his thesis:
Hero-worship is innate to human nature, and it is founded on some of our noblest feelings, — gratitude, love, and admiration, — but which, like all other feelings, when uncontrolled by principle and reason, may easily degenerate into the wildest exaggerations, and lead to most dangerous consequences. It was by such an exaggeration of these noble feelings that [Roman] Paganism filled the Olympus with gods and demigods, — elevating to this rank men who have often deserved the gratitude of their fellow-creatures, by some signal services rendered to the community, or their admiration, by having performed some deeds which required a more than usual degree of mental and physical powers.
The same cause obtained for the Christian martyrs the gratitude and admiration of their fellow-Christians, and finally converted them into a kind of demigods. This was more particularly the case when the church began to be corrupted by her compromise with Paganism [during the fourth and fifth-centuries], which having been baptized without being converted, rapidly introduced into the Christian church, not only many of its rites and ceremonies, but even its polytheism, with this difference, that the divinities of Greece and Rome were replaced by Christian saints, many of whom received the offices of their Pagan predecessors.
The church in the beginning tolerated these abuses, as a temporary evil, but was afterwards unable to remove them; and they became so strong, particularly during the prevailing ignorance of the middle ages, that the church ended up legalizing, through her decrees, that at which she did nothing but wink at first.
In a footnote, Calvin gives specific examples of how Christians saints simply became substitutes for pagan deities.
Thus St. Anthony of Padua restores, like Mercury, stolen property; St. Hubert, like Diana, is the patron of sportsmen; St. Cosmas, like Esculapius, that of physicians, etc. In fact, almost every profession and trade, as well as every place, have their especial patron saint, who, like the tutelary divinity of the Pagans, receives particular hours from his or her protégés.
You can read the entire work on Google Books.
Calvin’s treatment includes a historical overview, quotes from the church fathers, and even citations from sixteenth-century Roman Catholic scholars. The result is an air-tight case for the true origin of many Catholic practices.
Calvin’s conclusion is that these practices are nothing more than idolatrous superstitions, rooted in ancient Roman paganism. Even today, five centuries later, his work still serves as a necessary warning to those who persist in such idolatry. Hence his concluding sentence: “Now, those who fall into this error must do so willingly, as no one can from henceforth plead ignorance on the subject as their excuse.”
wow
LOL. You win the post of the day award. It is truly amazing isn't it? Maybe it is like Adam sewing fig leaves together, the first religious act. When men try to reach out to God, they generally mess it up. I prefer to let God reach out to man. He has a better track record.
A bit long, but a good read. Some crazy stuff going on out there.
What’s even crazier than these Monty Python type stories is that there are Catholics who actually believe them...
Why would a demon perform an act which appears to accrue to the greater glory of God?
Yes, sorry about the length, but the original is even longer, and i wanted to supply enough of the depth of it. The devil often works in religion to two extremes, asceticism or indulgence.
Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain. (Proverbs 30:7-9)
But Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. (1 Timothy 6:6-8)
If they do, I would think deception would be the reason. When the beast and false prophet are on the world scene, I suspect there will be a whole lot of deceiving going on out there.
I'm quite sure that SLC has had him dead dunked by now.
It appears that LOTS of FR Catholics are not to fond of their latest leader; either.
You ought to by now!
He has done it for years here!
Chick is a banned source on Free Republic. Do not mention him either for or against.
Now wait just a doggone minute here!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Guinefort
Nobody kept track of Mary after the day of Pentecostal. She was obviously so irrelevant that not one word was written by either secular or religious writers. The can't even say definitively where she lived or where she died. That pretty much explains "no relics". She wasn't all that important to them.
Erased or changed history isn't just for liberals.
Maybe I ought to set up a shrine for good ol’ Blue.
Since I posted my nonsense about Catherine of Siena, I learned that she was one very sick person and to be pitied, not venerated and misused by the RCC clergy. Cannot tell if she was one of the many female anorexics of that period in history but it sounds as if she was “continually fasting” from food.
And did you hear what she said Jesus gave her instead of a wedding ring?
Dad told me to avoid Catholic girls while in college.
It’s amazing to me that Catholics even ask those questions. Do they not read scripture for themselves at all?
One must be careful here to agree upon a definition of "miracles" before proceeding further. In brief:
Scripture plainly states that seducing spirits can perform wondrous acts in their dark plan of damnation, however these "wondrous acts" are not and can not be understood to be creative in their end result.
Given that later caveat, we can see that the miracles attributed to various Saints' intercession over the centuries can not have come from the Devil. Again, because he along with all his minions, can not create one single thing. Only God, who is Love, creates.
Thus, any miracle that actually "creates" something, which at least most that we commonly refer as "miracles" have done, such as a healing, or the Miracle of the Lanciano flesh, are indeed assuredly from God.
The cases where "mere" (as if that adjective truly is appropriate but for lack of a better one it will suffice) visions of Christ and/or Mary appear could, in theory be argued as demonic, if present only by themselves, especially if said visions allegedly tell the viewer to do something contrary to His Word.
However in all cases where the Church has said such are authentic, other creative miracles have also occurred in the life or due to the intercession of said Saint, so thus again, could only have come from God for the same reason as above.
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