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.”
So it seems
Ephesus, for one.
It is an open question whether Mary died or not.
Tell me, did I ever assert that nobody ever wrote anything?
What conceivable point are you trying to make by assembling a bunch of Scripture verses that remind us that PEOPLE WROTE STUFF?
Please respond to my post 250 to you.
Thank you for not ignoring it.
R2z
That doesn't say "Mary told him" or that she "was his source". In fact, your statement counters what Jesus said.
John 14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
>>The notion that Mary was “unimportant” and that nobody even cared where she lived is preposterous.<<
So show us any writing or accounts of her life after Pentecost.
>>You are stuffed so full of anti-Mary propaganda that you are willing to contradict the gospels.<<
I just showed where you contradicted the gospels. Your assertion that Luke said Mary was his source in simply injecting something that isn't there.
>>In St. John’s gospel, Jesus is FOUNDING THE CHURCH,<<
No, it says He will build His ekklēsian, those "called out". If you think that word means "church" as the Catholic Church would have you believe then you have to also think any meeting of those "called out" for meeting of government or whatever was also the "church". A little study of what the word "ekkelesia" means and how it was used during that time could save themselves the embarrassment off comments about the "church" and what Christ said He would build.
>>He gives Mary to John (and therefore to the whole Church) as mother.<<
So now John symbolizes the church? That's simply an injection that isn't there. Besides, scripture says that the "Jerusalem which is above is the mother of us all" not Mary.
As for the rest of your post, I do believe you have been warned about raising the name of he who will not be mentioned on this site. Like I said, the Catholic Church cannot definitively state where Mary died as they don't know where she was actually living. There is simply no word of her after Pentecost. Making things up doesn't change that fact.
POST NUMBER CORRECTION...
Please respond to my post 350 to you.
Thank you for not ignoring it.
R2z
Just like your assumption of Mary? Or maybe recommendations to pray to saints to get better reception? Or maybe the Jesus would send Mary as His advocate? Or maybe even the trinity for that matter.
Many Christians here, including myself, have received a knowledge of WHO Jesus of Nazareth really is from reading the Gospels and other New Testament books in addition to the Old Testament books compiled in the Holy Bible.
Not only have I learned and ACCEPTED that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ and the Son of the Living God via Scripture and hearing and responding to the foolishness of the preaching the Cross, I also have a personal intimate daily relationship with Him in Spirit and via His Written Word and have been given the Seal that promises me that I am known in Christ as well.
No believer in Lord Jesus Christ needs Rome or any other religious system to be a Christian and to be saved from the second death and eternal separation from Almighty God and to have fellowship with the saints here and now.
Says who and what's their source proof? Wait....I think I found it.
"The house was discovered in the 19th century by following the descriptions in the reported visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824)"
On, and there is this. "The Catholic Church has never pronounced in favour or against the authenticity of the house."
Well there you have it. The concrete evidence!!! Right?
So they don't talk about "the dormition of Mary"?
To reiterate: Jewish tradition allowed for the recognition of material relics as holy (see above biblical proof texts) and the early Christians continued the practice.
To reiterate: Jewish tradition allowed for the recognition of material relics as holy (see above biblical proof texts) and the early Christians continued the practice.
He has always hated graven images and idols also. Did you ever catch that in the Old testament? Relics are man made for mans purposes.
Why would God Never allow any earthly image of him?
He is a jealous God. Anything that distracts from Him is an idol.
Why would you rely on traditions when you have the primary source, the Bible, available to you.
Why would you pray to Mary when God invites you to speak with him as Father?
Now there's an ASSUMPTION about Mary that has no basis either.
There's simply nothing in the context that indicates that Jesus meant that.
The need to have no relics of Mary to *prove* her *assumption* is plenty enough reason to hide them.
if there were relics of Mary, it would blow the whole assumption of Mary schtick to pieces.
As long as the church wants to perpetuate that myth, then no relics will ever be found.
Thus, in a Catholic's eyes, making that *proof* that Mary was assumed.
It's not merely circular logic, it's a black hole of logic from which there is no hope of reason ever escaping.
And CB stated that just where?
Seems to me that HE'S not the one who thought of it.
“Since sola scriptura is mentioned NOWHERE in the New Testament, sola scriptura is a man-made doctrine. It is unscriptural. It is self-contradictory, precisely because it doesn’t come from Scripture.”
Aren’t you a self-disclosed roman priest???
How can someone claiming to be a priest be so unfamiliar with:
Understanding what sola scriptura means?
Understanding what the Scriptures say about themselves?
Basic logic?
I don't know about all of them, but I did not read it when I was a catholic. That catholic family Bible just gathered dust.
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