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.”
Well, if I choose not to click on your link, your assertions must be true about prayers to the dead being answered, according to your RC illogic.
Not interested in learning any more about Santeria-style healings. Territory to avoid, not study.
“If these practices are “rooted in ancient Roman paganism”...then why are they found in every ancient Church, even the ones that, geographically, had zip zero nada to do with Rome?”
They are actually universal pagan practices that are nearly identical from culture to culture.
Rome was just the local iteration at the time.
That’s news to me.
Revelation 2:14 Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality.
“The saints that Catholics revere, when given reverence in the correct way, are not revered in any way like what the pagan deities were revered or idolized.”
I wouldn’t say “in any way like” but your point is I think valid. The Saint reverence is a step up from pure paganism.
There are always growing pains in any body.
Maybe if you'd look past Rome and before you'd see that God spoke to Israel about these idols. More than once. Not to mention pagan idols have always been....mans heart will not rest unless he has something to worship. In many cases of old they created their own idol Gods because they did not know Him as God.
There's no excuse to day for praying to or having idols....we have his word and he's clear about this matter.
So why in Sam Hill do I have to read Calvin quoting the Fathers, when I can read the Fathers themselves? What could a guy born in 1509 add to the discussion except his own opinion?
I reiterate: if this pagan corruption happened in the 300s, find me someone who was there and saw it happen.
I have learned new things about Roman Catholicism on the FR Religion forum.
That isn’t one of them.
I accept your apology for attributing that stupid belief to me.
The value of reading the lives of saints is that saints give evidence that God’s grace is capable of making people into truly holy people, filled with charity.
“Reformed” theology, on the other hand, holds that grace does nothing to us. It does not make us holy. All that happens is that God LIES about us to himself, and lets us into heaven.
This is the fundamental reason Protestantism denies the ability of the saints to intercede for us: Protestantism denies that grace actually transforms people, filling them with charity—which is the form of God.
Even more fundamentally, Protestantism does not take the Incarnation seriously. To Protestants, God’s revelation is primarily verbal. What Jesus left behind in the world is primarily words, written down. Our salvation consists of God’s pronouncing words over us, fictitious words judging us as “justified.”
The Catholic Church teaches, on the other hand, that the Word became Flesh. His primordial “legacy” to us is his BODY on earth, the Church. In the Church, the written word came to be. The Church, through the Sacraments, makes Christ still present on earth, and their purpose is to cause REAL transformation, divinizing us, by making us participants in the divine nature—charity—the very form of God.
Protestantism does not take the Incarnation seriously. It does not believe in REAL effects of the Incarnation. It does not believe that the Incarnation transforms US. Protestantism is about God pretending that we are no longer sinners, even though all our actions are sins.
This is why so many Protestants deride the saints as “dead people.” Really? There is no eternal life?
Ref: “In my almost 50 year search for “what were the bare, minimal essentials of first century Christians and the first century church”, I long ago discovered that by far a majority of the practices of today’s church (including Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, fundamentalists, Baptists, etc.) have their origins in pagan religions, and what we know and accept as normal today (it’s all we’ve known) would shock Christians of the first century.”
My two cents: Not all Pagan traditions & practices were evil. Many pagans were seeking the one true God in keeping with the spirit of Natural Law planted in all of us -— which causes us to seek Him even when we do not know Him. Of course, there were pagan practices which opened people to evil things like child sacrifice and into the worship of demons (Baal). But there were also many pagan practices which resulted from the well meaning search for God. The incorporation of non-harmful practices (such as the Christmas tree) helped bring many Pagans to Christ. Instead of praying to ancestors, an introduction to spiritual mentors (saints) who had been successful in their spiritual/faithful lives, and were confirmed to be in Heaven through confirmed miracles attributed to their intercessions, helped to direct non-believers to the true source of our salvation. Many of these practices and traditions have proven themselves, not only in the conversion of pagans, but also in building faith traditions in the Christian communities.
“So why in Sam Hill do I have to read Calvin quoting the Fathers, when I can read the Fathers themselves? What could a guy born in 1509 add to the discussion except his own opinion?”
Well, since you (so far) appear to be reluctant to do any real work, maybe it would give you a place to start.
“I reiterate: if this pagan corruption happened in the 300s, find me someone who was there and saw it happen.”
Ha! Should we chew your food for you too so all you have to do is swallow? :-)
Start with showing my any of those practices currently in the catholic church that were practiced anyone in the NT church or before 100 ad.
If you can’t, they were added.
So this corruption happened independently in Rome, India and Ethiopia and Chaldea and Armenia and Egypt? The whole of Christendom went south all over the known world?
Well, that should make it easy to find an ancient author who observed it then, eh?! How's your Syriac and Ge'ez?
“The Church, through the Sacraments, makes Christ still present on earth, and their purpose is to cause REAL transformation, divinizing us, by making us participants in the divine nature—charity—the very form of God.”
This is your belief, but is false.
Christ is present in the life of every single believer 24/7.
There are no sacraments that transform. HE transforms as He lives His life through us.
“”He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” - Christ
In Christ we have redemption.
In Christ we have a new nature that is sinless.
In Christ we are transformed by HIM as we abide in HIM.
Sorry. I know it is important to you and that you devoted your life to becoming a priest in that denomination. What you right reflects what you were taught. Not what the Scriptures teach.
Why did the “St. Thomas” Christians have the Mass and other sacraments, which Protestants claim were “invented” long after the apostles?
Whoa whoa whoa....everyone above assumes it all went south in the 4th century. So why are you setting a date of 100? Which one is it? Did it all go south after Clement or after Constantine?
CynicalBear gratuitously attributed to me a silly belief. I rebuked him for doing so. No vitriol.
I posted a bunch of links to interesting saints to give people something worthwhile to read. None of whom, btw, date to pagan times.
“Why did the “St. Thomas” Christians have the Mass and other sacraments, which Protestants claim were “invented” long after the apostles?”
Likely, because they didn’t originate directly from St. Thomas...
“The earliest known source connecting the apostle to India is the Acts of Thomas, likely written in the early 3rd century, perhaps in Edessa.[9][13][14] The text describes Thomas’ adventures in bringing Christianity to India, a tradition later expanded upon in early Indian sources such as the “Thomma Parvam” (”Song of Thomas”).”
“An organised Christian presence in India dates to the arrival of East Syrian settlers and missionaries from Persia, members of what would become the Church of the East or Nestorian Church, in around the 3rd century.[22] Saint Thomas Christians trace the further growth of their community to the arrival of the Nestorian Thomas of Cana from the Middle East, which is said to have occurred sometime between the 4th and 8th century.”
Wiki
Always seems to trace to the third century...
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