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To: CynicalBear
You haven't yet proven that what the Catholic Church teaches today is the same as what the apostles taught. Are you simply going on faith in the men of the Catholic Church?

Men such as St Polykarp (direct disciple of St John), St Irenaeus, St Thomas Aquinas, St Augustine, St John Chrysostom, St Athanasius, St Francis of Assisi, Pope St Gregory, St Ambrose, et al? Yes.

Unless you can demonstrate their humility and deep devotion to the truths of the Church, you will have a hard time taking me from their tutelage.

159 posted on 01/21/2015 9:01:01 PM PST by pgyanke (Republicans get in trouble when not living up to their principles. Democrats... when they do.)
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To: pgyanke
These guys?

"They [heretics] gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures...We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith" - Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.1.1 - Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.1.1 Sola Scriptura !

"I beg of you, my dear brother, to live among these books [scripture], to meditate upon them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else." - Jerome (Letter 53:10)

“Have thou ever in your mind this seal, which for the present has been lightly touched in my discourse, by way of summary, but shall be stated, should the Lord permit, to the best of my power with the proof from the Scriptures. For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell you these things, give not absolute credence, unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning , but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures.” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. Lecture 4, Ch. 17)

"There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to be skilled in the wisdom of this world, will find himself unable to get at it in any other way than by mastering the dogmas of philosophers, so all of us who wish to practice piety will be unable to learn its practice from any other quarter than the oracles of God. Whatever things, then, the Holy Scripture declare, at these let us look; and whatsoever things they teach, these let us learn; and as the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; and as He wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify Him; and as He wills the Holy Spirit to be bestowed, let us receive Him. Not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor yet as using violently those things which are given by God, but even as He has chosen to teach them by the Holy Scriptures, so let us discern them." - Hippolytus, Against Noetus, ch 9

"For how can we adopt those things which we do not find in the holy Scriptures?" - Ambrose (On the Duties of the Clergy, 1:23:102)“Let the inspired Scriptures then be our umpire, and the vote of truth will be given to those whose dogmas are found to agree with the Divine words.” - Gregory of Nyssa (d.ca, 395) “On the Holy Trinity”, NPNF, p. 327

“We are not content simply because this is the tradition of the Fathers. What is important is that the Fathers followed the meaning of the Scripture." - Basil the Great (ca.329–379) On the Holy Spirit, 7.16

“Neither dare one agree with catholic bishops if by chance they err in anything, but the result that their opinion is against the canonical Scriptures of God.” - Augustine (354–430) De unitate ecclesiae, 10

Is it their tutelage you were talking about? Surely not. They claim Sola Scriptura.

169 posted on 01/21/2015 9:18:20 PM PST by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus)
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To: pgyanke; CynicalBear

.
>> “Men such as St Polykarp (direct disciple of St John), St Irenaeus,...” <<

.
Irenaeus wrote a large volume, Against Heresies, declaring that the teaching had already been changed, or did you miss that little detail?

.


174 posted on 01/21/2015 9:26:11 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: pgyanke

Name dropping can be near meaningless...though doing so possibly demonstrates the erroneous conception (loose assumption) that all those named persons supported Roman Catholic doctrines as those are today --- without there being any discernible differences.

The differences can at times be but slight in initial superficial appearance, yet the ramifications as for the differences be part of a larger contextual view which presents significant variance (and even direct opposition) to what developed later.

Yet in that list of individuals you just named, there is one thing that is easy to show marked difference for, compared to what the RCC now says is "truth" .

Athanasius on the Canon

There are hosts of others who were in agreement with Athanasius as to what is included in Old Testament -- and what was not.

You say such things as;

without stipulating what "truths" you are talking about -- more specifically.

But to be both generous -- and accusatory, I will venture that it is not the fault of rank-and-file [Roman] Catholics today, to commit the error of thinking all those who you named, supported all of what later developed as dogma and doctrine.

The promoters of the RCC (to be over and above all other Churches, so the claims always include --- a preaching "of the church" more than "preaching of Christ" it does seem) have been working steadily at building up that image for more than a thousand years.

When the records are examined in closer detail, it often turns out that what was "cherry-picked" as quotation from one of those of the earliest of those which you named --- were not expressing the same concept as the isolated quotes are frequently represented to be, though admittedly it can be time-consuming to gather up and then lay out all the evidence in order to prove things one way or another.

I see you did nothing of the sort yourself, no deeper examination of the quotations which you rejected -- but instead linked back to a previous "editorial-like", expression of your own opinion comment of your own from years ago now, yourself having done so at least once previous on this thread, after having offered up a pair of your own isolated & "selective" quotes, as if the words of two, entirely overpower the words of others, enough so that the "others" should be given short shrift, and entirely ignored?

Your claim of "selective quoting" in reply #182 which you submitted in reply to the quotes provided in comment #169 for multiple ECF's having provided clear support for the concept of Scripture being supreme, is just so much assertion that is was only isolated-out-of-context citation (if that was what you intended).

Sure the Church had Tradition. One of the Traditions from earliest times was to rely upon the Holy Scriptures as being over all, thus supreme. That worked for most things, for most early tradition had enjoyed support from Scripture, all along. If not-- then show us more of what early tradition there was -- that can be adduced to have been established by the Apostles, rather than have arisen later -- first, as custom.

The example you provided for the contrary of reliance upon Scripture as Supreme, are just so much early example of where things can go wrong (even if they did not, at those junctures)-- particularly in that second example, where Basil invokes "others we have received delivered to us "in mystery" by the tradition of the Apostles; which could possibly be OK -- yet is also much the way things which arose more along line of custom that had been introduced post-Apostolic age, could be confused as having been in actual fact "Apostolically" sourced when it was not.

The situation for later individuals which you listed in the comment to which this note is addressed in reply, such as Aquinas, scarcely matters except for what was likely to be believed in his own era, for one as late as Aquinas, although one could look upon how Aquinas incorporated the fraudulent Pseudo–Isidorian Decretals in his own writings, unknowingly to himself incorporating falsified theological/historical context in support of Romish Papacy (and Supremacy) which has still to be rooted out from among Roman Catholic theology.

As for Augustine -- he can be shown to have promoted a 'spiritualized' view of what came to be termed ---Eucharist, while it comes across (still, even this day, far removed from the Reformation) that the RCC teaches something akin to a 'carnal flesh' presence and reality (for the wafer or "host", after consecration), since that is how many "Catholics" speak of this, what with the alleged miracle of Lanciano, and other perceived-to-be-actually-bloody-like "Eucharist miracles(!)" ---- when that was not what Christ was speaking of much at all, or else he would not have added that His words were Spirit and Life, the flesh profiting nothing.

200 posted on 01/22/2015 2:02:52 AM PST by BlueDragon ( Is it Islamophobic to oppose these beheadings?)
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