"Salvation by faith" is totally scriptural, and is Catholic dogma. "Salvation by faith *ALONE*", if you define "saving faith" as Luther did, is neither.
It doesn't matter what Augustine says. If it's not in Scripture as a sin, then he had no business making something sin that isn't.
That's legalism in all its glory.
I view them as the Catholic Church "church fathers". As such I use them to show that what those "church fathers" believed often contradicts what the Catholic Church teaches today. We are shown in scripture that "churches" had strayed and taken in pagan beliefs already in Revelation. There is no way that just because they were writing in the second century that they can be considered correct in all they believed.
..LOL and Rome doesn't? There is good evidence that the "church fathers "did not even agree with each other ..that is why what they say has to be tested against the scriptures..
The supposed Augustinian prayer to Mary is, in fact, from a medieval Bishop:
http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/BVM/OBeataVM.html
From the link:
"Written by Bishop Fulbert of Chartres (ca 951-ca 1029), it appears in his Sermo IX, De Annuntiatione Dominica. The prayer is sometimes attributed to St. Augustine, Book 10, Sermon 18, de Sanctis, since Bishop Fulbert's sermon appeared in the collected works of St. Augustine at one time. However, it is now known that the sermon is not Augustine's, but Bishop Fulbert's."
I've long known about this, which is why I occasionally ask Catholics to bring quotes from Augustine showing adoration for Mary (it's a fun "gotcha"). The quote, for whatever reason, constantly appears everywhere, but never points back to an original source, which was my original tip off.
It is necessary to question all quotations that would seem to contradict the Church Fathers on some points, as often times they are either fraudlent, or they are distorted, or the full context reveals something different.
You are referring to this quote from your link:
"...I turn to Christ, because it is He whom I seek here; and I discover how the earth is adored without impiety, how without impiety the footstool of His feet is adored. For He received earth from earth; because flesh is from the earth, and He took flesh from the flesh of Mary. He walked here in the same flesh, AND GAVE US THE SAME FLESH TO BE EATEN UNTO SALVATION. BUT NO ONE EATS THAT FLESH UNLESS FIRST HE ADORES IT; and thus it is discovered how such a footstool of the Lord's feet is adored; AND NOT ONLY DO WE NOT SIN BY ADORING, WE DO SIN BY NOT ADORING." (Psalms 98:9)
Augustine is not speaking here literally of the Eucharist, but of Christ, as he says in other places that the symbol only bares similarities with the real thing, but is not the real thing. He did not believe in transubstantiation. He held to suprasubstantiation, that Christ is spiritually present in the Lord's Supper within the faith of the believer; nor did he hold that the act of eating the symbol was what saves, but rather whoever believes in Christ is saved, even before eating or drinking anything:
“They said therefore unto Him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” For He had said to them, “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eternal life.” “What shall we do?” they ask; by observing what, shall we be able to fulfill this precept? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent.” This is then to eat the meat, not that which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life. To what purpose dost thou make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already. (Augustine, Tractate 25)
The eucharist, for Augustine, was a spiritual communion with Christ which calls us to cherish unity with the body (for we also are the "bread and wine"), to appreciate Christ's sacrifice and to look towards heaven for our future blessings.
I have a large number of quotations to back every statement I have made here up, if you ask me to.
The same can be said for Roman Catholicism's own apologists since the time of the Oxford Movement, and their "tracts".
In fact, most modern-day RC apologetic follows that form even to the letter (for the same quotes are dredged out again & again, with there being no context shown if avoidable, either of the near-by and closely associated type, or of wider context for whichever early church note-worthy it is whom is being [allegedly] quoted.
There were five (count 'em 5) solas.
None of them are "alone" or were intended to stand alone.
It was when the 5 solas were all put together that they were meaningful, and quite useful.
So all the capitalizing, and bracketing with *** snowballs which you just engaged in --- is something of a misrepresentation of the "faith alone" as Luther and others apparently utilized the five solas.
Salvation by faith is totally scriptural you say.
Many agree to that.
Yet
is not alone, set aside from:
Christ
Grace
and all those together
Not;
the glory of the OTC™
the glory of "popes"
(or by invoking the name of "Mary")
nor the 'glory' of "early church fathers"