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Locked on 02/25/2015 3:29:26 PM PST by Jim Robinson, reason:
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Posted on 02/20/2015 12:33:03 PM PST by RnMomof7
There aren't many subjects Catholic apologists like to discuss more than the eucharist. Even if their arguments about the papacy are refuted, even if the evidence they cite for the Immaculate Conception, Purgatory, and other doctrines isn't convincing, they still think they have a strong argument in the doctrine of the eucharist. They'll quote John 6 and the passages of scripture about the Last Supper. They'll quote centuries of church fathers referring to the eucharist as a sacrifice and referring to Jesus being present in the elements of the eucharist. They'll point out that even Protestants like Martin Luther have believed in a eucharistic presence. How, then, can evangelicals maintain that the eucharist is just symbolic, that there is no presence of Christ? Are evangelicals going to go up against 1500 years of church history?
This sort of reasoning seems to have had a lot of influence on evangelicals who have converted to Catholicism. Some converts to the Catholic Church even cite the eucharist as the primary issue, or one of the most significant issues, in convincing them to convert. But is the argument as compelling as so many Catholics think it is?
There are a lot of problems with this popular Catholic argument. The argument isn't even a defense of Catholicism. It's a defense of something like what the Catholic Church teaches. The Council of Trent made it clear just what the Catholic position is on this issue (emphasis added):
Since Christ our Redeemer said that that which he offered under the appearance of bread was truly his body, it has therefore always been held in the Church of God, and this holy Synod now declares anew, that through consecration of the bread and wine there comes about a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. And this conversion is by the Holy Catholic church conveniently and properly called transubstantiation. (session 13, "Decrees Concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist", chapter 4)
According to the Catholic Church, transubstantiation is the view of the eucharist always held by the Christian church. Some Catholics try to redefine this claim of the Council of Trent by saying that what Trent meant is that there was always some sort of belief in a presence in the eucharist, which was later defined more specifically as transubstantiation. While it's true that Trent doesn't claim that the word "transubstantiation" has always been used, Trent does claim that the concept has always been held by the Christian church.
There are two sentences in the quote above. The first sentence refers to a view of the eucharist always being held by the Christian church. The second sentence says that this view is transubstantiation. The way in which Trent describes the view always held by the Christian church makes it clear that transubstantiation is being described. The council refers to the whole substance of the bread and the whole substance of the wine being converted. That's transubstantiation.
Why do Catholic apologists attempt to redefine what the Council of Trent taught? Because what Trent said is false. Let's consider just some of the evidence that leads to this conclusion.
Though Catholics often cite some alleged references to their view of the eucharist in the Bible, the truth is that there's no evidence of the Catholic eucharist in scripture. John 6 is often cited as referring to eating Christ's flesh and drinking His blood by means of a transubstantiated eucharist. There are a lot of problems with the Catholic view of John 6, however, such as the fact that Jesus speaks in the present tense about how He is the bread of life and how people are responsible for eating and drinking Him. Jesus doesn't refer to how these things will begin in the future, when the eucharist is instituted. Rather, He refers to them as a present reality. And John 6:35 identifies what the eating and drinking are. The passage is not about the eucharist. (See http://members.aol.com/jasonte2/john666.htm for a further discussion of the problems with the Catholic interpretation of John 6.) Likewise, the passages about the Last Supper don't prove transubstantiation. They could be interpreted as references to a physical presence of Christ in the eucharist. That's a possibility. But they can also be interpreted otherwise.
There's no evidence for the Catholic view of the eucharist in scripture, but there is some evidence against it. In Matthew 26:29, Jesus refers to the contents of the cup as "this fruit of the vine". It couldn't be wine, though, if transubstantiation had occurred. And Jesus refers to drinking the contents of the cup with His followers again in the kingdom to come. Yet, the eucharist apparently is to be practiced only until Jesus returns (1 Corinthians 11:26). If the cup in Matthew 26:29 contained transubstantiated blood, then why would Jesus refer to drinking that substance with His followers in the future, at a time when there would be no eucharist? And if the eucharist is a sacrifice as the Catholic Church defines it to be, why is there no mention of the eucharist in the book of Hebrews?
The author of Hebrews is silent about the eucharist in places where we would expect the eucharist to be mentioned, if it was viewed as the Catholic Church views it. This is acknowledged even by Catholic scholars. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990) is a Catholic commentary that some of the foremost Catholic scholars in the world contributed to. It was edited by Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer, and Roland Murphy. Near the end of the section on the book of Hebrews, the commentary admits:
If, as it seems, the author [of Hebrews] does not speak of the eucharist either here or elsewhere, the reason may be that he did not consider it a sacrifice. (p. 941)
There's nothing wrong with viewing the eucharist as a sacrifice in the sense of thanksgiving and praise (Hebrews 13:15). Some of the church fathers referred to the eucharist in such a way. For example, Justin Martyr wrote the following in response to the followers of Judaism who claimed to be fulfilling Malachi 1:11 (emphasis added):
Accordingly, God, anticipating all the sacrifices which we offer through this name, and which Jesus the Christ enjoined us to offer, i.e., in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and which are presented by Christians in all places throughout the world, bears witness that they are well-pleasing to Him. But He utterly rejects those presented by you and by those priests of yours, saying, 'And I will not accept your sacrifices at your hands; for from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles (He says); but ye profane it.' Yet even now, in your love of contention, you assert that God does not accept the sacrifices of those who dwelt then in Jerusalem, and were called Israelites; but says that He is pleased with the prayers of the individuals of that nation then dispersed, and calls their prayers sacrifices. Now, that prayers and giving of thanks, when offered by worthy men, are the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices to God, I also admit. For such alone Christians have undertaken to offer, and in the remembrance effected by their solid and liquid food, whereby the suffering of the Son of God which He endured is brought to mind, whose name the high priests of your nation and your teachers have caused to be profaned and blasphemed over all the earth. But these filthy garments, which have been put by you on all who have become Christians by the name of Jesus, God shows shall be taken away from us, when He shall raise all men from the dead, and appoint some to be incorruptible, immortal, and free from sorrow in the everlasting and imperishable kingdom; but shall send others away to the everlasting punishment of fire. But as to you and your teachers deceiving yourselves when you interpret what the Scripture says as referring to those of your nation then in dispersion, and maintain that their prayers and sacrifices offered in every place are pure and well-pleasing, learn that you are speaking falsely, and trying by all means to cheat yourselves: for, first of all, not even now does your nation extend from the rising to the setting of the sun, but there are nations among which none of your race ever dwelt. For there is not one single race of men, whether barbarians, or Greeks, or whatever they may be called, nomads, or vagrants, or herdsmen living in tents, among whom prayers and giving of thanks are not offered through the name of the crucified Jesus. And then, as the Scriptures show, at the time when Malachi wrote this, your dispersion over all the earth, which now exists, had not taken place. (Dialogue with Trypho, 117)
These arguments of Justin Martyr are contrary to what the Catholic Church teaches. According to Justin Martyr, the eucharist is a sacrifice only in the sense of being a means by which Christians offer prayers and thanksgiving to God. Justin Martyr not only says nothing of the eucharist being a sacrifice in the sense Catholics define it to be, but he even excludes the possibility of the Catholic view by saying that the eucharist is a sacrifice only in the sense of prayers and thanksgiving being offered through it. Justin Martyr seems to have had Biblical passages like Hebrews 13:15 in mind, which is a concept that evangelicals agree with. The eucharist is a sacrifice in that sense.
Some church fathers defined the eucharist as a sacrifice differently than Justin Martyr, including in ways that are similar to the Catholic view. But Justin Martyr illustrates two things. First, it's false to claim that all of the church fathers viewed the eucharist as the Catholic Church views it. Secondly, the eucharist can be referred to as a sacrifice in numerous ways. It's not enough for Catholic apologists to cite a church father referring to the eucharist as a sacrifice. What type of sacrifice did the church father believe it to be? And how convincing are that church father's arguments?
Even more than they discuss the concept that the eucharist is an atoning sacrifice, Catholics argue that there's a presence of Christ in the eucharist, and that the church fathers agreed with them on this issue. Some Catholics will even claim that every church father believed in a presence in the eucharist. They'll often cite a scholar like J.N.D. Kelly referring to the church fathers believing in a "real presence" in the eucharist. But what these Catholics often don't do is quote what Kelly goes on to say. As Kelly explains, the church fathers defined "real presence" in a number of ways, including ways that contradict transubstantiation. Some of the church fathers were closer to the consubstantiation of Lutheranism or the spiritual presence of Calvinism, for example.
See the section titled "The Church and the Host" at:
http://www.aomin.org/JRWOpening.html
Also see the historian Philip Schaff's comments in section 69 at:
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/2_ch05.htm
And section 95 at:
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/3_ch07.htm
I also recommend consulting Schaff's footnotes, since the notes cite additional passages from the fathers and cite other scholars confirming Schaff's conclusions.
The church fathers held a wide variety of views on subjects such as how to interpret John 6 and Christ's presence in the eucharist. For example, Clement of Alexandria wrote the following about John 6 (emphasis added):
Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: "Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood," describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both,--of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood. For in reality the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle. (The Instructor, 1:6)
In another passage, Clement contradicts transubstantiation. He writes the following about how Christians should conduct themselves when drinking alcohol (emphasis added):
In what manner do you think the Lord drank when He became man for our sakes? As shamelessly as we? Was it not with decorum and propriety? Was it not deliberately? For rest assured, He Himself also partook of wine; for He, too, was man. And He blessed the wine, saying, "Take, drink: this is my blood"--the blood of the vine. He figuratively calls the Word "shed for many, for the remission of sins"--the holy stream of gladness. And that he who drinks ought to observe moderation, He clearly showed by what He taught at feasts. For He did not teach affected by wine. And that it was wine which was the thing blessed, He showed again, when He said to His disciples, "I will not drink of the fruit of this vine, till I drink it with you in the kingdom of my Father." [Matthew 26:29] But that it was wine which was drunk by the Lord, He tells us again, when He spake concerning Himself, reproaching the Jews for their hardness of heart: "For the Son of man," He says, "came, and they say, Behold a glutton and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans." (The Instructor, 2:2)
Clement, like evangelicals, cites Matthew 26:29 as evidence that Jesus drank wine. If Clement believed that wine is what was drunk at the Last Supper, he didn't believe in transubstantiation.
Similarly, Irenaeus denies transubstantiation in his writings. He seems to have believed in consubstantiation rather than the Catholic view of the eucharist. For example (emphasis added):
For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity. (Against Heresies, 4:18:5)
For this reason, when about to undergo His sufferings, that He might declare to Abraham and those with him the glad tidings of the inheritance being thrown open, Christ, after He had given thanks while holding the cup, and had drunk of it, and given it to the disciples, said to them: "Drink ye all of it: this is My blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of this vine, until that day when I will drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." Thus, then, He will Himself renew the inheritance of the earth, and will re-organize the mystery of the glory of His sons; as David says, "He who hath renewed the face of the earth." He promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with His disciples, thus indicating both these points: the inheritance of the earth in which the new fruit of the vine is drunk, and the resurrection of His disciples in the flesh. For the new flesh which rises again is the same which also received the new cup. And He cannot by any means be understood as drinking of the fruit of the vine when settled down with his disciples above in a super-celestial place; nor, again, are they who drink it devoid of flesh, for to drink of that which flows from the vine pertains to flesh, and not spirit. (Against Heresies, 5:33:1)
Irenaeus describes the eucharist as consisting of two realities, one that comes from Heaven and another that's from the earth. He refers to the eucharist as an example of drinking wine, the same substance that people will drink in Christ's future kingdom, after the eucharist has served its purpose (1 Corinthians 11:26). Irenaeus, like Clement of Alexandria, contradicts transubstantiation. Though Irenaeus does seem to have believed in a presence in the eucharist, it isn't transubstantiation.
Other examples could be cited, and other examples are cited in the article I linked to above. It's a historical fact that the church fathers held a variety of eucharistic beliefs, including some that contradict what the Catholic Church teaches. This fact is contrary to the Council of Trent's claim that transubstantiation had always been the view held by the Christian church.
It should be noted, also, that many evangelicals believe in a presence in the eucharist. Some believe in consubstantiation. Some believe in a spiritual presence. Evangelicals don't even have to hold to any specific view. Jesus and the apostles told Christians to celebrate the eucharist. A Christian can do so without knowing whether there's any presence of Christ in the eucharist or what type of presence there is. For an evangelical, this issue isn't too significant. The reliability of our rule of faith (the Bible) isn't dependent on proving that Christ is present in the eucharist in some particular way. Catholics, on the other hand, must defend the Catholic Church's allegedly infallible teaching of transubstantiation. They must also defend the Council of Trent's claim that transubstantiation is the view always held by the Christian church, as well as Trent's claim that every other view is unacceptable. Evangelicals just don't carry the same burden of proof that Catholics carry on this issue. Catholics can't say that this is unfair, since the claims of the Catholic Church itself are what create the added burden of proof for the Catholic apologist. If you don't want to have to carry such a burden, then tell your denomination to quit making such weighty claims.
In summary:
· The Council of Trent taught that transubstantiation is the view of the eucharist always held by the Christian church. Trent also taught that every other view of the eucharist is so inaccurate as to cause the advocates of those views to be anathema. Therefore, Catholics must defend transubstantiation, not just some vague concept of "real presence".
· There is no scriptural evidence of the Catholic view of the eucharist, while there is some scriptural evidence against the concept (Matthew 26:29 as compared with 1 Corinthians 11:26, silence about the eucharist in Hebrews, etc.).
· Concepts like the eucharist being a sacrifice and Christ's presence in the eucharist were widespread among the church fathers, but were defined in numerous ways, including ways that contradict Catholic teaching.
· Many evangelicals believe in some form of presence in the eucharist, and they don't even need to hold any particular view on the subject if they don't want to. Just as the Roman Catholic Church allows Catholics freedom to believe what they want to believe or to not reach any conclusion on some issues, Christ's presence in the eucharist is an issue where evangelicals have freedom. We can be silent, or allow a variety of viewpoints, where scripture is silent. Catholics don't have this option, since their denomination has made so many claims about the subject in allegedly infallible proclamations.
The eucharist is another issue that illustrates how anachronistic, misleading, and false many of the claims of the Catholic Church are. Some Catholics seem to ignore or minimize their denomination's errors on issues like the papacy and the Immaculate Conception, because they think that the Catholic Church is at least closer to the truth than evangelicalism on other issues, like the eucharist. But such reasoning is fallacious. For one thing, all it takes is one error to refute Catholicism. Since the Catholic Church teaches that its traditions are just as authoritative as scripture, an error on one subject also disproves what the Catholic Church has taught on other subjects. If the Immaculate Conception doctrine is contrary to the evidence, for example, that isn't just problematic for the doctrine that Mary was immaculately conceived. It's also problematic for the doctrine of papal infallibility, since Pope Pius IX allegedly was exercising that power when he declared Mary to be conceived without sin. When the Catholic Church is shown to be wrong on the eucharist, the Immaculate Conception, or some other issue, that has implications for far more than just that one doctrine.
With regard to the eucharist, consider one of the larger implications of the Catholic Church being wrong on that subject. If it's true that the church fathers held a wide variety of eucharistic beliefs, and that they also held a wide variety of beliefs on a lot of other subjects, what does that tell us about early church history? It tells us that it's unlikely that the church fathers were part of one worldwide denomination headed by a Pope. What's more likely is that the church fathers disagreed with each other so much because they belonged to churches that were governmentally independent of one another, and they interpreted the scriptures for themselves. In fact, many of the church fathers specifically said as much. The fact that there were so many differing views among the church fathers, including views that contradict what the Catholic Church teaches, suggests that they weren't Roman Catholics.
If the Catholic Church isn't reliable, what are we to conclude about the eucharist, then? What do we do if we can't trust Catholicism to tell us what to believe? We ought to go to the scriptures. And if the beliefs of the church fathers and other sources are relevant in some way, we should also consider those things. We should study the issue ourselves instead of just uncritically accepting whatever an institution like the Roman Catholic Church teaches. When we go to the scriptures, we find that a number of eucharistic views are plausible, but transubstantiation isn't one of them (Matthew 26:29). The concept that the eucharist is an atoning sacrifice is unacceptable. Trying to continually offer Christ's sacrifice as an atonement for our sins, and offering it as a further atonement of the temporal portion of sins already forgiven, is contrary to what's taught in the book of Hebrews, such as Hebrews 9:12-10:18. For example, in Hebrews 9:25-26, we see the author distinguishing between Christ's sacrifice and the offering of that sacrifice. Not only was Christ only sacrificed once, but He also offered that one sacrifice to God only once. Catholics acknowledge that there was only one sacrifice, but they argue that the one sacrifice is offered repeatedly through the eucharist. This claim of the Catholic Church is contrary to scripture. And there are a lot of other contradictions between what scripture teaches on these subjects and what the Catholic Church teaches, especially in the book of Hebrews. We can reasonably arrive at a number of different views of the eucharist, but the Catholic view isn't one of them.
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Why didn't the world end at that moment?
Seriously? Are you being serious? Is that all you have?
I thought you were far better than this, Arthur. Okay, I'll type this nice and slow so you can understand it: Christ's once and final salvific sacrifice on the cross was completed.
And, actually, there was an ending that occurred...the Temple Veil was rent...Christ became our intercessor and mediator (not his mom)...the old sacrificial system was no longer needed.
And since Christ himself said that it was finished, why does the Roman Catholic Church strive to make him a liar?
Hoss
Do you have a religion, Hoss?
Irenaeus focuses on the church of Rome which he describes as "greatest, most ancient and known to all, founded and established by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul." Here we must acknowledge a bit of rhetoric, as the church of Rome was obviously not so ancient as those of Jerusalem or Antioch, nor was it actually founded by Peter or Paul (Sullivan F.A. From Apostles to Bishops: the development of the episcopacy in the early church. Newman Press, Mahwah (NJ), 2001, pp. 35,147).
According to Irenaeus, Peter and Paul, not Peter alone, appointed Linus as the first in the succession of bishops of Rome. This suggests that Irenaeus did not think of Peter and Paul as bishops, or of Linus and those that followed as successors of Peter more than of Paul (Sullivan F.A. From Apostles to Bishops: the development of the episcopacy in the early church. Newman Press, Mahwah (NJ), 2001, p. 148).
And then we have this interesting tidbit. Tertullian doesn't mention Linus but does Clement as following Peter.
Anyhow the heresies are at best novelties, and have no continuity with the teaching of Christ. Perhaps some heretics may claim Apostolic antiquity: we reply: Let them publish the origins of their churches and unroll the catalogue of their bishops till now from the Apostles or from some bishop appointed by the Apostles, as the Smyrnaeans count from Polycarp and John, and the Romans from Clement and Peter; let heretics invent something to match this (Tertullian. Liber de praescriptione haereticorum. Circa 200 A.D. as cited in Chapman J. Transcribed by Lucy Tobin. Tertullian. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV. Copyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York).
Do a study on the history of the title pope for a single individual and you will find it didn't exist until at least the fourth century.
We must conclude that the New Testament provides no basis for the notion that before the apostles died, they ordained one man for each of the churches they founded..."Was there a Bishop of Rome in the First Century?"...the available evidence indicates that the church in Rome was led by a college of presbyters, rather than by a single bishop, for at least several decades of the second century (Sullivan F.A. From Apostles to Bishops: the development of the episcopacy in the early church. Newman Press, Mahwah (NJ), 2001, p. 80,221-222).
The Catholic Church itself admits that the apostles were above the office of any pope. John didn't die till 100AD yet they would give the highest position in the church to Linus already in 67AD. They claim Peter was pope and died in 64AD but appointed Linus pope in 67AD.
The Catholic notion of succession of popes is built on fallacy as are many of their beliefs.
I am Christian.
Hoss
Okay, and you run your own church and think no one else is a Christian?
No. Only God knows the heart. I question the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church when presented in posts on this forum, just like others do.
Do you?
Hoss
Disprove me
Google ‘NFP’ read it and weep
From what ive read, divorce rates of Catholics on artificial birth control is the same as prots.
Hoss
My older sister – now in heaven – was always the ring leader.
It so happened that an old retired Baptist preacher heard about the bakery shop kids and came by to meet us. He was moved by what he saw and he used his life’s savings to build a tiny little church up the street.
Naturally all the kids got the rest of their families to join them in meeting in the new church – and before you knew it we were all baptized Southern Baptist. The church grew and split and had missionary churches of it own.
If it had been someone from another Christian “label” who found the bakery shop kids, built the church and baptized us, I’d probably be wearing a different label today. LOLOL!
As it is my "letter" has always been in a Baptist church, though that point is meaningless to me because at the root, I will always be that bakery shop kid – a Christian, plain and simple.
Truly, the religion was already established when Christ was enfleshed; namely, Judaism. Jesus Christ builds a family:
God's Name is I AM.
Alamo-Girl,
What a lovely testimony! I’ll have to remember “The Bakery Shop Kids”
:)
Hoss
Any answer for me yet?
Hoss
That’s probably why you are not Catholic.
No... There’s really simple reason I’m not Catholic....
I realized after I posted that I should not have attributed a reason for why you are not Catholic, and I apologize for that.
No problem, R...
I didn’t take any offense! And no need to apologize.
Hoss
Anyhow the heresies are at best novelties, and have no continuity with the teaching of Christ. Perhaps some heretics may claim Apostolic antiquity: we reply: Let them publish the origins of their churches and unroll the catalogue of their bishops till now from the Apostles or from some bishop appointed by the Apostles, as the Smyrnaeans count from Polycarp and John, and the Romans from Clement and Peter; let heretics invent something to match this (Tertullian. Liber de praescriptione haereticorum. Circa 200 A.D. as cited in Chapman J. Transcribed by Lucy Tobin. Tertullian. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV. Copyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York).
CynicalBear, do you not realize that this excerpt was taken from a strong defense by Tertullian of Apostolic succession? Here is a more extensive quote from the same source:
So Tertullian deals with heresies: it is of no use to listen to their arguments or refute them, for we have a number of antecendent proofs that they cannot deserve a hearing. Heresies, he begins, must not astonish us, for they were prophesied. Heretics urge the text, “Seek and ye shall find”, but this was not said to Christians; we have a rule of faith to be accepted without question. “Let curiosity give place to faith and vain glory make way for salvation”, so Tertullian parodies a line of Cicero’s. The heretics argue out of Scripture; but, first, we are forbidden to consort with a heretic after one rebuke has been delivered, and secondly, disputation results only in blasphemy on the one side and indignation on the other, while the listener goes away more puzzled than he came. The real question is, “To whom does the Faith belong? Whose are the Scriptures? By whom, through whom, when and to whom has been handed down the discipline by which we are Christians? The answer is plain: Christ sent His apostles, who founded churches in each city, from which the others have borrowed the tradition of the Faith and the seed of doctrine and daily borrow in order to become churches; so that they also are Apostolic in that they are the offspring of the Apostolic churches. All are that one Church which the Apostles founded, so long as peace and intercommunion are observed [dum est illis communicatio pacis et appellatio fraternitatis et contesseratio hospitalitatis]. Therefore the testimony to the truth is this: We communicate with the apostolic Churches”. The heretics will reply that the Apostles did not know all the truth. Could anything be unknown to Peter, who was called the rock on which the Church was to be built? or to John, who lay on the Lord’s breast? But they will say, the churches have erred. Some indeed went wrong, and were corrected by the Apostle; though for others he had nothing but praise. “But let us admit that all have erred:- is it credible that all these great churches should have strayed into the same faith”? Admitting this absurdity, then all the baptisms, spiritual gifts, miracles, martyrdoms, were in vain until Marcion and Valentinus appeared at last! Truth will be younger than error; for both these heresiarchs are of yesterday, and were still Catholics at Rome in the episcopate of Eleutherius (this name is a slip or a false reading). Anyhow the heresies are at best novelties, and have no continuity with the teaching of Christ. Perhaps some heretics may claim Apostolic antiquity: we reply: Let them publish the origins of their churches and unroll the catalogue of their bishops till now from the Apostles or from some bishop appointed by the Apostles, as the Smyrnaeans count from Polycarp and John, and the Romans from Clement and Peter; let heretics invent something to match this. Why, their errors were denounced by the Apostles long ago. Finally (36), he names some Apostolic churches, pointing above all to Rome, whose witness is nearest at hand, - happy Church, in which the Apostles poured out their whole teaching with their blood, where Peter suffered a death like his Master’s, where Paul was crowned with an end like the Baptist’s, where John was plunged into fiery oil without hurt!
ROFL! Catholic appeal to longevity for legitimacy yet read the account of the seven churches in Revelation to see how quickly they strayed from the truth.
Good points. Also, I think most of these heretics are actually quarreling with God and not so much with the Roman Catholic Church. They see that a Priest sinned, and claim that unless all Priest are without sin than the Church Jesus created is flawed beyond redemption. They forget that all men are flawed and that no Church can be run by humans who are without sin. They declare their love of God and speak maliciously of fellow Christians, even claiming that Catholics are not Christians.
sorry I cant give you what you need.
I am a cradle Catholic.
I became firmly, totally and forever Catholic when I was about 10 when I was serving 6:30am weekday Mass.
It was mid-winter and was just the organist (who sang the Mass in Latin), myself (a newbie altar server) the priest and no parishioners (at least that I saw).
The Mass was nearing the consecration when the priest intones the SANCTUS while the organist singing to God sings the SANCTUS in Gregorian chant.
the priest says:
SANCTUS, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis.
which means:
HOLY, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
meanwhile the organist sang the Sanctus acapella in Gregorian chant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n_DUZN3Ahw
At that moment I knew what it meant to be Catholic and to ‘be lifted up’ and ‘to be in the Spirit’.
I will be that Catholic to the day I die.
Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam
For the Greater Glory of God
Why didn't the world end at that moment?
Art ol' boy, I sure hope you just arguing for arguing sake.
If not, you need to do some real in-depth Bible study...or perhaps obtain a degree in theology from an accredited seminary school.
You represent yourself as a catholic priest. Are you representative of all priests?
Still waiting to hear if you're in favor or not of the fifth marion dogma......
Again...catholics identify with a denomination....not the Savior.
There is a difference.
I’m sure from your response you either did not read what I wrote or you don’t understand it.
Either way IT IS YOUR LOSS.
AMDG
Nice ad hominem. The fact of the matter, though, is that instead of showing that the succession of popes is built on fallacy, Tertullian’s Liber de praescriptione haereticorum is a strong affirmation of Apostolic succession.
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