To Be Deep in History

ligonier ministries ^ | 5/15/2015 | Keith Mathison

[verga]

See post 35 use the sources and try and prove me wrong. My sources are completely legitimate.

[verga]

Interesting you ask me a direct question about my reading habits and then say you won’t reply. Typical prot response when confronted with the truth.

[Salvation]

[MamaB]

Baloney! LOL. Thanks. I needed a laugh.

[boatbums]

That’s great about your love of history, but you must have fallen asleep when they covered the atrocities that Oliver Cromwell forced upon the Catholic Church. Newman was speaking directly to you when he said that.

Is it your contention that whatever Cromwell did to the Roman Catholic church was all his doings and that somehow cancels out all the atrocities committed by the Roman Catholic church centuries before AND after him??? Cromwell was a tool of Cardinal Wolsey before King Henry VIII. Whatever he did or didn't do TO the RCC was because Henry wanted it - and Henry was NOT a Protestant. All of Cromwell's fealty to the king didn't help him when Henry had him executed for his setting up the marriage to Anne of Cleves and the embarrassment it caused him when he had to wriggle out of yet another marriage. Henry's royal coffers were what benefited from raiding and closing the English Catholic monasteries - also Henry's idea.

I find it so entertaining when FRoman Catholics play the "Protestants did bad things too" card. It reveals their own lack of knowledge or resistance to facing the truth about their church and what was done under the permission and orders of their Popes. That really is the difference some seem unable to grasp - though some Protestants did do bad things, they were not done through orders from any Protestant pope or magesterium. How quickly RCs defend Catholicism by blaming individuals for wrongs committed - even when Popes directly approved and directed them - yet ALL "Protestants" (regardless of denomination) are blamed for the acts of individuals going back five hundred years. Don't y'all realize how duplicitous that is???

As the OP article explains, to REALLY study history - without the Rome-colored glasses - is to understand that history does NOT prove the claims of Catholicism. Newman and Manning actually cancel each other out in their attempts to explain the discrepancy between what the Christian faith has been believed always, everywhere and by all and what Rome teaches today. So, whose side are you on - Manning or Newman?

[boatbums]

Boy someone must feel pretty embarrassed right about now.

Yeah, you should. Including more of the quote from Manning than what was cited in the OP didn't change a thing! He still said that whatever the RCC says is the truth TODAY is the truth because they say so. It's explained here Viva Voce - whatever we say.

[boatbums]

Well said!

[boatbums]

>>It is another thing altogether to begin teaching something that the church always denied (e.g., papal supremacy or infallibility).<<

When, precisely, did *the church* -- not one cherry-picked individual, but *the church*, speaking as a body, "always deny" papal supremacy? Give me a names and dates. There should be a long list, for something that *the church* "always denied".

I can give you a few that come to mind - though this is not exhaustive by any means. St. John Chrysostom stated:

The Apostles were designated rulers, rulers who received not nations and particular cities, but all being entrusted with the world in common (Inscriptionem Actorum II. PG 51, 93).

Then we have Cyril of Alexandria:

Leo did not participate personally in the council, but his legates at Chalcedon carried with them another remarkable letter addressed to the assembled fathers and expressing the pope’s wish that ‘the rights and honor of the most blessed apostle Peter be preserved’; that, not being able to come himself, the pope be allowed ‘to preside’...at the council in the persons of his legates; and that no debate about the faith be actually held, since ‘the orthodox and pure confession on the mystery of the Incarnation has been already manifested, in the fullest and clearest way, in his letter to bishop Flavian of blessed memory.’ No wonder that his legates were not allowed to read this unrealistic and embarrassing letter before the end of the sixteenth session, at a time when acrimonious debates on the issue had already taken place! Obviously, no one in the East considered that a papal fiat was sufficient to have an issue closed. Furthermore, the debate showed clearly that the Tome of Leo to Flavian was accepted on merits, and not because it was issued by the pope. Upon the presentation of the text, in Greek translation, during the second session, part of the assembly greeted the reading with approval (‘Peter has spoken through Leo!’ they shouted), but the bishops from the Illyricum and Palestine fiercely objected against passages which they considered as incompatible with the teachings of St Cyril of Alexandria. It took several days of commission work, under the presidence of Anatolius of Constantinople, to convince them that Leo was not opposing Cyril. The episode clearly shows that it was Cyril, not Leo, who was considered at Chalcedon as the ultimate criterion of christological orthodoxy. Leo’s views were under suspicion of Nestorianism as late as the fifth session, when the same Illyrians, still rejecting those who departed from Cyrillian terminology, shouted: ‘The opponents are Nestorians, let them go to Rome!’ The final formula approved by the council was anything but a simple acceptance of Leo’s text. It was a compromise, which could be imposed on the Fathers when they were convinced that Leo and Cyril expressed the same truth, only using different expressions (John Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Division (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s, 1989), p. 155-156.).

We have St. Gregory the Great, who rebuked John of Constantinople for making such a claim, wrote the Emperor Maurice:

Now I confidently say that whosoever calls himself, or desires to be called, Universal Priest, is in his elation the precursor of AntiChrist, because he proudly puts himself above all others. ( Gregory I, bishop of Rome, 590-604 AD; Book VII, Epistle XXXIII)

Regarding an early acceptance of a universal infallible Roman authority, we have:

This one fact, that a Great Council (Sixth Ecumenical Council), universally received afterwards without hesitation throughout the Church, and presided over by Papal legates, pronounced the dogmatic decision of a Pope heretical, and anathematized him by name as a heretic is a proof, clear as the sun at noonday, that the notion of any peculiar enlightenment or inerrancy of the Popes was then utterly unknown to the whole Church (Janus (Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger), The Pope and the Council (Boston: Roberts, 1870), p. 61).

In the controversy between East and West...the case of Honorius served as proof to Photius that the popes not only lacked authority over church councils, but were fallible in matters of dogma; for Honorius had embraced the heresy of the Monotheletes. The proponents of that heresy likewise cited the case of Honorius, not in opposition to the authority of the pope but in support of their own doctrine, urging that all teachers of the true faith had confessed it, including Sergius, the bishop of New Rome, and Honorius, the bishop of Old Rome (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1974), Volume Two, pp. 150-151) (for more discussion on this, see http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2013/10/cyril-of-alexandria-was-real.html)

[boatbums]

Just what is it you imagine is in error or revisionist history with the OP? Go ahead, give me a list.

[boatbums]

When you have no valid rebuttals, start picking personally on someone for their love of reading and history. Pitiful!

[Springfield Reformer]

verga, I don't wish to make a nuisance of myself, but I have a problem with some of what you've said.  First, I too am one to go checking original quotes, as I have found the Luther quotes here are often completely mangled by Catholic posters, so I have come not to trust them and always look them up.  So you have my empathy in that.

My problem is, I did try to get back to the the full Manning quote in even fuller context using your reference link to the whole book.  Once I figured out how to navigate the pages, I looked for page 29, and could not find it there.  I then looked ahead and behind, to see if it was displaced only by a little, and still could not find it.  

However, I did go back to the "Biblical Catholic" link you provided and noticed the page number for the contested quoted was supposedly 238. But again, navigating there in the full book, I did not find the quote.  I am sure it is in there somewhere.  But there is something wrong with the page numbers.  I wonder if it is possible the quotes online came from a different edition with different page numbers?  Just a theory.

I also noticed that the additional supporting quotes you provided from the "Biblical Catholic" link are heavily doctored with ellipses.  This is always very disturbing to me because key aspects of context can be hiding behind any given ellipsis.  Or it may be inconsequential.  One simply can't tell. My question would be, why was it redacted?  Why not the full quote.  So naturally, being frustrated trying to find the supporting quotes in situ, I looked for another copy of them online, and found this:

"As soon," says Cardinal Manning, "as I perceived that the Holy Spirit of God has united Himself indissolubly to the mystical body or Church of Jesus Christ, I saw at once that the interpretations of the living Church are divine."

Quoted from here: http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/22nd-may-1909/11/reviews

I have emphasized the portions that were redacted from the "Biblical Catholic" version. Of course that omission, the "mystical body," is intriguing, because it appears to be a differentiation from the visible Church.  But of course it's hard to tell, because this is the only fragment I could come up with. So I'm not trying to make anything out of it, except to say that ellipses are not the friend of good source citation.

As for the meat of the contested quote, I did read enough of the full book to pick up the sense that one of Manning's main tasks was to show that an appeal to antiquity, as was typical of the Reformers, amounted to setting reason above faith, a central concern in the 19th Century due to the rampant rationalism that followed the so-called Enlightenment.  I disagree with his analysis, of course, and most especially what he said about history and fact.  To review, here's the quote:

No Catholic would first take what our objectors call history, fact, anquity, and the like, and from them deduce his faith....These things are not the basis of his faith, nor is the examination of them his method of thoelogical proof

Assuming the quote is good (though the misspellings of "antiquity" and "theological" do not enhance my confidence), while he may be right about Roman Catholics not deducing faith from history and facts, for those of us not born into the Roman system the facts and the history do indeed play a role in coming to faith.  I would not say their role was the cause of faith in the theological sense, because that must be a gift of God, as it was for Peter, through a work of miraculous grace.  But were there no Gospel record of the history of the resurrection, were there no fact of the teaching ministry of Christ and the apostles as recorded in Scripture, there would have been no Gospel to believe for people like me.  

So I think he's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. All truth is God's truth. The apostle John collected the facts of his Gospel concerning the life and ministry of Christ for the express purpose of engendering faith in his readers. "But these are written that you may believe ..." John 20:31.  Diminishing the role of facts and history does not eliminate the risk of setting reason above faith.  All Manning does by that maneuver is seal up the Roman version of the Gospel in a fatally circular epistemology.  The OP's evaluation, while he does gloss over the issue of rationalism, is consistent with the epistemology Manning appears to be asserting, that the Roman church is the starting point of truth, because it and only it is in union with the Holy Spirit, and therefore whatever it says, no matter how discordant with facts as ordinary people understand them, must be the primitive truth (which is not the same as Newman's view).  But his assumption that Rome has this validating union with the Holy Spirit must be built on evidence, else it is just vaporware, a claim any institution might make, and many do.  And if it is built on evidence, then it is, under Manning's logic, rationalist, which is nonsense.  Full circle.

So I'm sorry verga, while the OP didn't give it the in-depth treatment it probably needs, and I haven't done it full justice either, the OP appears to be essentially correct in his use of this quote.  At least that's how I see it at the moment.

Peace,

SR

[verga]

It just made it the exact opposite of what the OP claimed. And quoting a prot that quotes Catholics out of context does not support your claim.

Still waiting for you to call the OP out for their error as you have done to Catholics.

I guess that Catholics are the only ones that actually admit errors.

Of course that just goes to prove my statement that there are only 2-3 non-Catholics that are christians on these threads.

[verga]

Just what is it you imagine is in error or revisionist history with the OP? Go ahead, give me a list.

Ummmm, post 8 that you already responded to. And no imagination required, I presented facts and quotes in context, something the OP failed to do.

[verga]

I was pointing out a lack of scholarly rigor. It seems the non-Catholics are not doing a good job of reading and evaluating. Or is this just a feeble attempt to couch a personal attack?

[Mark17]

An old western figure, Jim Bridger,

Let's drink to old Jim Bridger,
yes lift your glasses high
As long as there's a USA
Don't let his memory die.

Johnnie Horton

[CynicalBear]

>>I question the monomaniacal focus<<

You can question it all you like but if God puts a cause on someones heart who are you to question it?

>>as well as the propriety, on a site of otherwise shared political, social, and moral values<<

So debate of what scripture says should be disallowed? Should error be tolerated just so "we can all just get along"?

>>and perhaps are more inclined to mud-slinging.<<

When Christ corrected the Pharisees was that mud slinging. When Paul corrected Peter was that mud slinging? When Christ warned the church's through the letters in Revelation was that mud slinging?

[Elsie]

That’s great about your love of history, but you must have fallen asleep when they covered the atrocities that Oliver Cromwell forced upon the Catholic Church.

Powerful dude!

Then there wuz a little something called the Spanish Inquisition...

[Elsie]

Go up North to find his brother; Tim.

[Mark17]

Go up North to find his brother; Tim.

Tim??? I thought it was WAY up north,
cuz Big Sam left Seattle in the year of 92
With George Pratt his partner and brother Billy too

[Mark17]

Then there wuz a little something called the Spanish Inquisition...

Weren't there other Inquisitions too? I never heard about any of them until later in life. Maybe that was because of where I went to school. 🇵🇭😇