Back to the Beginning: A Brief Introduction to the Ancient Catholic Church

Catholic Education ^ | November 21, 2005 | GEORGE SIM JOHNSTON

[NYer]

Girding up for the holiday season :-)

[kenth]

bump

[Nihil Obstat]

Great post. Thank you.

[HarleyD]

How timely. ;O)

[x5452]

Moslty great post (I'd debate what primacy meant then and now...)

I especially like the calling out of the History Channel.

After they decided a good Christmas special was one about whether the Virgin Mary was raped by a Roman soldier I am shocked that the church hasn't called for boycotting the channel. (Attacking the virgin birth is a direct attack on Christianity).

[TotusTuus]

To paraphrase Hilaire Belloc, there was no such thing as a religion called "primitive Christianity." There is and always has been the Church, founded by Christ around the year 30 A.D.

Excellent article!

This, in a nutshell, is the reason I am compelled to be, and remain, a Catholic. What else is there? Where else can we go?

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."

[HarleyD]

"The culture is now flooded with bogus scholarship whose main purpose is to put...orthodox Catholicism — on the defensive. But most Catholics have no idea how to respond, and more than a few take these books and documentaries at face value. After all, they have the imprimatur of the History Channel or a large publishing house like Doubleday.

Why should believe the History Channel or Doubleday when we have the Catholic Church to give us the OBJECTIVE view of Church history? ;O)

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"And yet most Catholics know very little about their own history.:

Thanks to Land O'Lakes and other goofy kooky wreckovators of Catholic higher education.

[ArrogantBustard]

You think the History Channel is 'objective'????

sad ....

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

The media have a sharp appetite for this recycling of 19th-century, anti-clerical scholarship, and so books by scholars like Gary Wills and Elaine Pagels get maximum exposure. And then there is The Da Vinci Code, which has sold a staggering nine million copies. Both the New York Times and National Public Radio seem to think that it is based on historical fact. Even its author appears to think so. But a book that claims that Christians did not believe in the divinity of Christ until the fourth century, that a Roman emperor chose the four Gospels, that the Church executed five million witches, and that Opus Dei has monks is obviously little more than a farrago of nonsense.

Yeah. And that's putting it lightly.

More could be said about the retarded nature of modern liberal secular humanist culture.

[little jeremiah]

Later read.

[djrakowski]

"Long before there was a New Testament, there was a deposit of faith concerning the nature of God, His threefold personality, His purpose in making man, the Incarnation."

This is one of the primary reasons I'm becoming Catholic!

[x5452]

Why Catholic and not Eastern Orthodox?

[djrakowski]

"Why Catholic and not Eastern Orthodox?"

Orthodox churches allow divorce and remarriage, as well as contraception. The teachings of Catholicism make more sense in light of what's been revealed in Sacred Scripture. To quote from the conversion story of Cindy Beck (http://www.chnetwork.org/cbconv.htm):

"Up until 1930, all Christian churches taught that contraception was intrinsically evil and gravely sinful. It was the Anglican Church, at its Lambeth Conference, that first approved the use of birth control. Since that time, every single Protestant denomination – and sadly even the Orthodox Church – has followed suit, departing from nineteen hundred years of universal Christian belief."

[x5452]

The Orthodox church does not allow divorce or contraception.

Divorce:
The church allows remarriage in cases of adultry. The difference being they don't call it an annulmant even though it is the same set of criteria. It's based on the exact same scriptural reference the Catholic church uses for determining anulmants.

OCA:
http://oca.org/QAindex-sacramentmarriage.asp?SID=3
GOA
http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7101.asp
Other Orthodox General Info
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/general/doctrine3.aspx
http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Pastoral_Guidelines#Weddings

Contraception:
OCA
http://oca.org/QA.asp?ID=147&SID=3
GOA
http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7101.asp
Russian Moscow Patriarchiate
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/oct/04100710.html
General Info Sites:
http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Contraception

Anyone familiar with the Orthodox church and Catholic church doctrine will confirm the doctrine in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches is near identical on these topics. Your 'mileage may vary' from parish to parish, however it does in the Catholic church as well.

Further they hold to the Fourth Council definition of primacy:
http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Fourth_Ecumenical_Council

And the original version of the Nicene Creed:
http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Filioque

[jo kus]

What was "primitive Christianity"? John Henry Newman became a Catholic in the course of answering that question. History, he said, is the enemy of Protestantism. It is also the enemy of the newly vigorous anti-Catholicism that circulates among our cultural elites.

I have found through experience that some people will only believe those histories that they want to believe, that support their own already pre-conceived ideas of how things were. By going to primary sources or secondary sources that remain unbiased, we can get a good idea of the history. But I personally don't care much for such scholarship made with the intent in mind already to disprove the Church (or any other historical claim). Before becoming Christian, I learned this in my study of military history. One could manipulate history to make it read what they wanted - so it was necessary to look at the source - is the "historian" trying to prove something? Or are they trying to look at the facts in an unbiased manner, presenting what is there?

It appears anachronistic thought is alive and well, by the looks of those "anti-Catholic" historians trying to resurrect the Gnostic heresies.

Regards

[StAthanasiustheGreat]

I would say that the author is refering to the Catholic Church pre-1054. While the falling out began prior to that, certainly one would say that in the early centuries of the Church, the East West divide was not nearly as pronouced as it has sadly become today. Would you agree?

[x5452]

Up until the 1054 the church was fairly unified. I just don't like the way the article uses the generic term primacy, as though everyone in 1053 had the same definition as the Vatican I definition.

I think a return to the pre-1054 understanding of primacy would be a huge step toward ending the schism (that and a real effort on both sides to stop picking converts out of the other's parishes).

Further I think the combined weight of both churches could do a lot to eliminate protestantism.

[HarleyD]

I have found through experience that some people will only believe those histories that they want to believe, that support their own already pre-conceived ideas of how things were.

Yes. I quite agree.