Posted on 01/27/2007 6:12:35 AM PST by NYer
The Early Church Fathers were the leaders and teachers of the early Church. They lived and wrote during the first eight centuries of Church history. Some of their writings were composed to instruct and / or to encourage the faithful. Other writings were composed to explain or defend the faith when it was attacked or questioned. The writings of the Early Fathers are widely available and studied. They are accepted by Catholic and non Catholic scholars alike. Thus they provide common ground in establishing the beliefs and practices of the early Church.
The earliest of the fathers are known as the Apostolic Fathers. Their writings come to us from the first two centuries of Church History. They were the immediate successors of the Apostles. Three of them were disciples of one or more of the Apostles. Clement of Rome was a disciple of the apostles Peter and Paul. Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna were disciples of the Apostle John. Naturally we would expect that those who were taught directly by the Apostles would themselves believe and teach correctly.
Protestantism is based on the allegation that the Catholic Church became corrupt shortly after 312 AD. That’s when the emperor Constantine converted and made Christianity the state religion. It is alleged that pagan converts came into the Church bringing with them many of their pagan beliefs and practices. According to Protestant historians the pagan practices that were brought into the Church became the distinctive doctrines of Catholicism. Thus the Catholic Church was born and true Christianity was lost until the Reformation. But history tells us a different story.
Shortly after the death of the apostle John, his disciple, Ignatius of Antioch, referred to the Church as the Catholic Church. In his Letter to the Smyrnaeans he wrote: "Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church" (8:2 [A.D. 107]).
In reading the Early Fathers we see a Church with bishops in authority over priests and deacons. We see a church that baptized infants and believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. We see a Church that believed in the primacy of Rome, the intercession of the saints in heaven and the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Thus we are lead to the inescapable conclusion that the early Church was the Catholic Church.
As you can see, the writings of the Early Fathers are especially helpful in refuting the Protestant claim that many Catholic doctrines were invented in later years. Although they are wrong concerning the age of Catholic doctrines their reasoning is sound. If a teaching appears after the apostolic age without evidence of previous support it must be false. Curiously enough though, they abandon this line of reasoning when it comes to many of their own beliefs such as the doctrine of Scripture Alone (mid 1500’s), The Rapture (late 1800’s), the licitness of artificial contraception (1930) and many others.
It is important to note that some doctrines existed in a primitive form during the early years. These doctrines would develop over time. One example is the Doctrine of the Trinity. All of its elements were present at the beginning but it wasn’t clearly defined the way it is today. It wasn’t until later that it was fully understood. This would not make it a late teaching as all of the information was there from the beginning. Other doctrines were developed in this same way.
Also worthy of note is the fact that the Early Fathers occasionally disagreed on minor issues that were not yet settled by the Church. This does not present us with a problem as we do not claim that the Fathers were infallible. While they were not infallible they were unmistakably Catholic. They clearly illustrate the fact that the early Church had no resemblance to Protestantism.
John Henry Newman was one of the more famous converts to Catholicism. After studying the Early Fathers he wrote: "The Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth it is this, and Protestantism has ever felt it so; to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant" (An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine).
Christianity was started by Christ 2000 years ago and it has existed for 2000 years. It didn’t go away for 1200 years and come back. Indeed that would have rendered Jesus’ words impotent. In Matthew 16:18 as He was establishing His Church Jesus gave us a guarantee. He said: "I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." If the Protestant hypothesis is correct, the gates of hell did some serious prevailing and Jesus Christ is a liar. But of course such is not the case.
"And Can It Be" is the unofficial theme song of Asbury Theological Seminary, of which I am a graduate.
Chapel services regularly included this wonderful Wesley hymn. There is nothing quite like nearly half a thousand (mostly) male voices, many of whom understanding harmonizing, singing that song with all their hearts.
One hardly needs any more of the service than that.
Bravo.
"I think that is because there is an aversion to looking too closely at the Fathers, for fear of what could be recognized therein."
I don't think that's what it is. Reading the Fathers is a particularly dangerous thing for Protestants to do if they want to remain Protestants, that's true. When some of them are introduced to the Fathers at seminary by a Protestant preacher, they read and pray and understand and many thereafter enter The Church. In that context they aren't afraid of the Fathers. But when the subject is presented to them as "Catholic", they immediately think "Roman Catholic Church" and that is the hated Whore of Babylon. Immediate rejection and attack. It is a situation for which both the Latin Church and the protestants are to blame. Rome spent centuries anathemizing anyone who wasn't in communion with the Pope of Rome, including other particular churches within The Church. It arrogated to itself the term "Catholic Church" and that worked so well that whenever the term is used in general parlance, everyone takes it to mean the Church of Rome. The Protestants, meanwhile, seem to have defined themselves at base by denying what they think of as being teachings of their bogeyman the Roman Catholic Church, no matter what the teaching is, simply because they think the teaching is quintessentially Roman when in fact it isn't.
Even here on FR, where there has been something of an orthodox witness for some years, most, but by no means all, Protestants still don't make any distinction between their bogeyman and the Pre-Schism Church. Its a real problem, S.
Yes, that is how I handle disruption on closed threads - remove and warn.
BWA HAHAHAHA
It's broadbrush, strawman arguments like this that keep me from even considering the arguments presented by lay Catholics and Orthodox such as yourself.
I have no problem reading and learning about the Church Fathers. It's their great-great-grandchildren that give me severe problems.
Alex, that's why I said "most, but by no means all, Protestants". You've read what the Orthodox here have to say and reject it. For that matter, you reject much of what the Fathers wrote. But it is quite apparent, at least to me and for some time now, that your objection is to our and the Fathers' theology in and of itself and not because you think Orthodoxy is some spin off franchise of the Latin Church.
There are a number of Protestants here who fall into that category. In any event, my comment was not directed at Protestants but rather at the persistent Latin practice of using the term "Catholic Church" when either, a) they mean Roman Catholic Church and its dependencies or b) mean the Pre Schism Church and simply assume everyone knows what they mean when in fact, as this very thread demonstrates, that is not at all true.
Boy, if that doesn't smack of "reading the mind of another poster", I don't know what else it could be. I doubt even a heavy re-wording could fix that.
"Boy, if that doesn't smack of "reading the mind of another poster", I don't know what else it could be."
Comes from 30 years of mind reading in court and with clients, Alex...and talking with Protestants, active laity, ministers and minister and lay Protestant converts to Orthodoxy.
"I doubt even a heavy re-wording could fix that."
No need to re-word it. It means precisely what you said.
Ever wear dogtags? Ever live in a community where everyone knows everyone else?
Why do you have anyone on oral contraceptives?
I've already answered that elsewhere on this thread. Clean your own house first.
IMO you can't claim that and simulateously claim that the Catholic Church is the largest Christian body in the USA. Take your pick.
My point when I said the RC church numbers 323 people.
You said contradictory things, you said you had people on ABC and then you said you didn't write the scripts. It was a bit confusing. So do you agree, that doctors should prescribe abortaficiants, at least for the purpose of acting as abortaficiants? This really isn't a house cleaning issue, it is a moral issue that transcends denominations, much like abortion or segregation.
The first mistake lies in the confusion of modern "evangelical" Christianity--almost universally identified by Catholic apologists as "fundamentalism"--with the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Many Catholic apologists have honed to near perfection the technique of blasting to smithereens the anti-creedal, anti-historical, anti-intellectual positions of "Bible-Only" fundamentalists. By focusing their attention on the "no creed but Christ" foolishness of the latter and wrongly equating it with the classical Protestant formal principle of Sola Scriptura, they attempt to expose what they believe to be a glaring inconsistency in something they rather generically call "the Protestant view".
And while we're talking about sexually related issues, why are nuns acting as pimps?
you said you had people on ABC and then you said you didn't write the scripts
No contradiction there. They are on the pill, I see some of them as overflow, I didn't put them on the pill, someone else did.
Denominations? Are you calling the Roman Catholic Church a denomination???
Someone get me some popcorn! This could get interesting!
This was carried to the extremes of foolishness in the Army in my early years on active duty. For a variety of systemic reasons, the RC's pretty much owned the Army Chaplaincy from WWII until the 90's....and probably still have pretty much of a strangle-hold on it.
In short, if it wasn't Catholic or Jewish, it was "Protestant." (They never were sure what to do with the Orthodox.)
Even for an evanglical like me, it was absurd seeing a Mormon presented as a "Protestant."
Interestingly, that is what Dante (who was Catholic) felt as well. He has several popes in hell in his book. As it is, when you bring a huge amounts of pagans into a different religion, they are bound to integrate some of their customs into the new faith. Nothing wrong with it.
I don't know about corrupting it. Although Catholics and many Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on Dec 25, we're still celebrating the birth of Jesus, not the death of the Snow God or whatever previous festival took place at that time.
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