Posted on 06/07/2007 4:07:42 AM PDT by markomalley
-- DO you say God is ONE or God is NOT One. If He IS one then you are denying the Trinity. If you say He is NOT one, then you are denying the unity and either way you are a heretic.
-- Do you say the consecrated bread IS God the Son of God, or do you say it is NOT God the Son of God. If you say it IS, then you are saying the consecrated bread made the world. If you say it is NOT then aren't you denying transubstantiation?
-- DO you say the Church IS God the Son of God or do you say it is NOT blah blah.
In one recension of this creating of falsely exhaustive alternatives, we also get false equivalences. For example to say something is "substantially" something else is taken to mean it is "physically" something else, because "substance" is used in post-scholastic discourse quite differently from the way it is used in scholastic discourse.
I have not found a way to work with this kind of sophistry. (Again, I do not mean to use the term "sophistry" in an abusive way but as a description of a kind of logical fallacy, often unintended.)
You clearly take me too seriously.
N3
Neener, Neener, Neener.
You wrote:
“I don’t understand your question -——”
You should since you brought up the point. Here, let me help you. You wrote in post #13: “Also can you show us there in the Book of Acts where Peter was ever in Rome, or is all that mythology about him being the first bishop of Rome been withdrawn yet by your magisterium??”
I then asked you in post #24: “Can you show me where exactly it is part of the magisterium that Peter was the “first bishop of Rome”? I’m just curious.”
I thought the Bible was the word of God. I had no idea it was a Catholic book.
In your zeal to denounce virtually all early Church documents as forgeries, I suppose you will likewise claim that Justin Martyr’s account of a Christian “service” ca. 155 AD is one also. IAC, what it describes is more like a mass or an episcopal liturgy than a Baptist worship service. More to the point, as the author of the articles points out, there can be little doubt that “the breaking of the bread” was a communion service, and that it was part of regular Christian worship, and that apart from that, it is silent as to forms. Yet again, if we compare what Justin says with what Paul says, the two are quite compatible. In general, Christian worship follwed the lines of Synagogue worship, but was Christ centered. What could be more Christ-centered than what Justin describes, or one more unlike a typical Sunday “gospel” service? It is well to remember than when John Calvin created a sunday service for Geneva, he proposed two halves: the Part that concentrated on songs and prayers and preaching, and the Part that deals with the Lord’s Supper. HE would have had them both obserced each Sunday, but in order to de-emphasize the role of the clerics, he went alone with the general practice of observing only the first part each Sunday and observing the Lord’s Suppper only monthly or quarterly. Otherwise one has a worship that is basically the same as the mass, which he and his fellows considered to be anathama.Parenthetically, he had no problem with Archbishop Cranmer’s order of service, which IS much like the mass but which rewrites the Roman canon to exclude the papal language and replace it with language more agreeable to Geneva. Ironically, what was acceptable to Calvin was not to the Puritans and they broke with the Church primarily over a matter of symbols.
As to church-government, it is quite evident that it is authoritarian in character, although one need not suppose that it immediately or even quickly adopted the quasi-political form that it had assumed by the 3rd Century. much less the Catholic/Orthodox forms of the Middle Ages. One must try very hard to read back into the New Testament the forms of worship and/or church government adopted by the separatists. They begin, I think, with a valid principle: that the church must not be subject to the State in matters of religion. This of course, they shared with the Catholic “recusants” who likewise refused to conform with the doctrine and worship of the Church of England. Catholics and Anglicans, of course, each believed that the State was bound to enforce the doctrines of the Church recognized by the king. The separatists, of course, rightly understood, like the early Christians, that they were bound by the Truth, that the State was not to obeyed when it enforrced false doctrine. They, more than any Christian of the time, realized that a union of Church and State must end in State domination.
But to get back to the point. However true their insight, the separatists with but a sect, a fragment of the Church, who had fallen back on the Bible as a substitute for the traditonal authority of the Church. Magically, it seems to me, they had assumed for themselves the role of Apostles, leaping back in time to a world of which they had little more understanding, then I have of life in imperial China, seeking to interpret a book which was, EXCEPT what they had been taught by the Church, was as mysterious as an Egyptian inscription.
By God, of course, but like the tablets of the law brought down from the Mountain, or by means of king, priests, Prophets, scribes , Apostles and apostle’s men?
Luke was an ass?
It's Roman Catholic Tradition. Asking if Catholics believe that Peter was the 1st bishop of Rome is like asking if the Pope is Catholic. Check New Advent or any Catholic website.
I believe the first to make the claim that he was the first bishop of Rome was Eusebius followed by Jerome. Both claimed that he became bishop of Rome in the 2nd year of Claudius [42 AD] and held the sacerdotal chair for 25 years until the 14th year of Nero [67 AD] --- all of which stretches credulity to such an extent that even the Catholic Encyclopedia has backed away from their claims.
I didn't realize that the two concepts were incompatible.
Produced through the Church. Right.
I didn't know him before he became a Christian. Possibly.
I was referring to this story:
Numbers 22:21-34 KJV
(21) And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.
(22) And God's anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.
(23) And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.
(24) But the angel of the LORD stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side.
(25) And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall: and he smote her again.
(26) And the angel of the LORD went further, and stood in a narrow place, where was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.
(27) And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.
(28) And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?
(29) And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.
(30) And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? And he said, Nay.
(31) Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.
(32) And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me:
(33) And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive.
(34) And Balaam said unto the angel of the LORD, I have sinned; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me: now therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me back again.
Agreed. In fact, but...the term "catholic" means "universal." It is all encompassing.
The 25 years may be legendary, but what is to have prevented Peter from traveling to Rome, which was after all, the capital of the Empire? The date, at least fits the time of his “disappearance” from Acts. Luke can be infuruating in what he does not tell us. Suddenly he includes himself in the Company of Paul without a word of self-introduction. Suddenly “Acts” breaks off as if the writer just puts down his pen. The simple, human fact is that so much of the New Testament is written to be heard by men who know “the rest of the story,” not us. Who was the writer who said that Caesar’s cook knew more about the Roman empire than the greatest of our historians? The simplest, most illiterate stone mason in the church in Corinth, knew more about Paul than we do.
Well, “believers” is the first term applied to Christians by Luke. Have to start from that.
I know the story, but we can think that God literally dictated the Bible or dictated by Prophets, Priests, and Apostles inspired by God. In any case, human hands set down the words.
Even on the Day of Pentecost, "Roman strangers" (advenœ Romani, Acts 2:10) were present at Jerusalem, and they surely must have carried the good news to their fellow-citizens at Rome. Ancient tradition assigns to the year 42 the first coming of St. Peter to Rome, though, according to the pseudo-Clementine Epistles, St. Barnabas was the first to preach the Gospel in the Eternal City. Under Claudius (c. A.D. 50), the name of Christ had become such an occasion of discord among the Hebrews of Rome that the emperor drove them all out of the city, though they were not long in returning. About ten years later Paul also arrived, a prisoner, and exercised a vigorous apostolate during his sojourn. The Christians were numerous at that time, even at the imperial Court. The burning of the city -- by order of Nero, who wished to effect a thorough renovation -- was the pretext for the first official persecution of the Christian name. Moreover, it was very natural that persecution, which had been occasional, should in course of time have become general and systematic; hence it is unnecessary to transfer the date of the Apostles' martyrdom from the year 67, assigned by tradition, to the year 64 (see PETER, SAINT; PAUL, SAINT). Domitian's reign took its victims both from among the opponents of absolutism and from the Christians; among them some who were of very exalted rank -- Titus Flavius Clemens, Acilius Glabrio (Cemetery of Priscilla), and Flavia Domitilla, a relative of the emperor. It must have been then, too, that St. John, according to a very ancient legend (Tertullian), was brought to Rome.
Source: New Advent
You were saying?
If it was dogmatic, why would the Catholic Encyclopedia discuss Barnabas?
Fact is, there were Christians in Rome before Peter. But, Peter, first among the apostles, went to Rome. The bishops that were over Rome after Peter were his successors. Is it a matter of dogma? No. Is it a matter of history? yeah.
Produce some factual evidence that states which apostle (or ordained bishop even) was there prior to Peter (and whom Peter "succeeded") and I'll listen. Doesn't change the fact that the diocese of Rome is the See of Peter. But it would be interesting, on a trivial basis...
I'm glad we agree there!
I’m sure you aren’t referring to Catholicism as a “sect”
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