Posted on 05/31/2011 11:53:33 AM PDT by marshmallow
The Protoevangelium of James
“And behold, an angel of the Lord stood by [St. Anne], saying, ‘Anne! Anne! The Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive and shall bring forth, and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world.’ And Anne said, ‘As the Lord my God lives, if I beget either male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God, and it shall minister to him in the holy things all the days of its life.’ . . . And [from the time she was three] Mary was in the temple of the Lord as if she were a dove that dwelt there” (Protoevangelium of James 4, 7 [A.D. 120]).
“And when she was twelve years old there was held a council of priests, saying, ‘Behold, Mary has reached the age of twelve years in the temple of the Lord. What then shall we do with her, lest perchance she defile the sanctuary of the Lord?’ And they said to the high priest, ‘You stand by the altar of the Lord; go in and pray concerning her, and whatever the Lord shall manifest to you, that also will we do.’ . . . [A]nd he prayed concerning her, and behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him saying, ‘Zechariah! Zechariah! Go out and assemble the widowers of the people and let them bring each his rod, and to whomsoever the Lord shall show a sign, his wife shall she be. . . . And Joseph [was chosen]. . . . And the priest said to Joseph, ‘You have been chosen by lot to take into your keeping the Virgin of the Lord.’ But Joseph refused, saying, ‘I have children, and I am an old man, and she is a young girl’” (ibid., 8–9).
“And Annas the scribe came to him [Joseph] . . . and saw that Mary was with child. And he ran away to the priest and said to him, ‘Joseph, whom you did vouch for, has committed a grievous crime.’ And the priest said, ‘How so?’ And he said, ‘He has defiled the virgin whom he received out of the temple of the Lord and has married her by stealth’” (ibid., 15).
“And the priest said, ‘Mary, why have you done this? And why have you brought your soul low and forgotten the Lord your God?’ . . . And she wept bitterly saying, ‘As the Lord my God lives, I am pure before him, and know not man’” (ibid.).
Origen
“The Book [the Protoevangelium] of James [records] that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end, so that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word . . . might not know intercourse with a man after the Holy Spirit came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the firstfruit among men of the purity which consists in [perpetual] chastity, and Mary was among women. For it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the firstfruit of virginity” (Commentary on Matthew 2:17 [A.D. 248]).
Hilary of Poitiers
“If they [the brethren of the Lord] had been Mary’s sons and not those taken from Joseph’s former marriage, she would never have been given over in the moment of the passion [crucifixion] to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each, ‘Woman, behold your son,’ and to John, ‘Behold your mother’ [John 19:26–27), as he bequeathed filial love to a disciple as a consolation to the one desolate" (Commentary on Matthew 1:4 [A.D. 354]).
Athanasius
“Let those, therefore, who deny that the Son is by nature from the Father and proper to his essence deny also that he took true human flesh from the ever-virgin Mary” (Discourses Against the Arians 2:70 [A.D. 360]).
Epiphanius of Salamis
“We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things, both visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God . . . who for us men and for our salvation came down and took flesh, that is, was born perfectly of the holy ever-virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit” (The Man Well-Anchored 120 [A.D. 374]).
“And to holy Mary, [the title] ‘Virgin’ is invariably added, for that holy woman remains undefiled” (Medicine Chest Against All Heresies 78:6 [A.D. 375]).
Jerome
“[Helvidius] produces Tertullian as a witness [to his view] and quotes Victorinus, bishop of Petavium. Of Tertullian, I say no more than that he did not belong to the Church. But as regards Victorinus, I assert what has already been proven from the gospel—that he [Victorinus] spoke of the brethren of the Lord not as being sons of Mary but brethren in the sense I have explained, that is to say, brethren in point of kinship, not by nature. [By discussing such things we] are . . . following the tiny streams of opinion. Might I not array against you the whole series of ancient writers? Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men, who against [the heretics] Ebion, Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, held these same views and wrote volumes replete with wisdom. If you had ever read what they wrote, you would be a wiser man” (Against Helvidius: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary 19 [A.D. 383]).
“We believe that God was born of a virgin, because we read it. We do not believe that Mary was married after she brought forth her Son, because we do not read it. . . . You [Helvidius] say that Mary did not remain a virgin. As for myself, I claim that Joseph himself was a virgin, through Mary, so that a virgin Son might be born of a virginal wedlock” (ibid., 21).
Didymus the Blind
“It helps us to understand the terms ‘first-born’ and ‘only-begotten’ when the Evangelist tells that Mary remained a virgin ‘until she brought forth her first-born son’ [Matt. 1:25]; for neither did Mary, who is to be honored and praised above all others, marry anyone else, nor did she ever become the Mother of anyone else, but even after childbirth she remained always and forever an immaculate virgin” (The Trinity 3:4 [A.D. 386]).
Ambrose of Milan
“Imitate her [Mary], holy mothers, who in her only dearly beloved Son set forth so great an example of material virtue; for neither have you sweeter children [than Jesus], nor did the Virgin seek the consolation of being able to bear another son” (Letters 63:111 [A.D. 388]).
Pope Siricius I
“You had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if he had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord’s body, that court of the eternal king” (Letter to Bishop Anysius [A.D. 392]).
Augustine
“In being born of a Virgin who chose to remain a Virgin even before she knew who was to be born of her, Christ wanted to approve virginity rather than to impose it. And he wanted virginity to be of free choice even in that woman in whom he took upon himself the form of a slave” (Holy Virginity 4:4 [A.D. 401]).
“It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?” (Sermons 186:1 [A.D. 411]).
“Heretics called Antidicomarites are those who contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary and affirm that after Christ was born she was joined as one with her husband” (Heresies 56 [A.D. 428]).
Leporius
“We confess, therefore, that our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, born of the Father before the ages, and in times most recent, made man of the Holy Spirit and the ever-virgin Mary” (Document of Amendment 3 [A.D. 426]).
Cyril of Alexandria
“[T]he Word himself, coming into the Blessed Virgin herself, assumed for himself his own temple from the substance of the Virgin and came forth from her a man in all that could be externally discerned, while interiorly he was true God. Therefore he kept his Mother a virgin even after her childbearing” (Against Those Who Do Not Wish to Confess That the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God 4 [A.D. 430]).
Pope Leo I
“His [Christ’s] origin is different, but his [human] nature is the same. Human usage and custom were lacking, but by divine power a Virgin conceived, a Virgin bore, and Virgin she remained” (Sermons 22:2 [A.D. 450]).
It seems to me that the Church wanted him to recant that you are saved by grace through faith. It wasn't Luther's pride that kept him from doing so.
Didn't you read what I wrote? God tells us to repent to only shows us that we cannot.
Now do you believe that the wicked can turn away from their wickedness without God's help? -- My answer is No.
Then to what point does God stop helping the wicked come to Him? And if God helped EVERYONE come to Him, then wouldn't they come to Him?
God's grace is needed for us to turn to him, yes, but there is no proof for God pre-condeming pre-programmed people to hell
The facts are that 1) God made man, 2) God knew man would fall, 3) God created the conditions by putting the tree in the garden, 4) God allowed the serpent to tempt Eve, 5) God allowed Eve to give Adam the fruit fully knowing what would happen, 6) God did nothing to intervene, 7) God already knew what punishment would be dished out.
Those are the facts. The reason God created this situation is because we would never know paradise gain without paradise lost.
God does not do that.
I wouldn't presume to know the mind of God.
This is why I tried to present it as a language/terms issue.
I look at the Psalms. I see the Psalmist praising, whining, rebuking complaining, even asking God to get out of his face and leave him alone! But recently somebody on"your side" told me the Psalms aren't prayers! Okay (Wha'?)
(BTW, stay at home dads may know a little something about interactions with kids.)
If I may generalize, a lot on your side seem to have a very binary way of looking at things. No shades. So our distinction between worship and reverence (or whatever terms one wants to use) just doesn't fit into the bi-pole universe.
It's a pretty old distinction. I've FINALLY begun reading John of Damascus and it's in the first couple of (8th century) pages.
So if we come onto the field saying, "Prayer is what you should do only to God," why then of course it's wrong of me to pray to Michael, Gabriel, Dymphna, Anthony, Thomas, Albert, Terese, Cecilia, Polycarp, Dominic, Jordan, Blessed JPII, and a huge supporting cast. It can't help but be wrong.
But I think it's an arbitrary definition which answers not to the history of the use of the term but only to a specific theological intention.
Further... How we communicate with the Lord is at another level of love and understanding than how we communicate with one another...sometimes raw and bare before Him because it is He whom we trust with our deepest self.
No disagreement there.
The POINT being...He is our ONLY intercessor.....just as He says that He is.....
OR the point is that IF, as John and Paul say a lot, we are united with him, we in him and he in us, in a spiritual (that is, more real than physical) union, then we pray in His Spirit, and in His Spirit we pray with each other and for each other, because, being united in him, we share in his intercessory work. I think all those angels and saints I mentioned above pray for me because, after their order, they are "in Him".
The difference you mention has its analog in our (a) asking a saint, notably Mary, to pray for us AND asking God to hear her prayers. We do not ask Mary to hear God's prayers! So there IS an asymmetry in our thinking, just not the one you present.
Even supposing you are correct, I am not aware of stretching anything. This is the way I use the word and I hear it used. I may sit on my couch or kneel or sit in the chapel and just "be with" God. I may internally verbalize some stuff, or I may not. I may "focus like a laser" on the Blessed Sacrament, or I may even allow myself to doze. (I figure once you're over 60 it's okay.) Yesterday after I nagged the Lord about some stuff I read John of Damascus in chapel -- as if to say, "There's no way I'm going to understand this stuff without your help."
In common parlance (I think) Before I do these things, I end my conversation with someone who wants to become catholic by saying, I'm going to go pray now."
You know I find words interesting and edumicational. And I've read a book. So I hear Jesus in Bach's Matthew Passion telling Peter and the sons of Zebedee to "stay here and pray" and I notice the German word is kin to 'bid' and remember that the word "beads" derives from the same root. And there's that petitionery sense. But we have bids in auctions and "heaven forBID!"
But discourses on old words that have grown and expanded HAVE to be long. To claim that their necessary length indicates falsehood makes no sense. The simplest things always take the most words to explain. E.g. Explain a quark. Then explain an automobile. Which was easier?
Where is the mental disconnect that RC's REFUSE to take the Biblical hint?
You will, no doubt, be astonished to find I look at it a different way! :-)
As Pentecostalists 'claim' certain gifts and act on them, we also claim and act on (or think we do) what we read in the Bible. We claim, as Peter says, that we are kings and priests in Christ. In Christ we make intercession for the world and for one another. And in Christ we not only interceded but ask for intercession, as even our Lord seemed somehow to want the prayers of Peter and James and John, and was grieved not to get them.
Whatever depth of history 'your side' claims, the more one gets into Catholicism one finds, as I did yesterday with John Damascene, that one is in a conversation of more than a millennium in duration, in fact, as we view it, a conversation that began with the ipsissima verba of the Lord and continued as the bumbling disciples said, "What do you think He meant by that?" And the quality of the conversation, we think, was elevated by the promised gift of the Spirit so that even oafish Peter could suddenly preach the archetypal Evangelical sermon with great power.
Claiming the cross and resurrection and the gifts which follow, we pray to one another and for one another. Claiming the word that those who believe in Christ will never die, we pray to those who have gone before. That is uniting those who are far off and those who are near in Spades, doubled, vulnerable! But we think and claim and live in the confidence that in the Spirit that union is more than real, not less.
So, it's not that we don't read Scripture, though many of us don't read it enough. It's that we read it with what Chesterton calls "the democracy of the dead", i.s. "tradition" and take advice and help from Justin, Damascene, and Charles Lwanga and the other martyrs of Uganda (Anglican as well as Catholic) who died as on this day, tortured and burned alive by the King of Uganda.
We BELIEVE, and act on that belief, that we are in the Body, united with Christ in the Holy Spirit,and that's why we have confidence to pray as we do.
One more, at the end of the long prayer of consecration, which is full of pleading and praise, thanks and intercession, and during which (in my parish, anyway) 'the people' are on their knees, we stand to pray the Lord's prayer. We call God "Father" and we stand in his presence because Jesus gave such assurances to us that, though humble, we are also bold.
Busy day. I will de-colorize and de-fontify your, if time allows, and give a less cursory response mo' later.
Have a beautiful New Mexico day! I love that state!
You wrote:
“There were no denominational labels, Catholic, Prebyterian, Baptist, .... that I know of in the first century.”
Jews will tell you otherwise. The Way and Christians would both be considered labels - even sectarian labels - by Jews in the first century. Also, the Catholic Church has never been, and will never be, a denomination.
“As for the other questions of doctrine - etc. In the first century, we did have the Old Testament, and the New Testament in the form of Gospels, the letters, the history by Luke, and the Revelation of John. From that, Christians derive our doctrine.”
False. Christians derived their doctrine from Christ and the Apostles’ teaching. That’s how Christianity could exist BEFORE a single verse of the NT was ever written.
“And I thank the Catholics for putting the New Testament together and preserving it.”
Okay, so you trust them with putting together and preserving the NT but not preserving the OT? Does that make any sense? You probably trust the Catholic Church with its Trinitarian doctrine, but not its doctrine on the Eucharist or priesthood?
“The crux is to believe Jesus is the Son of God and trust Him as our Savior. Why do we make it so complicated?”
I never thought it was complicated. Are Calvin’s Institutes really less complicated than the Catechism?
“That is totally universal - totally catholic.”
And that’s all that is? You’re essentially creating an anachronism for your definition of “catholic”.
“And believing God for salvation goes way, way, back before the first century to the Garden of Eden - the seed of the woman (Jesus born of a virgin) will crush the head of the serpent (the devil). Abraham believed God and it counted to him as righteousness. The nasty Ninevites that Jonah preached to - all believed God and He showed them mercy. (That’s all God has asked any sinner to do - believe Him.)”
And yet none of them were Christian. If someone could so easily be saved without believing or knowing Christ, why was Christ needed? Again, your essentially creating an anachronism.
“You are absolutely right that the Church is Christ-made.”
But is Presbyterianism?
Oh good grief, MD! We are a modern American English diverse group here. I find it an EXTREMELY GROSS GROPE to try and stretch those uses of "prayer" from an archaic form of English into this issue and context.
But it's not a stretch at all Quix...that's where the usage came from.
Mad Dawg is absolutely right. "Pray" for bid or ask was an extremely common usage in English and can be found all over English literature if you care to look. It's in the Bible as well. The only reason that you find it a "gross grope" is that the *language* changed from then till now. The faith didn't.
Also, we must remember Christianity wasn't born in England. In Italian we say "pregare", which means to pray AND to ask, bid. In Latin orare means to beg, pray or beseech. In Greek deesis means to ask or entreat of God or man.
Christianity does not rise or fall on the language preferences of 21st century America.
So, posturing it is....
Anyone else out there amused by the "humility" of those who stand on the street corners to loudly lament their faults "in principle," but always manage to avoid admitting said faults "in practice?"
Of course, where would the fun and visceral thrill of "righteous indignation" be if one had to admit to an actual error in judgment?
Bah! Why taint the heady intoxication of conspicuous gallantry with meddlesome details?
Excellent
You write what I have pondered.
Thanks
Jesus communicated with Mary. That, to me, is equivalent to prayer except that neither party has died yet.
By that logic then any time someone communicates with someone else, they are praying to them. That would mean that posting on this board, you are praying to caww.
And any time someone asked me a question, they are praying to me. Gee, I've never been prayed to by so many Catholics before. Since all NT believers are called *saints* and Catholics pray to saints, I guess I should be called Saint Metmom.
Learning occurring...right here before our very eyes!
Metmom - that's the problem; there is NO logic that could come close to validating their claim that "prayer is communicating."
Praying is praying, no matter how they try to explain it. Praying to anyone other than God Almighty is idolatry. And blasphemy.
Hoss
Now remember that we're just going to venerate you, not worship you! Don't let it go to your head.
Hm. Seems to me that Jesus showed us how the Gospel is to be lived. What’s the matter, isn’t that good enough?
“Joseph’s former marriage”
Since when does Scripture indicate Joseph had been married previously?
(Answer: [insert long sequence of other tenuous presumptions here])
If one must follow convoluted reasoning to achieve an absurd conclusion, then the conclusion is probably wrong.
And speaking of logic, are you familiar with the term “gratuitous assertion?”
You should be, because by definition a gratuitous assertion like “there is no logic that could come close to validating their claim...” may be just as gratuitously denied. And should be, when the ersatz logician is claiming something as asinine as the immutability of word usages.
Since when does Scripture claim to be exhaustive?
BTW Quix has beautiful fruit also.
When one collects together
a COMMITTEE of self-serving, self-righteous, political power-mongers . . .
PRIDE HAS to be one of the first things that takes a huge jump in embellished self-aggrandizement.
And, it never lets up . . . but goes from pseudo-lofty height to ever higher heights [actually lower depths] of one-upsmanship. The next top dog has to surpass the last top dog in power-mongering as well as flashy accoutraments of the ‘lofty’ position.
The pride of hell is never satisfied.
The only solution is daily—TO THE CROSS.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.