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...and one who can't count. 4th century is the 300s. So 300 years after Christ....and only a few decades after the last great persecution.

That the best argument you can put forth? It wasn't 500 years. It was really 300 Years?

That is unconvincing. It was still hundreds of years after the lives of the apostles.

If Gregory of Nyssa got this wrong....then *why the flip didn't anyone correct him*?

I wasn't there and can only guess, as could you. Historically, anyone opposing the established Pagan/Christian church was tortured and or executed. Everyone supporting this church was OK with them.

You might as well ask, when Rome added a class of demigods, mirroring the paganism from Greece, why didn't anyone correct them? When they made dear Mary into a demigoddess and gave her false titles, why didn't anyone correct them?

So either the whole church..every single Christian theologian was corrupted *at the same time*....

I already addressed this in my earlier posts. God has ALWAYS had his people that knew and believed the truth in faith - even when Rome was killing them for following God. Men, women and children, slaughtered as martyrs by Rome, for believing what God said. So your statement is not true.

There are more important questions you did not ask.

Where is it supported in the Scriptures?

Where is the evidence this was believed in an unbroken chain from the time of Christ and His Apostles??

as to this comment...

you are the one who was wrong and this is what the early Church believed from the beginning.

This should be the easiest claim to support, if it were true. Simply show that the early church did believe this from the time of the Apostles on. Show an Apostle teaching this. Show it happened before 100ad, during their lives.

That would support your claim.

I'd love to see it FRiend.

I wasn't there and can only guess, as could you.

No we can't only guess, we have plenty of writings from this period from people who lived through it, and we can read what they had to say about the time.

Unless, of course, if we have such a bee in our bonnet about "tradition" that we just ignore all that priceless information.

Historically, anyone opposing the established Pagan/Christian church was tortured and or executed. Everyone supporting this church was OK with them.

Um...what? This was in the 300s. There were orthodox Christians, Arians, Manichaeans, Docetists all kinds of people floating around, and there was certainly no Inquisition to stop them. People had every opportunity to make the case...if they thought it was a case worth making.

Easy. BECAUSE THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. Mary was never elevated to any sort of divine anything, and in fact when one sect DID do something like that (the Collyridians) Epiphanius called it a heresy.

Simply show that the early church did believe this from the time of the Apostles on. Show an Apostle teaching this. Show it happened before 100ad, during their lives.

Read down thread. I posted the Scriptural support from St. Paul and implied from Christ Himself. Antoninus posted evidence from the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity around 200, and I posted evidence from an inscription of 167.

Of course, you are going to say my interpretation is wrong and that every bit of evidence I cite is evidence of the paganizing corruption of the true Christian Church.

Yeah sure. Every instance of prayers for the dead are wrong. It's all some great big Catholic, Orthodox, and Oriental conspiracy against the First Baptist Church of Phrygia or some other imaginary ecclesial body that kept the "pure doctrines" of the Scripture intact.

Long story short...I can show you tons of evidence the doctrine was upheld. Can you show me any that it was rejected?