I'm actually in California trying to help people be founded in that fellowship you describe. So many people have no idea that Christ is not first in their life, and they're stunned to find out what they are putting in front of serving Christ and building his church.

I realize that there is still an elect, and that there are brethren spread throughout the world, let alone America. In fact, I have gone to some pretty awful churches who have obviously wrong doctrine, and are caked in complacence, but I go to one of their bible studies. I swear, the most grace I have ever seen has been mostly in bible studies of like minded people wrangling and analyzing scripture. The problem so much today is that so many folks put their trust in the man in the pulpit and don't even read their bibles that much. They don't test the preacher, they just accept what he says at face value and then go home and live the lives unchanged by God's Holy spirit. The grace of God is many times suppressed in this way. This church leader-ism has a place once in a while, but today, I believe that we need to reform the church and start back over with the people of the church being the main focus. We don't all need to be theologians or scholars, but we need to have true fellowship with one another (and not this manufactured Sunday churchism compartmental fellowship). We need to gather together and worship God. A part of a Spurgeon sermon comes to memory:

"Oh for the days when Whitfields would preach on tubs once more, when their pulpits should be on Kennington Common, and their roofs the ceiling of God's sky. Oh for the time when we might preach in barns again, or in catacombs either, if we might but have the life of God that once they had in such places."

We need to realize that the Lord can raise up anybody to preach His gospel, and that He truly gives gifts as He will. He can raise up a person with downs syndrome and endow them with the the spirit of the prophet Elijah if He so choses. The Holy spirit is our true teacher, and not any man.

I don’t have time to give you a thorough answer right now, but I wanted you to know I saw this. Here’s the short answer, without references. I’ll give you a better answer with references in a couple days.

The early church did talk about the Eucharist being the body and blood of Christ. There’s no indication they believed in transubstantiation, which suggests that there’s a physical change in the wine and bread. Ignatius called the Eucharist “the medicine of immortality.”

Every Protestant I’ve ever talked to about there being something real and communicating grace in the Lord’s Supper really liked the idea.

The early church did believe in baptismal regeneration. The Scriptures teach it pretty clearly, and everyone in the church believed it until AFTER the Reformation.

That doesn’t mean they believed in infant baptism. I have a page on that at http://www.christian-history.org/infant-baptism.html.

If you look at the Scriptures on baptism–rather than extrapolating from Scriptures on faith–I think you’ll see that baptism was the apostles version of the sinner’s prayer. It’s the way that early Christians carried out their faith in Christ, and so they were born again and washed their sins away in baptism.

The veneration of Mary belongs to the 4th century or later. I’m more familiar with the Pre-Nicene writings, and I can tell you that it’s just not there in their writings.

There’s a couple excellent quotes on the place of Scripture in the early fathers. I can think of even the location of two of them, but since I can’t quote them well enough to do them service I’ll wait for my next response. Irenaeus and Tertullian definitely say that the apostles’ traditions need to be verified with Scripture.

To be fair, though, I think you’ll find that Roman Catholics are willing to attempt to back up their traditions with Scripture (not very well, but they do attempt it).

Also, in the very same works that produced the statement that everything should be verified with Scripture, there are statements that the apostles’ churches, such as Ephesus, Philippi, and Rome, could and should be consulted on matters of disagreement because even heretics quote Scripture.

Again, references later.

I am grateful to you for the enlightening posts. I am a follower of Christ who, in becoming more familiar with the doctrines and dogmas of the Catholic Church, has been left somewhat bewildered that so many could believe a gospel so obviously foreign to that of Biblical Christianity. Yet at the same time, in debating Catholics, I have been surprised to hear the argument that the early church was supposedly ‘Catholic’. And more surprised when I read some of the early fathers’ quotes, which seemed to support such a position!

You contend that this is a misrepresentation of the fathers, and I would be relieved it that were the case. (Else I would have to see them as heretics, for Scripture can never be overruled by a ‘father’, regardless of his reputation). So, did the early church really believe in ‘transubstantiation,’? If so, when did this belief take shape? I know it was only formally accepted as dogma much later, and I have read somewhere that it was met with some resistance at the time…not sure though). I would dearly appreciate some good info on this.

I would like to ask the same for baptismal regeneration and the veneration of Mary.

Come to think of it, I also read somewhere (but with somewhat lacking references) that the RCC’s emphasis on tradition (what it calls ‘the unanimous consent of the fathers’) is actually dealt a death blow by the very traditions they profess to believe…the early church fathers seem to have continually referred to the Scriptures to settle any arguments! Is this true, and could you provide me with some references to look up?

Thank you once again, and Godbless.

I am not interested in going over one more thing and one more thing and one more thing, most of which are not the least bit reasonable. For example, he presented arguments that celibacy for priests is Scriptural. Priests, originally, were presbyters/elders, and Paul twice gives qualifications for elders. Both times he says that they should be the husband of one wife.

Now, a Catholic may argue that those passages don’t require an elder to be married, though they seem to, but he certainly can’t argue that’s it’s scriptural to forbid them to marry.

It is simply silly to defend celibacy for church leaders as scriptural. At that point, we’re not having a discussion, we’re having a kindergarten argument.

Brian did write the following, “Your accusations of dishonesty are unconstructive and seem to be intended to stifle any opinion other than your own. I am not dishonest.”

I don’t really think that defenders of the Catholic Church are personally dishonest in their lives. However, the way the Catholic church and its apologists handle Cyprian and Irenaeus is purposefully deceitful. They withhold important information, especially with Cyprian, who specifically speaks against any bishop’s right to rule over other bishops.

Anyone can come up with new arguments for their position if they don’t care whether their arguments are true. I don’t care to spend my time dealing with such things.

signed.

Life long catholic

2. You missed my point on Peter. Yes, Peter would have had great authority as an apostle. However, to Peter elder/presbyter and bishop were interchangeable terms. He uses them interchangeably in 1 Pet. 5:1-4. The letter from the Romans to the Corinthians, known to tradition as 1 Clement, does the same in chs. 42 and 44. Bishops are always plural in those writings.

3. Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, which is the 1st time we ever read of a singular bishop in Rome, is written 90 years after 1 Clement. Ireneaus was raised in a church with a singular bishop. By 185, even Rome and the rest of Paul and Peter’s churches had adopted the eastern custom of one bishop. It is no surprise that Irenaeus’ thought (wrongly) that there was just one bishop in Rome at the beginning of the 2nd century.

4. Your statement that the Catholic Church, based on tradition and Scripture, has taught a primacy in Rome is false. The earliest there is a mention of such a thing is 185. The Scriptures, no matter how you interpret Matthew 16 in reference to Peter, say nothing of anything being passed on to Rome.

5. The first person to apply Peter’s authority to bishops–Cyprian of Carthage–specifically disagreed with and overrode the authority of the bishop of Rome, then also clearly said that Peter’s authority went to all bishops as one, representing the one church. All of that happens in A.D. 250, too late to matter.

6. It’s offensive and dishonest that you and other defenders of Roman Catholic error quote Ireneaus’ comments about Rome without quoting his similar comments about Smyrna and Ephesus. He specifically says he mentions Rome only because he doesn’t have time to list the bishops of all the churches.

7. I have to suppose if you don’t have truth on your side, you’re left with that kind of dishonesty. It’s the same dishonesty that leads to quoting Cyprian as teaching the authority of Rome while he called a council of 87 bishops specifically denying the authority of Rome.

8. I’m not sure how to take your comment about the council of Ephesus in 431 being some sort of proof of 1st century practice except to laugh as though it were a joke. It’s simply nonsensical. And then to take the statement that Rome’s bishop has a similar authority to Alexandria’s as somehow meaning that he has far more authority … sorry, that’s just bizarre.

9. My statement that the Roman Catholic church was full of corruption in the middle ages is known to be true by everyone. The inquisition speaks for itself. The burning of William Tyndale, John Huss, and digging up the bones of John Wycliffe twelve years after he died to burn them, too … it’s astonishing even a Catholic would try to defend the hierarchy that approved these things.

Have you read my page on the Western Great Schism? It’s at http://www.christian-history.org/western-great-schism.html. Listen, the history of the papacy of the middle ages is like some kind of joke. The obviously unscriptural practice of celibacy in church leadership is one reason that sexual misbehavior was simply the norm among middle age priests.

Let me recommend _A World Lit Only by Fire_ for a secular account of the horrendous behavior of the RCC popes and prelates of the 15th and 16th centuries. It’s well-documented. Don’t let kids read it, though, as their behavior needs an NC-17 rating.

10. Simply put, if one had never heard of the RCC, there wouldn’t be a hint of such an idea until Irenaeus’ quote in A.D. 185. But someone who never heard of the RCC would read what he read of Smyrna and Ephesus, too, and would see the obvious, that Irenaus was simply saying that the truth was handed down from bishop to bishop and one set of elders to another in Rome–thus requiring all churches to agree with them–and in Antioch and Smyrna, too (thus requiring all churches to agree with them as well).

The argument that truth was handed down from bishop to bishop from around A.D. 65 to around A.D. 185 is a good argument. The argument that truth was maintained by handing down from bishop to bishop from A.D. 65 to A.D. 1965 is a silly and useless argument, even if all the bishops were good.

They weren’t. Many of them didn’t even try to follow God (again, you can always see my story on the Western Great Schism to see the state of things).

11. Finally, and more importantly than all the above, anyone who reads the book of Acts and the letters to the churches and compares those with what he’ll find in a modern Catholic Church is going to have a hard time finding anything similar. If a person is longing to live the daily fellowship from house to house, communing with one another, having an influence on all around them and experiencing the power of God … well, he’s extremely unlikely to find it in a Roman Catholic Church.

I was raised Roman Catholic. I’ve seen and attended Catholic churches in Hawaii, Kansas, Taiwan, Germany, Texas, North Dakota, and California. I never saw one even remotely resembling what we read about in Acts and the letters. I mean not even close, and it would be a foolish joke and an offense to God to pretend it was so.

Of course, we won’t fare much better in a Protestant church. That’s okay, though, because the church has always been local, and it’s always been few. When Christians quit gathering in wordly organizations–yes, like the RCC–and come together, leaving behind the nominal Christians, those who aren’t even trying to obey Christ, and come together–as their hearts already long to–then we’ll see the church, and we’ll see the things we read about in the book of Acts.

Just so you know, Brian, there’s little chance I’ll let this conversation continue. There’s a lot better things to write about than proving the obvious–that an organization that bears little to no resemblance to anything Scriptural is not the church. So what I’ve written here will have to suffice for those who have questions.

I disagree with your statement that there was no individual bishop of Rome in the time of Peter or Clement and not until after the Council of Nicea. I interpret this to mean that you don’t believe there was a true leader of the Church at that time. Irenaeus, whom I know you are quite familiar with, writes that Peter and Paul, “having founded and built up the Church of Rome…handed over the office of the episcopate to Linus.” This infers that an office of the episcopate, or bishopric, existed at that time. I take it that you don’t disagree with this, but you seem to be saying that there was more than one bishop in Rome and that the term bishop and elder are equivalent. This could very well be true. Certainly the Church structure was not in a form then that is equivalent to modern times. The Church, having both a physical and spiritual component, had to adapt the physical part to the circumstances of the times in order to properly fulfill its role of teaching and leading all to Christ. Therefore some changes were needed as time went on. Blessed John Henry Newman describes this as looking at a boyhood picture of an old man and expecting the man and the image in the picture to look exactly alike. Certainly there is a distinct resemblance, but they are not identical. As far as the terms bishop and elder being equivalent, there does seem to be a lot of overlap in the usage of these terms. Even still, I don’t think Peter’s reference to his fellow elders supports your original claim of lack of leadership. For one thing, as an Apostle, Peter would certainly have a greater authority than an ordinary elder. Secondly, Peter’s statement is similar to the President of the United States using the term “my fellow Americans.” No one would construe this to mean that the President has no more authority than an ordinary citizen. As for Clement’s letter, you seem to be missing the forest for the trees, so to speak. Clement’s letter was written as an authoritative admonishment of the Corinthian Church’s removal of their rightful bishop in favor of one of their own schismatic bishops. Even though the Apostle John was still alive at this time and would have been geographically closer to Corinth, the letter of correction to the Corinthians is sent from Clement at Rome. Regardless of the semantics, the Catholic Church, based on the tradition handed down by the Apostles and on Scripture, has taught that a pre-eminent position of doctrinal authority has always been associated with the See of Peter or the Bishop of Rome, i.e. Peter and his successors.

Clement even says in closing his letter to the Corinthians, “If anyone disobey the things which have been said by Him through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgressions and in no small danger (59, 1; Jurgens p. 12, #28a). This sounds pretty authoritative.

St. Irenaeus also states, “For with this Church (i.e. the Church of Rome), because of its superior origin, all the Churches must agree, that is , all the faithful in the whole world; and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the Apostolic tradition” (Ag. Her. 3,3,2; Jurgens p. 90, #210).

Then there is this statement from the Council of Ephesus:
“It is doubtful to none, nay it has been known to all ages, that holy and blessed Peter, the prince and head of the Apostles, the column of the Faith, the foundation of the Catholic Church, received from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of the human race, the keys of the Kingdom, and that to him was given the power of binding and loosing sins, who until this day and for ever lives and judges in his successors. His successor in order and his representative, our holy and most blessed Pope Celestine.”

Even though this statement was made in 431 A.D. it provides ample evidence that the Church professed the authority of Peter and his successors from the earliest days after Christ’s ascension into Heaven. Canon 6 from the Council of Nicea can actually be taken as a support of this in that it can be read as a statement of a long-standing practice based on the use of the word “customary”, which is not a word that would be used to designate a new practice. Customary would mean a practice that has been going on for a long time.

Your statement about Purgatory is new to me. Do you have any references to support your statement that it is an inaccurate leftover of an early teaching? Is this based on some of Tertullian’s comments? If so, please keep in mind that some of his teachings were of his own thought and not strictly in line with the teaching of the Church even at that time. Eventually he joined up with the Montanists, a schismatic sect, and then formed his own schismatic group once he parted ways with the Montanists. I’m not saying this to cast dispersions on all of his writings. He wrote many very orthodox works and is considered one of the Church Fathers. The thing to keep in mind is that individual writings and teachings of the Church Fathers are not infallible. They must still be weighed against the infallible teachings of the Catholic Church, whose sole responsibility it is to preserve and protect the truths of faith and morals as revealed by Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church has a clear well-formulated doctrine regarding Purgatory that is based on the tradition of the Church from the earliest days and confirmed by Scripture. I would be happy to share that with you if you are interested, but I feel this is getting too long to go into it now.

In closing, the final statement in your response is clearly based on opinion and not fact. The only way to come to this conclusion is to read history while wearing a pretty thick pair of anti-Catholic glasses. There have been many stalwart orthodox popes and bishops down through the ages. They seem to rise up in times that are marked by heresies and corruption. Even though the heresies and corruption may be wide-spread, they do not prevail. The Catholic Church has been rocked with scandal from the beginning, some times are more pronounced than others. It has, as mentioned above, a physical component which can contract diseases. These periods are typically followed by a period of reform within the Church that sweeps across the land at the speed of the Holy Spirit.

Sorry for being so long-winded, but several topics were brought up and I felt the need to address each of them.