A date for the "Great Apostasy"

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Hi Blind Squirrel, thanks for clarifying as I was going to soon sign off.

In ancient Christian times, priests could marry. Most apostles were married and Peter’s wife accompanied him. But St. John the Evangelist was celibate and never married.

There were many Christian martyrs who died because they only wanted to live for Jesus. They wanted Him to be their spouse and they wanted their bodies to be solely as living temples for the Lord. Yes, they were killed for that. Pagans in those days thought Christian beliefs would make their gods angry and then punish them, so they condemned Christianity, and persecuted and executed those who persevered in their faith.

That is a great witness for the love of Christ, don’t you think?

The discipline of celibacy is a discipline of the Latin rite, the Western Church. The Eastern Church, also founded by the apostles, allow its priest to marry and they also have the 7 sacraments.

In ancient times, there were priests who caused scandal, who divorced or had affairs. This facilitated the desire to have priests celibate. Likewise, there were many laypeople who, like the early Christians, also wanted to remain celibate for the Lord.

The ancient monastic life going back to the 600’s AD, is great testament to the Church. These men and women only sought to live in Christ’s kingdom, and many were scholars and teachers and supported the local populations and the poor, and taught people many things in agriculture and sustaining their own livelihood.

Many artifacts and scientific theories and inventions are on display at the Vatican Library because they bring glory to Christ and His work in the Church, most of these accomplishments done by celibate men and women.

St. Paul said that it is better for one to stay single for the Lord. But if you burn with passion, it is better that you marry. But you will be divided in your love for Christ and for your spouse because then you will have to be involved with the world to please your spouse. And the world does not provide us true happiness. Having a divided heart can be difficult to live with especially if you grow more and more into Christ and want to live more exclusively for Him.

In Catholic marriages, it is Christ Who is the center of the marriage. The couple center their marriage on Christ and discover Christ, serve and be served by Him in their spouse. So then the world does not have such impact on believer, but then the world becomes more a means of sanctification than dissolution.

You talk about meat on Friday’s. I wish we could bring that back. England is discussing it. In Luke 13, Christ calls us to do penance for the remission of our sins lest we likewise perish. We are always in this fight between spirit and flesh as St. Paul talks of…and it is our lower carnal nature that leads us to sin, not the Spirit.

When we are ‘Church’, we like to do things together. It is strengthening. Fasting from meat on Friday’s was to be a form of penance and self-denial and to get our eyes off of our own preservation and to recall Christ on the cross Who did not preserve Himself, but died for us. And we did together as Church.

Since then that penance has discontinued in the United States. But there are voices out there that we need to be more penitential as a Church on a weekly basis, particularly in light of how much our country has become obsessed with sex and sins of the flesh.

But the best food that we can take, and we can take this ‘Food’ every day is the Eucharist. Every day we can go to Mass somewhere and receive from Our Lord His very self in the form He told us, His body and blood.

When we receive the Eucharist, we receive Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity. No we do not become gods. But with Jesus, He makes us more human…afterall, He is the face of God, our Heavenly Father. And He gives us new life that only God can give.

God is the Author of Life. When we live a life of sin and then are freed from sin by faith in Christ through baptism, we enjoy a new freedom and joy in living.

The great mystery of Christ is that the more we lose ourselves in Him, the more we become more truly ourselves, but a work of Christ. And through Him, we see Him more and more in every person around us.

Christ calls us to serve Him in those around us…be it sharing joy and friendship, or feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the lonely or those in prison.

We enter the divine life by having new life that only God can give, a new life that can overcome any problem in this life. Because if we confront our difficulties and troubles and give them to Christ, eventually all will turn out and for His glory and coming kingdom.

God bless you!
 
blindsquirrel said:
opps 1 timothy 4:1-3

Priest can not marry.
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And those joining the army have to wear cammo rather than their favorite fashions. Both know what they are getting into before they join so living a celibate life is the choice of those who become priests. Even so, this is a discipline rather than a doctrine. Because of this the Catholic Church does have married priests (those who were married and ordained in the Anglican Church and have converted, for instance). We have even had married popes. So the Church is certainly not against marriage in any way, but is rather its greatest proponent. For many reason, the Church has decided that if one’s vocation is the priesthood then they should remain unmarried and celibate.
crazydays08 said:
No meat on Friday.
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Do you believe in fasting in any way? As I am sure you are aware, fasting is promoted in the Scriptures as a good thing. This is a manner of fasting, that is all. It is given as a spiritual aid to help us grow closer to our Lord. Not sure why this would bother anyone.
 
blindsquirrel said:
True paul did say that,
What about 1tim 4:1-3?
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The Church has not forbidden anyone to marry as I explained above. It has forced no one into the priesthood. Nor does the Church forbid anyone to eat certain foods. Abstaining from meat on Fridays (during Lent only, by the way) is a voluntary act of sacrifice. The Church is like a mother requiring her children to eat their vegetables. She knows what they need in order to be healthy. Fasting happens to deepen one’s spiritual life and strengthen their faith, much like a disciplined athlete exercices every day in order to perform to the best of his or her ability. You should give it a try. Its a good thing.
 
Did you know, Blind Squirrel, that Jesus was never married?

St. Paul was celibate and never married.

St. Timothy was made a bishop, of Ephesus, and was never married.

Priests say they never regret their vocation, they also say they know they were truly called, and see themselves unworthy, and are most happy. Their days are filled with so many people, that by day’s end, they are so tired. I had a friend who was living at my parish rectory. Later that night the pastor came in, a very popular priest. He went into the other room that is a chapel. The tabernacle of the Lord was set on a pedestal only a foot high.

It was so moving to peak out and see my pastor on the floor on his knees, immediately coming in from serving others, to be before the Lord in adoration and thanksgiving.

Cardinal Manning said that when a culture is obsessed with sex it has lost its faith in God.

Here are two links you can read about the Church and celibacy:

www.catholicbasictraining.com/apologetics/coursetexts.4g.ht

www.catholicanswers.com/tracts/celibacy-and-the-priesthood

Also recall for growth, Our Lord went into the desert and fasted for 40 days before beginning His ministry.

As Catholics, we pick up the cross and follow Him.
 
Most priests are faithful.

Beware of looking for the latest scandal as it can destroy your faith and make you think you can do what Jesus does, judge others.

What did He say? Take the plank out of your eye.

You can say your cup is half empty or half full…what would be the choice of faith???
 
jrtrent said:
My personal take on Bryan Cross’s work is that I’m simply not trying to accomplish what he and Mohler are looking for, namely a way to say that Mormons are wrong, or that this council got it right while another one didn’t. At this point, based on the scrupulous, yet divergent, exegetical studies found in systematic theologies by men of various theological backgrounds, I don’t think I can know with certainty if infant baptism is correct, or if Mary was ever-virgin, or to what extent there is a “real presence” of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, or the particulars of many other disputed points of doctrine.
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I don’t see him trying to prove Mormonism wrong as much as claiming Protestants are just as wrong as Mormons. You claim to be a Lutheran/Anglican who believes “from its earliest days error would creep in.” I would like to know what errors crept in “from the earliest days” that Catholics accept and you reject.

I noticed in the ‘comments section’ that someone pointed out how the Mormons didn’t answer questions. Here are some questions I asked that you didn’t answer.
Stephen168 said:
Unless you are in fact Mormon it is a dodge. You defer to Mormonism to explain your belief, as if they are one in the same. Are you then claiming the Mormons and Lutheran/Anglicans have the same list of errors? Is infant baptism an error that crept in? Creation ex nihilio?
To summarize you believe errors crept in but you don’t know what they are. How do you know what the Gospel is? How do you know which books are scripture?
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Exactly…another person came on saying that our stand on celibacy and eating meat on Fridays was a very serious thing that would make us Catholics apostate, irrespective of the fact that Christ, St. Paul, and St. Timothy himself were all celibate.

What are the errors that crept in?..
 
Stephen168 said:
You claim to be a Lutheran/Anglican who believes “from its earliest days error would creep in.” I would like to know what errors crept in “from the earliest days” that Catholics accept and you reject.
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I don’t claim to be a Lutheran/Anglican. When I formerly listed my religion as Mormon, Lutheran, Anglican, it was to list the progression of churches I had actually belonged to, ending with my current church. I’ve also spent considerable time attending churches I was not a member of, such as the General Baptist and Presbyterian churches I attended as a child, the Methodist Church my grandmother went to, the Reformed Baptist church I went to for nearly a decade, and about a year each spent in Catholic and in an Orthodox churches.

I thought the articles I referenced previously answered the question about what errors were known to have crept into the early church, and were combated by Paul and others. Maybe you can’t bring yourself to read anything on a Mormon website, so here is another answer, this time from historian Philip Schaff. He notes three major types of the apostalic age: the Judaizing heresy, the Paganizing or Gnostic heresy, and Syncretistic heresies blending Jewish religion with heathen philosophy. You can read about it in a little more detail here:
christianbookshelf.org/schaff/history_of_the_christian_church_volume_i/section_73_heretical_perversions_of.htm

I did not and do not claim that these early heresies were adopted by what you call the Catholic Church, so when you ask me to list which early heresies the Church adopted which I reject, I have no list for you.
I noticed in the ‘comments section’ that someone pointed out how the Mormons didn’t answer questions. Here are some questions I asked that you didn’t answer.
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Originally Posted by Stephen168
Unless you are in fact Mormon it is a dodge. You defer to Mormonism to explain your belief, as if they are one in the same.
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I thought the articles were well done. Did you find reference to any errors in the early church (i.e., prior to the death of the apostle John) that you disagree with?
Are you then claiming the Mormons and Lutheran/Anglicans have the same list of errors?
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No. I don’t believe I’ve even seen a Lutheran or Anglican list of apostolic era errors.
Is infant baptism an error that crept in?
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I don’t consider it as such; in fact, I belong to a church that practices it. But that doesn’t mean I’ll call someone a heretic who takes the opposite view. As I’ve repeatedly confessed, there are many doctrinal disputes that I don’t have answers for, because I see scriptural support for both sides. These include infant baptism, Arminianism vs. Calvinism, the “real presence” of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, the perpetual virginity of Mary, and more.
Creation ex nihilio?
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No. I have no problem with the idea that God created all that is from absolutely nothing. When did I ever state otherwise?
To summarize you believe errors crept in but you don’t know what they are.
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Yes, I think that’s a fair statement. I believe Schaff has it right about the early errors noted above, but as I said in post number 430, "That error continues to this day is well attested to by the various and contradictory doctrines taught by Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, various Protestant denominations, and what some consider non-Christian sects such as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and more. I don’t claim to know which of the competing doctrinal positions are true, if any, and which aren’t, but am content to believe, with Mormon Apostle Dallin Oaks, that “most religious leaders and followers are sincere believers who love God and understand and serve him to the best of their abilities.”
How do you know what the Gospel is?
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From the Bible. I’ve quoted various summaries of the gospel in this thread, but maybe you disagree with them. Another is:

“Now I make known to you brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…”
How do you know which books are scripture?
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The OT was settled before the time of Christ, but I don’t have an answer that’s entirely satisfying with respect to the NT. There are different lists of criteria different people have proposed to attempt to “prove” what is scripture and what isn’t. Some of these criteria seem awfully subjective to me. Probably because I’ve spent my entire life taking for granted what the Bible is, I don’t find I’m bothered overly much with fear that what I’m trusting in is not scripture. One article I read notes that there is near-unanimity of various Christian churches on which books comprise the NT, including Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalian, Reformed, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Adventist, Mormon, Christian Science and Jehovah’s Witness. “We offer the explanation that this near-unanimity is due to the Holy Spirit’s action and is not merely a fortuitous coincidence.” apuritansmind.com/apologetics/nicolerogercanonnt/
 
jrtrent said:
I don’t claim to be a Lutheran/Anglican. When I formerly listed my religion as Mormon, Lutheran, Anglican, it was to list the progression of churches I had actually belonged to, ending with my current church
I thought the articles I referenced previously answered the question about what errors were known to have crept into the early church, and were combated by Paul and others.
I did not and do not claim that these early heresies were adopted by what you call the Catholic Church, so when you ask me to list which early heresies the Church adopted which I reject, I have no list for you.
No. I don’t believe I’ve even seen a Lutheran or Anglican list of apostolic era errors.
I don’t consider it [infant baptism] as such [an error]; in fact, I belong to a church that practices it
I have no problem with the idea that God created all that is from absolutely nothing.
[you believe errors crept in but you don’t know what they are] Yes, I think that’s a fair statement. I believe Schaff has it right about the early errors noted above, but as I said in post number 430, "That error continues to this day is well attested to by the various and contradictory doctrines taught by Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, various Protestant denominations, and what some consider non-Christian sects such as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and more. I don’t claim to know which of the competing doctrinal positions are true, …
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The ‘apostasy’ is an anti-catholic myth to justify protestants making up stuff. As I said before:
Stephen168 said:
Joseph Smith made up stuff which disagrees with the Catholic Church. Joseph Smith is right, so there must have been an apostasy. Can you list a few errors that have crept in? Do you believe there are uniquely Mormon teaches which have been lost?
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I think you have given a great example of the ‘apostasy.’ You claim ‘errors’ entered the early church, yet you claim to be Anglican which had the same beliefs as the Catholic Church. Now one group allows artificial contraception, female clergy, and divorce, while the other group does not; are these ‘errors?’
Which group did they creep into? But you have no knowledge of any of these ‘early errors,’ yet you maintain your belief in the anti-catholic ‘apostasy myth.’
So it is just you and your Catholic Bible; alone to rail against the Catholic Church from where it came.

Mormons claimed the apostasy happened in 570. By that date, the Catholic Church had clearly articulated orthodoxy; which Joseph Smith rejected. Therefore the apostasy had to happen earlier, but when? How can the new date(s) be believed if 570 was a lie. My post #394 gives an example of the anti-semitic, anti-catholic nature of 19th century protestant America ,where Mormonism was invented, and the Mormon belief in the ‘apostasy myth.’
The only “proof” they have is the “proof” you have, Joseph Smith made stuff up which is contrary to orthodoxy; Smith is right therefore there was an apostasy. You can replace Joseph Smith with any protestant who believes in the myth and that is the only proof you have.

The apostasy never happened, it is a myth.
 
batman1973 said:
The Times and Seasons( A Mormon magazine) "The Power and Priesthood after the Son of God… was taken from her in the year 570, and the church fell into the hands of the Pope of Rome (Times and Seasons, 1845)

He also puts a quote he attributes to John Wesley from 1756:“What the Donatists were, I do not know. But I suspect they were the real Christians of that age.”
Another thing of note, Mr. Madison offers that Peter, James, and John, were the so-called “First Presidency” of the early church, and that the church was established while Christ was still alive, and that James, not Peter, (James being the brother of our Lord) was the true Bishop of the Church.
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Batman1973, I haven’t read the rest of the thread yet, but I saw the OP and wanted to respond–

I think there’s more going on in Madison’s suppositions than you list. I strongly suspect the date 570 is really a very forced attempt to fit something to the supposed timeline of “1260 years in the wilderness” that comes out of Joseph Smith’s re-translation of the Revelation of John. There have been many attempts to force a fit to that schedule, which I find very amusing.

First of all, the 1260 “years” was a corruption of what the manuscript evidence (and all other translations) list as “days.” It is the same phrase, really, as “a time, times, and half a time” and “3 and a half years,” just given in a count of days instead. It is half of 7. It’s a formula taken from Daniel to mean (in very brief summation) a partial time, more specifically of exile, before a fuller completion.

While Smith was going through “correcting” the Bible, he looked for ways to try to make it predict his own work, the BoM, and attempt to fit better with it. This was one such way, an attempt by him to explain the gap of years from the supposed “Apostasy” to his supposed “Restoration.” It was supposed to be truth that the Church was “in the wilderness” since 570, just waiting for him to bring it back out (though of course, even if there were a Church in the wilderness, the Body of that Church would have to be brought out of it as an identifiable Body–not as a patchwork new entity created from the novel preachings and writings of a man out of a revival era setting with no real church group identity).

One of the things I find so interesting is the apparent ignorance of the Biblical sign that this originally was. The change to “years” was obviously an error not in keeping with the other forms of this sign (1260 days = 3.5 years = a time, times, and half a time = 1/2 of 7). As such, it is clearly shown to be a corruption of Revelation–one that, as the end of St. John’s Revelation warns, brings the totality of such a translation and its translator under condemnation.

There are plenty of other corruptions in the JST version of Revelation (like the “12” Spirits of God instead of the 7; and in other books, like the destruction of John 1’s beautiful “In the beginning” testament to the Word that is so poetic, a painful violation that makes me so, so sad to read).

The other thing I find so interesting about that 1260 years is that, if you look back at 570, the Church had already been thoroughly Catholic for hundreds of years! So I welcome that date. It gives me a chance to prove that well before that time the Church was Catholic with no trace of Smith’s novel ideas, and thus his ideas were the true invention.

Accepting the 570 premise, then, requires the logical acceptance of the idea that the Church had authority before then, and from that follows that the Church is Catholic.

What’s particularly funny about the “Donatist” mention here is that the problem with the Donatists was that they were too Catholic! Their primary error was in believing that apostates during the persecutions, and other sinners, could not effect the Sacraments, despite repentence. The Donatists were very strict Catholics. They would not even permit return after deviation from the Church!

Dangerous to cite groups they don’t know about, eh? Their argument proves too much–both in the 570 date and in the selection of the Donatists! Both prove that the true Church is actually Catholic; that there was no “Great Apostasy.”

The only similarity I’ve seen between Restorationists and Donatists arises from the belief of some Restorationists that the purity of a priest does matter, as to whether they can confect a Sacrament (or “Ordinance” as they prefer to call them). And that has the same problem as the Donatists had–how are the people to know? I don’t want to get into messy things here, but suffice to say that I know of a situation where such a problem would be very glaring, and it has not been addressed.

On the James point, that gets into the whole “brother of the Lord” deal (I believe the Scriptures prove that James was not Jesus’s direct sibling). Aside from that, though, the argument is symptomatic of Smith’s renewed obsession with bloodlines and blood descent, a true anomaly in the Christian era of a universal family. After all, Christ is not dead, and so the King still reigns; we need no dynastic succession. This is why the succession became apostolic, going to chosen, faithful men ordained by the laying on of hands and consecrated, therefore, by the Holy Spirit himself. NOT by bloodline.

But of course, Smith had an interest in bloodline succession–both because of his psuedo-histories and because of his own worldly importance and family line.
 
Something else: I believe JS actually referred to the 1260 “years” in sermons (or translation notes) as proof of his “need” to “restore” the Church. Given that, abandoning the 570 date for an earlier one admits the mistake he made in his translation of Revelation and also, therefore, admits the curse and declaration of anathema upon him for his willful corruption of that book.

It also means moving earlier in time…to where? The canonization of the Bible that they use is another point where it’s fairly easy to illustrate that authority was present. So you must go earlier than that, even. Ignatius of Antioch in his 107 letters would prove far too problematic for them. So in a sense I can respect the Mormons throwing up their hands and saying that it had to have happened after the death of the last Apostle, as that gets us into the last resort they have and leaves them with the hope that time is murky enough in the evidence it has left that their claims can stand.

However, the Mormons (and some of the other Restorationists) seem to think John is still alive…so that’s a problem. And he was certainly alive shortly before Ignatius of Antioch was martyred, who is so Catholic in his writings (and important, being bishop of perhaps the greatest See at that time; certainly one of the Three); John apparently neglected to correct Ignatius’s apparently seriously-flawed Catholic innovations.
 
Arandur said:
Something else: I believe JS actually referred to the 1260 “years” in sermons (or translation notes) as proof of his “need” to “restore” the Church. Given that, abandoning the 570 date for an earlier one admits the mistake he made in his translation of Revelation and also, therefore, admits the curse and declaration of anathema upon him for his willful corruption of that book.
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Arandur, that was a terrific post on the 570 date. I just read Michael Barber’s commentary on Revelation and highly recommended it. I now need to go back and reread parts of the OT and read his book again. 1260 is explained quite clearly as you have pointed out. To your point, JS was making it up as he went along, consistent with his history of selling miracle oil, finding water underground and finding buried treasure.

shop.catholic.com/coming-soon-unlocking-the-book-of-revelation.html

No apostasy. No great apostasy. No need to restore anything.
 
Porknpie said:
I just read Michael Barber’s commentary on Revelation and highly recommended it.
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And there’s a Kindle version available for those of us who like to make every book a large print book! From what little can be seen at Amazon’s preview, it looks like an interesting read. The author favors an early date for the writing of Revelation (during the reign of Nero), which I’ve always thought made good sense, too. My favorite, though short, treatment of Revelation has been Jay Adams’s The Time is at Hand, but Barber’s book looks to be worth using some Amazon giftcard credit on.

To give a brief idea of Adams’s thoughts, he wrote, “The view of the Apocalypse which this book asserts to be true is that all of the prophecy in the first nineteen chapters, and part of that in the twentieth, has been fulfilled. Furthermore, their fulfillment took place in the lifetime of those to whom John wrote (or shortly thereafter), and not throughout the entire church age.”
 
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