A date for the "Great Apostasy"

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Thanks, Texan for the review on the book I was given. It is valuable in understanding our foundations, and it does not get into heresies as I read in one critique of it.

I also was witness to some events that he writes about in ‘A Concise History of the Catholic Church’ that is included in this book, and I already disagree with him. It relayed spin and was not reflective of the actual experiences held by both priests, religious and lay who disagreed with liberation theology as well as problems in some American dioceses of the 70’s and 80’s of this past century.

I just heard another book come out…have to do a search on it.

All the more, we do not base our faith in one source. Catholicism is so complex and so vast compared to the tiny Seed at Pentecost.
 
KathleenGee said:
Pope Honorious did not live a virtuous Christian life, but through the Holy Spirit he was able to teach on faith and morals infallibly. I used his case to prove that, as I myself have been wanting to read up on infallible teachings by the ‘bad’ popes prior to the Reformation.
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Kathleen,
Please provide some historical reason to say Pope Honorios “did not live a virtuous Christian life.”
I think there is none.
That the 6th Ecumenical Council condemned him as a heritic, yes!
That Vatican I (20th EC I think) discussed him as a reason to reject Papal infalliblity, yes!
That his morality unrelated to heresy has ever been questioned. Not to my knowledge!
Charity,
TOm

I offered you an immoral Pope if it is important to you, but I see no reason to impugne Honorious like this.
 
Mosheim did not offer any moral criticism of him, other than a lack of assertiveness in not dealing with the problem directly.
 
As I was saying, I was watching the program on ‘Journey Home’, EWTN, and the gentleman was working on 2 master’s degree.

When he began to study the Early Church Fathers, and put together their concepts, he could not any longer continue in the masters programs. He continued searching and had this block regarding papal infallibility. He mentioned 3 popes that stood out to him that he thought were pretty fallible, but he did not say in what way.

He brought up a third pope…and as I said, I was hearing him with background noise and I thought he was saying Pope Honorious…spelling…not sure the exact name.

He went across The Bay, San Francisco, over to the Dominicans and spoke of various questions. He wanted to see an example of a pope behaving in a negative way, but still being able to teach infallibly.

They gave him the name of a Slavic priest who was a great scholar in Greek. I am thinking back and wondering if he had received a Greek writing of such a pope. And the inquirer also knew Greek. But was not able to translate the infallible teaching by this pope whose name is not totally clear to me.

So he went to visit the Slavic priest…and the priest took down books from his upper room. He translated passages, perfectly, word by word, and it was on the truth that although Christ has 2 wills, He only seeks the one will of His Father.

I personally cannot see two different separate persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all going in different ways as Mormonism teaches. Not believing in the Holy Trinity invalidates Mormon baptisms, and really does nothing to baptize non-Mormons after they are dead.

To try to baptize people after they are dead, is like saying Christ failed and so He had to use some unknown angel who directed Smith to Egyptian ancient artifacts, etc., to denying that God has given us time and place to choose Him 24 hours a day with the life He has given us.

I am in time constraints. I will see if I can find out from Mr Grody on EWTN the name of the guest regarding papal infallibility and this wonderful search he had taken to find truth.

But Christ did not make mistakes. He came at the appropriate time with chosen apostles, who likewise were so, before they were born at the appropriate time likewise.

God gave us 24 hours in a day where we can work on improving our conscience to find truth. I simply cannot see how there is any apostasy, rather than people refusing the truth and seeking something that is an extension of their own will and creation…a man made one at that.
 
Jerusha,

Gnosticism is basically secret knowledge. Gnosticism came out of the ancient Greeks who believed they had acquired secret knowledge of things, and that for this they considered themselves superior in regards to everybody else.

The earliest Church Fathers took on the Gnostics, as well as upholding the sacred and divine meal that was not to be approached uncommonly.

So I see Mormonism as a type of gnosticism in that there are secret goings on between Smith and the divine, his revelations caused him to consider himself and all his followers as immediate and instant saints, and of course, it has been debated so many times about the claims of Smith as well as his teachings.
 
I just contacted the coordinator for “Journey Home”, asking the name of the pope and the details of the story.

I think it fascinating there are such scribes around as that priest who meticulously translated the Greek into English from an old papal teachings.

I am not ready yet for a hearing aid.
 
Agreed. I use St.Irenaeus’s definition of Gnosticism in the negative sense. I acknowledge St. Clement’s positive use of the term Gnostic when I use the term mystic-- the mysteries of the church, and the individual’s search for truth that stays within the (actually wide) parameters of Catholic doctrine. I have found this dichotomy to be quite useful, although people like Tom might contest it. 😃
 
TOmNossor said:
Kathleen,
Please provide some historical reason to say Pope Honorios “did not live a virtuous Christian life.”
I think there is none.
That the 6th Ecumenical Council condemned him as a heritic, yes!
That Vatican I (20th EC I think) discussed him as a reason to reject Papal infalliblity, yes!
That his morality unrelated to heresy has ever been questioned. Not to my knowledge!
Charity,
TOm

I offered you an immoral Pope if it is important to you, but I see no reason to impugne Honorious like this.
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He might have been a heretic, but if you’ve noticed, his heretical beliefs never entered the mainstream of either the Eastern or Western Church. He is universally recognized as incorrect on his letter.

For papal infallibility to have failed, then Monothelitism must have infected and overtaken the Catholic Church, which did not occur.

I think the issue of Honorius suggests that infallibility might actually be valid.

I think people put too much stock into papal infallibility. If the Church in its divine capacity can make infallible proclamations, and if the ecumenical councils can make infallible proclamations on dogmatic matters, then why wouldn’t the Pope, the spiritual head of the Church (for Catholics), be able to define a matter infallibly, especially if the matter has already been debated in a council?
 
We can be just about sure that Joseph Smith read Mosheim, because he donated a copy of vol 2 to the Nauvoo library. Same volume 2, p. 591 and 653 discusses Joachim of Fiore, whose writings have been declared heretical in part, as he taught something very similar to the Mormon trinity. He also wrote a heretical prophecy, which according to Mosheim reads much like Merlin’s prophecy and Nostradomus’s prophecy. Joseph Smith’s white horse prophecy in its turn reads much like Merlin’s prophecy. COPYCAT. Joachim apparently also wrote the “Book of Joachim” Page 591 is a real zinger.

I am following those new leads. newadvent.org/cathen/08406c.htm
 
Fabius…yes…people put too much into papal infallibility.

Pope Benedict is putting out his writings, and he clearly states these are his personal opinions about Christ.

I read on CARM that posters referred to us believing and kneeling down before this pope god. Of course that is not the intent or the direction of our honor but to Christ alone.
 
This morning, Fr Mitch Pacwa was going through the constitution of the Word of God that is in Vatican II documents. I won’t write the title in Latin at this time.

But he brought up Origen, of whom Mormons like to use in supporting their claims for pre mortal existence, another idea which we consider apostate.

Origen was the first theologian of Scripture. He provided excellent studies on applying ourselves to Scripture, but unfortunately, a large portion of his writings were lost.

But he, being a philosopher, was a follower of Plato, who believed our souls lived prior to our mortal existence. He spent alot of time speculating, he did submit his reflections to the Church. His idea on premortal existence was condemned at the Council of Constantinople.

Our souls are created by God at the moment of our conception.

I don’t have the time to do a search to find out the actual date of the Council of Constantinople, but am wondering if this is happening around the time of the alleged Mormon apostasy idea of the Church.

Whatever…at the time of the Council, it proves the institution of the Church in handling various ideas of thought to discern what is part of the deposit of faith in Christ and what is not was obviously very much at work and intact.

And Constantinople was the center for the Eastern Churches, and this Council was representative of both East and West Churches…again, this indicating the profound practice of unified Christianity in ancient times.

There was no apostasy except that which faces but rejects the truth of Jesus Christ.
 
Mormons claim that the Catholic Church went wrong during that entire sorting process. So they went back to accounts of that sorting process and integrated many of the discarded speculations into their own belief system.

They even believed Mosheim’s claim that some Catholics still hold to the entirety of the works attributed to Joachim of Fiore. :eek:
 
Thanks, Jerusha…I never heard of Joachim of Fiore. I think I passed by Fiore in Italy one time…Fiore…‘flower’.

I did hear from EWTN and will read the reference when I get done with work today.
 
The link given me by EWTN is:

archive.catholic.com/thisrock/1994/9409fea2.asp

I still have not read the article, but scanned it. It gave me the impression that the issue with Pope Honorius was not bad behavior but not being orthodox, meaning teaching error.

His teaching on ‘one will’.

Reading this article one should see the working of the Holy Spirit to protect our faith and insure we are indeed receiving orthodox teachings, especially from the papacy. The author presents Pope Honorious’ papacy in context.

I also had time to check out a reference regarding him on the last page…I could not always hear the interviewee’s phrases when speaking.

T Nossor’s rebuttal to me was correct…

But the Catholic Church is the one still coming up infallible in the profession of faith and morals.
 
Yep. As much as Mosheim had motivation to prove that Honorius’s error was contrary to doctrine, he said that Honorius simply sidestepped the issue. And this article says that Honorius’ error was in not understanding the delicate semantics of the issue. And scripture says in multiple places that Jesus faced temptation like any of us, but always acted in harmony with God’s will.

Thanks. I am going to have to re-read Mosheim vol. 1. There is not that much in volumes three and four, only an increasingly critical view of the Church, holding her responsible for the effects of general illiteracy and lack of the printed Word and Traditions. Vol 4 is mostly about the development of Lutheranism.
 
kimg901 said:
To have an apostasy, Christ must have failed. So what you mormons are saying is Christ failed and He makes mistakes? So Christ can fail again and your church would nothing? Do you not understand how absurd this sounds? You would take a mans word over our Saviours Word? I pray for your souls because to deny Christ is damnation. Sorry, but its true.
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The Mormon church does not say Christ failed, but that He, and the writers of scripture, predicted the apostasy. Here is the conclusion to an interesting article on this idea:

"As we have seen, the Lord knew, and his Apostles knew, that the Saints would turn away from the true faith that had been taught to them. We have seen also that it happened—slowly at first, but with increasing speed in each succeeding decade. And, as we have seen, with the rejection of true religion came the rejection of true authority as well. Concerning this, Elder Mark E. Petersen stated, “But this all had been predicted. The Lord foresaw this apostasy. As he would not perform further miracles before the unbelievers at Capernaum, neither would he leave his anointed Twelve in an apostate group. So John was taken from among men.”

With the last Apostle gone from the church, the night of apostasy was upon it; and so it would remain until the dawn of another day—the day of the Restoration." lds.org/ensign/1984/12/early-signs-of-the-apostasy
 
So what was the nature of the apostasy that you claim? I’ll give you a hint–we believe that there was an apostasy-- and Mormonism is a restoration of it. It has to do with the sorting process of true from false doctrine in the early church. And Joseph Smith read a detailed history about that, and replicated it.
 
jrtrent said:
The Mormon church does not say Christ failed, but that He, and the writers of scripture, predicted the apostasy. Here is the conclusion to an interesting article on this idea:
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  • Christ taught the apostles for 3 years and 40 days…
  • Christ said he would send the Holy Spirit to guide the Church in all Truth.
  • Scripture says that “the Church is the Pillar and Foundation of Truth”.
  • This makes sense as Christ is the head of the Church.
  • Christ says that “those who listen to you, listen to me…and the one who sent me”
  • And he says that he would be with the Church until the “end of time.”
  • Scripture says that the Church membership grew greatly, guided by the Holy Spirit.
No apostasy. To believe such is to believe that Christ was a poor teacher, a liar and that the bible is not inspired and infallible. But scripture does say some wolves will come in sheep’s clothing and that one should not listen to another gospel, even from an Angel.
 
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