Anti-Catholics on Early Church Fathers

[gus]

I’m am going to reply even though I am not anti-catholic just non-catholic. There are many reasons why we wouldn’t normally read the writings of the ECF. First would be a stylistic issue their writings tend to be hard to understand and interpret. It is something you really have to be interested in. The next issue is who is the best to read and what to read, out of the multitude of their works. Because these works are not popular it is hard to get your thumb on which works will best help you through your walk. Also since these works are seen as being fallible even by catholics it wouldn’t be necessary for anybody who reads it to actually change their opinion on the subject. For example while I consider Tertullian to be wise although I do not always agree with his opinions on chasteness. It can also be confusing to read authors when they change their opinions on subject Augustine does this on the subject of purgatory in his book city of God he suports it and then in his book the Enchiridion he is unsure of whether it exists or not. Lastly most non-catholics I know concentrate more on what the bible says and are caught up in reading and committing it’s words to memory. Which we could all use to do. Some think interpretation can be conveyed by the Spirit which all christians posses. Even if a subject is not in the Bible some biblical principle will point to it and if it doesn’t than it probably isn’t important enough for me to have knowledge about.

The Didache Justin explainantion of Christain worship The letters of Ignatius are easier to understand than the Pauline Letters. Those are a good start.

 

[Luvtosew]

Maybe one of yous may be able to help me out, Aquinas ( I realize not a ECF but a Doctor of the Church) hasquoted Dionysius over 1700 times, alot, and well I’ve reserch witch Dionysisus this is, I mean I should read him right? Well it turnes ot to be Areopagite Dionysius bishop of Corinth who knew Paul, and well turns out his writings are Pseudo. I get led on these wild goose chases all the time it seems.

So here we have his church father quoting from apparently no Dionysisus, But who???

 

[Eilrahc]

Maybe one of yous may be able to help me out, Aquinas ( I realize not a ECF but a Doctor of the Church) hasquoted Dionysius over 1700 times, alot, and well I’ve reserch witch Dionysisus this is, I mean I should read him right? Well it turnes ot to be Areopagite Dionysius bishop of Corinth who knew Paul, and well turns out his writings are Pseudo. I get led on these wild goose chases all the time it seems.

So here we have his church father quoting from apparently no Dionysisus, But who???

Huh?

 

[SonCatcher]

Maybe one of yous may be able to help me out, Aquinas ( I realize not a ECF but a Doctor of the Church) hasquoted Dionysius over 1700 times, alot, and well I’ve reserch witch Dionysisus this is, I mean I should read him right? Well it turnes ot to be Areopagite Dionysius bishop of Corinth who knew Paul, and well turns out his writings are Pseudo. I get led on these wild goose chases all the time it seems.

So here we have his church father quoting from apparently no Dionysisus, But who???

In that era, it was common for someone, wishing his writings to be read, to forge the name of another noted person. In the case of Pseudo-Dionysius, I understand that he actually turned out in history to be the more noteworthy of the two. Whoever it was is lost to history (as his writing was obscured in anonymity from the start) but that doesn’t matter to us. What does matter is that we have his writings today.

 

[Eilrahc]

Here’s a claim by Ed in answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AqPy.D9jvMKy54vwqoi.gKIjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20090428173320AAkEupK

Regardless of what the early church fathers said, we know that the Bible contains everything necessary for salvation, and that anything which contradicts Christ’s and the Apostles teaching in the Bible is to be rejected. Paul clearly teaches in Romans that we are saved by faith alone in Christ, therefore any teaching authority (such as the Papacy) which contradicts this shouldn’t be followed and doesn’t speak for the True Church. The true teaching of the Christian Church is that we lie helpless in sin, unable to appease God’s wrath, and that salvation is a gift from God brought about by Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross which can only be accepted by faith. This however isn’t the teaching of the Popes. They lead people away from Christ. They don’t want people to trust alone in Christ. They want people to trust in their works so that God has to reward them with salvation as something earned. A true Christian however doesn’t do good works in order to be saved, but rather out of gratitude that he’s already saved

Martin Luther uncovered the true teachings of Christianity by going back to the Bible and teaching directly from this. In doing so he showed that the Papacy didn’t go back to the time of Christ, was based on a gross misinterpretation of the Bible ( in particular of Matthew 16:18), and was indeed the Antichrist as described by Paul in 2 Thess 2. Roman Catholicism therefore isn’t authentic Christianity. It’s an amalgamation of false doctrines which lead people astray.

What Catholics should realise is that the Christian Church was hijacked by the Papacy hundreds of years after the time of Christ through the Popes acquiring dictatorial powers and then using them to subjugate the Church to it’s corrupting agenda.

Therefore when Luther came on the scene what should have happened is that the Church should have got rid of the Papacy. Unfortunately however because of all the false Christians in power in the Church they ended up forcing Luther out and calling him a heretic, whereas in actual fact it is the Popes and their clergy who are the heretics.

So in God’s eyes the true Christians aren’t the ones who sided with the Popes and stayed with them, but the ones who were forced out and remained true to Luther’s (ie the Bible’s) teachings. However that’s not to say there aren’t any true Christians in the Catholic church. No doubt there will be some innocent souls, mainly children, who don’t perceive or inwardly digest the poison which is dished out to them.

In conclusion one should be careful not to confuse Luther with Lutheranism. Much of present day Lutheranism is anything but that. Many Lutheran churches are so rank with false teachings and the spirit of the age that they might as well rejoin the Popes.

I should just like to add that Luther always upheld the Real Presence of the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine of the Lords Supper, although he rightly dismissed the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation as human philosophy, and also always upheld infant baptism. In addition he also had a high regard for Mary, as all Christians should, but what he objected to was the cult of mariology which placed Mary on an equal footing with Christ.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

I’ve read a bunch of pages from Catholic.com with quotes from pre-Constantine saints, and a lot of them defend many of the things we believe in… like for example, St. Irenaeus spoke of Rome’s primacy in his book “Against Heresies”.

But I wonder how many anti-Catholics have actually read any of the works of these saints, and how would they have reacted to them. I’m pretty sure if they did, a lot of them would say it’s either written by someone else from a later century, or that the name “Rome” only refers to the whole empire instead of the capital. Ever wonder about that?

I guess it depends on the particular type of anti-Catholic you’re referring to. Evangelicals/Fundamentalists tend to see themselves as sort of a restoration of the New Testament church; therefore could really care less about anything other than the Bible in terms of church history or writing. They would see reading the ECF as a complete waste of time and irrelevant. There are other anti-Catholics who see themselves as having been lead out of the Catholic Catholic church by the ECFs–and I guess even Martin Luther could be placed in that category. I think what may happen in this case is that when they first encountered “the Fathers” what they actually read was a cherry-picked apologetic compilation. When they find out that there is a lot more to church history than first meets the eye, these people become very disillusioned with what they had been told.

 

[JustaServant]

There are other anti-Catholics who see themselves as having been lead out of the Catholic Catholic church by the ECFs–and I guess even Martin Luther could be placed in that category.

Source for that?

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Source for that?

Martin Luther was hugely influenced by Augustine.

 

[Luvtosew]

In that era, it was common for someone, wishing his writings to be read, to forge the name of another noted person. In the case of Pseudo-Dionysius, I understand that he actually turned out in history to be the more noteworthy of the two. Whoever it was is lost to history (as his writing was obscured in anonymity from the start) but that doesn’t matter to us. What does matter is that we have his writings today.

NO we have writings attributed to him, who wrote them, who knows?

 

[Luvtosew]

Martin Luther was hugely influenced by Augustine.

Well of course he would be , after all he was Roman Catholic, but grew upset with the politics of the vatican, he complained and well we know what happened.

Its not surprising to find some non RC who agree with some of the early writings.

 

[trapper1]

Well of course he would be , after all he was Roman Catholic, but grew upset with the politics of the vatican, he complained and well we know what happened.

Its not surprising to find some non RC who agree with some of the early writings.

Luther was an augstinian monk.

Calvin was heavily influenced by Augustine as well.

Augustine’s writings somewhat contributed to the great schism in that he was read in the east (writing in latin) helping to increase the cultural differences between east and west.

 

[Eilrahc]

I was looking through the comments section of the video youtube.com/watch?v=gGzAsLU9kOk , and someone claimed that “Peter” mentioned by the ECF was nothing more than “Simon Magus”.