Any Mormons on here read the CES Letter?

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What rebellion of the Church members? What dying for the Lord being fed to beasts?
Historically I think the ante Nicene era was when the Church was the most pious.
 
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gazelam said:
You appear to be conflating individual apostasy where someone leaves a religious organization to which they previously belonged, and the Great Apostasy where Priesthood authority was removed from the Earth due to the rebellion of the church members. The parable of the sower illustrates the reasons why spirituality weak individuals leave God’s Kingdom. That process occurred both anciently and in modern times. The result is several “Mormon” denominations as you note. However, anciently the Bible plainly taught of “grievous wolves sparing not the flock”, and then a restoration of the fullness of times. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the fulfillment of that prophecy. But just because that prophecy is fulfilled it doesn’t preclude additional individual apostasy. Each of us is given the ability to spiritually discern these matters for ourselves. Some do discern and some don’t.
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The arrogance of the Mormon position on this issue never ceases to amaze me. The assertion of a total apostacy, supported by a single misinterpreted biblical verse, is totally without basis. It is not supported by the historical record, just as LDS truth claims are also not supported by the historical record (as many posters on these threads have explained over and over again). The bottom line is that Mormons believe in the Great Apostacy not because of the bible, but because it is the lynchpin upon which all of Mormondom depends. No Great Apostacy = no reason for Mormonism to exist.

There is no evidence that the priesthood was ever removed from the earth, other than Joseph Smith saying so. One would think that would have been a pretty big deal, but somebody apparently forgot to tell the Church for 1800 years.

And it is absurd that LDS cannot see the exact same problems happened in their own church in its infancy as they claim happened in the early Church. The early Mormon church was an absolute mess, especially as many Mormons came to find out that Joseph was a fraud and a scoundrel. Present-day LDS write it off by saying, without any reasonable evidence, that the problems in the early Christian Church constituted a total apostacy, but the problems in their own church were only “individual” apostacy. I guess a Mormon must necessarily believe that in order keep his/her entire world view from crumbling down.
 
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I know. That verse from Amos right?
It refers to the diaspora which the Jews already were restored back before Christ. They misinterpret so many verses for their own good . They love James 1:5. Good thing Luther didn’t get his way and have that one removed otherwise they wouldn’t have that one to refer too.
 
Prodigal1984 said:
What rebellion of the Church members?
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The one in the New Testament.

3 John 1:9 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, received us not.

1 Corinthians 11:18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.

Acts 20:29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.

Galatians 1:6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:

Galatians 3:1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?

2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

2 Timothy 1:15 This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.
Prodigal1984 said:
Historically I think the ante Nicene era was when the Church was the most pious.
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Please share your sources. Here are mine.

Eusebius, quoting Hegesippus on the subject of false teachers and referring to the condition of the Church about the close of the first century:

The Church continued until then as a pure and uncorrupt virgin, whilst if there were any at all that attempted to pervert the sound doctrine of the saving Gospel, they were yet skulking in dark retreats: but when the sacred choir of Apostles became extinct, and the generation of those that had been privileged to hear their inspired wisdom had passed away, then also the combinations of impious errors arose by the fraud and delusions of false teachers. These also, as there were none of the Apostles left, henceforth attempted without shame, to preach their false doctrine against the gospel of truth. (Eusebius Ecclesiastical History, bk. 3, ch. 32)

Revelation 2:5 states: Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. (KJV)

Adam Clarke explained that this was a stern warning by the Lord in which He threatened to: "take away my ordinances, remove your ministers, and send you a famine of the word. As there is here an allusion to the candlestick in the tabernacle and temple, which could not be removed without suspending the whole Levitical service, so the threatening here intimates that, if they did not repent, he would unchurch them; that they should no longer have a pastor, no longer have the word and sacraments, and it no longer have the presence of the Lord Jesus.” (Clarke, Clarke’s Commentary, 6:976)

Continued…
 
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Eusebius referring to his own day wrote:

We [sank] into negligence and sloth, One in being and reviling another in different ways, and we were almost, as it were, on the point of taking up arms against each other, and where is sailing each other with words as with darts and Spears, prelates inveighing against prelates, and people rising up against people, and hypocrisy and dissimulation had arisen to the greatest height of malignity; … we added one wickedness in misery to another. But some that appeared to be our pastors, deserting the law of piety, were inflamed against each other with mutual strides, only accumulating quarrels and threats, rivalship, hostility and hatred to each other. (Eusebius, ecclesiastical history, 8:318)

Tertullian observed “The gospel was wrong we preached; men wrongly believed; so many thousands were wrongly baptized… so many priestly functions, so many ministries were wrongly executed.” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 3:256)

Adolf von Harnack commented on the much-changed Christianity after a century of compromise and worldly assimilation:

If we place ourselves about the year 200, about 100 or 120 years after the apostolic age… what kind of spectacle does the Christian religion offer?.. The living faith seems to be transformed into a creed… devotion to Christ, into Christology… prophecy, into technical exegesis and theological learning; The ministers of the Spirit, into clerics… miracles and miraculous cures disappear altogether… The “Spirit” becomes law and compulsion… this enormous transformation took place within 120 years. (Von Harnack, What is Christianity? 192-93)"

Cyril of Jerusalem stated…
Thus wrote Paul, and now is the falling away. For men have fallen away from the right faith; and some preach the identity of the Son with the Father, and others dare say that Christ was brought into being out of nothing. And formally the heretics were manifest; but now the Church is filled with heretics in disguise. For men have fallen away from the truth, and have itching ears. It is a plausible discourse? All listen to it gladly. Is it a word of correction? All turn away from it. Most have departed from right words, and rather choose the evil, than desire the good. This therefore is the falling away, and the enemy is soon to be looked for… (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 15:9, in NPNF Series 2, 7:106-107)

Justin Martyr stated…
Just as there were false prophets contemporaneous with your holy prophets, so are there now many false teachers amongst us, of whom our Lord forewarned us to beware; so that in no respect are we deficient, since we know that He foreknew all that would happen to us after His resurrection from the dead and ascension to heaven. For He said we would be put to death, and hatred for His name’s sake; and that many false prophets and false Christ’s would appear in His name, and deceive many: and so has it come about. For many have taught godless, blasphemous, and unholy doctrines forging them in His name. (Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 82, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1:240)

I hope this helps…
 
First off. The great and abominable church created the New Testament canon, thus you using it is not authoratative because obviously the same church you are speaking against is not capable of creating the correct canon out of dozens of writings that were rejected.
Also, just citing one thing someone said doesn’t make a difference. The overall point is what matters. You can’t just cherry pick one paragraph a church father says and think it is referring to the entire Church. Yah there were heresies. But none of them were as ridiculous as the Mormon one.
Here, “Quakers live on the moon”. Oops wrong, the Mormon church is a fraud.

I’ve read the Book of Mormon. It is just stolen Bible stories honestly. I remember being bored reading through 1 Nephi because it is basically just stuff from the Bible, word for word. I’d say the reason people think it is scripture is because half of it is, stolen, the most ridiculous is when it is supposed to be 600 BC and their quoting books of the New Testament.
Interesting they say the great and abominable church took books out of the Bible. Wasn’t that actually Protestants? Why then do you use a Protestant canon?
The Book of Mormon is just a simpletons thing. I read it, I thought it was stupid. I would likely say the Divine Comedy was scripture before that.
 
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Chris-Wa1 said:
The arrogance of the Mormon position on this issue never ceases to amaze me. The assertion of a total apostacy, supported by a single misinterpreted biblical verse, is totally without basis.
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Several verses as I showed above.
Chris-Wa1 said:
It is not supported by the historical record, just as LDS truth claims are also not supported by the historical record (as many posters on these threads have explained over and over again).
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Better stated “(as many posters on these threads have incorrectly explained over and over again)”.
Chris-Wa1 said:
There is no evidence that the priesthood was ever removed from the earth, other than Joseph Smith saying so. One would think that would have been a pretty big deal, but somebody apparently forgot to tell the Church for 1800 years.
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Two pertinent Ignatius quotes…

Apart from these [the bishops, deacons, and presbyters], there is no Church. Ignatius, Trallians 3, in ANF 1:67.]

Remember in your prayers the Church in Syria {i.e. his own church at Antioch}, which now has God for its shepherd, instead of me. Jesus Christ alone will oversee it… (Ignatius, Romans 9, in ANF 1:77)

Ignatius acknowledges that after his departure there would be no authorized servants at Antioch, and therefore no real church.

I hope this helps…
 
So you can’t back up your assertion that the ante Nicene era was when the Church was the most pious?
 
No absolutely not, I have no reason too.
All you have done here is taken snippets of what Church fathers wrote, totally ignoring the greater purpose of what they were writing, probably provided at lds.org.
 
The major flaw with all of the previous evidence for a total apostasy is that at most it shows only that some members of the Church fell away from the Faith. This happens in all religions, including Mormonism. As we saw earlier, the majority of the original witnesses to the Book of Mormon apostatized, but modern Mormons would not accept this fact as evidence that the entire LDS church fell into apostasy. When it comes to the Catholic Church, what Mormons need to show is that there was a total or universal falling away from the Faith in the first century. The evidence does not support this conclusion. For example, the passages cited of the Old Testament refer to the Israelites abandoning their covenant with God, not the eventual falling away of Christians in the New Covenant. These passages don’t even speak of an entire apostasy in Israel, because in Amos 9:8 God says he “will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob.” The passages in the New Testament and the apostolic Fathers refer to people rejecting Christ’s church, but none of them refers to a total apostasy. Every passage refers to some who would fall away (e.g. 1 Timothy 1:6 and 1 Timothy 4:1) or some who would be false prophets. But none of these passages claims that the entire Church would fall away or that every bishop would be replaced with a false prophet. For example, in 2 Timothy 1:15 Paul laments how the Christians in Asia (not the continent of Asia but a small area called Asia Minor) turned away from him, not Christ. Paul is saddened that these Christians did not come to his aid when he was placed under arrest, not that a total apostasy has taken place. In regards to 2 Thessalonians 2:2–3, Paul is speaking of events that will take place at the Second Coming of Christ. There will be people who will rebel against God, but in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 Paul says there will still be faithful Christians who will be caught up to the Lord at the Second Coming. So, once again, there is no evidence that Paul believed the Church was teetering on the brink of failure.
 
Similarly, the letters of Clement and Ignatius contain admonitions against some people who have fallen away, such as certain members of the Church in Corinth. But Clement also reminds his readers that Jesus foresaw there would be trials for the Church and took steps to keep these trials from destroying it. He writes in A.D. 96, “Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry.”Interestingly, when Mormons cite Galatians 1:6–7 as evidence of the apostasy, they usually neglect to mention Paul’s warning in verse eight: “[E]ven if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed!” The fact that the angel Moroni allegedly gave Joseph Smith his “Gospel” in the form of the Book of Mormon should cause concern. Finally, along with the lack of evidence that a total apostasy took place, there is positive evidence that such an apostasy could never have taken place. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus tells Peter, “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” LDS apologists claim this means that the Church would never go out of existence permanently, but it could still go out of existence and then be restored by someone like Joseph Smith. But this position is implausible, because in Matthew 28:20, Jesus says, “I am with you always until the end of the age,” and Paul writes in Ephesians 3:20–21, “[T]o him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” So which is more likely? Jesus Christ founded a Church in Israel that went out of existence after his Ascension, then founded another Church in America that also went out of existence a few centuries later, and then waited more than 1,000 years to restore his Church? Or the Church Jesus originally founded on Peter and the apostles never failed to exist, just as Jesus promised?
 
Tell me why your church is the correct one and not the church in Independence Missouri. Maybe your church left the true one. Maybe one of those Mormon fundamentalists who actually practice what Smith taught are the true church.
 
I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but nothing you’ve presented supports either the total apostacy of the Church or the removal of the priesthood from the earth. NONE of these men speak of a complete removal of authority from the earth or the universal loss of the priesthood. You are extrapolating their comments about specific communities to apply to the entire Church in order to make their words support the total apostacy narrative. If you applied the same method of argument to your own church history, you would also have to say the LDS church suffered a total apostacy early on as well. This would at least be intellectually honest.
 
I know. What is this some sort of missionary work these guys try to do on here?
Why would a Mormon come onto a Catholic forum? It boggles my mind. Especially when this guy has absolutely no respect for the early Church. The early Church was when martyrdom was embraced by so many for the faith. Dying with dignity for the Lord. But he follows some guy who was killed in a jailhouse by guys he slept with wives after he took off his magic underwear and made a Freemason distress signal. Also shot at people. That isn’t a martyr. Thomas Kempis can’t even be canonized because when they exhumed him there were scratch marks on the casket which means he was buried alive, which happened quite a lot in those days honestly. It is horrifying. But the Church says a saint would accept death with grace and dignity. So we have the author of The Imitation of Christ which in many Catholic circles is called second to the Bible, as not being a saint. But then Mormons sing merry songs to a fraud criminal Freemason. How ridiculous.
Half the Fathers he cited were martyrs.
I don’t know why Mormons are allowed on here honestly when their fraud holy book refers to the Church as the great abominable church which was founded by the devil. I have no need for such 19th century Protestant ignorance, which that is all the BOM is. It bleeds of anti Catholic sentiment in 19th century America.
 
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You, of course, have every right to your opinion and I agree that Mormons often appear on other Christian sites to engage in apologetics. However, I find that that they often do more harm to themselves and their faith by posting here. I think that’s a good thing!

Because they are challenged often by ex Mormons that thoroughly know both Mormon and Catholic theology, everyone gains useful knowledge. When they make arguments that are easily refuted or cherry pick quotes we all recognize the game they are playing.

If your interest is to promote the truth of Catholicism over LDS, having these discussions are gold!
 
By the way has anyone ever counted how many times the BOM says And it came to pass?
It is so incredibly repetitive. Sometimes every single paragraph starts that way. I assume it has to be over 300 times.
 
😂😂😂 Yes. It’s like he found that phrase overly useful and couldn’t think of another way to say … and then!
 
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