B
Bishopite
Guest
You again avoided the question. And you would agree with the ECF’s other writings?
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B
Bishopite
Guest
As you can see,these quotes are from the second to the third century on Mary as the theotokos (mother of God). And you would also agree with these ECF’s?
Irenaeus
“The Virgin Mary, being obedient to his word, received from an angel the glad tidings that she would bear God” (Against Heresies, 5:19:1 [A.D. 189]).
Hippolytus
“[T]o all generations they [the prophets] have pictured forth the grandest subjects for contemplation and for action. Thus, too, they preached of the advent of God in the flesh to the world, his advent by the spotless and God-bearing (theotokos) Mary in the way of birth and growth, and the manner of his life and conversation with men, and his manifestation by baptism, and the new birth that was to be to all men, and the regeneration by the laver [of baptism]” (*Discourse on the End of the World *1 [A.D. 217]).
Gregory the Wonderworker
“For Luke, in the inspired Gospel narratives, delivers a testimony not to Joseph only, but also to Mary, the Mother of God, and gives this account with reference to the very family and house of David” (*Four Homilies *1 [A.D. 262]).
“It is our duty to present to God, like sacrifices, all the festivals and hymnal celebrations; and first of all, [the feast of] the Annunciation to the holy Mother of God, to wit, the salutation made to her by the angel, ‘Hail, full of grace!’” (ibid., 2).
B
Bishopite
Guest
Welll, the difference between a secular document or government established by men and the church Jesus established are apples and oranges. The US constitution is not protected from error nor by Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ church is as He said in Mt 16:19 that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church. As I pointed out earlier even non-Catholics and secular historians affirm, there was only one “church” in that period.
What is it about 325 AD?
Do you not accept the Trinity as defined by the council of Nicea? Do you accept the Trinity at all?
Do you accept the hypostatic union declared in 451 by the council of Chalcedon?
B
Bishopite
Guest
Let’s see, the rapture is never taught in Christiandom for 1800 plus years and yet it was after all these years finally recognized by Darby and Schofield and it is “drived directly from the scripture”?
Yet, the assumption of Mary, not declared binding on the conscience of Christians until 1950, taught for 1400 years prior (at least according to you) and yet it was derived from gnostic forgeries?
You are using the same false logic as Biblestudent is doing by pointing out partial truths within spurious gnostic documents which allude to and give evidence of Christian truths and trying to link them to Catholic teachings. The gnostics and others readily accused the early Christians of canablism and you know where I first heard this? In a Methodist church and I found out later that they did. Many of the pagans also borrowed from Christian pracitices; that’s why black Masses are said by satanist’s. The Pharisees accused Jesus of being a demon in Mt 12:24 but Jesus told them that no house divided against itself will stand.
If Catholicism got its theology from gnostic forgeries, do you honestly think it would have stood for 2000 years?
The facts are Jesus established the Catholic church, it has stood the test of time because Jesus said it would in Mt 16:15-19.
B
Bible_Student
Guest
Hi Bishoprite, you’re preaching to the choir. What Christian denomination doesn’t believe Mary was the mother of God unless they do not believe in Jesus’ divinity as the Son of God?
Heresies? 
We cannot find a single extant Christian author for 300 years after the formation of the Church who mentions anything about the Assumption and all of a sudden we find them combatting heresy for those who do would like to understand the origin of the work that substantiates it?.
Actually I thought the number on the bottom of the quote I was the ECF Ante Nicene Fathers notation for where the verse is located. Perhaps that was a bad assumption on my part - as this is how it was denoted in my "Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, David W. Bercot, Editor, Hendrickson Publishers, Nov 2003. The actual work of Origen that contains it is Origen:Commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew, Book X:Chapter 17. The Brethren of Jesus. Actually the controverisal work on Origen’s view of universal salvation may very well be a spurious addition, which unfortunately was all too common back then. It would in fact be inconsistent with other statements Origen made in the majority of his works.
Actually I am fairly familiar with early ecclesial Christian histtory and have studied it, but maybe not to the extent which you appear to claim. But would you be able to show us from the earliest councils where it said the Pope, or the Bishop of Rome as he was called back then, actually presided over those councils? I would think that starting with the first Council of Jerusalem and working your way up would be outstanding. I also think that would be an interesting and educational study or thread for all of us.
You’ve got me there as I understood the vote was not even close, as given that there 318 bishops in attendence there were only 2 that actually sided with Arianism.
Yes, I know we owe a debt of gratitude to the Roman Church, as well as the Eastern Churches, and the African Churches for the New Testament Canon and the preservation of Scripture, but mostly I believe we owe a debt of gratitude to God who empowered these men. So if I have seemed ungrateful forgive me as I am well aware of the great contributions and the history of these early churches. I am also thankful to God for all the men and women who have served Him in the Roman church, the Eastern Church and every Church that has continued to preach the Gospel. Please don’t confuse my passion to worship the Lord in Spirit and Truth and to test all things with a lack of love. I despise some of the vitorol I’ve come across concerning Catholics.
Peace, and may God Bless, pat
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andzy
Guest
On a side note:
Pat, sometimes it seems to me you know more about Catholicism than Protestantism.
The majority of Protestants (from various denominations) I’ve met in the US (Midwest), weren’t comfortable (to say the least) about Mary being the Mother of God.
(In some extreme cases, some of them also took a stand that you’re not really a Christian if you don’t believe in Rapture.)
B
Bible_Student
Guest
Bishoprite:
Came across this in a response to another member and not me. Can you please give me the courtesy of explaining what you mean - and where what gnostic works were quoted vs my ECF quotes? I’m somewhat amazed you didn’t challenge these in a direct response back to me in my posts but align them as dubious to another.
Thanks, pat
Hi Again,
Came across this in a response to another member and not me. Can you please give me the courtesy of explaining what you mean - and where what gnostic works were quoted vs my ECF quotes? I’m somewhat amazed you didn’t challenge these in a direct response back to me in my posts but align them as dubious to another.
Thanks, pat
B
Bible_Student
Guest
Hi andzy,On a side note:
Pat, sometimes it seems to me you know more about Catholicism than Protestantism.
The majority of Protestants (from various denominations) I’ve met in the US (Midwest), weren’t comfortable (to say the least) about Mary being the Mother of God.
(In some extreme cases, some of them also took a stand that you’re not really a Christian if you don’t believe in Rapture.)
Hmm… okay, let’s do the math. Most Catholics and Protestants I know believe Jesus was the Son of God, the Word of God, God in the flesh. If they are truly Christian they believe He was conceived of Mary and the Holy Spirit, thus had two natures (the God man). If then both of these are believed true Jesus is both the son of Mary and the son of God, so there is no issue with saying Mary bore the Son of God. Am I missing something.
I’ve never heard anyone ever say if you don’t believe in the rapture you’re not a Christian. I happen to agree there will be a rapture - as the word itself is to be found in the Bible (not one written in English but in Jerome’s Latin Vulgate). I disagree with some the way this has been expounded by some and am not a premillenist but, as I stated earlier, I believe this is an in house debate. I don’t claim to know all the mysteries of God or any special knowledge concerning it but trust that God will perform it as He has promised He would. And that’s all I really ever need understand - that God is good, faithful, kind and we can put all our faith in Him.
May God Bless, pat
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Bible_Student
Guest
Hi Again,
Where did Jesus say there would be no error in the Church. That premise seems fantastic to me. Yes, the gates of hell shall not prevail against Christ’s Church but it would be sweepingly out of context to say that means she would never commit errors. You must have read the parable of the tares and the wheat. What does that mean to you?
How about Revelation - were the 7 Churches there proclaimed to be without error by Christ?
To the Church at Ephesus
‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.
To the Church at Pergamum
I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent.
To the Church at Thyatira
“‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead.
I don’t have time for more, maybe when I return from work. But I believe you must already get my point.
In Christ, pat
L
LilyM
Guest
Errors, on a personal level, among its members, yes. We dont deny that either.
What Christ promised was that the Holy Spirit would guide the Apostles into ALL TRUTH. Not for their own sakes, but so that they could teach that same truth and transmit it, as their first order of business was to do once they received the Spirit at Pentecost.
Now tell me, how could they be guided, and in their turn guide others, into ALL TRUTH and at the same time officially teach error, which is untruth? Impossible and intolerable.
B
Bible_Student
Guest
I answer both these on a previous post
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Bible_Student
Guest
See the following post - the rapture is in the Bible.Let’s see, the rapture is never taught in Christiandom for 1800 plus years and yet it was after all these years finally recognized by Darby and Schofield and it is “drived directly from the scripture”?
Yet, the assumption of Mary, not declared binding on the conscience of Christians until 1950, taught for 1400 years prior (at least according to you) and yet it was derived from gnostic forgeries?
You are using the same false logic as Biblestudent is doing by pointing out partial truths within spurious gnostic documents which allude to and give evidence of Christian truths and trying to link them to Catholic teachings. The gnostics and others readily accused the early Christians of canablism and you know where I first heard this? In a Methodist church and I found out later that they did. Many of the pagans also borrowed from Christian pracitices; that’s why black Masses are said by satanist’s. The Pharisees accused Jesus of being a demon in Mt 12:24 but Jesus told them that no house divided against itself will stand.
If Catholicism got its theology from gnostic forgeries, do you honestly think it would have stood for 2000 years?
The facts are Jesus established the Catholic church, it has stood the test of time because Jesus said it would in Mt 16:15-19.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=2678504&postcount=535
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Church_Militant
Guest
The problem here is that you imply that the Church can fall into error in her teaching and that cannot happen, else Christianity is a bad joke.
If you look at the history of the Church you find that she has never been overcome because she has always identified and countered errors and heresies… this was in force even in the New Testament.
The wheat and tares has nothing to do with teaching…it has to do with moral failings and those who fail to persevere to the end.
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Church_Militant
Guest
No… it’s not.
That teaching has no basis in any Christian belief and teaching prior to about 1825.
The Rapture? and The Rapture and the Bible
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PapaSquash
Guest
Is everything that wasn’t written down, written down somewhere? It’s IN the Church. The Church is a vessel for God’s teaching just as the covers of a book are.
Only if you do not have some reliable source aside from the four written Gospels.
God’s church is not accountable to me. It is an istitution founded by the Lord of the universe. I pray for the humility to remain faithful to the belief that God’s Holy Spirit is capable of ensuring that it’s teachings are Truth. (As with all men, the behavior of it’s members at all levels is a private matter between themselves and their confessors.)
And by what authority do you assert this? Do you accept Sola Scriptura on Luther’s authority? Of what was he the author?
Yes, God used his Church to bring the scriptures into the world. The Church has the authority delegated to the Apostles by Christ himself. The Protestant, as any other lay Christian, (or unbeliever for that matter) can read and derive meaning from Scripture and this is fruitful. Often we can, independent of the Magisterium, correctly interpret them. When our interpretations are in conflict with the inerrent truths definitively held by Christ’s Church, we must assent to hold to the Church’s doctrine. In areas where inerrant doctrine has not been defined there is more room for “discussion.” If, at some point, The Spirit guides his Church to a definitive answer on that point, the discussion is over.
That’s this Catholic’s understanding.
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Good_Fella
Guest
Pope Gelasius and Pope Hormisdas did not condemn the wide spread and long standing Christian belief in the Assumption. No pope has ever condemned this belief. If anything, the Church has rejected how apocryphal texts have embellished this belief which dates back to apostolic time in Palestine. The Church has also rejected apochryphal writings concerning the supernatural events surrounding Jesus without questioning what really happened. Belief in the Assumption does not originate with these apochryphal works but rather has led to them. They are so to speak the result of an oral tradition based on no-eye witness account, unlike the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. With apocryphal works, the problem isn’t with what happened, but how it happened. As I said before, Pope Pius Xll ignored the apocryphal texts and focused strictly on Sacred Scriptures when he promulgated the dogma of Mary’s Assumption in his Apostolic Constitution ‘Munificentissimus Deus’. It is irrelevant to mention these apocryphal works.
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
J
justasking4
Guest
A
andzy
Guest
Not to start another topic, however:
P.S. Regarding the “need to believe in Rapture” Christians: well, there are a lot of “weird” people out there, so it didn’t surprise me much, when I heard it.
Blessings on you, too!
Totally agree. But in my personal experience most people (Protestants) can certainly follow such logic, yet they don’t really want to admit it for fear of being “too Catholic” (I suspect).
P.S. Regarding the “need to believe in Rapture” Christians: well, there are a lot of “weird” people out there, so it didn’t surprise me much, when I heard it.
Blessings on you, too!
G
Good_Fella
Guest
The reason why Protestants cannot accept the Marian doctrines of the Catholic Church is because our understanding of Mary in God’s plan of salvation conflicts with their erroneous beliefs in ‘sola fide’, ‘sola scriptura’, and ‘sola Christo’. Not only do Protestants terribly diminish the significant role of Mary, but in doing so they also relegate God the Father and God the Holy Spirit to an obscure place behind Jesus. This is why debating with them about Mary gets nowhere. We are communicating on different wave lengths.
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
J
justasking4
Guest
Let me give you example of where these marian doctrines lead catholics and why this is such a problem for protestants. I’d like to know what you think of this:The reason why Protestants cannot accept the Marian doctrines of the Catholic Church is because our understanding of Mary in God’s plan of salvation conflicts with their erroneous beliefs in ‘sola fide’, ‘sola scriptura’, and ‘sola Christo’. Not only do Protestants terribly diminish the significant role of Mary, but in doing so they also relegate God the Father and God the Holy Spirit to an obscure place behind Jesus. This is why debating with them about Mary gets nowhere. We are communicating on different wave lengths.
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
This is from St. Alphonsus Liguori in his The Glories of Mary
Wilt thou endure to see a servant of thine who loves thee lost? O Mary, what sayest thou? ** I shall be lost if I abandon **thee. But who can ever more have the heart to leave thee? How can I ever forget the love thou hast born me? My lady, since thou hast done so much to save me, complete the work, continue the aid, continue to help me. But what do I say if at a time when I live forgetful of thee? Thou didst favor me so much, how much more may I not hope for now that I love thee and recommend myself to thee. No, he can never be lost who recommends himself to thee, he alone is lost who has not recourse to thee. Ah, my mother, leave me not in my own hands, for I shall then be lost. Grant that I may also have recourse to thee, save me, my hope, save me from hell, but in the first place, save me from sin which alone can condemn me.”
Is it Mary that saves from hell? Are those who have no recourse to her lost?
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