Flowchart: The (Very) Early Timeline of Christianity

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Melchior_1

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Hello all,

When Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses come to our door, my wife and I event them into our home and have a dialogue with them. This has led do several discussions about a myriad of different topics. Two items which have come up were;
  1. With the Mormon’s, “The Great Apostasy”.
  2. With the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Sola Scriptura.
I thought, perhaps, I would create some visual aids for either preparing oneself for a discussion on these topics, or to give to family or friends who has some questions. The result? Flowcharts.

This is the first one, which gets into some of the questions I often ask others when discussing the “Great Apostasy” and/or Sola Scriptura. It also includes information from the Catholic perspective on these topics, and the Catholic perspective on the early Church.

Feedback is welcome in terms of the formatting layout and content (I expect that one piece of feedback will be “it looks too busy”). Although I must admit,I spent a lot of time preparing this, so please charitable with any constructive comments when discussing the formatting 🙂

Also, an actual name/title to give this chart would be nice. “The (Very) Early Timeline of Christianity” may not be the most accurate title to denote what the flowchart details.
 
Oh wow! Do you mind if others use this themselves? Not sure how often I could use it though.
 
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I would assume that’s a key motivating reason why he posted this on an international public forum @Kei
 
Here’s another cool graphic to use.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

If Protestantism is true, why are all the Apostles remains in Catholic locations?

Admittedly, it’s a kind of flimsy argument. But why didn’t any of the “heroic early Protestants” go and free the mortal remains of the Apostles from the clutches of the evil Roman Church? Why allow them to be “desecrated” lying in a den of thieves for so many centuries?
 
Kei said:
Oh wow! Do you mind if others use this themselves?
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Fill your boots! 🙂
Spyridon said:
“Pre-Nicene Apostolical Catholic Christianity flow chart”
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Pre-Nicene is actually a solid idea as far as titles go.
Spyridon said:
I would assume that’s a key motivating reason why he posted this on an international public forum @Kei
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Pretty much. Outside of feedback, the intent of posting it here was to share this so others can use it.
 
A small hole I noticed I could punch in the box about Matthias being a successor.

An argument could be made that Matthias was elected a successor by the other Apostles themselves, and that the ability to name successors then died when the last Apostle died.

I dont agree with the notion, but if we’re to effectively utilize apologetics, we’ve gotta try to punch holes in our arguments and refute the counter arguments - St. Thomas Aquinas style.
 
It goes back to the topic of if Matthias had full authority or not. If he didn’t, then he would have no say nor vote regarding future successors Apostles.

Also, it specifically says “he was added to the eleven apostles”, when there was ~120 believers present. There’s no qualifiers or conditions, he becomes one of them, the same as them - with those eleven and himself being singled out among the ~120 believers.

Finally, a small point, but it would mean that Paul had no authority either, as he wasn’t in among the Twelve and there’s no account of him becoming one of them.
 
I am impressed. Obviously a lot of work went into this. Well done.

One question. There is a line from St. Peter to St. John the Apostle. Is this to show his authority as pope over St. John?

Thank you for sharing this!👍
 
fredystairs said:
One question. There is a line from St. Peter to St. John the Apostle. Is this to show his authority as pope over St. John?
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Yeah, it’s supposed to represent the hierarchy and authority of Cephas. The horizontal line shows the succession of the first four Popes, with Saint John and his disciples being underneath. The different colors for Cephas and his successors and John and his “discipleship tree” are suppsoed to highlight this.

My wife actually pointed out the same thing you did. She understood what it meant, but said that some people might get confused by it. But I’m not sure if there’s a better way to represent how the hierarchical and successional structure works in the limited amount of space available on the page.
 
Melchior_1 said:
It goes back to the topic of if Matthias had full authority or not. If he didn’t, then he would have no say nor vote regarding future successors Apostles.

Also, it specifically says “he was added to the eleven apostles”, when there was ~120 believers present. There’s no qualifiers or conditions, he becomes one of them, the same as them - with those eleven and himself being singled out among the ~120 believers.

Finally, a small point, but it would mean that Paul had no authority either, as he wasn’t in among the Twelve and there’s no account of him becoming one of them.
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And why does Jesus see the need for twelve apostles for only the first 100 years of His church and none for the next 1900 years. It makes no sence Christ would give a greater charism to the first 12 apostles and something less to their successors. If anything it would make more sense the other way around.

Thinking this through…if the church did go into apostasy one would have only Jesus to blame - for leaving His church with insufficient authorty and leadership.

Peace!!!
 
Not really sure what’s the point of “this argument”.

I"m rather wondering why most of them are believed to be in Italy?
 
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adf417 said:
Thinking this through…if the church did go into apostasy one would have only Jesus to blame - for leaving His church with insufficient authorty and leadership.
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This could be an argument for faiths that believe in the apostasy as the OP pointed out. This is not the case with the vast majority of Protestants.
 
If my grandfathers body was dug up and some Islamic terrorists were keeping it for some reason, I wouldn’t hesitate to go and fight them and try to regain my grandfathers mortal remains.

Same logic.
 
Whoever made that graphic decided to only give the location of where certain Apostles relics are in Italy.

Various Apostles bodies are in Greece, Israel and some other areas too.
 
Spyridon said:
If my grandfathers body was dug up and some Islamic terrorists were keeping it for some reason, I wouldn’t hesitate to go and fight them and try to regain my grandfathers mortal remains.

Same logic.
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Except nobody stole the mortal remains of the apostles
 
Melchior_1 said:
It goes back to the topic of if Matthias had full authority or not. If he didn’t, then he would have no say nor vote regarding future successors Apostles.

Also, it specifically says “he was added to the eleven apostles”, when there was ~120 believers present. There’s no qualifiers or conditions, he becomes one of them, the same as them - with those eleven and himself being singled out among the ~120 believers.

Finally, a small point, but it would mean that Paul had no authority either, as he wasn’t in among the Twelve and there’s no account of him becoming one of them.
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Just out of curiosity, who are the twelve apostles today?
 
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