How do protestants explain the time between Christ and the reformation?

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Eark said:
Otherwise put, why would God allow the full truth of Christianity to be unknown for a millennium? I see two, not mutually exclusive, kinds of responses.
First, one might simply say “And the same to you.” That is, Catholics now have dogma that could not have been wholly known to early Christians, so the same argument applies. Papal infallibility comes to mind, established in 1869 or so.
Second, one might argue a historical case for how the protestant view was always known. Baptist successionism doesn’t seem to hold water but I’m sure Christians of the early and middle of Church history, with their diversity of heresy and opinion, harboured a few who could arguably be called proto-protestants. Of course, these would only be a few, so a similar question arises: “Why was the full truth of Christianity withheld from so many for so long?”
I’m only a fledgling Christian so these thoughts might be a bit misinformed. Let me know what you think 😄
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I don’t think that the average, run-of-the-mill simple evangelical Christian believer spends any time at all thinking about what the Church was like before the present era.

The typical scenario is that the Christian believer makes an act of faith in Jesus Christ, accepts Him as their Lord and personal savior, receives baptism, possibly becomes convinced that they have had some kind of supernatural spiritual awakening or experience in the process (anointing in the Holy Spirit, possibly some kind of sensory manifestation such as tongues or healing), and is content to leave it at that.

The believer reads the Bible, concludes that this is the Word of God, and doesn’t really think about any kind of post-apostolic historical timeline. They know that there was an “early Church” and they just assume it was the same as what they encounter at their local evangelical church. They know that there was something called “the reformation” but neither know nor care what it consisted of. If pressed, they would “just assume” that there were Christians throughout the ages just like them, but that’s something they wouldn’t give much though to either. The Catholic Church is a strange and foreign entity that, to them, is “not really Christian” and is just some bunch of mumbo-jumbo about worshipping Mary, the saints, idols, and so on. It’s nothing they can relate to, and they don’t give it a lot of thought. They seem to regard it much as a typical Catholic would regard Mormonism.

To be sure, those of a more academic bent would look it into it more closely, but that’s not the experience of the vast majority of people. They are content with a simple Bible-based faith in the here and now.
 
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steve-b said:
Now THAT is nonsense. Luther was his own boss.
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JonNC:
Source where he says this. Where does he say he is his own boss?
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Glad you asked

10 years after he was excommunicated,

Luther admitted he added alone to faith where it wasn’t in the original text. As He put it, **"if your Papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word “alone” (sola), say this to him: "Dr. Martin Luther will have it so"
From: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/luther-translate.txt ( 1530 )

same attitude Luther had that back in 1520 when he was excommunicated
 
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JonNC said:
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steve-b:
IOW the Catholic Church. The only Church Our Lord established.

Your view includes all those who WERE Catholic but are now outside the Catholic Church .
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Umm, no. My view is that the Catholic Church is not only and exclusively found in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
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That is the later Protestant view particularly the Protestant Anglican view. If one isn’t in communion with bishop of Rome, they aren’t in extension in union with all those in union with the bishop as well. Meaning they aren’t Catholic either.
 
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steve-b said:
10 years after he was excommunicated,

Luther admitted he added alone to faith where it wasn’t in the original text. As He put it, **"if your Papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word “alone” (sola), say this to him: "Dr. Martin Luther will have it so"
From:
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And you know full well that was sarcasm.
He says:
“So this can be the answer to your first question. Please do not
give these asses any other answer to their useless braying about
that word “sola” than simply “Luther will have it so, and he says
that he is a doctor above all the papal doctors.” Let it remain
at that. I will, from now on, hold them in contempt,…”
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It is out of contempt for his critics that he says this. It is not the reason for his translation if Romans 3:28.

Later on in that open letter on translating, he gives his actual reasons.
For you and our people, however, I shall show why I used the word
“sola” - even though in Romans 3 it wasn’t “sola” I used but
“solum” or “tantum”. That is how closely those asses have looked
at my text! However, I have used “sola fides” in other places,
and I want to use both “solum” and “sola”. I have continually
tried translating in a pure and accurate German.
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…
I also know that in Rom. 3, the word “solum” is not present in
either Greek or Latin text - the papists did not have to teach me
that - it is fact! The letters s-o-l-a are not there. And these
knotheads stare at them like cows at a new gate, while at the same
time they do not recognize that it conveys the sense of the text -
if the translation is to be clear and accurate, it belongs there.
I wanted to speak German since it was German I had spoken in
translation - not Latin or Greek. But it is the nature of our
language that in speaking about two things, one which is affirmed,
the other denied, we use the word “solum” only along with the word
“not” (nicht) or “no” (kein). For example, we say “the farmer
brings only (allein) grain and no money”; or “No, I really have no
money, but only (allein) grain”; I have only eaten and not yet
drunk"; “Did you write it only and not read it over?” There are a
vast number of such everyday cases.
In all these phrases, this is a German usage, even though it is
not the Latin or Greek usage. It is the nature of the German
tongue to add “allein” in order that “nicht” or “kein” may be
clearer and more complete.
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Here we find the detailed explanation (there is more) as to his actual reason.
I’ve been around this block too many times, Steve. I’ve seen misrepresented, wittingly or unwittingly, too many times to count.

Luther had plenty of real flaws without creating new ones out of whole cloth.
 
steve-b said:
That is the later Protestant view particularly the Protestant Anglican view. If one isn’t in communion with bishop of Rome, they aren’t in extension in union with all those in union with the bishop as well. Meaning they aren’t Catholic either.
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Yes, I know your view. I disagree.
 
(as does the Catholic Church, by the way:

“For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect.”)
 
JonNC said:
Got it. Luther should have known the outcome of Trent before he died. That’s apparently what you are saying.
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Jon, i see you draw the comparison of Luther and Cajetan for the reason you do and the reason in itself is just. However, i don’t think i have ever seen you expand that comparison to Jerome. Jerome, as did Luther and Cajetan, live prior to Trent and yet Jerome submitted to an authority he disagreed with. How is your argument that “prior to Trent there was no fixed canon therefor there was no accountability to a specific canon” (my wording not yours) viable? Please help us see the difference in Jerome’s accountability in terms of comparing Luther and Cajetan in an era “prior to Trent”.

Peace!!!
 
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adf417 said:
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JonNC:
Got it. Luther should have known the outcome of Trent before he died. That’s apparently what you are saying.
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Jon, i see you draw the comparison of Luther and Cajetan for the reason you do and the reason in itself is just. However, i don’t think i have ever seen you expand that comparison to Jerome. Jerome, as did Luther and Cajetan, live prior to Trent and yet Jerome submitted to an authority he disagreed with. How is your argument that “prior to Trent there was no fixed canon therefor there was no accountability to a specific canon” (my wording not yours) viable? Please help us see the difference in Jerome’s accountability in terms of comparing Luther and Cajetan in an era “prior to Trent”.

Peace!!!
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I’m not sure I’m making the argument that there was “no fixed canon”. There is an undeniably consistent view of the canon in the western Church starting with Rome, Hippo, and Carthage. I’m only stating that the Church allowed for dispute about certain books, and I think part of the reason for that was respect for the early Fathers who held differing views.
The Evangelical Catholics starting with the Reformation era, have viewed the canon and the use of books based on the historical considerations of books, affirmed, disputed, rejected. So strong was this respect that the Lutheran confessions do not contain a dogmatically defined canon.
Luther’s translation contains 74 books, not 66 and not 73. In a similar way, Cajetan states One can say the DC’s are canon because of the liturgical usage. Lutherans historically have done the same. So do Anglicans.
Luther shows a similar respect for the historic western view of the canon by including the DC’s. He didn’t have to. He could have excluded them, but he didn’t.
 
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JonNC said:
Luther shows a similar respect for the historic western view of the canon by including the DC’s. He didn’t have to. He could have excluded them, but he didn’t.
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You must then accept Jerome could have excluded them also. What then, in your opinion, would have been the purpose of Jerome’s “submitting”? Why submit if he had this freedom, maybe even more so considering lesser time in liturgical usage, that Luther did?

Peace!!!
 
adf417 said:
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JonNC:
Luther shows a similar respect for the historic western view of the canon by including the DC’s. He didn’t have to. He could have excluded them, but he didn’t.
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You must then accept Jerome could have excluded them also. What then, in your opinion, would have been the purpose of Jerome’s “submitting”? Why submit if he had this freedom, maybe even more so considering lesser time in liturgical usage, that Luther did?

Peace!!!
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He could have, but Pope Damasus and he had an arrangement, and the pope wanted the books from the Septuagint.
In translating the Old Testament, something struck Jerome: the books the Jews regarded as Holy Scripture did not include the books we know as the Apocryphal. These books had been included in the Septuagint, the basis of most older translations, and Jerome was compelled by the church to include them. But he made it clear that in his opinion the Apocryphal books were only liber ecclesiastici (church books to be read for edification), as opposed to the fully inspired liber canonici (canonical books to establish doctrine).
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www.christianitytoday.com

405 Jerome Completes the Vulgate

This Latin translation stood as the preeminent Bible text for centuries—and set the standard for future translators.
www.christianitytoday.com www.christianitytoday.com

He lived up to his agreement.
 
There appears to have been at least one. Gregory the Great references the killing of the elephant in 1 Maccabees as follows:

With reference to which particular we are not acting irregularly, if from the books, though not Canonical, yet brought out for the edifying of the Church, we bring forward testimony. Thus Eleazar in the battle smote and brought down an elephant, but fell under the very beast that he killed.-Gregory the Great (An Exposition on the Book of the Blessed Job, Volume 2, Part 3, Book 19, Paragraph 34)
http://www.lectionarycentral.com/GregoryMoralia/Book19.html
 
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