How important are early church fathers, and teachings to non-Catholics?

[Rightlydivide]

My intention is to state that if you honestly believe that the earliest Christians, those closest to Christ and the apostles themselves, were as divided as you think they were, then Christianity was doomed from the start. That Christ was wrong. That Christ did not intend to start any Church, whether physical or invisible. That if your belief is correct, we have nothing at all to base faith upon today.

Canon for the Bible was decided by those same men you think were so divided.

Was there disagreements? Sure, any family has them. Were they divided so much that it would mirror what we see today with the denominations? Heck no.

The topic, that I started by the way, wasn’t at all what the early churches were like. It was…well, you can read the title.

I was not sarcastic till the end of the post you quoted. Besides that, I meant all that I said. If the early fathers were divided, then it is clear that we are all wrong from the get go. If the apostles themselves could not teach what was right to those following them, we are doomed. It was a sham.

Peter and Paul did disagree from time to time, but…when Peter spoke, it was the end of the disagreement, and Paul listened.

Disagreements on simple things are one thing, disagreements such as those that exist today, is another.

Edit: Also, you speak of the community of believers, not the Fathers themselves.

So you believe I should not be a Christian or I should think like you? Is that essentially it? Because if I do not agree with you, that seems to be what you are advocating.

 

[Teneas]

So you believe I should not be a Christian or I should think like you? Is that essentially it? Because if I do not agree with you, that seems to be what you are advocating.

I am saying that you should be the type of Christian that the earliest of church Fathers were. Not like me, for I am a sinner and a horrible one at that. To simply disregard how the earliest of Christians practiced, those that probably practiced more purely than even the CC now, is fallacy. It’s error to disregard how they practiced, as they had a better grasp of what was expected, and what was required than anyone would have.

Guess what…they didn’t even have a Bible. They had random scrolls that contained bits and pieces. They mainly had the OT alone. Most of the NT, as you and I know it, wasn’t even around till a hundred years later or so.

To ignore their ways, and traditions, yes I said traditions, is such ignorance and willful ignoring of facts. You will recognize I didn’t even say that what they taught was what the CC teaches.

 

[graceandglory]

Just as the title says. How important is it to those that are not Catholic, as to what the earliest Christians taught and practiced?

Should how they taught, practiced, and believed effect how you practice now?

**
It should be required reading.**
I was in a church that was forever trying to re-create the New Testament Church.
How about asking people who were there? My friends who are still protestant, are still doing the same thing, going from one denomination to another, ever searching for the early Church.
I remember going to Christian (should be called anti-Catholic) bookstores, looking for Christian History, and the farthest back I could find was 500 years. According to them, “Christian History” started with the Protestant Reformation, not with the early Church.

That is what we were told in my evangelical churches, and that is all you could find in the bookstores. I bought some of those books too. Makes me steamed. So, unless you were in a Bible college and had a bible college library available to you, you couldn’t find out. I certainly wouldn’t have trusted the public library or university library for Christian truth. (Although I probably could have found it there, if I had looked.)

---

"To be deep in history is to cease being Protestant."******
Cardinal Newman

 

[graceandglory]

They can guide our understanding of faith and doctrine, but they cannot arbitrate. That job is for the Bible alone.

Why can’t they? Just curious why you think they cannot. In America, we have a Constitution, but the Constitution alone isn’t sufficient. We also have a justice system that interprets the law, and they look through the eyes of those who penned it. What makes you think that they can’t help us define and defend our faith?

 

[graceandglory]

So you believe I should not be a Christian or I should think like you? Is that essentially it? Because if I do not agree with you, that seems to be what you are advocating.

How widely disparate do you think Christ’s Apostles were? How many roads are there that lead to God? I think it is Jesus’ heart that we all attain a unity in the one true faith. If you disagree with this, does that mean you don’t think that it’s possible to have one true faith that unites all Christians?

"I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
21
** so that they may all be one**, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.
22
And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one,
23
I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.

I think it’s amazing that as a Catholic believer, I can connect with someone and if they say they are a faithful Catholic, I can know what they believe in a moment, and we are united; but I can “worship” with a protestant believer, or even my pastor for a dozen years and find out that we have completely different understandings of basic Christian stuff. For heaven’s sake, I could be married to a minister, and not even know what he believes on so many foundational things, because “they just don’t come up.”

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Just as the title says. How important is it to those that are not Catholic, as to what the earliest Christians taught and practiced?

Should how they taught, practiced, and believed effect how you practice now?

It will depend on which denomination they belong to and where they got their training. The older mainline Protestant denominations would have included the Church Fathers in their pastoral training, but most lay protestants would know next to nothing about them.

This is where they come unstuck in their interpretation of Scripture. I tagged along to my wife’s Baptist church this morning (went to mass yesterday). The speaker was discussing Paul’s second missionary journey, and while the history was interesting, he couldn’t help twice trying to put the boot into infant baptism by pointing out Lydia’s household (Acts 16:15) did not necessarily include infants. He then went on to try the same exclusive practice when the jailer was baptised (Acts 6:33), without proof. Funny how they always read the word “household” as implicitly meaning there were no infants.

I felt like yelling out that obviously the jailer just happened to keep a large baptismal font of water in which he “and all his family” could be baptised by immersion (these are Baptists remember) immediately and after midnight.

Had the speaker had an ounce of training in the Church Fathers, he’d have known that Baptism by sprinkling on the head was not only a practice of the earliest church (along with immersion when practical) but also an accepted form of Jewish ritual washing. Likewise baptism of infants was practised by the early church.

In short, they ignore the history of the early church as testified by the Church Fathers or at best, distort them.

 

[KathleenGee]

About the Church Fathers…as they came from many different regions…and expounded on a topic…each contributed to the whole theological concept…the same Holy Spirit we as Catholics can recognize as today…each one added but was incomplete or revealed a certain aspect of teachings…people err drawing on just one church father…as another can be also accessed that corrects that what is lacking in the former…they all worked to develop our understanding of the Lord, Scriptures, and the believers.

When the theological concept was finally formed, drawing on the Church fathers of the many churches throughout Christiandom, the concept was universal and thus pertained to all believers irregardless your local customs…

Thus, things always go slow in Rome…

 

[AmateurPianist]

It might be if I had confidence in the source of info about them.

You can find them online here

 

[AmateurPianist]

Just as the title says. How important is it to those that are not Catholic, as to what the earliest Christians taught and practiced?

Should how they taught, practiced, and believed effect how you practice now?

They are Christian authors from another time period.

I think it would do us all well to read Christian writings from different time periods. Just reading 21st century authors from the Christian bookstore probably distorts our understanding of Christianity.

They are online. You do have to have some understanding because some of these early Christian writings are more apocryphal while others are from important historical names.

I also enjoy reading the writings of John Wesley which also are online.

 

[Teneas]

You can find them online here

Not a bad link.The only thing it is missing is some titles to specific things that Christians “wonder” about these days.

Infant Baptism, just as an example. But I like the link. Might make it easier than looking through my books.

 

[T_More]

Since I am a man without a religion as of now, and the question is addressed to non-Catholics, I think they have been very important to me. They are one of the biggest reasons I’m on this site and looking at Catholicism.

 

[Rightlydivide]

I am saying that you should be the type of Christian that the earliest of church Fathers were. Not like me, for I am a sinner and a horrible one at that. To simply disregard how the earliest of Christians practiced, those that probably practiced more purely than even the CC now, is fallacy. It’s error to disregard how they practiced, as they had a better grasp of what was expected, and what was required than anyone would have.

Guess what…they didn’t even have a Bible. They had random scrolls that contained bits and pieces. They mainly had the OT alone. Most of the NT, as you and I know it, wasn’t even around till a hundred years later or so.

To ignore their ways, and traditions, yes I said traditions, is such ignorance and willful ignoring of facts. You will recognize I didn’t even say that what they taught was what the CC teaches.

Did the churches in Revelation have this “pure form of Christianity” or were they rife with doctrinal errors? That would probably be a short answer.
Next thing, how do you know what the early churches had in regards to scrolls? What proof do you offer for your statement? I believe if you look into that statement you will not find any historical evidence to back it up. There are no documents circa 90 AD that say what an early church possessed. There are no archeological digs from a church circa 90 AD. So how exactly did you reach this conclusion?
Because Peter tells us to read Paul’s letters, correct? Does this mean that Peter said that knowing it could not occur?
I actually plan to get into the earliest intact ante-Nicene documents on this thread but lets address these questions first. If you are up for it.

 

[Rightlydivide]

I will not address a smattering of out of context quotes. I say lets start at the beginning. The very beginning. I believe, as do most scholars, the earliest ante-Nicene document outside of the NT canon is the Didache.
So first things first. Does the Didache tell us the Eucharist is an actual meal? It infers it at least. I must remind readers that Paul and Christ teach about the Eucharist in a meal context. That is what our church practices. Does the Didache support or refute that teaching?

9:5 But let none eat or drink of your eucharist except those who have been baptized in the Name of the Lord. For concerning this did the Lord say : “Give not what is holy to dogs.”
10:1 But after you are satisfied with food, give thanks in this way :

Who gets to decide the appointment of bishops and deacons (elder rule in each congregation)?

15:1 Therefore, appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, meek men, disinterested in money, truthful and approved, for they too will fulfill among you the services of prophets and teachers.

The congregation. The congregation is not to despise them 15:2

That should be enough to get us started. Like I said, one book or letter at a time.

 

[Teneas]

Since I am a man without a religion as of now, and the question is addressed to non-Catholics, I think they have been very important to me. They are one of the biggest reasons I’m on this site and looking at Catholicism.

Glad you are here of course!

 

[Teneas]

Did the churches in Revelation have this “pure form of Christianity” or were they rife with doctrinal errors? That would probably be a short answer.
Next thing, how do you know what the early churches had in regards to scrolls? What proof do you offer for your statement? I believe if you look into that statement you will not find any historical evidence to back it up. There are no documents circa 90 AD that say what an early church possessed. There are no archeological digs from a church circa 90 AD. So how exactly did you reach this conclusion?
Because Peter tells us to read Paul’s letters, correct? Does this mean that Peter said that knowing it could not occur?
I actually plan to get into the earliest intact ante-Nicene documents on this thread but lets address these questions first. If you are up for it.

My question stands on how important they are to others. I don’t have access to scrolls. I don’t have assess to anything in the capacity you are speaking of anyway. I have books of the earliest writings, but that is it.

I asked simply out of intrigue as to how they were thought of among others.

The books I have by the way are The Faith of the Early Fathers collection. I have seen a few writings in there from before 90 AD btw, but few.

Start a new thread to debate exactly what they taught. My question is whether they are important to you or not. They are obviously not to you. That is fine, it’s your position, and I can respect it. They weren’t that important to me either, till I cared about how they practiced and taught.

 

[MyRdmrLvs]

Then you must not believe in Christianity at all, at even given time, no matter what you state on your profile. If the Church, and Christians were as heavily divided as you seem to believe, Christianity can’t be right. Time to find something else to have faith in I suppose.

Or give up the notion of an inerrant church and pray and read Gods word. then have good discussions about why others believe what they do in an honest search for Gods truth and trust His promise that you will find Him when you search with all of your heart!

 

[MyRdmrLvs]

True… additionally…

For hundreds & hundreds of years, the literacy rate was low …even after Bibles existed it’s not like the average person could pick up one, read it and understand it.

Why would God choose a method of communicating to His people (reading the Bible) if it was impossible for the VAST majority? Poor planning on His part, don’t you think?

I believe the jews were a pretty literate people , they not only read they memorized scripture and many of the first century Christians were jews. yes later there was a lack of literacy for many years. Good way for Church leaders to lord over the people.

 

[MyRdmrLvs]

I take the early church fathers quite seriously. I have all 28 volumes of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and read quite a bit or material on the internet. It must be remembered, however, that these men did not have the chrism of infallibility that the apostles had in their writings. Closeness to the apostles in time does not mean they could not err. The Bible clearly shows us that error had arisen within the churches founded by Paul even within his own lifetime. For example, the Corinthians and Galatians had both been taught directly by Paul but fell into error so that Paul had to write correcting them.

This being said, I find that the writings of the early church fathers show that different views were accepted on many matters. When teaching what was required, they stuck very close to the Apostle’s Creed. Many beliefs held by Protestants find support among the church fathers even if those views did not predominate. I think that modern Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, have tried to define too much as being necessary for belief.

yes! Yes and AMEN!

 

[grace_singh]

i find them interesting, valueble, and definately worth reading… too many Protestants seem to go about it as though Christian history began with the apostles, blanked out into darkness for centuries, then picked up again with Luther. they know little to nothing about the early theologians, teachers, and apologists who helped shape Christian doctrine, and little about the diversity of Christianity beyond the Protestant / Cathlolic divide.

i see them as valuble and worth reading, and certainly worth citing in discussions and debates.

 

[MyRdmrLvs]

i find them interesting, valueble, and definately worth reading… too many Protestants seem to go about it as though Christian history began with the apostles, blanked out into darkness for centuries, then picked up again with Luther. they know little to nothing about the early theologians, teachers, and apologists who helped shape Christian doctrine, and little about the diversity of Christianity beyond the Protestant / Cathlolic divide.

i see them as valuble and worth reading, and certainly worth citing in discussions and debates.

Have you ever made a copy of a copy of a copy? eventualy your copy starts getting corrupted. its always better if you can copy the original.