Tdgesq,
Please read what I wrote Gabriel777 in my last post regarding his quotes geared towards pre-Christian peoples.
In the link he posted, the essay gave many interesting quotes about just needing to follow the logos but they were insufficient in that they 1) specifically pertained to those before Christ came, and 2) simply affired baptism of desire–to show Fr. Feeney was wrong to deny it. (I already admit I accept baptism of desire, but I don’t accept that the Church always understood baptism of desire to include anything like Pius IX’s “invincible ignorance” or that salvation is hopeful for Jews, Schismatics and Pagans.) I assume you will provide quotes that show it does for those that came after Christ.
I did read what Gabriel wrote, but your objections don’t work for two reasons. First, Augustine could not have been speaking of the church before Christ because he refers to baptism by heretics and whether salvation could be achieved as a result. He disagrees with Cyprian on this point. It is people post-Christ to which he refers. This is when he specifically makes the distinction between the heart and body of the Church and its relationship to who is included within the Church.
Also, even though the specific examples given by Aquinas refer to pre-Christian people, he in other places uses the same analysis for all people at all times:
*I answer that, Unbelief may be taken in two ways: first, by way of pure negation, so that a man be called an unbeliever, merely because he has not the faith. Secondly, unbelief may be taken by way of opposition to the faith; in which sense a man refuses to hear the faith, or despises it, according to Is. 53:1: “Who hath believed our report?” It is this that completes the notion of unbelief, and it is in this sense that unbelief is a sin.
If, however, we take it by way of pure negation, as we find it in those who have heard nothing about the faith, it bears the character, not of sin, but of punishment, because such like ignorance of Divine things is a result of the sin of our first parent. If such like unbelievers are damned, it is on account of other sins, which cannot be taken away without faith, but not on account of their sin of unbelief. Hence Our Lord said (John 15:22) “If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin”; which Augustine expounds (Tract. lxxxix in Joan.) as “referring to the sin whereby they believed not in Christ.”*Aquinas II II, Ques.10, Art. 1.
Notice that Aquinas refers to the entire category of “those who have heard nothing about the faith” and their “ignorance.” He also states that this in itself is no sin, citing the words of Christ that if he had not come and spoken to them, they would not have any sin. It is the ignorance of Christ’s message that is key.
Second, the other two Fathers I quoted do refer to those who came before Christ. But again, they reach their conclusion that a person pre-Christ can still be a “Christian” because of what: his ignorance of Christ’s message. You and bobzills are making the same mistake. It is not the fact that some of these Fathers refer to people before Christ’s coming that is significant. It is the reasons they give why these people can still be called Christians. Even those nominally called Jews. It is because of ignorance of Christ.
You have a point that as the message of Christ is spread throughout the world, the ignorance of some of these folks can be placed into question. But in light of what I’ve just given you, to hold that once Christ came everybody who was ignorant of his message from that point onwards could never be part of the Church is, frankly, absurd. I don’t know of any ECF who wasn’t deemed heretical that said such a thing. What is evident (at least to me) is that they leave open the possibility of ignorance even after Christ came.
My guess is that some rather amusing things are going to happen now.
