How To Respond To This Orthodox Argument About the Early Church

[DavidFilmer]

Development of Doctrine as defined by the Catholic Church is rejected by the Orthodox Church.

They don’t reject all of it. The Orthodox accept the first Seven Ecumenical Council (in which doctrine developed). If I’m not mistaken, they accept an eighth Council which is not accepted by Rome.

They accept the Nicene Creed and that all-important (and Greek) term homoousian, which represents a *major * (and, at the time, contentious) ontological development of Christological doctrine. I believe they accept Baptisms by heretics (provided water and valid form are used), which was a Papal teaching only (and which, BTW, no document survives).

They just don’t think it can develop now. Or, I’ve been told they think it COULD but it simply doesn’t.

The Catholic Church has not changed the definition of how doctrine develops. It develops today exactly the way it did for the first 1000 years.

 

[ericc]

So I had this dropped on me today:

There’s simply insufficient evidence that this was a widespread belief before the 6th - 8th centuries. If there was, we’d have hundreds, if not thousands of patristic testimonies regarding this belief. Instead, we have the same couple-dozen selected excerpts that Catholics keep referencing every single time this argument comes up. This would not have been a minor doctrinal issue to be paved over - it would have been something that defined the Church at its very core and most basic level. And yet, no one can find any more than a couple dozen examples dating from before the 6th - 8th centuries.

How exactly would one respond to this?

And therefore we should have thousands of patristic testimonies of the opposite for the opposite to be true by that reasoning. Rome has a couple of dozens of testimonies. And the opposite camp has how many testimonies?

Dozens of testimonies is plenty since the we don’t have THAT many patristic writings.

 

[SonOfMan]

The Catholic Church has not changed the definition of how doctrine develops. It develops today exactly the way it did for the first 1000 years.

That is somewhat of a paradoxical statement. The more the Catholic Church develops, the farther it gets away from how things were 2,000 years ago.

Ironically, the older you go back in Christianity, the more developed and authentic the teachings are. I would think that the people closest to Jesus and Jesus’ time would know better than us who never met him or his immediate followers.

 

[DavidFilmer]

That is somewhat of a paradoxical statement. The more the Catholic Church develops, the farther it gets away from how things were 2,000 years ago.

It’s not paradoxical - it’s flippin obvious. I’m 50 years old. I’m the exact same person that I was 49 years ago, but I’m quite dissimilar. I developed, but I have not undergone some ontological change.

Ironically, the older you go back in Christianity, the more developed and authentic the teachings are. I would think that the people closest to Jesus and Jesus’ time would know better than us who never met him or his immediate followers.

Did you actually say “the more developed?” Are you saying that the Apostolic Church had a fully formed understanding of the nature of OUR LORD??? Was he human only? Was he divine only? Was he some hybrid? Did he possess both natures? (YES) Was he merely a divine apparition? Was he co-eternal with the Father, or was he a created (but divine) being?

Are you telling me that the Apostolic Church could answer those questions? C’mon - are you kidding me??? The Apostolic Church HAD NO IDEA. The Apostolic Church understood ALMOST NOTHING about Our Lord. OUR LORD!!! The guy that founded our Church!!!

Would you like to revisit and revise your ridiculous claim?

 

[prodromos]

They don’t reject all of it. The Orthodox accept the first Seven Ecumenical Council (in which doctrine developed). If I’m not mistaken, they accept an eighth Council which is not accepted by Rome.

Doctrine was defended by the Ecumenical Councils, it was not developed.

 

[prodromos]

Are you telling me that the Apostolic Church could answer those questions? C’mon - are you kidding me??? The Apostolic Church HAD NO IDEA. The Apostolic Church understood ALMOST NOTHING about Our Lord. OUR LORD!!! The guy that founded our Church!!!

Wow.
I believe you are the first Catholic I have ever heard suggest the Apostles had a very limited understanding of Christ’s natures. Their understanding was full and complete through the Holy Spirit. If we were there to ask them specific questions on the Trinity and Christ’s human and divine nature, I have no doubt they would have been able to answer clearly and accurately.

 

[wynd]

Did you actually say “the more developed?” Are you saying that the Apostolic Church had a fully formed understanding of the nature of OUR LORD??? Was he human only? Was he divine only? Was he some hybrid? Did he possess both natures? (YES) Was he merely a divine apparition? Was he co-eternal with the Father, or was he a created (but divine) being?

Are you telling me that the Apostolic Church could answer those questions? C’mon - are you kidding me??? The Apostolic Church HAD NO IDEA. The Apostolic Church understood ALMOST NOTHING about Our Lord. OUR LORD!!! The guy that founded our Church!!!

Would you like to revisit and revise your ridiculous claim?

Sorry, but I refuse to believe I know more about Christ and His Church than the apostles did.

 

[Vico]

So I had this dropped on me today:

How exactly would one respond to this?

Vatican I, Session 4 : 18 July 1870, Chapter 16. Therefore, if anyone says that blessed Peter the apostle was not appointed by Christ the lord as prince of all the apostles and visible head of the whole Church militant; or that it was a primacy of honor only and not one of true and proper jurisdiction that he directly and immediately received from our lord Jesus Christ himself: let him be anathema.

ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V1.HTM#6

 

[wynd]

Vatican I, Session 4 : 18 July 1870, Chapter 16. Therefore, if anyone says that blessed Peter the apostle was not appointed by Christ the lord as prince of all the apostles and visible head of the whole Church militant; or that it was a primacy of honor only and not one of true and proper jurisdiction that he directly and immediately received from our lord Jesus Christ himself: let him be anathema.

ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V1.HTM#6

That would work for a Catholic, but I don’t know if his Orthodox friend would put much stock in Vatican I’s declarations.

 

[Genesis315]

Doctrine was defended by the Ecumenical Councils, it was not developed.

I don’t agree with how DavidFilmer has characteized development of doctrine and what the Apostles knew, etc. But it seems a denial of reality to say there has been no authentic development as the Church understands it. There has certainly been development in the EO Church–they developed right along with the West even for centuries after the schism, even if some of the development deemed too western fell out of fashion in the last couple centuries (just study the post schism synods of the EO Church).

The Councils certainly did develop doctrine. Defense and development are not mutually exclusive, but in fact often go hand in hand. Drawing up a Creed and dogmatic formulas to express truths is certainly doing this. Drawing out the logical implications of what has been handed on in order to pass judgment on certain propositions or new circumstances is certainly also doing this.

The Catholic Church understands it as St. Vincent de Lerins described it in the 5th century (note, he explicitly describes this as the purpose of Councils):

[56.] In like manner, it behooves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of progress, so as to be consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age, and yet, withal, to continue uncorrupt and unadulterate, complete and perfect in all the measurement of its parts, and, so to speak, in all its proper members and senses, admitting no change, no waste of its distinctive property, no variation in its limits.

[57.] For example: Our forefathers in the old time sowed wheat in the Church’s field. It would be most unmeet and iniquitous if we, their descendants, instead of the genuine truth of grain, should reap the counterfeit error of tares. This rather should be the result—there should be no discrepancy between the first and the last. From doctrine which was sown as wheat, we should reap, in the increase, doctrine of the same kind— wheat also; so that when in process of time any of the original seed is developed, and now flourishes under cultivation, no change may ensue in the character of the plant. There may supervene shape, form, variation in outward appearance, but the nature of each kind must remain the same. God forbid that those rose-beds of Catholic interpretation should be converted into thorns and thistles. God forbid that in that spiritual paradise from plants of cinnamon and balsam, darnel and wolfsbane should of a sudden shoot forth.

Therefore, whatever has been sown by the fidelity of the Fathers in this husbandry of God’s Church, the same ought to be cultivated and taken care of by the industry of their children, the same ought to flourish and ripen, the same ought to advance and go forward to perfection. For it is right that those ancient doctrines of heavenly philosophy should, as time goes on, be cared for, smoothed, polished; but not that they should be changed, not that they should be maimed, not that they should be mutilated. They may receive proof, illustration, definiteness; but they must retain withal their completeness, their integrity, their characteristic properties.​

[59.] But the Church of Christ, the careful and watchful guardian of the doctrines deposited in her charge, never changes anything in them, never diminishes, never adds, does not cut off what is necessary, does not add what is superfluous, does not lose her own, does not appropriate what is another’s, but while dealing faithfully and judiciously with ancient doctrine, keeps this one object carefully in view—if there be anything which antiquity has left shapeless and rudimentary, to fashion and polish it, if anything already reduced to shape and developed, to consolidate and strengthen it, if any already ratified and defined, to keep and guard it. Finally, what other object have Councils ever aimed at in their decrees, than to provide that what was before believed in simplicity should in future be believed intelligently, that what was before preached coldly should in future be preached earnestly, that what was before practised negligently should thenceforward be practised with double solicitude? This, I say, is what the Catholic Church, roused by the novelties of heretics, has accomplished by the decrees of her Councils,— this, and nothing else—she has thenceforward consigned to posterity in writing what she had received from those of olden times only by tradition, comprising a great amount of matter in a few words, and often, for the better understanding, designating an old article of the faith by the characteristic of a new name.
newadvent.org/fathers/3506.htm

 

[SonOfMan]

Are you telling me that the Apostolic Church could answer those questions? C’mon - are you kidding me??? The Apostolic Church HAD NO IDEA. The Apostolic Church understood ALMOST NOTHING about Our Lord. OUR LORD!!! The guy that founded our Church!!!

What it sounds like you’re saying here is the Apostles didnt know a lot of specific things, and so they never taught them. So the things that we better “understand” now and teach that they didn’t, sounds like we merely invented things that sounded nice or filled in some of the gaps that they left open.

I would think the Apostles had the clearest understanding, since they could just ask Jesus directly and he would’ve made things clear. We don’t have that luxury today.

 

[DavidFilmer]

Wow.
I believe you are the first Catholic I have ever heard suggest the Apostles had a very limited understanding of Christ’s natures.

Then you need to get around more. Read the eminent and highly respected Catholic historian Eamon Duffy. Your average eight-year-old who has taken his First Holy Communion classes knows a whole lot more than the Apostles ever did.

Their understanding was full and complete through the Holy Spirit. If we were there to ask them specific questions on the Trinity and Christ’s human and divine nature, I have no doubt they would have been able to answer clearly and accurately.

You could say the same thing about the Church today. Nothing has changed.

But, until those questions were asked and answered, nobody knew. The Early Church Fathers were nearly unanimous that Baptism by heretics was NOT valid. My favorite Early Father, St. Cyprian of Carthage, would not even use the word “Baptism” in the context of heretics. He talked about “those made wet by heretics.” I think that’s funny. This controversy went on for decades.

But, when the Church taught otherwise (in the person of Pope St. Damasus) then all opposition ceased. Even Cyprian stopped his attacks.

In the early Fifth Century, you could go around saying that Jesus had only a divine nature, or only a human nature, or was part-human, part-divine, and you would not have been a heretic (yet). Nobody knew otherwise, because the Church had not yet taught the Hypostatic Union.

Could the Church have taught about the Hypostatic Union in the Apostolic Era? Sure. But it didn’t. The Church didn’t actually teach that until the First Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. And it’s not like the Church just got together and published something that had been clearly understood since Apostolic times. Most early heresies arose over questions about the ontology of Christ, including the Nestorian heresy, which prompted the Council. Nestorius and sixteen of his Bishops participated in that Council (those heretics were among the Council Fathers). It was so contentious that an armed detachment of soldiers was dispatched (some say to act as bodyguards for Nestorius) and the city (Ephesus!) was evacuated of everyone except the Council Fathers (who were forbidden to leave until the Council was concluded).

All doctrine develops, usually amidst controversy. It is still developing (usually amidst controversy). That’s how doctrine works.

 

[DavidFilmer]

What it sounds like you’re saying here is the Apostles didnt know a lot of specific things, and so they never taught them.

They didn’t know a lot of things, but they could have taught them anyway (that’s called divine inspiration). But they didn’t. They didn’t try to anticipate every question that would ever come up and answer them all. They didn’t need to do that, because the Church would continue, and the Church teaches with the same authority as the Apostles, under the same divine guidance. That’s how doctrine works. Nothing has changed.

I would think the Apostles had the clearest understanding, since they could just ask Jesus directly and he would’ve made things clear. We don’t have that luxury today.

The Apostles, acting as the Church, did not have such direct access to Jesus - he had already ascended when Pentecost happened. The Apostles never anticipated the Crucifixion. Up until the last hours, they assumed that Jesus would continue to lead them on earth. They had no idea that Jesus would depart and entrust the Church to them.

But they didn’t need such direct access to Jesus, and Jesus never intended for them to have it. The Church is led (and has always been led) by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, not by direct access to Our Lord. It’s been that way since the birth of the Church at Pentecost, and it’s still that way today. That’s how doctrine works. Nothing has changed.

 

[Vico]

That would work for a Catholic, but I don’t know if his Orthodox friend would put much stock in Vatican I’s declarations.

I understand, as a Catholic I must assent to it, and the Catholic Church states that it is from ancient times. The theological commission has attempted to get some discussing going on it, but it has been stalled by the Russian Orthodox Church.

 

[prodromos]

Then you need to get around more. Read the eminent and highly respected Catholic historian Eamon Duffy. Your average eight-year-old who has taken his First Holy Communion classes knows a whole lot more than the Apostles ever did.

If you truly believe this nonsense then I have no interest in anything else you have to say.
Lord have mercy!

 

[Duane1966]

Of course doctrine develops. You can see it right in the Acts of the Apostles. The earliest converts to Christianity would have been Jews. The thought that converts to Christianity would have to be circumcised would have been the unanimous opinion. Only after Christianity started to spread to the gentile world, did a contrvoversy develop over circumcision. If Jesus’ teachings were so clear, why was a council needed to settle the controversy? At the Council of Jerusalem, you clearly see the doctrine that gentiles do not need to be circumcised develop.

To be continued…

 

[Duane1966]

Part 2

What everyone considers the New Testament developed over time. First off, originally the term New Testament referred to the Eucharist. But nowadays it has become synonymous with 27 books. The parameters for what would be considered canonical scripture, and what the totality of said NT was, were developed and defined at Nicaea. Before, that council, there were many writings that people considered scripture.

The following is taken from this website:bible-researcher.com/bruce1.html

Even when we have come to a conclusion about the date and origin of the individual books of the New Testament, another question remains to be answered. How did the New Testament itself as a collection of writings come into being? Who collected the writings, and on what principles? What circumstances led to the fixing of a list, or canon, of authoritative books?

The historic Christian belief is that the Holy Spirit, who controlled the writing of the individual books, also controlled their selection and collection, thus continuing to fulfil our Lord’s promise that He would guide His disciples into all the truth. This, however, is something that is to be discerned by spiritual insight, and not by historical research. Our object is to find out what historical research reveals about the origin of the New Testament canon. Some will tell us that we receive the twenty-seven books of the New Testament on the authority of the Church; but even if we do, how did the Church come to recognise these twenty-seven and no others as worthy of being placed on a level of inspiration and authority with the Old Testament canon?

The matter is oversimplified in Article VI of the Thirty Nine Articles, when it says: ‘In the name of the holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.’ For, leaving on one side the question of the Old Testament canon, it is not quite accurate to say that there has never been any doubt in the Church of any of our New Testament books. A few of the shorter Epistles (e.g. 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, Jude) and the Revelation were much longer in being accepted in some parts than in others; while elsewhere books which we do not now include in the New Testament were received as canonical. Thus the Codex Sinaiticus included the ‘Epistle of Barnabas’ and the Shepherd of Hermas, a Roman work of about AD 110 or earlier, while the Codex Alexandrinus included the writings known as the First and Second Epistles of Clement; and the inclusion of these works alongside the biblical writings probably indicates that they were accorded some degree of canonical status.

The earliest list of New Testament books of which we have definite knowledge was drawn up at Rome by the heretic Marcion about 140. Marcion distinguished the inferior Creator-God of the Old Testament from the God and Father revealed in Christ, and believed that the Church ought to jettison all that appertained to the former. This ‘theological anti-semitism’ involved the rejecting not only of the entire Old Testament but also of those parts of the New Testament which seemed to him to be infected with Judaism. So Marcion’s canon consisted of two parts: (a) an expurgated edition of the third Gospel, which is the least Jewish of the Gospels, being written by the Gentile Luke; and (b) ten of the Pauline Epistles (the three ‘Pastoral Epistles’ being omitted). Marcion’s list, however, does not represent the current verdict of the Church but a deliberate aberration from it.

Another early list, also of Roman provenance, dated about the end of the second century, is that commonly called the ‘Muratorian Fragment,’ because it was first published in Italy in 1740 by the antiquarian Cardinal L. A. Muratori. It is unfortunately mutilated at the beginning, but it evidently mentioned Matthew and Mark, because it refers to Luke as the third Gospel; then it mentions John, Acts, ‘Paul’s nine letters to churches and four to individuals (Philemon, Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy), Jude, two Epistles of John, and the Apocalypse of John and that of Peter.’ The Shepherd of Hermas is mentioned as worthy to be read (i.e. in church) but not to be included in the number of prophetic or apostolic writings.

To be continued. …

 

[ichabode]

To your orthodox friend ask the following. Please name which Eastern Patriarch was not Arian? The only see not to fall into any heresy was that of the chair of Peter the Bishop of Rome. If they were all equal then we would be Arian today.

Jesus, gave Peter the keys singularly and then later tells him to confirm his brothers (the other apostles) when (not if) they fall away. Jesus tells Peter in front of the rest that even that Satan wishes to attack them, Jesus then states He prayed for Peters faith not to fail.

 

[DavidFilmer]

If you truly believe this nonsense then I have no interest in anything else you have to say.

Does the Orthodox Church actually teach that the Apostolic Church had a fully formed idea of the Hypostatic Union? Where do they teach that?

Nestorius was the flippin’ Archbishop of Constantinople. If I’m not mistaken (and I’m not), that is the very same Apostolic See of Antiquity that the Orthodox claim today.

It would be really silly if the Orthodox claimed that the Hypostatic Union was clearly understood from Apostolic times, when the flippin’ Archbishop of Constantinople proposed a heresy (in the Fifth Century) against it, and caused an Ecumenical Council (which, ironically, the Orthodox accept) to be convened to condemn the false teaching of the flippin’ Archbishop of Constantinople.

Any eight-year-old Catholic (or Orthodox) child, if properly catechized, should understand the basic concept of the Hypostatic Union. This understanding was not firmly developed until the Fifth Century. That is long past the Apostolic Era.

Oh, wait - I now understand why you have no interest in anything else I have to say. Because I actually make sense.

 

[prodromos]

To your orthodox friend ask the following. Please name which Eastern Patriarch was not Arian? The only see not to fall into any heresy was that of the chair of Peter the Bishop of Rome. If they were all equal then we would be Arian today.

There are a great many sees besides the patriarchal sees, and in a Church Council a patriarch has no more voting power than the metropolitan of Thessaloniki or the bishop of Corfu. You’re trying to make a big deal about four bishops in the East when there were hundreds.