And yet the Bereans searched scripture daily and only some of them accepted the gospel from the Apostles’ very mouths. And some Greeks also accepted the gospel without searching scripture. So searching scripture is not, and has never been, a guarantee of discerning truth from falsehood.
First of all I would like to thank all those who responded to this thread. So now let’s get down to the “details”
1.Papal Primacy. Before you all start quoting tons of out of context quotes from the Early Church Fathers let me say that NONE of the early Fathers held to the Primacy of Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome. MOST of the Early Fathers DID NOT give Mat 16:18 the Papal Interpretation of this verse. They said that the “Rock” was either Christ Himself or Peter’s confession, not Peter.
In the Canons of the Council of Nicea each Bishop and Patriarch only had jurisdiction in his own See. No Bishop was to interfere in the See of another Bishop, this INCLUDED the Bishop of Rome.
In the beginning the Church was a loosely knit group of semi-independent Congregations under the Apostles and led by men appointed by them and were more or less independent and managed their own local affairs led by a plurality of “Presbyters” (Elders) and Deacons. For example in a recently published book by Peter Lampe
“From Paul to Valentinius: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries”, an exhaustive ,detailed and painstakingly researched study of the Church in Rome from the time of St. Paul to 200 AD, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Church in Rome not only was not the “See of Peter” where Peter and his successors ruled the entire “Catholic Church” as the center of a Universal Papacy as we understand it today, Rome did not even have a single Monarchial Bishop who governed even the Church in Rome until the close of the 2cnd Century. Rome was not the exception, the whole concept of a single Monarchial Bishop who governed over a set group of Churches in any geographic area was a slow and gradual development. It came about not by any “Divine Mandate” but rather for practical reasons of organisation and administration and to safeguard the Church from Heresy. Many will cite men like Clement or Ignatius to “prove” their position, but what are the FACTS?The facts are that Clement was not a Bishop, but one of at least twelve “Presbyters” who oversaw the Church in Rome as a plurality. One could say that Clement was the person in charge with communicating with Churches outside of Rome, sort of a “Secretary of External Affairs and Communications”. What about Ignatius? We know very little about the “real” Ignatius except that perhaps he was an educated layman and not a :Bishop. The “letters” attributed to him were written long after his time by a pseudonymous and anonymous author or authors between 250-350 AD. These aren’t the opinions of “Anti-Catholics” but the accepted facts that most Historians agree on. Actually some of them are Catholics.
2.Papal Infallibility: I suggest one reads **“Origins of Papal Infallibility 1150-1350: A Study on the Concepts of Infallibility, Sovereignty, and Tradition in the Middle Ages” **by Brian Tierny. He is not an “Anti-Catholic crank” but a respected Catholic Historian. Also **“How the Pope Became Infallible: Pius IX and the Politics of Persuasion” **by August Bernhard Hasler who was a Catholic Historian and a Priest and worked in the Vatican Archives and taught in University.
3.Purgatory: The origins of Purgatory is not Apostolic. Purgatory came from the Pagan world as Christianity spread among the Gentiles. The origins of Purgatory are to found in Graeco-Roman Philosophy and Pagan Mythology. As Christianity spread influences from those Pagan cultures infiltrated into the Church gradually. Even the Jews were affected by this earlier when the Greek Empire spread to Judea. By the time of the Maccabees many Jews had been influenced by these same Philosophical and Pagan ideas. Once this idea of some “Purgatory” began to take hold in Christian circles it snow-balled from there and took on a “Christian Hue” and was boosted by alleged “visions” especially alleged “visions” that Pope Gregory had in the 6th century. The whole tenor of the New Testament and what it says about what Jesus did for us, the Grace of God and Salvation is against any place, state, or process of Purgatory after death. I maintain that the whole concept of Purgatory mocks what Christ accomplished for us.
4.Justification: Anyone who carefully studies this will see that in the OT and NT “Justify” means “to Declare Righteous” not “make Righteous”, especially in St. Paul’s Epistles. St Augustine who did not know Hebrew and did not understand Koine Greek mistranslated “Justify/Justification using the Latin which means to “make Righteous” . It wasn’t until Greek NT manuscripts along with proper lexical studies of those manuscripts in Western Europe in the late 14th and early 15th Century that this error was discovered by Erasmus and other Scholars.
This is just a brief overview of why I cannot accept those Catholic Dogmas, trust I studied this carefully over the last two years because I really do want to know the truth. BTW I am not an “Amateur Armchair Historian”, I am a Historian with a degree in History as well as teaching so I am well acquainted with Historical research, method, and methodology.
