J
justasking4
Guest
This has to be some of the most creative interpretation i have read in awhile…
- Status
G
Gamera
Guest
No. No further Tradition ever can be formed. Sacred Tradition means the preaching of the Apostles. When the last Apostle died, God’s general revelation to humanity ended – no new Tradition, or new Scriptures, can ever be added. The deposit of faith is complete and final.
G
guanophore
Guest
Too rare. So rare, this definition cannot be correct!
The most cricitism of Church teaching is to be found in you, ja4, and those of like mind as yourself who reject the Apostolic authority appointed by Jesus. You cannot see the teachings in scripture, and therefore, you reject them. The boundaries of biblical interpretation are the teachings of the Apostles. This is incomprehensible to you, because you believe that scripture is all you have of the apostolic teachings. The writings, however, were never meant to be separated from the Sacred Tradition from whence they came.
The answer to this depends upon what you mean by "formed’. The Church is continually forming ways to communicate the Sacred Tradition to the people of every race and culture. We also continually develop in our ability to understand the Deposit of Faith that was once and for all delivered to the Apostles.
The fact that you ask this is a testimony to your trolling motives and activity. You know very well that the Church has always adhered to beliefs that are not recorded in the NT. You ask these kinds of questions because you hope to trap Catholic who are weak and uneducated in their faith, and pursuade them to change to a bible church.
How can this be? The Magesterium, who have been led astray by false doctrines, cannot possibly get it right “some” of the time!
G
Good_Fella
Guest
The New Testament authors did not merely record what beliefs they adhered to, but they wrote down under the guidance of the Holy Spirit what beliefs the Church for all ages is to adhere to through the definitive doctrines formulated and proclaimed by the Apostolic teaching authority of the Sacred Magisterium. Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition form the Deposit of Faith. Sacred Scripture is infallible only because Sacred Tradition is infallible. The power to bind and loose rests with the Apostles and the Apostolic Succession, not with the Bible. Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium form the Three Pillars of Catholic Truth. Luke’s account of the Annunciation records an event that the early Christians believed in. But the author, together with his Co-Author, the Spirit of Truth, wrote the dialogue between Mary and the angel Gabriel in such a way that the Church could confirm its four Marian Dogmas and other non-infallible doctrines of the Ordinary Magisterium concerning Mary.
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
J
justasking4
Guest
How can you say “but they wrote down under the guidance of the Holy Spirit what beliefs the Church for all ages is to adhere to through the definitive doctrines formulated and proclaimed by the Apostolic teaching authority of the Sacred Magisterium.” when these 2 doctrines were totally unknown in the early church?The New Testament authors did not merely record what beliefs they adhered to, but they wrote down under the guidance of the Holy Spirit what beliefs the Church for all ages is to adhere to through the definitive doctrines formulated and proclaimed by the Apostolic teaching authority of the Sacred Magisterium. Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition form the Deposit of Faith. Sacred Scripture is infallible only because Sacred Tradition is infallible. The power to bind and loose rests with the Apostles and the Apostolic Succession, not with the Bible. Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium form the Three Pillars of Catholic Truth. Luke’s account of the Annunciation records an event that the early Christians believed in. But the author, together with his Co-Author, the Spirit of Truth, wrote the dialogue between Mary and the angel Gabriel in such a way that the Church could confirm its four Marian Dogmas and other non-infallible doctrines of the Ordinary Magisterium concerning Mary.
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
G
Good_Fella
Guest
“I have much more to say, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” [John 16:12-13]
These two doctrines were to become defined like the doctrine of the Holy Trinity long after the New Testament was written and compiled. They find confirmation in Scripture. Luke was written circa A.D. 65, at which time it is unclear what the Christians entirely and definitively believed in other than the Virgin Birth and Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension. Mary died before A.D. 40, the year she appeared to the apostle James in Saragossa Spain, so it’s likely the Church already believed she was taken body and soul into heaven, in view of her empty tomb, by the time the first Gospel was written. And the Church may have already believed Mary was sinless. But if not, Scripture still confirms the defined doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Biblical scholars believe that the words of Mary in Luke 1 are not her own, but an expression of Marian Christian belief in the early years. The ECFs taught Mary was pure and without the stain of sin. Do not expect to find a complete compendium of defined doctrines in the Bible. Beliefs and teachings develop and are defined over a period of time by the guidance of the Holy Spirit and through discernment. The Spirit led the Church to form her Christological doctrines. The OT scriptures are not explicitly clear about the Messiah according to definitive Christian beliefs. The Jews still argue like Protestants that the Church has taken the scriptures out of context, that our Christological doctrines are extra-biblical; the Church has read into the OT texts; there is no clear proof that Jesus is divine, etc.
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
R
Randy_Carson
Guest
I’m not trying to derail this thread by the following which illustrates the principles involving Tradition, Scripture and the Development of Doctrine using Peter and the Gentile question as the example.
You might call this the “Peter Principle.” Then again, you might not.
The first two paragraphs are germane to this discussion.
Tradition, Scripture and the Development of Doctrine
The deposit of revelation was complete upon the death of the last apostle. The Church from that day proposes no new doctrine, but only works out the implications of the revelation entrusted to the apostles–and there must be implications for thinking people. The Church is thus the scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven, like the head of a household who brings forth from his storeroom both the new and the old (Matt. 13:52).
From the very beginning, the Church, by its teaching authority, residing in the apostles and their successors, developed the implications of its doctrine and absolutized its oral Tradition. (Remember that at the beginning, from the first Pentecost, the Church had only oral Tradition about Jesus and his teaching.)
Read the tenth, eleventh, and fifteenth chapters of Acts. In 10:9-16 Peter received a vision in which God revoked the Jewish kosher food laws. Shocked and doubtful, Peter pondered the vision. He became the type and figure of the Church’s magisterium as it ponders the meaning of revelation. Peter then received a delegation of Gentiles, sent to beg him to come and visit the centurion Cornelius, a Gentile, in his home (vv. 17-23).
Why did he go with them, though it was “unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile” (v. 28)? He went because “God has shown me that I should not call any person profane or unclean” (v. 28). Peter here has engaged in the development of doctrine. His vision had to do with animals. By his apostolic authority Peter drew forth the vision’s implication that no person is unclean.
Later in Jerusalem, the Christians of the Judaizing faction confronted and rebuked Peter (11:2-3). He explained what had happened and so silenced them. As the events in Acts 10 and 11 were going on, everything was done orally. Writing it all down under divine inspiration, as Luke later did, did not increase its validity. Oral and written Tradition are equally valid, then as now. Acts 10 and 11 show that it is unbiblical to deny this.
Acts 15 is a nice mix of oral and written tradition: James quotes Old Testament Scripture (Amos 9:11-12), and the apostles and presbyters (the magisterium) write a letter, now a part of the New Testament, thanks to Luke and God’s inspiration. There is plenty of discussion (oral Tradition), which Luke wove later into his narrative, thus making it written Tradition or Scripture.
Taken from: “CRI’s Attack on Mary: Part 2” by “Father Mateo”
catholic.com/thisrock/1992/9209fea2.asp
G
guanophore
Guest
You are making false assumptions, ja4. You are saying that these doctrines are “unknown to the early church”. You say this because you cannot see them in scripture, or the writings of the early fathers.
This reasoning is as erroneous as saying “the inspired writings did not exist in the first four centuries” just because they were not defined as canon before that time.
It is as erroneous as saying “Jesus only had one nature” up until the time the Church defined the hypostatic union.
It is as erroneous as saying “the Trinity did not exist for the early church” just because the word does not appear for centuries. You are using faulty logic.
R
Randy_Carson
Guest
This was posted in the thread on Mary’s Perpetual Virginty, but it provides a solid answer to your question concerning these “unknown doctrines”, also.
**Jerome on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary
**"[Helvidius] produces Tertullian as a witness [to his view] and quotes Victorinus, bishop of Petavium. Of Tertullian, I say no more than that he did not belong to the Church. But as regards Victorinus, I assert what has already been proven from the gospel—that he [Victorinus] spoke of the brethren of the Lord not as being sons of Mary but brethren in the sense I have explained, that is to say, brethren in point of kinship, not by nature. [By discussing such things we] are . . . following the tiny streams of opinion. Might I not array against you the whole series of ancient writers? Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men, who against [the heretics] Ebion, Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, held these same views and wrote volumes replete with wisdom. If you had ever read what they wrote, you would be a wiser man."
This quote is taken from chapter 19 of St. Jerome’s work, “Against Helvidius: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary—a work written in A.D. 383 in response to the teaching of Helvidius who denied that Mary had remained a virgin throughout her life.
In this passage, Jerome states that Ignatius of Antioch (d. A.D. 107), Polycarp of Smyrna (d. A.D, 155), Justin Martyr (d. A.D. 165) and Irenaeus of Lyons (d. A.D. 202) all held that Mary was ever-virgin. It is especially important to note that both Ignatius and Polycarp were disciples of the Apostles Peter and John—a fact which ties this discussion directly to the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus.
Although the works of these men with which Jerome was evidently familiar do not survive to this day, the fact that Jerome cites them in his refutation of Helvidius provides evidence that belief in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary existed from the earliest days of the Church.
It is interesting to note that Helvidius never responded to Jerome’s refutation.
G
Good_Fella
Guest
This was posted in the thread on Mary’s Perpetual Virginty, but it provides a solid answer to your question concerning these “unknown doctrines”, also.
**Jerome on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary
**"[Helvidius] produces Tertullian as a witness [to his view] and quotes Victorinus, bishop of Petavium. Of Tertullian, I say no more than that he did not belong to the Church. But as regards Victorinus, I assert what has already been proven from the gospel—that he [Victorinus] spoke of the brethren of the Lord not as being sons of Mary but brethren in the sense I have explained, that is to say, brethren in point of kinship, not by nature. [By discussing such things we] are . . . following the tiny streams of opinion. Might I not array against you the whole series of ancient writers? Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men, who against [the heretics] Ebion, Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, held these same views and wrote volumes replete with wisdom. If you had ever read what they wrote, you would be a wiser man."
In this passage, Jerome states that Ignatius of Antioch (d. A.D. 107), Polycarp of Smyrna (d. A.D, 155), Justin Martyr (d. A.D. 165) and Irenaeus of Lyons (d. A.D. 202) all held that Mary was ever-virgin. It is especially important to note that both Ignatius and Polycarp were disciples of John.
Although the works of these men with which Jerome was evidently familiar do not survive to this day, the fact that Jerome cites them in his refutation of Helvidius provides evidence that belief in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary existed from the earliest days of the Church.
It is interesting to note that Helvidius never responded to Jerome’s refutation.
Most of the literature of the early Church was destroyed by the Roman authorities during the great persecutions. One has to wonder whether there were earlier writings about the Assumption of Mary before the fourth century that were confiscated and destroyed under the acting prefects and governors.
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
N
NotWorthy
Guest
Considering the (scarce) number of writings that survived the first couple of centuries, either a vast number were destroyed or nothing was written down the first century or two.Most of the literature of the early Church was destroyed by the Roman authorities during the great persecutions. One has to wonder whether there were earlier writings about the Assumption of Mary before the fourth century that were confiscated and destroyed under the acting prefects and governors.
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
- Status