Sin boldly?

[raumzeitmc2]

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. James 2:10

It follows that if you have ever broken any law- and every human I know has- you have kept exactly none of the commandments, in God’s eyes.

But if that’s true, then on the basis of what did the “reformers” find fault with the Church, since none can keep the commandments, and they themselves were equally (if not more so) wicked?

 

[Waacm]

This message is in response to James1982’s latest post:
Actually, that chapter in James goes on to say, one verse later, that “if you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.” All this could possibly be saying is that you have broken God’s law. Therefore you are a sinner. If this is saying that you’ve broken the law of adultery because of murder, then God’s logic is against human logic… and Christianity is false… This must only be saying, simply, that “you have commited sin.” because that is what transgression is, committing sin, or breaking God’s law. This must be saying that a murderer is not better (or worse) than an adulterer. That makes sense because Jame’s point in that chapter is to say that you cannot pick and choose law, why can’t you pick and choose? Because the law is the law, no law is less worthy of following. But wait, Catholicism teaches that some sin is mortal, and the other sin is venial. Does this verse go to say that committing sin at gun point has the same damnation on one’s soul as murder? No, surely not, because what this verse says still makes sense with Catholic teaching, which says that breaking any of the ten commandments is mortal sin, and adultery and murder are both a part of the ten commandments. Now, if this verse said that is the same as , then catholic teaching would be incorrect. There. I have figured it out lol.

Where were we?

p.s. (this might be annoying to read, IDK. I pretty much am using this post to get my thoughts out, and to figure something out for myself.)

 

[JonNC]

But if that’s true, then on the basis of what did the “reformers” find fault with the Church, since none can keep the commandments, and they themselves were equally (if not more so) wicked?

I don’t buy the “if not more so”, but I would say that the reformers (no quotes) were equally sinful to the leaders of the Church who either participated in or allowed errors, and even those who didn’t. IOW, in the eyes of God, Martin Luther was as much a sinner as Pope Leo X.

Jon

 

[James1982]

This message is in response to James1982’s latest post:
Actually, that chapter in James goes on to say, one verse later, that “if you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.” All this could possibly be saying is that you have broken God’s law. Therefore you are a sinner. If this is saying that you’ve broken the law of adultery because of murder, then God’s logic is against human logic… and Christianity is false… This must only be saying, simply, that “you have commited sin.” because that is what transgression is, committing sin, or breaking God’s law. This must be saying that a murderer is not better (or worse) than an adulterer. That makes sense because Jame’s point in that chapter is to say that you cannot pick and choose law, why can’t you pick and choose? Because the law is the law, no law is less worthy of following. But wait, Catholicism teaches that some sin is mortal, and the other sin is venial. Does this verse go to say that committing sin at gun point has the same damnation on one’s soul as murder? No, surely not, because what this verse says still makes sense with Catholic teaching, which says that breaking any of the ten commandments is mortal sin, and adultery and murder are both a part of the ten commandments. Now, if this verse said that is the same as , then catholic teaching would be incorrect. There. I have figured it out lol.

Where were we?

p.s. (this might be annoying to read, IDK. I pretty much am using this post to get my thoughts out, and to figure something out for myself.)

I think you make the point better than I do.

 

[James1982]

But if that’s true, then on the basis of what did the “reformers” find fault with the Church, since none can keep the commandments, and they themselves were equally (if not more so) wicked?

I think we are called to correct each other in humility and charity and with the mutual understanding that none of us are without sin. Of anyone, I would think Christians would be the most sensitive of calling others into the light, despite the latent hypocritical undertones; sometimes when you fall into a hole the best type of person to help you out is a person who’s been in a hole themselves.

 

[raumzeitmc2]

I don’t buy the “if not more so”, but I would say that the reformers (no quotes) were equally sinful to the leaders of the Church who either participated in or allowed errors, and even those who didn’t. IOW, in the eyes of God, Martin Luther was as much a sinner as Pope Leo X.

Jon

And was St. Paul as much a sinner as Luther?

Originally Posted by James1982:
I think we are called to correct each other in humility and charity and with the mutual understanding that none of us are without sin.

But do you agree that the immorality and violence of the “reformers” ought to be exposed, do you not?

 

[James1982]

But do you agree that the immorality and violence of the “reformers” ought to be exposed, do you not?

The violence and immorality of the people who represented both the reformers, and the Catholic Church, of the time ought to be “exposed” as you put it. We’d learn nothing from the whole ordeal without an honest look at where our predecessors went wrong.

 

[JonNC]

Originally Posted by raumzeitmc2
But do you agree that the immorality and violence of the “reformers” ought to be exposed, do you not?

The violence and immorality of the people who represented both the reformers, and the Catholic Church, of the time ought to be “exposed” as you put it. We’d learn nothing from the whole ordeal without an honest look at where our predecessors went wrong.

And then move on! Move on in love and charity, in knowledge that none of us are responsible for the actions of those who came before us, unless we continue in their hostility toward one another. If we repeat their errors of beating each other over the head, then we are as wrong as they are.

raumzeitmc2
And was St. Paul as much a sinner as Luther?

What do you think Paul, who was Saul, would say?

Jon

 

[raumzeitmc2]

The violence and immorality of the people who represented both the reformers, and the Catholic Church … ought to be “exposed” as you put it. We’d learn nothing from the whole ordeal without an honest look at where our predecessors went wrong.

James, I agree. But here’s the problem:

Protestants have historically portrayed the Church as an evil and oppressive institution, bent solely on amassing wealth and power, while deliberately keeping the vast majority of men in abject darkness. Against this, we are told, God, after permitting this deplorable state to continue unchecked for centuries, had pity on the millions of hapless slaves and raised up the saintly and enlightened Luther to stand against the vast and seemingly unconquerable powers of the despicable “Roman Sodom”!

In this struggle, Luther has even been likened to a “second Paul” or even to Christ himself, disputing with and being persecuted by the evil Jewish leaders of his day.

Christ against the Pharisees - all over again!

Only this time, the struggle never ends - is never “finished!” Every Protestant becomes a Paul, or even Christ - perpetually locked in battle - his own version of the true “heavenly doctrine” against that of the “evil” “Romish” Church!

Such nonsense Erasmus saw clearly enough in his day. Addressing Luther, he wrote:

Nor is it appropriate to this topic for you to compare yourself to Christ, your disciples to the apostles, the Doctors and leading men of the Church to the Jews, and for you to call your doctrine light and the decisions of the Fathers and the Church darkness.

Hyperaspistes, Book I,
Collected Works of Erasmus, Controversies, 1999, ISBN 0802043178, vol. 76, p. 232,

And how have the Lutherans e. g., described the historical picture? Let’s listen:

At last even the supporters of the Pope admitted, that if Luther had not come, the priests would have taken possession of all property, and would have made Christians their Vassals or slaves.

“If Luther had not come” – seemingly echoing Christ’s words, “If I had not come…” Jn. 15:22 ]

… even the people devoted to the Romish Church, according to the papal historian Surius, used the saying: “What manner of life have we now? we cannot exist in presence of the priests;” yea, that even an archbishop, Matthew Lange, replied at Augsburg in the year 1530 to Melanthon: “Alas what reformation will you bring about among us priests! The priests never were good.”

…[in] the history of papacy; and he will discover … nothing has brought about so much injury, nothing has so much changed the church of grace and life into a den of thieves, nothing has so much deprived Christianity of the fruits of redemption, nothing has rooted out Christ and drawn millions into the abyss of hell, millions that were bought and baptised by Christ with His blood, as the hierarchy of the priests worthy to be cursed by God and man.

…let us turn away from this picture of horrors, and let us contemplate the relief, which God bro’t 300 years ago to His Christians, that were enslaved, tormented, bleeding and sighing under the blows of their spiritual and bodily tyrants, by representing to you, how by means of the Reformation this ungodly tyrannical hierarchy was put down, the lost liberty of Christians restored, and how this same liberty has now become a precious jewel of our church.

There has never been a time, my beloved, in which the papacy has not been assailed. … But all attacks against this structure of a thousand years proved in vain.

Amidst all assaults and storms, it had grown, like a poison tree, rooting deeper from century to century, and at last becoming a monster with millions of arms and thousands of heads, which crushed and devoured every one that dared to attack it…

The Lutheran watchman, 1866, p. 187
books.google.com/books?id=zGEVAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA187&dq=%22But+all+attacks+against+this+structure+of+a+thousand+years+proved+in+vain%22&lr=&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES

But men always raged against the One Church in order to assuage their guilty consciences! Fr. Denifle, who also saw through the pretense, wrote:

Nevertheless those runaway monks and fallen priest, who had annihilated their own and other’s decency, modesty, and honor, had the effrontery to come forward as preachers of morality, even to call themselves the Evangelicals and, by their malevolent exaggeration of the evil condition of the Church, to cover their own infamy.

Luther himself, some years earlier, had already said:

“Heretics cannot themselves appear good unless they depict the Church as evil, false, and mendacious. They alone wish to be esteemed as the good, but the Church must be made to appear evil in every respect.” {44}

“The close their eyes to the good,” said St. Augustine {45} in his day, “and exaggerate only the evil, real or imagined.”

Luther and Lutherdom, from original sources, 1917, by Heinrich Denifle; translated from the 2d revised edition of the German by Raymund Volz, pp. 14-15.

Notes:

1. “Heretici autem propriissime velle malum Ecclesie dicendi sunt…” in, Martin Luther, Dictata in Psalterium or *Dictata Super Psalterium *(1513-1515). Luther’s Werke, Weimar ed., vol. 3, p. 445.

D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe, Band 3, Weimar, Herman Bohlau, 1883.
books.google.com/books?id=kS4BAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA445&dq=luther+%22Heretici+autem+propriissime+velle+malum+Ecclesie+dicendi+sunt+%22&ei=rD3yScLFNIj-NZejrLgJ

1. Augustine, Enarrationes (Ennarations) on Psalm 99, no.12.
   books.google.com/books?id=7zswAAAAYAAJ&q=augustine++%22close+their+eyes+to+the+good%22&dq=augustine++%22close+their+eyes+to+the+good%22&lr=&ei=vT7ySYrVE4jeNYXO6JsJ&pgis=1

 

[JonNC]

James, I agree. But here’s the problem:

**Protestants have historically portrayed the Church as an evil and oppressive institution, bent solely on amassing wealth and power, while deliberately keeping the vast majority of men in abject darkness. Against this, we are told, God, after permitting this deplorable state to continue unchecked for centuries, had pity on the millions of hapless slaves and raised up the saintly and enlightened Luther to stand against the vast and seemingly unconquerable powers of the despicable “Roman Sodom”! **

In this struggle, Luther has even been likened to a “second Paul” or even to Christ himself, disputing with and being persecuted by the evil Jewish leaders of his day.

Christ against the Pharisees - all over again!

Are you really under the impression that this is what Lutherans today think? Have you read any of the Lutheran/Catholic dialogue documents on the USCCB and Vatican website? Have you heard Pastor Gary, James, me, or any Lutheran here say that Luther was another Paul, or another Christ?

This is not even the issue of the thread, ie. what did Luther actually mean in his letter to Melanchton by the phrase "sin boldly within this quote:

“If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness, but, as Peter says, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It is enough that by the riches of God’s glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.

James says:

The violence and immorality of the people who represented both the reformers, and the Catholic Church … ought to be “exposed” as you put it. We’d learn nothing from the whole ordeal without an honest look at where our predecessors went wrong.

You say you agree, but you don’t seem to, really. You seem more interested in saying “your guys were worse, so what you believe must be flawed.” Obviously, I don’t think Luther was worse than Leo X. A sinful man? Yes. Another Paul? Don’t be ridiculous. And the sunfulness of Luther and Leo X, while perhaps important background information as to the causes of the reformation, as nothing whatever to do with which communion is right, or wrong, or particularly how we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us back together.

Jon

 

[raumzeitmc2]

Have you read any of the Lutheran/Catholic dialogue documents on the USCCB and Vatican website?

Jon, I am very well aware of the Lutheran / Catholic dialogues. And grateful to God for them! I was merely pointing out the historical Protestant position, still found, unfortunately, among many anti-Catholics today.

I have interacted with a large percentage of these anti-Catholic types over the years, and they all say exactly what you said about “moving on” when certain facts about Luther or Calvin are mentioned. They simply do not want to hear the truth.

This is truly tragic, though, because like Luther and Calvin, such people deceive and continue to deceive so many unsuspecting souls. And quite frankly, I believe there is a moral duty, a moral obligation to expose such false teachers. They would find it far more difficult to seduce their followers if the truth about the corrupt reformers were better known.

This is not even the issue of the thread, ie. what did Luther actually mean in his letter to Melanchton by the phrase "sin boldly within this quote:

With regard to Luther’s statement:

It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day.

Do you believe that these sins - murder, adultery etc - do not, in fact, imperil one’s salvation? Do not believe in mortal sin?

You say you agree, but you don’t seem to, really. You seem more interested in saying “your guys were worse, so what you believe must be flawed.”

All I’m saying is the hypocrisy is a bit much!

Obviously, I don’t think Luther was worse than Leo X. A sinful man? Yes. Another Paul? Don’t be ridiculous.

What do make of this?

… Luther’s character as a monk, in which he is described in his spiritual monastic life as another Paul. Friends of Luther were able to trace in the powerful voice from heaven by which he was so suddenly impelled to enter the cloister some resemblance to the calling of the Apostle.Thus Crotus, … reminds him how a lightning stroke from heaven, had cast him like another Paul to the earth.

We may observe the resemblance in other particulars. In the monastery he first learned thoroughly from his own experience, like Paul, how little man can accomplish by all the righteousness of the law …

He had learned too, like Paul, to count that which was gain to him as loss … that he might win Christ …

… in Luther we find a yet further resemblance to the Apostle … he had not like Augustine been entangled in the net of openly sinful and carnal life, but, on the contrary, had contended against such temptations with all his native moral energy, and had won for himself a reputation of spotless purity…

Thus was he prepared to become the greatest, or rather, indeed, the first great clear preacher of the righteousness of faith sent to the Christian church since the days of the Apostle Paul.

The theology of Luther in its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, 1897, Julius Köstlin, Charles Ebert Hay, vol. 1, p. 77-78.
books.google.com/books?id=BprDA0ovMkYC&pg=PA77&dq=luther+%22another+paul%22&lr=&client=firefox

“the first clear of the preacher of the righteousness of faith …since the days of the Apostle Paul”???

Do you agree with this? Do you really believe the Church was in error on the must fundamental aspect of the gospel until Luther came on the scene???

And the sunfulness of Luther and Leo X, while perhaps important background information as to the causes of the reformation, as nothing whatever to do with which communion is right, or wrong, or particularly how we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us back together.

As for Leo X, what to say? Catholic historian William Thomas Walsh certainly does him no honor:

Not only the ideas of Luther, but the very occasion for their dissemination, was furnished by the fertile activity of Jewish minds. The Battle of the Books, preliminary skirmish in the war of ideas about to commence at Wittenberg, could never have occurred if the Talmud and the Kabbala had not first done their deadly work. There sat on the throne of Saint Peter at that time a Pope, Leo X, for whom very little is to be said from the Catholic point of view, except that, like all Popes, he was orthodox in his pronouncements on matters of faith and morals. He was also a patron of literature, music, and art; the employer of Raphael.

His chief concern, however, was not the welfare, much less the needed reform, of the Church, but his own amusement and gratification. There is evidence in Leo’s conduct to lend color to the assertion that on being elected, he remarked jovially, “Let us enjoy the Papacy, since God has given it to us.”

In the most critical and decisive age of the Church, this descendant of Florentine usurers, this son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, kind and generous intellectual, Cardinal at thirteen, Pope at thirty-seven, was too busy with his pictures, his hunting and his plays to give sufficient attention to the ruin of the world.

Philip II, W. T. Walsh, p. 246.
books.google.com/books?id=5qUeAAAAMAAJ&q=%22His+chief+concern,+however,+was+not+the+welfare,+much+less+the+needed+reform,+of+the+Church%22&dq=%22His+chief+concern,+however,+was+not+the+welfare,+much+less+the+needed+reform,+of+the+Church%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES&pgis=1

Walsh, btw, has some interesting things to say about the Jewish influence on the reformation, but that’s for another thread.

For now, let me just say, God bless!

 

[JonNC]

=raumzeitmc2;5123540]Jon, I am very well aware of the Lutheran / Catholic dialogues. And grateful to God for them! I was merely pointing out the historical Protestant position, still found, unfortunately, among many anti-Catholics today.

Yes, you seem to want to point them out in every thread related to Luther. Go back through this thread. Go through other similar threads and find where Lutherans on this site exhibit anti-Catholic rhetoric. I have no control over what others do, though I do respond and challenge when I see anti-Catholicism. Do you respond to anti-protestantism?

I have interacted with a large percentage of these anti-Catholic types over the years, and they all say exactly what you said about “moving on” when certain facts about Luther or Calvin are mentioned. They simply do not want to hear the truth

Have I or others hear expressed a head-in-the-sand attitude toward Luther’s flaws? I’m simply saying that you seem to desire to bring them up in every thread. We’ve all heard this before. We’ve heard about Luther’s true flaws, and Lutherans accept the fact that he was human and had flaws, and we’ve also heard the honest misinterpretations (and the intentional misrepresentations for polemical purposes) of what he said.

This is truly tragic, though, because like Luther and Calvin, such people deceive and continue to deceive so many unsuspecting souls. And quite frankly, I believe there is a moral duty, a moral obligation to expose such false teachers. They would find it far more difficult to seduce their followers if the truth about the corrupt reformers were better known.

Perhaps it would not even be a concern today had it not been for the pervasive corruption within the Church at Luther’s time. I maintain that you will convince no one that your position is truth using your polemical approach, anymore than anti-catholics are very convincing. Your rhetoric certainly does not make the Catholic Church seem very inviting or appealing to me.

Do you believe that these sins - murder, adultery etc - do not, in fact, imperil one’s salvation? Do not believe in mortal sin?

Strawman. It is not what Luther was saying, and I think you know that.

All I’m saying is the hypocrisy is a bit much!

I would think that you would understand hyperbole, as you are darn good at it yourself. And I mean that as a compliment.

Do you agree with this? Do you really believe the Church was in error on the must fundamental aspect of the gospel until Luther came on the scene???

I believe that there were serious abuses in the Chruch at Luther’s time.

In the most critical and decisive age of the Church, this descendant of Florentine usurers, this son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, kind and generous intellectual, Cardinal at thirteen, Pope at thirty-seven, was too busy with his pictures, his hunting and his plays to give sufficient attention to the ruin of the world.

I really don’t care about Pope Leo X’s flaws. It is time to move on!!

For now, let me just say, God bless!

And let me also say God bless you, my brother in Christ. I hope you will join me in endeavoring to find all the things that unite us in Christ, so that we may overcome those things that still divide us.

Jon

 

[MarysGirls]

Hey guys. This will probably seem kinda out of place, since y’all seem to have moved on from the original topic, but…
I think the problem with Luther’s statement about sinning boldly, is that he makes it sound like you shouldn’t even try not sin. I mean, if there’s no consequence, what’s the point of putting yourself through the stress of trying to keep pure?
Just a thought…

 

[gcnuss]

Hey guys. This will probably seem kinda out of place, since y’all seem to have moved on from the original topic, but…
I think the problem with Luther’s statement about sinning boldly, is that he makes it sound like you shouldn’t even try not sin. I mean, if there’s no consequence, what’s the point of putting yourself through the stress of trying to keep pure?
Just a thought…

Just a thought or two…

I haven’t been a part of this thread, but Jon and I have entered into a number of threads on this topic over the years. The difficulty we have is that, as Lutherans, we carefully explain the context of Luther’s comment and the way Lutherans have interpreted it over the years. The response is usually something to the effect of “we Catholics understand what Luther meant better than you Lutherans do.”

I feel a great deal of empathy for the Catholics who find it necessary to defend themselves over and over again against accusations that they worship Mary. It is frustrating to explain something only to have the one to whom the explanation is given say “I know what you believe better than you Catholics do.”

 

[MarysGirls]

Just a thought or two…

I haven’t been a part of this thread, but Jon and I have entered into a number of threads on this topic over the years. The difficulty we have is that, as Lutherans, we carefully explain the context of Luther’s comment and the way Lutherans have interpreted it over the years. The response is usually something to the effect of “we Catholics understand what Luther meant better than you Lutherans do.”

I feel a great deal of empathy for the Catholics who find it necessary to defend themselves over and over again against accusations that they worship Mary. It is frustrating to explain something only to have the one to whom the explanation is given say “I know what you believe better than you Catholics do.”

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t claim to know anything much about Lutherans. Never met one face to face… I was simply stating how Luther’s remark sounded to me. I try not to assume anything about other religions, but sometimes I get carried away. If ever I offend anybody, feel free to wack me upside the head.

 

[gcnuss]

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t claim to know anything much about Lutherans. Never met one face to face… I was simply stating how Luther’s remark sounded to me. I try not to assume anything about other religions, but sometimes I get carried away. If ever I offend anybody, feel free to wack me upside the head.

No whacks forthcoming. And, I can see where Luther’s remark, with no explanation or background, could sound pretty off-the-wall.

 

[raumzeitmc2]

Do you respond to anti-protestantism?

When I see it, yes of course!

Perhaps it would not even be a concern today had it not been for the pervasive corruption within the Church at Luther’s time.

That’s your justification for the centuries of distortions and misrepresentation against the Catholic Church, which these anti-catholic folks continue to perpetuate, with never a word about the reformer’s own corruption??? They, like the reformers before them, owe much to the Jews for their tactics (see below).

I maintain that you will convince no one that your position is truth using your polemical approach, anymore than anti-catholics are very convincing. Your rhetoric certainly does not make the Catholic Church seem very inviting or appealing to me.

Jon, the reformation was a terrible injustice against the Lord’s Church, perpetrated by violent and lustful men with no authority whatsoever to do so. Really, it was none other than that that terrible and ancient hatred which had followed her in every century - just at the Lord said it would.

But let’s return, for a moment, to Thomas Walsh:

The intense hatred that Jesus foretold would follow all who sincerely believed in Him was manifested in the earliest days of the Church. When Saint Paul went to Rome to preach “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” he encountered such opposition from his own race that he somewhat bitterly wrote of “the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men; prohibiting us to speak to the Gentiles, that they may be saved.”

It must be noted, however, that later on he sent a letter to the Christians at Rome sternly warning them against the wickedness of Jew-baiting. The Acts of the Apostles abundantly testify that most of the first Christian converts were Jews. Jews of good will formed the sinews of the Church. Everywhere another type of Jew, perhaps in a small minority, refused even to listen to the arguments he condemned, and prevented well-meaning Jews, as well as Gentiles, from hearing the Gospel.The first major persecution of Christians in the Gentile world, that of Nero, was probably set in motion at the instance of the Jews surrounding his wife Poppaea.

There were Judases in every age to attempt to pervert the Church from within. Not a few of the later scandals of Christendom were the result of their work. Simon Magus, perhaps a precursor of Gnosticism, was only the first to attempt to purchase the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Arius, the Catholic Jew, would yet make an insidious attack on the divinity of Christ that would divide the Christian world for centuries.

Valentinus, called the chief of the Gnostics by Saint Irenaeus, was a Jew of Alexandria.

As the colossal struggle continued century after century, the chief means employed by the Annas and the Caiaphas of each age to keep the mass of the Jewish people in ignorance of the true nature of Christianity, and to fan their misunderstanding of it to hatred, was the Talmud.

The historical importance of this book may be judged from the opinion of the Jewish historian Graetz, whose inaccuracies, omissions and wrong judgments have poisoned the whole Jewish world, but whose interpretations of that world cannot be ignored. He goes so far as to say,

“We can boldly assert that the war for and against the Talmud aroused German consciousness and created a public opinion without which the Reformation, like many other efforts, would have died in the hour of birth, or perhaps would never have been born at all.”

For a thousand years after she had emerged from the Catacombs – say roughly from the time of Constantine in the fourth century to the middle of the fourteenth – the Catholic Church successfully defended herself from such attacks both within and without. At times the very existence of the State and of society was threatened. In such crises, the Church not only permitted the use of force to avert worse evils, but even cooperated with it.

The Crusades were the defense of Christian homes, Christian women and children, Christian civilization, against an Islam deliberately bent upon exterminating them. A crusade ended the anti-social insanity of the Cathari who opposed marriage but taught suicide in that part of southern France known as Judea Secunda.

The Inquisition followed them to Spain, and later saved the Christian Spanish State from the secret treachery of the pretended Catholics who were in league with the Moors in the war of liberation. As the ancient Jews had fought and slain idolaters, and had stoned spiritualists and similar dark heretics to death, so the Catholic Church, heir of the Jewish revelation, protected her children from destruction of body and soul while they *were building the happiest and most balanced culture and civilization that have ever existed in this world.
*

The turning point in this vast drama (so far as our vantage point in time allows us to see) was the Black Death in 1346.

It seemed to men as if Satan himself had burst the chains that had bound him for a thousand years. More than half the priests in the world died. Christendom was still staggering under this blow when other blows fell, one after another: the papal exile at Avignon, the Great Western Schism, the return of paganism under the guise of the Renaissance – all these onslaughts in the City of God itself, while the Turks struck from without, gaining and laying waste one Christian country after another. Corruption and disorder were inevitable under these circumstances. Confusion became so widespread that only a divine institution could have survived it.

 

[raumzeitmc2]

Continuing from above:

… In the Protestant Revolt, there was something more than the mere breaking away of the northern communities from the jurisdiction of Rome; much more than the nationalism to which Professor Carlton Hayes ascribes perhaps too much importance. There was a spirit in Protestantism in its first phase that sought something more than freedom; it sought nothing less (and this was more evident in Calvinism than in Lutheranism) than the utter destruction of the Catholic Church.

Here was a hatred that began manifesting itself by the burning of churches and convents, the violation of nuns, the torture and execution of priests, the defiling of the Cross and the unspeakable desecration of the Blessed Sacrament.

It was an old and international hatred. It was the hatred of the church-burning Donatists, the hatred of Islam, the hatred that had opposed Saint Paul in Rome and Saint James in Jerusalem, the *hatred of Annas and the Scribes and pharisees crying, “Come down from the Cross, and we will believe!” *

There was nothing new about it except the form it took; but the preparation and organization were better, and the time was ripe.

Nor was this Protestant phase of the revolt a peculiarly northern or German product, though it has been convenient to make it appear so. It might have happened in southern Europe. In fact, it almost did happen in France, especially in southern France, before it happened in Germany. Lefevre, under the patronage of Marguerite of Angouleme and others of the anti-Catholic House of Navarre, taught justification by grace before Luther did, And profoundly influenced Beza, Farel, Rousel and other leaders who passed Quickly through a Lutheran phase to the more radical organization of Calvinism. The roots of the revolution went deeper than the German affair. It was not local, but international.

If we may believe Graetz and other Jewish historians, the Jews played a much more important part in all this than Christians, for some mysterious reason, have generally admitted.

Incalculable was the number of this virile and gifted race who had settled in all countries of Europe during the so-called Dark Ages and the Middle Ages; incalculable the number who were assimilated as sincere Catholics, or who, as pretended Catholics, formed the nucleus for any international revolt.

They were everywhere, in communication with one another and with the Jews of the Synagogue. There were so many of the latter in England and France that one Jewish writer of the sixteenth century, often cited by modern Jews, attributed to this fact “the inclination of the English and the French” to Protestantism. Dispersion, secrecy and organization gave them a Power out of all proportion to their numbers, a power so remarkable that Napoleon Bonaparte suspected that the political structure of the Jewish State had survived under cover for eighteen centuries. Was there any historical foundation for such a theory?

There may or may not be significance in the fact that the title of Nasi (Prince or King of the Jews) which belonged at the time of the Crucifixion to Annas, father-in-law of the High Priest, or Ab et Din, Caiphas, was assumed by one of the bitterest, most intelligent and more persistent enemies of King Philip II – Joseph Miques or Mendes, the Jewish international banker of the Spice Trust of Portugal and Antwerp, who had in his debt William of Orange and many other noblemen of the Low Countries. About the time when Philip was returning to Spain, this millionaire was establishing himself in Turkey, throwing off the last pretense of Christianity and assuming the antique and princely title of Nasi.

…There was, for instance, a Nasi Levi who presided over a meeting of delegates from all the Jewish communities in southern France in 1215, as Annas had presided over the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.

Even then, among the Jewish communities of southern France, the anti-Christian Revolution was being silently prepared. Prosperity and wealth had rewarded the industry and intelligence of the exiles in Montpelier, Nimes, Tarbes, Carcassonne – a score of places in that part of France where later the Huguenots would flourish – until they almost rivaled the medieval empire of their brethren in Spain. Slave-traders, purveyors of silks and other luxuriers, usurers – they excelled generally in the commerce of intangibles, in the handling of money per se. Culture and power followed upon wealth. It was their great tragedy that, having failed to understand Who Christ was, they could not get rid of the messianic consciousness for which they had been chosen and consecrated. Finding closed to them the only spiritual door to salvation, they were constantly driven to seek redemption in the here and now, in the resources of nature, in gold and power, in anything, anywhere but Christ. When all their kingdom had turned to dust in their patient hands, and the inevitable scourge of persecution came to scatter them again and again, they still followed leaders who kept them blind, and remained missionaries of what Saint John called “the spirit that dissolves Christ.”

 

[raumzeitmc2]

continuing from above (last part).

In the thirteenth century, when the Catholic Church rejoiced in the full burgeoning of that rich and generous civilization she had reanimated and purified, the Jews were creating at Troyes a remarkable school of exegensis in which were being forged most of the arguments to be used by Protestant preachers against the Church and to be turned by the “higher critics” of later times against the heart of Christ Himself. The center and master of the group was a very rich Jew named Isaac Chatelaine, better known now as Isaac of Troyes; a man learned in the Talmud …

… Rabbi Salamon, the son of this hapless Isaac, became famous under the name of Raschi as founder of the Talmudic school of Champagne and the chief rival of Maimonides. Through Raschi the ideas of Isaac were transmitted to Protestantism. They were adopted early in the fourteenth century by a Franciscan monk of Jewish descent, Nicholas of Lyra.

The arguments of this Nicholas of Lyra powerfully influenced Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. “Raschi And the Toraphists made Nicholas of Lyra,” wrote the nineteenth-century Christian apostate Renan, whose writings were financed and published by Jews, and who borrowed many of his brilliant sophistries from the arsenal of Narbonne,

… Another Jew who did valiant spade work for Luther’s sowing was Elias Levita, founder of the modern Hebrew grammar and teacher of many Christians. “He, with Jacob Loans and Obadiah Sforno,” observes a Jewish historian, “must be allowed a large share in producing the Protestant Reformation.” Sforno was the teacher of Reuchlin and many others. The so-called Reformation, adds Abrahams, “drew its life blood from a rational Hebraism.”

Luther naturally employed Jews in preparing his German Bible. Jews were The most successful agents in the printing and distribution of Protestant Bibles and tracts in all parts of Europe.

Not only the ideas of Luther, but the very occasion for their dissemination, Was furnished by the fertile activity of Jewish minds. The Battle of the Books, preliminary skirmish in the war of ideas about to commence at Wittenberg, could never have occurred if the Talmud and the Kabbala had not first done their deadly work.

William Thomas Walsh, Philip II, Sheed & Ward, 1937.
books.google.com/books?id=5qUeAAAAMAAJ&q=%22In+the+thirteenth+century,+when+the+Catholic+Church+rejoiced+in+the+full+burgeoning+%22&dq=%22In+the+thirteenth+century,+when+the+Catholic+Church+rejoiced+in+the+full+burgeoning+%22&lr=&pgis=1

I’ll respond to the rest of your post later, and I know I went a little long here, but I really felt you should read the above bit of history.

Peace.

 

[JonNC]

=raumzeitmc2;5125545]
That’s your justification for the centuries of distortions and misrepresentation against the Catholic Church, which these anti-catholic folks continue to perpetuate, with never a word about the reformer’s own corruption??? They, like the reformers before them, owe much to the Jews for their tactics (see below).

You don’t seem to see. There is no justification for schism, and both sides were at fault. And I contend that today, those who wish only to continue the polemics, are just as at fault as they.

Jon, the reformation was a terrible injustice against the Lord’s Church, perpetrated by violent and lustful men with no authority whatsoever to do so. Really, it was none other than that that terrible and ancient hatred which had followed her in every century - just at the Lord said it would.

And it was as much the fault of Pope Leo X and other corrupt members of the Church as it was Luther or any reformer. But that was 500 years ago.

You know, I think you are a wonderful Christian, and a good Catholic, but I really think our goals here are different. You seem to wish to dwell on the past and lay blame, I wish to look to the future for reconciliation. As a result, I feel like we’re talking past each other.
So I’ll finish by saying that bringing up the hatreds of the past on both sides only does one thing; it stokes the fires of continued hostility.

God’s blessings,
Jon