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pocohombre
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PR you are doing what I like to do and not follow the flow or answer the question (help me though , I am having a brain lapse and forgot the word for that you pinned on me ) …The
2nd day church met in homes, so I asked how could they accomodate with a transubstantiating priest so many homes(250 per apostle,unless two or thee families met together) to break bread daily ?
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pocohombre
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No one is denying the foundation of the apostles. No one is denying the appointment of presbyters during and after the apostles time. No one is denying Peter was a leader. No one is denying the Holy Spirit is behind anything/ anyone authoritative in the church or in the individual. No one is denying that there is a role for the church corporate and the individual -that we are all on a mission ,the finger of God here on planet earth. No one is denying this dispensation of the “church” age. No one is denying church offices of presbyter/bishop/elders and other giftings to the body. No one is denying that scripture has a role in all of this. So what is the problem? Oh yes, there is contention to some of the specifics, but overall, the mechanism, the players remain mostly the same. History, facts, and logic are cherished by any contender, but not infallibly…from another thread that might fit here also
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PRmerger
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There could have been, like at my parish, multiple masses.
Not to mention, I have attended many masses in porticos and open terraces.
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pocohombre
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hapaxparadidomi
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I don’t really want to get in on this sub-thread, but I did want to offer my 0.02 worth.
The scripture says the christians met daily. I don’t think we need to take it to mean that EVERY SINGLE christian met daily. We could take it to mean there was an assembly that took place daily. So that would help to explain how the priest could preside at the breaking of the bread.
Secondly, it seems that you have an underlying assumption that each home meeting consisted of one family. I think we are safe to say that each home meeting consisted of more than one family usually and they met daily and that there was more than one priest per town usually. So I believe that answers your question.
It wasn’t like there was just one priest trying to somehow fit all families in on sunday.
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pocohombre
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Ok thank you and welcome to CAF. Right stick to topic. Another thread was closed abruptly cause we did stray.
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spina1953
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it seems to me that you have answered the OP quite well. it was what I was taught that you so well put it.The Bible is only considered the inerrant written word of God because the Catholic Church said so. Any written document cannot be, in and of itself, an authority, but rather a resource. Jesus gave his authority to decide matters of faith and morals to his Apostles. Indeed, he never asked them to write Gospels or Epistles. The only book of the NT that Jesus commanded be written was Revelation. Jesus commissioned his Apostles to go into the whole world to baptize and to teach. Most of what the Apostles taught was given orally. We only have the NT because some of them wrote down their teachings. We know what is true based on what the Magisterium of the Church (all the bishops of the Church in union with the pope) declares true. They definitely look to the Bible for guidance, but they also pray and rely on the Holy Spirit’s guidance, fulfilling Jesus’ promise that his Church would be guided into “all truth.”
I’m afraid not.The Bible is a part of Sacred Tradition of which the oral teachings passed down through the Church, the Early Church Fathers and the living Magisterium is also a part. The Bible was compiled by the Church so that all its dioceses and parishes would be using the same texts in the Church’s liturgies (the prayer life of the Church), as well as for study and private devotion. The Bible is not primarily a theological work, in the sense that it doesn’t list what we are to believe. It’s a resource not an authority.
Not for me, it wasn’t. I had such a one-sided impression of what I should believe from being a member of a Bible-only faith community that I couldn’t trust the Bible. I didn’t realize at that time that the so-called Bible-only beliefs were actually men’s interpretations based on their own presumptions and not on what the Bible actually teaches. It was like feeling your way in the dark until I understood that God gave his Church the authority to decide faith and morals. That the Church, not the Bible is the “pillar and foundation of the truth” (1Tim.1:3).
Catholics do not base their beliefs on the Bible. Rather, the Bible is a witness to the truths taught by the Church. Protestants who reject Marian teachings aren’t doing so because of what the Bible says but because they simply don’t want to be believe them. They use the Bible as a proof text for finding what they already want/don’t want to believe. That’s the wrong use of the Bible, which is why they can’t agree among themselves about many major issues such as Mary’s place in God’s plan of salvation, the necessity of baptism, or even the divinity of Christ.
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PRmerger
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Only the inspired authors of the Bible can be described as writing “infallibly”.
Infallibility references an action. It requires will, intent, and cogitation.Therefore, it cannot be applied to the Bible. The Bible is “inerrant” but it cannot be, of itself “infallible”, nor can it render judgments infallibly.
And that is one of the reasons Jesus left us an infallible authority, the CC, so that judgments may be rendered infallibly.
And the foundation for the Church’s infallibility is her Head, which is Christ, and she is ensouled by the Holy Spirit. It is these divine elements of the Church that make her able to act infallibly.
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Nicea325
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Yes…Jesus…said so. You couldn’t find one lay person-eh? The fact that a church father mentions it in the 2nd century does not prove it was later added or invented. What was the Tradition by the 2nd century? So the NT church had no ordained priests at all and all of sudden did a 360 and started ordaining? Seriously?
Who was at the Last Supper? Scores of people or just the 12? If Jesus had no intentions of having a ministerial priesthood,then I am sure others would have been there to confirm a ministerial priesthhood is not needed.
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pocohombre
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You misunderstood. Of course there were elders/presbyters and other offices and giftings. What I can’t find is the need for only a presbyter to “president” a love feast, a communion, that only he can transubstantiate.
You make the giftings and choosings of God seem like a club. The fact that giftings occur outside it says something. Giftings occur outside the CC priesthood do they not ? If one gifting can why not others ? There is a ministerial priesthood. We differ on here what that means and their functions. From the Last Supper discourse I don’t see where He says only you (apostles) or those you lay hands on can “transusbstantiate”.
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Isaiah45_9
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Giftings and designations are not the same thing.
Christ commands the Apostles, who carry out this designated ministry. Who in turn, designate others to carry on the ministries. This is all over the New Testament.
In like manner, Where does it say that anyone can do it?
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philv
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I was a strong Protestant earlier. What convinced me is the simplicity of James’ message that “faith without works is dead.” He also judges our works in Rev., but what kind of works?
I found two definitions of works as a Protestant:
Works (Old testament): Works to gain Salvation.
Works (New Testament): Jesus speaks of charity. We have no argument as protestants and Catholics that this is important. James speaks of charity as works.
We Catholics go by the New Testament definition. If we love Christ, our works will be a measure of our faith (James).
By sorting that out, the whole argument should be gone. We just confuse the definition as protestants because we were thinking of Catholic works in an Old Testament kind of way.
I found two definitions of works as a Protestant:
Works (Old testament): Works to gain Salvation.
Works (New Testament): Jesus speaks of charity. We have no argument as protestants and Catholics that this is important. James speaks of charity as works.
We Catholics go by the New Testament definition. If we love Christ, our works will be a measure of our faith (James).
By sorting that out, the whole argument should be gone. We just confuse the definition as protestants because we were thinking of Catholic works in an Old Testament kind of way.
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spina1953
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Concerning Sola Scriptura: It seems to me from what I have been reading that the ECF’s did not blieve in any thing called sola scriptura. In fact St. Basil wrote in NPNF VIII 40-41 that “Of the practices of whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined which are preserved in the Church some we posses derived from written teaching; others we have recieved delivered to us ‘in a mystry’ by the traditions of the Apostles; and both of these in relation to the true religion have the same force. And these no one will contradict; no one, at all events, who is even moderately versed in the institutions of the Church. For were to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they posses is small, we should unintentionally injure the Gospel in these matters especially, or rather, should make our public definition a mere pharse and nothing more.” What this is saying to me is that as St. John in his Gospel Jn.21:25 is that not everything Jesus said and did that was written down; I parapharsed this, so what I am saying is that the Apostles preached and talked about Jesus and what He said and did, yet not all that they preached and talked about was written down but those things that one might come to believe. So Scripture is not the sum total of all that the Apostles taught so the Catholic Church relies on that tradition of the Apostles teachings that were not written down in what we call the New Testament. Since the Apostles treached and talked about Jesus and who He is they also had need to explain and used Scritpure along with what Jesus taught them relying on the Holy Spirit to guide them in all that Jesus taught them. Without that how would we know? and the Catholic Church has taught that what the Apostles taught from learning it fromJesus; handed down to us unfiltered and without error.
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pocohombre
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Shouldn’t they be ? Do you want to say designations can be different, even man made as opposed to giftings, where God bestows and we acknowledge ? I believe that is the model of NT
Christ commands the Apostles, who carry out this designated ministry. Who in turn, designate others to carry on the ministries. This is all over the New Testament.
No, one must be a disciple.Where two are gathered there is Christ .We have access to the holy of holies,. A true christian can offer up a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving (eucharist), in an orderly manner. Hebrews said the old priesthood is done away with and we all have one intermediary. Again, we still have presbyters and teachers etc. but they are not priests in OT sense. They are for the quipping of the saints.
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Kliska
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aidanbradypop
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I do not think you would find a non Catholic that would state works are empty. Even the very conservative fundamentalist will believe that a person should do the work of Christ on earth.
I actually believe it is simply a wording issue rather than a theological one.
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batman1973
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Kliska
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Yes, even protestants of my ilk believe that we are made for good works, and that good works are a part of the fruit of the Spirit, and He gets all the credit, for all truly good things come from God!
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pocohombre
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“The beauty of St Basil’s approach, one highly relevant to contemporary theology of all Christian persuasions, is that the case for the divinity of Christ, and indeed the Spirit, is presented in such a way that his main thesis is always substantiated with scriptural texts. One such example from ontra Eunomium,woulduffice to demonstrate his scriptural method” academia.edu/1131846/St_Basils_Contribution_to_the_Trinitarian_Doctrine_A_Synthesis_of_Greek_Paideia_and_the_Scriptural_Worldview “Using the authority of Holy Writ, he demonstrated that the Holy Spirit was called Lord and thus ranked no less than the Father and the Son.”…" however, he makes clear that one ought not be content with their (unwriitten traditions) support merely because they are the traditions of the Fathers,but because the Fathers understood and followed the meaning of Holy Scripture ".
“The value of the Fathersand their traditions are precious and useful since they reflect the meaning of Holy Writ”. st-philip.net/files/Fitzgerald%20Patristic%20series/Basil-Great_On_the_Holy_Spirit.pdf
"The best way to discover our duty is to study the divinely inspired Scriptures, for in them we find both instructions about conduct and the lives of blessed men, delivered in writing. They are laid before us like living images of the godly life for the imitation of their good works. When we devote our*selves to the imitation of what is offered there, we find the appropriate medicine for whatever deficiency or illness we feel we have, as from a pharmacy."St. Basil the Great Letters 2:4 … St basil stuck to scripture mostly. Unwritten tradition was ok for him also, and cites many, mostly liturgical and worship-the doxology, the signing of the cross, triple immersion, facing east during prayer. While he brilliantly and inspirationally defended/defined the Trinity with Holy Writ , I believe he erred and layed more groundwork for justifying unwritten practices, which at his time were still minor.
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