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PiousTemplar
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I loved this post of yours. Thankyou very much.
The Catholic Church known today is NOT the same Catholic Church in the time of the apostles?
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JugglingReferee
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Sounds like a divide and conquer technique.
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Bluegoat
Guest
Well, as far as the OP goes, I don’t think the verse about no one overcoming the Church really applies. It could be that the entity known as the Catholic Church today is not the “original” Church, and that some other body is (say, the Lutherans, or the Orthodox.)
Of course the person making the claim would have to give some sort of reason to think that is the case.
The verse itself is rather vague about what it means by Church, and it doesn’t point to any particular named body.
Of course the person making the claim would have to give some sort of reason to think that is the case.
The verse itself is rather vague about what it means by Church, and it doesn’t point to any particular named body.
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Silver_Spring
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Well, I think the first quote I listed is extremely relevant to Matthew 16:18: “Number the bishops from the See of Peter itself. And in that order of Fathers see who succeeded whom. This is the rock which the gates of hell do not prevail.”
He can only be referring to Matthew 16:18 there. The reference to the gates of hell not prevailing against this rock points directly at Matthew 16:18.
But even if Augustine didn’t consider Peter to be “the rock,” at the end of the day, he still clearly maintained the notion of Papal primacy, which really is the heart of the matter (going back to the OP). This quote, in my opinion, is completely unambiguous on that issue: “The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate.”
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PJM
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hmmmmm YES!
But technically your friend is correct.
Matt. 16:15-19 did NOT set up and establish the CC. What it did do was set up the system of GOVERNANCE for that soon to be “church.” It has to do with the RIGHT understanding of “the Keys” to Heaven and the meaning of “To Loose” and to Bind"; both of which had a very COMMON application at the time and to the folks Christ was speaking to. [SEND ME A PM if you’d like more info on this].
The Original term for todays “CC” was “The Way”.
**Mark.1: 3 **"the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight – " [QUOTING} John The Baptist John 14: 6 "3.Jesus said to him, “**I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”
Acts.9: 2 “and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” [Sauls Persecution].
Later we cam e to be called Christians: .**Acts.11: 26 **"and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church, and taught a large company of people; and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians.
Acts.26: 28 "And [King] Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time you think to make me a Christian!” **1Pet.4: 16 **“yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God”.
It was NOY until AFTER the Bible had beed completely written [by only a few years] that the term “Catholic” [meaning “Universal” came into use. It is attributed to Saint Ignatias of Antioch in the year 110 A.D.
Here is the passsage that actually CREATED the Catholic Church. **From the First Pentecost.
John 20:19-23 "On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. ***As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” ***And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Notice the WORDS Christ used: “As the Father has sent Me; SO TOO I Jesus/ God send
YOU!” This is a tranferance of the Power and Authority of God Himself being passed on to His Apostles and the JUST CREATED Church.
Then NOTICE the very next words: What ever sins you [my Pope/Bishops/ Priest] forgive in MY name shall be forgive. HOW THIS WORKS IS A SEPERTAE CONVERSATION.
The looking back again at Matt. 18:18 we see Christ giving the same powers as He gave to PETER [binding and loosing] to the Other Apostles THROUGH Peter the HEAD.
Finally in **Matt. 28:19-20 is **the explaination of why all of this is necessary: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."
AND ONLY in His CC is Jesus actually present: SEE Jn.14: 16-17 and Jn. 17:15-19.
You may wish to print this to sahre with your friend.
God Bless you!
Pat
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estesbob
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. Protestantism is based on the premise that God was so inept that he let his people live in ignorance for 1500 years on such basic ideas on how one is saved and what the nature of the Church is. . This ignorance condemned untold millions to eternal hellfire has not only did they not understand how to be saved, but couldn’t understand this unless they had access to a book that did not exist. for the first 400 years after Christ resurrection and was not widely available until 1400 years after Christ resurrection and even then only to the minority was literate
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Jim_Dandy
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QUOTE:
The Church spread the Septuagint, together with its own writings contained in the New Testament, throughout the world in its missionary activities. END QUOTE (Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, Second Edition, Everett Ferguson, editor, Garland Publishing, 1999, p. 1049) This is a Protestant publisher.
It is documented secular history that the Catholic Church has existed from A.D. 33 to the present in an unbroken continuum. If you wish to take a contrarian position, you must prove it – not to me, but to university-trained, accredited, peer-reviewed historians.
Protestantism is based on circular reasoning – proving the (incomplete) Bible by the Bible.
Catholic reasoning is linear. The Church has four sources: The (complete) Bible, Sacred Apostolic Tradition, the Magisterium, and sacred and secular history.
Protestantism seems to believe that the heavens opened and the Bible fell out. God said: “This is my Word. Figure out for yourselves what it means. And, don’t forget, your eternal life depends on you getting it right!”
Protestantism is a guessing game – guess which interpretation is right, mine or his or yours? Been there, done that.
Jim Dandy
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plaintruth
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There is no Roman Catholic church in the time of the apostles. That is why they are different (not the same as the RCC version we have today).
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estesbob
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What was it then? Where did it go?
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JackVk
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Another thing about how Constantine could not have “paganized” the Church:
An emperor after Constantine, Julian the Apostate, wanted to do away with Christianity and return the empire to paganism. If he wanted to do that, then there could have been no pagan influences on Christianity, because the pagan emperor did not accept it. If that had happened, he would have joyfully welcomed the pagan influences, but instead he had even more Christians martyred. Therefore, Constantine and the Edict of Milan did not welcome in any pagan influences.
An emperor after Constantine, Julian the Apostate, wanted to do away with Christianity and return the empire to paganism. If he wanted to do that, then there could have been no pagan influences on Christianity, because the pagan emperor did not accept it. If that had happened, he would have joyfully welcomed the pagan influences, but instead he had even more Christians martyred. Therefore, Constantine and the Edict of Milan did not welcome in any pagan influences.
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Radical
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So what? I also use the term “Church” to refer to the 1st century Church…such usage doesn’t mean that I equate the Church of the first century with the Catholic Church(es) of the 4th, of the 16th or of the 21st centuries.
Really? It is a better documented secular history that shows that American football has existed from the late 19th century to the present in an unbroken continuum…but nobody worth their salt claims that the present game is the same one that existed in 1890 or in 1904.
There are plenty of university-trained, accredited, peer-reviewed historians that already agree with me…just b/c you label an innovation as a “development” so that you can claim a “continuum” doesn’t mean that you have achieved a legitimate continuity. The Pharisees could have labelled their additions to the law as developments of the seed laid down by Moses…an organic growth if you will. Such a claim, by itself, doesn’t make the “development” either good or something less than an innovation
isn’t that 5? In any event secular history ain’t that supportive,…it tends to see a lot of innovation. As to the rest, it appears to be entirely circular, with the required interpretation provided by the CC (so as to establish its own authority).
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valentino
Guest
There was a community followers.Who were being taught by the Apostles themselves.The met at various believers homes in the beginning and the word spread and more communities developed.It may not have been called the Roman CC at the time but when it did become known as the RCC it was these communities of followers (now many communities and many followers)When Contantine finally made Christianity the religion of the holy roman empire there were more than 1million and a half christians.
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valentino
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Radical: your right their were splinter groups of people who called themselves christians that weren’t following the Apostles.They heard the word through different sources but they didn’t have the whole truth about Jesus and His teachings.And eventually these died out or some members came into the Church.They were not to blame for not having the whole gospel.
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Cavaradossi
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That’s ridiculous. It is only because papal primacy is so hinged on Matthew 16:18 in your mind that you feel the need to try to argue about papal primacy instead of Matthew 16:18. My point was that the rock in Matthew 16:18 was not interpreted by St. Augustine to mean Peter but to mean Christ. It is you who decided that we should bring up papal primacy, and now that I have proven you to be wrong about St. Augustine’s interpretation of Matthew 16:18, you have decided to back-pedal and declare that to whom “the rock” refers doesn’t matter, since your quotes back up papal infallibility. At the very least, I am glad to see that you now correctly agree with me that the rock of Matthew 16:18 can also be correctly interpreted as being Christ or Peter’s faith in Christ, which was my original contention.
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plaintruth
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people normally call it the ‘new testament’ church, if you are asking.
if the thread question was: is ‘the new testament church’ same as the ‘roman catholic church’ then you might need a separate thread for discussion.
my answer remains, there was no ‘roman catholic church’ during the time of the apostles. and that is the reason why the catholic church to day is not he same as the catholic church in the time of the apostles, because it didnt exist.
everyone who reads scripture cannot but agree. church of ephesus, yes, church of corinth, yes. roman catholic church , obviously none.
honestly it would even be quite ironic to call themselves the ‘roman catholic church’ during the time of the apostles, for it was the romans that was killing and persecuting the apostles (even peter) and the christians during those times. followers of the Way so they tag themselves. roman catholics, i dont think so.
if the thread question was: is ‘the new testament church’ same as the ‘roman catholic church’ then you might need a separate thread for discussion.
my answer remains, there was no ‘roman catholic church’ during the time of the apostles. and that is the reason why the catholic church to day is not he same as the catholic church in the time of the apostles, because it didnt exist.
everyone who reads scripture cannot but agree. church of ephesus, yes, church of corinth, yes. roman catholic church , obviously none.
honestly it would even be quite ironic to call themselves the ‘roman catholic church’ during the time of the apostles, for it was the romans that was killing and persecuting the apostles (even peter) and the christians during those times. followers of the Way so they tag themselves. roman catholics, i dont think so.
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estesbob
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. Let’s not get into a semantics argument about what to call the early church. . The point is it was the Catholic Church regardless of what one . Name one wants to hang on it… the Catholic Church was the only Christian church until the Reformation. . In fact it is the only Christian . Church today -the rest just being Christian denominations bravely holding onto whatever portion of the truth they retained when they left the church.
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Jim_Dandy
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St. John had a student named Ignatius of Antioch. John died c. A.D. 100. In A.D. 107, Ignatius wrote to the Catholic Church at Smyrna "Where the bishop appears, there let the people be, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." Polycarp (A.D. 69 - 155) was a bishop in the Catholic Church.
The name of the Church is “Catholic.” The word “Roman” was used by the Anglicans in the 16th century as a perjorative term.
"To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant" John Henry Newman, Anglican clergyman and convert to Catholicism.
Jim Dandy
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Silver_Spring
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So if I’m understanding you correctly, St. Augustine is NOT referring to Matthew 16:18 in the following quote, despite the bolded section being almost word-for-word what Jesus said in Matthew 16:18? “Number the bishops from the See of Peter itself. And in that order of Fathers see who succeeded whom. This is the rock which the gates of hell do not prevail.”
It seems ridiculous to me to suggest that the above quote and Matthew 16:18 just coincidentally use the very same language. You yourself said that the quotes I provided have nothing to do with Mattew 16:18, and I just can’t see how anyone could read the above quote and believe that there’s no connection between the two.
In that quote, Augustine very clearly indicates that the papacy, going back to Peter, is “the rock” which Jesus referenced. Did he contradict himself? Did he change his mind? I don’t know. But it’s quite clear in the quote above what he is saying “the rock” is.
I bring up papal primacy because regardless of Augustine’s interpretation of Matthew 16:18, he still arrived at the same end–which is papal primacy. In other words, his interpretation of Matthew 16:18 (whatever his interpretation truly was), does not PREVENT him from promoting papal primacy.
In the quote above ("…This is the rock which the gates of hell do not prevail"), Augustine clearly spells out what “the rock” is. So again, I ask-- did he change his mind at some point in his interpretation of “the rock?” I honestly don’t know. But that’s why I bring up his assertion of papal primacy. Whatever his view of “the rock” was (and perhaps he himself interpreted the rock differently at different points in his life), he still came back to the Catholic view of papal primacy. Which makes his interpretation of “the rock” essentially moot, because it didn’t influence him away from the Church or the concept of papal primacy.At the very least, I am glad to see that you now correctly agree with me that the rock of Matthew 16:18 can also be correctly interpreted as being Christ or Peter’s faith in Christ, which was my original contention.
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Jim_Dandy
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The Church Christ founded was simply called by Him “ekklesia,” (or more correctly, by the Greek writer of Mt). Ekklesia signified in classical Greek the assembly of citizens of a city for legislative or deliberative purposes. “The Greek word ekklesia had no religious usage. It was used by the Septuagint to render the Hebrew word ‘kahal,’ [or qahal] which with the Hb word edah signified in later Hb the religious assembly of the Israelites. These two words were adopted for the local assembly of the Jews who lived outside Jerusalem, and edah is more commonly rendered in Gk by synagoge, the word from which Eng synagogue is derived. The word was first applied to the ekklesia at Jerusalem . . .” Bible Dictionary, John A. McKenzie, S.J., MacMillan, 1965, p. 133-34.
There was no need to name the ekklesia at that time, because it was one of a kind.
The Apostles probably named it “Catholic” (meaning universal), since Ignatius of Antioch, whose teacher was St. John, referred to the Church as “Catholic” in A.D. 107, a name apparently already well known.
Polycarp was “a bishop of the Catholic Church at Smyrna” (Martyrdom). The Martyrdom of Polycarp, written c. 155, begins as follows:
*The Church of God which resides as a stranger at Smyrna, to the Church of God residing at Philomelium, and to all the communities of the holy and Catholic Church, residing in any place: . . . *
Jim Dandy
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Jim_Dandy
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:tiphat:
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