The one true church

[fbl9]

Just curious, but if I am wrong, for the first 400 years before the bible existed, were did Christians get their information?

well that’s a easy one…the true Christians knew what available writings were the word of God and only used them. And only from first hand witnesses too.

 

[R_C]

Thirty thousand or forty thousand, what difference does it make. Regardless, it’s a massaged number. Unless you believe there are 282 different denominations of Catholicism.

It makes a difference inasmuch as each denomination professes a doctrine that is incompatible with the others inasmuch as no two of them could say to be the same church - though they all claim to be one “invisible church”.

The Catholic Church has many rites, many forms of spirituality, many religious communities, and yet they are all gathered under one common faith in one family with one solid hierarchy, which is the hierarchy spelled out in Sacred Scripture and described by Ignatius of Antioch, disciple of the apostle John:

See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the priests as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. …] Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

Let all things therefore be done by you with good order in Christ. Let the laity be subject to the deacons; the deacons to the presbyters; the presbyters to the bishop; the bishop to Christ, even as He is to the Father.

Do nothing apart from the bishop; keep your bodies as if they were God’s temple; value unity; Flee from schism as the source of mischief…Nobody must do anything that has to do with the Church without the bishop’s approval… In that way everything you do will be on the safe side and valid.

And as visible head of the Church we have the vicar of Christ on earth, the bishop of the Apostolic See of Rome, of whom Jerome, the greatest biblical scholar whose version of the Bible remained the definitive edition for 1600 years, affirmed:

I follow no leader but Christ and join in communion with none but Your Blessedness, that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that this is the rock on which the Church has been built. …] The Church here is split in three parts, each eager to seize me for its own. Meanwhile I keep crying: ‘He that is joined to the chair of Peter is accepted by me!"

I simply am too small to claim to know more or better than Ignatius of Antioch and Jerome (though, of course, they simply followed the apostolic tradition, in line with all the Church Fathers).

 

[Anglewannabe]

well that’s a easy one…the true Christians knew what available writings were the word of God and only used them. And only from first hand witnesses too.

How did a true Christian know what is from God unless they were protected divinely in some say? The divine protection came through the pope.

Also, your statement leads me to believe some books still weren’t written? If books were written after Jesus stopped walking on the earth, who insured the new books being written contained His truth? Again, I believe it is through the pope

 

[fbl9]

How did a true Christian know what is from God unless they were protected divinely in some say? The divine protection came through the pope.

Also, your statement leads me to believe some books still weren’t written? If books were written after Jesus stopped walking on the earth, who insured the new books being written contained His truth? Again, I believe it is through the pope

As they were sealed by the Holy Spirit they knew by the Holy Spirit what was the word of God.
And their successors in faith by the same spirit knew which new books were of God.

Basically the claim is that they were protected from error by the Holy Spirit. The same claim we use for the pope.
IOW all true believers have the same protection as the pope.
:banghead:

 

[Anglewannabe]

As they were sealed by the Holy Spirit they knew by the Holy Spirit what was the word of God.
And their successors in faith by the same spirit knew which new books were of God.

Basically the claim is that they were protected from error by the Holy Spirit. The same claim we use for the pope.
IOW all true believers have the same protection as the pope.
:banghead:

if we all have the same protection, would that not mean all true believers believe the same things?

 

[R_C]

well that’s a easy one…the true Christians knew what available writings were the word of God and only used them. And only from first hand witnesses too.

Well…no It took a handful of centuries for the canon of Sacred Scripture to be defined. And yes, it was through the guidance of the Holy Spirit that the canonic books were chosen out of literally hundreds of apocrypha or even blatantly false writings, and it was through the confirmation of the Apostolic See that the Canon was deemed definitive - this around the 4th Century (more here).

So both of you are right in a sense.

 

[R_C]

if we all have the same protection, would that not mean all true believers believe the same things?

Indeed. We do not have all the same “protection” in regards to faith and morals, though all members in full communion with the Church are supposed to believe the same things (a common profession of faith).

Let us check out a few readings from the Scripture and the Church Fathers.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of ministries, but the same Lord. …] But all these things operates the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each in particular according as he pleases. For even as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:5-10)

And God indeed hath set some in the church; first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly doctors; after that miracles; then the graces of healing, helps, governments, kinds of tongues, interpretations of speeches. (1 Corinthians 12:29)

And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-13)

Through countryside and city [the apostles] preached, and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty, for bishops and deacons had been written about a long time earlier. Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry. (Clement of Rome, disciple of and third successor of Peter, AD 80)

It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times …]

But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the successions of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul—that church which has the tradition and the faith with which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world. And it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition …]

Since therefore we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church …] For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches with which the apostles held constant conversation, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question?

t is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles; those who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the infallible charism of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father.

But [it is also incumbent] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, either as heretics … or as schismatics … for all these have fallen from the truth.

The true knowledge is the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient organization of the Church throughout the whole world, and the manifestation of the body of Christ according to the succession of bishops, by which succession the bishops have handed down the Church which is found everywhere. (Iraeneus, “Adversus Haereses”, AD 189)