Not that many in my experience. Even most of the fundamentalists subscribe to some form of “Trail of Blood” theory precisely in order to avoid this conclusion. Most Protestants take the much more reasonable view that the medieval Catholic Church was indeed a true church.
Yes! Now help me to understand. Specifically, what “beliefs and practices” of the 21st c. Roman Church do you believe conflict with those of the 1st c. Roman Church?
Yes, cancer is indeed an organic growth. But Scripture foretold such growths, which we call heresies, schisms etc, saying they would infect the Lord’s body, his Church. But the crucial thing to remember is this: they never overcome the Church, anymore than Paul’s murderous rampages could. Christ, you see, always guides and protects his Church!
Yes, of course.
All beside the point!
Peter was also “corrected” by St. Paul.
And who but a complete fool would compare his knowledge of divine things with that of any of the holy apostles?!
For I long to see you, that I may share with you some spiritual gift so that you may be strengthened,
You see, Paul himself needs and want’s to be strengthened and encouraged as much as he desires to strengthen and encourage!
His teaching, his gospel, however, is no less “pure” on account of this!
That Paul includes “faith in Christ” is simply a given here!
I didn’t intentionally mean to take “full” and replace it with “perfect.”It’s a nice rhetorical technique to take Paul’s word “full” and replace it with “perfect” but there was a Greek word for perfect and Paul didn’t use it.
This usage was hardly unique. Look at:
2 Corinthians 8:7 “full of every good thing, of faith, of the word, of knowledge, of a ready mind, and of love to us”
And we know that the Corinthian church wasn’t “perfect”
I also agree that if the Romans heeded Paul’s correction that they would have beliefs that would be noteworthy-God wants us to have the same beliefs today and therefore saw to it that Paul’s Epistle was preserved for us.
Such as the Modalistic Monarchianism which was the prevailing Doctrine when the Council of Nicea met? Or maybe you’d prefer to go back to when The Doctrine of the Logos was probably the dominant doctrine.
Only if you admit that the Roman Catholic Church of today bears no resemblance whatsoever, in any form, manner, practice,teaching, or doctrine, to that of the First Century Christian Church.
And the one that is still around has teachings, doctrines and practices that are utterly alien to First, Second, and Third century Christianity.
For starters, the Early Christian church was not Trinitarian. (Indeed, the few Trinitarians prior to the fourth century were usually condemned as heretics.)
“His Church” does not necessarily equate to “roman catholic church”.
The pornocracy demonstrates that the Catholic church utterly lost any attachment to Christian doctrine and practice. The only debate is whether Hildebrand’s reforms were in accordance with what scripture teaches or not. (The scriptural evidence indicates that they were not.)
Sabellianism or Modalistic Monarchianism, was never a *doctrine *of the Church. Keep in mind that, unlike those fancy “pure” Protestant churches,
in the early Church, there were heretics without number, 
so all kinds of teachings which weren’t official doctrine were floating around. But see this article on Sabellianism:Can you show me an official Church document that proves this??
From Wikipedia article on Infant Baptism:
And,
“Utterly alien?” That’s a pretty sweeping statement don’t you think?! But just for the sake of (friendly) argument, let’s say for the moment, that it’s true.
Let’s look at the basic facts about the Church at Rome again:
Hi Jonathan
Both the Old Roman Symbol, and Original Nicence Creed are endorsements of Modalistic Monarchianism, not Trinitarianism.
4th century:
I’ve just listed some of the inventions of the roman catholic church. Practices that were not present during the first three centuries of Christianity. Scriptural support for them is as sound as scriptural support for drinking poison during a worship service, or including venomous snakes in a worship service.
If it was, then why did the Arians gain a lot of credibility with the folks in the middle by associating St. Athanasius with this doctrine? I’m relying here on a lecture I heard Der. Lewis Ayres (currently a professor at Emory, though at the time he was interviewing for a job at Duke) give some years ago. He argued that Athanasius’s doctrine did lean somewhat toward modalism, or at least that one of his theological allies (whose name I have forgotten) was a modalist and Athanasius doesn’t seem to have had too many problems with his teaching. But the point was that this gave many Christians pause in accepting the “homoousios” as orthodox. It wasn’t that modalism was dominant, but that it had been condemned as heretical already and so anything that leant toward it was suspect.
The “Doctrine of the Logos” is the root from which later Christology developed. I agree that there are differences between fourth-century Trinitarianism and earlier Logos Christology. To me they seem developments rather than points of opposition. I can see how one could make a reasonable argument to the contrary, but I am not going to do your job for you. You will have to make an actual argument (perhaps on another thread) rather than just slinging around sweeping claims.
Matt. 28 is against you for one thing. Justin Martyr’s First Apology (41) explicitly describes baptism in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as does the Didache (7). The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (21.12-18) describes a threefold baptism following questions concerning faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit respectively. He doesn’t mention the actual formula used, but it clearly wasn’t a simple “baptism in the name of Jesus.”
Who other than Tertullian claimed this? And even Tertullian doesn’t exactly say it’s heretical. He thinks that it’s a very bad idea, because if the person sins after baptism both they and their sponsor(s) will be in deep trouble. But it’s clear from his language that this was a fairly common practice by his time and that not everyone agrees with him. As for immersion, the Didache says that pouring water on the head is acceptable if there isn’t enough water to immerse (though certainly immersion was preferred).
I think some of the legends may have been beginning at this point, but I’m not an expert on the subject.
Fair enough. Papal authority was present but I don’t think there was anything one could yet describe as infallibility. My RC friends may disagree on this one.
Mary was certainly described as “spotless,” but since a doctrine of original sin hadn’t yet fully developed there was no room for a doctrine of Immaculate Conception per se.
Seven hadn’t been established as the fixed number of the sacraments, but all seven sacraments were certainly being practiced.
Not true. St. Basil explicitly asserts the authority of tradition (On the Holy Spirit 27.66) in the fourth century. ST. John Chrysostom similarly said “it is tradition, seek no further.” It would be truer to say that only in the fourth century did a doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture appear. Earlier Christians appealed to the “rule of faith,” to which Scripture was certainly a major witness. But since the canon was still somewhat fluid and vague, the lines between Scripture and other sources of tradition were not clear until the fourth century.
If you’re going to list every festival and devotional practice that has appeared in the Church’s history, you will have a long task ahead of you.
Nor is it currently in existence. It was a particular disciplinary measure taken by the Roman Communion for several centuries.
True. That point of discipline was enforced later, but the practice of confession was certainly present.
Fair enough, though they were never technically “sold” and certainly are not today. However, you’re right that indulgences were a later development (so I won’t respond to the two other places where you mention them).
Also true–there seem to have been several not mutually incompatible ways of talking about the Eucharist. However, one of these (the “metabolic” view promoted by Cyril of Jerusalem and Ambrose) is essentially indistinguishable from transubstantiation.
As far as I know you are right.
You’re dead wrong here. We have plenty of evidence for prayer for the dead from the fourth century and earlier. The martyr Perpetua (around 200) prayed for her dead brother. I would argue that Onesiphorus was probably dead when Paul prayed for him in the NT, but I can’t prove this. And certainly II Maccabees is evidence that intertestamental Jews prayed for the dead. Given the evidence from Perpetua and other sources, the most reasonable conclusion is that early Christians always prayed for the dead–there’s no good reason to assume that there was some kind of hiatus between II Maccabees and Perpetua.
That’s “Ave Maria.” And I strongly suspect that you are wrong, though I’m not sure I can prove it. Certainly the Orthodox use it as well as the Western Church. The “Ave Maria” is the Biblical greeting, and given that Marian devotion was clearly present I’d expect that this most Biblical Marian prayer was being used. However, it would have been the first half of the prayer: the second half (“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death”) was only added after the Reformation.
There were regulations in the Western Church at least forbidding married priests from having sexual intercourse after their ordination–and certainly priests were not allowed to marry after ordination. However, clearly the regulations about the sexuality of married priests were hard to enforce and were widely flouted, and Catholic apologists may have exaggerated how universal they were.
Not under that name, although of course there were clergy of the church in Rome (which is technically what the college of cardinals is).
As I said above, the Didache mentions pouring. Catholics don’t call what they do today “sprinkling,” but I’ll concede that probably more water was used than was often used later!
I’m not sure I can prove this, but I think you’re wrong on this one as well.
These practices were certainly going on and were spoken of approvingly. They were and are devotional practices rather than doctrines.
True enough.
If you mean the box-like confessional booths, you are of course right–they started after the Reformation. Like a number of your points, this one is quite trivial though.
There is evidence for prayer being addressed to the Blessed Virgin from the fourth century, and arguably even from the third (I believe there’s an inscription with a prayer to Mary that is dated from the third century). And of course if you want to push this, even prayer to Jesus would count as prayer to the dead–though perhaps you meant the non-bodily-resurrected dead!
Not true in the sense Purgatory is taught today. Purgatory as a separate place was a later idea, but that is not part of the doctrine as the Catholic Church defines it today. The concept of purgation after death for believers who are not fully sanctified was certainly present in the fourth century and indeed earlier.
True.
This is present in the Epistle of James, let alone the fourth century. The essential element in “extreme unction” is the anointing of the sick. If you are arguing that this was still a genuine anointing of the sick, while later it came to be seen as primarily a preparation for death, then you have a point, but you have to reckon with the fact that the modern Catholic Church is trying to restore the older meaning.
Nonsense. Clement and Ignatius clearly have a concept of clergy as distinct from laity in the early 2nd century, even if you don’t find the concept in the NT.
Such a shining example as John XII? Or his age (16) the excuse for converting the Lateran palace a harem?
That “unbroken line” consists of periods of time when two, or more candidates to the seat were in control at the same time. It also omits candidates who were given that position through the then customary means, but whose authority was never recognized by those who gave them that authority.
O boy what people have to say,did they say how it got the Martin…LOL
Hi Jonathan
What do you mean by “the Pope.” In what sense was something called “the Pope” set up in the 300s? Same with the “offices of the bishopric.” You’re hiding behind vague language so as not to have to defend your view historically, which I strongly suspect you can’t.