Was the Bible forbidden in the Middle Ages, as some have claimed?

[brotherhrolf]

And your sources aren’t biased at all, of course :nope: for example, by a pathological hatred of Catholicism, or a desperate need in the case of the Baptists to manufacture some sort of non-existent link with the Apostolic faith (therefore some sort of persecuted remnant of the Apostolic church) without which they’d have no legitimacy?

Now, Lily, I’m trying to be charitable. Let’s give Old Scholar the benefit of the doubt. He defers to his concrete historical references from over 75 years ago. I defer to you, my friend, since you are curently in school, (are you not?), and more familiar with using internet research than I. I would have done a card catalogue seach followed by extensive research backtracking the existing sources.

Frankly, if all I had used to support my claim of an Albigensian Renaissance was two references of less than historical staus, I’d have failed those classes and I really believe my friends at NOBTS would have failed as well.

Give us the goods, Old Scholar and we’ll go from there.

 

[Madaglan]

**Originally Posted by Old Scholar:

The Churches of Christ are the churches that teach the same gospel the apostles taught, even today. They never wavered from their teachings, or added anything to them.

When I refer to the Catholic Church, I refer to the Romanists; those who established the office of the pope and believe in government of the church from Rome.**

Thanks for the clarification.

The Romanists called the Albigensians heretics but they do not tell us what they did that was so wrong. According to history, and not the history of the Catholic Church, they followed apostolic teachings. However, all their books were burned by the church so we really don’t know what they taught, do we…Howeve most theologians and scholars believe they still exist in the Baptist Chruch today.

The Albigensians were Dualists, similar to some of the Gnostic Christians in their understanding.

True, a vast majority of their books have been destroyed or have been lost to time. But, I think it is safe to assume (as many scholars, Catholic and non-Catholic, even non-religious, have done) that they were dualist.

Most theologians and scholars? The Baptist Church? Come on, now.

You imply that we really know nothing about the Albigensians except by the word of the church. How then (if such a word cannot be well trusted) can these scholars affirm that Albigensianism lives on in the Baptist Church?

You are imagining but you really don’t know for sure do you? All you have is the word of the church. Who speaks for the Albigensians?

I’m basing on the word of what I’ve read, from both Catholic and non-Catholic sources. What I’ve read would suggest that the Albigensians were dualist in their beliefs–believing in an evil creator god (the one seen in the Old Testament) in combat with the good god of the New Testament. This kind of dualism is nothing new in the history of the Christian Church.

**Even if this is so, to withold the Bible from anyone would not be a Christian thing to do. Where is the “polluted” and heretical Bible they taught from? **

I believe it would be a Christian thing to protect the people from translations that distort the Bible with misleading translations. Would you have any concern if your entire church congregation read and based its beliefs on the New World Translation?

I do not agree with the with-holding of the Bible itself from the lay people. I believe that the people should have good translations in keeping with the orthodox faith of the Apostles.

I never claimed that a heretical Bible existed, but I’m just laying open the possibility, since the Albigensians, so far as I have read, were highly organized and even had their own hierarchy.

That is true but they deal with them and do not burn them or burn the people who wrote them. Since they use written words, we can easily see what is different from our Bible. We can’t do that with the RCC. They make the claim of “Tradition” and that covers anything the church wants to say.

Google German witch hunts. Thousands of persons were burnt as witches (whether or not they actually were witches is another matter). Protestants and Catholics were both involved.

The Anabaptists were horribly persecuted by their fellow Protestants, several being executed for their “error.” Calvin burnt Severtus. Luther burnt many papal documents and those books written against him by his opponents. Many Reformed Christians desecrated Catholic shrines, such as that of St. Irenaeus, and in doing so destroyed the relics themselves.

Protestants today would say the doctrinal errors are in the RCC. The standard does not authenticate what they teach. Where is this “Tradition” written down anyhow? How can it be checked? Remember Paul says check the Scriptures for proof. We can’t do that without something as a guideline. It’s just believe what we are told. Doesn’t that worry you?

Does your church stand firm to the Apostolic traditions it has received, whether by word of mouth or by letter?

Scripture informs us to follow the traditions passed down to us from Paul and, by the same light, the Apostles.

Where does Paul say check the Scriptures for proof? The closest thing he says to this is: "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (II Tim 3:16)"

Yet, even here, Paul is not here establishing Scripture as the sole touchstone for truth–for demonstrating proof of a certain doctrine. Scripture is profitable, indeed highly profitable, but not the sole answer key for Christian belief.

This was made a rule by several popes. They are supposed to have more power than a council aren’t they?

Which Popes applied these canons (from the local councils) to the universal church?

 

[Madaglan]

The truth about the Albigensians is that they started out as the Paulicans. They quoted and followed the writings of Paul and that angers their persecutors.

The Valentinians, Marcionites and other very early Gnostic groups did exactly the same, that is, quote Paul. St. Irenaeus wrote against them.

The Albigensians were evangelical and held to two doctrines necessary to a New Testament Church; Scriptural Baptism and Scriptural Salvation.(1) They spread throughout southern France and northern Italy and their main fault seemed to be that they did not follow the dictates of the Roman Catholic Church.

How do we know this when the Albigensians can’t speak for themselves, as you claimed earlier? The “Romanists” burnt all their books, and they themselves were slaughtered, right?

How then do you know that their beliefs (which we mostly know through “Romanist” sources) are compatible with that of the Baptist Church today?

They were condemned for speculations for virtuous rules of action. They said that a Christian church should consist of good people, a Church had no power to frame any constitutions; it was not right to take any oaths; it was not lawful to kill mankind; the Church ought not to persecute people at all, even the wicked; the benefits of society should be available to all people; faith without works could not save a man; there was no need for Priests, especially the wicked ones; the Sacraments, and orders, and ceremonies of the Church of Rome were futile, expensive, oppressive, and wicked. They baptized by immersion and rejected infant baptism. They were decidedly anti-clerica.l(2)

But these beliefs must be placed within their over-arching metaphysic. They believed themselves to be trapped in a corrupt physical body and in a corrupt world. The created world, for them, was entirely corrupt and salvation meant escaping from materiality. The God of the Old Testament was responsible for creating this corrupt world. They believed in a completely different God than that which the Catholics at the time and the Protestants at a future time believed. They rejected the Trinity, and therefore their baptism was not Trinitarian, even if it were full immersion. They rejected oaths, yes, but they also rejected marriage vows. So what we see is a rejection of many beliefs held dear by the Catholic Church but also the embracing of ideas completing foreign to both the Catholics and the Protestants (including Anabaptists) of the Reformation.

The Albigensian “heresy” brought about the civilization, the literature, the national existence of the most opulent and enlightened part of the great European family. It is because of their oppression and persecution of the RCC that there is little on record of them.

Oh, the Albigensians discouraged procreation as well (don’t want to trap more spirits in matter).

How do you know that they brought about the civilization, the literature, the national existence of the most opulent and enlightened part of the great European familly? Per you, the Catholic Church destroyed everything they had. How then are we to know the extent of all this?

Granted, the Catholic Church launched a Crusade against them. Many were killed. Books were burned.

They had very high moral standards and their actions showed their zeal for the purity of life.

Their understanding of purity was different. It was more Buddhist than Christian.

They had schools, institutions and charitable organizations of their own and this state of affairs angered the pope.

They had their own hierarchy, their own levels of perfection, their own rules of conduct.

They were condemned by the Lateran Council in 1139 and by the same in Tours in 1163. The RCC sent mission after mission to get them to return to the Roman Church and in 1189 they employed force.

…only after the papal legate was murdered.

Pope Innocent III started a crusade against them and the first city they captured was Braziers, a city of 40,000 people. The Earl of Leicester asked the Abbott of Ceteaus, the Papal legate, What he was to do with the inhabitants of Braziers and the legate answered: "Kill them all. God knows His own." This war carried on for 20 years until they were all wiped out. Town after town was taken, pillaged, and burnt. Nothing was left but a smoking waste. In 1229 the inquisition finished its work.(Schaff-Herzog, pp. 62-63)

Yes, very tragic. It is sad when people are viciously murdered. I don’t agree with the legate, and I don’t agree with the vast destruction.

But, however persecuted and how much they suffered, this does not make them martyrs for the Christian faith.

The RCC had again stamped out the opposition but that only caused many more groups to break away from the RCC. The Petrobrussians, Arnoldists, Henricians, Berengarians, Waldenses and others classified by their opposition to the Roman Church as Anabaptists, “Heretics,” etc. This was the forerunner of those who came later, such as: Luther, Calvin, Hubmaier, Zwingli, Knox and others.

I’m not familiar with the Petrobrussians or the Arnoldists.

You forgot to mention the Hussites.

The Waldensians who opposed the teaching, authority and mandates of Rome should not be equated with the Anabaptists. During the time of the Reformation, the Waldensians joined sides with the Reformed Christians, not with the Anabaptists.

While one can find some similarities between the two, the Waldensians had much different beliefs from the Albigensians concerning central beliefs.

It was not because of any heresy to the Scriptures but the fact that the people did not want to believe what the RCC was teaching as it was against Scripture. That’s what really happened but I am sure the RCC has recorded it differently.

I can’t really comment here, because I believe both the Waldensians (and other pre-Reformation dissident groups) and the Latin Catholics to already have departed from the faith of the Apostles, and therefore read Scripture outside the Church and according to their own desires.

Even if all the RCC said was true, should they have killed and burned those who did not believe as they did? Do you suppose that could happen today?

It happens all the time today, although not with crusading zeal. Maybe not the Catholic Church, but those nations that have great secular power.

Of course you can believe what you want to but if you read real history, then you would learn the truth.

http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/sauer/angry-smiley-014.gif

John Henry Cardinal Newman said something very similiar.

 

[Zooey]

You know, I find this quite odd. In all of the many, many hours of history that I have, I never once heard of an “Albigensian Renaissance” or their literature. Are you saying that the rise of chivalric literature and the “courts of love” are attributable to this “Albigensian Renaissance”. I think Eleanor of Aquitaine and her court might have a little something to say about that given that the Languedoc was the home of this genre. Said genre being in violent opposition to the Albigensians.

There was a Twelth Century Renaissance which, unfortunately, was primarily in northern Europe.

amazon.com/Renaissance-Twelfth-Century-Charles-Haskins/dp/0674760751/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211305967&sr=8-1

amazon.com/Twelfth-Century-Renaissance-Twelfth-Century/dp/0719042569/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211305967&sr=8-2

amazon.com/Twelfth-Century-Renaissance-Christopher-Brooke/dp/B001128V52/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211305967&sr=8-14

The last two I have in my collection. The book by Brooke was used in my graduate history seminar on the Upper Middle Ages.
Funny, before I responded to you Old Scholar, I went and checked and, no, I don’t see any reference to an Albigensian Renaissance.

So, like the good historian that I am, I went back and checked your references.

amazon.com/church-that-Jesus-built/dp/B0007JLE1S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211306239&sr=1-1

Ninth edition in 1951. Unknown binding. One hundred and thirty five pages in which your reference regarding the Albigensians comes into play on page 132. Fascinating.

I desired to know more about Roy Mason.

members.aol.com/ancientbaptist/a3.htm

baptistpillar.com/bd0647.htm

Well, I’m sure you get the idea. There is page after page after page of references. Old Scholar, I’m going to call you to task on this reference. In the academic world what you have done would be described as intellectual dishonesty. You cited a blatantly biased Baptist resource and you chide we Catholics. :tsktsk: Needless to say, Mr. Mason is no historical scholar. I provided you with three secular references.

Oh, and BTW amongst those Baptist references I found is the outline of a 1950 lecture at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY by a Dr. Young who takes issue with Mason’s conclusions.

amazon.com/history-Baptists-Together-principles-practices/dp/B00085N3NI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211306811&sr=1-1

Sunday School Board of the Baptist Convention 1922.

I have two friends who are ordained Southern Baptist ministers who graduated from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I called them in the middle of the day and said, hey, have you guys ever heard of the Albigensian Renaissance or of these two authors? :nope:

What you are posting is not current nor does it reflect current standards of historical practice. What you are doing is as if all I referenced were the histories of the American Civil War written in the 20’s and 30s and tried to pass myself off as an historian at a Civil War Round Table. I would be laughed out of the room.

If you are going to make these “Dan Brown” statements, then at least have the decency to let folks where you are coming from. I don’t need Catholic historians to back me up and you should not need to rely upon outdated “histories” to back yours up either.

:tiphat: Rock on, Bro!!!:clapping: :clapping:

I dunno if “Old Scholar” is old…but he’s no scholar, to come up with “evangelical Albigensians”.
Sheesh. I learned better than that, in Miss Waldron’s World History class in the 10th grade…I can just about hear her, if she heard OS praising their “high moral standards”, and uch: “Christian” faith.:dts:

 

[Old_Scholar]

brotherhrolf

Let me remind you that you are not participating in an Academic forum. This is a forum for ordinary people and you should be careful saying someone is being intellectually dishonest, unless you can give a better case for it than you have. Your illusory Ad Hominem attack is fatuous, and resentful. If you have something beneficial to offer on this thread, please do.

Your banal and sophomoric treatment of me on this post shows a mundane, and ostentatious display of rhetoric that is also pretentious. Should I assume you are a student and accustomed to the Academic world of endless libraries and reference materials?

The term Albigensian Renaissance was your term, not mine. Your references merely take one to Amazon so that they can purchase a book. Not really reference material, is it?

The reference you should have read is the one from Schaff-Herzog. It is a well known religious encyclopedia and I am not aware of any bias in it.

I’m not sure what profession your degree is in, but when you question the “old” references I listed, I can tell it is not in theology. Else you would know that the oldest date you can get is the one most believable. How can history be outdated? It’s amazing that you would make that claim. If you have older references, then by all means, please list them. If not, then you have no argument to make.

In reference to your second post on this subject, # 414, instead of asking me for information on the Albigenses, why don’t you give us your understanding with your references. Maybe I want to criticize yours…
But then I suppose you would give RCC references and they are the ones who “wiped out” the Albigenses. We certainly can’t believe anything they write about them.

 

[Lilyflower]

A non-Catholic friend told me he thought the Bible was there to be individually interpreted by anyone of any denominatin or none, which ever way they saw fit.

I believe there lies the key which explains what the JW’s have done and Mormons. It also explains why there are so many new Protestant denoms and why this phenomena will probably continue to occur until the end of time.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

That’s the real problem. All you read is the RCC version of what it was all about and then recommend a website encyclopedia that anyone can change to read whatever they want to.

The truth about the Albigensians is that they started out as the Paulicans. They quoted and followed the writings of Paul and that angers their persecutors.

The Albigensians were evangelical and held to two doctrines necessary to a New Testament Church; Scriptural Baptism and Scriptural Salvation.(1) They spread throughout southern France and northern Italy and their main fault seemed to be that they did not follow the dictates of the Roman Catholic Church.

They were condemned for speculations for virtuous rules of action. They said that a Christian church should consist of good people, a Church had no power to frame any constitutions; it was not right to take any oaths; it was not lawful to kill mankind; the Church ought not to persecute people at all, even the wicked; the benefits of society should be available to all people; faith without works could not save a man; there was no need for Priests, especially the wicked ones; the Sacraments, and orders, and ceremonies of the Church of Rome were futile, expensive, oppressive, and wicked. They baptized by immersion and rejected infant baptism. They were decidedly anti-clerica.l(2)

The Albigensian “heresy” brought about the civilization, the literature, the national existence of the most opulent and enlightened part of the great European family. It is because of their oppression and persecution of the RCC that there is little on record of them.

They had very high moral standards and their actions showed their zeal for the purity of life. They had schools, institutions and charitable organizations of their own and this state of affairs angered the pope. They were condemned by the Lateran Council in 1139 and by the same in Tours in 1163. The RCC sent mission after mission to get them to return to the Roman Church and in 1189 they employed force. Pope Innocent III started a crusade against them and the first city they captured was Braziers, a city of 40,000 people. The Earl of Leicester asked the Abbott of Ceteaus, the Papal legate, What he was to do with the inhabitants of Braziers and the legate answered: "Kill them all. God knows His own." This war carried on for 20 years until they were all wiped out. Town after town was taken, pillaged, and burnt. Nothing was left but a smoking waste. In 1229 the inquisition finished its work.(Schaff-Herzog, pp. 62-63)

The RCC had again stamped out the opposition but that only caused many more groups to break away from the RCC. The Petrobrussians, Arnoldists, Henricians, Berengarians, Waldenses and others classified by their opposition to the Roman Church as Anabaptists, “Heretics,” etc. This was the forerunner of those who came later, such as: Luther, Calvin, Hubmaier, Zwingli, Knox and others.

It was not because of any heresy to the Scriptures but the fact that the people did not want to believe what the RCC was teaching as it was against Scripture. That’s what really happened but I am sure the RCC has recorded it differently.

Even if all the RCC said was true, should they have killed and burned those who did not believe as they did? Do you suppose that could happen today?

Of course you can believe what you want to but if you read real history, then you would learn the truth.

http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/sauer/angry-smiley-014.gif

Gob Bless

(1) Roy Mason, The Church Jesus Built, p. 132
(2) John T. Christian, The History of the Baptists, Vol 1, pp. 60- 61

Wow. What fabulous tripe! I’m impressed no end.

The Albees would seem to be a GREAT group for a pathologically self-identified professional “victim” class would choose! Absolutely perfect.

Albigenses:

“The dualism of the Albigenses was also the basis of their moral teaching. Man, they taught, is a living contradiction. Hence, the liberation of the soul from its captivity in the body is the true end of our being. To attain this, suicide is commendable; it was customary among them in the form of the endura (starvation). The extinction of bodily life on the largest scale consistent with human existence is also a perfect aim. As generation propagates the slavery of the soul to the body, perpetual chastity should be practiced. Matrimonial intercourse is unlawful; concubinage, being of a less permanent nature, is preferable to marriage. Abandonment of his wife by the husband, or vice versa, is desirable. Generation was abhorred by the Albigenses even in the animal kingdom. Consequently, abstention from all animal food, except fish, was enjoined. Their belief in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, the result of their logical rejection of purgatory, furnishes another explanation for the same abstinence. To this practice they added long and rigorous fasts. The necessity of absolute fidelity to the sect was strongly inculcated. War and capital punishment were absolutely condemned.”

 

[LilyM]

brotherhrolf

Let me remind you that you are not participating in an Academic forum. This is a forum for ordinary people and you should be careful saying someone is being intellectually dishonest, unless you can give a better case for it than you have. Your illusory Ad Hominem attack is fatuous, and resentful. If you have something beneficial to offer on this thread, please do.

Your banal and sophomoric treatment of me on this post shows a mundane, and ostentatious display of rhetoric that is also pretentious. Should I assume you are a student and accustomed to the Academic world of endless libraries and reference materials?

The term Albigensian Renaissance was your term, not mine. Your references merely take one to Amazon so that they can purchase a book. Not really reference material, is it?

The reference you should have read is the one from Schaff-Herzog. It is a well known religious encyclopedia and I am not aware of any bias in it.

I’m not sure what profession your degree is in, but when you question the “old” references I listed, I can tell it is not in theology. Else you would know that the oldest date you can get is the one most believable. How can history be outdated? It’s amazing that you would make that claim. If you have older references, then by all means, please list them. If not, then you have no argument to make.

In reference to your second post on this subject, # 414, instead of asking me for information on the Albigenses, why don’t you give us your understanding with your references. Maybe I want to criticize yours…
But then I suppose you would give RCC references and they are the ones who “wiped out” the Albigenses. We certainly can’t believe anything they write about them.

Here’s a tip for you, OS - ordinary people without academic pretensions do NOT call themselves ‘Old Scholar’ on an internet forum. By taking on that moniker you are making open claims to scholarship, so don’t complain if real scholars then take you to task if you don’t live up to your self-chosen name.

How about you respond to the poster who asked, quite correctly, how on earth you know anything at all about the Albigenses if the RCC so effectively wiped 'em out? Perhaps the Catholic Church wasn’t quite the big baddie you seem to think if that much information about them has survived.

 

[Hisalone]

Nice dodge.

Answer the rest of my questions as to your children.

As for sources… what did the Albigeneses teach, and is it consistent with Bible based Christianity?

(This oughtta be good… )

Oh… and the next time you take a cheapshot dig at my Catholic faith with a remark like that, I will report you to the mods. If I said something similar about your religion you’d be on that button on me in a New York heartbeat. You know full well that that kind of remark is offensive…but you “Christian charity” doesn’t work when it comes to your faith sharing apparently.

If I have to be considerate of your religion, then those same rules apply to you as well.

Please show original sources of what the Albigenses taught.
We have only a record of their enemies what they believed was taught. Its like having Jack Chick as the source of what the Catholics teach.

 

[brotherhrolf]

brotherhrolf

Let me remind you that you are not participating in an Academic forum. This is a forum for ordinary people and you should be careful saying someone is being intellectually dishonest, unless you can give a better case for it than you have. Your illusory Ad Hominem attack is fatuous, and resentful. If you have something beneficial to offer on this thread, please do.

And let me remind you that while this is not an Academic forum, you are blythely passing references off as “scholarly”; telling other Catholics that their references are “biased”; and espousing such historical “garbage” as to send one’s head to twisting. I am not attacking you personally. I am questioning your methodology which would not stand in any college classroom of which I have been a part. I’m not sorry. I have an obligation to all those Catholic young people who frequent this forum to see that they get historically correct information.

Your banal and sophomoric treatment of me on this post shows a mundane, and ostentatious display of rhetoric that is also pretentious. Should I assume you are a student and accustomed to the Academic world of endless libraries and reference materials?

I have bachelor’s degrees in both history and anthropology. I have a master’s degree in anthropology and lack but a year of work to earn a master’s degree in history. I can navigate my way through any library or reference material you care to throw my way. I have an index drawer full of reference from my thesis which was written before we had computers.

The term Albigensian Renaissance was your term, not mine. Your references merely take one to Amazon so that they can purchase a book. Not really reference material, is it?

You implied an Albigensian Renaissance by stating that it was they who “… brought about the civilization, the literature, the national existence of the most opulent and enlightened part of the great European family” What do you want me to do sir, mail you my reference books from my library? And you will note, that both of the books you reference are available from Amazon.com as well albeit their antiquity. There are any number of books available on the Twelfth Century Renaissance by secular historians. Nowhere, nowhere, can I find reference to the Albigensians being held in such high esteem.

The reference you should have read is the one from Schaff-Herzog. It is a well known religious encyclopedia and I am not aware of any bias in it.

You sir, were the one who chided Catholics who responded to your allegations from Catholic resources. Should we not hold you to the same standards? A Calvinist encyclopedia? Do you honestly think that I would use the Catholic Encyclopedia as a reference when I complete my master’s thesis in history? If you think that I have a bridge across Lake Pontchartrain to sell you cheap.

I’m not sure what profession your degree is in, but when you question the “old” references I listed, I can tell it is not in theology. Else you would know that the oldest date you can get is the one most believable. How can history be outdated? It’s amazing that you would make that claim. If you have older references, then by all means, please list them. If not, then you have no argument to make. We are discussing history, sir, not theology and yes, interpretations of history can be outdated. The histories of the American Civil War which were published in the South immediately after the War and going up to the Centennial years are now subject to commentary from historians of today. And guess what, they are biased and guess what, the two books you referenced are biased as well and not up to historical standards of today.

In reference to your second post on this subject, # 414, instead of asking me for information on the Albigenses, why don’t you give us your understanding with your references. Maybe I want to criticize yours…But then I suppose you would give RCC references and they are the ones who “wiped out” the Albigenses. We certainly can’t believe anything they write about them.

Because, I’m not advocating drecht as history. You are. I have no need to cite RCC references. The references I cited were by secular historians which, had you bothered to investigate, you would have found that they are noted historians at secular universitities. I was extremely careful to show you, sir, that there ARE secular references out there that refute what you have said.

Oh, and BTW, for your information, citing an Internet article is not generally acceptable in Academe today. (My wife accepts them for Freshman essays because the kids haven’t learned how to use a library yet), I am more than willing to debate this entire thing with you,sir, but you had better climb down from your high-horse of condescendsion.

You want an academic debate? Fine. Say the word. Consider the gauntlet thrown down at your feet. I have the credentials. I have the background.

 

[Hisalone]

That’s just more of anti-Catholic propaganda.

I’ve actually read the life of St. Francis of Assisi and he was most definitely a Catholic Reformer in the 13th century, a good 300 years before Luther and his rebels came along.

Was Francis able to read?
Was he aristocricy? NO
He came from a growing merchant class whose sons and daughters were educated. The myth that only a few could read and write has been shattered.

 

[Hisalone]

And these councils were held in response to the Albigensian heresy. Do you know what that was, or do you just wish to keep sprouting off these anti-Catholic cut & pastes without giving a historical context?

Provide original source documentation or admit that you dont know what you speak of there is no other alternative.

 

[Hisalone]

Old Scholar. Here we go again. First - any Bible; any translation; had to be written by hand particularly in the twelfth century when the Cathars/Albigensians were around. Question to you. Was the world created by Satan? Is the physical world corrupt? I await your answer.

Please provide original source documents otherwise your claims are meaningless.

 

[Hisalone]

Perhaps you missed the many posts which explained that all these ‘sources’ referred to one specific example–the 12th century (you know, about 300 years before the printing press) Albigensians who wrote a heretical, distorted ‘bible’ claiming that ‘matter = bad, spirit = good’ and who claimed that fornication was all right but marriage was evil, etc.

Would you want your children to read such a bible which claimed the above as what Jesus ‘really taught’, or would you want them to read the ‘real’ Bible?

In the 12th century, the ‘average man’ had a lifespan of about 30 years, the infant mortality rate was close to 50%, there were literally dozens of fatal diseases, accident rates were skyhigh (even getting a scratch from a nail or a splinter of wood could kill you–no antibiotics, you know), war or martial incidents were endemic, soil husbandry was in its infancy, labor was backbreaking, crops failed, cattle and sheep died, adequate nutrition was rare.

And literacy rates. . .rates enough to ‘read’ a HAND LETTERED MANUSCRIPT (itself taking over 2 YEARS to write) thus being extremely costly. . .were abysmal.

According to Wiki, even by the mid 19th century (400 years post printing press, and 700 years after the Albigensians), the average literacy rate for a man in Great Britain was under 40%.

This was well into the industrial age, when more people were ‘off the farms’, when printed material was readily available and cheap even by the standards of the day, and schools existed in every town–as opposed to the ‘earlier’ days when schools did NOT exist everywhere, printed material was NOT cheap or available, and people worked 16 and 18 hour days in the fields before falling into the straw or dirt for a few hours sleep, having existed on one bowl of ‘porritch’, with maybe a crust of barley bread and a swig of ale (nobody drank water, due to the typhus and cholera epidemics found because that same water was full of raw sewage; wine was for the ‘upper class’) if they were lucky.

I WISH that people who prate of ‘history’ actually KNEW SOME HISTORY.

Again your assertions are meaninless without original source documents,

 

[Hisalone]

**A FAMILY STORY RE CATHOLICISM & THE BIBLE/**B]

 My family background, like many other Americans, is mixed religiously. Both Catholics and Protestants. Mostly French-Canadians and Yankees, with a little Irish, German, Scottish, and native American ancestry thrown in. 

  One story from the Protestant side seems relevant to this thread.

   In 1837 French-Canadians (and some others) waged the Patriots' War against British gentry. They were defeated and many fled temporarily across to the USA.

   A great-great grandfather was among them. Two French-speaking Swiss missionaries did evangelistic work among these refugees from Quebec. They gave them Bibles. A priest came along and told Catholics that they must burn those Bibles. My ancestor refused to do so, eventually began to attend a small French evangelical church in Quebec and embraced Protestantism.

    It seems to me that Catholics years ago seldom had Bibles. They learned many things from the Bible in parochial schools, then very important in our area - rivaling the public schools in enrollment. (Most now closed.) This has changed radically since Vatican II, of course, and Bible study is popular among Catholics around here, even a few ecumenical groups with Catholics and various Protestants together. I favor this. It promotes understanding and tolerance. 

   This Catholic v. Protestant nonsense, too often promoted by postings here in the Catholic Answers Forum, does a disservice to Christianity. We have varying interpretations of scripture, but we are one people. God is much too big for any one church to claim a special monopoly on divine truth. We're all seekers, and I'm sure that God appreciates our interest in eternal verities. 
  
    God bless everybody. No exceptions.

The council which papal infallibility was proclaimed didnt even have a bible in attendance. A bible was borrowed from a protestant chaplain—true story.

 

[brotherhrolf]

Was Francis able to read?
Was he aristocricy? NO
He came from a growing merchant class whose sons and daughters were educated. The myth that only a few could read and write has been shattered.

Uh, huh. So please tell this calligrapher what Francis was reading. Account invoices? Sure. Letters back and forth to his family’s wool and dye providers? Sure.

"The extent of Francis’s learning has always stimulated controversy. Several contemporaries describe him as unlettered or having little education, among them two of his great admirers, Cardinal Jacques de Vitry and the Bishop of Terru. This may have been because he did not go to a university, was never ordained priest, insisted that the members of his order should not own books and said of himself 'ignorans sum et idiota"…

House, Adrian. Francis of Assisi, New Jersey: HiddenSpring, 2001, pp 17-18.

(Adrian House - New College, Oxford, England.)

 

[brotherhrolf]

Please provide original source documents otherwise your claims are meaningless.

I take it you are willing to accept the challenge and defend the Albigensians? Done! I will hie myself to LSU and I expect full measure from you, Hisalone! This is not something that will be resolved in immediacy, I warn you, but you and your podnah Oldscholar are in for a revelation.

 

[Hisalone]

I take it you are willing to accept the challenge and defend the Albigensians? Done! I will hie myself to LSU and I expect full measure from you, Hisalone! This is not something that will be resolved in immediacy, I warn you, but you and your podnah Oldscholar are in for a revelation.

Im up for it because there are no original source documents in existance. They have all been burned, funny that.

 

[Hisalone]

Uh, huh. So please tell this calligrapher what Francis was reading. Account invoices? Sure. Letters back and forth to his family’s wool and dye providers? Sure.

"The extent of Francis’s learning has always stimulated controversy. Several contemporaries describe him as unlettered or having little education, among them two of his great admirers, Cardinal Jacques de Vitry and the Bishop of Terru. This may have been because he did not go to a university, was never ordained priest, insisted that the members of his order should not own books and said of himself 'ignorans sum et idiota"…

House, Adrian. Francis of Assisi, New Jersey: HiddenSpring, 2001, pp 17-18.

(Adrian House - New College, Oxford, England.)

So Francis could not read nor write letters?

 

[brotherhrolf]

Im up for it because there are no original source documents in existance. They have all been burned, funny that.

Oh, please! If this is the attitude you are going to take then there is no use in us discussing anything. I should then digress to how many of my Irish ancestors were burned or thrown off their land by protestants. What taurine foecal matter you and Old Scholar spew! As if there are no secular historians available to provide documentation.

You just can’t wait, can you? I have told you I accept your challenge and I will not use any Catholic resource to back up my claim. I have told you it will take time but, by my Irish ancestors, I will respond! Happy now? I’ve sworn on my ancestors - that’s how confidant I am. You want to count yourself with Cathar/Albigensian ancestors more power to you. Although I have to admit that I am French in ancestry, profoundly Roman Catholic, and my ancestors came from that part of the world. Can you say as much?

Hisalone and Oldscholar. Ratchet down the rhetoric. I have agreed to prove my point without using Catholic resources. Have the honor to accept me at my word.

Both of you. If this keeps up, I will withdraw and I will report you to the mods.