What came first The Bible or the Church? Did Jesus, say to Peter you are Rock and on this Rock I will Build My Bible.

[Rightlydivide]

[Gene Church;4490706]And you base this, on what? The early Christians were willing to die going to Church. Was this because they desired to sing songs? Listen to someone preach what they thought the Apostles said? No, they came, and risked death, to receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, of Jesus Christ. It is the reason that early pagans and Emperors referred to the Christians as canabals. Modern Protestantism makes Church attendance voluntary in most places, since authority comes from the Bible itself, and no one other than you, and your interpretation of the Holy Spirit, should decide what is right.

An attempt to draw the discussion away from the evidence I presented. Deal with my quotes.

Again, you are wrong. While right that God inspired the canon, who actually stated what was in the Canon? The Catholic Church. Amazing that you and I would agree on all books in the New Testament, when as Catholics, we find that the early Church declared which books were divinely inspired.

But what you call the Catholic Church did not believe in the Assumption. Why do the Catholic and Orthodox disagree on all the details? Why did the bishop from one of the supposed sites say there WAS NO tradition? You know that is the case. The bishop knew nada about it.
What about the fact, and the Catholic Encyclopedia concurred that the earliest offices were local in nature and the distinction was not there.
But also, why do you not deal with a document from 50 to 70 AD that show what they ACTUALLY said at the Lords Supper. The actual words. Not conjecture. The words. Nothing about it turning into the blood and body literally. Nothing, not a word. You see, the earliest patristic evidence does not support your view.

Sorry, but again you are wrong. You choose to rewrite history, in the last few centuries. Clearly, the early Church saw the Eucharist in this fashion, and believed that they were following that which had been done since the time of Christ. This is a classic example of where a fundamentalist does not want to take the Bible fundamentally, since it would contradict with his position.

The Didache is the earliest existing copy of what would after many centuries become your mass. And it says what?

 

[Gene_Church]

Stick to the topic. The fact is that the earliest Christians did not believe in what your church believes. Its right there for anyone to read. I notice you tried to change the topic because you know the early church did not venerate images, believe in the Immaculate Conception or Assumption and many other late inventions.

Sorry wrongly, but this IS the topic. The early Church, as evidenced even in the Bible, believed what the Church believes. It is right there for anyone to read. You attempt to change the topic and jump around rather than dealing with any particular issue.

You have yet to answer my questions about how you know the Bible is God inspired. I know how I know.

 

[Gene_Church]

Because he truly knows the truth in his heart, he just doesn’t want to give in.

If he knew the Truth in his heart, we would have no disagreement here.

 

[Gene_Church]

they were not supported by the earliest Christians. I am not angry at all. Quit talking about my feelings. I am typing fast though to keep up!
If you want to find out the proper interpretation of the Bible, ask the people closest to it. The ECF do not support these man made doctrines.

Sorry, but wrong again. Interestingly enough, what you would know about the Church Fathers comes from the Church itself. What you would know about the Bible, comes from the Church itself.

But false interpretations, come from you, and others that do not want to follow Christ’s Church.

 

[CWBetts]

Rightly Divide,

There is no charity in your words. You obviously have something personal against the Church Jesus founded upon Peter. WHy are you angry? In reality it makes no difference which Ecumenical Council teachings were established at. The reason is that the collegium of bishops is infallible, as is the Pope. You reject the teachings of the Church. Why? The Fundamentalist Evangelicals are very far from the New Testament Church. If you look at your own church’s teachings, you will find many holes, many unanswerable questions. When you do, I hope you find your way home to the Roman Catholic Church, the only Church with true Apostolic Authority.

Peace

 

[Rightlydivide]

Belloc Fan;4490721]That quote doesn’t prove that there wasn’t a single authority. If you said, “that company is run by a board of directors,” that doesn’t mean there isn’t a chairman of the board. All you’ve proven is that there was hierarchy and control, which I think undermines your previous point, that there wasn’t.

It says that it went to the Apostles and James. That is from the very first church historian. Spin away. Thats why James made the decision in Acts 15.

Marcus Grodi quotes St. Ignatius of Antioch as saying,

Presides where?? In Rome. That is all. The other bishops presided in their jurisdictions if the heavily interpolated Ignatius is accurate. It still supports my contentions.

In his book *Against Heresies, *written somewhere about 180 A.D, St. Irenaeus provides a thorough account of apostolic and papal succession. Although Irenaeus was bishop of modern day Lyons, he traced the history of the Church of Rome instead, as “it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre-eminent authority.” You can find that here: en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_Fathers/Volume_I/IRENAEUS/Against_Heresies:_Book_III/Chapter_III.

And Irenaues said that authority comes from…Peter and Paul founding the church at Rome. Something he makes up. Paul wrote to Rome before he ever set foot. Irenaues is making things up and contradicts the very words of the Apostle Paul. Irenaues…the same guy who said that Christ was how old?

He was above forty years old, and that He certainly was not one of only thirty years of age. For it is altogether unreasonable to suppose that they were mistaken by twenty years, when they wished to prove Him younger than the times of Abraham. For what they saw, that they also expressed; and He whom they beheld was not a mere phantasm, but an actual being of flesh and blood. He did not then wont much of being fifty years old; and, in accordance with that fact, they said to Him, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?”

This guy invented history.

I think the Encyclopedia is absolutely right here. The early Fathers were on a spectrum - some holding the modern Catholic position, others in error. You would find the same sort of spectrum if you looked at their understanding of the Holy Trinity, but that doesn’t mean that the Trinity is a Catholic invention.
The Encyclopedia also states:

So to say that the “early Church” didn’t hold this view seems misleading to me - the very text you’re citing says otherwise. More accurate would be to say that certain outliers didn’t hold the view, of which you quote generously.

What you call error, I call truth. Now back to Irenaues, the guy who said Jesus was over forty and that Peter and Paul founded the church at Rome, the same guy who invents history…that is if you believe the Bible. The Bible says that Paul had never visited Rome when he was writing to them! I believe the Bible. Not some fantasy writer 150 years later.

I don’t think Ambrose is even considering Mary in this quote - it certainly doesn’t seem that he’s advancing a specific “Mary wasn’t without sin.” And if he was, he was wrong, and in the minority in any case.

Minority? You have a Gallup Poll? Not in the minority in the Ante Nicene Fathers.

Even if St. John Chrysostom believed that Mary *had *sinned (although again, I must insist that I don’t see where you’re drawing that conclusion), it would merely be another person who was on the erroneous side of the spectrum. The truth is that the early Church had various views on Mary - some correct, some incorrect. To suggest that the ones that the Catholic Church infallibly declared correct make it a Catholic creation is bizarre. As the Catholic Encyclopedia link you provided shows, these views date back to the earliest days of the Church.

He does believe she sinned. You see, your traditions all contradict. You pick what you like and throw out the rest.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Rightly Divide,

There is no charity in your words. You obviously have something personal against the Church Jesus founded upon Peter. WHy are you angry? In reality it makes no difference which Ecumenical Council teachings were established at. The reason is that the collegium of bishops is infallible, as is the Pope. You reject the teachings of the Church. Why? The Fundamentalist Evangelicals are very far from the New Testament Church. If you look at your own church’s teachings, you will find many holes, many unanswerable questions. When you do, I hope you find your way home to the Roman Catholic Church, the only Church with true Apostolic Authority.

Peace

I am not angry at all. I have a kitten on my lap, a diet coke in my hand. Quit talking about my feelings, for the second time.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Sorry wrongly, but this IS the topic. The early Church, as evidenced even in the Bible, believed what the Church believes. It is right there for anyone to read. You attempt to change the topic and jump around rather than dealing with any particular issue.

You have yet to answer my questions about how you know the Bible is God inspired. I know how I know.

Sure, I have covered this before. I am shocked you have not read all my work…baffling actually…anyway…
My life was in shambles, I was an addict, I read a Bible given to me, I became a Christian, I went through a period where I read all the scholars and almost did not believe, decided that the scholars, liberal had faulty premises, accepted his word on faith.

Okay now for the good part, because this often happens. The Catholic tries to talk me out of believing the Bible unless I believe it for the exact reason they do. Happens all the time.
I can accept you believe because of whatever reason but Catholics hate it when a converted atheist reads the Bible and believes.

 

[SyCarl]

Sorry wrongly, but this IS the topic. The early Church, as evidenced even in the Bible, believed what the Church believes. It is right there for anyone to read. You attempt to change the topic and jump around rather than dealing with any particular issue.

You have yet to answer my questions about how you know the Bible is God inspired. I know how I know.

With respect to the Immaculate Conception, I think that evidence of its belief is missing in the early church. With respect to it, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a doctor of the church wrote:

Wherefore I cannot but wonder that there should have been among you at this time some who wished to sully this splendid fame of your Church by introducing a new Festival, a rite which the Church knows nothing of, and which reason does not prove, nor ancient tradition hand down to us. Have we the pretension to be more learned or more devoted than the Fathers? It is a dangerous presumption to establish in such a matter what their prudence left unestablished. And the matter in question is of such a nature that it could not possibly have escaped the diligence of the Fathers if they had not thought that they ought not to occupy themselves with it….For how does the consequence follow that since the conception has preceded the birth, and the birth is holy, the conception should be considered holy also? Did it make the birth holy because it preceded it? Although the one came first that the other might be, yet not that it might be holy. From whence came that holiness to the conception which was to be transmitted to the birth which followed? Was it not rather because the conception preceded without holiness that it was needful for the being conceived to be sanctified, that a holy birth might then follow? Or shall we say that the birth which was later than the conception shared with it its holiness? It might be, indeed, that the sanctification which was worked in her when conceived passed over to the birth which followed; but it could not be possible that it should have a retrospective effect upon the conception which had preceded it….If, therefore, before her conception she could not possibly be sanctified, since she did not exist, nor in the conception itself, because of the sin which inhered in it, it remains to be believed that she received sanctification when existing in the womb after conception, which, by excluding sin, made her birth holy, but not her conception….Willingly the glorious Virgin will be without this honour, by which either a sin seems to be honoured or a sanctity supposed which is not a fact. And, besides, she will by no means be pleased by a presumptuous novelty against the custom of the Church, a novelty which is the mother of rashness, the sister of superstition, the daughter of levity.
LETTER XLV (circa A.D. 1140),To the Canons of Lyons, on the Conception of S. Mary.
ccel.org/ccel/bernard/letters.lxviii.html?highlight=mary#highlight

While he believed that Mary was born without sin, he certainly did not think she was conceived without sin, and what is telling is his comments that such a proposition was unknown to the fathers.

 

[Gene_Church]

I see you are not dealing with the quotes I provided. I suspect most Catholics have not read the Ante Nicene Fathers. They would be shocked to find out writers do not support an Immaculate
Conception, Assumption, and so forth.
Speaking of earliest Christian writings.
What about the Didache written before the Bible was even finished. I wonder if the pastor said something to turn the bread and water into Jesus?

First of all, your understanding of the Ante Nicene Fathers is limited as well. They did support the Immaculate Conception, either the Dormition or Assumption into Heaven, “and so forth.”

Your “quote” of the Didache includes Protestant commentary mixed in. Ironically, any honest Protestant who chose to believe and read the Didache would have a hard time reconciling their Sunday service with it, but Catholics would be amazed at how close their experience follows those of people approximately 2000 years ago.

 

[Gene_Church]

Bishop, presbyter, and deacon. But the bishop was not over the other three, they would even teach you that in any Catholic seminary.

Sorry, and wrong.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Rightlydivide;4490598:

I see you are not dealing with the quotes I provided. I suspect most Catholics have not read the Ante Nicene Fathers. They would be shocked to find out writers do not support an Immaculate
Conception, Assumption, and so forth.
Speaking of earliest Christian writings.
What about the Didache written before the Bible was even finished. I wonder if the pastor said something to turn the bread and water into Jesus?

First of all, your understanding of the Ante Nicene Fathers is limited as well. They did support the Immaculate Conception, either the Dormition or Assumption into Heaven, “and so forth.”

Your “quote” of the Didache includes Protestant commentary mixed in. Ironically, any honest Protestant who chose to believe and read the Didache would have a hard time reconciling their Sunday service with it, but Catholics would be amazed at how close their experience follows those of people approximately 2000 years ago.

Yes commentary is mixed in, sorry earlychristianwritings.com did not pay their bills I guess and that is the site I usually use. I could type it from my hard copy but the point remains.
Yes? This is the earliest copy of what would become the mass and where is the part that makes it into the actual blood and body? Oh…they omitted it?
I am honest. I assume the same for you!

 

[Rightlydivide]

Sorry, and wrong.

Deal with the quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia. It agrees with me. They were essentially the same Mr. President. I have always wanted to say that…

 

[CWBetts]

I am not angry at all. I have a kitten on my lap, a diet coke in my hand. Quit talking about my feelings, for the second time.

The presence of a kitten means nothing. Your words do. The kitten menas you are not raging. YOur words mean you have noting but venomous hatred for the Church. Why else would you be completely ignoring the arguments from these CAtholics who I can only assume know more about the CAtholic faith than you. You have not come to learn about God’'s True Church. You have come toa attack it. I am asking you nicely to stop attacking the Body of Christ. Instead I ask you to allow your eyes to be opened and see the peace it offers.

 

[Belloc_Fan]

Yes. They were under fire but we really do not know how much. Only two or three patristic quotes attest to what you just said. Regardless, that does not detract what I said.

It was significant enough that they were in a separate Scriptural category, because there was enough confusion over their status.

How do you know, apart from the Catholic Church, that these books are inspired by God, and intended by Him to be in the Bible?

Only God. Man did not determine squat.

God put together his canon. When Paul said that all scripture was inspired…God’s OT, no earthly authority did that. It was God.

Are you saying that God only know what is and is not Scripture? Or is there a human way to determine which books God wants in Scripture? And if yes, what is it?

If you think that the church of the first three hundred years looks like your church, we would have to deal with my quotes. In some ways yes, in some ways, no way.

I think we *are *dealing with your quotes here, pretty handily, even.

And like Cardinal Newman talks about in Development in Christian Doctrine (newmanreader.org/works/development/index.html)), the way a structure looks naturally changes over time without breaking the hierarchy. My dad owns his own small business. He’s the boss, but what being the boss looks like when you run a small business is very different than what being the boss looks like when you run a big one. You would hardly be able to tell he’s boss right now. If the company got large one day, and he was in the field less, and telling other people what to do more, it would look like he was a usurper. But he was boss the whole time - boss just entailed a different function at different points in history. So the ‘some ways yes, some ways no’ resemblance is a sign of authenticity.

They did not celebrate the Eucharist. They broke bread. We do that. No details included. So no, they did not celebrate the Eucharist and the details from the Didache and Justyn Martyr are skeleton enough in nature that you cannot claim them as being just like your Eucharist at all.

True, no details included… here. But in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul clarifies: “anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself,” and is “guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.”
Jesus says:

**John 6:53b-56: **I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.

That’s no ordinary Bread.

And regardless of how skeletal you find the two you mention, St. Ignatius of Antioch is pretty clear, in that he calls it “the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ” in his Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (newadvent.org/fathers/0109.htm)).

Finally, Hebrews 9:11-28 connects the words of Moses in Exodus 24:8 with the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, “this is the Blood of the Covenant,” and concludes that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Yet a symbolic interpretation severs this connection, leaving Moses with atoning sacrificial blood, and Christ with a glass of wine.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Veneration of Images. Early Christian history they do not teach you in RCIA!

Letter 51, as quoted from Jerome, From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem. This letter originates around the year 400 AD. Epiphanius, a bishop, wrote:

When I accompanied you to the holy place called Bethel, there to join you in celebrating the Collect, after the use of the Church, I came to a villa called Anablatha and, as I was passing, saw a lamp burning there. Asking what place it was, and learning it to be a church, I went in to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints; I do not rightly remember whose the image was. Seeing this, and being loth that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ’s church contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person. They, however, murmured, and said that if I made up my mind to tear it, it was only fair that I should give them another curtain in its place. As soon as I heard this, I promised that I would give one, and said that I would send it at once. Since then there has been some little delay, due to the fact that I have been seeking a curtain of the best quality to give to them instead of the former one, and thought it right to send to Cyprus for one. I have now sent the best that I could find, and I beg

 

[Rightlydivide]

The presence of a kitten means nothing. Your words do. The kitten menas you are not raging. YOur words mean you have noting but venomous hatred for the Church. Why else would you be completely ignoring the arguments from these CAtholics who I can only assume know more about the CAtholic faith than you. You have not come to learn about God’'s True Church. You have come toa attack it. I am asking you nicely to stop attacking the Body of Christ. Instead I ask you to allow your eyes to be opened and see the peace it offers.

If I told you the kitten was purring…I suppose not.
Quit talking about me and either deal with my content or not.
You may be a psychologist…you may have even stayed at a Holiday Inn last night even…but this is about my content. You guys are always wanting discussion.

 

[Rightlydivide]

It was significant enough that they were in a separate Scriptural category, because there was enough confusion over their status.

How do you know, apart from the Catholic Church, that these books are inspired by God, and intended by Him to be in the Bible?

Are you saying that God only know what is and is not Scripture? Or is there a human way to determine which books God wants in Scripture? And if yes, what is it?

I think we *are *dealing with your quotes here, pretty handily, even.

And like Cardinal Newman talks about in Development in Christian Doctrine (newmanreader.org/works/development/index.html)), the way a structure looks naturally changes over time without breaking the hierarchy. My dad owns his own small business. He’s the boss, but what being the boss looks like when you run a small business is very different than what being the boss looks like when you run a big one. You would hardly be able to tell he’s boss right now. If the company got large one day, and he was in the field less, and telling other people what to do more, it would look like he was a usurper. But he was boss the whole time - boss just entailed a different function at different points in history. So the ‘some ways yes, some ways no’ resemblance is a sign of authenticity.

True, no details included… here. But in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul clarifies: “anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself,” and is “guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.”
Jesus says:

That’s no ordinary Bread.

And regardless of how skeletal you find the two you mention, St. Ignatius of Antioch is pretty clear, in that he calls it “the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ” in his Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (newadvent.org/fathers/0109.htm)).

Finally, Hebrews 9:11-28 connects the words of Moses in Exodus 24:8 with the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, “this is the Blood of the Covenant,” and concludes that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Yet a symbolic interpretation severs this connection, leaving Moses with atoning sacrificial blood, and Christ with a glass of wine.

I answered the first question and readily admit that the heavily interpolated Ignatius believed in at least a …real presence if not the current view. Error has to start somewhere…

 

[Belloc_Fan]

Sure, I have covered this before. I am shocked you have not read all my work…baffling actually…anyway…
My life was in shambles, I was an addict, I read a Bible given to me, I became a Christian, I went through a period where I read all the scholars and almost did not believe, decided that the scholars, liberal had faulty premises, accepted his word on faith.

Okay now for the good part, because this often happens. The Catholic tries to talk me out of believing the Bible unless I believe it for the exact reason they do. Happens all the time.
I can accept you believe because of whatever reason but Catholics hate it when a converted atheist reads the Bible and believes.

I love that you converted from atheism! No Catholic anywhere is sad when an atheist finds Jesus upon reading the Bible. It’s the point of the Bible!

If just reading it, and having a feeling it’s correct (sorry, but you’re the one talking about feelings now), is enough for you, that’s great, but some people don’t walk away with that feeling. How can a circular, “the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true” approach reach out to those other atheists?

 

[Rightlydivide]

Veneration of Images. Early Christian history they do not teach you in RCIA!

Letter 51, as quoted from Jerome, From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem. This letter originates around the year 400 AD. Epiphanius, a bishop, wrote:

You see a lot of the Ante Nicene Fathers have things that speak against images in church. But Catholics say they mean pagan images not Christian…so this quote directly shows that the early church was opposed to them in a church.