Which Catholic doctrines are LEAST evident from the church fathers/early church?

[vz71]

Horse Hockey! If this were true, the Church would not have had do battle so many heresies.

These teachings have little to do with wether or not people want to follow the church.

The church, with all of these teachings, battles heresies today just as it has through the centuries.

 

[catholic1seeks]

This is a good point. Because it’s not as if we have all documents ever written. Sadly, some get lost over time, and so some beliefs that aren’t represented well (like Assumption of Mary) may have been written about more universally and earlier than thought.

Regardless, this is why we don’t concoct our faith either from the Bible alone, or looking back in history. We have Scripture, Apostolic Tradition, but also that living Tradition expressed even today — through the church’s teaching authority.

Still, as a fun academic exercise, I want to know how people have thought of these things in their own study of history and apologetics.

 

[Reuben_J]

Thank you. I was about to say Sacred Tradition from apostolic succession but you already mentioned it in your post. I find it so powerful in the knowledge that we (the Church) was from the apostles and everything we have today are from them. When we say Christianity is a religion of apostolic witnesses, we mean it literally.

 

[Hunho]

In fact, the choice of the books contained in the New Testament was a “teaching.” The Church Fathers originally used the term “New Testament” to refer to the Eucharist, the sacramental sign of “new covenant” of the Faith. The book of the New Testament is a collection of liturgical texts which were permitted to be read in the church and used in the Mass. Eventually, in popular usage, the term came to mean the liturgical book used by the Church.

 

[catholic1seeks]

I understand where you’re coming from, and yes I did know that about the “New Testament” referring to the Eucharist. It’s pretty interesting!

I didn’t include the canon in the poll because, while the canon might be technically a teaching, its not exactly theological in nature. It’s more like “well this early church father lists these books, that one lists these books, and some give reasons for why…” It’s not content-rich, in other words.