L
losh14
Guest
Your point is well-taken. What we can say from any historic source is what they professed and how they interpreted Scripture. This is especially useful in understanding the cultural context of people who were much closer to the world the Apostles evangelized in than we are. Paul’s epistles took on entirely new meaning to me when I thought of him writing Romans and Hebrews to an audience that was struggling with understanding Christian doctrine in light of the Judaism that many had grown up with, for example.
If I came across that way, I didn’t mean to. Let me speak carefully and categorically here, because the writings of the ECFs are meaningful when taken as they should be, and if there is an error in using them it is as with Scripture an error in use rather than in the writings themselves.
In regards to the use of these as snippets, what I meant is:
There are some in the RCC who take the ECFs to mean more than they ought, however we tend to rely more on the historical evidence in a holistic sense while the evangelicals I mentioned examine the ECFs the same way they take Scripture, which was in snippets rather than as a whole. To give an example, on this particular group the leader took a description from Justin Martyr about worship services to show that worship was very simple and spontaneous - that there was no mention of the specific prayers, that all they did was read Scripture, sing a hymn, do the Lord’s Supper and move on. That’s a snippet - he literally plucked paragraph 16 from Justin’s 2nd Apology and ignored the rest. My counter was to take the letter as a whole within its historical context -
- it was intended to counter claims made against Christians by the Roman Emperor to justify his oppression of us and outlawing of our Faith. This is attested in Justin’s 1st Apology as well as in the opening paragraphs of the 2nd, as well as in contemporary historic sources.
- Justin then addressed specifically the charge that Christian worship involved the murder of a man and cannibalizing of his body. Subsequently, Justin defined the Eucharist similarly to how we define it in the Catechism.
- Following the description of the Eucharist, Justin describes worship briefly and generally to show that there is nothing fearful to it. He doesn’t go into details because details aren’t needed to make the point.
As far as the ECFs not being in agreement with each other, this is true on some things. There are doctrines that are clearly specified in Scripture (the necessity of faith, the call to avoid sin, etc). There are doctrines that are founded in Scripture but not specifically stated - these future Christians argued over and only defined through discussion (e.g. the nature of Christ as both fully human and fully divine, or the doctrine of the Trinity). There are also doctrines that we can find support for in Scripture but that truly came about later - the condemnation and prohibition of slavery, for example. Scripture asserts that slaves are to be treated well, but the idea of prohibiting slavery altogether was never asserted therein.
As Catholics, we believe our Church to have originated on Pentecost and to be a continuation of Jesus’ ministry, and so we view the writings of the ECFs as part of our development. When we appeal to them, it isn’t mean to supercede Scripture but to illustrate reasoning, origin, or exegesis, in particular where Scripture is not clear or is silent. Sometimes they’re wrong (Origen, for example, had some truly strange notions that he later repented of, and Tertullian’s later writings reflect heretical concepts of salvation) but the errors of some should not impugn the value of others.
Is there a particular teaching or passage that you’re concerned about? Maybe it would help us both to discuss it - perhaps in a different thread or over PM.
Pace im nomine Christi
JT