Is it sanctity or blasphemy?
Readership: All; Men;
Theme: Feminine Submission
Length: 1,800 words
Reading Time: 10 minutes + 8.5 minute video
Introducing Nita Marie
Here’s a woman who says she has threesomes with God and her husband!
This Morning: ‘My Husband and I Have Threesomes with God’ (2021-10-11) Length: 8:29
Notes from the Interview
At 1:20, her eyes dart to the right just at the moment she says the word “He” (referring to Jesus). Hard to know what this microexpression indicates. Breaking eye contact could be an indicator of deep humility, reverence, or it could indicate lying or shame.
3:10-15 Her face lights up when the interviewer says, “You are feeling great about yourself posting some fairly raunchy pictures…”
From 3:30 to 4:30, she gives a little talk about what God told her in her prayers. She says,
“…the answer that continued to come to me was actually two answers. The first answer was he wanted me to celebrate my body and love my body and to love my sexuality because it’s something natural that a lot of women don’t feel good in. They don’t feel good in their sexuality. They don’t feel good in their body. And so it was very clear He wanted me to celebrate that. And then the other thing that He said was that “there are some people that will never know about Me”, meaning Him, God, unless I do this. So I do feel like there are a lot of women in the community… um… of adult modeling, that have been shunned from church, have been shunned from… uh… their communities… and so for me, I want to be a positive person in their life as well as for my fans… um… There’s a lot of men that might subscribe to my page that are lonely and just need someone to talk to…”
From 4:50 to 5:20, she says,
“Well, I think there’s a difference between having a relationship with Jesus and being in a religion. For me, I’ve just always looked at what Jesus did, and Jesus was all about love, and he was all about forgiveness, and he was all about grace, and he was all about… Most of his time he spent with sinners, you know, with prostitutes, with thieves, with people that were cast out of the community. And so I choose to focus more on what Jesus would do instead of what religion tells me to do.”
Her first sentence (in bold) is an important truth that many religious folks seem to miss. The rest (IMO) is pat blither blather about cheap love.
5:24 Her face lights up when the interviewer says, “You’re now in a relationship with somebody else, a much more sexually active relationship…” Her face brightens again when the interviewer says, “…God plays a part within your love life…” She responds with a triumphant, “Yass!”
From 5:37 to 6:50, she explains what she means by having a threesome with God. The male interviewer is totally perplexed. The female interviewer looks entirely removed, but it’s possible that she could be in deep contemplation.
Nita Marie: “Yass! So, I know this is a funny word when you say “have a threesome with God”, but it’s really just inviting God into the bedroom; and so, because of my [previous] asexual relationship, I made a commitment that the next relationship I was going to be in, I was going to make sure that God was going to be in our sex life, because… um… I knew that if I had God’s blessing in all areas of my life, it would be even better. And so I just decided to invite Him to be a part of everything, including my sex life.”
Male Interviewer: “So how do you know He’s there?”
Nita Marie: “Well, it’s just like anything else. You can invite God to be part of anything in your life, and so… um… for me, it’s just an emotional connection, and I’m much more open because I am remarried; so I do have a husband now; so I am much more open to my husband when God is there.”
Male Interviewer: “Does your husband know that God is there, when God is there?”
Nita Marie: “Not all the time, but I do, you know, pray that God is with us every night in our… in the bedroom with us… um… and so he feels Him too, even though he doesn’t necessarily pray with me to have God there. Um… He feels him too.”
Female Interviewer: “And you’ve said that by having God there, this is the best sex you’ve ever had in your life…???”
When Nita Marie replies affirmatively, a gleeful smile breaks across the female interviewer’s face. It’s hard to know exactly what happened in the female interviewer in that moment. Maybe she was glad to know that sex and sanctification are concomitant. Or she may have reached the limits of her own credible belief. Or maybe she identified something in her own experience. Could it be that maybe she realized faith?
Assessments and Incentives
There are a couple questions that come up concerning Nita Marie’s story.
- What makes her think she is having threesomes with God?
- Why is she posting her sex life on OnlyFans and talking openly about having threesomes with God?
If I were to guess the answer to (1), and assuming she is sincere, I would say she’s experiencing the open hearted humility, passion, and feelings of love that God intended people to experience through sex. Yes, humility truly imparts life to the humble!
Concerning question (2), we could take her explanations at face value, but if we dig further into this, we may find that there are a large number of incentives that could be driving her to publicly display her sex life on OnlyFans.
- It’s unlikely that hypergamy is a factor here, since she is apparently happily married, or so she says.
- She could be doing this for the attention, fame, influence, and/or the money.
- Or maybe she sincerely believes taking her sex life public in this way is what God wants her to do!
It would be easier to get on board with her viewpoint if her husband stood alongside her saying the same things. But we don’t hear any statements from her husband, and I cannot find any information about him whatsoever online, so that leaves her testimony in a rather vacuous context. We can only assume that his silence implies he’s happy with the extra 1.8 million she’s bringing in.
Be careful what you ask for…
In yesterday’s post, The Value of Feminine Humility, Red Pill Apostle cited Farm Boy asking,
“Why is it that the fellas around these parts put a premium on [humility]?”
RPA pointed out the obvious — a humble woman is contented, pleasant, submissive, and easy to get along with. It stands to reason that many men could easily believe that feminine humility would be somewhat of a cure all for many modern woes.
Well, the reason I wanted to include Nita Marie’s story in this month’s theme is because she’s got humility and submission down pat!
I know this idea will immediately strike the reader as being amusingly incongruent with any OnlyFans star, but consider the following…
- Her willingness to be joyfully submissive to God’s will about embracing her sexuality (whether or not you agree with how she does that or whether it is genuine or not).
- Her willing enthusiasm about having regular sex within marriage is unique and remarkable.
- If you can believe she’s truly a married woman who is regularly engaging in sexual relations with her husband, then she’s apparently having a very regular and fulfilling marital relationship — and she openly gives God credit for this.
- Considering how she talks about God being involved in her sex life, I doubt that her husband is complaining about their sex life. At worst, he might be embarassed when she talks about it.
- OTOH, if you believe Nita Marie is shooting the bull about God and being a Christian, and is jiggling her glands for the money and/or to wag her Triple D tower power on OnlyFans, that still requires quite a bit of humility. She’s willingly submitting her fleshly nature to the lusty, cash generating eyes of her 900,000+ followers by effortlessly doing what women do best — and with a warm gentle smile on her lovely cake face.
- Even if she’s not truly as humble and submissive in spirit as she appears to be, she clearly recognizes the charitable soft power of female humility and submission and uses this to her advantage, unlike most women, including Christian wives!
So she’s humble and submissive any way you look at it, by spirit, by nature, by personality, or through well honed habit (c.f. Romans 6:16).
Christian men say they want a submissive woman… Well, Nita Marie is a great example!
I can imagine that there are some sex starved Christian men or husbands out there who, upon hearing Nita Marie’s story, lovelornly respond by praying inwardly, “LorDDD Jesus! Let my wife be as humble and submissive as Nita Marie!!!”
Conclusions
Overall, I think Nita Marie’s testimony has some powerful points, both positive and negative.
The Good
The possible good effect is that it cuts against the common notion in churchianity that sex is dirty or that sexuality is shameful, or that knowing God and having a lively sex life are diametrically opposed to each other. This is more or less her stated purpose.
The Bad
Doing nude / sex shows on OnlyFans while professing to be a Christian denigrates the moral repute of Christianity and contributes to the impression that Christian women are 304s.
Comprehensively, Nita Marie’s life and testimony justifies divorce and remarriage and encourages women to do the same. She never offers any details about why her first marriage was sexless for seven years. Her personality comes across as very happy and pleasant, and she doesn’t seem like someone who would use sex to control the marriage, but I’m guessing this might be a faux public image. I might guess she could have gained massive amounts of weight to the point that her husband lost interest. It’s also likely that maybe she was never sexually attracted to her husband in the first place.
The Ugly
The very idea of having a threesome with God is immediately shocking to traditional Christian sensibilities, and borders on blasphemy.
But the question remains: Is it truly the hamsterbated vainglorious blasphemy of an adulterous* woman? Or is it a miraculous second landing marital sanctification that begs the unfathomable grace of God? Concerning her claims about “God being in the bedroom”, could it really be that Nita Marie is experiencing sex the way God intended it and is called by God to encourage other women to discover the same?
* Nita Marie is technically an adulteress since she divorced and remarried while her first husband is still living — if she is actually remarried, that is.
Related
- Dalrock: Repenting of sexual morality. (2015-11-2)
- Σ Frame: Why do Christian women have the reputation of being whores? (2019-2-23)
- Σ Frame: Christian vs. Non-Christian Women – A Negligeeable Difference (2019-3-20)
- Daily Mail: Christian OnlyFans model who rakes in $200,000 a month insists that religion does not ‘interfere’ with stripping off for money — and says her equally devout parents are ‘so proud’ (2021-1-19)
- Σ Frame: It was god’s will for her to be a stripper. (2021-1-22)
- Rob Henderson: The True Self is the Person You Want Others to Believe You Are (2022-6-19)
ArchAngel
caterpillar345
Soup Sandwich
Lexet Blog
Novaseeker
Oscar
Red Pill Apostle
Jack
thedeti
Σ Frame 
As a huge proponent of women embracing their sexuality and being uninhibited — on a regular basis, I might add — with their husbands, I call BS on Nita.
I think a dark spirit is speaking to her and she thinks it’s God. God’s word in no way hints that “uncovering her nakedness” for the world to see is helpful. She’s a good looking woman making a buck while wrapping it in the religious language as a calling in an attempt to shed the shame of it.
The whole “relationship not religion” thing has a strong point of truth in it (I agree with you on that Jack), but as is often the case with liberal Christians, they’ve take it too far.
No one questions why their car has a manual, or their cake a recipe. Heck, no one even bats an eye at the Torah for Jews or the Quran for Muslims. We accept that anything done properly has guides or instructions. A book, if you will.
But for some reason when it comes to Christianity, people like Nita want to throw out the book and decide we can just depend on our desperately wicked hearts to connect us with a Jesus who only came to spread our particularly interpretation of love.
Any woman who enjoys sex with her husband is going to make some good points. I reviewed a book a while back on my blog where the authoress (Belgian sex therapist Esther Perel) made some good points about sex in marriage. I acknowledged her good points, but her atheist/agnostic world view ultimately kept her from really being able to get to the heart of the matter on some issues. The review covered several posts, but this is the relevant one.
Without “Big T Truth”, getting part of the truth right, but a major component wrong is like serving up a delicious dish of food with a tenth of cyanide in it because 90% of it just fine, LOL.
LikeLiked by 5 people
By buying into the false Madonna-Whore dichotomy which is the western paradigm for many.
This allows the over-correction of confusing healthy Eros with Lust as a previous result of throwing out the baby with the bathwater as a result of thinking of sexuality as inherently defiling even within marriage.
Even the passionless sex that is only functionally for the sake of procreation promoted by Augustine for example is a mutilation of God’s design.
The ever-virgin Mother vs the wanton Whore dichotomy. Allows evil to monopolize what is otherwise a good gift of God.
Satan loves to play up this false dichotomy.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I took the 8 minutes to listen to the video, so I have a better picture of what she was conveying.
Basically, I agree with lastholdout that this is glamorized prostitution same as any other OnlyFans chick.
She tried to make it sound as if “inviting God” into your marriage bed is something new and different or foreign to most Christians. I have met a few women who have been very open about the fact that they have done that, particularly in instances where they have had past relationships. They want God to be honored in their marriage beds as much as anywhere else.
This is novel only to people who view Christianity as a prudish, sex averse faith. Of course devout believers want God to be honored even in our marriage beds! We recognize that sex was God’s idea and means of bonding as well as procreation in the first place.
This kind of thing, regardless of her good intentions, is the absolute worst way to expose Christianity to women especially but also men who are battling sexually. And I do believe she has some good intentions, but you know what the ubiquitous “they” say about the road to Hell and all that…
LikeLiked by 4 people
Just retitle this the locust’s cryptonite. Busty blonde, threesomes, deceitful liar, harlot. I almost relapsed she’s in a neighboring state part of me said get in the dam car and drive! The other part said go to work. I got a girl like this pregnant! Wtf was I thinking.
LikeLike
Eeeeeeeasy there locust. Time for a good automotive analogy. The tread on those tires is very warn, the manufacture date suggests there may be some dry rot, there are some unsightly bulges suggesting the internal belting is shot and it is at the point where takes a whole bottle of tire shine just to be presentable for the showroom floor.
LikeLiked by 6 people
In light of God’s word, the Marriage bed is indeed honorable, undefiled and pure if it’s not contaminated by sexual immorality (Hebrews 13:4KJV).
She is greatly deceived however. And using God’s name in vain. It definitely is a misuse and abuse of femininity. Like a kite uncut and flying away.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I sort of see where she’s coming from – wanting to do away with the genophobia that seems to run rampant through Evangelical Christianity – but she’s going about it the wrong way.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can’t help but ask a couple provocative questions: Other than being female, how is Nita any different than the guy (I think Mike is his name) who posts pictures of himself and his wife in various sexual situations and coaches other men on how to create headship in the marriage? Aren’t the two employing similar strategies in their “ministries?” I am curious to see how many here who consider Mike to be some sort of guru are aligned with Nita. ??
LikeLiked by 2 people
Maybe, but the difference between Mike Davis and Nita Marie is that Mike isn’t doing this for self aggrandizement or for others’ approval. He does what he does to help other men.
Nita is doing this for attention.
LikeLike
She is certainly taking an unconventional approach to “teaching the younger women how to love their husbands.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite fit the full definition of “humility.” She’s setting men up to lust. There are plenty of Proverbs warning of this type of woman. If she’s really pulling in nearly 2 million, that is motivation enough to spin whatever story will perpetuate that flow. We’re kidding ourselves if we think she is doing anything but pr0stituting herself.
LikeLiked by 3 people
$2m!? How is Nita pulling in bank at that level? I don’t get it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m with Elspeth on this. The way we know that this is not of God is because it’s being exposed to the world and she’s blabbing about this to everyone.
A Godly sex life is not even really a threesome – it’s more like God putting the man and the woman together, blessing them, telling them to enjoy and be free, and then hanging back in the background as the lovers love each other. (See Song of Solomon.) The woman does not then go out and talk about everything that happened.
A God blessed sex life between husband and wife is intensely private. It’s not something a woman talks about to anyone else, especially not in the kinds of graphic detail Nita is giving here. The marital bedroom is a place for God, the husband, and the wife, and that’s it. No one else gets to come in. No one else gets to see the marital couple. No one else is allowed to know what is said or done between the couple behind closed doors.
Certainly, the wife does not go out and show her body to other men. She does not show her body for money. That’s not of God.
LikeLiked by 6 people
Historically, sex education was never required (and probably why Freud had this weird hangup with sex with his mother) because poor parents used to have sex in the same room as their kids because they didn’t have large enough houses to have private sleeping quarters. Such conditions still occur in places like urban India.
Now, parents can try to be subtle and quiet about it, but like a condom, it isn’t going to be 100% effective.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I am obviously not from the third world or ancient times, but I’m not buying that the marriage bed was public in times past.
Clearly, things are different now that more comfort (material and otherwise) and leisure has made sex something people obsess over more. And I’m certain when people could carve out privacy for sex, they did.
LikeLike
I didn’t say it was public, I said sex occurred with children in the room. That’s still “private”, but it’s not alone. In any case, this is one area of research that I won’t be pursuing further. If you choose not to believe it, I’m not going to make any attempt to dissuade you. Google is there if you are brave enough to find the proof. I know I’m not.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I see your point, ramman. I originally misread your comment. I am fairly certain there were situations where parents and kids sharing a room was a thing that they had to navigate.
Of course, it underscores another point that reveals the decadence of our current culture. While I’m sure sex was enjoyable enough, the kind of stuff modern insist make a great love life would have been utterly impossible for the vast majority of people way back when.
Logistically, the loud, rapturous, chandelier swinging abandon held out as the idea simply could not have been a thing. Nothing against it, as I am thankful for a split plan house and a private room, but still.
But that’s a subject for another day.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Speaking of sex being public in the past: Martin Luther on his wedding night had Melancthon watch. Not sure why. Perhaps they thought there needed to be a witness that the marriage was actually consumated since Luther had been a monk and the bride a nun before. Melanchton wrote that it was the most absurd thing he had ever seen. Poor Luther.
LikeLike
Historically speaking ramman3000 is correct. I would also add that there would be witnesses for the consummation of the wedding back in the middle ages.
There is a history of the marriage horizontal tango being a more public affair than we would think. My best guess is that Victorian sensibilities made these points of history seem ‘icky’.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That may very well be, but I very much doubt the kids were watching their parents do amateur pr0n. I very much doubt the kids were getting graphic gynecological lessons or seeing the equivalent of Hustler magazine spreads.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I would guess there would be witnesses for the physical evidence of the consummation (i.e. bloody bed linens) rather than the consummation itself.
LikeLike
Well, the truth is somewhere else. In ancient times, your immediate family might be aware of sex between mom and dad, and may have gotten a good notion of the mechanics, but it was never public. The scope of “private” has changed only a very little since those ancient folks living crammed into one tent.
In a village setting, the rest of the community was almost always your cousins. Those are the folks who needed to see that you took your woman to your tent and closed the flap behind you.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I have a female relative, professing Christian (although I’ve always suspected churchian) in her mid-forties who cheated on her husband and then divorced him. Nothing unusual there. She also posted a bunch of pics on Facebook, nothing salacious, with the new man on a trip they took to Cabo. I mean, it was like dozens of romantic pictures of them kissing, his hand up her skirt pulling it up to her panty line, etc. you get the picture. Okay, nothing really unusual about that; a bit bold for sure, but in this day and age of social media, not outlandish. Then she posted some pics of her heading to a concert and she was dressed like a street walker. I mean, from a relatively conservative dresser to a 304 on steroids so to speak with her appearance; and okay, quite weird and a bit over the top to say the least, but she’s not the first one to do it, aka professing Christian female acting all “girls gone wild.”
So, what’s the point RPB? Glad you asked. In the street walker-like attire pics, she was in her NEW home posing in the foyer area it looked like, I guess she and BF/live in lover/hubby to be (?) have their own place now, and the wall was loaded with scripture versus. I mean not one or two, at least a half a dozen, large sized prints and wood, decorative Scriptures. Crazy!…but there’s more! Everyone of the verses was a love verse, I.e. scriptures celebrating Jesus love. I about fell out of my chair!
Okay, I get the whole cheating and divorcing thing, hypergamy anyone? But why cling to the illusion of Jesus in this whole thing? My question is quasi-rhetorical guys; but still, really people. Ladies, if you’re going to go the nouveau slut/whore route, why not pack up the Jesus paraphernalia and either 1) Get rid of it; or 2) If you can’t bring yourself to getting rid of it, at least put it away in the attic until one day, the REAL JESUS gets a hold of you and you repent of your adulteress ways.
LikeLiked by 6 people
This would make a good sermon illustration for the brave pastor. It graphically illustrates the difference between “hearers of the word” and “doers of the word”: The Jews who had the words of God, but did not believe them versus the Gentiles who did not have the words of God, but showed that they believed them by their actions.
LikeLiked by 2 people
We know of a similar but less dramatic case. Some good friends divorced after 30 years (she was a harpy who thought the sexless marriage was swell; he finally had enough and left her . . . though shockingly, she finally got in shape after he left). Both still claim to be Christians. Now she posts vacation photos with her fiance. Nothing salacious, but the odds of them having their own rooms is zero. And they are moving in together before marriage (for practical reasons, of course). She’s never missed a Bible study but once asked if having sex outside of marriage was a sin (I think she was vainly trying to rationalize her kids’ behavior). And she’s super-excited to have him go on the Walk to Emmaus (a spiritual weekend, mostly Methodists, that is heavy on emotions and light on doctrine). She’s on the board of the organization. It will never occur to anyone on this weekend to chastise the guy for having sex out of wedlock. And they’ll have a fancy church wedding. And she’s doing this all in front of her kids and grandkids. And, of course, she’s pro-perv, pro-abortion, etc.
I’m glad to say that they wouldn’t get away with this at our church. If a couple lets on that they are sleeping together, the leaders push a reset button.
LikeLiked by 1 person
EM
I’m finding attitudes like those of your friends to be common among people of my age group. If they were married 30 years they’re most likely in their mid 50s and thus are late Boomer or early GenX like me.
Christianity but having extramarital sex, divorce and remarriage, extramarital sex isn’t a “big deal” – these are all very prevalent attitudes even among those professing Christianity and who are regular churchgoers. Obviously lots of reasons for this, most notably that most people of my generation had premarital sex with people other than our spouses. There are no real short term immediate consequences for premarital sex other than bacterial STDs which can be quickly cured.
LikeLiked by 1 person
thedeti,
Agreed. But they are such hypocrites. I had premarital sex, but I was a pagan at the time. And even if I had been a Christian, that doesn’t mean that once we’ve done a sin, it doesn’t matter how many times we repeat it. The lady I mentioned was very smart intellectually but lousy at logic. She had sex before marriage, so she thought it would be hypocritical to challenge her kids to be chaste. But hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing another today. I tried to tell her that learning from your mistakes to help your kids is wise living. But she is far too worldly to change.
I seriously doubt I’d remarry if my wife died (and statistically, my lifespan is much shorter than hers!), but if I did, I’d draw clear boundaries – i.e., no sex before marriage, but plenty of it afterward.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@thedeti,
Exodus 22:16-17 provides the solution to premarital sex. Shotgun weddings. And a fine paid to the Brides Father of the Bride Price.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@info
It’s not a solution, it’s a civil punishment for trying to make a man’s daughter a concubine. A man having sex with a virgin woman is a marriage. If this occurs, there are three possible outcomes:
1) Pay the bride price you should have paid to make her a free wife (shotgun wedding).
2) Don’t pay the bride price, but remain married. She is a bond wife (concubine). No father should allow this, but he has that right.
3) Pay the bride price and end the marriage (i.e. divorce).
These are the three options in view in Exodus. #2 is essentially forbidden, which is the purpose of the law. You can’t just make a concubine out of a woman, even if she consents, without her father’s permission.
LikeLike
Not. Of. God.
LikeLiked by 3 people
The early church didn’t attend to carnal things like weddings etc. They were correct to do that. Sacrament does not mean ‘administered by clergy’ unless it’s a specifically clerical Sacrament. Marriage is not the business of clergy.
The ‘including God in the bedroom/marriage’ thing is just an authority bypass. The woman is saying she’s the conduit to God equal (or superior) to her paramour (“husband”).
This is another version of preistesses of Ishtar, or turning Christianity into a cult of Aphrodite.
I’m not at all squeamish about sex but I don’t know how y’all call it any other way than that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think everyone here understands that a woman’s status is who she’s boning, think the old ‘order military wives by rank’ story.
“I’m screwing Jesus” is 1:1 as megalomaniac statement as a man saying, “I am God Almighty, tremble before me.” There is no humility there.
Christianity proper keeps that type of female megalomania in check with Jesus being celibate and all, among other things. What we see here is an obviously blasphemous attempt to bypass that fact.
LikeLike
I didn’t get this impression from watching the video interview. I had the impression that she is experiencing God in her sex life and that she’s very excited and pleased about this. If she had told her husband privately, “I feel God’s love when we’re making love”, then that would be very humbling and touching. But “having a threesome with my husband and God” is a very awkward way to put it because of the mental image it brings up. Saying this publicly is 100x as awkward and leaves it open to criticism and misinterpretation. A hamster high on Jesus and humbled by the attention, yes, but megalomania, no.
LikeLike
In what paradigm exists a humble attention whore? Look at what she does, not what she says or what airs she puts on. Every whore plays on her clients hangups. She’s always got a heart of gold that gets the gold from the client. This chick is to churchians what ahegao face girl is to weebs.
Nope. She should be focused on me at that point. She can feel God’s love in family worship or day to day blessings. There are times for different sentiments and mixing and conflating eros and agape is typically going to be some kind of perverse mess.
So, are you saying you think her sex life as it stands is right, the man she’s with, etc. … or that God gives his experience to behaviors that are not right? I don’t really understand taking anything she has to say at face value, what am I missing?
LikeLike
Prariepolyguy,
I know God sends the blessings of His grace to both the just and the unjust, to the righteous and the sinful, but other than that, I can’t give you any pat answers. I’m trying to figure it out myself. But I do think it’s more complex than what you’ve described. For one, I can’t imagine telling my wife that it’s wrong or perverse for her to feel loved by God if she told me that was her experience during our lovemaking.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a good thought. The thing is that prevenient Grace is the Grace God gives us to know Him and know right from wrong even in our state of sin where our faculties are darkened so we can’t naturally know good from evil.
We need that because there is no other way we could choose Him naturally, nor could we ever properly know right from wrong without it.
But religious ecstasy is not only generated by an experience of Grace. Any ecstasy experienced due to sin is demonic, not of God.
But to the other thing: It’s this chick’s behavior that makes it plain she’s messed up. She does say a lot of the right words, as far as the plain meaning of the words she says, you’re right it’s reasonably wholesome.
And I suppose you’re right, if a wholesome wife was saying it privately to her husband it’s probably a good sign, and you’re right that it would be best to let it be and not argue with her.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ramman,
OK, but seems to me that is beside the point.
This is also why cancelling non-consummated Hebrew marriages was permissible, but why Jesus said that once sex took place divorce was impermissible.
Great point! I am glad you brought it up. I was raised Protestant, and was an enthusiastic practitioner of it for many year. Your point made me realize, I haven’t studied Catholic views on dating of scripture. I did indeed take the dating of Revelation from my Protestant studies.
If you say so. I haven’t studied preterism (I was just confirmed last year, and have other theological priorities). But this really has nothing to do with my point, which is that Holy Tradition predates Holy (NT) Scripture, and that Paul instructed the Thessalonian Christians that they are equally valid.
So you say. But if I had a dollar for every Protestant interpretation of Revelation and Daniel, and every Protestant essay on eschatology, I’d be rich. Same goes for every Protestant attack on the Catholic Church (which attacks, FWIW, I used to accept with great faith).
I get it. I used to be obsessed with eschatology too. I wanted to have it all worked out. But so many got it so wrong (and no one got it right) that I just kind of scoff at all of it these days.
Not so. Fallen human nature being what it is, mankind usually doesn’t obey Jesus Christ. That is the default position. We can see it even today, with the abominable “Synodal Way” of the German bishops. It contradicts scripture, tradition, and the clear statements of the current pope!
The important thing is, getting it right eventually. Which, IMO, happened.
I agree. It works quite the opposite: Scripture => Papacy.
LikeLike
Methinks this be bullsh!t. No offense intended, but the Catholic Church has always taught that marriage is a sacrament, administered by a priest.
That’s true, “administered by clergy” is not the definition of sacrament. However, all true sacraments are indeed administered by clergy.
On the contrary, for a valid marriage a couple shouldn’t settle for less than clergy.
LikeLike
Let’s take a speed-run through history.
During the first 300 years of Christianity, marriage was a family — not church — matter. Outside of Ignatius and Polycarp who urged both parents and clergy to bless marriages, there is very little said about marriage ceremonies. The church wasn’t involved.
It wasn’t until after the advent of Roman Catholicism in the second half of the 4th century that this changed. The first official mention of priests being involved in a marriage ceremony at all was the Council of Carthage in 398AD.
Even so, the general developmental trend over the centuries was towards a negative view of marriage and against a positive view of marriage (and especially sex). See, for example, Origen’s castration or Augustine’s views on sex in marriage. The evidence that the Roman Catholic clergy viewed marriage and sex as at best merely tolerable and at worst a carnal sin is fairly overwhelming compared to the alternative view.
In the 5th century, the Council of Florence described marriage — between Christ and the church — as a sacrament.
During the Medieval era, the feudal lords controlled marriage. Marriage would not be treated as a sacrament by the church until the 12th century, when the priestly caste started to take on a much stronger role in marriage. This would develop and become normalized over a few centuries until at the Council of Trent in 1563 when marriage was officially added to canon law as the seventh sacrament.
LikeLike
OK, maybe you’ve got me. Maybe it’s only been a sacrament for a mere thousand years. Although, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Most things in antiquity were not written down.
Which is why Holy Tradition is so important.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ramman3000,
I clicked on your link. You would have been more convincing if you had not provided a link to your anti-Catholic propaganda.
LikeLike
@Kentucky Gent
No, I don’t accept the axiom that church tradition is whatever the church says it is in order to imply continuity where none is in evidence. Claiming that this is why tradition is important is circular reasoning. The only thing that makes what I say “anti-Catholic propaganda” is the hearsay testimony of the RCC itself.
My link is just a clarification of what I said here five days ago. It is based on scripture and the historical record. Calling scripture and historical facts propaganda borders on calamy. I’m more than happy to consider an alternative explanation based on scripture that isn’t based on tradition or personal revelation. Are you willing to do the same?
Early Christians had nothing but scripture, the historical record, and current events and they correctly identified both the flood of errors that came out of the mouth of the serpent and identified the woman on the seven hills (which could not have been the Roman Empire, because it had abandoned the seat a century earlier).
So, the critical point here is Roman Catholic tradition is not historically correct. What PPG stated remains correct…
…and supported by the majority of early church writers who (as a group) scorned marriage.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ramman,
Not really, but it hardly matters because there are other reasons I will get to.
Again not really. What we have here is you have your version of history which you are trying to elevate to objective fact, while saying RCC history is “hearsay”. So this is nothing more than 2 people disagreeing about which history is definitive. It has nothing to do with calumny, and everything to do with which version of history we accept. Your history is no more verifiable than that of the RCC.
Of course not. And as I promised earlier, for other reasons. Namely, scripture. Specifically, the Apostle Paul’s 2nd epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, v.15:
In other words, scripture commands us to keep Holy Tradition, so I cannot discard it and yet remain true to His Word.
Quite the opposite — all they had was oral teaching from the Apostles, and the OT. The NT didn’t get written for decades, according the most accepted Biblical scholarship.
History is not verifiable, so this boils down to you choosing which history you want to believe, based on your subjective ideas about the RCC.
Excuse me, but do you actually read your Bible? Paul spoke clearly on this. It is better to marry than to burn. But he would prefer that everyone be like him (chaste). He also warned the chaste not to lord it over their married brethren. No disrespect to St. Augustine, who is a doctor of the church, but his writings are not accepted as scripture, while Paul is.
LikeLike
@Kentucky Gent
You called it propaganda, falsely imputing my motive. I couldn’t have been more objective—while drawing the same conclusion—if I tried. Using only scripture and history, anyone can independently verify it.
This is a red-herring. The Book of Revelation was scripture from the moment John wrote it down, and the Book of Daniel was long since available. I quoted from nothing else in article at the link I gave.
Paul never wrote about weddings, which is why “the early church didn’t attend to carnal things like weddings” is a true statement.
But, I was unclear. Origin was overzealous, but he was Pauline on marriage and didn’t scorn it. Tertullian was also Pauline on marriage and spoke positively of widows remarrying. Clement of Alexandra wrote against the rising trend trend that marriage was fornication (Stromata, Book III), but it wasn’t until the late 4th century that the ‘early’ church scorned marriage (and especially sex): Jerome (Against Vigilantius; Against Jovinius; Epistle 22; Against Helvidius), Ambrose (Concerning Virginity; Letter 42; Epistle 63), Chrysostom (to Theodore, Letter 1 and 2), Pope Liberius, Pope Siricius (Letter to the Church at Milan), the Church at Milan, and Augustine. The ‘heretics’ (e.g. Jovinius, Vigilantius, Sarmatio, Barbatianus, and Helvidius) that objected were excommunicated or banished.
That’s untrue. The diocesan splits, the diminished role of both civil and ecumenical Rome, the later three Petrine Seats in a See of One, are documented in extant Roman records, 4th century church councils, and attested to in the words of various church clergyman themselves, including the Bishops and Popes.
In particular, from 307AD—when Meletius of Lycopolis unlawfully ordained bishops—to 451 AD, no less than five church councils had to deal with ecclesiastical and Metropolitan jurisdictional problems, dealing with two Metropolitians in a single geographical unit. The Council of Nicaea (325AD), which gave Antioch jurisdiction over Jerusalem, citing “the custom of Rome”, is considered authoritative.
But, in the Diocese of Italy, the Metropolitan seat was with the Bishop in Milan. The “custom of Rome” referred to Rome being under the Bishop of Milan, carving out a smaller defined geographic boundary within the diocese. So too would Jerusalem be granted limited geographic scope. The example of the limited authority of Rome helped solve the problem.
These days, it is claimed that Canon 6 of the Council of Nicaea must mean that the custom of Rome granted Rome primacy because—by tradition—Rome has always had primacy, but this is both circular reasoning and an ignorance of history.
One pertinent example of this is Jerome’s confusion—in his dispute with John of Jerusalem in 398AD—that Nicaea granted Antioch jurisdiction over the whole diocese of the East, was an impossible anachronism at Nicaea, because it included Alexandria at the time. In the intermediate time, the ecclesiastical unit of the church had changed from provinces to dioceses and the civil diocese had split into two, but Jerome didn’t know that. See: Jerome, To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem, paragraphs 4, 10 and 37.
This error has persisted. In 1880, Father James Loughlin made the exact same mistake in arguing for the primacy of the Roman Pontiff to assign jurisdictions (over the other Petrine Seats). See: James Loughlin, The Sixth Nicene Canon and the Papacy, American Catholic Quarterly Review, vol. 5). Around the same time and making the same mistake, famed Catholic historian Philip Schaff (1819-1893), in his history of the Christian Church, claimed that Rome had its own diocese.
The Papal primacy of Rome at the Council of Nicaea—the first time the subject is mentioned in the historical records—is based on a misunderstanding of history. This is verifiable, but it’s far too late for the mistake to be admitted, so it will be circularly defined away, since tradition is never wrong.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ramman3000
I’d say the Eastern Orthodox church is more along biblical lines in terms of rejecting the Papacy and the Patriarch system.
The Filioque controversy and the Energy-Essence dispute is what caused the first official Church Schism before the Reformation.
They still held the Church Fathers in high regard.
LikeLike
This is formally heretical per the doctrine of the Catholic church. Quite seriously actually. It’s Donatism.
A baptism is valid even if a pagan or heretic preforms it, because it is ultimately the act of the Holy Ghost, not of the person preforming the baptism.
That’s why re baptizing was such a serious heresy, it disrespects the Holy Ghost. See article 67 of the third part of summa if you want a reference. Similarly article 87 notes that schismatics, heretics, etc. can give valid communion, for very similar reasons.
The most important sacriment, Baptism, not only can be administered by laity but there is a moral obligation for them to perform it in situations of duress. Some clerical sacraments do need clerics. But the lowest sacrement, matrimony, has its efficient cause in consent of the parties to be married.
No cleric is mentioned in summa at all when talking about matrimony. That is not an oversight.
Ramman3000 did a good summary and I’m on the same page as him in a lot of ways. But you don’t need to go to anti catholic sites to see that ‘development in doctrine’ is the hallmark of Catholicism. That’s ultimately what separates Catholics from both the eastern and western churches. Rome changed how marriage works based on doctrinal developments, not on the notion that some secret tradition always supported the rulings of the council of Trent.
The early church definitely did not oversee weddings. Nor did clergy have anything to do with matrimony other than a totally optional blessing. And that’s for the first 1500 years of Christianity. Catholic sources don’t disagree with this either.
LikeLike
Ramman 3k
Good info. You hit a few points I didn’t know about and want to read into more, esp about Roman primacy claims.
As a point of order, Schaff was reformed and anti-romanist personally. If he made the mistake you say he did he made it honestly. His collections are very good. You can see his personal background coming out when he goes into great detail on the Swiss reformed movement, his own roots. They were my first dip into deep church history.
LikeLike
@info
I used to think so too, but rejecting the system while keeping its image and mark is self-defeating.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ramman,
It wasn’t an attack on your motive. I have no doubt you sincerely believe all that.
That wasn’t the point. The point was, you said that the early Christians only had scripture. This is simply not true, because it wan’t written down for decades. Thus the earliest Christians did not have it. But they did have the oral tradition taught by the Apostles.
Not only that, they didn’t have internet or telephones or automobiles. So when Paul or John or whomever wrote to one of the churches, the other churches might not see get to read the epistle for months or even years. Or maybe they would never see it. And, IIRC, Revelation is the newest book in the canon, dated somewhere between 80 and 100 AD. So maybe half a century after Christ’s resurrection. Which is probably more than the average lifespan of 2000 years ago.
Marriage/wedding — You’re playing a semantics game here. A marriage is the result of a wedding, so it is clear that Paul approved of weddings.
On verifiability: History is simply not verifiable. This is not a matter of opinion. It doesn’t depend on which history is under consideration. All history is categorically unverifiable.
LikeLike
Yes, I mistakenly said “famous Catholic historian” instead of “famous historian of Catholicism.”
I’d appreciate if you let me know if you find any more errors in what I said. I find myself often revising what I write as problems are identified.
Regarding the historical controversy over of ecumenical disputes bypassing Rome and going to Milan instead, the later church would say “see how these older councils ruled that all ecumenical disputes had to go through Rome?” never realizing that this was not because Rome had primacy, but because Rome was the lower court and jumping straight to the higher court violated due process.
As my limited citations show, both Protestant and Catholic have largely accepted the same tradition, and thus make the same errors. When Jerome made his mistake, he didn’t have the internet to correct it. He didn’t know that 75 years earlier the Diocese of Oriens was not the same Diocese of Oriens he was familiar with, because the name had never changed, only its civil boundaries. Or rather, if he knew, he failed to grasp the significance.
The irony is that Jerome drew the correct conclusion, but used an invalid argument. Nicaea did give Antioch primacy over Jerusalem, but it wasn’t because Nicaea gave Antioch domain over the whole diocese, which it never could have done. It was because of the precedent of Rome.
LikeLike
@prariepolyguy
You’re right that baptism can be administered by someone who isn’t clergy. So can the Eucharist.
My statement was poorly worded. I can see how someone could read it as “However, all true sacraments are indeed administered only by clergy.”
But that’s not what I meant (nor did I write “only clergy”). What I meant is, “There are no sacraments that are not administered by clergy.” My apologies for the confusion.
LikeLike
@ramman,
Regarding your historical survey (The diocesan splits, the diminished role of both civil and ecumenical Rome, the later three Petrine Seats in a See of One, are documented in extant Roman records, 4th century church councils, and attested to in the words of various church clergyman themselves, including the Bishops and Popes….etc.):
You’ve obviously put a lot of work into studying church history through the ages. I’m sure you know more about it than I do. Which is why I hope you don’t take what I am about to write the wrong way, because it might sound like I am discarding all of your posts and work as irrelevant. But the main argument for the papacy that I learned doesn’t come from history or tradition, but from scripture. I heard it from a Catholic apologist named Trent Horn, who did a 3-hour episode of Pints with Aquinas with Matt Fradd.
This is not to say I haven’t heard any arguments from history or tradition. Michael Lofton did a good one on his show, Reason and Theology, using the writings of Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs! Hoisted by their own petards, I’d say. Anyway, I forgot the details. You can find it on Youtube if you’re interested. And it isn’t that important to me because it is only a secondary argument anyway, IMO.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Kentucky Gent
Marriage is a socially sanctioned sexual relationship, but it is sex that produces the one flesh bond that creates the cleaving, the marriage. Paul was very clearly concerned about marriage because people were unable to keep themselves from having sex. The only time he invoked exousia (authority) was to more-or-less demand that married people have sex. Sex is that important, weddings are not.
This is also why cancelling non-consummated Hebrew marriages was permissible, but why Jesus said that once sex took place divorce was impermissible.
This raises an interesting problem. The late dating of Revelation is, ironically, a common Protestant claim. The Jesuits invented preterism during the Counter-Reformation in response to Protestant claims that Rome was identified in Revelation. Preterism states that most (or all) of Revelation was fulfilled in 70AD. If Preterism is true, then the bulk of the early church would have had to widely have the book of Revelation prior to that point, otherwise it would have served no purpose. Your claims utterly obliterate Roman Catholic preterism.
Until they received Revelation, the whole of the very early church only had Daniel. While they could not have identified the seven kings of Revelation, they could have identified the iron legs empire. Thus, when they received the book of Revelation and John told them that they were on the sixth of seven kings, a familiarity with Daniel would tell them to expect the transition to the iron/clay period. But, God had given them sufficient time (about 300 years) to make copies of Revelation and spread them throughout the churches, such that by the time Daniel’s ten, three, and little horns emerged, everyone had what they needed in writing.
The doctrine of Roman apostolic succession logically rests on Roman Papal primacy. That the doctrine of Roman Papal primacy is based on historical anachronisms refutes the idea of Roman apostolic succession. To wit, the official list of Rome’s popes descended from Peter completely relies on the notion that Peter and those specific successors always had primacy, or else the RCC has no authority to declare it so. But it is not true that they always had primacy.
As for scripture, the invalidity of Roman papal succession has no impact on scripture, which remains unchanged and unaffected, or even the alleged existence of apostolic succession.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Kentucky Gent,
The way you rephrased it is good, I’ll accept that, but it’s a catch 22 for you.
When we come down to the brass tax Aquinas laid out the effective cause if matrimony, it’s the concent of the married parties to each other, and consummation makes it binding. Everything beyond that us a kind of blessing, an external approval. A preist can administer the sacriment of marriage only in that he himself may marry. He cannot cause others to be married. He cannot give consent for other people.
You gave as an axiom that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But that isn’t true. Absence of evidence is what we go on all the time as evidence of absence. It is not conclusive evidence of absence alone, but it does support the case.
That’s why it’s important to me to present the positive, to say what the church did do. To say they did do this and that but never talked about doing the other is a good indicator that the other was not the way things were done.
Aquinas gave us a very clean definition of marriage, and it doesn’t include clergy. Martin Luther gave a slightly different definition, and it also doesn’t include clergy. Thats evidence agaisnt clergy being required at those points in time. Even if you don’t care about Luther, Aquinas isn’t something anyone can just ignore.
The early church suggested that clergy blessed marriages alongside parents, when possible. That is quite strong evidence they did not require clergy. I do recall marriages being specifially not allowed in churches but I’d have to dig it up, and its weaker evidence because you could say that it was just that particular church, iirc in the east, that banned it. And it’s possible you’d be right. I think it was just the one case that I’d ever read about it.
A clergyman, as a Christian, may administer every sacriment. Not every Christian may administer clerical sacraments. But most sacriments do not require a cleric, to administer. The most critical, Baptism, and the most carnal, Marriage, do not even require Christians to administer them.
Can you imagine if the opposite were true? Every new Chrisitan would be considered unmarried. Conversation would be de facto divorce, and Christianity would be a conduit for fornication. We must recognize marriage on the most common terms possible. Those terms per Aquinas are consent +consumation. Or per Luther consent + consumation + cohabitation.
Some Christians say only consumation is required, but I tend to agree with Luther and Aquinas that consent to be married is generally required for a binding marriage.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is a great observation.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ramman
You’re making claims about Jerome’s mistake I haven’t heard before. But they have a ring of truth to them, that kind of harmonizing Lewis talked about.
It fits with what I know I don’t know, like a missing peice. I’ve got to read and evaluate more before I accept it, but what you described is an easy mistake for Jerome to make and an even easier one to replicate.
Now my understanding up to this point was that other bishiphorics turned to Rome when there was a succession dispute they could not resolve themselves. And Rome could cast the tie breaker vote at council, and that was the extent of Roman primacy. Is that not the case per your research?
We could talk about how and when Romes head got too big. To me it seems to have happened mostly gradually, with this event or that resulting in Rome ceasing more power. With it starting to get out of hand around 500, as you mentioned, it getting really out of hand in the 900s, and it becoming a full blown monster claiming all power to itself by the 1200s, setting the stage for the reformation. But that’s secondary I think.
Anyway all this is just asking your view on things. I’ve read some things differently than you but I expect the way you tell it is actually correct.
LikeLike
If Domitian (81-96AD) was the sixth king of Revelation, then Nerva was seventh, and Trajan would have been the first king in the Iron/Clay period. According to Wikipedia, Trajan was the “First non-Italian Emperor“, which—like Galba—also satisfies to prophecy of Daniel 2:43 regarding mixing seed and not cleaving. Moreover, he was known as the first of the “Five Good Emperors”, further indicating the transition from Iron to Iron/Clay. While marking Domitian as “sixth” seems pretty odd (who is first?!), it’s John, not me, that said the sixth was still reigning. This doesn’t meaningfully alter the interpretation of Revelation in any case, but it doesn’t fit as cleanly and I hate that it appears subjective.
Now I have to go do more research…
LikeLiked by 1 person
@prariepolyguy
Brother, I wouldn’t suggest any other way.
Correct. The timeline is as follows: The Council of Nicaea was 325AD. Athanasius, writing in 358AD, write that Milan was the Metropolitan of Italy, along with its Bishop. Rome was given no special distinction. A.H.M. Jones estimates that the Diocese of Oriens split in 367AD.
Over the course of two decades (358AD to the council at Rome in 378AD), Rome supplanted ecumenical Milan, such that by the time Christianity was made official in 380AD and the Council of Rome in 382AD, Rome had risen to at least the ecumenical level of the other two Petrine seats. Another two decades to the 5th century, and its elevated status would be mostly solidified.
Part of the problem is that the Notitia Dignitatum was only discovered ‘recently’ in 1542 in the Codex Spirensis at the Speyer Cathedral. It is this document that describes Rome as divided into 13 dioceses in the 4th or 5th centuries (see Footnote 1 for a detailed explanation and relevant citations). Prior to that, the 314AD Laterculus Veronensis (the Verona List) listed the dioceses from Diocletian up to that point.
Right, this topic is much more subjective, so not a valid subject of my recent study. I consider Revelation 12:15 to be the critical sign-post: what came out of the mouth of the serpent was a flood of words, a sudden rush of false doctrines that began in the second half of the 4th century: papal primacy, papal infallibility, priestly celibacy, elevation of virginity and fasting over marriage, perpetual virginity, immaculate conception, the assumption of Mary, kneeling on the Lord’s Day, incense and candles, relics and images, intercession of the saints, the title of Pontifex Maximus, ex communicare replaced by ex civitate, taking up the civil sword to persecute faithful, civil taxes flowing through the Bishops and priestly wealth acquisition, and the eucharistic alterations: the alteration of the liturgical order, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the Mass, communion on the tongue, the liturgical mixing of water with wine. None of these occurred before 350AD and most were started or completed by 400AD.
You can always comment on my blog if you want more direct information. Once the first comment is lifted from moderation, you can comment as much as you want.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Tough crowd around here. Let’s see if it is a catch 22.
For comparison, the priest cannot cause others to 1) go to confession; 2) receive the eucharist; 3) get baptized; etc. Big picture: Christianity is a free will thing, and God wants it that way.
I’ve never seen a Catholic wedding, but I have seen several Christian weddings. The minister always asks if the bride and groom will take each other. So I don’t understand why you wrote this… What is your point?
Especially nowadays, where there is information overload. But the further back we go in history, the less reliable is the preservation of information AND the quantity of documentation as well.
This is selection bias. Who was doing all the writing? Saints and clergy. They wrote about things that were important to them. How many writings from antiquity do we have from Christian laity? I don’t know the answer, but I can say with near certitude that it pales in volume to what was recorded by the councils, by the desert fathers and other saints, etc.
I don’t ignore Aquinas, but I also haven’t read what he wrote. So I will neither agree nor disagree at this point. I am reluctant to just take another person’s word for something, because often times I find that they totally mis-evaluated something. Not saying you did, just saying it’s possible.
I think it’s actually 4 to 3, which would mean a majority of sacraments require clergy.
It seems to me you are off on a tangent. The more compelling scenario, for the sake of argument, is two Catholics who want to get married according to Church teaching.
I agree. So… where’s the catch?
LikeLike
Aquinas in Summa wrote about all the sacriments, it’s a quick reference you can look at on new advent or like. In each section he talks about who ought to administer the sacriment, who can, and why.
A preist can’t make someone go to confession but he does have the local authority to forgive sins on behalf of his congregation. The preist is a cause there. Ditto with Holy Orders, the bishop elects who he wishes to confer them on. It’s not unheard of that the person given holy orders isn’t a person who particularly wanted to become a priest. Augustine and Ambrose both never intended to be priests.
It’s in their sphere of authority to administer these things, and its spelled out very plainly that they specifically do them.
Marriage is not like that. The local preist cannot just up and declare Jim and Mary from the next town over are now married.
The modern Christian wedding tips it’s hand to that when the minister says, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” He didn’t cause them to be husband and wife, their own vows did that. He witnessed their becoming married and pronounced it to the wider community. A bishop does cause a priest to be a priest. And a priest does actually forgive sin. But they merely witness a marriage happen, nothing more.
Certainly you don’t think lack of evidence is proof? It’s not right to say it’s meaningless either.
There are lay saints. But what are you suggesting? It’s bad that most theologians were preists, bishops, and monks? It’s the clergy themselves that are telling us clergy don’t administer marriages. That’s not really a bad selection bias.
Sure. And not everyone wants or needs a deep dive into history. But Summa is pretty accessible and you can see that for 6 sacriments Aquinas talks a lot about ‘who can preform this and why’, and with marriage it’s just entirely between the people getting married.
You do need clergy for annulment though. I should note that.
I double checked and you’re right about that one, it’s not the majority. Just baptism and weddings are unrelated to clerical status. Pennnence can be administered by the laity, but it’s still tied to priestly authority so it’s more like 5 and 2. 4.5 and 2.5?
It’s important because we operate in a world which is neither homogeneously Christian nor Catholic, and non Christians really do get married. We can’t just ignore that, due to them not having a priest.
But if a couple wants a parent, a priest, or a president to witness their marriage that’s their prerogative. The early church didn’t want weddings in churches. But priests always could go to where the wedding was and witness or even bless a wedding.
As for church teaching, Aquinas is church teaching. The problem with church teaching is always ‘what church’, and that problem is as big within Catholicism as without, there are many Catholic cultures with different teachings. I would opine they’re often incompatible with each other, but even if you could harmonize them it would be aeons of work. The Catholic church of America has rather more leniency on contraception than the rest of the world. The Catholic church of Africa has rather more dispensations for polygamy than the one in Europe. The Catholics in Latin America has rather more communist idealism than the ones in China.
The catch is that is all that is required. Nothing more, unless we are going with Luther who requires cohabitation. No priest. No church. No legal document. You can have any of those things but not one of them is needed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A preist can’t make someone go to confession but he does have the local authority to forgive sins on behalf of his congregation. The preist is a cause there. Ditto with Holy Orders…
@prariepolyguy
Thanks for clarifying. I get your point now.
“So I don’t understand why you wrote this… What is your point?”
Marriage is not like that. The local preist cannot just up and declare Jim and Mary from the next town over are now married.
I’ve never disputed that. (Been going to weddings since I was a child, and I paid attention to how it went.)
The modern Christian wedding tips it’s hand …(edited for brevity)… But they merely witness a marriage happen, nothing more.
A long paragraph of stating the obvious, which was never in dispute. NOT trying to be snarky, just thinking maybe we’ve been talking past each other.
When I said that clergy administer all of the sacraments, it wasn’t a judgement (or claim) on who’s will is in play at which step! I just assumed any reasonably intelligent person could see who was doing what at each point in time.
For example, it is my will that puts me in the confessional booth and prays the act of contrition, but of course it is the priest’s will to grant absolution!
So it seems to me the only difference here is that you read something into the word “administer” that I did not intend. Much ado about nothing.
“But the further back we go in history, the less reliable is the preservation of information AND the quantity of documentation as well.”
Certainly you don’t think lack of evidence is proof? It’s not right to say it’s meaningless either.
No, I don’t think that, and agree it’s not meaningless. The most important take away, IMO, is that the less advanced the technology of record keeping, the more we should keep in mind that we don’t know what we don’t know.
That’s the key: When talking about 200 years ago, 1000 years ago, or more, We. Don’t. Know. What. We. Don’t. Know. Obviously, this is different from dismissing the historical record.
“This is selection bias. Who was doing all the writing? Saints and clergy. They wrote about things that were important to them. How many writings from antiquity do we have from Christian laity?”
There are lay saints. But what are you suggesting?
Well, I’m not suggesting what you guessed: It’s bad that most theologians were preists, bishops, and monks?
Of course there are lay saints. But I look at it as a numbers game, in percentages. My point is, most laity are not saints, and don’t even approach sainthood in terms of both being devout and of being holy. Honestly, how many Christians do you think are truly chaste? Or keeping Divine Office daily? Or spending an hour in eucharistic adoration daily?
That’s not really a bad selection bias.
I agree! It’s good selection bias. Or, should I say, holy selection bias? But we have maybe absolutely zero historical reports from the first 1500 years of Christianity from the miscreants, the ne’er-do-wells, the pathetically feeble believers who struggled to keep it in their pants, to be crude about it. So the “not really bad selection bias” is exactly my point – it skews our understanding of what the majority of laity thought/did/behaved in early Christendom.
Summa is pretty accessible…
Thanks for the tip.
“I think it’s actually 4 to 3, which would mean a majority of sacraments require clergy.”
I double checked and you’re right about that one, it’s not the majority. Just baptism and weddings are unrelated to clerical status.
Of course you don’t need a priest to get married. The crux of that matter is, as a devout Catholic who is marrying a devout Catholic, would either of them want to go to a justice of the peace? And what is the official church position on 2 Catholics marrying each other? I actually haven’t checked, but I suspect it is to have a Catholic priest administer the sacrament.
Pennnence can be administered by the laity, but it’s still tied to priestly authority so it’s more like 5 and 2. 4.5 and 2.5?
Technically, pennance is not a sacrament. Do you mean “reconciliation”?
It’s important because we operate in a world which is neither homogeneously Christian nor Catholic
Sadly
and non Christians really do get married. We can’t just ignore that, due to them not having a priest.
I can. ;=)
Seriously, every time I write “marriage” I actually mean “Catholic marriage”. Yes, I am that fanatical.
Which is a segue to your next comment:
*…The problem with church teaching is always ‘what church’, and that problem is as big within Catholicism as without, there are many Catholic cultures with different teachings. I would opine they’re often incompatible with each other, but even if you could harmonize them it would be aeons of work…”
True. But I wouldn’t worry about it. When in Rome, do as the Romans. (never has that old adage been more apropos!)
“I agree. So… Where’s the catch?”
The catch is that is all that is required. Nothing more, unless we are going with Luther who requires cohabitation. No priest. No church. No legal document. You can have any of those things but not one of them is needed.
I don’t dispute that. But I only care about what is Catholic. Even with regards to marriage.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Kentucky Gent
A good reply!
Here’s a rephrase of what I was trying to express when I first posted:
The early church was so far removed from nonsense like, “invite God into the bedroom” or “threesomes with God” that they did not allow weddings in churches.
The sentiment being that this chick is extremely far removed any kind of traditional Christianity.
You’re right. I used “attend” in a different way, like “I will attend to supper” means “I will make supper.” But yeah, that isn’t the most common usage and I can see why it would be confusing. That leads to some semantic disagreements that don’t mean much.
Aren’t the laity more lax? If our bias is saints and theologians and they don’t care very much about priests being at weddings, then shouldn’t we expect the layman to care even less? That’s why that argument confused me.
You know how churches have icons of Aristotle and Plato? Or icons of Moses or David? Or icons of Lao Tsu in the far east?
In the old sense of the word they are catholic, just like the eastern schisms are catholic, and the Lutherns are catholic, the Anglicans are catholic. Loyalty to the bishop of Rome, even when you’re not Italian, is not a good measure of being Catholic. Canterbury is old and prominent. Shouldn’t an Englishmen be loyal to their patriarch rather than one across the sea and mountains? Shouldn’t a Greek be loyal to Constantinople, the longtime peer of Rome?
The Catholic principle of subsidiarity says they should. But political ambitions get in the way of Christian unity on all sides.
Anyway, the sacriment of marriage is twofold. First the act of pure being in creating and caring for life that holds the Imago Dei. Any couple who stays together and is open to having children and caring for them together partakes in that sacrament. That’s true even if they physically can’t have children.
The second is being an image of the harmony between Christ and the Church, sharing things in common and working towards each other’s good. The acting as one.
That second one is why Luther had the ‘Cohabitation’ requirement.
Any couple, Christian or not, can express none, one, or both of those sacraments. Just like Moses, Aristotle, and Lao Tsu had a real vision of God even though they did not know Christ.
Any couple expressing those traits has a catholic marriage no matter if they’re Catholic or not.
On the other side of the coin. ‘Childfree Catholic’ (I shudder that this culture even exists) does not have a catholic marriage even if their wedding was at a cathedral overseen by a bishop. Does that make sense? Do you agree?
Part of why this is important to me is that both sacramental sides of marriage are under attack, and even among Christians the wedding with the priest or pastor is too often what makes the marriage to them, rather than the sacred duty marriage entails. If ‘Childfree Catholics’ are a thing, how much worse is it among mainline Protestantism? Much worse, I’ve seen it.
And then we get the rise in separate bank account marriages where couples fight over who pays what bill… That’s a big problem too. Anyway I’ve gone on too long already.
LikeLike
@prariepolyguy:
Aren’t the laity more lax? If our bias is saints and theologians and they don’t care very much about priests being at weddings, then shouldn’t we expect the layman to care even less? That’s why that argument confused me.
That is plausible. But I still have doubts about drawing definitive conclusions from St. Augustine:
He was a reformed womanizer. So just as many reformed alcoholics go to the other extreme (teetotalism), so might a reformed womanizer become extremely opposed to anything related to carnal knowledge. That doesn’t make them right or wrong, just extreme.
Just because much of the laity is more lax doesn’t mean they don’t want a priest to administer their weddings. I once told my priest he wouldn’t see me in morning mass for a week because I was travelling. As a new Catholic, I didn’t expect what happened next, but he pulled me aside and gave me a blessing for travel (which worked, btw). I thought, “Dang, we Catholics have a blessing for everything! So I can envision selfish laity wanting attention from their priests, in the form of blessing weddings (and everything else, for that matter: Father, can you stop by and bless my chickens?), while St. Augustine is simultaneously writing what he wrote.
3.There are always disputes in the church. Were there clergy who disagreed with Augustine? A lot of them? Who never wrote down their disagreements? And they lost because he was in authority? I don’t know.
Shouldn’t an Englishmen be loyal to their patriarch rather than one across the sea and mountains? Shouldn’t a Greek be loyal to Constantinople, the longtime peer of Rome?
Ideally, but at the same time it is also ideal to be in a church that has all 7 sacraments. From my own experience, Protestantism is weak sauce because it is missing the 2 most critical sacraments – eucharist and reconcilliation. I honestly don’t know how any Protestant stays devout.
On the other side of the coin. ‘Childfree Catholic’ (I shudder that this culture even exists) does not have a catholic marriage even if their wedding was at a cathedral overseen by a bishop. Does that make sense? Do you agree?
Yes it makes sense and yes I agree.
If ‘Childfree Catholics’ are a thing, how much worse is it among mainline Protestantism? Much worse, I’ve seen it.
Don’t get me started on Protestantism. Seriously.
Anyway I’ve gone on too long already.
So have I. This has been a time sink, but also I appreciated the good discussion.
LikeLike
I’ll take this time to note what many progressive Christians harp on: the NT uses language that specifically condemns temple prostitution. Now the progressives try to use this to claim that non-temple prostitution and homosexual acts are not condemned, which is a ridiculous argument, but everyone universally agrees that temple prostitution is worse than regular prostitution. After all, it combines sexual immorality with idolatry.
Nita Marie is a temple prostitute. “I don’t know how y’all call it any other way than that.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ramman3000
It specifically inverts the concept of Holiness itself which is being set apart for exclusivity for Man and Woman in the Marriage bed.
Promiscuity is by definition profaning the Holy by making it common.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your proof is misplaced, and I will demonstrate how, although you will not like it. I’m truly sorry for the rage it will likely induce.
@ramman,
I busted out laughing at this.
Nothing you ever post will come anywhere close to making me “rage”. At most, I will feel sad for you, for you truly are out in the weeds on the topic of the Catholic Church.
Brother, I wouldn’t make an issue of it if I didn’t think it was so serious.
Same here.
If I could save even one person from this, I would do so.
Save me from God’s true church? I’d rather die than leave the Catholic faith. It is the real deal.
I tried Protestantism. There’s very little there that can suffice to bring a person to holiness or sainthood, and it was hard to find God anywhere in it. Plenty of emotion, but at the end of the day that’s nothing.
I also appreciate your concern. If I am wrong, I greatly desire mercy for my error, but as it stands I cannot in clear conscience do other than my convictions demand.
Who’s mercy? This is a bit vague. As far as I’m concerned, you didn’t wrong me, it was just an honest conversation. But it isn’t my mercy that should concern you most, which you already know.
Eucharist means ‘thanksgiving’.
yes, I know.
You can read about it in the Didache and other patristic writings (e.g. Justin Martyr).
I own a copy of the Didache, which I’ve read twice.
What you call Eucharist is not biblical…
You can say that all day, but it is clearly wrong.
“you should investigate the numerous miracles for yourself”
But I have and I have no doubt about their existence. Yes, some are acknowledged as frauds by Roman Catholicism
Which makes them (the frauds) not miracles, by definition.
LikeLike
Back in 2020, I had a three- or four-month long debate with three Roman Catholics. One of the Roman Catholics there had made the claim, as you also seem to, that the liturgy must include the required apostolic Amen, because there are so many.
@ramman,
As I also seem to?? It was a joke. That’s why I put a smiley face next to it.
The Patristics are not silent…
OK. Are you referring to these guys:
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/churchfathers.html ?
(Kentucky Gent looks for Patristics):
First, John Henry Newman writes
We have an Anglican sighting! Weren’t they the first denomination with an openly gay bishop with a ‘partner’? Yeah, I’ll get right on that, caring what an Anglican thinks. /end sarcasm. Please allow me to save you some time: If you’re going to rebut me by citing what Protestants write, you’d do just as well citing Baal or Satan or Allah. It will bounce off of me like a tennis ball hiting a wall.
(continues looking for patristics)
Second, John Brande Morris
Started out Anglican, converted to Catholicism. Speaking with his actions, I see.
Third, Christian Cochini writes:
“We will therefore choose the late 4th century as our chronological basis for inquiry on the birth and development of the law on clerical celibacy rather than the year 325, the date of the First Ecumenical Council.” — Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy
Do you think I didn’t know that priestly celibacy is a later development? This is not news to me. Also, this is off topic, and something to which I’m not interested in devoting study or discussion at this time.
Fourth, the Catholic Encyclopedia says:
“With regard to the water mingled with the wine in the Mass, the Fathers from the earliest times have tried to find reasons why the Church [used] a mixed chalice though the Gospel narrative implies that Christ consecrated pure wine.” — Liturgical Use of Water
I always assumed it was because water (along with blood) poured from His side when He was pierced. At least there is a mention of the church fathers here, although none are quoted. I’ll keep looking.
But before I continue, I want to speculate a bit. Adding water to wine may have been a very common, even universal practice back in ancient times. Reliably sterilized drinking water provided by a municipal water company was not widespread in ancient times (yes, I know aqueducts existed), and sterilization by chlorination was centuries in the future. So mixing water with wine would allow the alcohol to kill off microbes in the water. Again, this could be one of those things that was such a common practice that maybe it goes without saying, that of course we ancient folk add water to our wine, you silly 21st century people! Asia Minor is hot, and we need to stay hydrated.
As far as the Gospel narrative implying pure wine, that seems like a personal bias of the author (although I’ve only ever read English translations and not the original Greek).
Fifth, Philip Schaff notes:
From Wikipedia: Philip Schaff (January 1, 1819 – October 20, 1893) was a Swiss-born, German-educated Protestant theologian…
At least Schaff actually referenced two people (Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril) whom he believes to have explained what Irenaeus (presumably of Lyons) meant. But my understanding is that neither of the two are considered “early” church. Fortunately, Irenaeus is included on the website I linked, so I can take a look for myself what he wrote.
In summary, I have a Protestant, you, quoting Protestants to protest Catholicism. I’d expect nothing else.
Back in 2020, I had a three- or four-month long debate with three Roman Catholics.
Um, don’t expect another 3 months from me. It’s nothing personal, you’re a fine fellow. It’s this: I avoided the RCC all my life because I was raised Protestant and heard the same anti-RCC stuff when I was young that I am hearing from you now. (Although you do it much better than anyone else I’ve heard from.) I even passed on the opportunity to date a very attractive blonde Catholic girl who was interested in me, just because she was Catholic! The point being, I went to a Catholic Mass, for the first time ever, in December 21, 2020. And I found the True Faith. Catholicism is Good, Beautiful and True, and by the grace of God I will never give it up.
LikeLike
@Kentucky Gent
That’s the point naming the post “No Early Evidence for Roman Catholic Doctrine.” When Roman Catholics look earlier than the late 4th century, they get crickets. On the topics of papal infallibility, mariology, priestly celibacy, the liturgical mixing of water into wine, kneeling, relics (newly added to the OP, completely with many Patristics!), and the Roman Catholic Eucharist, Roman Catholics must defend their interpretation of the early church by utilizing 4th century or later sources.
Yes, I know. That is why I only quoted 2 of the 16 different sources of the ‘Protestant’ Eucharist before 350AD. You didn’t engage with Justin Martyr, so why should I bother with more? The point is, if ever there was a seeker who wanted to know, I stand ready to defend it. You—however—will not be able to do the same (without the eisegetical method I highlighted).
John Henry Newman was a former Anglican converted Roman Catholic Cardinal who has been canonized by the RCC as a saint. In particular, he specialized in anti-Protestant Catholic apologetics and is still widely quoted by Roman Catholic apologists. In his historical research, he could identify precisely zero patristics—before the late 4th century—to defend Papal Infallibility. Neither could any of the people I cited identify any Patristics to defend Roman Catholic doctrines, but they cite him in order to explain away the lack of Roman Catholicism in the early church.
I raised eight points, seven of which were from Roman Catholic sources (including converts) and one from a Protestant. The reason I cited the Protestant is to demonstrate that the reason so many Protestants are in error is because they accept the frame of Roman Catholicism, if not its doctrines. You’ll note that I cited the Protestant on the topic of the Eucharist. Since I already cited the Patristics on that topic, I see no problem. Few Roman Catholic sources can do better than the alleged historical prowess of Schaff anyway.
My congrats to them for showing Holy Tradition’s self-refuting nature by citing tradition directly! Most Protestants blindly accept Rome’s claim that it has tradition and history on its side and are unable to call them out on the lie. It’s quite the deception and I don’t know many Protestants who are aware of precisely how untrue it is. Ironically, most of them are former Catholics, just as most of the Catholic apologists are former Protestants.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Kentucky Gent
Oh! You responded to my original comment (of course!), but I was referencing my expanded post entitled “No Early Evidence for Roman Catholic Doctrine“, which contains much more detailed information (including more references to the Patristics) than my original comment. That you failed to identify the Catholic Saint and Cardinal John Henry Newman should have clued me off that something was wrong.
LikeLike
@Kentucky Gent
Your comments on watering the wine are quite amusing for their irony. As I pointed out in my article, the West believed that Jesus mixed water into wine at the table and the East believed that Jesus didn’t mix anything at all, but drank pure wine. Like Roman Catholics today, both claimed apostolic continuity for their differing practices. Anselm, from the West, specifically cited the “blood and water came from the Lord’s side on the cross in his redemption of our salvation.” Even to this day your views comport with the views of the Western church to which you are a member (surprise!).
But neither were correct. There was no apostolic liturgy. Both churches completely invented apostolic continuity to fill in the gaps in their knowledge of history and suit their biases.
Moreover, of all the issues between the East and West that led to the Great Schism, this particular disagreement was the silliest of all, akin to Protestants splitting up a church because they couldn’t agree on the color of the carpets. Remember this next time you are tempted to point at Protestants and say how they alone demonstrate a lack of unity.
LikeLike
Correction: the East believed that Jesus Consecrated pure wine and mixed water in afterwards. That is why the Catholic Encyclopedia says “Jesus consecrated pure wine”. I made the same mistake you did, by assuming that by consecrating pure wine he must have also drank pure wine.
LikeLike
“Kentucky Gent looks for Patristics”
That’s the point naming the post “No Early Evidence for Roman Catholic Doctrine.”
You are confused.
I haven’t read any post named “No Early Evidence for Roman Catholic Doctrine.” I was responding to your comments lower down on this very page:
ramman3000 says:
2022-10-19 at 12:51 am
ramman3000 says:
2022-10-18 at 2:41 am
It didn’t help matters that when I scrolled up to reply, I missed the ‘reply’ button for the thread those comments are in, and clicked the next higher button instead. My mistake.
But that aside, you began your comment with The Patristics are not silent, but testify loudly against the Roman doctrinal innovations
So can you not see why I would be expecting you to quote patristics in your reply, since you began by boasting about them? Otherwise, why would you start with a general claim about ‘the patristics’ and then go on to forget about them, citing them zero times?
LikeLike
“@Kentucky Gent
Oh! You responded to my original comment (of course!)
@ ramman
I got a good laugh from this! Just as I stopped reading about John Henry Newman at “Anglican”, so I stopped reading to respond, before I got to your 2nd reply. So we were both playing catch up with the other.
As far as papal infallibility goes, that only applies to ex cathedra statements, of which there have been 2 in the last 200 years, according to what I’ve read. It’s very rare.
As for the idea, it comes from scripture even if it doesn’t come from patristics (whom I haven’t read enough of, to either agree or disagree with your claim).
Anyway, does it not give you pause to learn that these fellows you are citing as reliable critics of the RCC actually left Protestantism to become RCC? Their own writings obviously did not dissuade them from the Catholic faith! No, quite the contrary – they embraced it.
Remember this next time you are tempted to point at Protestants and say how they alone demonstrate a lack of unity.
I’ve never said that. My comments are readily available for you to quote, so please quote them instead of putting words in my mouth. (aside: The irony is, you’ve done the exact same thing Luther wanted to do with Ephesians 2:8, namely adding the word ‘alone’ after ‘faith’.)
You didn’t engage with Justin Martyr
When?
I made the same mistake you did, by assuming that by consecrating pure wine he must have also drank pure wine.
No, I didn’t assume anything about when the water was added. Obviously it has to be one or the other, before or after, but I never claimed to know. However, it would be reasonable to assume the water is added before, since it makes sense.
There was no apostolic liturgy.
This is a nonsensical statement. Of course there was an apostolic liturgy. “Liturgy” just means the form of the conduct of worship.
Or are you trying to make a distinction between a liturgy and a rite?
LikeLike
Yes, I can see that. My original comment lacked context, so I wrote an updated post to front-run your expected objections. I’m making two claims.
First, Roman Catholicism arose in the late 4th century and many of its doctrines are novel. Due to claims of apostolic continuity, it must and does explicate the first 300 years by referencing more recent teachings. That’s eisegesis, circular reasoning, or axiomatic. Now, I can’t directly prove the negative (“No evidence for Roman Catholicism”), but I can show that Roman Catholics are unable to find early evidence.
Second, I gave sixteen pre-350AD citations that the Roman Catholic Eucharistic liturgy differs from the early church’s liturgy in mutually exclusive ways, but I only made specific quotations from 2 of them. I could do similar things for the other novel doctrines and practices, but you’ve already declared “I will never give it up”, so I considered it better to primarily focus on the first claim.
In this comment, specifically Chapters 65 through 67 of First Apology, where Justin Martyr describes the ‘Protestant’ liturgy in the second century.
I also stated that nowhere in the first 300 years of the early church was Christ’s death offered by the church as a sacrifice to God. The first time the elements are sacrificed to God is in Gregory of Nyssa (382).
I mistakenly said “infallibility” instead of “supremacy” or “primacy”. I’ve fixed my article, but can’t fix my comments here. My quotation was irrelevant to infallibility. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad that you didn’t notice.
Converts have knowledge and experience with both faiths. But no it does not give me pause. Earlier you quoted 2 Thessalonians 2:15 regarding “Holy Tradition”, but it is that passage which specifically warns against being deceived and taking pleasure in deception. Enthusiastically embracing deception is what I expect to see. Though Holy Tradition collapses under the examination of history, many (ex-)Protestants credulously accept Rome’s claim that it has tradition and history on its side. It wasn’t always this way.
You did have a discussion here regarding the disproportionate and massive number of alleged divisions among Protestants. But I withdraw my objection.
There was no apostolic liturgy regarding watering the wine. Watering the wine was no more liturgical than mixing water with flour to make bread before baking it. There could be no apostolic liturgy of mixing water in the wine, because it wasn’t liturgical until Ambrose made his mistake and others copied it. It had always just been a mundane practice that had nothing to do with the liturgy. Ambrose invented an apostolic practice that he thought was there, because he didn’t understand the significance (or lack thereof) of watering wine. That this error contributed to the East/West Schism is beyond parody.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Now, I can’t directly prove the negative (“No evidence for Roman Catholicism”), but I can show that Roman Catholics are unable to find early evidence…. In this comment, specifically Chapters 65 through 67 of First Apology,..
@ramman,
First, Mea Culpa! Yes, I didn’t address that. So, now I will address “early evidence” forthwith.
But first: So glad you mentioned Justin Martyr. I got to reading his first apology, and it edified my faith. Thank You! Hope you remember this at your particular judgement; tell Jesus how you helped my faith! Let’s see about your claim where Justin Martyr describes the ‘Protestant’ liturgy in the second century.
Is it Protestant or Catholic?
CHAPTER LXV — ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS:
(edited for brevity) But we, after we have thus washed him…, bring him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers… Having ended the prayers… There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water;…
This answers the question we both had! Do you owe Ambrose an apology? I don’t know. Anyway, I’m surprised you missed or forgot this detail.
and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen… And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion.
That’s RCC Holy Mass in a nutshell! WOW!! Moving on:
CHAPTER LXVI — OF THE EUCHARIST.
And this food is called among us Eukaristia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined.
That’s RCC doctrine.
For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.
That’s RCC doctrine and the Rite of Communion at RCC Holy Mass.
For the apostles… have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone.
That’s RCC doctrine too.
CHAPTER LXVII — WEEKLY WORSHIP OF THE CHRIS- TIANS.
…And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits;
We in the RCC call this “the Liturgy of the Word”.
…then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray,
We in the RCC call this the “Universal Prayer”. And by the way, regarding the comment * we all rise*
Question: rise from what stance? What were you saying about everyone standing, in the catacomb frescos?
… and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.
This is literally the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and the Rite of Communion, in RCC Holy Mass. It’s almost as if this was passed down through the ages… 🙂 By apostolic succession even!
BTW, are you going to answer my question about valid baptisms, in light of what the Didache says?
There was no apostolic liturgy regarding watering the wine.
Maybe Justin Martyr cleared that up. See previous.
Ambrose invented an apostolic practice that he thought was there, because he didn’t understand the significance (or lack thereof) of watering wine.
Doesn’t Justin Martyr predate Ambrose?
That this error contributed to the East/West Schism is beyond parody.
What do you expect, when dealing with sinful humans? Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water!
LikeLike
@Kentucky Gent
Your analysis of Justin provides the perfect example of the Roman Catholic Axiom: “The recent explicates the older.” You read it, identified words that matched your experiences, and assumed that what is now is what was then. It is not.
What was offered?
Chapter 13 describes the offerings of “thanksgiving”, “thanks by word of processions (διά λόγου πομπάς)”, and “hymns”. The processions were the offerings of tithes and firstfruits, as these gifts were brought forward for presentation during the service. It is out of these gifts that the bread and wine were taken for the Lord’s Supper.
In Dialogue with Trypho, 117, he describes the valid sacrifices for Christians to offer, per Malachi’s prophecy in Malachi 1:10-12. He states that “prayers and giving of thanks, when offered by worthy men, are the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices to God” Thus he provides the absolute basis for the Dismissal and the Eucharist. In Dialogue with Trypho, 118 he states that proper sacrifices include “true and spiritual praises and giving of thanks.”
So we find that to Justin Martyr only prayers and the giving of thanks (via gifts of tithes and firstfruits or hymns) are valid sacrifice for Christians to make.
What was the liturgical order
Please reference these liturgies.
Chapter 65 shows that the Lord’s Supper follows the Oblation. The bread and cup are brought out after the prayers of thanksgiving have ended with an “Amen” expressed by everyone in the congregation. The bread and cup are consumed after the “Amen”.
Chapter 66 shows that the the Eucharist follows the Dismissal. Only the repentant, baptized believer may participate in the Eucharist that follows.
Chapter 66 shows that the Lord’s Supper follows the Epiclesis, which follows the Eucharist. The Epiclesis consecrates the common food and drink of the Eucharist that is then used in the Lord’s Supper.
Chapter 67 shows that the Eucharist is given (the procession of offerings of bread and wine, prayers and thanksgivings), followed by the Oblation (corporate “Amen”), followed by the distribution of the now Eucharisted food (“that over which thanks have been given”).
Chapter 65 states that the Consecration (prayer of his Word) is spoken over that already eucharisted food (“that over which thanks have been given”):
And it is by this consecration (the simple epiclesis of Jesus’ words invoked) that the bread and wine become the flesh and blood of Jesus. Justin explicitly states that this is the apostles’ teaching.
Rolled all together, you have the early church liturgy: “Dismissal-Eucharist-Oblation-Consecration-Lord’s Supper”. The Roman Catholic liturgy not present. All of the pieces of the Roman Catholic liturgy have the appearance of being in play, but they are not in the right order and thus not the same pieces at all. In particular, the unconsecrated eucharistic sacrifice concludes with an oblation (“Amen”) before the consecration, so the body and blood of Christ cannot be offered as a sacrifice.
Notes
As previously shown, the Roman Catholic liturgy does not include a corporate Amen between the Eucharist and the Consecration, as in Justin Martyr.
As far as the wine mixed with water, there is no liturgical significance. Justin simply notes that the eucharist offering in his day included prepared food—flour mixed with water (and baked), wine mixed with water—not the raw agricultural products. By Ambrose’s day, water was no longer mixed into wine before drinking, so he incorrectly assumed Justin’s reference must have had liturgical significance.
Chapter 66 teaches that “by transmutation” the consecrated bread and wine are completely converted into bodily sustenance (nourishment). This differs greatly from the Roman Catholic transubstantiation which differentiates between the species and substance of the bread and wine. Transmutation is anathematized by the Council of Trent.
In Chapter 65, when Justin says “to those who are absent they carry away a portion”, this is a reference to the distribution of the tithe to the poor. It is not a reference to consecrated bread and wine, which Justin does not mention.
As far as rising, they rose from a sitting position. Kneeling was forbidden on the Lord’s Day, but that is a topic for another day.
See Roman Catholic J. P. Migne’s Patrologia Graeca to verify the Greek translations given above.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, of course it is valid.
In Acts 8, Philip shared the Gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch.
Then the eunuch asked:
The answer is that nothing prevented it. So…
That’s it. All that is required for baptism is to receive the Gospel of Jesus and have access to water and another believer.
Irenaeus and the bishops of the church (per Eusebius) agreed that Victor, bishop of Rome, was incorrect to try to impose universal customs that are not defined by scripture (re: Romans 14:5). This is why you have not seen the teaching in the Didache put into practice in the modern church. The only error would be to try to enforce this practice upon the whole church as an apostolic tradition.
The Didache isn’t scripture. The writings of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Eusebius are not scripture. Irenaeus showed that apostolic tradition is only that which is contained within scripture—which is complete and permanent—and that to go outside it results in heresy. But I don’t rely on the authority of Irenaeus to believe this (that would be a self-defeating argument). The Word of God is its own authority: it is self-evident and no additional authority is required or possible (see: 1 Kings 13).
LikeLike
Your analysis of Justin provides the perfect example of the Roman Catholic Axiom: “The recent explicates the older.” You read it, identified words that matched your experiences, and assumed that what is now is what was then.
@ramman,
No, this is not at all what is going on here.
Let me ask: how many RCC Masses have you attended? I’ve been to hundreds. And I’ve stayed after (or arrived early) to study the order of Mass in the green hymnal because that’s just how I am. I like to know things, to understand them.
Let’s compare:
the early church liturgy: “Dismissal-Eucharist-Oblation-Consecration-Lord’s Supper”.
RCC Order of Mass (from memory.): Introductory Rites-Liturgy of the Word (this includes a homily, followed by dismissal of the catechumens, followed by the Universal Prayer)-Liturgy of the Eucharist (containing oblation followed by consecration followed by corporate amen)-Rite of Communion (Lord’s Supper) including “amen” by each congregant who receives-Concluding Rites.
The Roman Catholic liturgy not present.
That (early church order) is the RCC order.
but they are not in the right order and thus not the same pieces at all.
They are literally in the exact same order.
“Is your baptism always valid, if it is made in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, even if you didn’t fast two days prior?”
Yes, of course it is valid.
In Acts 8, …
Yes, I know what happened. I’ve read the Bible.
The Didache isn’t scripture. The writings of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Eusebius are not scripture.
Yes, I know what is scripture and what isn’t. You’re missing the point.
Which is, that you are using the Didache as a source to say the RCC Mass is invalid, yet you are ignoring the Didache on the topic of baptism. You are appealing to it when it suits you, and ignoring it when it suits you. You are inconsistent in the application of your own criteria.
I agree with you on the topic of baptism. The difference is, I (consistently) don’t accept that the Didache controverts the RCC Mass. The Didache is a great historic resource about the early church, but it is not authoritative.
LikeLike
One.
It absolutely is, and I’ll demonstrate it below in two ways.
The Liturgy
You’ve aptly demonstrated precisely my conclusion: even the Novus Ordo rite combines the consecration with the eucharist and performs both before the corporate Amen, thus making the consecrated bread a sacrifice. That directly contradicts what we see in Justin Martyr, where the Eucharist and the Consecration are separated by the offering of the sacrifice (the oblation, the corporate “Amen”). The Catholic Encyclopedia, under “The origin of the Mass”, acknowledges this:
Calling it a “difficult question” and “chief difficulties” is a vast understatement. The Roman rite wasn’t found in its completed form (as defined as a uniform Missal by the Council of Trent) until the 6th century, which more-or-less matches with what I’ve found: that the novelty started development in the late 4th century and took a centuries to complete its novel development.
First, your own quote proves what I said is correct, but you are so used to interpreting the past from the perspective of the present that you completely missed it. Second, you believe Rome’s liturgy is found in Justin despite Roman Catholic writers, like the liturgist Adrian Fortescue, affirming what I’m saying.
The Dismissal
If you read that lengthy section from the Catholic Encyclopedia on “Name and definition”, you’ll see that it is a ramble of confusion. While the meaning of the word “Mass” is unambiguous, “dismissal”, there is confusion as to its significance. They identify the missa catechumenorum and the missa fidelium, even noting that for a time the former had ceased to be practiced! Unable to come up with a good reason for the use of the name, they say this:
They are right that the dismissal concluding the service is an unessential detail, even though the name “Mass” is derived from it. They are also correct that the historical liturgy didn’t find the dismissal of catechumans to be essential. And so they conclude that “Mass” is a quaint synecdoche.
But this is in error. They’ve lost the historical reason for the dismissal, which is that only baptized believers who have no unrepentant sin may participate in the sacrifice of thanksgiving, praise, tithes, and firstfruits offerings, because it is a sacrifice made to God. A person must be pure and holy to make an acceptable sacrifice to God, as Malachi (in Malachi), Jesus (in Matthew), Paul (in 1 Corinthians), the Didachi, and Justin Martyr attest: the dismissal is not only apostolic in origin, it is attested to and derived from both the OT and NT.
Evidentiary Matters
Not directly, no.
Whether the Didache is authoritative or not is irrelevant. I’m using it to show that the Roman Catholic liturgy cannot be found in the early church. For the same reason I cite Roman Catholic writers to confirm that they also cannot find early evidence to support the Roman Catholic liturgy. Combining these two, I show by evidence the inductive inference that the Roman Catholic liturgy did not exist in the first 300 years of the church and is thus not apostolic. My application of these sources is therefore entirely consistent with this goal.
As a secondary effect, I could and have shown what the actual early liturgy was, but you don’t accept it anyway because you hold the newer to be superior to the older as an axiomatic condition of your faith. But if you ever changed your mind, then we could discuss whether this or that patristic writer should be taken authoritatively or not. For now, I will decline to do so. It is unnecessary.
LikeLike
My personal beliefs are not relevant to the examination of the historical claim of the Roman Catholic church. My beliefs are not under examination because I make no claim to authority.
The RCC claims apostolic continuity, authority, and tradition. This is a falsifiable claim that can be examined with historical evidence. The claim can be defeated in two ways, by showing that an apostolic teaching is not apostolic or is missing. I am allowed to use these sources as evidence. And, while normally absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, the claim to continuity implies that evidence should exist, so an appeal to a gap in continuity (or lack thereof) is valid.
I’m aware of at least 16 different sources that describe various aspects of an early somewhat-Protestant-style eucharist and/or Lord’s supper that are incompatible with Rome’s liturgy. I’m also aware of many Roman Catholic writers who attest to the late 4th century or later novelty of at least ten of its doctrines and practices.
And that’s fine. You can join the list of Roman Catholics who cannot find Roman Catholicism in the first 300 years of the church. At the same time, you don’t get to eliminate it as historical evidence just because you don’t think it is authoritative. It is still evidence of what was and wasn’t.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In The Salvation Army, people are not baptized mostly because at its founding, it was a “holiness movement” and not a denomination or church proper. They are not against it, and if you do indeed want one, they usually contact the local / area Nazarene church to conduct this you a soldier (member).
I found baptism a ritual. Not a requirement. You mean at judgement, Jesus is going to deny you eternity because you were never baptized? You Trusted. Believed….no baptism? Sorry about that.
What if indeed you truly repent on your deathbed, and cannot be baptized? What of the thief on the cross?
He wasn’t baptized. So, Jesus made an “exception” for him? Him alone? Was the crucifixtion stopped “wait, wait….this man must be baptized in my name or he cannot be with my father in eternity!”
As for the Supper. “do this in rememberance of me” was said, not “you will do this every Sunday Mass, and have a prayer and the congregation will say “Amen” here and here. It will abe broken in this way and must be done in robes, and and on an altar made of marble and in decanteurs of silver, we will buy the wine but we believe this actually becomes the blood of jesus”
Who made John a baptist? Was he baptizing in the name of Jesus and the Holy Roman Catholic church? All God said was “This is my son of whom I am very proud” . There was no “doctrinal” requirement made or yet another “rule” God made for this new faith. God didnt say “this is wrong, baptize this way!” but I didn’t see any actual “you must do this to become a christian”
Most would be christian esp from my age group and upward because all were baptized as children…oh wait, I wasn’t. I was “christened” in the tradition of the Anglican Church. Not as a sacrament. It says nowhere in the Bible about being christened five months after being born. That is another “man made” rule
The early church met in homes. Hid from persecution. Many died for their faith, and nowhere do I see the words “bishop” or “reverand” or “vicar” or all these other man made structural terms for “the church” in the bible. It just spoke of leader so to speak being “blame free” and “well respected”
LikeLiked by 1 person
“how many RCC Masses have you attended?”
One…. etc.
@ramman,
I was diligently crafting a reply to your entire post, for many minutes, and then, poof – the open tab disappeared from my browser. I tried to reopen it, but nope, it’s gone somehow.
Leading up to these events, the Holy Spirit has been telling me to pray more and debate/argue on the internet less. Thus, as much as I love to argue and debate, I value my eternal destiny even more. What can I do? Just obey the Lord.
So… I’m out. Done.
It’s been a distinct pleasure to chat with you over these many days! Hope to see you in Heaven, my good man.
LikeLike
I appreciate the time you’ve spent on this and I echo your sentiment. Kyrie eleison.
LikeLike
Oof, I really butchered my editing of my previous comment. My apologies.
[Jack: I think I fixed it.]
LikeLike
@kentucky gent
‘ But I still have doubts about drawing definitive conclusions from St. Augustine:’
Oh yes all those problems with St Augustine are true and should be considered.
And there are early accounts of preists blessing weddings, it’s just weddings we’re not held in churches or run by preists.
There ought to be a blessing for every good thing really. It’s certainly a positive think your preist did I would say.
‘3.There are always disputes in the church. Were there clergy who disagreed with Augustine? A lot of them? Who never wrote down their disagreements? And they lost because he was in authority? I don’t know.’
Oh heavens yes. Pelagius was a bishop when Augustine was a mere preist and they went to council after council to settle their longtime dispute. Augustine wasn’t an authority in his own lifetime. Just a very good debator and a thoughtful theologian. It’s been lots and lots of faithful Christians over a very long time confirming the goodness of his work that made him an authority.
Even now the easterners don’t like how Augustine phrases many things, esp original sin, and put Crysothomom up against him. Augustine as the theologian of the west, Crysothomom as the theologian of the east.
I’m sure lots more people, both heretic and faithful, disputed Augustine in his day.
That thing about extremes after conversion is why I like Aquinas so much. Aquinas was the dumb Ox. Pudgy, quiet, slow to answer any teacher, and asked what seemed like simple and childish questions all the time. Yet here he is, the foremost theologian.
‘Ideally, but at the same time it is also ideal to be in a church that has all 7 sacraments. From my own experience, Protestantism is weak sauce because it is missing the 2 most critical sacraments – eucharist and reconcilliation. I honestly don’t know how any Protestant stays devout.’
Thr dispute about the eucharist is in the mechanics, ‘does the bread and wine literally turn to flesh and blood’. Should you count it as carbs or protein, for a flippant explanation. Otherwise it is the eucharist and baptism that Protestants in general recognize. Marriage is usually the third, but Anglicans for example don’t see marriage as a ‘gospel sacriment’. To them sacriments are only things we must do as Christians as spelled out in the new testiment. So by that definition marriage or holy orders etc can’t be sacrimental because it isn’t nessisary for everyone.
Thr Protestants that call marriage a sacriment based on it being instituted directly by God Himself, like baptism and communion. But they still do pray for the sick and encourage repentance and train and ordain church leaders etc… it’s just generally less formal.
‘Don’t get me started on Protestantism. Seriously.’
Depends on who it is of course. Trad Lutherns have it together quite well. Lib Lutherns are as bad as secular Catholics.
But there’s a lot of straight up idiocy in the plethora of ‘non denominational evangelical’ culture that dominates North America right now.
‘
So have I. This has been a time sink, but also I appreciated the good discussion.’
Yes, this kind of discussion is edifying for me because I have to think about why I beleive what I beleive deeply to give apologia for it. Plus I learn about it your views as well. It’s very good.
LikeLike
LOL I assume you meant John Chrysostom. “Chrysothomom” sounds like a heroic Soccer Mom.
Doesn’t suprise me. I read a couple of pages of Summa. He breaks every train of thought down into the smallest possible steps. You can’t even do that unless you ask simple questions about every dang thing. But it was dense and too exhausting to read during happy hour.
Permit me to disagree.
The dispute about the eucharist isn’t just mechanics, but the fact that Prot clergy literally do not have the authority to command transsubstantiation. Because they don’t have the correct ordination rites to confer it. (I am paraphrasing Dr. David Anders here, apologies if I butchered his explanation.)
The true presence of Christ in the Eucharist is only available in the Latin and Greek churches. Not in heterodox Christianity. Receiving the Eucharist is the apex of orthodox Christianity, the most vital sacrament of all after Baptism. (maybe even greater than?)
John 6:53 is quite clear. And there is no true presence in Prot “eucharist”. Heck, most of the Protestant churches I tried didn’t even have communion! So Protestants (especially anti-Catholic ones) don’t really recognize the true Eucharist.
One in how many thousands of flavors of Protestantism?
And the Catholic Church says they don’t have valid orders for transubstantiation. My only curiosity about Trad Lutherans is their Mariology. Because Luther was, on that topic, in line with Catholicism if my understanding is correct.
If modern day Trad Lutherans don’t have hyper dulia for Mary, then IMO they don’t come close to “having it together quite well”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is much more than mechanics. The entire liturgy is different, dramatically altering what Eucharist is, from a thing of one kind to a thing of another kind altogether.
For three centuries the liturgy was thus: Dismissal (of unbelievers), Eucharist (Tithe offering of food; firstfruits), Oblation: Prayer and “Amen” (offering of thanksgiving), Consecration (Epiclesis), and then the meal. The entire liturgy is structured around the thank offering, thus the name. The oblative “Amen” takes place before the consecration. After the tithe and prayer of thanks, a selection of the food was chosen for the meal. That portion was then consecrated and consumed as part of the Lord’s Supper.
Around 350-400AD all this changed. The Consecration (Epiclesis) was moved before the Eucharist, thus the “Amen” marked the offering itself as the body and blood of Christ. In such a simple alteration, the eucharist now became a sacrifice of the body and blood. As Cyril of Jerusalem would note, “receive the Body of Christ, saying over it, Amen” (Catechetical Lectures 23 21) and further:
Cyril explains the significance of this:
It is the consecration (the “heavenly words”) that signifies the start of the of the Lord’s Supper. Moving the consecration before the Eucharist changed the nature of the Eucharist entirely. Moving the Consecration opened the door for the novelty of transubstantiation as sacrifice.
But that is not all that was changed. The Dismissal was moved to the end. Before 385AD, Ambrose wrote that the dismissal of the catechumens occurred before oblation. No longer were the unbeliever and the sinning believer dismissed and not permitted to give their tithe or participate in the Lord’s Supper, two facts that continue to harm modern churches to this day. Thus did the language of “Mass” or “Ite missa est” (dismissal chant in the Roman rite) come to refer to the dismissal of believers after the service. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, this would eventually be collectively applied to the entire Eucharistic sacrifice itself. Thus, the origin of the name “Mass” is itself the very proof of its corruption.
LikeLike
In light of my comment on the Eucharist, I want to highlight these comments by Kentucky Gent…
…culminating in…
And this hammers the nail on the head. This is why, of my series against subjective eschatology, the most unambiguous portion is the one on Eucharist as the image of the beast. It is the only explanation that adequately matches the scriptural reference and it fulfills every single one of the signs. The fact that the Eucharistic liturgy was altered, dramatically changing its meaning, is only further proof of its corruption.
Yes it is. The blood and body of Christ are his words, the message he gave, and receiving those words is belief, for it is belief that saves. The flesh (body and blood) count for nothing and the words are full of Spirit and give life.
…and…
One of the odd features of modern Christianity is the ignorance of these things such that most do not see clearly the choice.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ The fine Kentucky Gent,
I haven’t been to one that doesn’t, but I don’t doubt you found such places. It is bad to not have communion.
As many as there are flavors of Catholics, at most. Latin communist Catholics, charismatic Catholics, anti-papal sedevacantist Catholics…. I’ve seen all sorts of different Catholic churches with wildly different theology.
As we discussed, the communion they offer is perfectly valid, even if you view everyone else as heretics. So how does that work?
The east doesn’t beleive in transubstantiation either. They go for something like transessentialism, but refuse to define things as a matter of principle.
They’re probably closer to the Lutheran/Reformed idea of real presence and cosubstantiation.
But both transsubstantiation and hyper dulia are Latin unique doctrines. Between you and me, western Christinity both Catholic and Prot have more in common with each other than we do with the easterners. There is some rather big stuff about the nature of God and salvation we agree on that Eastern churches reject.
Lutherans do respect Mary though. Specially so.
Yeah, I mean John Chrysostom. Super soccer mom would make for some interesting theology!
@Ramman,
I vaguely knew about changes in the order of dismissal, when I studied the easterners. They make a big deal of it. I never considered it too deeply though.
I have to look into what you’re saying here a little more. Perhaps it’s bigger than I thought.
LikeLike
I haven’t been to one that doesn’t, but I don’t doubt you found such places. It is bad to not have communion.
So you’ve only ever tried “main line” Protestantism, I see. A good guideline, IMO, is that the more emphasis placed on charismatic gifts, the more likely there is no communion.
“One in how many thousands of flavors of Protestantism?”
As many as there are flavors of Catholics, at most. Latin communist Catholics, charismatic Catholics, anti-papal sedevacantist Catholics…. I’ve seen all sorts of different Catholic churches with wildly different theology.
Yes I know the church has a lot of problems these days, but I think, for 1, you exaggerate the number of Catholic “flavors”. Whereas Fr. Josiah Trenam (who is Eastern Orthodox) has asserted that there are more than 40,000 Protestant denominations (most are obviously not mainline) and has even published that claim, referencing the number of churches registered with the IRS for tax purposes.
And for 2, the question of heresy versus official doctrine. For example, blessing same sex “marriages” is not Catholic, and the bishops who are pushing for it are pushing heresy, not doctrine. Same for female “priests”, etc. Whereas the 40,000 different prot churches are making official various heterodox ideas into doctrines.
In other words, in Catholicism some heterodox idea might be there, but it is not supposed to be there (bug in the code), whereas the Protestants have embraced this or that deviation from orthodoxy (it’s a feature not a bug!). Doing Catholicism wrongly does not make you a different “flavor” of Catholicism, it makes you a heretic. Or a Protestant.
“And the Catholic Church says they don’t have valid orders for transsubstantiation.”
As we discussed, the communion they offer is perfectly valid, even if you view everyone else as heretics. So how does that work?
I was wrong, in that I was thinking of the Anglicans not the Lutherans. A king of England changed the ordination rite, and that is why their communion is not valid (not because they aren’t in communion with Rome!).
But I thought Dr. David Anders (on “Called to Communion”) also said that we (meaning Roman Catholics) don’t think Trad Lutheran communion is valid, either. But that was about a year ago and even if I am recalling this correctly, I don’t recall the reason.
Between you and me, western Christinity both Catholic and Prot have more in common with each other than we do with the easterners. There is some rather big stuff about the nature of God and salvation we agree on that Eastern churches reject.
Well, that’s a bold claim. You are of course entitled to your own opinion, but women ministers and gay marriage are also “some rather big stuff”. The latter is a blessing for what is an abomination to God according to scripture.
Lutherans do respect Mary though. Specially so.
I need to get my book “Rock and Sand” and see what Luther’s position was.
LikeLike
I forgot to link the citation to the Catholic Encyclopedia, which mentions both Ambrose and the synecdoche:
The Dismissal of the unbeliever and the backslider was in obedience to Matthew 5:23-24 and 1 Corinthians 11:17-18. Unlike late 4th century liturgy of Ambrose and the RCC, the earliest reference to this in the church is found in the oldest known Christian reference: The Didache, Chapters 4,9,10, and 14. Various aspects of the non-Roman liturgy are found in Justin Martyr, Clement, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Origin, Bishop Julius, Athanasius, and many others.
Those who hold to the anachronism should be asked to explain “Why did Hippolytus, in 215AD, talk of offering olives, cheese, and oil in the Eucharist?” Maybe they will follow in the footsteps of Katherine E. Harmon and “use a heavy black marker to “x” out ruthlessly all references to Hippolytus in text books of liturgical history”, because the best way to deal with inconvenient history is to write it off. After all, if Church tradition says tradition is wrong, then tradition is wrong, because Church tradition is always right (i.e. the Roman Catholic axiom).
LikeLiked by 1 person
‘So you’ve only ever tried “main line” Protestantism, I see. A good guideline, IMO, is that the more emphasis placed on charismatic gifts, the more likely there is no communion.’
Due to things like involvement with outreachs and ecumenical charities I’ve seen, worked with, and studied quit a lot of different Christian groups, Catholic and protestant. Technically I’m neither: the Wesleys and their group arose caught between Anglicans and Catholics and didn’t want to get involved in those disputes so they built Para church support ministries. They’re not really Protestants per se, because they were never a part of the original protests and don’t nessisary agree with them.
Anyway the Chatasmatic movement so powerful today more or less started in Azuza California in the 1920s and fractured in the 1960s into a hyper liberal and hyper conservative faction. They’re pretty separated geographically, so you must be in a liberal charismatic area. In my area they’re the ones holding anti gay Bible verse signs at pride parades. They do hold communion.
‘Yes I know the church has a lot of problems these days, but I think, for 1, you exaggerate the number of Catholic “flavors”. ‘
Oh I’m just talking about the ones I’ve worked with personally. And even then understanding it.
‘Whereas Fr. Josiah Trenam (who is Eastern Orthodox) has asserted that there are more than 40,000 Protestant denominations (most are obviously not mainline) and has even published that claim, referencing the number of churches registered with the IRS for tax purposes.’
With half a billion Protestants that’s not nearly enough! You’re a Catholic, you know about subsitiarity! How could so few orginizations administer to so many?
Though between you and me it’s worse than that. He’s counting every single independent church as a denomination. While in fact virtually every independent church is part of some larger orginization or council or association, they just don’t like to admit it.
No no, we need way more denominations to serve the many different Christian cultures that exist.
‘And for 2, the question of heresy versus official doctrine. ‘
This is just ‘different rules for me than thee’ nonsense. Protestants have specific statements of doctrine just as papists do.
Remember the protests happened because papists let heretics slide, protestantism is traditionally stricter, not later, than papism.
‘Doing Catholicism wrongly does not make you a different “flavor” of Catholicism, it makes you a heretic. Or a Protestant.’
I wish people read St. Basil more. Schism and heresy are very different, and almost everything we’re talking about falls under the definition of schism.
On another note you know the prided up churches are mainly Socinians right? It’s a movement that started in Italy and has nothing to do with protestantism. It’s more an offshoot of Catholicism than anything else. All the unitarians and universalists and all that nonsense are Socinians. They deny the creed and the trinity, so they’re not actually Christians in any traditional sense.
“And the Catholic Church says they don’t have valid orders for transsubstantiation.”
‘I was wrong, in that I was thinking of the Anglicans not the Lutherans. A king of England changed the ordination rite, and that is why their communion is not valid (not because they aren’t in communion with Rome!).’
But that’s thr thing, it IS valid because communion doesn’t care if the preist is licit or not. Even if you consider Anglicans illicit Catholic theology still says they have valid communion.
‘But I thought Dr. David Anders (on “Called to Communion”) also said that we (meaning Roman Catholics) don’t think Trad Lutheran communion is valid, either. But that was about a year ago and even if I am recalling this correctly, I don’t recall the reason.’
I’ll say this, the anti other guy polmeticicists are usually terrible, even at knowing their own doctrine. This goes for anti catholic prots, anti prot Catholics, and anti western easterners. It doesn’t usually take long to see that half the time they don’t know the basics of shared Christian theology, and they eagerly bite their own nose off to spite the other guy.
It’s always best to study the great apologists for a denomination or group first, then think critically or look for a response to their particular claims.
I’m not going to blow ecumenical sunshine up your ass, there are real divisions between Christian groups and people’s. But they’re not usually the superficial things polmeticists want, no easy gotcha or obvious argument.
‘Well, that’s a bold claim. You are of course entitled to your own opinion, but women ministers and gay marriage are also “some rather big stuff”. The latter is a blessing for what is an abomination to God according to scripture.’
Greek Orthodox of America has bishops publically blessing gay weddings freind.
”I need to get my book “Rock and Sand” and see what Luther’s position was.”
You need to read Luther’s own works, they’re public domain. Or if you want something more condensed search up ‘beggers all’, there’s a Lutheran scholarly blogger that handles advanced translation details in a understandable way. Go to his blog and search up Mary and see what you get.
https://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/p/martin-luthers-mariology.html?m=1
Actually it looks like he has a whole subsection on Luther’s Mariology. All of it richly cited from Luther’s own works.
Then, if you wish, go back to Tock and Sand and see if it’s got any real substance or just calamity.
The East never cared to learn why the west excommunicated them and they never cared to learn what the reformation was about. They still run on Simony to this day, and honestly that’s even worse than all the Sodomy in the west.
There are good Christians over there but they have some really deep problems, if they tell you the schism was over filliloque you should realize they’re lying to cover the list of serious sins it was actually about. They were right about filliloque, kind of, but filliloque was almost on the bottom of the list of problems. Simony being on top.
No, when it comes down to it as a Catholic you have more problems with them than you do with Lutherns or Anglicans, or even Baptists.
LikeLiked by 1 person
…Catholic and protestant. Technically I’m neither: the Wesleys and their group arose caught between Anglicans and Catholics and didn’t want to get involved in those disputes … they were never a part of the original protests and don’t nessisary agree with them.
If you are not with me you’re against me. If you do not gather to me, you scatter.
With this verse informing my thinking, I put all Christians into 3 bins: Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant.
They’re pretty separated geographically, so you must be in a liberal charismatic area.
No, I’ve just lived all over the country. Since I left for my freshman year of college, I’ve had 28 different residences in 21 different cities in 13 different states, as far apart as Oregon, Florida, Rhode Island and in flyover country in between.
With half a billion Protestants that’s not nearly enough! How could so few orginizations administer to so many?
That’s just in the US. There are not half a billion people in the US, let alone that many Prots.
You’re a Catholic, you know about subsitiarity!
I’m a new Catholic, confirmed in 2021, and there is a LOT to learn. Never heard of susitiarity. Is this a typo?
No no, we need way more denominations to serve the many different Christian cultures that exist.
We need one body of Christ, one Gospel. Not schism and fracture. Take heart! Christ the King will get it all cleaned up one of these days.
This is just ‘different rules for me than thee’ nonsense.
No, it’s vitally important! It’s the difference between taking Christ’s teaching as your newly invented denomination’s official doctrine, or taking heresy for it.
Protestants have specific statements of doctrine just as papists do.
I know that! It’s assumed in my previous post. My point was, and still is, they are not the same statements! That was one of the purposes of the so-called “reformation”.
Remember the protests happened because papists let heretics slide,
That’s irrelevant to the question of what is correct doctrine. If the traffic cop lets you go by, while doing 45 in a 35 zone, you are still speeding even if there’s no ticket!
‘Doing Catholicism wrongly does not make you a different “flavor” of Catholicism, it makes you a heretic. Or a Protestant.’
…almost everything we’re talking about falls under the definition of schism.
The last comment (Or a Protestant.) is my idea of humor. I almost edited it out. My point was, any Catholic pushing heresy in his parish is not a different “flavor”, but a heretic.
On another note you know the prided up churches are mainly Socinians right? It’s a movement that started in Italy and has nothing to do with protestantism.
You need to get around more. I’ve seen “prided up” Protestant churches all over the place, with their gay rainbows. Even in conservative Boise, ID, of all places. Methodists and other denominations.
Even if you consider Anglicans illicit Catholic theology still says they have valid communion.
Do you have a reference?
I’ll say this, the anti other guy polmeticicists [sic] are usually terrible, even at knowing their own doctrine.
Have you ever listened to ‘Called to Communion’?
It’s always best to study the great apologists for a denomination or group first, then think critically or look for a response to their particular claims.
There are only 24 hours in the day. I think it best to ignore Protestant denominations and their apologists, and study the Catholic faith only.
Greek Orthodox of America has bishops publically blessing gay weddings freind.
That’s their problem.
You need to read Luther’s own works…
That’s a terrible idea. I might forget where I read this or that idea, and accidentally confuse it for the true faith. No thanks.
… there’s a Lutheran scholarly blogger… See previous.
Then, if you wish, go back to Tock and Sand and see if it’s got any real substance or just calamity.
Some of your typos are hilarious!
The East .. still run on Simony to this day, and honestly that’s even worse than all the Sodomy in the west.
I recommend that you recheck the four sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance. Simony isn’t one of them, but sodomy is.
…if they tell you the schism was over filliloque you should realize they’re lying to cover the list of serious sins it was actually about.
Thanks for the tip. If you want a good laugh, read the Byzantine Lists.
No, when it comes down to it as a Catholic you have more problems with them than you do with Lutherns or Anglicans, or even Baptists.
Whoever finishes with the most heresies wins? I don’t think of it as a competition ;=)
LikeLike
At the end of all things if you can say the apostles creed honestly you’re judged as a Christian. For or against has two categories, not three. And the creed I’d what the early church judged by and that’s good enough for me.
I know its not good enough for papists, they beleive in development in doctrine, that religious beurocrats can come along and ammend what’s needed for salvation or what it is to serve Christ. That something other than the teaching of Christ and the apostles can be made mandatory for all.
That’s the heart of our divide. Protestants accept the early church while papists reject it.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/subsidiarity
That’s subsistiarity. I’m glad that 40k is for the US only it isn’t nearly enough to administer all thr Protestants in the world.
The term denomination means ‘in name’, all creedal Christians are part of the one Holy Catholic church. Even papists.
But the body has different administrations for different people. Catholics should be highly supportive of that since they ought to understand subsistiarity very well.
Summa says we have valid communion. No matter if you think any group is schismatic or heretical or valid. The early church as a whole agrees, summa has citations. If post Trent papists disagree it just shows all the more that the post Trent Roman church doesn’t have any real continuity to the early church, even the early Roman church.
United methodists tanked into universalism during 2nd wave feminism. Since they evidently took out judgement they arnt even creedal, so who cares? My catholic cousins eagerly march at pride parades and pro choice rallies, without sanction from their preist or bishop amd the preist at least knows about it, so which is worse? Buggary has always been a Romanish vice, even back a thousand years ago we Brits were sending letters telling Roman clergy to stop buggering around so much and so publicly. No doubt it came to America because we let so many Catholics into positions of power. The old WASP establishment always knew how to smear the queer and bully the buggerers out properly. It’s with the WASPs out of power that we have all these problems.
But no buggery is not worse than simony, simony is one thing on a very short list of sins agaisnt the Holy Ghost. Mortal vengeance is nothing next to that.
The Byzantine list is mainly complaints about form. It’s kind of funny in that sense. Some of the Latin list is about form too, like the shaving thing going both ways. A couple things strike true but it’s not nearly as bad as the other way. Some Greeks were not accepting Latin Communion or Baptism, which is Donnatism and serious heresy. Although, you’re partially doing that same thing now, so I guess history is cyclical?
If you’re engaging with Luther or accusing Luther you are morally obliged to read his own words on the matter before you pass judgement. But if you’re trying to ignore protestant doctrine then you have to ignore anti protestant writers of your faction anyway.
If heavy stuff like Summa isn’t your dig then perhaps get into some Chesterton, his works are availible at gutenburg online and are good lay primers in old style Catholic thought.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I discussed this issue a few weeks ago:
Which leads to:
Thus there is no development in Roman Catholic doctrine, only a growth in understanding of what was already fully revealed.
LikeLike
@ramman,
Hmm. The catholic apologists before infalliinalism said there were developments, and that things like Maryism, transsubstantiation and such were such developments alongside things like trinitatianism.
The issue isn’t even a matter if it being pre existing, it’s a matter of having the new understanding be binding on all Christians for salvation. Even if a council rules on an issue and is 100% correct in their ruling they’re incorrect to claim that understanding is retroactively binding on all Christians everywhere for salvation. But that’s at the heart of what doctrinal development claims.
Now, the councils can’t be 100% correct, because they conflict with each other, and some conflict with scripture. But even if they were doctrinal development would still be the papist position and still be wrong.
LikeLike
This is why, of my series against subjective eschatology, the most unambiguous portion is the one on Eucharist as the image of the beast.*
@ramman,
I will be blunt – I find the title offensive. I won’t read it or even click on the link. I’ve already twice prayed for Lord Jesus Christ to have mercy on you for such blasphemy.
If you want my argument, here it is: Numerous Eucharistic miracles over time and geography confirm it is of God. That simple. I’m sure I could also appeal to church doctrine, but I haven’t studied much doctrine on the Eucharist yet.
If you want to persue it further, I will only say that you should investigate the numerous miracles for yourself. A good start would be to go to youtube and put this into the search field: “fr mark goring eucharistic miracle”.
There is also a book on the topic, a compilation, which Fr. Mark mentions in one of his videos. Some of the transformed hosts are available for you to see with your own eyes; no need to take my word for it.
LikeLike
Of course you are correct. The official church teaching is that there is no revelation, but everyone knows this isn’t true. Father William Most said:
…and…
This completely conforms with CCC#66. There can be no new public revelations and the church has no commission regarding private revelation. But he also says something curious:
As Father Most notes, private revelations are not (supposed to be) binding on Catholics, but he clearly states that Fatima is both public and binding! Clearly the problem is terminology, not the contradiction. Right.
New revelation was used in the development of the infallible Marian doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. Father Joseph Dirvin explains:
An Apparition of Mary appeared to Don Bosco who passed on Mary’s instructions to proclaim the dogma of papal infallibility.
How can these two infallible doctrines be binding on Catholics if they were so strongly influenced and developed by private revelation? The Marian apparitions have had a significant impact on doctrinal development, in contravention to the official teachings of the church.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Brother, I wouldn’t make an issue of it if I didn’t think it was so serious. Idolatry is bad enough, but it’s no different than adultery or lying. But Revelation holds out this particular idolatry as especially egregious, with consequences that go well beyond the normal consequences for sin. If I could save even one person from this, I would do so.
I also appreciate your concern. If I am wrong, I greatly desire mercy for my error, but as it stands I cannot in clear conscience do other than my convictions demand.
Eucharist means ‘thanksgiving’. To the early church, Eucharist was the thank offering (the tithe or firstfruits offering) that occurred after the Dismissal and often included a banquet (not the Lord’s Supper: no Consecration and included more than bread and wine) and concluded with the thanksgiving prayer and apostolic “Amen”. You can read about it in the Didache and other patristic writings (e.g. Justin Martyr).
What you call Eucharist is not biblical nor is it attested to by the church fathers before 350AD, so speaking against it cannot be blasphemy: it is a later non-apostolic development. However, unlike most other Roman doctrinal innovations, this one was specifically highlighted by John as a warning.
But I have and I have no doubt about their existence. Yes, some are acknowledged as frauds by Roman Catholicism, but many are not.
Your proof is misplaced, and I will demonstrate how, although you will not like it. I’m truly sorry for the rage it will likely induce.
The image and mark of the beast are mentioned in Revelation 13:14-17, 14:9, 11, 15:2, 16:2, 19:20 and 20:4. I’ve already gone over how the mark is received on the hand or forehead (13:16, 14:9, 20:4), that it is received when the image is worshiped (13:15-16, 14:9,11), and that by the ancient scriptural reference in Exodus 13:6-9, we know by scriptural exegesis that the image is the unleavened bread of Passover.
Revelation gives five additional signs: (1) the image will come alive, (2) the image will speak, (3) ugly and grievous sores will appear on those who received the mark, (4) those who do not worship the image will be killed, and (5) no one without the mark will be able to buy or sell.
Of these, the first two are clearly fulfilled by the Eucharistic Miracles.
The Host has come alive—not decaying—on multiple documented occasions, pulsing, bleeding, and coming up in tests as heart muscle from someone under major stress (such as by assault or crucifixion). Indeed, one of these has been witnessed (by proxy) by the current sitting Pope. Like you, I do not deny that these miracles occur.
The Host has also spoken on many documented occasions over many centuries, but unlike the host coming alive, this cannot be so easily confirmed by scientific inquiry. But I do not deny that it occurs and neither, I think, do you.
As for the ugly and grievous sores, these are plainly fulfilled in the Stigmata, which has afflicted no less than 10 Catholic saints and who knows how many non-authenticated cases. It seems to strike those who are most devoted to the church and is unambiguously associated with the “Sacrifice of the Mass”, since it often flares up starting on Thursday until Friday till around 3 or 4pm. Those who suffer the stigmata go through agonizing suffering in imitation of Christ on the cross. I do not deny that this occurs either. It is quite real.
As for the last two signs, there are many references where ‘heretics’ were brutally murdered after explicitly refusing to take the mass (such as during the Inquisition). One such example is Jacob Birone in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Similarly, your own Popes have laid down commands that no one be allowed to commerce with certain individuals and groups of heretics. For example, Pope Alexander II in 1163 declared such for the Albigensians, who believed that the bread was just bread and remained just bread. The fact is that these two signs no longer occur because more the more than 1,000 year period of Roman Catholicsm’s civil rule is over, but have nonetheless been fulfilled on many occasions over that period.
None of this involves any significant leaps of inference or speculation. Our only disagreement is that you think the signs are divine and I think they are demonic, because scripture tells me they are demonic.
LikeLiked by 1 person
At the end of all things if you can say the apostles creed honestly you’re judged as a Christian.
@ prariepolyguy,
I don’t recall ever going so far as to say Protestants are not Christians.
For or against has two categories, not three.
I only gave two categories: orthodox and heterodox. The Catholic Church considers Eastern Orthodox Christianity to be, well, orthodox!
I know its not good enough for papists, they beleive in development in doctrine, that religious beurocrats can come along and ammend what’s needed for salvation
Um, no. That’s an incorrect understanding. “What’s needed for salvation” has been handed down from the Apostles themselves, unchanged, through 2000 years of unbroken apostolic succession.
That something other than the teaching of Christ and the apostles can be made mandatory for all.
You refer to Chesterton later in your post. But this statement calls to mind one of his quotes, which I will paraphrase/butcher: Not 1 in 100 reject Catholicism, just what they mistakenly think is Catholicism.
That’s the heart of our divide. Protestants accept the early church while papists reject it.
Ahem, the early church was Catholic. Have you read “Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words”?
“I’m glad that 40k is for the US only it isn’t nearly enough to administer all thr Protestants in the world.”
Well, the IRS doesn’t have authority to oversee non-US churches. Not to mention, the 40k (or whatever the exact number is) is only those registered with the IRS for tax exempt status. Anyway, the details of this are not important. What’s important is to see that Protestantism = Fracture. Ongoing fracture.
But if you think 40k is a low number, then I assume you are thinking church = individual church buildings. I don’t think that’s what it refers to at all. I believe it refers to denominations, not each individual congregation.
The term denomination means ‘in name’, all creedal Christians are part of the one Holy Catholic church. Even papists.
The point is, when there was one church we didn’t need the word “denomination”.
Summa says we have valid communion.
Aquinas is a saint, not a fortune teller. He wrote Summa more than 2 centuries before the so-called “Reformation”. He knew nothing of Protestantism. Just a guess, he was thinking of the Greeks.
If post Trent papists disagree it just shows all the more that the post Trent Roman church doesn’t have any real continuity to the early church, even the early Roman church.
Au contraire, it is the Protestants who don’t have continuity.
United methodists tanked into universalism during 2nd wave feminism. Since they evidently took out judgement they arnt even creedal, so who cares?
Well, that’s fine if you don’t care, but also it’s beside the point. Most people would rightly consider them Protestant. And not the only denomination with ‘pride’.
My catholic cousins eagerly march at pride parades and pro choice rallies, without sanction from their preist or bishop amd the preist at least knows about it, so which is worse?
I leave it for God to answer which is worse. If you want to spice things up at the next family gathering, ask them if they will be marching in any sloth parades, or gluttony parades. 🙂
Buggary has always been a Romanish vice, …It’s with the WASPs out of power that we have all these problems.
Three points in response: 1) Joe Biden is a puppet. The real power in America is billionaires and Zionists. 2) The homosexual movement didn’t start on Jan. 20, 2021. 3) All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. To claim homosexuality is a Catholic problem is disingenous at best.
But no buggery is not worse than simony, simony is one thing on a very short list of sins agaisnt the Holy Ghost. Mortal vengeance is nothing next to that.
I see your point about mortal vengeance versus eternal damnation, but I’ve not seen simony on the list of the 6 sins against the Spirit. Simony is trying to buy the power to work miracles, right? Do you have a different understanding?
Some Greeks were not accepting Latin Communion or Baptism, which is Donnatism and serious heresy. Although, you’re partially doing that same thing now, so I guess history is cyclical?
No, I don’t do that at all. I conform to the church teaching, which I mentioned earlier in this post.
If you’re engaging with Luther
I’m trying NOT to!
or accusing Luther
Saying Luther started the so-called “Reformation” and Protestantism is hardly an accusation. More like a statement of fact that I’ve never seen disputed. (And yes, I know Calvin and Zwingli exist.)
But if you’re trying to ignore protestant doctrine then you have to ignore anti protestant writers of your faction anyway.
I’m under no such obligation, but it’s irrelevant because I am interested in learning the Catholic faith. Anti protestantism is a waste of my time, which is why I said don’t get me started! Three decades in Protestantism was more than enough for a lifetime.
LikeLike
@Kentucky Gent
You cannot find the Roman Catholic eucharistic liturgy prior to the late 4th century without eisegetically bringing it in as your prior. I challenge you to find a single clear example from the patristics that stands on its own. I will start by giving you two patristic citations containing the correct liturgy.
But first, in 1 Corinthians 14:16, Paul mentions the Eucharist and a subsequent “Amen” to complete the offering (of praise). Paul also describes the Eucharistic sacrifice (of the provision of food) in 2 Corinthians 9:10-11 and Philippians 4:18. I could say much more about the Christian sacrifices of the free-will thanksgiving (eucharist), but that’s enough for now.
The Didache mirrors this. Chapters 9, 10 and 14 describe the Eucharistic thank offering (the offering of praise and tithes), which concludes with the prayer and the “Amen”. No one could participate that was not baptized or had unconfessed sins. The Didache includes the Dismissal, Eucharist, Prayer and Amen (in that order), but no mention of the Consecration (1 Corinthians 10:16-17) or the Lord’s Supper. Both must have occurred after the “Amen”, because the food for the Lord’s Supper was taken out of the Eucharistic tithe offering, which was not itself sacrificed (i.e. ‘the eucharist’) until the “Amen” was complete. We will see this as we examine Justin Martyr, but even without his writings, logic still dictates our course.
The Didache describes a banquet taken out of the Eucharist offering, a meal to ensure the poor were fed, which is itself a eucharistic sacrifice and had to be concluded with prayer and “Amen”. The church thus took Paul’s instructions literally. It could not be the Lord’s Supper, for that was a solemn occasion that contained only bread and wine, not a feast. This is also why Hippolytus, writing in 215AD, talked of offering olives, cheese, and oil in the Eucharist. The banquet was a regular meal.
Now, let’s examine Justin Martyr, writing ~156AD, to see the full liturgy. In Chapter 66, we read that no one is allowed to participate in the Eucharist who is not a believer or is in sin. By implication, they must be dismissed for they are not allowed to participate. In Chapters 13, 65, and 67 of The First Apology, he writes that the bread and wine (mixed with water!) are selected out of the tithes, the prayer of thanksgiving is made followed by the “Amen” to complete the sacrifice, after which previous Eucharisted selection will be consumed in the Lord’s Supper and the remainder carried away by the deacons to those in need. In Chapter 66, the Eucharisted (following the “Amen”) bread and wine (εὐχαριστηθείσαν τροφήν) are then consecrated and consumed, just as Jesus did. Thus we have a Dismissal, Eucharist, “Amen”, Consecration, and Lord’s Supper, which more-or-less matches the Protestant approach today. It does not match the Roman Eucharistic liturgy.
Other writers that use this liturgy include Irenaeus (~189 AD), Hippolytus (215 AD), Tertullian (208 AD), Origen (248 AD), Firmilian (256 AD), Cornelius (250 AD), Cyprian (253 AD), Dionysius (256 AD), and Gregory Nazianzus the Elder (~300 AD) with additional evidence from Clement (~150AD) and Ignatius (~107AD). I can provide citations for each. The historical evidence is overwhelming.
No writer in the first 300 years ever presented Christ’s death to the father. No writing ever instructs the church to offer Christ’s body and blood to the father. It does not exist anywhere. It simply does not exist in history. It is an idolatrous anachronistic heresy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s just historical ignorance. The Valdenses in the 12th century—well before Luther—protested Roman Catholicism and called Rome the Whore of Babylon. The “Nobla Lecon” reads like a Protestant creed, including the means of salvation. The Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists, Anabaptists, Calvinists, and a few others have all been known to claim the Waldenses a source of origin. The Lollards are another well-documented pre-Luther protestant group.
The remnant of church has been protesting Roman doctrine since the mid-4th century, protected as Jesus promised it would be. Many groups who merely called themselves Christian have been labeled by various names and accused of various heresies by Roman Catholicism in the intermediate centuries. Rome has never ceased to condemn its critics, misrepresent their ‘heresy’, and assign them names.
Moreover, their works were banned and destroyed by the Roman Catholics. When the party making a claim is responsible for destroying the evidence against it, they are hardly on the intellectual high ground. The burden of proof should fall on those who destroy the evidence. Nevertheless, we can still infer quite a lot about them from what remains.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@K Gent
‘I don’t recall ever going so far as to say Protestants are not Christians.’
Well that’s good then.
‘The Catholic Church considers Eastern Orthodox Christianity to be, well, orthodox!’
Ooh boy. I have some bad news for you about what anathema forever means.
They do not consider the eastern sects orthodox, and anyone telling you otherwise is blowing highly selective bits of post Vatican 2 ecumenicalism up your butt. Such things that could equally be used to say that some soecific protestant groups are orthodox by Catholic standards.
‘Um, no. That’s an incorrect understanding. “What’s needed for salvation” has been handed down from the Apostles themselves, unchanged, through 2000 years of unbroken apostolic succession.’
Yes, in scripture. That’s sola scriptura. New Testiment Scripture is apostolic tradition and apostolic tradition is new testiemnt scripture. Everything after that is commentary, and cannot be binding on Christians for salvation.
Technically Catholics affirm all the Solas. I could link popes affirming them if you like. Sometimes explicitly, like sola Gratia. Denying sola Gratia leaves one firmly in the ‘pelaganist heretic’ camp.
‘You refer to Chesterton later in your post. But this statement calls to mind one of his quotes, which I will paraphrase/butcher: Not 1 in 100 reject Catholicism, just what they mistakenly think is Catholicism.’
Yes, people mistake papism for Catholicism, it’s a sad mistake.
‘Ahem, the early church was Catholic. Have you read “Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words”?’
Of course. But it was not dominated by Rome. Is the pope Catholic? Exactly as Catholic as a Luthern preist.
‘ What’s important is to see that Protestantism = Fracture. Ongoing fracture.’
And you’d prefer the world governed by one great monolith would you? Living things grow and spread out and make themselves distinct. It’s the first commission of mankind.
‘The point is, when there was one church we didn’t need the word “denomination”.’
We always had differences in name between different nations and we always had enthusiastic followers of one preacher or another. The British church didn’t do things like Italy even in the 2nd century. The thing that changed was Rome started demanding everyone act just like them. It’s the enforced homogeneity that’s the problem, not the fact that different people are different.
‘Just a guess, he was thinking of the Greeks.’
The Greeks would have been a hard pill for him to swallow, he was very against them. Even so he wasn’t thinking of anyone or anything, he explained what was and wasn’t valid communion per the criteria of the early church. Nothing more or less.
‘Au contraire, it is the Protestants who don’t have continuity.’
And yet it is us, not you, that got the whole deep study on the early church culture going. Even heavy duty Bible scholarship started first in the protestant nations.
‘Well, that’s fine if you don’t care, but also it’s beside the point. Most people would rightly consider them Protestant. And not the only denomination with ‘pride’.’
Most people are too general. Methodists at no point were part of the anti Roman protests. You might as well call them Catholic as protestant.
‘I leave it for God to answer which is worse. If you want to spice things up at the next family gathering, ask them if they will be marching in any sloth parades, or gluttony parades. 🙂’
I’m sure they would, lol.
‘Three points in response: 1) Joe Biden is a puppet. The real power in America is billionaires and Zionists. 2) The homosexual movement didn’t start on Jan. 20, 2021. 3) All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. To claim homosexuality is a Catholic problem is disingenous at best.’
I was thinking of Kennedy. The 60s and 70s were the heyday of Catholic power and influence in America. Catholics started flooding the legal profession in the mid 50s when prots were foolish enough to be more open to them. Catholic lawyers and judges abound in the 60s to the mid 70s, and that IS when openness to Sodomy became a big thing.
Catholic politics in the US supports mass migration. Kennedy himself took away naturalization laws and restrictions, opening the way for loads of Latin Catholics to get political positions. Then they institute Catholic politics, welfare state policies, open boarder or city of refuge policies, soft of crime policies. The migration is probably just to invite more Catholic voters in asap to consolidate power. But the welfare state stuff us liberation theology: Catholic communism pure and simple.
Biden is a puppet. Bergolios puppet. He runs the country exaclty as Catholic presidents do in Latin America and Africa. Using the federal police to harass political opponents. Careless spending on socialist policies with a good heap of fat for political freinds. Shady elections. Social justice claptrap.
Welcome to ‘politics in a Catholic country’ 101.
Honestly Americans should have kept barring Catholics. All these Catholic economic refugees what want to get American wealth without American values are as damaging to American society as any Muslim who migrates to the US for freedom then supports Sharia as soon as they settle.
Tell me it isn’t so. Protestants are the only folks in the world that kept resisting communism, other than Franco (God rest his soul).
And look at you ‘billionares’ like it’s Elon Musk and Warren Buffet wrecking America. Not the flood of democratic Catholics getting larger by the year? I’ll take Zion Don over Bergolio Biden any year.
Anyway the Jesuits are the original zionists, they came up with the whole premillenial eschatology in the first place. Catholics have their own zionist problem.
Different people have different vices they are predisposed too. Germans have their lesbians and French have more than their share of fornication. But Rome and Sodomy go hand in hand in the Catholic and pre Catholic era.
‘Simony is trying to buy the power to work miracles, right? Do you have a different understanding?’
It’s beleiveing you can purchase the Holy Ghost in any way. Technically televangelists who do seed faith are modern simonists. But buying and selling clerical positions is the most common definition. The east still does that. They’re buying the right to demand tithes, and its an investment like any other business.
‘No, I don’t do that at all. I conform to the church teaching, which I mentioned earlier in this post.’
I’m glad you accept protestant communion now. Or you saying church teaching on this topic is a contradictory mess? Because it is from the papist prespective.
‘Saying Luther started the so-called “Reformation” and Protestantism is hardly an accusation. More like a statement of fact that I’ve never seen disputed. (And yes, I know Calvin and Zwingli exist.)’
Tbh I see the importance of Luther disputed all the time. Rome started the reformation when they seized new powers in the 12th century. Everything after that is just various groups boiling up to a point of material resistance.
‘I’m under no such obligation, but it’s irrelevant because I am interested in learning the Catholic faith.’
If you want to know the Catholic faith why study papists? Papism is decidedly uncatholic now isn’t it?
LikeLike
@prairepolyguy
I made all of these points in my post today: “Scripture is Tradition.” I specifically discussed the case of Victor trying to force homogeneity upon the universal (catholic) church over the observance of Passover, in light of the fact that the apostles themselves started different customs. The other Bishops objected. In the process, Irenaeus defines tradition as being the received scripture and explicitly calls out non-scriptural traditions as the source of heresy.
I indirectly discussed that today also.
LikeLike
@ ramman,
In regards to your post about the liturgy of the Eucharist, beginning with
You cannot find the Roman Catholic eucharistic liturgy prior to the late 4th century without eisegetically bringing it in as your prior. I challenge you to find a single clear example from the patristics that stands on its own. I will start by giving you two patristic citations containing the correct liturgy…
Where to begin? We are in our 2nd week of not just comments, but essays in point/counterpoint, and for the sake of (an attempt at) brevity (or at least, reducing long-windedness), I will try something new. I will number my counterpoints along with/after my argument for each. You can conveniently edit out all of my text except these points, if you wish to reply.
Also, I’m a “big picture” type of person, whereas you seem to prefer getting into the details (minutia?). And when those details are not present in the extant record, then (IMO) you seem to take license to use absence of evidence as evidence of absence. Or, you read too much into the text, legalistically.
Permit me to offer an example of what I mean, so that you don’t misunderstand. I will cite the Didache on Baptism: Before the Baptism, let the Baptizer and the candidate for Baptism fast, as well as any others that are able. Require the candidate to fast one or two days previously.
I was baptized in a Charismatic/Protestant church. I’ve seen many Baptisms. I’ve attended literally thousands of church services in my life. Known many many Baptized believers. Heard preachers preach to the soon-to-be-baptized.
I’ve never never never heard this Didache teaching in any Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox service, EVER! EVER. Modern Christendom simply does not teach it in the main.
And I’ve been to so many of them, over half a century living in Christendom! It. Is. NOT. Teached. So, counterpoint #1:
Is your baptism always valid, if it is made in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, even if you didn’t fast two days prior? Moving on…
You wrote:
But first, in 1 Corinthians 14:16, Paul mentions the Eucharist and a subsequent “Amen” to complete the offering (of praise). Paul also describes the Eucharistic sacrifice (of the provision of food) in 2 Corinthians 9:10-11 and Philippians 4:18. I could say much more about the Christian sacrifices of the free-will thanksgiving (eucharist), but that’s enough for now.
The Didache mirrors this. …. (edited for brevity). The banquet was a regular meal.
What were these documents? That is the crux of the matter. That is how we get to logical understanding.
The NT epistles were instructions to believers. Not evangelizing to pagans. So…
They were for Christians who had converted and had already been verbally instructed by the apostles! The epistles consist mostly of encouragement, compliments, and Apostolic correction of errors committed by believers.
Epistles simply were NOT the same as proselytizing or evangelizing. Or explaining the Eucharist. That would have already been done verbally, face to face by an Apostle, to the new believers. Epistolic teaching was mostly a correction of already practicing Christians!
So this brings me to counterpoint #2:
The epistles do not contain the (entire) deposit of faith. When they teach, it is mainly correction of error. So when they don’t address your criticisms, it isn’t a confirmation of your criticism. It’s (more likely) an indicator that what you think is not mentioned just simply wasn’t in dispute.
Onward and upward:
Now, let’s examine Justin Martyr, writing ~156AD, to see the full liturgy. …. Thus we have a Dismissal, Eucharist, “Amen”, Consecration, and Lord’s Supper, which more-or-less matches the Protestant approach today. It does not match the Roman Eucharistic liturgy.
Hopefully your objection to the Novus Ordo is not about when the “Amen” is said, because it’s probably the most frequent word mention in NO. 🙂
Seriously, I read your post 3 times. Was trying to figure out if your point was about the order of things. But later in your post there was quite a left turn:
…I can provide citations for each. The historical evidence is overwhelming… No writer in the first 300 years ever presented Christ’s death to the father.
So, Counterpoint #3:
It didn’t need to be explained to the early church. They already knew it. They all got it from the Apostles and their successors.
No writing ever instructs the church to offer Christ’s body and blood to the father. It does not exist anywhere. It simply does not exist in history.
Oof. Yes it does. On Calvary. The Crucifixion. Read all about it in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Church is the body of Christ! Which He Himself offered to the Father.
It is an idolatrous anachronistic heresy.*
It is a re-Presentation of Calvary. A devout act of worship.
If nothing else, please listen to this, sir: I found God in the Catholic Church. Or, more accurately, HE brought me there and found me there. Thanks be to God!
LikeLike
I wrote “Saying Luther started the so-called “Reformation” and Protestantism is hardly an accusation. More like a statement of fact that I’ve never seen disputed (etc.)…”
ramman wrote
That’s just historical ignorance. The Valdenses in the 12th century—well before Luther—protested Roman Catholicism and called Rome the Whore of Babylon. …The Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists, Anabaptists, Calvinists, and a few others have all been known to claim the Waldenses a source of origin. The Lollards are another well-documented pre-Luther protestant group.
It’s not historical ignorance, it is historical awareness! The “Reformation” was as much a political movement as it was a schism. Maybe more so. You are referencing an extremely less significant event than what was initiated by Luther! The Prot Reformation tore apart Europe, led to mass warfare, death, and political upheaval. It changed the course of history!
That is what people mean when they talk about the “Reformation”. Come On, man! You are making a mountain out of an 11th-century molehill, an insignificant blip in history. The Valdenses are simply not the Reformation.
“it is the Protestants who don’t have continuity.”
The remnant of church has been protesting Roman doctrine since the mid-4th century, protected as Jesus promised it would be….
Well, I’d say: Go into all the world and make disciples of all the Nations…
Who did that? Who went into all the world? Catholics. Who went in all the Nations? Catholics. Even into Afghanistan (where the Church has to be underground). Even in China. Japan. South America. ALL OVER South America. Africa. ALL OVER Africa. And Australia. American Indians. EVERYWHERE! The Church Militant is the leader.
These numbers, throughout the world, testify to the Great Commission! Catholics carried it out. When Martin Luther and other “reformers” were gutting the ranks of the faithful, who added to the ranks in the “New World” to replace the lost souls of Europe? Catholics.
Moreover, their works were banned and destroyed by the Roman Catholics. When the party making a claim is responsible for destroying the evidence against it, they are hardly on the intellectual high ground.
Spiritual high ground is better.
The travesty of your “intellectual” high ground is that arguing intellectually has taken us from near-universal European Christendom before the Enlightenment, to the 21st century Western Civilization House of Horrors.
Welcome the Liars, the Atheists, the Femminists, the Abortionists, the Marxists/Communists, the Trannies, the Sexual Perverts, the Satan Worshippers, the Persecutors of Christians, the Pedophiles – ALL of them!!
All of them – ALL OF THEM!!! – arguing for intellectual high ground. Have at it, my friend.
LikeLike
Ooh boy. I have some bad news for you about what anathema forever means.
They do not consider the eastern sects orthodox,
@prariepolyguy,
OK, so I double checked on this. Pope John Paul II was actually referring to the Eastern Catholics when he spoke of ‘two lungs’ of the church. I thought he was referring to the Greeks, but no. So thanks, prairie! You prompted me to clear up a misunderstanding on my part.
That said, EO doctrine is far more orthodox than Protestantism, based on my studies so far. They reject both sola fide and sola scriptura, according to Fr Josiah Trenham and Fr Spyridon (youtube).
Yes, in scripture. That’s sola scriptura.
Scripture doesn’t even support sola scriptura.
New Testiment [sic] Scripture is apostolic tradition and apostolic tradition is new testiemnt scripture. Everything after that is commentary, and cannot be binding on Christians for salvation.
I’ll stick with St. Paul’s instructions over yours, thanks.
Technically Catholics affirm all the Solas. I could link popes affirming them if you like. Sometimes explicitly, like sola Gratia.
This is why these posts are getting so long – you keep bringing in new topics. Why are you bringing up sola gratia? Why not stay on topic?
Yes, people mistake papism for Catholicism, it’s a sad mistake.
It’s the glorious truth, and the RCC has gone into all the world.
… it was not dominated by Rome. Is the pope Catholic? Exactly as Catholic as a Luthern preist.
‘Catholic’ [upper case C] means ‘Roman Catholic’. Your meaning though, is universal, which would be ‘catholic’ [lower case c].
But the main issue here is this talk of being dominated by Rome. This is a surprising beginner mistake coming from you. (that’s a compliment). The popes hardly dominate! An anecdote I got from a woman who met John Paul II personally: She asked him why don’t you have the bishops consecrate Russia to Our Lady, as was instructed at Fatima? He said ‘They won’t listen to me!’. Just as the German bishops aren’t listening to Pope Francis on gay ‘marriage’.
And you’d prefer the world governed by one great monolith would you?
No, and your terminology lacks precision. I was talking about the Church, not international government, whereas your sloppy wording implies just the opposite.
We always had differences in name between different nations
And cities too. But that’s not a denomination. If you go to, for example, “First Southern Baptist Church of Memphis”, neither “first” nor “Memphis” are part of the name of the denomination.
And yet it is us, not you, that got the whole deep study on the early church culture going. Even heavy duty Bible scholarship started first in the protestant nations.
And so? You want a pat on the back, is that it? 🙂
Most people are too general. Methodists at no point were part of the anti Roman protests. You might as well call them Catholic as protestant.
That’s absurd on both points. 1) No living Lutheran was part of the anti Roman protests. 2) John Wesley, who founded the movement, was an Anglican! That’s about as Protestant as it gets. He wanted an Anglican style of Christianity for the USA:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-wesley-charters-first-methodist-church-in-u-s
Catholic politics in the US supports mass migration…The migration is probably just to invite more Catholic voters in asap to consolidate power.
That’s just political cover for the Zionists. It is an error to take what you see on the surface at face value.
The legislation to change to immigration in the 1960s was written by a Jew, afaik. In Biden’s cabinet Jews are way over-represented, as they are in our legal system and our courts. They want you blaming Catholics so you will be fighting with your Christian brothers instead of with your real enemy, the Christ Killers.
Think about it – it isn’t the Vatican where every single US president goes to display their fealty. They go to the Wailing Wall, in Israel, and wear the small hats. It wasn’t Catholics running Epstein Island to blackmail US politicians, it was Jews and Mossad.
But the welfare state stuff us liberation theology: Catholic communism pure and simple.
I covered this already. Just because some RCC clergy preaches heresy it doesn’t make it Catholic. It is still just heresy. We’ve had Free Masons infiltrate the church also, but it doesn’t change the fact that Free Masonry is condemned.
Biden is a puppet. Bergolios puppet.
Your rabid anti-RCC stance makes you unable to see clearly. Biden is Mossad’s puppet.
He runs the country exaclty as Catholic presidents do in Latin America and Africa.
Because the Zionists want to make the US into a 3rd-world sh!thole.
Welcome to ‘politics in a Catholic country’ 101.
Sorry, you’ve been duped.
All these Catholic economic refugees … are as damaging to American society as any Muslim who migrates to the US for freedom then supports Sharia as soon as they settle.
Thank the Zionists. Refugees being nominal Catholics is beside the point. It’s irrelevant, like saying the refugees are shorter than Americans, on average. The point is, they are not white, and that is why the Zionists want open borders.
Tell me it isn’t so.
It isn’t. George Soros ain’t Catholic, fella. Epstein wasn’t Catholic. The Wailing Wall is not Catholic. Your ire is misdirected.
Protestants are the only folks in the world that kept resisting communism, other than Franco (God rest his soul).
Check out RCC Archbishop Vigano.
And look at you ‘billionares’ like it’s Elon Musk and Warren Buffet wrecking America.
No. Think “Bill Gates, George Soros”.
Not the flood of democratic Catholics getting larger by the year?
“The flood of non whites getting larger by the year.” Fixed if for you!
IMO, anyone who votes Dem is not a faithful Catholic. If you support abortion or gay marriage or women clergy or open borders you are a fake Catholic.
This is the same error you keep making, over and over. But I say again, ‘heresy’ is NOT Catholicism, even if it comes from the RCC clergy!
‘Simony is trying to buy the power to work miracles, right? Do you have a different understanding?’
It’s beleiveing you can purchase the Holy Ghost in any way.
OK.
Technically televangelists who do seed faith are modern simonists.
OK
But buying and selling clerical positions is the most common definition. The east still does that.
This seems categorically different to me. Not saying right or wrong, just different.
They’re buying the right to demand tithes, and its an investment like any other business.
I listened to EWTN radio a lot before I moved. They had a daily show in which an RCC priest would answer questions. He said the Catholic Church doesn’t teach tithing. It seems you’re misinformed. And again, ‘errors’ are NOT Catholicism, even if they come from clergy.
Should I blame your denomination for televangelist simony? Of course not. So follow the Golden Rule here.
But the big picture is, you are eager to look at problems in the RCC as evidence against its legitimacy, not accounting for the fact that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Your church is full of sinful humans too, but I would never use that as an argument against the legitimacy of your doctrine!
I’m glad you accept protestant communion now.
Stop trying to be so cute. I already covered why Anglican communion doesn’t have the true presence.
If you want to know the Catholic faith why study papists? Papism is decidedly uncatholic now isn’t it?
The RCC is the true church.
LikeLike
@Kentucky Gent
I embrace the big picture: Rome’s doctrines did not exist in the first 300 years of the catholic church.
The Patristics are not silent, but testify loudly against the Roman doctrinal innovations of the 4th century and later. I can engage with more than a dozen writers to show that the Roman Eucharist is false. Catholic doctrines cannot be supported without citing the axiom that the more recent practices explicate the older practices, which is circular reasoning. I’ll give five examples.
First, John Henry Newman writes:
Second, John Brande Morris says:
Third, Christian Cochini writes:
“We will therefore choose the late 4th century as our chronological basis for inquiry on the birth and development of the law on clerical celibacy rather than the year 325, the date of the First Ecumenical Council.” — Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy
Fourth, the Catholic Encyclopedia says:
“With regard to the water mingled with the wine in the Mass, the Fathers from the earliest times have tried to find reasons why the Church [used] a mixed chalice though the Gospel narrative implies that Christ consecrated pure wine.” — Liturgical Use of Water
…and…
“It is remarkable that the ‘orantes’ (praying figures) of early Christian art are in the catacomb frescoes invariably depicted as standing with arms extended. Some remarks of Leclercq suggest that a probable explanation may be found in the view that these ‘orantes’ are merely conventional representations of prayer and of suppliants in the abstract. They are symbols, not pictures of the actual.” — Genuflexion
Fifth, Philip Schaff notes:
I could go on and on. The claim that the church has tradition on its side is wrong: it does not and it testifies that it does not. This claim is Rome’s key deception, which frequently catches Protestants (like Schaff) in its trap, falsely running to the security of later Holy Tradition (like Morris) to determine the earlier. But it is nothing more than an attractive deception.
Speculation that the received scriptures are incomplete and insufficient is just speculation. So too that a ‘Deposit of Faith’ exists that is more than scripture. But I cite the early church tradition that affirmatively testifies that Scripture alone is tradition and imitate them by calling heresy any doctrine defined using anything outside of it.
I’ll make this simple. The “Amen” in the eucharist—as demonstrated by a number of early church writings—completes the offering of praise, thanksgiving, tithes, and firstfruits for the poor: the oblation. Since the eucharistic offering was completed before the Consecration (epiclesis; invocation) and Lord’s Supper, the elements of Christ’s body and blood could not be offered as a sacrifice to God, because they were consecrated after they were eucharisted. The Roman Catholic liturgy merged the eucharist with the epiclesis to produce a sacrifice of consecrated elements.
The Dismissal was moved from before the Eucharist to after the Lord’s Supper, as shown in the word “Mass” itself. No Roman Catholic understands why it has this tradition at the end, because (as previously cited) it originates in the 4th century and is supposedly ‘missing’ in the early church. To understand why it isn’t missing would be to admit that the liturgy has changed, thus it is written off as a mystery lost to history.
Your speculation—in the absence of evidence—regarding tradition is contraindicated by the extant words of the early church and all the preserved words of the Apostles contained solely within scripture. Of this speculation…
…the words of the early church writers testify against it. I reject the claim that scripture means literally what is clearly and explicitly stated to be figurative and symbolic. Up until the 4th century, the typical, antitypical, allegorical, and symbolic nature of the bread and wine are well-attested by both scripture and the church fathers. Moreover, starting in the late 4th century ‘heretics’ suddenly arose from within the church to protest it, but were unable to overcome Rome. Lastly,
…we are not debating that Jesus offering himself to the father as a sacrifice. He most certainly did. The early church did not. Brother, Christ didn’t sacrifice the Church—which is his body—to the Father on the cross, he sacrificed himself, and himself only, for our sins. You cannot convert a figure-of-speech into something literal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Kentucky Gent,
Back in 2020, I had a three- or four-month long debate with three Roman Catholics. One of the Roman Catholics there had made the claim, as you also seem to, that the liturgy must include the required apostolic Amen, because there are so many. He even linked the liturgy, which shows that there is no Amen separating the Eucharist and the Consecration, despite there being seven required Amens. To wit:
My objection stands.
LikeLike
@prariepolyguy,
I got an e-mail saying you replied yesterday, 10/18, but when I hit ‘reply’ it just takes me to the bottom of this comments section. I scrolled through twice, but didn’t see it.
Maybe it was deleted. It certainly should be deleted, because it comes across as just an angry, and unreasonable, anti-Catholic rant.
I don’t know what to say, really, other than you don’t seem to willing to admit there is a difference between sins committed by sinful Catholic humans, and Catholic doctrine. Yet you probably wouldn’t do that against non-Catholic churches.
Do you ‘own’ the sins of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? Jimmy Swaggart? Joel Olstein? Are their sins and scandals also your church’s doctrine? I guess you’ll say no, and wouldn’t appreciate if someone insisted otherwise. So please do me a favor and think about the golden rule here.
LikeLike
One of the deeper meanings of the golden rule is being a water mirror. Look back through the posts if you must. Where you can been ecumenical and conciliatory you’ve had even more ecumenical responses. When you got increasingly aggressive and inflammatory you got more inflammatory responses. Your emotional projection of anger and unreasonablility is how you interpret the reflection of the tone you set.
The only thing that upset me in all this is when you announced you would not read a person’s own words after you said things from a third party accusation against him. That showed you were a partisan and not a seeker, and its always hard to know there are few seekers.
But the part of me in this conversation is the informational part.
Now, Biden, Martin etc are high profile members in good standing in the orginization you are advocating. Some of them hold important positions.
They are openly and unambiguously evil and they take high profile evil actions. We agree on that I think. the catholic hierarchy above them has an obligation to discipline them just as publicly as they did evil publicly. Or else the Catholic principle of ‘silence is concent to evil’ comes into play.
You take responsibility by saying ‘thr church is wrong to fail to dicapline them’. You see they’re actually formally under the authority of the Catholic church, folks like James Martin could be removed from office.
When stuff about that Ravi Zacharias fellow came out his own foundation issued apologies, and removed the dignity of his name from their title and works. They owned the sin and dealt with it. That is correct.
Osteens church doesn’t report to anyone at all, certainly not to my denominational association. It’s nonsense to think anyone outside of his own church and supporters are responsible for him.
But you support the Catholic church, and the Catholic Church supports both Biden and Fr Martin. You are obliged to answer for that connection, and you can’t just call them heretics. They’re active members of your church orginization in good standing. No one you listed is even remotely supported (much less ruled) by me, my fellow church members, or my churches wider governing hierarchy.
You know there is one other thing that did get my goat, the ‘billionaires’ thing. You really think that? Lots of billionaires do shifty things like lots of poor people do. But they’re not the cause of the decline of the west. Not even Gates or Soros. Gates just wants a bunch of people to die, he’s fine killing or sterilizing Indians or Africans as much as Americans. He’s evil but more a result of social ills than the cause.
As for Soros, the local branch of the Open Society Foundation operates in association with a Catholic church in my city, that’s not unusual.
I replied straight through WordPress now, the thread at Jack’s is getting long and I don’t want to be involved with Rammans part of the discussion. So the whole thing is sent differently.
LikeLike
As to the other thing. You can me anti X because you can’t say my claims arnt true.
Latin America, Africa, and even Europe are full of Catholic semi failed socialist kleptocracies. And Catholic voters in America vote the same way for the same things in the same proportions. Love it or hate it or call me an anti-Catholic for saying it but it’s reality.
If you want a successful Christian republic 3 groups absolutely cannot vote or hold political office:
Jews.
Catholics.
Women.
Go ahead and call me an anti Semitic anti catholic misogynist. But these groups constantly and overwhelmingly vote for socialist klepocracy crap.
LikeLike
When you got increasingly aggressive and inflammatory you got more inflammatory responses.
@grey,
Sometimes the truth is inflammatory. I don’t know how to sugar coat it.
Your emotional projection of anger and unreasonablility is how you interpret the reflection of the tone you set.
I’m not angry at all! And my assessment that your previous comment should be deleted was matter-of-fact, not emotional. Which is probably why you sent it by e-mail instead.
The only thing that upset me in all this is when you announced you would not read a person’s own words after you said things from a third party accusation against him. That showed you were a partisan and not a seeker, and its always hard to know there are few seekers.
I was trying to hold my tongue, instead of saying something I might regret later. Because I don’t think you have thought this through. Do you really think that a noted scholar like Fr. Trenham just made up stuff and published it in a book about the Reformation??? Really?? Seriously, that is absurd. Of course not! He quoted the writings of the so-called “reformers”. He did his research.
But instead of replying, I just blew it off because it’s not a big deal. Luther’s been dead for half a millenium and only 3 people are still reading this comment thread. I am quite surprised you’re so upset about it. Don’t you think you might be overreacting?
But the part of me in this conversation is the informational part.
Now, Biden, Martin etc are high profile members in good standing…..
You seem unwilling to get the point. I won’t try yet again.
You are obliged to answer for that connection
Not really. But I did anyway, multiple times, when I thought you were discussing the issue in good faith. BTW, do you not know that Pelosi was denied communion by her bishop? Yet what happened? That was used by secular media as propaganda against the church! There is more that has to be considered by Bishops than just what you are considering. They have to discern which course of action is more beneficial overall. It’s not easy for them.
You know there is one other thing that did get my goat, the ‘billionaires’ thing. You really think that? Lots of billionaires do shifty things like lots of poor people do. But they’re not the cause of the decline of the west.
It’s called an example.
You gave a couple of examples of billionaires, and I replied with a couple of examples. It never occurred to me that you would interpret it as me saying Gates and Soros are the only people responsible. It would literally take a book to explain the destruction of Western Civilization! (not to mention it wasn’t even the discussion topic.) On top of that, I doubt anyone knows all the people working behind the scenes to destroy the West. How can you even think a couple of sentences was supposed to explain everything about a huge topic like that? Maybe because you’re emotional about it, instead of thinking rationally about it? IDK.
…You can me anti X because you can’t say my claims arnt true.
I can, and I have. I could also quote from papal bulls and encyclicals condemning communism/socialism, or freemasonry. But it won’t do any good.
Latin America, Africa, and even Europe are full of Catholic semi failed socialist kleptocracies.
The Catholic Church was fundamental in building Western Civilization. Universities, hospitals, science – it all was started by Catholic Europe and was spread around the world by the Christianity, both Prot and Catholic. But nowadays? Currently, there are not very many countries in Europe that are more than nominally Christian. And that is the problem: lack of devout Christians. The nations of Eastern Europe are generally more devout, and are better resisting the Globo-homo cabal.
Because what changed in the West? Not the deposit of faith. What changed is that freemasonry was invented, Communism was invented. And they set about infiltrating Western institutions to destroy them. The #1 target was and still is the true faith, The RCC. But they also targeted government, media, Hollywood and academia. Which are all part of the war against Western Civ. Yet you want to blame the RCC instead.
As for Africa or Latin America, there is no religion that is going to make things any different in those regions. The races are just different, and nothing will change that, including religion.
LikeLike
The Protestants in Africa are more successful at resistance. The United Methodist Church is a really good example of this. The only reason it has held out so long in America is because its African members had enough votes to force the issue.
LikeLike
I might as well address the actual OP. What a concept.
There is so much to unpack here.
First, if a married woman has sex with someone who isn’t her spouse, that is adultery. She’s an adulterer even if he isn’t married. This whole business where only the unmarried person is technically an adulterer is pretty silly.
Second, despite my comments, I don’t think sex can ever be a public performance, even if there are witnesses, and even when they are rolling around outside in the grass (e.g. Song of Solomon 1:16). We cover our sexual bits with clothing. Married women wore veils because to look at another man’s wife with lust was wrong. Temple prostitution (Was it public? Probably, but I’m not looking it up.) was roundly condemned.
Third, should God be in the bedroom? Maybe? Look, I’m one of the few people here who vigorously argues that sex produces the one flesh bond that produces marriage and that when two married people cleave together (i.e. have sex) that this is actually sacred. That’s why prostitution in the NT is described with a spiritual component. It would be pretty logically inconsistent of me to say that “God being in the bedroom” is not the way sex is supposed to be in the bedroom, but for the life of me I don’t know what that is supposed to mean in practice. Is this some sort of weird idolatry?
Fourth, you’re insane for asking such a question. I’m an Anabaptist! We don’t have sex standing up because it might lead to dancing!
LikeLiked by 5 people
Ramman3000,
Nita Marie explained this in the video interview. She said “God being in the bedroom” is like God being in any other part of one’s life. Hearing this through my own understanding of “experiencing God being in something”, this requires one to have faith, humility, trust, and an open heart in order to “plug into God” and behold His glory.
LikeLike
I don’t watch videos that might have explicit sexual content, and this topic was throwing all sorts of red flags everywhere. This is why you had to explain it to me like I’m 8.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s so strange. As I read the OP and read through the comments, there was something right at the top of my head that made the notion of a “threesome” so absurd and ridiculous to even take the premise too seriously. I couldn’t quite place it. I kept thinking, “Why is this woman’s logic so silly?” And boom… Right there. It is adultery.
It almost reminds me of David Koresh having sex with his parishioner’s wives. I don’t want to misquote the guy, but I believe the logic was along the lines of sparing the husbands from some sexual sin, either way it didn’t make sense and wasn’t Biblically sound.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yep! Before the advent of 20th century feminism, there was a rather large and complex body of “medical” folklore that sexual sins (e.g. adultery, bestiality, fornication, h0m0sexuality, and excessive masturbation) led to various manifestations of insanity. There were many different types of insanity, depending on the causes and nature of the condition (e.g. abberation, cockamania, delirium, delusion, derangement, inversion, hysteria, lunacy, madness, psychosis, and many others). Modern sensibilities are much less sense-able in this respect.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I don’t want to know.
LikeLike
In the bedroom. Ha. I’d be willing to bet that a sizable percentage of churchian men and women have had outdoor sex. The “shamefulness” of sex makes doing it outdoors that much more scandalous and exciting, which is of course why it happens.
I’d say a large chunk of “sex is dirty” and “sex is shameful” is nothing more than a polite way of saying, “Sex is really good and not dirty and shameful at all, but if we imagine it is dirty, it makes it more exciting.”
LikeLiked by 3 people
Pingback: 16 Permutations of Submission | Σ Frame
God, Jesus, the animals in the Garden didn’t conduct a “wedding service” or vows, or promises as I recall to Adam and Eve; so when I hear “God invented marriage” I scratch my head.
Marriage itself is a LEGAL matter and was even in the times of Moses (property, rights). Even in places like Rome before Christianity, there was marriage. It involved property, children, rights.
It had nothing to do with debt free women and no tattoos. Men back then didn’t hang out at the “temple” after the services and chat up women.
Even Chad was subjected to an arranged marriage (heaven forbid) and it was governed by man made laws, rules, and taboos particular to that culture or society.
Modern “marriage” is a very new invention, even when it was supposedly better back in the “good ol days” (1950’s). For most of history, your marriage was arranged, and that was it.
So even back then, even I probably would have been setup with someone. The exception were kings, and the upper elite of society (and 99% of world population was not in). Kings could do what they pleased (David, Henry VIII, Sun Ce and a gazillion others) and they paid little or no consequence because they were gods appointed on earth and really answered to no one.
LikeLike
Because you reject the evidence in front of your eyes.
If he has a wife, then obviously they’re married. Jesus was quoting Genesis 1 and 2.
Marriage existed long before laws existed, and continues to exist in places where no laws exist.
Depends on where you lived. Most of us are of European descent. In Europe, kings and other nobles had arranged marriages because marriage was a way to make alliances, and gain power. Commoners’ marriages were not arranged. That’s the exact opposite of what you wrote.
Even in places where marriages were arranged, people could refuse the arrangement. Rebekah had the opportunity to refuse to marry Isaac.
LikeLike
“Evidence”
Marriage is a LEGAL matter.
In feudal Europe, commoners had arranged marriages and had to have PERMISSION to marry from the local Lord, Burger, Viscount… When I was in Wales in 2019, I saw my family church rolls / registers going back to the 1600’s. All the marriages that were on my mother’s line recorded in that local parish were arranged, and permission for said marriage had to be given by the local arglwydd (lord or manorstead).
When I lived in India, I was invited to an arranged marriage. This was in 1997. This was a middle class family. (Well, they would be considered dirt poor here.) They had known each other since they were seven or eight. They had zero choice in the matter.
In this modern world, it’s turned into a very, Very, VERY expensive ceremony. As much as God is mentioned in this ceremony, God has little or nothing to do with it… even in a Christian one.
God creating us male and female does not translate into “marriage” and “vows” and “honeymoon”, nor did anywhere in Genesis God say to Adam and Eve, “Eve, in case Adam is abusing you, here is the process you take to get a divorce, because I invented marriage.”
The people “after god’s own heart” were the ones who sent men to die on the front lines to get their wife, had a gazillion concubines in a harem, fathered plenty of children out of supposed wedlock… and evidently broke all of God’s commands about marriage in Genesis. (They probably broke them because there is NOTHING that says “marriage” in those verses you quoted.)
Rebekkah was an exception, not the rule.
If you are going to reply to me, at least give me facts… Not quotes that say nothing about marriage.
[Jack: Edited for clarity.]
LikeLike
What law was involved in Isaac’s and Rebekah’s marriage?
That’s pretty cool. How do you know they were arranged?
I’m aware that Indians still arrange marriages. I’m also aware that they can refuse the arrangement. I’m an engineer. I work with a lot of Indian engineers. We talk.
So? Who says you have to spend a lot of money on a wedding to have a marriage? I spent $5,000 on my wife’s and my wedding. We could have spent a lot less if we wanted to. A lot of people do.
See what I mean? You’re rejecting the evidence in front of your eyes. Once again:
Genesis 2:24
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
If she is his wife, then by definition, they are married.
Now you’re moving the goalposts. No one said that marriage requires vows (the Orthodox wedding ceremony has no vows), or a honeymoon, or any of the other crap you wrote in that paragraph.
Wait… you mean they sinned?! And they fell short of the glory of God?! And needed a savior?!
There you go ignoring the facts again. Let’s try this again.
Genesis 2:24
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
If she is his wife, then by definition, they are married.
Says who?
Are you saying that a wife is not married?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have attended two Greek Orthodox weddings. Long! Opening curtains, chanting to icons, dancing around crowns, and lots and lots and lots of other rituals. There was a lot of stuff read and there was no “vow” so to speak. So then why have all this… if Genesis just says, “a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife”???
I asked the priest during the reception (my cousins wedding) the significance of these rituals. He told me, “Those crowns are waiting for them in heaven, so if they divorce there is going to be a problem for one or both of them.”
I rolled my eyes at this nonsense.
My cousin’s husband divorced my cousin eight years into the marriage, so I guess he isn’t going to heaven now. Right.
It’s all man made. Where did Jesus say, “When a man takes a wife, he must pray to this saint and that saint, he will dance around the altar and have crowns…”???
Great. So that’s marriage. A man leaves the house, meets his wife and that’s it. Great. God invented that. Wow.
There should be no problems then. Just walk out your door. Meet your wife.
Also you said,
They were ancient Israelites. The Savior had not come, and still has not come (in their view)… So they didn’t have a savior. They had Genesis which says, “A man shall leave his parents and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” …..and become one flesh with a gazillion others along the way. In the OT during David’s reign it says nothing about “Jesus showing up for your sins”… What savior?
We can assume they could talk to God personally, but many of them didn’t. They could have had faith, but many of them didn’t believe at all. They got away with a lot of things because they were “kings”. The common man would have been killed for such actions. This was one of the reasons why all those rules in the OT were written by MEN, or Moses if we’re going to be technical about it….
Moving goalposts… No??? That is what is done daily here and not by me.
[Jack: Edited for clarity, concision, formatting, and historical accuracy.]
LikeLiked by 1 person
Regarding the subtopic of marriage:
It would be advantageous to the discussion for us to recognize that there are ecclesiastical, legal, sexual, social, and spiritual aspects of marriage.
— The account of Adam and Eve describes the fundamental sexual, social, and spiritual aspects.
— The marriage ceremony is a social aspect that has precipitated into traditions over the centuries and these traditions have been absorbed into the church.
— Making vows is a spiritual discipline that has been adopted by church traditions.
— Getting permission to marry pertains to the legal and social aspects.
— Arranged marriage is a strategem intended to safeguard against sexual and spiritual weaknesses and to strengthen the social aspects of marriage.
Regarding LastMod’s last comment:
The Savior was known in the OT. In the book of Psalms, King David and others describe how the Savior protected and rescued them.
This statement is true, but it does not recognize that the Bible was inspired by God.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Obviously. So, then why’d you whine about vows?
Why have all what? What is “this”?
From the oldest book in the Bible, and likely the oldest book ever written.
That was written hundreds of years before Moses.
The same savior King David wrote about in the Psalms.
Let me guess. You’re going to reject that evidence as well, right?
Yep. And projecting like an IMAX, too.
And you still haven’t answered any of my questions. Here are just two.
1) What law covered Isaac’s and Rebekah’s marriage?
2) Is a wife married, or not?
LikeLike
Sumerian law covered Issac and Rebekah’s marriage. That’s why they had to go back to Ur to get her. Cannanites could be taken to wife but their children could not be heirs because there was no interracial marriage allowed under Sumerian law. Issac could have a Cannanite wife but he could never marry her.
The wife who may produce legitimate heirs is married, the one who cannot is not.
Bilhah and Zilpah’s children were legitimized by Rachel and Leah. That was allowed because those two were Chaldean / Sumerian slaves, not racially different like Cannanites. In going to Israel’s bed they became wives rather than slaves, and they could no longer be sold. But they were not married and their children could only become heirs if a married wife took them as her own.
The past is another country. They did things differently there.
LikeLike
No, it didn’t. Isaac and Abraham didn’t live in Sumer.
Wrong again. Abraham wanted a believing wife for Isaac, and he wasn’t going to find one among the Canaanites. Esau married Hittite women. His children were legitimate.
There was no law involved at all.
LikeLike
Correction: Esau married Hittite and Hivite women. And both of them produced chiefs among Esau’s descendants, because their sons were legitimate. Esau’s third wife was Ishmael’s daughter, so she was part Egyptian and who knows where her mother was from. Her sons were legitimate, too.
LikeLike
Ur of the Chaldeans was a Sumerian religious center in major social and political decline.
Even after leaving, Abraham followed traditional Sumerian law and it’s all over the tale of his journey. His possessions and marriage to his sister indicate he was of the preistly caste, as well as so may other details.
If old Sumerian isn’t the Noaic religion I don’t know where you’d place it. It had so much right down to a form of trinity. But by Abraham’s time it was becoming another highly polytheistic pell-mell. Abraham rejected that when he left.
The Chaldeans as a whole rejected the old faith for increasingly debauched and superstitious nonsense. Hence by the time of David a Chaldee is translated a sorcerer or witch.
But Abraham was quite explicitly not only a Chaldee, but the true and faithful Chaldean.
What is this anachronistic nonsense? I don’t know if I ought to laugh or cry. Believing in what prithee? And if conversation was all it was about, then why should it be so impossible?
Esau lost his birthright, none of what he did was legitimate. That’s a hard to miss lesson.
Edomites became an entirely other people with another law and another religion. It took three generations to naturalize them, which is as close as Egyptians who were traditionally a Sumerian cousin-people.
Make no mistake: Esau was cut off from his brethern and the blessings of Abraham, and Edomites were enemies of the Hebrews more often than not.
There is always a law.
LikeLike
That was supposed to finish with a quote, and a response that there is always a law.
[Jack: Got it!]
LikeLike
No, there is not always a law. There was no law involved in Isaac and Rebekah’s marriage. Esau lost his birthright as the firstborn, but that didn’t make his children illegitimate anymore than being second born makes anyone else’s children illegitimate.
People are not bound to the laws of a place where they don’t live. I’m an immigrant to the USA. I’m not bound to the laws of the place where I was born. I’m bound to US law.
Canaan was not one country. Each city had its own king and its own laws. Abraham and Isaac did not live in any of the Canaanite cities. They were nomads. They weren’t bound by Sumerian law, or the laws of any of the Canaanite cities.
LikeLike
Oscar wrote:
“That’s pretty cool. How do you know they were arranged?”
Because I read the rolls. I can read Welsh, and interestingly enough. Welsh has changed very little from that period until now.
The local arglwydd would sign with a signet ring, seal or signature as the 18th century turned into the 19th. The practiced became very infrequent probably around the time of Victoria’s accession to the throne (1837). After 1850. There is no record of arrangement, but all the marriages were local. No one was going to London to look for a husband or wife. It was the gal who was your age down the street, who was friends with the family, or vice-versus. The rural areas and backwaters of the kingdom (even now) hang on to traditions a bit longer after the main urban culture changes. Its called cultural lag…or something like that.
The feudal system and then trappings left over from it were a form of “control” of the poor masses that were one bad harvest away from rebellion. This was pretty much all of Europe. Not just Wales. This also fell into marriage. John the Baker or Roger the Shurbbist may want to marry but the local arglwydd knew trouble makers, drunks, the arrogant and the proud. He had enough problems trying to keep other nobles and lords from absorbing his realm, and of course tax to the crown, along with men when war came (which never seemed to end). You can bet your life he would decide and approve or disapprove of a marriage. Two profitable farmers have their kin marry to create more of a potential threat to money, crops, and (gasp) pay? No way!
Wales became very Medieval and was probably the first area of northern Europe to embody early feudalism.
LikeLike
That doesn’t explain how you know they were arranged, only that they got permission from the local lord, which is analogous to a marriage license today.
Can you explain how you know the marriages were arranged?
LikeLike
This is common knowledge. I said the same thing up thread:
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re thinking of law in very contemporary jurisdictional terms. Would it surprise you to learn that police didn’t exist except for in very recent history, like the last 150 years?
Thr law is the expression of what a people group collectively view as right and wrong. It exists without police or judges or even governments.
Abraham followed the Noaic law. If the Sumerian thing bugs you just think of it that way. Showing how early Sumerian was Naoic society takes more background than I want to fill in here.
Anyway Abraham definitely followed that traditional law fastidiously. That’s why he gave tribute to Malkizidek. No court order made him do that, no tax collector came to get due tribute. But the law of war was upheld. And taxes were still payed.
Esau abandon all of that. Jacob/Isreal upheld it. Esaus entire line was not considered Hebrew, they were outsiders. That’s what it is to be illegitimate. They are not part of the Adamaic->Noaic->Mosaic->Davidic->Christian law, Tradition, or people.
‘Canaan was not one country. Each city had its own king and its own laws.’
Local city states with slightly different local regulations has always been the norm. Sumeria was the same way, midevil Germany was the same way. Classical Greece was the same way. But each of these people groups had laws they could appeal to in any city of their people thart constituted how their people do things and was generally considered right no matter which kings city you were in. A Corinthian in Athens could appeal to the wider law of the Greeks when accused, even though they are rival cities with rival kings.
Cannanites and Sumerians were different people who’s laws were alien to each other. Their religious and cultural traditions were incompatible.
Hmm. For the way you look at things Esau having heirs by cannanite women would be like him converting to Islam. It’s a radical departure from the tradition handed down from Noah through Abraham. It’s not just the Cannanite women, or the bowl of pottage, or any individual thing. His whole way of life depared from Abraham’s faith and culture.
LikeLike
First, don’t put words in my mouth. I’m perfectly capable of speaking for myself and, this may come as a shock to you, but you can’t read my mind.
Second, no. It’s not “common knowledge” that feudal lords arranged marriages for peasants. All the literature I’ve read says otherwise. For example:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/203596
“Assistance”, “participation”, and “approval” are not arrangement.
LikeLike
No, you’re making up your own definition of the word “law”, then expecting me to go along with it.
No. Would it surprise you to learn that kings enforced their laws back in Abraham’s day?
If Abraham violated Sumerian law while living in Canaan, who would’ve enforced it?
LikeLike
He ate the porridge. Wasn’t that legit? :=)
Sorry @ prariepolyguy, I couldn’t resist.
LikeLike
@Oscar,
King fundamentally means ‘head of kin’. It’s the head of kins duty to enforce law of the people he was head of.
Abraham, father Abraham, was the one who had the duty to enforce the law. Every father does. The family is the basic unit of society and the patriarch its head.
My definition of law is not at all unusual. Yours is the odd one. You’re talking in terms of civil law, which may or may not exist in any given jurisdiction. I’m talking about common law, which exists everywhere humans exist.
Common law always trumps civil law. If you ever heard of an ‘unenforceable law’ that’s a point where a bureaucracy put a law on the civil books that the commons don’t care about so it has no teeth.
LikeLike
That was a transparently lame attempt at evading my question. No Sumerian king would even know if Abraham violated Sumerian law while living in Canaan, much less be in any position to enforce it, which means that – just as I said – Abraham was not bound to Sumerian law.
Thanks for playing.
LikeLike
@oscar.
Your entire case is that you think there is nothing other than civil law or anarchy?
The age of free men is truely dead if folks don’t understand common law anymore.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not even close, Mr. Straw Man.
First, I responded to Jason, not you. When he said that marriage is a legal matter, he was referring to civil law. My point is that marriage does not require civil law. Are you saying that marriage does require civil law?
LikeLike
@oscar
Not at all. But are you saying there can be such an agreement as marriage without common law, specifically family law. Lastmod is odd in some ways but he didn’t seem to be specifying civil law. Esp when he mentioned India, which has very messy civil law as far as I understand it. A lot is just how locals do things.
LikeLike
Then why are you arguing with me?
LikeLike
The other things
LikeLike
So, you made up a straw man argument about my main point just so you could argue with me about other stuff? Makes perfect sense.
LikeLike
So is it a strawman or were there other things to argue about?
I suppose if you think the only law is civil law you think the only discussion is Princeton style formal debate? ‘Strawman’ what a joke.
LikeLike
Re: Princeton style debate
Instead, I suggest the Oxford debate style, minus the time limits.
Read more about Argumentation and Debate.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hello again, Mr. Straw Man!
LikeLike
It may behoove you to learn what that phrase means and how it works before you continue to use it.
Though if we had a venn diagram of people who cite formal fallacies online and people who understand how formal fallacies work the overlap would be almost nil.
LikeLike
Thanks for the tip, and the examples.
LikeLike
I lived in India. I saw.
LikeLike
On one hand, Lastmod is right, there was no wedding ceremony for Adam and Eve. Can Oscar and the others please recognize this? I don’t think Adam himself had a mother. He never had one, thus, Genesis 2:24 in a sense does not apply to Adam himself. Of course, naturally, Adam left God his creator and one can say Father due to being expelled from Eden. On the other hand, Oscar is right that there need not be an expensive wedding. The wedding thing has gone out of hand because it seems that the bride wants it like a movie production and in some cases seemingly too much concern about the aesthetics. In other words, she wants her princess day. Of course, Rebekah could refuse marriage to Isaac but she gave her consent by declaring, “I will go.” and no wedding ceremony was needed at the time. I liked Lastmod’s mention about his time in Wales and seeing his mother’s side church rolls and marriages needing permission from the local arylwydd (lord or manorstead). I would imagine that as I am likely part Scottish, my ancestors there may have needed the permission of the local laird to marry. I don’t think Lastmod is saying a wife is not married. I think it is the method to get married that may be the issue here if I am not mistaken. If I am not mistaken either the state (US or Mexico) or province (Canada) would grant licenses to marry provided no positive results for syphilis or other STDs for the protection of either the prospective groom or bride. Some states forbid marriages of first cousins and refuse to grant marriage licenses.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nobody said that there was a wedding ceremony for Adam and Eve.
The claim that Jason is (wrongly) trying to refute is that “God invented marriage”. You can read his statement here.
Genesis says that Eve was Adam’s wife.
If Eve was Adam’s wife, then that means they were married. If they were married, then who married them?
God did.
If God married them, then who invented marriage?
God did.
LikeLike
Point taken, Oscar.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They married themselves, when they had sex, the “act of marriage.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Can it be maybe that “(my) woman” and “wife” is the same word/expression in hebrew, so the exact meaning is then dependent on context, and when translating it is then a matter of interpretation? So your point is slightly precipitate, unless you posit that the translators of the bible are divinely inspired, or assume some about God’s actions not mentioned in the book (“married them and invented marriage”)..
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s worse than that: ‘wife’ comes from Dutch slang meaning something equivalent to “that guy’s bitch”. It was a somewhat derogatory term of possession in the 16th century. In that context, it translated from the Hebrew “woman who belongs to a man” term quite well. The Greek expression is pretty similar too. The olden day translators did a great job.
I don’t know when wife got morphed into a title of reverence, probably the Victorian era, but modern Bible translations failed to update the language accordingly.
This is a semi common problem actually. Old words with different usage get read wrong by modern English speakers. Or even new translations modernize old words according to their current use, and get it wrong or even backwards.
I think the only way to get the idea of what a wife was in Old English, Greek, and Hebrew into a modern mind is to say, “she is his unsaleable chattel”, as opposed to a slave or cow which is saleable chattel.
Saleability was the main difference between a wife and a slave. A man couldn’t sell a wife in ancient Hebrew or Greek culture. You usually couldn’t sell a wife in Old English culture either, unless a priest okayed it or certain conditions for divorce were met.
I think that fact would bother a lot of people.
LikeLike
I still dont see how God “wed” Adam and Eve. He told them to be fruitful and multiply. Non married people can do that, and have done and still do.
If indeed God created marriage how does one explain it in very ancient Vedic India (where they didnt know god). Both Judiasm and Hindusism were founded around the same time….scholars debate which is really older. So god created marriage and performed a ceremony of sorts, or deemed it “as such” by a verse in the bible that doesnt say the word marriage. The local Indian tribe / nation where I grew up was the Mohawk. They had marriage as well. They had an insitution that god invented but they didnt know god and it followed his rules????
Marriage is a man made invention. All the trappings “in the name of god” were made by man. All the laws were man made. All the rules were man made.
If we go off that verse in Genesis, a man just leaves home and “takes” a wife. If this is indeed “god way” and the truth…..
well, we dont need vetting, dates, courship models, leadership models, provision, any skills…..a man just goes out and “takes” a wife and that makes him “married”
Good luck following “gods way” there. If this is the case, why then the hubbub over “divorce” a man doesnt need to divorce. He just goes out and takes a wife, or another one.
One of the reasons why marriage happened was STDs were rampant and it was slowly discovered that marriage cured this problem.
LikeLiked by 2 people
He didn’t and Genesis never said he did. That’s just an unfounded inference. Why accept such an inference? Genesis explicitly says that they cleaved together and became one flesh — which is universally understood to mean they had sex — and that is why they are husband and wife and leave their parents and live together.
“But!”, they say, “Not all sex causes people to leave their parents and live together and call each other husband and wife”, and that is true. But they still cleaved together and became one flesh, even if they didn’t do the other stuff. If you don’t want to call that marriage, that’s fine, but the cleaving is the most important bit. Marriage removed from the cleaving (i.e. an unconsummated or completely sexless marriage) isn’t worth the name. It’s hard to call that a marriage, even if there was a ceremony and few cultures in history would have considered it a marriage. Most would consider it grounds for an annulment, not even a divorce.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The fact that cultures all over the world have a concept of marriage is further evidence that God created it. If it was a man made creation, some cultures would have marriage, and others would not.
Every human being is a descendant of Adam and Eve, the first people to be married.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@lastmod
The traditional Christian view is that all peoples once knew God but corrupted their view of him to suit their preferences over the ages. Vedic India, especially before Buddah, probably has a lot of vestiges of knowledge of the Most High God. Especially in ancient higher caste Bhramaism.
Mission work uses those vestiges all the time, like relating Baldir to Christ to convert the Nords.
Marriage is a natural sacriment in that it creates amd cares for little humans and it creates unity. That applies whenever and wherever that happens, not just to Christians.
But that’s right a man does just take a wife, and then she’s his. Like plucking an apple from a tree.
Stds probably don’t make the top 5 reasons for marriage though. Men wanting to make sure as they can that the children they’re raising are their own is reason #1 everywhere and always. Prefering a woman to be solely devoted to him and his household is #2, and no modern technology gets around the fact that high notch count women have bonding issues.
Divorce exists because men don’t want to have to maintain a woman they hate. They don’t want to be obliged to feed, clothe, house, and live with her. Of course in 90+% of human societies a man who wanted more tail could take another wife, or a concubine, or hire a whore. Divorce was about saving money, mainly.
This is all very ironic today, since divorce has been twisted to mean ‘pay her upkeep forever’. But the modern idea of marriage is totally twisted too, so who’s surprised?
The churchian idea about what Jesus meant when talking about divorce is similarly twisted because they don’t get what divorce is or what even was being debated in those verses. The whole thing is a money and procedure issue, and it came up partially because Roman law and Hebrew law were at odds.
Almost every time the Pharisees and Saducees came to challenge Jesus it was with a catch 22 situation where following Mosaic law too a T would force Jesus to break Roman law or at least rebel against it. They wanted Him to either lead a rebellion or at least get arrested. Or say something so obviously against Moses they could denounce Him. Jesus is too good for any of that though.
LikeLike
Are you saying that Eve was not Adam’s wife? Because Jesus said she was. So, whom am I supposed to believe, you or Jesus?
LikeLike
He is saying ‘wife’ does not mean what you think it means in this context.
LikeLike
I know what he’s saying. He’s wrong. When Jesus explained God’s design for marriage, he used Adam and Eve as the example, because they were married.
So, whom am I supposed to believe, Jesus, or some anonymous rando on the internet?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not sure if there’s more but the part of NT i’m able to remember now where Jesus speaks of Adam and Eve there I think Jesus quoted Genesis, so we’re sort of back to what I said above. So I humbly suggest to believe me over Jesus in this particular matter.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jesus quoted Genesis while explain God’s design for marriage. He presented Adam and Eve as God’s design for marriage. That means Adam and Eve were married. And since Jesus was there (see John 1), He would know.
Yeah, really humble of you to believe you know better than God incarnate.
LikeLike
@Oscar
It’s that you’re beleiveing Humpty Dumpty not Jesus.
Understanding the problems of linguistics is no small task. Large books like the works of McLuhan have been written on it and hardly exaust the topic.
But the truth is that what you mean by ‘wife’ has little to nothing to do with thr words Jesus spoke in the chapter that was translated for you saying ‘wife’. In fact what the translators meant by ‘wife’ is not what you mean by ‘wife’.
Mr Baksuz’s answer it tounge in cheek. In fact you are the one putting modern conventional language in the mouth of God Almighty, you started out saying ‘beleive me and how I take things to mean, ignore properly interpeting God and Scripture’
LikeLike
This isn’t a problem of linguistics. Jesus used the example of Adam and Eve to answer a question about marriage. Apparently, you don’t like Jesus’ answer. That’s a you problem.
LikeLike
It makes me nostalgic. ;=)
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s the difference between a free and bond wife. Exodus 22:16-17 implicitly prohibits the saleability of a wife.
And rightly so.
Considering the Bible’s implicit condemnation of this, it’s a joke in poor taste, like being nostalgic for a prostitute.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think the fine Gent is nostalgic that wives were a form of property, rather than thre salability thing.
Women get really, really turned on when you tell them you own them. It’s really misogynistic to call them equals, they hate that so much they can’t even express it.
Although if he’s talking about the other thing: the English really did (and might still in rural areas) sell off unwanted wives at auction. The whole thing is very ceremonial, where she is led in like a cow, most the town low bids her, and the new husband bids a pre agreed upon price to end the auction while everyone else boos and says she isn’t worth that much. The pre agreed upon price is usually a token, like exactly enough for a round of beers for the town after or something like that.
It’s a weird kind of divorce and remarriage ritual that was winked at or ignored by the church for a long time.
LikeLike
I think the fine Gent is nostalgic that wives were a form of property, rather than the saleability thing.
Women get really, really turned on when you tell them you own them. It’s really misogynistic to call them equals, they hate that so much they can’t even express it.
Although if he’s talking about the other thing: the English really did (and might still in rural areas) sell off unwanted wives at auction. The whole thing is very ceremonial, where she is led in like a cow, most the town low bids her, and the new husband bids a pre agreed upon price to end the auction while everyone else boos and says she isn’t worth that much. The pre-agreed upon price is usually a token, like exactly enough for a round of beers for the town after or something like that.
It’s a weird kind of divorce and remarriage ritual that was winked at or ignored by the church for a long time.
LikeLike
Considering the Bible’s implicit condemnation of this, it’s a joke in poor taste, like being nostalgic for a prostitute.
@ramman,
I consider this an apples to oranges comparison. But since you don’t, I can understand your negative opinion of my joke.
I think the fine Gent is nostalgic that wives were a form of property
@ prariepolyguy,
Considering the depravity into which Western Civ has fallen, I think the ancients knew what they were doing vis a vis strict patriarchy and keeping the women in line. My family was and is rife with feminists and rebellious wives, and I saw the ghastly toll it took on marriages, families, outcomes for the children, etc. Horrific devastation across the board, most of which will never be repaired.
Patriarchy is for everyone’s own good.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amen Gent. Amen.
LikeLike
Where does it say “Jesu” in the OT? Where does David cry out to Jesus who will sit at the right hand?
It doesn’t.
The Jews don’t believe the Savior has arrived. They were Jews. They may be crying out to the savior that is still to come, but they are not calling out Jesus’ name.
David also sent a man to die so he could sleep with his wife. He prayed and told God he was “sorry”.
Any normal Jew in those days, wouldn’t have the chance to even use that excuse. He would have been jailed, killed for that, or exiled. David didn’t pray to Jesus.
What law covered Issac and Rebekah’s marriage? First, if any woman today behaved like Rebekah or any or the women of the Bible, you would be “Feminists!!!” and secondly, the story is made up. It didn’t happen.
Yes, she is… so is every divorced woman. They would technically be wives of many men… and God today seems to allow this.
LikeLike
Jesus Christ said that David called the Christ “Lord” in Psalm 110:1. So, once again I have to ask, whom should I believe, you or Jesus Christ?
LikeLike
Oscar Says:
Obviously. So, then why’d you whine about vows?
I didn’t. Jack changed my statement for HIS clarity and to fit HIS narrative. AS you do by hairsplitting sentences like this to change their context and meaning.
LikeLike
LastMod,
This is the first time you’ve expressed any dissatisfaction with my attempts to make your arguments clearer and less offensive. From now on, I’m not going to edit your comments anymore. Your comments will stand or fall on their own merit. But if you choose to attack others or start a blasphemous rant then I simply won’t approve your comment and leave it in moderation.
Just in the past year, I’ve learned that Satan hates it when people make distinctions about things. (I think this epiphany came from reading a quote from C. S. Lewis.) He would rather have everyone fit into the NPC mold. Hairsplitting sentences is what argumentation is all about. It is done for the sake of furthering our understanding and refining our thinking. That’s why it is very important to specify the context and use choice words and offer sufficient definitions for those words.
LikeLiked by 1 person
None of this matters….my bad.
Jesus said “there is no marriage in heaven” so all this was created to cause tons of confusion, pain, misery, divorce, abuse, and in todays world a gazillion men “left out” of this thing god created.
But there is no marriage in heaven…but dont you DARE…dont you DARE have sex cause its a sin if you are NOT married and you didnt go out and take a wife. But if I do it, its okay because god forgives”
THAT’s confusion.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I agree. If a man has premarital sex with a woman or a man divorces his wife, he should never marry for as long as she lives. Saying “if you want to get married, just ignore the Bible, get married to another woman anyway, and ask forgiveness later”, how can you be forgiven if you have not repented of the very thing you want to be forgiven for?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Today I read “The Noble Lesson“, a work by the Waldensians around 1100AD. It’s considered by some to be their founding document. The Waldensians repudiated the Roman practice of confession, penance, pardon, and indulgence, because a man cannot hand-wave away his sins by either purchase and/or having a priest absolve him. It requires repentance and is a matter between him and God alone. Here is the path to salvation in the year 1100AD:
This reads like the standard 21st century evangelical Protestant confession of faith: “Admit you are a sinner, repent of your sin, make Jesus your Lord and Savior and pray with all your heart.”
Real repentance is required.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Its interesting how women simp for Jesus when by all accounts the real man was a beta. He had no money, nor “form or comliness that we should desire him” (of you take that Isaiah passage a prophecy of him). Is it only because he gets depicted as a tall German man with long hair? Basically Obi won Kenobi looking his best in the prequels? Or ia it because he’s the biggest Beta Bux in the galaxy? Able to dole out eternal streets of gold? Or just because he is a nice myth to toss around to argue that men are not allowed to punish women for any evil act, “him who is without sin” and stones and all that? But it is interesting women threw all the totally Chad ripped muscled up buff gods or their ancestors overboard to all tak hold of Jesus’ cloak and saw “we will whore our own whoredoms (undoubtedly what eat our own bread means), only let us be called by they name to remove our shame.” Why is women’s natural tendency to seek the six pack reversed to seek wimpy Jesus when it comes to religion? Because women want a god they can dominate so they can preach feminism in his name?
LikeLike
Jesus would have to be that “everyman” in appearance. There was no other way around it. If he looked like some mythical Germanic Jesus with his looks and physique to “overpower” people to believing, it would null the free will thing. It would be Jesus Christ Superstar, people hanging around for the show with little or no conversion, repentance, or even humility.
Roger Waters from Pink Floyd once said in the late 1970’s at time when Pink Floyd could fill a stadium every night for a year if they wanted to “Most guys just come for the beer and to meet girls, not for the music”
He had to be a carpenter. A trade in his time that probably went through periods of boom and bust. Not viewed in esteem as in “Wow, he’s a carpenter!” A carpenter is what many men, average men could train for at that time in the Roman provinces and learn some skills and have a humble but honest living.
If he came as a “priest” or was born into that clan / class in that culture…he would have been “one of many” and he may have well been the best…but he came for Jew and Gentile. He came for the lost, not the “learned” or the “prideful” or “arrogant” and those….who so many in that class who had got so stuck on “tradition” and “rules” and “because I said so”
Even today, we demand Seminary for our esteemed priests and pastors. Which seminary? How dutiful he was in seminary? How many books and papers that were PUBLISHED?” The lay people cannot debate or argue, or even question because “oh, they just wont get it…I studied Greek and Hebrew you see….”
I recall Jesus saying “I have ordained you!” Maybe I am wrong.
He had to come as a “beta” in a way because; He made the wise look foolish in their stifling intellectualism. He made Roman guards of the Legions listen, and not scoff at him “he’s just some Jewish nobody”
He never once demanded an audience with Caesar or the Province Governor, nor puppet King Herod. Today? People demand their pastor, priest go to Washington to stand up to them! Jesus didnt bother with this world. He set that an example for an everyman. The everyman is more concerned about his work, his kids, his family, his wife…..everyday living. Jesus had answers for them.
He embodied basics of what god wanted his chosen people to be. Father to son. Walking with someone to teach and grow…like God did in the garden with Adam. It was not just a religion, or salvation. It was a way of life. Only a everyman in the end could do this.
Christians talk a big snot about David and how “mighty” he was. Most of history has forgotten him. People still know about Jesus, and at least his impact. To most, David now is a homo-erotic statue somewhere in modern Rome, with a huge monster penis as well. He is a work of art. In that statue he looks more refined, feminine and Chad-esque than what an everyman can or would want to relate to.
Jesus wept for his friends. Jesus had fitful passions of a son who wanted his father respected. He hung out with criminals, lowlifes…..tax collectors and “bad people” and “dirty people” not to make himself better, but in a way that an everyman ONLY could. He told them the truth but he also had a WAY about it. Most Christians today lecture in thunderous tones while living a not so model life themselves. The same people who would DEMAND a fig leaf over the statue of David’s penis, while secretly breaking it off and taking it home as a souvenir
Women today, and so many pastors make Jesus into some teacher who played with baby lambs. The Christian sphere makes him out to be some master at Game and who was going to punch evil doers in the mouth. Too many pastors make him into some guys guy “Jesus would have liked football” (if Jesus went to the gymnasium back in those times, it would have been said). “Jesus is your buddy” and “Jesus is all about a guy like you, he takes you as you are” (no, he expected a lot from his early followers).
If indeed the real Jesus was around today, in the flesh walking here on earth, 99% of those who claim him would be very disappointed in what they say…like the Pharaisees of his day. They wanted a warrior! They wanted good looks! They wanted a hero!
Same as today really, Christians want a “superstar” not a sorrowful savior who hung on a cross.
Hence why I left for various reasons
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I think this would largely be the case, except that I suspect Jesus (being God’s chosen) had an aura, a charisma, that made him irresistible to people. But I think in all other facets he would have been normal.
Just like the shroud of turin.
Interestingly, Jesus was probably a stonemason, not a carpenter.The word tekton means craftsman or builder. The idea that he was a carpenter is one of those traditions with little basis in fact.
This is likely why he used so many analogies of stone, especially regarding foundations. The vast majority of homes in Nazareth were built with stone, not wood. Three miles from Nazareth is the ancient rock quarry of Sapphoris. Being a stonemason, he was probably heavily muscled, but few in that era were fat or out of shape, so this wouldn’t have set him apart. Herod’s building projects would have made stonemasons in high demand, and Jesus would have been one of very many, nothing special at all. This is why they said “Jesus? Is this not the son of the craftsman?” because stonemasonry was the everyman’s job.
LikeLike
Over 2.5 billion people worldwide (and growing) read and sing King David’s Psalms regularly, and you think “most of history has forgotten him”? Seriously? Can you name one other person whose poems 2.5 billion people regularly sing 3.500 years after their death?
Jesus isn’t going to “punch evil doers in the mouth”. He’s going to strike them with the sword that proceeds from His mouth…
…. and shatter them with a rod of iron.
You don’t like that Jesus, do you? The one who is KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS, and will return to judge all flesh. You don’t like Him any more than you like those pesky Psalms David wrote and billions still read and sing, do you?
well, guess what? That’s the Jesus of the Bible, whether you like Him or not.
The real Jesus will indeed return in the flesh. But He won’t return as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 (there’s Jesus in the Old Testament again). He’ll return as the conquering, vengeful King of Kings of Isaiah 63 (Jesus in the Old Testament again). Back to Revelation 19.
By the way, that blood His robe is going to be dipped in… that’s not His blood. He won’t be the one doing the bleeding next time around. It doesn’t matter if you like Him or not. That is who He is.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oscar.
Most people on in church Sinday don’t sing hymns in the west. They sway to music and watch a performance and sing a modern song with seven lines repeated elven times.
Ask 99 percent of Christians in church on Sunday, front row. Ask them who wrote Psalms…they wouldn’t be able to tell you. I doubt David wrote them. He was too busy leafing nonstop wars, bedding women and dancing naked in the streets
As for Revelation….I have heard a gazillion meanings, predictions and supposed coded meanings. Christians act more like fortune tellers here. They have no idea, and with the gazillion translations of it over the centuries, the real meaning was lost probably when the ink wasn’t even dry on the parchment.
Christians and their ENDLESS sectarian debates. Pre-trib, post-trib……and all the early believers thought christ would return in their lifetime.
Raman……there you go again. The Bible says “trained to be a csrpentet” not a stonemason….but then I am told it really meant “stonemason”
This is endless confusion. This the endless “what the Bible really neans”
Hence why most don’t want to read or study. Words don’t mean what they say and any insight I have ever mentioned here and on Dalrock was “wrong” and “this word actually means this or translated from Aramic to Greek through second century Hebrew to English….”
See what I mean????
Tiresome and actually frustrating.
LikeLike
@lastmod
So far both Christian and non-Christian alike have made this point. It is akin to the empty atheist refrain “There are so many religions, how can I know which one is true? Thus, none must be true.” You can know, it’s not so great a mystery.
Though you’ve made your choice, you still do understand what God requires of you and there is nothing confusing about it. Whether David was a Chad, whether post-trib millenialism is true, or whether Jesus was actually a weaver, you know what God has revealed to you. I know because I’ve read what you’ve written. I still remember these words of yours…
…even as you identify what the kingdom reallly is.
LikeLike
@lastmod
Fundamentally, you don’t need endless debates to know what God wants for you. For many people, a static belief is required and anything more is negative.
But, the academic pursuit of knowledge is a common masculine endeavor. Statistics show that for any given IQ, men will naturally acquire more knowledge than women, even factoring in differences in areas of interest. They simply spend more time exploring and learning, asking questions and trying to answer them.
What words mean in translation is a real issue and always has been. The definitions of words often can only be understood in the context in which those words were spoken. It could be something minor like whether Jesus was carpenter or a mason. Or it could be something more significant like whether women must remain completely silent inside a church. It behooves those of us who want to alter our behavior (or the behaviors of others!) to match the Bible, understand what the Bible actually says. Such seekers of truth cannot be concerned with if it is a moving target.
This is why I approach the problem by making conjectures and logical deduction and avoiding subjectivity (like pre/post trib millenialism). One can read what I have written, verify the scriptural and historical references and conclude whether or not my arguments are valid. The only axiom I have is that the Bible is the Word of God. Kentucky Gent has rejected what I have said, since his axiom is different than mine. Your axiom—the thing you hold to be true and base everything else upon, without requiring proof—does not allow you to consider them. But prariepolyguy has found it interesting enough to verify for himself, since his axiom allows him to consider such things.
LikeLike
I’ve drifted further from that Ramman. In March 2022, I went to the church here in Pasadena…some seminary that is “bold and biblical” for a Sunday service. It was the Fuller Seminary I believe.
Well…..it was womens history month (March, that is) and we have a real important message. It was about Jesus speaking to the woman at the well.
Well, we were told that that this woman was a “take no punches kinda of woman” she “stood up to Jesus” and asked him the “hard questions”
(sounded like a stump speech for Hillary Clinton)
In the end we were taught that the woman was the “first real christian” and actually may have taught Jesus a thing or two!
Applause. Modern praise. Encouragement for all the wives and “single women” to be “that woman at the well” (her having several husbands was not mentioned, and it doesn’t matter…some scholar is out there right now writing a paper about how that actually wasn’t wrong back then, it was common…..and Chad wouldn’t mind having many wives, we have to be authentic to the culture today….)
So that was the “bold n’ biblical” church here in Pasadena.
What I am getting at Derek, stifling intellectualism and endless debate of what “the words really mean, and what Jesus really said is so muddled it now means nothing. I can’t even read the bible on my own without someone, a webpage or podcast (forget going to church) telling me “no, no…it means this”
So, because of this I really can’t trust what the bible says on anything anymore.
Prayer? Prayers went unanswered for a decade…..or fell on deaf ears. I know, I know……..I will be told “you were praying for the wrong thing”
This faith is for the elite, the good looking…its high school redux. I frankly am glad I have little to do with it
LikeLike
I know, I just wanted to point out that you knew, and you continue to demonstrate that you still do:
Jesus said the way was narrow and few would find it. You found it, but you didn’t like what you found. You are like the seed that fell on rocky soil in the Parable of the Sower: you received the Word and received it with joy, but the consequences of following the Word offended you, and so you fell away.
Your issue is not knowledge. You’ve ably demonstrated for years that you can cut through the noise in ways that most people cannot, cutting to the heart of the matter.
At the same time, though your gifts are in evidence, it is clear that this is your choice and no one else’s. Christ crucified has always been a stumbling block and a foolishness to those who choose not to believe.
I agree! But most people cannot do as you do, they cannot cut to the heart of the matter so easily. They require someone like Dalrock to state what is so patently obvious to you. I write for those people, and only a tiny subset of them at that.
If I try telling people what to believe, that never works. So I try to cut to the basics—avoiding subjectivity, reducing complexity, highlighting personal axioms—and making use of logical consistency, deduction, and even inference, if proof remains elusive. Nevertheless, I recognize that most of what I write is for naught. Few is the man for whom this approach is compelling, even as many find it repulsive.
LikeLike
My comment wasn’t intended as a serious attack on or disproof of Christianity but a msuing on female nature. These women don’t really believe in Jesus and have no rational reasons for their putative faith such as fullfilled prophecy or whatever might make a man believe. No, they just like to spout “Jesus forgives whores.” That’s the jist of my point.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The only axiom I have is that the Bible is the Word of God. Kentucky Gent has rejected what I have said, since his axiom is different than mine.
This is a gross mischaracterization. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t put words in my mouth.
First of all, I have the axiom that the Bible is the Word of God. Secondly, I have more than one axiom.
LikeLike
@ramman,
And what’s more, I rejected what you said because it is a bunch of speculation. You are trying to read tea leaves from 1500 to 2000 years ago, thinking that just because ’10’ and ‘3’ appear in Revelation to describe the appearance of some parts of a creature, and these numbers also appear in ancient history about how regional governmental entities were arranged, it must mean Catholicism is false.
You have a lot of knowledge, but all you’ve done is bamboozle yourself yet you think you’ve solved eschatology. It strongly reminds me of all the kids at school when Ronald Wilson Reagan ran for president – each name has 6 letters, so Reagan has the ‘666’ number of the beast.
LikeLike
An axiom is an established or self-evident belief in the truth of a claim, without need for evidence or proof. Thus, I speak only of axioms that rules all other propositions, the one that is chosen when conflicts arise. If you need something else to show that the Bible is the Word of God, then it isn’t an axiom.
Let’s review your words, and then you can tell me where I made an error or mischaracterized you. Your statement on Holy Tradition…
…plainly states that scripture (the Word of God) alone is insufficient and that more—tradition—is required. You also said…
…and this is plainly circular. If tradition defines scripture (canon), scripture (canon) cannot define tradition, unless your axiom incorporates both of them together. But if your axiom includes both, then there is no reason to cite scripture to defend tradition. This would only show that your axiom is different from mine.
But this does not solve the issue. How does one know which traditions are Holy and which ones are not? You cannot appeal to tradition itself to prove tradition. Nor can you can appeal to scripture alone, which is what the Protestants do. You can only appeal to the authority of the church, accepting whatever it says is Holy Tradition and whatever it says is scripture (canon), excluding everything else by definition.
This is precisely what you said you do:
And so, by examining your words, we have discovered your actual unstated axiom: sola ecclesia, or Church Alone. It is by the church that we know what Holy Tradition is and isn’t and what scripture is and isn’t.
So let’s clarify my statement to say instead:
Wherein did I err?
LikeLike
That would be speculation. I’ve found no objective, concrete explanation for the beast’s number, so I do not speculate on it.
This is not remotely close to true.
This is one of the thinnest interpretations of Revelation that isn’t a complete rejection of the book, a reduction of only the basics of what can be simply known. I’ve covered only Revelation 12, 13, and 17 and a few other scattered verses, and I only covered them in the limited context of those things with plain meanings. The vast majority of common interpretations of Revelation are too subjective to make any definitive claims, and so I did not include them directly.
To get any more objective, you would have to claim that Revelation is no better than Nostradamus, and any interpretation should be rejected. You might as well say it isn’t the Word of God if we are not permitted to use it as scripture.
But it isn’t speculation.
Revelation says that the mark of the beast comes from worshiping the image of the beast. Worshiping an image is idolatry. The mark is received on the hand or forehead. Just as the beast is a clear biblical reference to Daniel, so too is this a clear biblical reference to Exodus: the unleavened bread of Passover. It is a straightforward conclusion that the image of the beast is the unleavened bread and that worshiping it gives one the mark.
The argument is just basic exegesis and logic and requires no more than a paragraph to clearly explain. It is what we might call “the plain reading of the text.” It relies on no ambiguities of language, no torturing the meanings of contested words, no textual variations, no invention of contorted narratives, not even an appeal to history. It is utterly mundane.
Beyond the argument itself, I looked at the five other signs to see if they fit with history, which they do. But even if you reject the signs as speculation, the biblical argument is plain enough. But more importantly, what good reason is there for me to reject the signs?
The argument is also significantly less speculative than interpreting the direct reference to Adam and Eve in 1 Timothy 2 or the indirect reference in 1 Corinthians 11 the way it is commonly done. It is less subjective than the reference to Sarah in 1 Peter 3. All of these have different scripture-only arguments surrounding their explanation, and (in the case of the first two) are part of highly contested and ambiguous passages. In other words, the topics near and dear to this blog are more speculative, but these are usually taken as dogma.
LikeLike
There you go moving goalposts again. I said nothing about hymns. I said Psalms. Plenty of the Psalms have been translated into every kind of music, including contemporary worship songs. I learned Psalms 121 in Spanish in a little church in Central America.
If that’s true, then why do you whine incessantly about Christians not following what Jesus said? How do you even know what Jesus said? He didn’t write the Gospels, His Apostles did. If you don’t trust the Apostles, then how do you know what Jesus said?
Below you wrote that…
I liked and understood what Jesus had to say
Now you write that you can’t trust what the Apostles wrote, which means you don’t actually know what Jesus said. So, which is it?
And yet, all Christian traditions agree that “He will return to judge the living and the dead” (the Apostle’s Creed). They disagree on how it’ll happen, but they all agree that it will happen, because Jesus said it will happen.
LikeLike
Ramman:
“But, the academic pursuit of knowledge is a common masculine endeavor. Statistics show that for any given IQ, men will naturally acquire more knowledge than women, even factoring in differences in areas of interest. They simply spend more time exploring and learning, asking questions and trying to answer them.”
Hence why women outnumber men in college and university now, and the gap is widening faster than the universe is expanding.
My grad school (Renssealaer Poly) is supposedly one of the better private polytechs in the USA (its not, they accepted me…..what does that say? He has a stuudent loan, and will pay upfront……bring him in!)
My degree was in UCD (User Centered Design) under the MS title of “Technical Communications” its called something else now. This was 1992.
So, I was sitting in a lecture. It was a general history of the world wide web…..stuff like that. The TA (a pretty woman my age) standing on the desk, in a shorter than average skirt (she knew what she was doing) with the overhead projector (remember those) speaking to the room of maybe 100 students. All men.
Well, she was telling us, that The Internet was invented by women. You see, in the middle ages, women wove these intricate tapestries on looms and the like, and THAT set the whole basis for The Internet. Endless choices and intricacies in the patterns and colors and styles, that is what the whole structure of The Internet is based upon. These women need to be thanked
Well, she was given applause. She was thanked in the Q&A (which wasnt any Q and A, it was just heaping her with praise for her amazing research)
I was sitting there like Winston Smith in “1984” behaving like the crowd, smiling and nodding. Inside my head “What the f*ck is this? Women now invented The Internet? I want to hear about the engineers, and techs who built this. I want vintage 1960’s / 1970’s photos of labs at Bell, IBM and from the US Military. Why are people applauding? Why is she being given praise for this? Why did I borrow 35K a year for this degree…to hear this?????? Will an adult please correct her? Where is the actual professor for this class?”
I did bring my concerns to the professor mid semester “waved me away, said women have a bigger voice in what men build than you think. If you get married someday, you’ll understand that” I knew when he said that, he was banging her (the TA, he was about 50 at the time).
Derek, Pilate said in scoffing disgust to Jesus “what is truth?” as if he had heard it spoken as truth, until it wasn’t.
He was even tired of it. You could feel his frustration with Jesus as he maybe / kinda of tried to help him and at the same time a feeling of “oh these Jews…another holy man, another person they are demanding me to give justice to, what did I deserve to be placed in this province”
Exhausting, and a waste of time…but I will be told by someone here, or out there what Pilate really meant and how my reading was wrong. Christians are worse than Bill Clinton on the stand telling us and redefining what the word “is” means
LikeLike
And yet this does not refute what I said. As women replace men in academic pursuits, the acquisition and application of knowledge declines in absolute terms.
Yes, such is the state of mankind.
My axiom is belief in the Word of God. This grounds me. It matters not if there are a million other beliefs and traditions, for those are not the Word of God. Pilate had no such axiom, so he floundered, like Jonah before him.
This problem is not new. Have you read the story of the Man of God from Judah in 1 Kings 13? He was given two choices of axioms: to believe the Word of God or the word of man? He had to choose an axiom. Both claimed to be the truth, both were mutually exclusive, both were epistemologically equivalent, both were not provable. The only difference was the object of his belief. In the end, he chose to put his belief in something other than God, and this led to his destruction.
Regardless of what information he possesses, each man has a choice in what he places his belief: the path to life or the path to destruction.
LikeLike
I dont know what to believe anymore.
I liked and understood what Jesus had to say, especially in my recovery from drink and drugs. I understood very quickly and easily the acceptance of a “higher power” and that step is the hardest for most to grasp. For me that was not too bad. I get it. The AA books pre 1968 said “God” post that they say “higher power”
When I made a choice that was evidently the “most important choice I could ever make” it got confusing, complex, muddled and something I could not grasp.
I took a history of Methodism while in undergrad (my college was a Methodist affiliated college, founded by them). I was raised culturally Anglican / Episcopalian. Not devout church, christmas and easter family or that odd Sunday when it was just decided over breakfast that we were to go. Part of the reason why I think we didnt mostly was because of my brother. People would stare. Not understand. It was a different time. It was the 1970’s, rural New York State
I remember Father Park and Father Owens teaching me the Lords prayer during a home visit. I do remember wanting to sit up front in church because there was just more to see. My mom would say “well, if you want to sit up there, you will be noticed so best behavior is required.”
I remember learning the basics. I remember this was done mostly for my mothers cultural sensibilities of being a British ex-pat more than anything
If it is indeed real, and every word of it, and when Jesus returns to kill everyone who ever had a wrong thought in the mind, I am sure 99% of christians will be thrown into the lake of fire with me so I wont be alone….
And yet, I know that wont happen. He’s not coming back. Humanity doesnt deserve a jesus
I dont understand the gifts you speak about that I have. I was told by a Salvation Army Officer that I had a gift of “service” so be a doormat to the rest of the christians here…but dont worry, when you die you will be rewarded.
Gee thanks
LikeLike
Brother, you and I walk a different path from others. I go to a devout Baptist church now with my son and even they don’t understand. But at least they don’t stare, I’ll give you that. People (especially kids) stare at my daughter though, but though it bothers her, she handles it alright. I try to keep her emotionally as safe as I can.
The Bible gives a number of spiritual gifts in order of priority: apostles, prophets, teachers, miracle workers, healers, helpers, administrators, and those who speak in tongues. There are others and people can have more than one gift, but these are the most significant. In some ways gifts are nothing special, everyone has them and you are not better or worse for having a better or worse gift. But in other ways, some are more valuable than others.
The gift of prophecy does not (usually) refer to predicting the future, rather it refers to (in my words) being able to “cut through the heart of the matter and reveal God’s messages.” It is not about interpretation of scripture, which is what teachers do. Teachers (including pastors) have the job to identify prophets, help train them, see that their messages reach the church, and (along with the rest of the church) evaluate their messages for scriptural validity (i.e. a system of checks and balances).
My gift is teaching. You have the gift of prophecy, though it is raw, untrained, and unguided. How (and if) you could harness that gift is a secondary question to whether you have the gift. You do.
Western Christianity has few prophets because it has utterly abandoned Christian mysticism. Prophets are often outcasts, but they can often sense what God wants intuitively (that’s the mysticism part). I’ve seen you doing this all the time for years, but it is clouded by your bitterness, life circumstances, and possibly a lack of faith, though that is not for me to say and I cannot know for sure. I doubt that you even know you are doing it, it’s just second nature. Growing the gift would obviously require you to embrace Christ anew, but we also don’t live in a society that supports the gift of prophecy. It would not surprise me if you never find a church home (except perhaps in an online community). So I have precisely zero answers for you. I’m sorry. It’s such a waste.
Jack has attempted to act in the role of pastor of this church family through moderation by pulling out your prophetic messages and removing that which isn’t scriptural, but it frankly wasn’t all that effective, which is why he had to stop doing so. Not everyone values what you say, but that’s to be expected. I suspect even your biggest critics value what you say from time to time.
I wish I had better suggestions. I guess I’m a pretty garbage evangelist. I can’t cure what ails you, but I appreciate all you’ve shared over the years, in case that’s worth a ha’penny.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Pilate didn’t flounder because according to believers, he had to send him to death. It was “already written”
Pilate pardoning Jesus wasnt part of Gods plan, so how could he have floundered? It was predestination. Yet, Pilate will be in hell for something that was “predetermined”
His wife is a “saint” in the Orthodox tradition, because she told her hubby to not do anything to him…but “he didnt listen to her”
But he couldnt, it was preordained that “this” (the crucifixtion) HAD to happen. This is where the rabbit hole goes deeper and it doesn’t make any sense. God created Pilate. God used him to help condem his son……Pilate “floundered”. He couldnt DO anything else…….it was predestination.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And I would have said “The doctrine of predeterminism is logically incoherent because…” and then proceeded to write a comment the length of a doctoral dissertation, to the eye-rolls of all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
She is a whore. Full stop. Proverbs says a lot about her type
LikeLiked by 1 person
She is a #h0#e
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Scripture *is* Tradition - Derek L. Ramsey
I’m kind of surprised at how many people have read my Mating in Captivity post since I first dropped the link in my comment.
That almost never happens, 😊, but I hope it was insightful.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Pingback: No Early Evidence for Roman Catholic Doctrine - Derek L. Ramsey
I use an RSS reader for comments, so I can easily read all comments in all threads. Is this not what everyone else does? WordPress notifications are garbage and miss most comments, so I don’t rely on them. I can’t imagine the effort required to manually check if there are new comments on the articles you care about.
LikeLike
Pingback: What we’ve learned about Feminine Submission | Σ Frame
Pingback: 2022 Sigma Frame Performance Report | Σ Frame
Pingback: The Original Meaning of Eucharist - Derek L. Ramsey
Pingback: Is the Sigma Frame Blog in Decline? - Derek L. Ramsey
Pingback: Sexy | Σ Frame
Pingback: 2023 Sigma Frame Performance Report | Σ Frame