I'm becoming Orthodox

Yet you commit the fallacy of assuming that only what is written down qualifies as "God's word". Yet Paul commended the Thessalonians for receiving his oral preaching (which they "heard")as what it in fact was--the word of God (1 Thess 2:13). Christ Himself is the Word of God in the ultimate sense, yet not everything He ever said or did was written down as John attests (John 21:25).
</font>[/QUOTE]Marcia&gt;&gt;I do not think it's a fallacy to call the Bible God's only "word." Jesus is not the "Word" in the sense of the Bible being the "Word." Jesus is "Logos" -- a different type of "word" entirely.
And everything we objectively know about Jesus is in God's written word. I already pointed out earlier that references to the oral teachings were before the canon was complete -- there is no evidence that these oral teachings were set apart from God's word and not recorded in God's word. We have no reason to assume that. And this is the irony -- you only know about the "oral traditions" from God's word.

Marcia&gt;&gt;But they are all a part of the written word of God. You haven't presented any evidence to show that we are to accept anything outside of the Bible as authoritative. I already pointed out the problem with your citing of Paul's statement -- and this is about the only thing you seem to have.

What interpretation and by whom? Are you talking about interpretation of scripture after the completed canon? Where is the authority for that? [/QUOTE]In the church founded by Christ, the pillar and ground of truth. (1 Tim 3:15). [/QUOTE]

But the authority of the church is based on God's word. So it goes back to God's word.

 

Eric B
I agree with you, that's not the issue.
&lt;Simplification coming up&gt;
Getting closer to the original pre-fall state (even if only for amoment during liturgy) is the quest of the Eastern Christian, being forgiven for being affected by the Original Sin is the hope of the Western Christian.
It's Origenes vs. Augustinus.
and it means that in a very real sense the theological gap between baptist and Roman Catholic is smaller, than the gap between baptist and Eastern Orthodox believer.

 

Eric B,

Just Name ONE person who held the Baptist belief in this time frame. All I need is ONE name.

 

Christ is the Word in the ultimate sense. He is the one who fulfills and gives true meaning to the OT scriptures, and He is the one who commissioned the apostles and founded His church which is the community in which the NT was written, received, interpreted, and "finalized". Christ is the ultimate authority, not a bare text.

Not so, for if weren't for the Church He founded (before the NT was even written) which has maintained the objective, true teaching about Christ, the the NT (as indeed the OT) could indeed be entirely subjected to the various subjective interpretations of false teachers who preach false "christs". In fact, false christs distorted the scriptures from the beginning and it was the Church which met the heretics head on with the true meaning of Scripture.

Nor is their evidence that the oral teachings would be entirely contained in Scripture. Paul considered both his oral teachings and his written epistles to be "the word of God", and He gave no indication in Scripture that all of the former would one day be reduced to the latter, or that the written contains all of the former.

The real irony is that we only know what the canon of Scripture is because the Church determined by the guidance of the Spirit which books were authentically apostolic (and thus "God's word") based on their consistency with the Apostolic Tradition deposited in the Church itself.

To be sure, the canon of authentic writings and the true Apostolic tradition cannot conflict because they share the same source--the apostles--and ultimate authority--Christ Himself. However, it's a different matter to conclude that the NT writings must exhaustively contain all that was delivered orally. That has not been proven, nor can it be.

Marcia&gt;&gt;But they are all a part of the written word of God. You haven't presented any evidence to show that we are to accept anything outside of the Bible as authoritative.</font>[/QUOTE]Nor have you prevented evidence--from the Bible or otherwise--that the Christian faith was to be reduced to a book; or that what Paul delivered orally was exactly the same (and not more or less) as what he penned in this epistles; or that he planned on this oral teachings to be held only until all his epistles were complete; or that he (or any other NT writer) had any concept of a NT canon at all.

Nor have you accounted for the fact that the church survived for almost four centuries without even knowing exactly what constituted the NT canon; or that the impetus to even form a NT canon was in response to heretics such as Marcion (who wanted to limit the "canon" to certain Pauline epistles and Luke) or other gnostics (who claimed their authority for their doctrines on spurious gospels/acts/epistles); or that it was the Apostolic rule of faith by which the church was able to reject the spurious writings and determine which books were authentically apostolic; or that early Christians considered the oral gospel (tradition) and the four authentic written gospels were equally authoritative and as both teaching the same Christ over against the false teachings (written or oral) of the heretics; or that the early Christians thought the apostolic rule of faith maintained in the apostolic churches was indispensible in correctly interpreting Scriptures against the distorted misinterpretations of the heretics.

Nor have you accounted for the fact that Christ meant for the Church itself to be authoritative (Matt 18:18; 1 Tim 3:15; John 20:23)

What interpretation and by whom? Are you talking about interpretation of scripture after the completed canon? Where is the authority for that? </font>[/QUOTE]The interpretation of the Church based on the Apostolic tradition and rule of faith. The authority is given to the Church by Christ Himself, several decades before any NT writings were even given.

But the authority of the church is based on God's word. So it goes back to God's word.
</font>[/QUOTE]Yes the Authority is based on the Word of God Incarnate--Jesus Christ Himself, who commissioned His apostles, breathed out His Spirit on them and founded His Church decades before the first NT epistle was even written. Chronologically, the Church preceded the NT and produced the NT (through the pens of the apostles--the "foundation of the church"[Eph 2:20]) and provided the context for the reception of the NT and thus it's interpretation. It was the Church that finalized the canon as well in the late 4th century--determining which books were authentically apostolic and which weren't. The NT didn't just drop out of the sky nor was it written in a vacuum. When one tries to take it out of its context--as both the word of God and book of the Church to be interpreted by the traditional teaching handed down from the apostles--then that one is subject to the strong possibility of being led into error.

 

That's what I'd like to see as well.

 

But these things do not in fact distort the gospel. They just distort your version of the gospel. The icons have always been a legitimate and beautiful expression of the reality of the Incarnation--God with us--and of Christ in His Saints.

And you're still assuming that the written was an exhaustive compilation of the oral.

But not that this error would infect and otherthrow the entire church. These heretics (gnostics/judaizers/etc) did indeed arise but the were countered by the orthodox fathers.

And your side is to one which has to come up with some imaginary Christians (whom history doesn't record) who existed during that time and who shared the Baptist view on things only because your interpretation of the Bible demands that they must have existed.

The Jews were offended because they knew how literal Christ was in His descriptions. His flesh is indeed true food and His blood true drink, and Christ said one had to eat His flesh (the same flesh He was giving for the life of the world) and drink His blood to have eternal life. However, if those Jews would have stuck around like the faithful disciples, they would have learned with them how Christ's body and blood was to be given to them to eat and drink--in the forms of bread and wine, which as Paul stated (1 Cor 10:16) is the communion of Christ's Body and Blood.

That's what you keep asserting. However, the Church was united in believing in Christ's special divine-human presence in the Eucharist for the first 1500 years of Christianity

That's a baseless accusation and absurd. When the Holy Spirit came upon Mary the Incarnation of the (already existing) Second Person of the Trinity was effected. Likewise, the Holy Spirit makes the bread and wine the true Body and Blood of Christ, the same Christ who is at the right hand of the Father.

No the Church is not "just men". The Church is the Body of Christ, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. The Church is not disconnected from its Head, even though individuals and groups of men can fall away from this divine-human Body. The Church is no more "just men" than the writers of the NT were writing as "just men". One cannot separate the true Scriptures from the true Church, although indiviudals and groups of men can separate from both.

But the Arians thought they were teaching the Christ of the Bible. In fact they marshalled many proof-texts in their favor. The orthodox and Arians tossed Scriptures back and forth at each other, but in the end it was the unbroken Apostolic Tradition that decided the day since the Church had always worshipped Christ as God in its prayers and hymns.

That's the post-apostolic Church. We cannot project this back to the NT. </font>[/QUOTE]It's the same Church.

Uh, oh..."Dan Brown" alert.... Conspiracy theorists of the world, unite!!!

(Of course, this is the same line of argumentation that suggests that the orthodox Christians imposed their version of Christianity on those poor defenseless gnostics in their quest for "control".)

 

This parallels what I've just said on the other thread. So how do you prove that yours is that "legitimate and beautiful expression of the reality of the Incarnation"? Because you find a couple of these ideas, or at least statements that you interpret that way, in the early fathers, then claim they must have gotten these practices from an "oral tradition handed down" from the apostles, but when we question this, it is proven because "They have always been" taken that way "for 1500 years int he Church". This is cyclical. You make your church the authority for proving that your church is the true one! Anybody can make their ideas "the truth" that way!

And you're still assuming that a whole body of teachings were 100% left out. All of the issues would come up, and be addressed orally, or in writing. Which medium was used was determined by where the apostle was at a given time when the issue would come up. But he addresses the people with the same issues.
It's not about being "Reduced to a book", or "the exact words" being used. The apostles were not hiding anything. We see basically the same types of issues in all of the epistles (matters of morality, worship, theology, some personal issues). Nothing as significant and apparrently essential as what you are pushing for was omitted.

Joh's last epistles gives us an idea of what started happening later on. "I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, receives us
not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he does, babbling against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither does he himself receive the brethren, and forbids them that would, and casts them out of the church. The gnostics "drew away disciples after themselves". This new crop of false leaders tried to take over from within. And even the gnostics doctrines did gain some influence. You seem to believe it is impossible for someone to oppose something he has already been influenced by in some subtle ways. We see this all over again today, as Christians today may oppose pop-entertainment, Pop-psychology, etc. while trying to Christianize some of the gimmicks and concepts they copy from the world, and while some may have a noble intention, they do cross the line often.

I'm not pushing for some "Baptist practice", though I believe it is closer to the truth. A lot of doctrines and practices were not really as defined as they came to be later on. So people had all sorts of ideas, and when one crossed the line of heresy and become big and threatening, the Church stepped in with first, its apologies, then then its councils to to define the truth. But they themselves were not always completely correct. So when they tthemselves got big and even mope corrupt, then off, the splinters start coming. In all of this time, the Word of God was there, with the basic message of salvation. Whether thge majority of men twist it and go off into error or not, the truth was always there.

"How literal He was in His descriptions"? All of those parables He gave; ained specifically at them, to hide the meaning from them.
If they had stuck around, they would have leared that His Kingdom was not food and drink, and the physical rule they wanted, and yes, how His flesh and blood was to be given to them-- through the Spirit, with them as the members! Once again, it is all about the members of the Body, not external things.

So then, it's the other answer I mentioned: the Holy Spirit inhabits bread and wine. Once again; the Holy Spirit inhabiting inanimate objects is foreign to the scriptures. The Holy Spirit inhabits US as we partake of the elements.

But that's what we call the "invisible Church", not a particular organization men build (supposedly) around it. Else, everything this institution has done becomes sanctified, and "error" is defined only as departing from what the Church teaches. (which has chaned over the centuries anyway). How could "Christ" bring in the Dark Ages? (which you cannot blame only on the Western Church, as it began befoe the split). We must separate what men do in "the Church". from what God does through the Church. Else, God just become a mascot to justify whatever men want to do. (Crusades, colonialism, Slavery, brutality of conquered people, etc).

No; it was political power that determined it, with the Arians almost winning at first! (As I said on the other thread, the Arians could take such references, and contrue them in light of their doctrine that He was "a god", who did do the Creating).
The solution to this is not the throw the Word out, or supplement it with "tradition". The hymns and prayers could be chcked against the scriptures, and seen to be true. This has nothing to do with doctrines and practices that supposedly were entirely omitted from the scriptures. If that was the case, then the Arians could have used whatever power they gained to make it look like their doctrine was the apostolic tradition!

So what is the "Same Church" today? Rome was one patriarchate, and Constantinople was another. Both can trace themselves, and both can claim to have maintained the truth, while the other rejects "apostolic tradition". If you define "church" as simply a visible group of people in a particular locale, then yes. (e.g. "Church of Rome"). But this is a spiritual body, remember, and the members had since changed over that century or so. So no members in one age can get over and prove their ideas to be right based on the faithfulness of members in an earlier age. Once again, that leads to cultural Christianity.

Do you deny that the Church ever used its power to try to crush whatever it thought was heresy? The error ofthe gnostics or anyone else was no excuse for this, just like in the witch burnings some Protestants were known for. Christ warns us, "Nay; lest while all of you gather up the tares, all of you root up also the wheat with them". (Matt.13:30)

If the canon was based ONLY on an "apostolic tradition", then some of those spurious books, which more clearly detail the later "catholic" doctrines and practices would have been included - basically, whatever agreed with the traditions!. The early Fathers, would have been considered the heirs to te apostles, and included. I'm sure there are many who wanted these things in there, and this is proof that the Holy Spirit enacted some restraint on them. That is not the same as the Holy Spirit perpetually engraining doctrinal errorlessness on the Church, so whatever the institution teaches must be the truth whether it is scriptural or not, oh, and as for which of all the competing bodies is the one, we'll just choose the oldest to be safe.
I often wish the Spirit had done that, but that was apparently not how God wanted to work in this dispensation. So He gives us the written Word, and lets men and institutions go and do as they please with it, twist it, add to it, ignore it completely, etc. but with the promise of a day of answering after this life. (Rom.14:10, 2 Cor.5:10)
But for the meantime, He did restrain men from adding the wrong books into the final Bible, and with Revelation as the natural seal of the scripture.

 

But not to the extent that it would infect the entire church or completely overthow the truthfulness of any apostolic doctrines.

 

Yet many other sola Scriptura advocates disagree with you--who is right?

So what you're once again left with as the standard of determing what the Church got right and what they got wrong is your own personal interpretation.

 

The Church conflicted itself in many areas. Once again, Augustinianism came in fashin at one point, with Pelagianism condemned, and then eventually, a Pelagian view of salvation became the norm again (even though Augustine's position was never officially renounced, except only when it came from the Reformers).

I cannot answer for all these others who disagree with me, or the fact that it ends up becomeing. Once again, it is not about an organization with perfect adherance to a list of doctrines. (In contrast to you accusing us of "reducing it to a book"). As long as they believe in salvation through Christ alone; I have to accept them as being apart of the Church universal.

 

Actually He was getting quite literal in His discourse recorded in John 6. In fact, He went from using the Greek word, "phago" (simply, "to eat") to using "trogo" (to crunch/chew/eat) in v. 54. He was becoming more literal (not less), and the Jews (who had been following Him up until this time) understood Him so. He specifically indicated that the flesh they were to eat was the same flesh He was giving for the life of the world. He said His flesh was food indeed and His blood was drink indeed.

But the bread and wine aren't "external". They are the very communion of the Body and Blood of Christ within the Church. Paul identified these specific elements (1 Cor 10:16) as being the communion of the Body and the Blood of Christ. He also stated it is because of partaking of this one bread (the same bread broken in communion in v.16) that the Christians are one body (1 Cor 10:17). Christians have consistently understood Him thus, without hint of controversy, for 1500 years.

 

Yet Augustinianism was ignored in the East, and Pelagianism was specifically condemned in the East. The extreme unmodified Augustinianism was never the consensus of the Church in the West, and certainly not in the East.

 

And that can still be not literal. It isn' literal when you like every other church take some cracker or wafer and pour some wine made by men, and it physically is still flour and grape product. (Do we have to get into "scientific testing" now as we did a couple of weeks ago?). Yu can say it is "spiritually' changed, but then that is not literally in a physical sense, being that this is physical matter that is the focus.

the Body of Christ, is, by the Spirit, the people. Coming to eat communion (note, the word communion; that's about people gathering, not a metaphysical trick that supposedly could be done by one person) is gathering as a body. The fact that the Church took it another way for all those centuries (event hough they may have nominally claimed what I have just said) is perhaps why you have the rabid nominalism DHK spoke of. When we make a physical item the focus, it always winds up becoming the end-all, and thus, and idol.

Part of Pelagianism", is the doctrine that we can save ourselves by opur works. Inasmuch as the East believed in baptismal regeneration, and other things, it was aprt of it, though they rejected it in name. When a person rose up and took this to its natural conclusion and built a particular statement that was heretical, then Augustine went the opposite way. The fact that there wasn't consensus is my point. It still supposedly was the "one true church". You say, "well, it returned to the truth, so God never let the entire Church fall from the entire truth", but then to someone in a Western Church who had no contact with the East (or whatever part of the West did not hold to it), and lived before Augustinianism fell out of favor, this was what the "one true Church" universally taught. Going by "Church authority" only without the written word, he would have no way to challenge it.

 

Christ and the Bible are not one and the same. They are two different entities. God's word is the standard and measuring stick for doctrine for us to use and live by. This is a category fallacy and false dichotomy that you are making -- trying to say it's one over the other. Yes, Christ is the ultimate authority but that does not lessen to any extent the authority of God's word. We use Christ as the authority through God's word.

The church only was able to do this by using the doctrine from God's word. Otherwise, they could have done nothing. How do we know false teachings? By measuring them against God's word. Any Christian is able to do this.

Nor did he give indication to the contrary. Absent any evidence that there are oral traditions floating out there that are as authoritative as God's word, we should stick to God's word. This issue is one of the crucial differences between Orthodox/Catholic beliefs and non-Orthodox/Catholic beliefs.

The church (body of believers) discovered God's word - they didn't determine it. I had a whole course on this from a very thick book and there is no time to go into it, but I understand very well how the canon came about. Most of the canon was being circulated around the churches by 150 AD. I realize there were questions about some of the books and there were other writings - but that was another time period. The canon was discovered. It is closed. I have 66 books in my Bible -- no more writings out there are going to be in the Bible. I need no one giving me revelations from God outside scripture.

The authority of the church is derived from scripture. You cite scripture again to make your point - it always goes back to scripture. This does not mean the church can give authoritative teachings outside scripture -- it is authoritative insofar as it is derived from the doctrines in scripture. And what is the church? It is the body of believers!

 

Other than being an overstatement, this assertion betrays an underlying gnosticism with its radically sharp duality between the physical and spiritual and the denigration of the former. And this is somewhat ironic, since you, who has been quite confident that the Church got off-track on this key issue from the beginning and that they were (somehow) influenced by the gnostics they opposed, are actually the one who is closer to the gnostic thought in your view of the baptism and the Eucharist. Therefore the charge of the real presence doctrine being "idolatry" would have either fallen on deaf ears or countered with the charge of "gnostic heresy!" by those in the early church. They knew their God had taken on matter in the Man Jesus Christ for their salvation, both spiritual and physical (in view of the future resurrection of the body). It was only natural for them to receive from the apostles of Christs this visible means of physical-spiritual communion with the divine-humanity of Christ Himself.

I don't remember getting into this specific area with you a few weeks ago, but I have no problem acknowledging that the bread and wine would be revealed to be bread and wine by empirical testing. Of course, had Jesus of Nazereth been subjected to empirical testing He would have been revealed to be a man and not God. However, Christians walk by faith and not by sight. Since the fact is that Christ is God and Man, there is no problem for Him to communicate His divine-humanity in the forms of bread and wine.

In the Eucharist, we literally eat (physically) the bread and wine which is the literal communion (spiritually and ultimately physically as well, in view of the resurrection of the body) with the Body and Blood of Christ which is thus literal (spiritual/physical) "food indeed" and drink indeed".

Of course, Christ wasn't ultimately speaking in the crassly carnal cannibalistic sense that the Jews may have thought. He said His words were "spirit"...but this doesn't mean that His words were "symbol and metaphor" (ie God and angels are "spirit" but they certainly aren't mere metaphor or symbol). He was quite clear that there was to be a literal eating and that His flesh and blood--the same He was giving for the life of the world--were literally food an drink. Had the Jews stuck around they would have learned that Christ was literally communicating the divine-humanity of His flesh and blood in the forms of bread and wine that the disciples were to literally eat and drink.

The Greek word for "communion" here also has the primary meaning "participation in". Keeping that in mind, if Paul meant what you think, he would have said WTTE: "this gathering to eat of the bread, is it not the communion of believers?... and this gathering to drink of the cup, is it not also the communion of believers".

But of course Paul is not saying that, but rather:
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" (1 Cor 10:16). You err in limiting the expression "body of Christ" to the gathering of believers, especially when Christ Himself said of the bread: "Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you." (1 Cor 11:24) So you are ignoring the context since Paul calls the bread the communion of Christ's Body in 10:16 and he recalls Christ saying the same thing--that the bread was His body--in 11:24. Therefore, clearly Paul and Jesus both meant more than communion just being the mere fact of a Christian gathering.

This is a red herring, since the belief that God regenerates men in the waters of Baptism has nothing to do with the Pelagian idea that grace is not necessary.

 

Quoted by Southern boy

Southern, dude, you know there isn't any, and I would hope my Baptist brothers don't really think our Baptist position was represented during that history or much anytime before, except just before the Apostles died. I have read plenty of history, and the newly revealed truth of the Gospel (Evangelical position) was not revealed, or rather, truly understood until AFTER the Reformation. I am sure many were saved and didn't know how express in those terms back then.

 

Well, I promised myself I was going to get off this thread, as I have other things I need to do, but here I am.

Paul is quoting what Christ said in Matt. 26. When Christ said this, he was obviously still alive. He was not talking about his body literally here. It seems clearly symbolic.

There is no reason to read a literal meaning in 1 Cor. 10, especially considering the context, which is Paul rebuking the Corinthian believers for taking the fellowship of communion lightly, and therefore, taking Christ's atonement lightly.

A contrast is made between the believers' communion and idol worship, and communion with demons. Unless it is possible to eat and drink the bodies and blood of demons, then there is no reason to think that the communion of bread and wine for believers is literal. The contrast holds because both are symbolic.

 

Great Point!

Actually; I didn't say that the belief in real presence was itself "idolatry"; but that such a focus on physical items tends to lead to idolatry.
And the gnostics specialized in mysticism. In fact, I am not shunning physical things like they are, but on the other hand, your concept is the type of thing they would employ as very part of their denial of the physical--they had to pretend that Christ and everything else associated with him was spirit, and only "looked" physical!

You greatly overgeneralize the incarnation. Just because God could "take on matter" in the Man Jesus Christ, that is a far cry from taking on matter AGAIN, as bread and wine. One is a living man, the other inanimate food. One is the reality; the other representation (and if you deny at least "representation" of Christ, then you are making it altogether a separate "christ", equal with the one who was man). God's Spirit is never said to reside in such matter; and no, not the Cross, nor the blood spilled ont he ground either.
Appealing to "faith not sight" is a common tactic of the very Protestants you deride, in other areas. Anytime something is quetioned that cannot be substantiated, that's what is thrown out. Our "faith, not sight" is in the divine, died-and-rose-again Christ directly, not in any other supernatural claim people come up with.
Also, it was another person who was arguing about "empirical testing". I was participating int he thread, but did not comment on that point.

Now you make it sound like there is some parallel "spirit bread and wine" next to the physical elements. But Spirit is not confined to physical space. If we are eating invisible spiritual flesh and blood, then you might as well say that the bread and wine and "eating" are symbols of the invisible reality. (This I could basically go along with. At least it is not the RCC view, which seems to insist on some real "change". ). The Incarnation is similar, but not an exact comparison. There was no divine "spirit Jesus" next to the visible man. The humanity and deity were combined in one Person, and the humanity of course was seen in the physical world in the body.

No, but the people themselves were the body! I guess eating was so important, because you are taking something into your body--into yourself, and sharing the same substance, so it points to oneness. Once again, eating together is a significant event even in the world.

The problem arises because "grace" is in practice redefined as some mere "provision" (As one of the Campbellists here calls it) for us to do the deed to save ourselves.

 

I never said they were the same.

And "God the Word", Jesus Christ, a Living Person, is the standard which the Scriptures are truly interpreted. He is the One who fulfilled the OT and thus truly interpreted it around Himself. He is the One whom the apostles encountered and who gave them the authority to "bind and loose". He is the One they first preached about, and then later wrote about. It was the apostles teaching handed down in the Church about the true Christ which became the primary way the Christians would tell which writings were truly apostolic and which were spurious. However, those who taught a false "christ" came away from the same Scriptures with radically different conclusions. Which leads us too...

The church only was able to do this by using the doctrine from God's word. Otherwise, they could have done nothing. How do we know false teachings? By measuring them against God's word. </font>[/QUOTE]But heretics like the Arians thought that they were measuring their doctrine by the Scriptures. The Arians would toss Scriptural texts back and forth with the orthodox yet arrive at different conclusions about what they meant. Therefore, again, it is good to review the comments of Vincent of Lerins in the 5th century:

"I have often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways; first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.

But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church's interpretation? For this reason—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation."

You make the mistake of limiting "God's word" to only that which is written, something that the Scriptures itself doesn't do. Paul mentioned that the Thessalonians acknowledged the words they heard from Paul to be the "word of God" (1 Thess 2:13).

This is a false dichotomy. The same church which discovered which writings were authentically apostolic (initially with varying degrees of success) also determined the limits of the canon by excluding the spurious (heretical) works and by leaving out writings which, although not proven to be written by apostles, were otherwise consistent in their contents with orthodoxy.

I've read a few thick books on this matter as well. It's clear, however, that your undertanding and mine aren't the same.

Yet not all books were circulated initially to the same geographcial extent. This is why certain books--partcularly James, Hebrews, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, and Revelation--were not at first universally accepted, since by the time they began to circulate outside their original limited areas of reception, many other spurious books claiming apostolic authorship were also floating around. This the one of the main reasons why there were doubts about the apostolic authorship of these books for so long. With the aid of the Apostolic Tradition in the churches they finally--at the end of the 4th century--came to a universal (more or less) consensus regarding the authenticity and thus the canonicity of these works.

This is an anachronistic argument. Christ actually gave the authority to the apostles and through them to the church decades before His words were written down in the NT writings. And the churches were established and acknowledged this apostolic authority decades before the first NT writing was penned. So logically and chronologically, it is the Scriptures that derive their authority from Christ through His Church.

Yet as I pointed out above, the Church could and did do just that before the NT was ever written. This included specific details of the New Covenant which were not "derived" from the Old.

 

(Whew!) That's a relief!

But certainly not all "mysticism" is "gnostic". OTOH, the gnostics' emphasis on a spiritual saving "knowledge" divorced from matter seems to be more at home in strands of contemporary Protestantism while being radically at odds with orthodox theology.

Not at all. God became Incarnate one time. However, Christ, who took on the material form of man for our salvation can certainly communicate to us His Incarnate divine-humanity in the material forms of bread and wine in such an intimate way that they become in a real sense His very Body and Blood.

Nope (see above)

Ahh...you might be on to something here...
(As it seems like you are at least coming closer to using "symbol" in the way the early Christians did--as a visible sign which actually makes present (or conveys) the invisible reality signified.) However, there is a visible "eating" involved.

You keep asserting that but I showed in those verses in 1 Cor 10 & 11 that Christ and Paul refer to the bread itself as the "body" and "the communion of (participation in) the body" respectively as well. This doesn't take away from the fact that the Church is the Body of Christ as well. In fact, Paul says that by partaking of that one bread the many become one Body (1 Cor 10:27); in otherwords, he sees a real connection between the Eucharist being the Body and Blood of Christ and the Church being the Body of Christ as well.

Yet many of the fathers (including Augustine) made comments to the effect that Christ was holding Himself in His hands when He said this, so in wasn't obvious to all (including to some very bright minds) that this was "clearly symbolic".

At any rate, the early Christians were able to recognize the intimate connection between: (1) the literal manner of Christ's discourse in regards to eating His flesh and drinking His blood in John 6 with (2)His declaration that the bread and wine was His body and blood at Lord Supper and with (3)Paul's literal declaration to the Corinthians that the bread and cup were the participation in the body and blood of Christ. I'm amazed that so many here can't see it...but I guess they're just being good Baptists.

They were doing more than just that. Paul said that if one were to eat and drink unworthily that he'd be "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord"(1 Cor 11:27) and would "eat and drink damnation to himself" (v.29). Doesn't sound like Paul had a mere symbol in mind here. That's why he commanded the Corinthians to examine themselves before partaking. (v.28)

But of course demons are immaterial, while Christ actually has physical body and blood. Therefore one can't make a completely equivalent comparison. (The contrast is that the Eucharist was the Christian altar, as compared to things sacrificed at the altar of demons). However, v. 16 the the bread and cup are the participation in the Body and Blood of Christ. This has been the consistent understanding of the Church until the time of the Reformation when Zwingli and his followers reduced the bread and wine to mere symbols with no connection whatsoever to the reality they signify.