My Spritual Pilgrimage - an Update

[BobRyan]

Augustine Taught only Catholics will Inherit Eternal Life

Sara said: “Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of a bondwoman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” And the Church says: “Cast out heresies and their children; for heretics shall not be heirs with Catholics.” But why shall they not be heirs? Are they not born of Abraham’s seed? And have they not the Church’s Baptism? They do have Baptism; and it would make the seed of Abraham an heir, if pride did not exclude them from inheritance. By the same word, by the same Sacrament you were born, but you will not come to the same inheritance of eternal life, unless you return to the Catholic Church.
Augustine Persecuted Heretics

Augustine’s aforementioned view led to his persecution of heretics:

After the proscription of the Donatists by law in 412, Augustine added to his arguments justifying persecution the statement that coercion in this world would save the heretics from eternal punishment in the next. “No salvation outside the church,” a doctrine preached by Augustine in 418 in his sermon addressed to the people of the church of Caesarea (chap. 6), implied a right to convert forcibly or otherwise the church’s opponents.

The precedents established in the Donatist controversy by Augustine passed into the armory of the catholic church through the Middle Ages and into Reformation times. The Albigensian crusades of 1212 and 1226-1244 witnessed terrible massacres in centers such as Béziers and Carcassonne where the heresy flourished. In 1244 the defenders of the last Abigensian [sic] stronghold, Mont Ségur, were burned alive by their victorious enemies. [See Cathari.] More than a century and a half later, in 1415, the same punishment was inflicted on Jan Hus at Prague.

As a Catholic theologian of the fifth century, we should not be too surprised by Augustine’s other views either:

Baptismal Regeneration
... he does not shrink from consigning unbaptized children to damnation itself, though he softens to the utmost this frightful dogma, and reduces the damnation to the minimum of punishment or the privation of blessedness.
St. Augustin [sic] expressly assigns all unbaptized children dying in infancy to eternal damnation ....
Augustine said that infants are “regenerated by baptism apart from their faith.”

 

[BobRyan]

Augustine is the unique source of the humorous errors of Barlaam the Calabrian who was accused of heresy by St. Gregory Palamas and was condemned as a heretic by the Councils of Constantinople New Rome held in 1341, 1347 and 1351 for his teaching that God reveals his will to humans by means of creatures which He brings into existence to be seen and heard and which He passes back into non existence when the revelations have been accomplished.


Augustine describes these positions in great detail which he repeats over and over again in the earlier books of his DE TRINITATE.

So WHY choose ECF's over scripture Agnus??

Why not accept the Word of God as your guide?

Why not heed the warning of an ECF like Paul HIMSELF regarding the errors of LATER ECF's like Augustine?

Acts 20
28 ""Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock[/b], among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.
29 ""[b]I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you[/b], not sparing the flock;
30 and from among your own selves men will arise[/b], speaking perverse things, to [b]draw away the disciples after them.
31 ""Therefore [b]be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.
32 ""And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

 

[Agnus_Dei]

Augustine is the unique source of the humorous errors of Barlaam the Calabrian who was accused of heresy by St. Gregory Palamas and was condemned as a heretic by the Councils of Constantinople New Rome held in 1341, 1347 and 1351 for his teaching that God reveals his will to humans by means of creatures which He brings into existence to be seen and heard and which He passes back into non existence when the revelations have been accomplished.


Augustine describes these positions in great detail which he repeats over and over again in the earlier books of his DE TRINITATE.

So WHY choose ECF's over scripture Agnus??

Why not accept the Word of God as your guide?

Why not heed the warning of an ECF like Paul HIMSELF regarding the errors of LATER ECF's like Augustine?

Acts 20
28 ""Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock[/b], among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.
29 ""[b]I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you[/b], not sparing the flock;
30 and from among your own selves men will arise[/b], speaking perverse things, to [b]draw away the disciples after them.
31 ""Therefore [b]be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.
32 ""And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

Uhhh Bob, FYI Augustine is more of a Roman Catholic Father, since majority of His thinking is found in through out Catholic thought after the split. Eastern Orthodoxy believe's he was steep theologian, but still Orthodoxy will regard many of his teachings as error...ie his Calvinistic tendencies...
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**edited to fix spelling***

 

[BobRyan]

So you have to take a pick-and-choose among the ECF's??

Then why not choose Paul?

 

[Agnus_Dei]

So you have to take a pick-and-choose among the ECF's??

Bob, its not a matter of just picking and choosing, some EF's drifted into heresy, some repented...others didn't. The Fathers that held fast to what was given to them by word and epistle are the ones the Orthodox look to.

Augustine came along after the split of 1054, he was Catholic, not Eastern Orthodox.

Then why not choose Paul?

Please Bob, enough of this. The Eastern Orthodox Church reads from the many letters of Paul and the clergy preaches from the Word of God at every Divine Liturgy and that includes St. Paul. We do often prove a point of Pauls or anyother Apostle of the NT with the ECF's.
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[Zenas]

Augustine came along after the split of 1054

Say what? Are you sure about this?

 

[Agnus_Dei]

Say what? Are you sure about this?

I'm not saying Augustine was born after the split...the split was in the making years before the date "1054". Augustine was born in the West and was apart of Roman theology. Study Roman Catholicism today and you'll see Augustine thoughts throughout Catholicism. You'll not find many Augustine thoughts in Orthodoxy.

Still considered a CF, a lot of Augustine's theology is rejected in the East...ie that unbaptized babies go to hell...in Orthodoxy, its not a mad rush to baptize babies, as it is in the West...this is from Augustine.

Hope that clears up any confusion
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