Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
I don't believe that to be the case. I have just pointed out that that is the logical consequence of believing that the Catholic and Orthodox Church of the first millenium was apostate. So far, no-one has come up with a credible, evidenced solution to that logical problemBro. James said:Most of what has been posted so far implies that the Lord's Churches have been floundering for proper guidance and direction since Jesus went to prepare a place for them. This is not so.
Where? I ask again: show me the documentary evidence from 800AD that they existed.The Faith, once for all delivered to the saints is still in the world, not of the world, without spot or blemish or any such thing. They have never had connection with Rome, Constantinople, Wittenburg or Nauvoo.
You probably will not find them listed in "Who's Who in Religion", nor in the Religion Column of the "Daily News".
If you read again what I wrote you will see that he has one body, the church. But he deals with the church as individual churches and that is how all the epistles deal with them as well. The church was never meant to be one gigantic world church in a physical sense, although we are all seen as one body.Matt Black said:So, how many Bodies does Christ have (Col 1:18 if you want a NT reference)? Also, what if Local Church A decides to go Calvinist and Local Church B Arminian? Who adjudicates between the two? Where does that leave us epistemologically?
Matt Black said:Christianity arose from within Judaism, which in itself was a liturgical religion; therefore we should not be surpirsed that the Church from the get-go was liturgical in its practice, even before NT writers like Paul started putting pen to paper (or, more accurately, started dictating to the scribes/secretaries). Justin (c.150) gives a glimpse of a church service which includes a Eucharistic Prayer of some kind and Hippolytus (c.215) actually reproduces a liturgy which would have been recognisable to most Anglicans, Catholics and Orthodox today, eg: a Eucharistic Prayer including the Sursum Corda, Words of Institution and Consecration etc. That's a full century before Constantine started coming on the ecclesiastical scene.
It is unlikely that the liturgy would have been pared down so drastically. Changed, perhaps, in the light of the events of 70AD, but not reduced de minimisEric B said:1)The Church may have started out close to Judaism, such as meeting in the Tempe as we see in acts. So then, they were meeting on the sabbath day (not Sunday), and the apostle John and others, including his sucessors in the ECF's still kept Passover on Nisan 14. When the Temple was destroyed, a lot of that ended, and the fledgling Church then became more estranged from Judaism. Hence, by the time Pliny saw it, it was just a simple meeting.
But all the elements of later liturgy were there. There's a very good book by +Kenneth of Portsmouth (Anglican) called The First Rites which delves into this issue in some detail2) Now Justin describing a prayer is one thing. That was still not the same as the elaborate liturgy of the later Church.
If that is and was the case, then we would have had not Protestant Reformation. The Bishop of Rome was the Pope and he still decides globally for the Catholic church. How then did you become a member at your church? Was it not your decision that you went there? Or was it the only church where you lived? You must have had the ultimate decision. Does this make you a tyrant?Matt Black said:I profoundly disagree: saying that it is for the individual to decide which church to go to puts the church at the mercy of the tyranny of self-centredness ie: "everyone is entitled to my point of view", meaning that you will only meet with others who agree with you (and thus reinforce whatever erroneous doctrine you have in your own particular mix). Deciding things the global way was the solution - without that we would have had no Ecumenical Councils, no accurate Trinitarianism or Christology etc. The Bishop of Rome does not represent the global way but rather a local way of doing things.
[reply to Grahame]
But it wasn't really their liturgy. They were borrowing from the Jews, and what did Paul say in Romans 14 about stuff like that? We are not to judge each other over practices liek that, particularly the ones inherited from the Jews (which many were trying to force on the Christians), so right there, it shows that that was just tradition,—and NOT authoritative tradition! So the Jewish practice ended with the Temple, and then the Church gradually developed its own practices, largely with Pagan influence. They were different from the Jewish liturgy in many respects, so you cannot use the Jewish liturgy of the Church meeting in the Temple to validate the gentile litugry of the later Church. Again, Pliny shows that all of that was gone adter AD70.Matt Black said:It is unlikely that the liturgy would have been pared down so drastically. Changed, perhaps, in the light of the events of 70AD, but not reduced de minimis
"there", in Justin's time? Do you know which book of Justin has this? I have .txt files of them, but do not know what exactly is being referred to, (while I don't know when I'd ever be able to get that Anglican book, and it could just be yet another retrospective interpretation that goes beyond what was actually written by Justin) So if you know where this is in Justin's text, please tell me.But all the elements of later liturgy were there. There's a very good book by +Kenneth of Portsmouth (Anglican) called The First Rites which delves into this issue in some detail
But his point is, that you would not even have the 1054 division if everyone simply followed the Pope no matter what. (And he is the one who became the recognized supreme authority, so they can argue that the East is not that much better than the Reformation).He decides for the Roman Catholic Church*, which is the main part of the Western, Latin Church, which remained after the Reformation. He does not decide for the whole Church which existed prior to 1054, nor did he historically; he was one Patriarch amongst 5 and one Bishop amongst many.
*Even today that's not quite true: the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church is "the Bishops of the (RC) Church in communion with the Bishop of Rome".
CHAPTER LXI -- CHRISTIAN BAPTISM.
I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, "Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, that it is impossible for those who have once been born to enter into their mothers' wombs, is manifest to all. And how those who have sinned and repent shall escape their sins, is declared by Esaias the prophet, as I wrote above; he thus speaks: "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from your souls; learn to do well; judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow: and come and let us reason together, saith the Lord. And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white like wool; and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as snow. But if ye refuse and rebel, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
And for this [rite] we have learned from the apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and wicked training; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe; he who leads to the layer the person that is to be washed calling him by this name alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God; and if any one dare to say that there is a name, he raves with a hopeless madness. And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed.
<snip>
CHAPTER LXV -- ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS.
But we, after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and has assented to our teaching, bring him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the baptized [illuminated] person, and for all others in every place, that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works also to be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation. Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; 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. This word Amen answers in the Hebrew language to genoito [so be it]. 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.
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. 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. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, 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. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.
CHAPTER LXVII -- WEEKLY WORSHIP OF THE CHRIS- TIANS. And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. 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; 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, 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. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration.
The problem with Baptism, is that back then when there was only one body called "the Church", when they led a convert, they could baptize him on the spot, and the immersion into water represented the "washing". It was when the Church becam more formalized, and a whole "catechumenation" process developed, the convert was not baptized right away, they continued to hold the physical ceremony as the washing, rather than the spiritual event, so they had to come up with "baptism of desire" or "blood" (martyrdom), etc; not realizing that that points to baptism's spiritual nature, even apart from the physical ceremony. And later on, when the Church fractured, and each group wanted to teach the convert before baptizing him, so that continued to separate the ceremony from the spiritual reality. So all of this again lies in the development of the Church.Matt Black said:So, we have the common elements of the following present:-
1. Baptismal regeneration and remission of sins in the waters of baptism
Nobody denies that there were prayers and praise and sctipture readings. Still, you talk about the full "liturgies" of the later Churches, yet there was no mention of incense, fear of dropping it or special disposal for the crumbs, and all of the pther aspects of the Church institution (even beyond liturgy) like David mentioned. I use the word "liturgy", but I mean the later grand, "high" forms. Yes, simply having a Communion with a prayer and scripture reading can be called a "liturgy", but that's not what we're disputing.2. Prayers and praise of intercession
3. The liturgy of the word (OT and NT readings)
4. The liturgy of the Eucharist - Eucharistic Prayer, Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine, distribution and reservation of the Sacrament.
ie: all the elements present in modern Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran liturgies; they're all there from very early on as being 'handed down' from the Apostles.
His office began to rise still in the early part of the first millennium. The East went along with it for the whole later half, perhaps not liking it, but nevertheless, still considering it the same body, and it was a bunch of other things adding up to it (filioque, culture) that finally led to the schism. Either case, you then had two bodies that traced themselves all the way back, and claimed to have the apostolic tradition, and the infallible authority as the "pillar" to modify doctrines as the need for clarification arose ("led by the Spirit into all truth"), yet they still split.Re the Pope: the point is that he wasn't (and isn't) acknowledged as being the 'recognised supreme authority'; had be been, there would have been no 1054 schism and no need for any of the Ecumenical Councils.
No, and neither does the Catholic Church - the Catechism and Lumen Gentium say something along the lines that catechumens are already joined to the [Catholic] Church to the extent that they are already saved. But in this sense baptism is retrospective - it effects (not merely ratifies) what has gone before (in much the same way as David could look forward to Christ's atonement and claim forgiveness based on it in Psalm 51).Eric B said:Yeah, but then if the person receives Christ into his heart before being instructed of all the "matters of faith", then you don't hold him in limbo or whatever, where he would be lost if he died before being baptized.
Nice try! - but not quite: if a catechumen were to refuse baptism after instruction, then that for me would cast doubt on his/her salvation, if s/he did that with full knowledge.And if you then say "baptism of desire", then you might as well agree with our view, that the washing is by a spiritual event.
Interesting...from when then would you date that overformulation?As for the Eucharist; I believe even the pre-Catholic concept was overformulated. Just not as much as transubstatiation. (the Trinity was overformulated as well). It was the earlier concept that begged the question that the Romans claimed to answer with their further formulation, and supposedly the apostolic authority guided into all truth. That's what happened with all those doctrines.