Tag: History

The Reformers and the Fathers

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Several months ago I had a lively online exchange with a Protestant from the Reformed tradition. The conversation got really interesting and I had intended to write a series of posts based on our discussion. Alas, before I could do this, his blog was suddenly taken down, meaning that I was unable to use the record of our exchange to save me some work in constructing my posts (yes, I’m rather lazy).

To make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again, today I wanted to do a short post which is effectively a slightly expanded reproduction of my comments on an article over at Reformed Reader, in response to the blog author’s claims concerning Christian history and the Early Church Fathers.

john-calvin

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Before 300: Pre-Constantinian Christianity

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It is often asserted that the Catholic Church was founded by the Constantine, who was Emperor of the Roman Empire from AD 306-337. A couple of weeks ago, a lady named Monica made such an assertion and in earlier post I pointed out some of the problems with such a theory.

However, today I would like to do something a little different… In this post I would like to set forth the positive historical case for the existence of the Catholic Faith in the generations prior to Constantine. I will show how twenty-one different Catholic doctrines were taught long before Constantine rose to power:

  1. The Church is Catholic
  2. The Church has a three-fold structure of leadership
  3. There is unity through episcopal authority and schism is evil
  4. Sacred Tradition is authoritative
  5. Worship is liturgical
  6. There is Apostolic Succession
  7. Peter has Primacy
  8. The Eucharist is a Sacrifice
  9. Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist
  10. The Eucharist is taken to the sick
  11. Infants are to be baptized
  12. Baptism actually washes away sin
  13. Priests forgive sins
  14. Works are involved in salvation
  15. Prayers are said for the dead
  16. There is purgation after death
  17. Relics are venerated and Saints are celebrated
  18. Mary is the New Eve
  19. Mary was a perpetual virgin
  20. Mary is the Mother of God
  21. Prayers are made and songs are sung to Mary

I will demonstrate these early Christian belief by looking at primary sources alone and restricting myself to writings produced prior to AD 300.

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Catholic Church: Established AD 33 or AD 300? (5)

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At the moment on this blog, I am responding to a reader who commented on a post I wrote about Mary, Ark of the New Covenant. In my earlier posts, I dealt with her comments concerning Our Lady, but in her closing paragraph she made a number of assertions concerning the origins of the Catholic Church. In these last two posts I would like to respond to these final assertions:

I would suggest you do… more research about the origins of the roman catholic church which comes from pagan origins when it was founded in Rome by Constantine about 300AD. This is well known in history. Constantine was the first pope, and he mixed paganism with Christianity and that is how the Roman catholic church was born. You will find many parallels between the Roman catholic church and paganism.

In this particular post I think I’d like to spice things up with a little help from Barney Stinson. Since Monica has challenged me to investigate history…

Challenge

Let’s take a look at each of the assertions in turn…

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The Gospels and language

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As we all know, theology always sounds better in an English accent. Below is a video of Dr. Peter Williams,Warden of Tyndale House, giving a lecture on the historicity of the Gospels.

In his lecture he looks at some of the details of the Gospels, such as names and places, and he does a little bit of statistical analysis.

“Theology and statistics?!” I hear you cry?

Wonderful,  isn’t it?

Enjoy.

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