Having met at a Virginia AA meeting in 1997, two women fell in what they thought was "love," entered in to a "civil union" and then decided to "start a family." One has to wonder if the AA philosophy of "your higher power can be a rock, a tree, or 'the group [AA] itself" had anything to do with the attraction of woman to woman, One certainly is reminded of the Paul's societal analysis of the Romans of his day who evidently had a somewhat similar culture to what we are now witnessing here. I quote from the King James Version. Other translations are equally affirmative of the problem:
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Well, the miracle occurred and God evidently rescued one of the participants, Lisa Miller" from this unholy union. She became a born again Christian, renounced her former lesbian addiction (her words).
Lisa Miller is the woman who gave birth to the child of the union conceived by in vitro fertizilization (i.e. from what had to be a male sperm donor fertilizing her egg -- to the best of my present knowledge 'cloning' has not reached a point of perfection to explain it nor do newspaper accounts indicate that it was her partner's egg fertilized and implanted in her.
Lisa Miller had a right and a sacred duty to be concerned about her daughter's soul and eternal destiny. All of us who are parents have such a burden. She gave her daughter visitation with her former partner in the 'civil union' she renounced. However, her partner attempted continued corruption of the child by reading her pro-lesbian literature such as "Heather has two mommies." She also reportedly took baths with the child. A bath with a child may not be so startling normally with a woman bathing a child; however, when we have an admittedly sexual attraction to females, it takes on a new connotation entirely.
From Virginia originally, Lisa Miller and her "partner" lived in Vermont. Vermont has long since legalized same sex marriage.
The Commonwealth of Virginia does not recognize same sex marriages. Lisa fled there and went to work for Liberty Baptist Academy, a school affiliated with Liberty University (founded by Jerry Falwell).
Lisa fled Vermont to return to Virginia. Her former "civil partner" fought for increased visitation and custody in the Vermont courts. The Virginia courts ruled that the Vermont court had jurisdiction, something probably legally correct.
The Vermont court certain had very different ideas than I hold about the "best interest of a child." Because her birth mother was now teaching her traditional views of marriage and family and eternal consequences of violating very plain biblical teachings on same, the court ruled that this was grounds to strip her of custody and give sole custody to the "other mommy" who would affirm the "gay lifestyle" in which the child was originally conceived.
No room for conversion here, so the Vermont court evidently opined.
Mother did what we may all have to do before this battle is over -- she fled. Those who helped her in what is appearing to becoming an "underground railroad" for Christians are hunted by the FBI, USA agents and Interpol.
Personally, I never thought I would live long enough to see those who believed marriage should be between a man and a woman characterized as "radical." Theosophist, League of Nations' leader Salvador de Madariage (Javier Solana's grandfather / cousin / great uncle, whatever) referred to homosexual practices as "buggery" and condemned it. Even L. Ronald Hubbard (founder of Dianetics / Scientology) claimed his methods could "cure homosexuality".
Suddenly, so many prominent views from the President on down "are evolving" and thousands of years of traditional belief are scrapped. Suddenly we have a society where morality is turned upside down on its very head -- or is it "bottom."
Pray for Lisa Miller. Pray for her daughter. Pray for the conversion of all caught in this dreadful, unhealthy trap of "same sex marriage" and "civil unions." Pray for the conversion of Lisa Miller's former partner who has now "remarried" still another apparent female victim.
Pray that those attending AA meetings to receive help for substance abuse issues not take so literally their belief that their "higher power" can be "a rock, a tree, the group, -- 'God however we conceive him to be."
So many times as I researched the New Age issues over the years, this is how lesbian addictions developed. The gals attended meetings on legitimate issues (equal pay for equal work), then explored 'root causes,' then decided the root cause was "patriarchy" (short hand for "God the Father). They then obviously scrapped "The Lord's Prayer" of "Our Father which art in Heaven" and went for 'matriarchal religions,' such as Wicca and/or (as did Lisa Miller and her former partner) Unitarianism, Unity. Reading those accounts, the woman would recount that they were at those meetings and for the first time in their lives, the woman across the room started "looking good to them."
Extremely perilous and dangerous times are here. Jesus warned us that when we saw these things come upon the earth to know that our redemption was near --- even at the door. I frankly don't know how much worse it can get, but I thought before it couldn't get much worse but it has. How much longer until the Scriptures are condemned as "hate literature" for warnings such as those given by the Apostle Paul?
May the Lord help us all!
Stay tuned.
CONSTANCE
I strongly suspect someone involved in the forms of wicca that involve receiving a "current" in initiation was at those meetings, because a recurring theme on a feri witch egroup, was that one effect of this was to make the recipient more open minded so to speak sexually ranging from acceptance of others' behavior to experimenting themselves, specifically homosexually. Even without this, demons like to warp sexuality.
ReplyDeleteThe BIG problem is that there is no notion of right and wrong except non violence maybe, and what feels good, and equality.
So when something unacceptable crops up in their feelings or thoughts, they do not reject these things, perhaps even fight against any rejecting tendency in themselves.
Despite much gay propaganda the actual gay proportion of the population remains low. Heterosexual promiscuity is what is wrecking the family, not homosexual. Homosexualism is in the vanguard against individual liberty, and those are the grounds that this stuff should be fought on. Cases like that outlined above is mercifully rare.
ReplyDeletethe exclusive homosexual is a small proportion of the population. But the bisexual and the occasional experimenter is another matter altogether. The real issue is not whether something wrecks the family, many things can do that. The issue is, is it wrong in itself?
ReplyDeleteyou can argue that monogamous homosexuals and their children are families, and that they can conduct themselves with integrity in politics and economics. This can be correct enough with some. And totally false regarding many heterosexuals.
But that's not the point. The point is, homosexual acts are abomination in and of themselves, never mind if children are raised properly as regards physical care, and taught to not lie cheat or steal or murder.
I recall a debate online with someone who just couldn't get the point that homosexual acts are as bad as theft, murder or anything else he pointed out were not done by homosexuals he knew or theorized about. I figure he either was too fond of some such people, perhaps relatives, or was one himself.
To quote Ken Johnson Th.D., from the book "Ancient Post Flood History";
ReplyDeletepage 33) "There has always been homosexuality. It has always been classified as a sin before God. The Canaanites practiced homosexual rituals in the worship of their gods and goddesses, but since the time of Noah there has never been a nation that sanctioned homosexual marriage. But the rabbis state this did occur right before Noah's Flood. This may have been a pert of the pre-flood religion; or it may just may have been the result of it."
He then quotes Romans 1:22-28, then_
"The ancient rabbis seem to believe this also. They stated that the practice of ordaining homosexual marriage was the last step in the downward spiral that caused God's judgement.
" Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rabbi Joseph, ' The generation of the Flood was not wiped out until they wrote marriage documents for the union of a man to a male or to an animal.' " Genesis Rabbah 26:4-5: Leviticus Rabbah23:9
and:
" And what did they do ? A man got married to a man, and a woman to a woman. A man married a woman and her daughter, and a woman was married to two men. Therefor it is said, "And you shall not walk in their statutes" Sifra Acherei Mot, Parasha 9:8 (Commentary on Leviticus 18:3)
Also, to quote Ken Johnson in regards to the veracity of the Book of Jasher:
ReplyDelete"Although never added to the canon because it was not an inspired work, the Book of Jasher, nevertheless, was originally a highly accurate history book. Over time a few scribal errors have developed, but since we have multiple timelines running consecutively through it, it is essentially a self-correcting book.
Any book recommended in the book of joshua had to exist in Moses' or Joshua's time. Therefore the book of Jasher has to be at least 3,000 years old. It is quoted liberally by the first century sage Eliezer. It has existed in handwritten Hebrew for centuries. One of the first Hebrew printings was in Venice in AD 1625. It was not translated into English until AD 1840. It is one of the main texts that the Talmud (AD 200-800) and Seder Olam (AD 169) use for their history.
MORMON CORRUPTION ?
It has been noted that the publishing company that
produced the first English translation of the Book of Jasher was a Mormon publishing company. Mormonism has been classified as a cult by Christians since it's inception. Many Christians may be concerned that the text itself may be corrupted deliberately by the cult. Since we have many copies of Jasher in Hebrew and other languages, and the extensive use by rabbis as early as the first century AD, we can be assured any cultic corruption would have been duly noted by the Jewish authorities.
JASHER FORGERIES
Several forgeries with the name "Jasher" were written during the Middle Ages. They are clearly fake since they contradict Scripture and occasionally contradict themselves as well. One such forgery was written by a man named Alcuin and is still available today.
Here's what another site accurately said about what's happening on "this scene":
ReplyDeleteenables homosexual activists to oppress and persecute people who renounce homosexual perversion, with assistance of the FBI, which has effectively become — at least in the Jenkins-Miller case — a Gaystapo.
Constance
To Anonymous 4:45 a.m.
ReplyDeleteSin is sin. HOWEVER, some sins GOD classified as ABOMINATION. Homosexual practices were classified by our Creator as ABOMINATION TO THE LORD. I for one am not smart enough to second guess our Creator. If you think you are, congratulations!
Constance
The issue is not homosexuals as people, but pansexual politics.
ReplyDeleteConstance
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth makes you think I was disagreeing with you? I am an evangelical Christian and I share your view of homosexuality. I was talking about battle priorities.
Anon,4.45am
I think there is another problem about homosexual marriage, such a social and legal connection reinforcement as marriage can interfere even without children in the picture, with someone deciding even if not Christianly repentant yet, they are tired of this and maybe it isn't so great. It is easier to walk out when there are no legal ties.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Proverbs 12:22, lying lips are an ABOMIINATION to the Lord. Told any lies in oyu life Constance? Careful now!
ReplyDeleteFornication is also an ABOMINATION to the Lord. Never had sex out of wedlock did you Constance?
Jude 1:7
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to FORNICATION, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
You see, by heaping without context the word abomination on one sin you make the others seem okay. They're not! They'll lead to death and Hell just the same! All sin separates us from God. Only He can cleanse, renew and sustain us, we cannot do it in and of ourselves, and we'd better be careful not to lie or take away from God's Word!
ReplyDeleteI'm certainly not promoting homosexuality, don't misunderstand!
What on Earth has happened to our dear Christine? I hope she's alright, she may not always say things clearly always but at least she posts, and they're not all boring. We do hope you're well Christine, already missing your comments and insights.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the misunderstanding, fruit of staying up as late as I did which included writing time. Glad to hear we are on same side!
ReplyDeleteConstance
Smiles. Thank you Constance.
ReplyDeletewhile heaping abomination on one sin does not make the others look okay, reducing them all to the same level makes the worst stuff - and a kind of hierarchy of evil seems to be shown in some places in The Bible - look tame.
ReplyDeletein all justice, how can you compare petty theft to murder as equal? sure all sins are alienating between us and God, but not all sins are equal. Jesus said that Sodom and Gomorrha would have it better at the Last Judgement, than Tyre and Sidon because they would have repented if given the chance Tyre and Sidon were.
And He speaks elsewhere of a greater damnation so obviously there is a lesser damnation.
Not that we should want to have any damnation.
But a big danger presented by the proliferation of the worst evils, is that we easily think we are okay because not guilty of them, while in fact guilty of other very serious stuff, much of it invisible except to those who catch a tell tale look on the face or tone in the voice, because internal.
http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1988AJ.....96.1476H
ReplyDeleteyou want me to get interesting? here
is a link to Robert Harrington's article in a scientific journal. This guy died suddenly of esophageal cancer. Well, you can do polonium poisoning on someone and get similar results.
Obviously from the direction he thought the purturbations of Neptune and Uranus pointed to, their purturbations were DOWNWARDS, and the thing is in the south at a 32 or thereabouts degree angle to the ecliptic about 4 earth masses.
By the way, military satellites will no longer share space object info with scientists, which limits them and puzzles them.
http://www.space.com/6829-military-hush-incoming-space-rocks-classified.html
meanwhile, the new age and profiteeriing and deliberate confusion exploitation of the subject renders it of little interest to serious Christians, who
don't realize that just because something is exploited by NAM elements doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Anyway, if it is making a grand circuit anywhere parallel to us, Asteroid Illapa could be pulled off course and into us this month, and then of course there is DA14.
If this thing is real, and we're going to be going through an 80 million mile wide debris field trailing it, then expect problems.
Constance
ReplyDeleteI am the Anon.4.45am (2nd comment of this thread) who subsequently affirmed that I agreed with you about homosexuality. Those have been my only 2 posts above on this thread, which might not have been obvious from some of the others. Every blessing.
Anon 3:55am,
ReplyDeletewho says Constance is addressing you or only you in her last comment? Has any other commentor claimed to be Anon 4:45am? No, he or she hasn't! So what's your point? I suggest a little humility and thankfulness wouldn't go amiss from you now and then. Every blessing.
Scripture does not say all sin is equal.
ReplyDelete1 John 5:17
17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.
This means there is sin that can lead to death.
Sexual sins are also seen to be grave.
1 Corinthians 6:18
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
Anon@5.33am,
ReplyDeleteYou ask what was my point in saying that I had made only 2 contributions to this thread. It was to make clear that I was not the Anon who quizzed Constance improperly about her sex life, a post which I see she has (rightly) deleted and which had features making it looking like it might have come from me. Please be a little slower on the draw, my brother or sister.
Anon@4.45am
Christine
ReplyDeleteHarrington's paper is from 1988 and telescopes have improved massively since then, relax.
The withdrawal of cooperation by the military in detecting small objects in space is most likely due to their desire to keep the sensitivity of their instruments secret. From that, details of detector technology could be inferred.
Not every conspiracy is equal, as someone said here. We're still around, aren't we?
Physicist
For the record, I have deleted nothing so far, although I am sorely tempted to delete Anonymous 6:11. I suspect the insidious posting of 5:06 was to make people suspect they had posted something far more explicit and I had deleted same to hide something they are trying to set up by innuendo.
ReplyDeleteConstance
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20120722/UPDATE/120722012/Pastor-created-transgender-
ReplyDeleteThis just came out in our local paper last week about a minister here in Salem, Oregon who claims "God created him transexual. He/she was born a female and became a male. He spoke to Morningside United
Methodist Church here in Salem.
I have read through all these comments and nowhere do I see anyone expressing concern for the pain this situation is causing the little girl. No matter what the outcome, she has already lost a parent and unlike a 'normal' divorce, the circumstances here will surely plague her as she grows up. She has my sympathy.
ReplyDeleteOh we're all so thoroughly admonished by you Karen. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? If you've noticed that, just make your point about the girl rather than getting all high-horse about it.
ReplyDeleteThank you Christina. Yes that's very interesting indeed! Does HAARP have anything to do with it?
ReplyDeleteBetter the little girl lose her pseudo "parent" of whom she was no biological part than lose her eternal soul!
ReplyDeleteone can forget a parent, blood or otherwise. Some are best forgotten.
ReplyDeletere HAARP, I don't think it has much to do with anything except occasional freak weather. The fact that treaties incl. prohibitions of using weather as weapons shows such technology exists.
The aim of the prohibition is to prevent the development of weather weapons. But they are effectively impossible anyway, and HAARP couldn't do it except possibly very near itself and then not in a predictable way. UN treaty makers and politicians are not the most scientifically literate people.
ReplyDeletePhysicist
John Rupp,
ReplyDeleteThis is what makes no sense.
Gays claim God does not make mistakes and made them gay, and then transgendered people claim, God made a mistake, by making them the wrong gender.
Would not affirming one, invalidate the other?
Savvy
Are you also against mixing fabrics, allowing women to be equal to men, for stoning 'bad' children at the edge of town, against working on Sunday on pain of eternal damnation?
ReplyDeleteDo you also endorse slavery, rape, genocide and infanticide?
The bible was written by ignorant, nomadic, bronze age sheepherders and is not moral. Do what you think is right, not what some cult tells you is right.
Anonymous above,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the lesson in morality. I'm not sure your
knowledge of ancient history is quite what it should be,
though. It sounds like your opinion was formed by
Hollywood, as your view is in perfect harmony with the media, the TV, and the movies at this very time. That makes you right in synch with our current pop culture. Congratulations.
Also, where in the Bible did you find an endorsement of rape or infanticide etc. ??
ReplyDeleteSavvy,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
Gays claim God does not make mistakes and made them gay, and then transgendered people claim, God made a mistake, by making them the wrong gender.
Would not affirming one, invalidate the other?
Good point!
I suppose gays/lesbians of the "God doesn't make mistakes" variety 'tolerate' the beliefs of the transgendereds (and those who wish to be transgendered) yet refuse to tolerate those "intolerant" Christians. Apparently, the confused state (of some, if not the majority, of this group) does not allow them to see their hypocrisy.
I just thought of something. One way around this problem of schools and media teaching kids to be tolerant, would be to emphasize (if you are a teacher stuck with such an agenda or to counter some influences or teach the kids or disarm already convinced pro gay kids or adults) is to argue that everyone has a right to be straight if they want to be, to experiment with redefinition of what it means to be male or female instead of going transgender, and no one should attempt to move anyone in such directions, because if they are not whole hog already like this then it creates stress between what they feel and what they are being pushed to try or feel, or pushed to experiment with.
ReplyDeleteYes, the God doesn't make mistakes crew does have a conflict here.
person who credits The Bible with teaching all that crap, you are taking stuff out of context or misreading or a bad translation. No where is rape advocated. bad children being killed would be BOTH parents not just its father agreeing and the elders reviewing this, and the issues being drunkard and glutton which would translate to one nasty sonofabitch type teenager, glutton would be so sold out to his or her appetites as to be more than just eating a lot, probably a bully thief unchaste and at least attempted rape and don't think such monsters don't exist in jr. high school age kids. They do.
genocide as you call it was explicitly limited to the Canaanites and none other. Too early in the morning and not enough room allowed for a full lecture.
women were not saddled with different pay for different work and lack of equality was minimal. God Himself put Deborah in Judges 4:4 over all Israel she being a judge as well as prophet. Judge was like a king before they had a king, like a prime minister when God was King.
Savvy,
ReplyDeleteThat is a very good point. I never thought of it that way but you are right. This woman minister really has rejected how God made her and she decided to correct God and become a man.
I didn't think of it either. I was too busy being mad at the feminist movement for selling out to sexism by buying into the acceptability of transgenderism, which itself accepts the idea that personality etc. is sex linked, instead of seeing their own qualities as individuals, that don't match the sex stereotyping as disproving sex stereotyping. Instead, they AFFIRM the sex stereotype, and go to fix the body to match!
ReplyDeleteAlso accepting lesbians merely supports the woman despising male supremacist argument, that if a woman has a mind, or ability, that is "manly," then she is a "dyke."
and frankly since I don't read what these freaky idiots write, I didn't hear of this God makes no mistakes argument until maybe a little before now.
ReplyDeleteAddendum: There is an unfortunate practice in the USA, that when an infant is born who is gender ambiguous, an operation is done to correct to most likely at once.
Instead of waiting till puberty to see what happens. This is done in Puerto Rico, where they wait to see if testicles descend before making a final decision.
But Barbie and Ken obsessed US parents want to have no ambiguity.
IT IS POSSIBLE that A VERY FEW homosexuals and transgenders are in fact originally the sex they aim to be like, and didn't know it, the infant operation having gone in the wrong direction.
Also when a hermaphrodite happens, again, a superficial external operation will not necessarily correct built in ambiguity. This should be dealt with at puberty.
Either a choice made and settled on, or allow polygamy, that such could have a wife and a husband, in only such cases, that semen with sperm visible under a microscope and menstruation both exist.
It is true that surgeons used to make a spot decision on whether an ambiguous-looking newborn was male or female and operate accordingly, but I suspect that today a genetic test is run first.
ReplyDeleteSex change ops take place when there is a mismatch between genes and mind. Genes cannot lie but the mind can. That is why these ops should never happen.
ReplyDeleteHi Constance! I've been reading your blog for a while, and your work has been part of God's blessing to me - it helps me 'stay tuned' :) and I pray that He in turn continues to guide and guard you. Amen!
ReplyDeleteI want to share www.submission.org with you and your readers. I hope it goes some way towards exposing the darkness.
How's working for the Vatican going Constance?(Vatis canus = divining serpent!)
ReplyDeleteRemember 1984 folks? Constance is the O'Brien of the 'inner party'. She'll get you into double think & think-crime, and before you know it everything you've ever confided to her will end up on a data base somewhere! Watch out! Messenger about to be shot? Nah! Said it! Deal with it!
anon 4:35 all email and Internet is snooped on legally and illegally always was. You can't blame leaks on any one person.
ReplyDeleteAre you one of the New Agers who don't like the Vatican and don't like the NWO because potentially restrictive and don't like some of the light Constance has shown on such things as "the Christ" the phony cosmic Christ counterfeit, and other delusions sneaking into the churches?
Not a new ager Christine, I am a Christian who believes no one comes to the Father by by Jesus Christ His Son. Nuff said!
ReplyDeleteNot a new ager Christine, I am a Christian who believes no one comes to the Father by by Jesus Christ His Son. Nuff said!
ReplyDeleteNot a new ager Christine, I am a Christian who believes no one comes to the Father but by Jesus Christ His Son. Nuff said!
ReplyDeleteYou see Christine, I don't need to follow the religious sacrements like you in the Orthodox (Whether Serb, Russian, Greek, or even so called Eastern or Syrian. Nor do I need to follow Roomansm, nor Luther & Calvin. Just Jesus Christ and all that is written in the Holy Bible in light of the New Testament and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Those unneccessary vain repetitions of the Orthodox (more like sinister!) and the Romish estabblishment are so new agey, i.e., Ancient Babylonian mystery cult.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there are Christian writers I respect, and as far as I see, have no hidden agenda, such as Roger Oakland for example.
I do believe we should, however, warn about those no quite what they seem. Hopefully someone will listen and be saved from deception and wild goose chases of hysteria.
So if you want to see new age, Christine, take a good hard look in the mirror!
You see Christine, I don't need to follow the religious sacrements like you in the Orthodox (Whether Serb, Russian, Greek, or even so called Eastern or Syrian. Nor do I need to follow Roomansm, nor Luther & Calvin. Just Jesus Christ and all that is written in the Holy Bible in light of the New Testament and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Those unneccessary vain repetitions of the Orthodox (more like sinister!) and the Romish estabblishment are so new agey, i.e., Ancient Babylonian mystery cult.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there are Christian writers I respect, and as far as I see, have no hidden agenda, such as Roger Oakland for example.
I do believe we should, however, warn about those no quite what they seem. Hopefully someone will listen and be saved from deception and wild goose chases of hysteria.
So if you want to see new age, Christine, take a good hard look in the mirror!
I am already acquainted with this stuff, and can refute it. I am working up that refutation now. Remember, long ago I was a hardline anti RC Hislop influenced type myself.
ReplyDeletetwo caveats Rc overdoes it. and yes, RC and EO stuff, the latter less so, can function as a conveyor belt in the wrong direction and something to hide paganism under. For instance, the rosary according to one witch online, advising how to hide one's "faith," can be laid out in a circle with the crucifix below it, so it appears more like an ankh.
Repetitious prayers are not done (or should not be done) with a view to being heard for much speaking, but as an act of liturgical worship, such as the angels who say "holy holy holy" over and over, and the heavenly temple scene in Revelation.
The liturgical traditions of EO and the derivative RC, go back to the Jewish Temple liturgy, modified of course.
The skull and bones refers to Adam, who was allegedly buried under the very rock Christ was crucified on and renewed humanity by His shed Blood.
More later.
I am already acquainted with this stuff, and can refute it. I am working up that refutation now. Remember, long ago I was a hardline anti RC Hislop influenced type myself.
ReplyDeletetwo caveats Rc overdoes it. and yes, RC and EO stuff, the latter less so, can function as a conveyor belt in the wrong direction and something to hide paganism under. For instance, the rosary according to one witch online, advising how to hide one's "faith," can be laid out in a circle with the crucifix below it, so it appears more like an ankh.
Repetitious prayers are not done (or should not be done) with a view to being heard for much speaking, but as an act of liturgical worship, such as the angels who say "holy holy holy" over and over, and the heavenly temple scene in Revelation.
The liturgical traditions of EO and the derivative RC, go back to the Jewish Temple liturgy, modified of course.
The skull and bones refers to Adam, who was allegedly buried under the very rock Christ was crucified on and renewed humanity by His shed Blood.
More later.
idolatry - a clear distinction is made (in theory) between worship due only to God, and veneration. An Orthodox online somewhere commented that Protestants do not worship God, they only venerate Him. That being the case, that the level of adoration is low, it is appropriate then to not venerate anything else, because if veneration is the best you can give to God, then give it to no one else.
ReplyDeletebut people with a bigger range of emotional attitude of this sort, have more options.
This goes to the whole iconoclasm controversy. A robber council denounced icons other than the cross itself, and the Eucharist. The reason for this is that yes, some people HAD deteriorated into worship of icons, and probably do now (my guess is that it is more so in RC, at the popular level, a confusion between the likeness and the original, but I don't doubt it sometimes happens in EO).
The Seventh Ecumenical Council corrected this, and decreed that icons should be out by the roads as well, to educate people and turn thoughts in the right direction.
The Icon is considered a window on heaven. St. Paul, addressing the problem of giving sarcastic or go along to get along honor to harmless empty idols at pagan events, says that yes, the idol is nothing, but demons lie behind it, THAT THE HONOR GIVEN TO A COPY GOES TO THE ORIGINAL, in that case the original is the demon false god represented by the idol.
but the PRINCIPLE, that THE HONOR GIVEN TO THE LIKENESS GOES TO THE ORIGINAL, is what is involved in icons.
like you kiss a photo of someone you love, right? or keep pix of family on the desk at work or salute the photo of the dictator or
whatever. or salute the flag. Same deal.
Regarding icons as prayer props, you will see more of God in his creation than in any human creation, no matter how piously or expertly painted.
ReplyDeleteChristine,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned a "demon false god" which an idol represents.
To be clear, all the gods of pagan Greece and pagan Rome were originally just men and women who had been conquerers and/or kings and queens of the ancient world.
Uranus, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Isis, Venus, Mercury, Baal,( Bel ), Neptune, Pluto, and on and on, were all humans who were "deified" by subsequent kings and leaders under the notion ( lie ) that there was one original god, but that he was a completely impersonal force who "emptied himself out" into these heroes and that everyone should worship them. In fact in the early few centuries of Christianity, the church fathers had history books that made all this clear and in fact ALL of these so-called gods had grave sites which were well known and could be visited, etc.
This is the essence of paganism and this "New Age"
religion: that God is in everyone ( and everything ) so we should worship mother gaiaa and the trees and the flowers and the animals, ...and basically everything else that we hear now from wiccans and the fools who carry the pagan torch.
Within Christian denominations the basic error comes down to the so called "attributes" of God, when they are listed as: Omnipotence ( true ), Omniscience ( true ), Eternal(ness) ( true ) , but then they always include, Omnipresence ( false ). God is in heaven, on his throne, with his Son at his right hand.
He sees everywhere and he has power everywhere, so he hardly needs to BE everywhere. Not to mention he commands a myriad of angels do whatever he wants.
This notion of god " in " everything is at the heart of
the "Course in Miracles" and all this other New Age junk religion. It's at the very heart of gaiaa worship and "earth first" heresy, and that we need to take all these huge problems and fix them by ourselves, because we are all little gods and goddesses.
Only for those who are determined to live immoral lives is the Bible immoral. The immoral can't see it any other way. They don't want to see or hear or consider that their lifestyles are an abomination to God. They'd rather condemn their own souls forever just so they can live out a lie. Instead of sound absolutes of moral living as instructed in the Bible, they'd rather cling on to "Fifty Shades of Grey." This kind of thinking does have consequences for those who choose to follow a moral lifestyle. It has consequences for society and leads to crimes where innocent people, including children, are forced into immoral acts to satisfy someone else's immorality. It is the kind of thing that can bring down a famed institution of learning and it's football program. (I'm, of course, referring to Penn State in regards to the fallout of the immoral, criminal, abominable acts of Jerry Sandusky!) Once society accepts something like gay marriage, it becomes of slippery slope of "well, if this is okay, then there really is no right or wrong."
ReplyDeleteSome things to consider: for a sheepherder David wrote very profound psalms! The Apostle Paul wasn't a sheepherder.
http:// www.eze33.com/diffic/omni.htm
ReplyDeleteThis link discusses God's omnipresence.
"(my guess is that it is more so in RC, at the popular level, a confusion between the likeness and the original, but I don't doubt it sometimes happens in EO). "
ReplyDeleteWrong guess Christine. The Orthodox are far more into veneration of icons than the RC church is, esp. after V2.
They can confuse veneration for worship, since the veneration of icons was imposed on the Orthodox church.
I know the reasons for this, because of the iconclasm controversy etc.
But an uniformed person can fail to see the difference in both churches.
You go out of the way to prove you are holier.
Savvy
Iconclasm emerged with Islam that rejected the incarnation.
ReplyDeleteThey were and are still opposed to depicting God in human form.
Christianity responded with the fact that since God became a human being there was nothing wrong with depicting the word made flesh or holy things/people.
It's a reminder that we live in a more incarnational world, because of the incarnation.
The sacraments are likewise incarnational.
We have bodies, this is how we communicate with the world around us.
Savvy
Paul,
ReplyDeletePantheism does not distinguish between creator and created.
Yes, God is everywhere, but since we do not worship an impersonal God. But, a God would works through particulars.
For example, God did not have to be born as a particular person, in a particular place and time, but chose to.
This is why the New Age holds Monotheism to be exclusive, some more than others, because of this.
Savvy
physicist, crustal displacement or axis tilt change, take your pick.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/02/antarctica-was-once-a-rai_n_1733597.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D188147
pantheism EQUATES everything with God. panentheism is a bit different, but a dangerously close idea.
ReplyDeleteGod is clearly state in The Bible to be omnipresent, though that isn't the word used. Among other things, you could say we are in Him ("in Him we live and move and have our being" St. Paul to the Greeks on Mars Hill in Acts) because He is huge and contains all things.
All created things are distinct from Him however, by nature and essence.
as to the demons behind the idols, take it up with St. Paul because that is what he said. Sure, there were divinized human rulers of the past, who were probably also demonized, but the demons were present in all these false religions.
Orthodox do not use 3 dimensional imagery, except rarely under RC influence. The reason for the non realistic look and flatness of the icons is precisely so you don't start getting the idea of confusing image with person. Very very few icons are miracle working and myrrh streaming, and the setting of icons on walls and iconostasis sharply limits the time and touching that the venerator can do, for the same reason.
Imaes are also instructive, when most people can't read. But there are things about them that are not self evident, and need explaining. Personally I think that the godparent system is severely flawed, and the teaching expected of such should be done by priests and authorized catechizers, instead of depending so much on parents and godparents who can infiltrate culture and holdover pagan stuff more easily.
as far as seeing God in His creation, you can see evidence God exists and some minor attributes or energies like love, beauty, persistence, etc. but the whole image and likeness of God is in mankind, which is fallen and warped.
The imagery which tells about God and His acts and His Son and His Holy Spirit (like the baptism of Jesus, where from a glory above which is God comes a dove which is
The Holy Spirit onto Jesus Who is standing in the water where John the Baptist is baptising.)
Scripture is not opposed to uses images that are 3 dimensional or realistic, as long as they are not worshipped.
ReplyDeleteFor example: "And you shall make two cherubim of gold [i.e., two gold statues of angels]; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be" (Ex. 25:18–20).
David gave Solomon the plan "for the altar of incense made of refined gold, and its weight; also his plan for the golden chariot of the cherubim that spread their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of the Lord. All this he made clear by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all, all the work to be done according to the plan" (1 Chr. 28:18–19).
David’s plan for the temple, which the biblical author tells us was "by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all," included statues of angels.
Similarly Ezekiel 41:17–18 describes graven (carved) images in the idealized temple he was shown in a vision, for he writes, "On the walls round about in the inner room and [on] the nave were carved likenesses of cherubim."
Savvy
the only reason for opposition to 3D is that it is EASIER to start worshipping them than with flat images. While the cherubim above the mercy seat were obviously 3D, the ones carved on the walls may have been bas relief which is sort of a mix of flat and 3D. opposition to 3D is an economia an adaptation to human realities to good more easily and prevent evil, not an absolute.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to see the image of God, look at a human being behaving well, not at a painting.
ReplyDeletethat is all very well, but no human is God except Jesus Christ. That is an important difference.
ReplyDeleteI do like icons, and have nothing against them. Icons are used in the Western church too.
ReplyDeleteI found this interesting comparison by an Orthodox priest that makes sense.
"Icons are more than sacred pictures. Everything about them is theological. For example, they are always flat, flat so that we who inhabit the physical world will understand that the world of the spirit where Christ, His Mother, the angels, the saints, and the departed dwell, is a world of mystery which cannot be penetrated by our five senses.
Customarily, Roman Catholicism has historically employed statues in its worship. The statues are life-like and three-dimensional. They seem to imitate the art of ancient Greece. Both arts are naturalistic. The Latins portray Christ, the Mother of God, the saints, even the angels, as if they were in a state of nature.
This "naturalism" stems from the medieval idea that "grace perfects nature."
Important to remember is the Latin theory of grace: It is created by God for man.
Orthodoxy teaches, as we recall, that grace is uncreated, and impacts all creation.
It is a mysterious extension of the Divine Nature. Orthodox iconography reflects this truth, even as Roman Catholic statues reflect its idea of grace.
Savvy
I forgot to add that quote was by Father Michael Akzoul
ReplyDeleteSavvy
the hand gesture that anti orthodox page complains of, it is a way of holding the fingers so they (more or less) make the Greek letters ICXC meaning Jesus (IHCOYC) Christ (XPICTOC) and the other usual sign is three fingers up (The Holy Trinity) two down (the two natures, divine and human, of the one Person Jesus Christ after the Incarnation).
ReplyDeleteThis link shows the difference in meaning and form between this and Buddihist mudras.
http://iconreader.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/what-does-this-hand-gesture-mean-in-icons/
the hand gesture that anti orthodox page complains of, it is a way of holding the fingers so they (more or less) make the Greek letters ICXC meaning Jesus (IHCOYC) Christ (XPICTOC) and the other usual sign is three fingers up (The Holy Trinity) two down (the two natures, divine and human, of the one Person Jesus Christ after the Incarnation).
ReplyDeleteThis link shows the difference in meaning and form between this and Buddihist mudras.
http://iconreader.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/what-does-this-hand-gesture-mean-in-icons/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1An0kzGTnY&feature=endscreen
ReplyDeleteexplains the Orthodox rejection of papal supremacy
there is a slight flaw or two in this presentation i just posted the link to. By and large this is correct, but the liberal protestant and Abelardian rejection of the idea of debt to angry God which is a twist because it ignores said angry God provided for our debt payment, has infiltrated Orthodoxy as it has everywhere.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it is more than debt, it is also a matter as St. Athanasius says, of God keeping His integrity, thus He cannot take us back and break His word that we would die after taking the forbidden fruit, nor could He leave things as they were, so He solved the problem by sending His Son to die in our place having identified with us, took our punishment so we can escape it if we repent.
This is at odds with both the extreme Anselmian view that focusses on debt and anger only since he addressed feudalists, and the notions of Krapovitsky and Kalomiros infecting some Orthodox churches now.
As for original sin, there is no question except on the part of modern Orthodox writers, that we inherited something wrong from Adam, a disease if you will, and RC recognizes this also, and this is not the same as personal guilt by us for Adam's sin, however insofar as we develop into his sin and de facto approve it, agree with it, we do become secondarily guilty of it with Adam, like accessory after the fact.
The Immaculate Conception is of course at best unnecessary and irrelevant, because the only point at which blocking the transmission of this disease was necessary, was in Christ's moment of Incarnation and His development. If perhaps her womb were separate from the rest of her cleansed that isn't the same as the typical Immaculate Conception idea.
RC prayers often address saints and Mary with lectures fit more to address to God Himself, while Orthodox prayers to saints and Mary are primarily asking them to pray for us, and use such powers as God granted them. (I have noticed some different effects in different saint's Holy Oils, oil from vigil lamps burned by their relics.)
the practice of novenas, 9 days of saying a particular prayer every day to get some particular grace or favor, smacks of superstition. It is too mechanistic.
The video fails to mention the flawed idea of a mechanistic pile up of merits of saints that can be transferred to individuals.
Christine,
ReplyDeleteI am aware of Orthodox views on the Papacy. I am not sure what this has to do with a discussion on East/West views on religious art.
Savvy
The discussion was not about religious art, that was only part of it, the several posts I made all relate to the post that gives a link to a page jesus-is-savior.com where there is a denunciation of Orthodoxy, complaining of art and veneration as idolatry, symbolic hand gestures, presence of skulls etc. Total misunderstanding of ancient stuff, viewing it only in terms of developments in the secular world in the past 200 years or less.
ReplyDelete"The Immaculate Conception is of course at best unnecessary and irrelevant, because the only point at which blocking the transmission of this disease was necessary, was in Christ's moment of Incarnation and His development. If perhaps her womb were separate from the rest of her cleansed that isn't the same as the typical Immaculate Conception idea."
ReplyDeleteIt means Mary unlike us was not infected by original sin, because she chosen to carry the saviour of the world.
"RC prayers often address saints and Mary with lectures fit more to address to God Himself, while Orthodox prayers to saints and Mary are primarily asking them to pray for us, and use such powers as God granted them."
This is incorrect, RC's share the same views as Orthodox on this issue.
"the practice of novenas, 9 days of saying a particular prayer every day to get some particular grace or favor, smacks of superstition. It is too mechanistic. "
Orthodoxy has novena prayers too.
Why nine days?
The number nine has a strong basis in Scripture as the apostles and the Blessed Virgin prayed for nine days from the Ascension until Pentecost before the coming of the Holy Spirit.
You are either ignorant about your own church or you have not heard of do not bear false witness.
Savvy
"It means Mary unlike us was not infected by original sin, because she chosen to carry the saviour of the world."
ReplyDeleteYou don't find this in Scripture or any hint of it, unlike shared doctrines of RC and EO. It is as I said UNNECESSARY since such blocking of transmission of sin nature only needed to be done in Christ Himself, and at some point along the placenta. At most a cleansing of her womb, not her whole self, and IF "full of grace" at all supports her immaculateness, this would be a condition created AFTER she agreed to be the Theotokos (Mother of God) BEFORE the Incarnation and NOT at her birth.
"RC prayers often address saints and Mary with lectures fit more to address to God Himself, while Orthodox prayers to saints and Mary are primarily asking them to pray for us, and use such powers as God granted them."
This is incorrect, RC's share the same views as Orthodox on this issue.
WRONG I'VE READ THEM. Granted these are older ones, perhaps modern RC which has cleaned up its act a lot, at least in English speaking countries where it has to compete with Protestantism, and in perhaps a preparation to eventually acclimatize its people to future rejoining with EO, but here is a sample. ""Glorious St. Joseph, model of all who are devoted to labor, obtain for me the grace to work in the spirit of penance in expiation of my many sins; to work conscientiously by placing love of duty above my inclinations; to gratefully and joyously deem it an honor to employ and to develop by labor the gifts I have received from God, to work methodically, peacefully, and in moderation and patience, without ever shrinking from it through weariness or difficulty to work; above all, with purity of intention and unselfishness, having unceasingly before my eyes death and the account I have to render of time lost, talents unused, good not done, and vain complacency in success, so baneful to the work of God. All for Jesus, all for Mary, all to imitate thee, O patriarch St. Joseph! This shall be my motto for life and eternity." - Pope Pius IX"
granted obtain for me implies asking him to pray for one, but the explicitness of asking for prayer by the saint is not as obvious as in EO prayers (some are a bit over the top however).
9 days of prayer - it was TEN days. and even if you can compute 9, the BIG problem is that THIS WAS A ONE TIME EVENT, a PERMANENT EVENT, that is not duplicated. This is not a blueprint for a formula of action to get some effect, which is magic principles on the one hand, and charismatic protestant silliness on the other.
He rose on Sunday, the first day after Passover that year. Pentecost is 50 days later, and Christ stayed with them 40 days then Ascended on the 40th day. That makes 10 days to go. The Greek Orthodox Calendar celebrated Pentecost 48 days after Pascha, the Resurrection, aka Easter in the west, which is 2 days after Holy Friday, one day before Holy Saturday which would have been Passover then. So that would make it more like 7 days. I supppose there is some slip zone as to whether it is exactly 40 days or minimum 40 He was with them then Ascended.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5pniSSpn14&feature=relmfu
ReplyDeleteaddresses the issue of Scriptural basis for literal transformation of b read and wine into The Body and Blood
of Christ, and the priesthood and distiinction between a general and a sacrificial priesthood in OT and indicated in NT.
It is indeed necessary to read what the prayers in question actually say, and plenty are in use in both Orthodox and Roman Catholic use today that ask the saint or Mary specifically to do things that scripture indicates are reserved for the Godhead alone. Ascribing the qualities of divinity to someone who is not divine is not good. Claims that these prayers are 'through' Mary etc are false - contrast them with the common and theologically solid prayers addressed to God the Father that finish "through Jesus Christ our Lord".
ReplyDeleteSuppose the king or president publicly appointed someone in your town to take messages to him, with a promise that then and only then they would be heard (1 Tim 2:5), but instead you asked the local appointee's mother or friend to do the job? Even if you ask this other person to take your petition to the president's appointee rather than to the president, you are gambling on what relations between that person and the appointee are really like, and on whether the president asks the appointee if the petition was presented direct to him by the petitioner.
Not one of the apostles is depicted in scripture as praying 'through' a deceased believer. In view of what happened in Acts, St Paul would surely have prayed 'through' Stephen Martyr. But there is no scriptural precedent.
Call Mary blessed, but pray through Christ alone.
Despite the link at 10:03, I say again:
ReplyDeleteGod is not omnipresent. He could be if he wanted to, and, He is omniscient, and omnipotent, so, why be
omnipresent ?
Jesus taught the disciples to pray: "Our Father who art in heaven..."
Christine if you read scripture, the angel greets Mary with, Hail Full of Grace, even before she responds,
ReplyDelete"WRONG I'VE READ THEM"
So what Christine?
Nobody said these prayers were mandatory?
The Orthodox have novenas too.
You can choose to not pray them if you want to, since these things fall under private prayer and not doctrine.
Savvy
Christine,
ReplyDeleteOrthodox prayers are equally long. Take a look at this.
http://paruchia.blogspot.ca/2006/05/novena-prayer-to-st-john-maximovitch.html
Anon@4:17 a.m.
ReplyDeleteIn Revelation 5:8, where John depicts the saints in heaven offering our prayers to God under the form of "golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."
But if the saints in heaven are offering our prayers to God, then they must be aware of our prayers. They are aware of our petitions and present them to God by interceding for us.
Those Christians in heaven are more righteous, since they have been made perfect to stand in God’s presence (Heb. 12:22-23), than anyone on earth, meaning their prayers would be even more efficacious.
What scripture means by talking to the dead, is conjuring up sprits of dead, not intercessory prayer.
Any friend of Jesus is a friend of mine.
Here is a link to various kinds of private prayer in Orthodoxy, the times you have to prayer them, and instructions to pray them.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.st-seraphim.com/prayers.htm
Savvy
The reasons why long prayers are replaced with shorter ones, is because people have short-attention spans and have work to do.
ReplyDeleteThe RC church does not say that you MUST pray a long prayer, but prayer can be adapted to your needs.
Savvy
It's like older TV shows and movies, were longer too. Our attention span is decreasing as time moves on.
ReplyDeleteDoctors claim that it's because we are becoming more restless and cannot focus and have a nation with ADD.
Eastern services in general are a lot longer than Western ones. There might be adjustments made because you live in America.
Savvy
"Christine if you read scripture, the angel greets Mary with, Hail Full of Grace, even before she responds,"
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't mandate Immaculate conception of her. Reputedly she had some early onset holiness about her, and this also occurred with other people before and after.
Mary was PUZZLED by this greeting, and the explanation given didn't incl. anything about her being sinless from conception or birth.
an analysis of the Greek word kecharitomene is given here
http://ichthys.com/mail-Mary-full-of-grace.htm
Mark 3:21, 31, 32 indicates Mary as well as the rest of His family thought He was insane at one point.
"First, for those who have no formal training in Greek (like me), the above argument is refuted just by the context of the verses that follows Luke 1:28. Immediately in verse 29 we find Mary was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. If she had known that she has been protected by God from orginal sin, she would not have wondered about Gabriel's greeting. If you greet an American by saying "Hey Filipino!", you would most certainly see him to wonder why you greeted him that way. Instead, Gabriel tells Mary the reason for the greeting in verse 30 and 31: And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. Verse 30 says Mary has found favor, it did not say she always have been full of grace. Verse 31 explains why she has found favor, because she has been chosen by God to be the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ....Second, the root word of kecharitomene which is caritow has never been equated by scholars as sinlessness. We also find caritow in Ephesians 1:6 yet there is no assertion that the Ephesians were sinless. If the Roman Catholics are reasoning that caritow in Luke 1:28 is in the perfect tense which implies Mary was graced in the past and continuing in the present, then what about in Matthew 25:34 where the term eulogeo (blessed) is also in the prefect tense? Were their blessedness been both perfected in the past and continuing in the present? How about agapao (beloved) in 1st Thessalonians 1:4 which is also in the perfect tense? Perfect tense of a participle only indicates the state of the subject as of the present, it doesn't indicate how long the subject has been in that state and how long will it last....
Lastly, the phrase "full of grace" is found in John 1:14 but it in Greek is transliterated as pleres charis and not kecharitomene.
Kecharitomene is not the Immaculate Conception. Another Roman Catholic version of the Bible called the New American Bible renders it as favored one."
http://solutions-finder.blogspot.com/2009/09/kecharitomene-immaculate-conception.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception#History the earliest celebration of her conception does not talk about immaculateness, but it was miraculous since Sts. Joachim and Anna were aged.
ReplyDeleteThe article goes on to discuss the OPPOSITION to this doctrine on the part of various persons now canonized, incl. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bernard of Clairveaux. The Franciscans seems to have been the main proponents of this nonsense, and they also had a hand in starting the papal infallibility stuff, when they had to defend themselves against a pope rescinding support given them by a previous pope who said their lifestyle was that of the early Christians. Scroll down to "Medieval Disputes About the Doctrine" for more details.
Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV referred to her in a mass as immaculate, but her conception itself only as miraculous, and declared both sides wrong who condemned each other for believing or disbelieving her immaculate conception since this hadn't been decided in a Church Council yet. "Under Pope Pius V, the Pope who in 1570 established the Tridentine Mass, included the feast (but without the adjective "Immaculate") in the Tridentine Calendar, but suppressed the existing special Mass for the feast, directing that the Mass for the Nativity of Mary (with the word "Nativity" replaced by "Conception") be used instead."
Christine,
ReplyDelete"kecharitomene".. is a perfect passive participle. It means one endowed with favour or grace in a "permanent or perfect" fashion.
According to Greek grammatical lexicons, the perfect stem of a Greek verb means the 'perpetuation of a permanent result or completed action'.
Yes, Mary is the highly favoured daughter of God
Nobody denies that Mary did not have free will.
She could have said No.
But, If the first Eve was born without sin, but, still chose to bring death into the world.
The second Eve, Mary, was born without sin, but chose to bring life into the world.
Why would God create Jesus in a sinful human vessel?
Savvy
Christine,
ReplyDeleteAquinas was not in opposition to it. The disagreement was since what point in the womb.
Here is what he wrote.
Quote:
If the soul of the Blessed Virgin had never incurred the stain of original sin, this would be derogatory to the dignity of Christ, by reason of His being the universal Saviour of all.
Consequently after Christ, who, as the universal Saviour of all, needed not to be saved, the purity of the Blessed Virgin holds the highest place.
For Christ did not contract original sin in any way whatever, but was holy in His very Conception, according to Luke 1:35: "The Holy which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God."
But the Blessed Virgin did indeed contract original sin, but was cleansed therefrom before her birth from the womb.
This is what is signified (Job 3:9) where it is written of the night of original sin: "Let it expect light," i.e. Christ, "and not see it"--(because "no defiled thing cometh into her," as is written in Wisdom 7:25), "nor the rising of the dawning of the day," that is of the Blessed Virgin, who in her birth was immune from original sin. (Summa Theologica, III, Q.27, A.2, ad 2)
The Eastern church fathers said this.
It becomes you to be mindful of us, as you stand near Him who granted you all graces, for you are the Mother of God and our Queen. Help us for the sake of the King, the Lord God Master Who was born of you. For this reason you are called 'full of Grace'..."
(373 A.D., St. Athanasius)
Blessed Virgin, immaculate and pure you are the sinless Mother of your Son, the mighty Lord of the universe. You are holy and inviolate, the hope of the hopeless and sinful; we sing your praises. We praise you as full of every grace, for you bore the God-Man. We all venerate you; we invoke you and implore your aid...Holy and immaculate Virgin...be our intercessor and advocate at the hour of death and judgment...you are holy in the sight of God, to Whom be honor and glory, majesty, and power forever (373 A.D., St. Ephrem of Edessa)
You alone and your Mother are more beautiful than the others; for here is no blemish in you, nor any stains upon your Mother. (St. Ephraim, Nisibene Hymns, 27:8, 370)
The early church fathers on the Immaculate conception.
http://www.staycatholic.com/ecf_immaculate_conception.htm
Savvy
"In Revelation 5:8... John depicts the saints in heaven offering our prayers to God under the form of "golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." "
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't, actually. John says that the "four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb [Jesus]... they were holding golden bowls full of... the prayers of the saints."
When the NT talks about the saints it means the faithful on earth, not in heaven. All that this passage shows is that our prayers reach Jesus, as we already know. For how to pray and to whom, I'll stick with what I said at 4.17am.
NB I never invoked the OT prohibitions on contacting the dead in this discussion.
"Any friend of Jesus is a friend of mine."
Same here, friend.
Anon@5:52 p.m.
ReplyDeleteEven by your own argument if they were offered by those on earth, Yet this argument would only strengthen the fact that those in heaven can hear our prayers.
Everyone in heaven is a saint.
Savvy,
ReplyDeleteA perfect passive participle is explained here:
http://www.studylight.org/isb/view.cgi?number=5772&tool=grk
Perfect = ... an action which is viewed as having been completed in the past, once and for all, not needing to be repeated... The results continue into the present; however, they are not repeated. The imperfect tense is such that a particular action gets repeated.
Passive = The passive voice represents the subject as being the recipient of the action... In this case, Mary is the subject, so she is the recipient of grace/favor, not the bestower of it (not saying you're suggesting this, but I saw one pro-Catholic site do this).
Participle = The Greek participle corresponds for the most part to the English participle, reflecting "-ing" or "-ed" being suffixed to the basic verb form. The participle can be used either like a verb or a noun, as in English, and thus is often termed a "verbal noun." The verb here is favor-ed.
So, Mary is 'highly graced/favored' to bear the Christ child (to be the theotokos, the “God-bearer”, the term used in order to combat Nestorianism). This is a one-time event, i.e. the virginal conception which would culminate in the “virgin birth”; and, this ‘one time event’ will not later be replicated – it’s once for all not needing to be repeated [cf. Luke 1:29-33].
Revelation 5:8 does not have to refer to 'dead' saints; it can just as well pertain to the saints on earth. My contention is that it does, in fact, refer to the saints on earth.
ReplyDeleteCertainly, I'd agree that all those 'asleep' in Christ, i.e. all those who've died with faith in Christ, are saints. However, I don't know of any Scripture which supports the doctrine of dead saints interceding for living saints. Perhaps I could be proven wrong.
I'm surprised no one here has brought up the Chick Fil A goings on this past week. I did my bit to support 1st Amendment rights in opposition to the Boston and Chicago mayors, etc. by eating lunch at a local CFA on Wednesday. The restaurant was packed, but all patrons were quite peaceful and patient. It took me about 25 minutes to receive my meal; and, it was well worth every second of the wait.
ReplyDeleteThere is a Chick-Fil-A where I live, I plan on going there. i probably wouldn't have it being out of my usual way, if I hadn't heard of this.
ReplyDeleteIf you have an argument about at what point in the womb, then you have an opposition to Immaculate CONCEPTION as distinct from Immaculate BIRTH.
ReplyDeleteThere is another thing all these people have missed, it seems that the Temple maintained a flock of children, who were usually born of woman who wore special clothing (linen perhaps?) that insulated them from some miasma of evil while pregnant, so the children were as pure as could be, and never set foot outside the Temple grounds, except riding on donkeys to go draw the living water (running water always considered clean) to make the Holy Water from the ashes of the red heifer now and then.
If Mary was one of these children, the whole legend of immaculateness would be explainable. Shielded as much as possible - and not only her - from all vile paranormal influences, and under the constant influence of The Holy Spirit and angels in the Temple. This one was possibly also some kind of what would now be called prayer warrior of unusual nature since childhood, and if viewed as some kind of spiritual military, then since the military was to be celibate she might well have been under some kind of oath of chastity.
The story that Joseph was an aged man is supportable by his disappearance from the Gospel histories early on. Certainly by the time Our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled His social obligation, by putting her in the care of His Apostle John, she had no husband and apparently the other males were unavailable or unreliable or too strapped, and since her husband is not mentioned as decrepit and coming to live with her new son John and her, he had died already.
All this would fit the legend of perpetual virginity, and the information pro and con is too dicey to settle one way or another.
However, the usual EO (and I assume RC?) reasons for believing she was perpetually virgin, don't hold water. No one, incl. them, knew just what Jesus in fact is, God Incarnate, not even the Apostles, until later. Even the priests were only celibate part of the time.
The citations from the early Fathers, do not specify immaculate from conception or from what point or defining it. Even if the notion was floating around, that doesn't make it correct. Gnostic influences against materiality may have played a certain role in all this.
Someone argued that sin nature only transmit through the father which is ridiculous on the face of it, arguing that a virgin conception without male seed alone is enough to shield from original sin, nonsense.
There is no reason to argue Christ needed a sinless environment to be without original sin or ancestral sin inherited nature, at most the womb alone might have been rendered free of this, ergo the environment.
to argue Mary HAD to be Immaculately conceived, would also argue that she to be pure would need a pure environment, so you would have to have an infinite regression of immaculately conceived women back to Eve.
If you have an argument about at what point in the womb, then you have an opposition to Immaculate CONCEPTION as distinct from Immaculate BIRTH.
ReplyDeleteThere is another thing all these people have missed, it seems that the Temple maintained a flock of children, who were usually born of woman who wore special clothing (linen perhaps?) that insulated them from some miasma of evil while pregnant, so the children were as pure as could be, and never set foot outside the Temple grounds, except riding on donkeys to go draw the living water (running water always considered clean) to make the Holy Water from the ashes of the red heifer now and then.
If Mary was one of these children, the whole legend of immaculateness would be explainable. Shielded as much as possible - and not only her - from all vile paranormal influences, and under the constant influence of The Holy Spirit and angels in the Temple. This one was possibly also some kind of what would now be called prayer warrior of unusual nature since childhood, and if viewed as some kind of spiritual military, then since the military was to be celibate she might well have been under some kind of oath of chastity.
The story that Joseph was an aged man is supportable by his disappearance from the Gospel histories early on. Certainly by the time Our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled His social obligation, by putting her in the care of His Apostle John, she had no husband and apparently the other males were unavailable or unreliable or too strapped, and since her husband is not mentioned as decrepit and coming to live with her new son John and her, he had died already.
All this would fit the legend of perpetual virginity, and the information pro and con is too dicey to settle one way or another.
However, the usual EO (and I assume RC?) reasons for believing she was perpetually virgin, don't hold water. No one, incl. them, knew just what Jesus in fact is, God Incarnate, not even the Apostles, until later. Even the priests were only celibate part of the time.
The citations from the early Fathers, do not specify immaculate from conception or from what point or defining it. Even if the notion was floating around, that doesn't make it correct. Gnostic influences against materiality may have played a certain role in all this.
Someone argued that sin nature only transmit through the father which is ridiculous on the face of it, arguing that a virgin conception without male seed alone is enough to shield from original sin, nonsense.
There is no reason to argue Christ needed a sinless environment to be without original sin or ancestral sin inherited nature, at most the womb alone might have been rendered free of this, ergo the environment.
to argue Mary HAD to be Immaculately conceived, would also argue that she to be pure would need a pure environment, so you would have to have an infinite regression of immaculately conceived women back to Eve.
"There is another thing all these people have missed, it seems that the Temple maintained a flock of children, who were usually born of woman who wore special clothing (linen perhaps?) that insulated them from some miasma of evil while pregnant, so the children were as pure as could be, and never set foot outside the Temple grounds, except riding on donkeys to go draw the living water (running water always considered clean) to make the Holy Water from the ashes of the red heifer now and then."
ReplyDeleteCan Christine (who wrote it) or anybody else provide a reference for this?
"If Mary was one of these children, the whole legend of immaculateness would be explainable."
The legend is first found long after Mary's own time, and in the same era as the gnostic gospels about Christ which people had simply made up. That should be a very loud warning bell.
The egg in Mary's ovaries that developed into Jesus came into being when she was growing in HER mother's womb. Is this an argument for the Immaculate Conception?
ReplyDeleteyes, the legend of her being given to the Temple is first reported in The Protevangelion, which was on the list of books to be rejected, that Orthodox Bishop of Rome Gelasius wrote up. When I raised this issue with an Orthodox priest, he answered that the information points accepted were despite the book.
ReplyDeletesource for the story on the children,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_heifer
This is the sort of thing that makes perfect sense. It is what would be expected given concerns about ritual purity. Jesus mentions in speaking of what the Pharisees were like, unmarked graves that people unknowingly walk on and are unknowingly defiled thereby.
This would be the sort of thing avoided in the donkey riding trip, and not going outside the Temple vicinity until puberty when they
would leave for good.
As St. Thomas Aquinas argued, apparently, you can say perhaps that Mary was saved from original sin but you can't say at what point in her existence before Christ's conception this occurred.
ReplyDelete"Even by your own argument if they were offered by those on earth, Yet this argument would only strengthen the fact that those in heaven can hear our prayers. Everyone in heaven is a saint."
ReplyDeleteProbably they can. But there is so much we are not told about what goes on in heaven. Are they directed to gather the prayers without listening in order to them to take them to Jesus? Can they hear the prayers only of those they knew personally? Does Jesus heed only prayers prayed to him directly? Is Rev 5:8 showing prayers that Jesus has already dealt with and that His servants in heaven are carrying AWAY from Him, not toward Him?
You can conjecture the answers to these things, but it's all guesswork because the mechanics of heaven are not revealed to us. Paul wrote (1 Tim 2:5) that there is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. So if you are a man (or woman) and you want your prayer to reach God, you pray through the one mediator, Jesus Christ. It's as simple as that, however much the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions muddy the waters.
Also, we are told in the NT not to judge. Catholics and Orthodox quote this verse as freely as every other Christian. Yet those churches judge - by questionable means - who is in heaven and consequently a saint who may be prayed through. I question their competence.
"Also, we are told in the NT not to judge." Totally false. We are told to be careful how we judge because we will be judged by the same standard we judge others by, we are told to judge not by appearances but with righteous judgement, we are told to first get the log out of our own eyes THEN YOU WILL SEE CLEARLY TO GET THE MOTE OUT OF YOUR BROTHER'S EYE.
ReplyDeleteTaken out of context, this is always used to shut down discernment and opposition to evil.
Now, as to who are shall we say especially favored and listened to by God sort of saints, churches have a responsibility to protect their, ah, clientelle. So they figure who is safe to ask for help.
If not on the approved list, you talk to them at your own risk.
There IS a potential competence issues in some cases in both camps. EO only recently in past centuries adopted a formal approach to canonization or glorification like RC, for the most part someone was considered a saint when enough laity and clergy were esteeming them as such. Does this leave room for self deception by many? yes. And I have my doubts about two or three Serbian saints.
The recent decanonization of some saints by RC strikes me as depending on modern scholarship, but EO keeps many of them, because the legends come down from such a time as was recent to these people.
E.g., St. Christopher.
St. Christopher is also grounds for reconsidering knee jerk dismissal of surviving large hominids or whatnot that are essentially human, because the reason he is sometimes shown with a dog's head, is that he was a Cynocephalus. Go google that one. Basically, he was a sasquatch.
More on the Greek verb tense Perfect Passive Participle:
ReplyDeleteI’ll do my best to explain the following:
It seems instructive to look at Luke 1:27 since it’s in the immediate context of 1:28. The Perfect Passive Participle is used in the very beginning of this verse – “to a virgin betrothed (i.e. pledged to be married)…” “Betrothed” is in the PPP. Of course, Mary was not perpetually betrothed as she did eventually marry Joseph. In this context, “virgin” is the noun (which obviously refers to Mary as per the latter part of v 27), the subject of the passive verb (betrothed), and therefore the “recipient” of the (then) present tense ‘betrothal’. This ‘betrothal’, being in the PPP, was an action in the then present, once for all not needing to be repeated, which carried on into the future unless and until this status was changed. Upon marriage Mary was no longer betrothed (cf. Matthew 1:18-24).
If God the Father came to any of us and "overshadowed" us, intimately, we would be perfectly holy and clean too, by virtue of His very presence.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Christine, that Jesus' words "Do not judge..." are too often quoted thoughtlessly in Christian debate. But if there is one thing that we must leave to God to judge, it is who ends up in heaven and who in hell. I had thought this was too obvious to need stating, but as it elicited a lecture from you, perhaps I should not have omitted it.
ReplyDeletethe issue of who is and is not a saint is NOT about whether someone is in heaven or hell, but rather, among those who get to heaven, who is in special standing.
ReplyDeleteNow in Scripture you find references to crowns some for those who die as martyrs, some for faith, etc. it is possible to know someone by their fruits as Jesus said, and some people were esteemed pretty likely to be on very good terms with God. Especially if miracles were associated with them.
In addition, since Jesus said "with God all things are possible," and Revelation only speaks of finality in terms of after the Last Judgement, and the early church must have taught prayer for the dead, because the Martyr Perpetua didn't hesitate to pray for her dead brother who she dreamed of in flames, and later dreamed of in heaven (and it doesn't matter the reality of the dreams, what matters is her reaction, to pray for his soul)
it follows that it may be possible for those most definitely headed for hell to be rescued later in response to prayer.
In I Maccabbees we see that the Jews of that time would pray for and make sacrifice for the dead, that their sins not be held against them at the Last Judgement. Luther overreacting to RC making a racket out of this, high handedly took Maccabees out of The Bible, which up to then had been accepted as legitimate history, not inspired canon but bound with the canon as deuterocanonical.
Christine @ 10:42,
ReplyDeleteI'd think Jesus' words in Luke 16:19-31 would be instructive.
"the issue of who is and is not a saint is NOT about whether someone is in heaven or hell, but rather, among those who get to heaven, who is in special standing."
ReplyDeleteYou can change the meaning of "saint" from its usage in the NT if you want, but it is dishonest not to say so. And this discussion was about who to pray to - you don't really think that some persons in heaven get heard by God and some don't, do you? I'll pray through Christ, and be assured by the word of the Holy Spirit through St Paul that my prayers reach the throne of God. You feel free to pray 'through' St Nonexistent or St Dubious if you like.
"Luther overreacting to RC making a racket out of this, high handedly took Maccabees out of The Bible, which up to then had been accepted as legitimate history, not inspired canon"
Well as a protestant I agree that they are not inspired and canonical, but you are at odds with your hierarchy. And Luther was simply reverting to the canon of St Jerome more than 1000 years earlier. In these books, the Letter of Jeremiah (often printed as the 6th chapter of Baruch) says (in verse 2) that the Jews would be in Babylon for seven generations, whereas Jeremiah (25:11) stated (correctly) 70 years. And supposedly Tobit was alive when the Assyrians invaded Israel in 722BC (Tobit 1:3), and also alive more than 200 years earlier when Jeroboam’s revolt against Jerusalem (Tobit 1:4-5) divided Israel into northern and southern kingdoms. Yet he is said to have lived less than 130 years (Tobit 14:2). Inspired??
In my current study of the Council of Chalcedon (for an upcoming article), I've read and re-read the most excellent Tome of then archbishop of Rome Leo (RCC refers to him as Pope Leo I). He does a great job of laying out proper Christology over against Eutychianism and Nestorianism. The Tome itself was ratified along with two letters of Cyril of Alexandria at the Council. The 'definition' of Chalcedon is acknowledged by the RCC, most of Protestantism, and most of the EO (save for those 'miaphysites'). IMO, those who refuse Chalcedon, specifically with respect to proper Christology, have no basis to call themselves "Christian" in the historically orthodox meaning of the term.
ReplyDeleteGiven the recent discussion of the "immaculate conception" of Mary, I make note of a section of (Pope) Leo's Tome:
"...What was assumed from the Lord's mother was nature, not fault..."
This seems to me to affirm Mary's 'original guilt/sin' (along with the rest of us) as opposed to her "sinlessness".
I'm presuming the RCC's stance is that Leo I was speaking ex cathedra and was, hence, infallible in this epistle. Given this, why did the RCC later officially proclaim Mary's "immaculate conception" in opposition to Leo I?
Craig,
ReplyDeleteChalcedon was a mess. As a result of it, a huge movement to the east of the borders of the historic Roman Empire, which believed that God was Trinity and that Jesus was both God and man, were defined not to be Christian. And as a result of THAT, and because they were later persecuted almost out of existence once the Mongols went Muslim, they have been largely written out of church history, which is a tragedy. Do read something like Philip Jenkins' "Lost History of Christianity", because you are going to meet a lot of these people in heaven.
The difference between them, and the church within the Empire's boundaries, is not about whether Jesus was both God and man but about HOW He was both God and man. In other words, we separated from these people over something that scripture is silent about. As well as being a tragedy, that is a warning.
Mary got tangled up in this argument because Jesus inherited his human nature from her. I believe that, although Nestorius had one or two mistaken beliefs, Cyril of Alexandria was arguing in bad faith against him. Standard syllogistic logic can be used to make any Christian look foolish, eg if you accept that "Jesus is God" and "God is not man" then these two imply that Jesus is not human - yet he is. Cyril showed Nestorius up like that, when the truth is that regular logic fails at the godhead.
Craig,
ReplyDeleteThe definition you bring up sites that she is the receiver of grace not it's bearer. I think we are in agreement here.
The Immaculate Conception simply means that through the merits of Jesus, Mary was preserved from original sin.
Imagine I am parachuting and falling through the air into quicksand. Suddenly, a gust of wind comes along and blows me away from the quicksand. I would say that at the moment of conception all human beings fall into a pit of quicksand called original sin. But in Mary's case God intervened and protected her from this at the moment of her conception by the merits of Jesus. She had no power or merit of her own that prevented her from falling into the quicksand of original sin. It was Divine Mercy which was preparing a place for the Incarnation.
Jesus is not a slave to time.
Jesus was the rock in the desert that provided water for the Israelites fleeing Egypt long before he was born. (Exo 17:6). John says "He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him." (Jn 1:2-3). Elijah was taken up to heaven before Christ was born.
I don't think you understand the concept of ex-cathedra. Leo I views were not pronounced as doctrine.
Savvy
Christine,
ReplyDeleteAquinas was still discussing this issue. He never claimed his views were infallible. This is why we have a magisterium, so no one unbalanced view can prevail.
He came close to immaculate birth Yes.
Most certainly God could have protected Jesus from sin while in the womb of Mary without protecting Mary from sin, but that would put him in enmity with his mother, which seems pretty far fetched.
His mother was going to be the one to nurse him and teach him and feed him. We have a biblical precident for God wanting a pure vessel for the Word of God (Exodus 25:10-22).
We have biblical evidence that Mary is the New Ark of the Covenant.
I appreciate the kind of argument that says "well then every human being back to Eve would then need to be purified of original sin..."
but then of course then we wouldn't need Jesus.
The Lord was made a pure vessel for the Word of the Lord made flesh, just like he made a pure vessel for the Word of the Lord made stone (10 Commandments).
We know that Mary "Magnifies the Lord" (Lk 1:46) If she had sin, she could not magnify him.
She would only obscure him, like a magnifying glass with dirt smudged on it.
The Orthodox do hold that Mary is the new Eve. If the first Eve was created without sin, why can't the new Eve, who is much holier than the first?
Rather, as Gen 3:15 says, both Jesus and Mary are in opposition to Satan, not the victims of Satan's victory in the Garden of Eden:
"I will make enmity (hatred / opposition) between you (Satan) and THE WOMAN (Mary) and between your seed (sin/death) and her Seed (the Messiah); and He (Jesus) will strike at your head (i.e., crush your power) even as you strike at His heel (the Crucifixion)."
Here, in this first prophecy of the Messiah, both the Messiah AND HIS MOTHER are linked together in opposition to Satan. This is why Mary had to be conceived without sin.
She is the promised woman of Genesis 3:15 --the woman made sinless so that she might be able to give birth to a sinless Messiah.
Every where in the Bible, seed is referred to as a man's seed. This is the only place where it's called the woman's seed.
Savvy
Anon@10:53 a.m.
ReplyDeleteJerome made hasty translations of some books, but left the rest untouched. His vulgate had the deuterocanonical books. As did the Gutenberg Bible.
This is historical fact.
Here is a snip from Columbia University (Secular institution)
"As to the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, Jerome made hasty translations of Tobit, Judith, and the additions to Daniel and Esther; the rest he did not touch, hence the Vulgate includes Old Latin versions of them."
http://www.answers.com/topic/vulgate
anon 3:23:
ReplyDeleteI see I should have put a caveat on the above. I'm not convinced the EO miaphysites were thinking improper Christology; I think it may have come down to a misunderstanding of physis and hypostastis in the translation to Latin. My main point re: those who oppose Chalcedon are of the likes of New Agers, religious pluralists, etc. some of whom proclaim themselves to be "Christian".
Having said that, I don't see that Chalcedon was "a mess". The entire Council ratified the Chalcedonian "definition" - not one abstainer. So, the church catholic - lower case "c" meaning universal rather than RCC - recognized it.
I fully understand why the term theotokos was used - to oppose Nestorianism. And, Leo's Tome does a masterful job in explaining the communication idiomatum - the "Communication of Attributes".
Anon@3:23 p.m.
ReplyDeleteThe issue is that when multiple people hold multiple views, whose voice does one listen too?
Craig,
ReplyDeleteNo council was considered ecumenical without the Bishop of Rome.
There were a number of councils that could have ended Christianity.
Antioch (in 341, where about 100 Eastern bishops approved of straight Arianism)
Sirmium (in 351, where another 100 or so Eastern bishops espoused semi-Arianism),
the Robber Council of Ephesus (in 449-450 which declared Monophysitism to be orthodox doctrine),
numerous "councils" in Constantinople (which included the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, which declared Monophysitism to be orthodox),
and the councils of Constantinople of 638 and 639 which approved of the Ecthesis, embracing Monothelitism.
All these Councils could have been defined historically as "Ecumenical,"
if it were not for Rome's refusal to cooperate with them.
So Jenkins gets his history right, but fails to answer the question. Why did the rest listen to Rome?
Given that both Orthodox and Protestants reject it's authority.
Savvy
What books Jerome personally translated is not the point - what books he considered canonical is the point I was making. Luther was not the first to define the Bible in the way he did.
ReplyDeleteSavvy,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote, "I don't think you understand the concept of ex-cathedra. Leo I views were not pronounced as doctrine"
Have you read through Leo's Tome? Have you read through the Acts (or minutes) of the Council? All throughout the Council it was understood that Leo's Tome was proclaiming doctrine, specifically the doctrine of proper Christology. My understanding is that when "the Pope" either speaks regarding doctrine or writes (such as an encyclical, or epistle in this case) that this speaking/writing is ex cathedra. This is as opposed to when the Pope speaks on secular matters which are not ex cathedra. If this is not correct, then please let me know where I err.
I'm aware of what is meant by the doctrine of the "immaculate conception". I just don't subscribe to it. Apparently, Pope Leo I didn't either.
I'm also aware that the Son of God transcends time.
"So Jenkins gets his history right, but fails to answer the question. Why did the rest listen to Rome? Given that both Orthodox and Protestants reject it's authority."
ReplyDeleteBecause Rome was universally acknowledged as one of the five historic patriarchates, and before the tragedy of 1054 a council could be declared ecumenical throughout Europe (eastern and western) only when all five were represented.
Anon@4:15 p.m.
ReplyDeleteDo you have evidence to prove that Jerome did not consider these books to be canon?
As Protestant church historian J. N. D. Kelly writes,
"It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive [than the Protestant Bible]. . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called apocrypha or deuterocanonical books" (Early Christian Doctrines, 53), which are rejected by Protestants.
Savvy,
ReplyDeleteLeo I was considered by the RCC as "the bishop of Rome", was he not?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_I
The Council of Chalcedon is recognized by the RCC, isn't it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Chalcedon
"The Council is considered by the Roman Catholics, Eastern Catholic Churches, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Old Catholics, and various other Western Christian groups to have been the Fourth Ecumenical Council. As such, it is recognized as infallible in its dogmatic definitions by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches (then one church)..."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03555a.htm
Craig,
ReplyDeleteCertain conditions have to met for something to be ex-cathedra.
It must be an official statement made from the chair of Peter.
It must be a matter concerning faith and morals.
It must be considered binding on the whole church.
Back in 1661, Pope Alexander VII declared:
Piero di Cosimo, Immaculate Conception (1505)
“Concerning the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, ancient indeed is that devotion of the faithful based on the belief that her soul, in the first instant of its creation and in the first instant of the soul's infusion into the body, was, by a special grace and privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son and the Redeemer of the human race, preserved free from all stain of original sin. And in this sense have the faithful ever solemnized and celebrated the Feast of the Conception.”
Such was the situation the doctrine found itself in for countless centuries: it was believed by ordinary Catholics, celebrated throughout the Church as the Feast of the Conception of Mary, periodically nodded at by the papacy, but not formally defined.
On February 2, 1849, the pope sent an Encyclical Letter asking the various bishops of the world: (a) what the local piety and devotion of their faithful was in regard to the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, and (b) what the bishops themselves thought about defining this doctrine and what their wishes were in regard to making known with all possible solemnity our supreme judgment.
Overwhelmingly, the bishops responded by asking the pope to solemnly define and declare the dogma, which, after consultation with theologians and with a special congregation, he did, on December 8, 1854.
Savvy
Craig,
ReplyDeleteYes Chalcedon is held by the church. I am sorry, but I missed your point.
Savvy
Anon@4:22 p.m.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am aware of this. I did spend a lot of time studying this issue. A council is only necessary when the church cannot agree on some important doctrinal issue.
"Do you have evidence to prove that Jerome did not consider these books [known as deuterocanonical or apocrypha] to be canon?"
ReplyDeleteYes; here is a quote from the Wikipedia entry on Jerome:
"Unlike his contemporaries, he emphasizes the difference between the Hebrew Bible "apocrypha" and the Hebraica veritas of the protocanonical books. Evidence of this can be found in his introductions to the Solomonic writings, the Book of Tobit, and the Book of Judith. Most notable, however, is the statement from his introduction to the Books of Samuel"
Savvy,
ReplyDeletePer your definition of ex cathedra @ 4:36, it sure seems that Pope Leo I (Protestants call him the archbishop of Rome) would have been speaking ex cathedra and, hence, infallibly. This is given that 1) He was the Pope at the time; 2) he was speaking "an official statement made from the chair of Peter" (see the Actas/minutes of the Council); and, 3) it was binding on the Church.
If my logic fails me, please show me specifically at which point(s).
Assuming I'm correct here, then I direct you back to my comment at 2:36 above. It looks like we have one Pope usurping an earlier Pope's authority in ex cathedra with respect to the doctrine of "immaculate conception".
Craig,
ReplyDeleteThe Pope has to be formally defining a doctrine for it to be binding on the whole church.
Leo 1 was not formally defining this, just raising a question about it.
If he were formally defining it, he would have produced a document only catered to this topic.
Savvy
Craig
ReplyDeleteOnly some some doctrines are infallible. Other views however lofty or correct they might be are not.
Savvy
Savvy,
ReplyDeleteGiven that Leo's Tome was written in 449 specifically to refute the "Robber Synod" which had overturned Ephesus 431, the 3rd ecumenical Council (although it was never read at the "Robber Synod"), I'd think this document would qualify as "binding on the whole church" as it reiterated Ephesus, Constantinople 381 and Nice and was specifically affirmed by an entire ecumenical Council (Chalcedon). This was hardly "raising a question about it".
Apparently, someone else within your tradition agrees with my view the Leo's Tome is recognized as ex cathedra. See item C here:
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Papacy/Papacy_007.htm
Craig,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link. It's interesting, but does not bring up the issue we are discussing.
What I meant by intending to teach the whole church is that it must be defined.
In making definition, he will use phrases like "we teach and define as revealed dogma" or "We declare, pronounce, and define" or "we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma".
Was this found in Leo's Tome on this issue?
Savvy
Anon@4:48 pm.
ReplyDeleteJerome did have reservations about it initially, but by AD 382, we see a reversal in St. Jerome's sentiments. The reason for this is that in AD 382, Pope Damasus and the Council of Rome canonized these books as inerrant and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
In Saint Jerome's prologue on the book of Judith, he recongizes that the First Council of Nicea (AD 325 - the council defended the Trinity and deity of Christ against Arians) recognized the book of Judith as "canonical".
Furthermore, Jerome in the year A.D. 402 defended the deuteroncanoical additions to the book of Daniel:
What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the Story of Susanna, the Song of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume, proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I was not relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us. (Against Rufinus, 11:33 [AD 402]).
"we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma"
ReplyDeleteHey, I can do that too!
Boy it must be fun being the Pope...
"Jerome did have reservations about it initially, but by AD 382, we see a reversal in St. Jerome's sentiments. The reason for this is that in AD 382, Pope Damasus and the Council of Rome canonized these books as inerrant"
ReplyDeleteToo bad, then, that Damasus and the Council of Rome didn't explain how come the Letter of Jeremiah (often printed as the 6th chapter of Baruch) says (in verse 2) that the Jews would be in Babylon for seven generations, whereas Jeremiah (25:11) stated (correctly) 70 years. Or that Tobit was supposedly Tobit was alive when the Assyrians invaded Israel in 722BC (Tobit 1:3), and also alive more than 200 years earlier when Jeroboam’s revolt against Jerusalem (Tobit 1:4-5) divided Israel into northern and southern kingdoms, yet he is said to have lived less than 130 years (Tobit 14:2).
"On February 2, 1849, the pope sent an Encyclical Letter asking the various bishops of the world: (a) what the local piety and devotion of their faithful was in regard to the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God... Overwhelmingly, the bishops responded by asking the pope to solemnly define and declare the dogma, which, after consultation... he did, on December 8, 1854."
ReplyDeleteIndeed; that encyclical, Ubi Primum, stated that HER foot has crushed the head of Satan, an elementary error in understanding the masculine sense of the Hebrew of the protoevangelium verse. And it included the following passage: "... always has delivered the Christian people from their greatest calamities and from the snares and assaults of all their enemies, ever rescuing them from ruin… The foundation of all Our confidence… is found in *****. For God has committed to **** the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through **** are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation." Read St Paul and guess whose name has been redacted here. Surely Christ's? No - Mary's. Yet if ‘Mary’ were replaced by ‘Jesus’ then this would be the most orthodox Christian doctrine.
When Pius declared the Immaculate Conception he stated that its deniers were “by their own judgment condemned [and] have made shipwreck concerning the faith.” The normal sense of that last phrase would mean that personal salvation was at stake over this issue. Not something that the Catholic church now believes; was it wrong then or now?
Craig,
ReplyDeleteSorry for the confusion. I am not an expert on this issue.
When the Pope, in union with the body of bishops, solemnly teaches that a doctrine as true.
I should have clarified.
Savvy
Anon@6:30 p.m.
ReplyDelete"Not something that the Catholic church now believes; was it wrong then or now?"
The church still holds to this view objectively, but only God can made subjective judgements about a person's heart.
Her foot, does refer back to Genesis 3:15 and the seed of woman.
ReplyDeleteAnon@6:15,
ReplyDeleteYour claims about historical errors in the books have been answered here.
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0120.html
Anon@6:45 p.m.
ReplyDeleteSt. Paul does not call the Mother of Christ by her own name "Mary," but calls her "woman":
This coincides with the words of the Protoevangelium in the book of Genesis (cf. 3:15).
Savvy,
ReplyDeleteI'm certainly no expert on what constitutes ex cathedra; but, I've always found this site helpful in the past:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05677a.htm
I'm assuming this statement above is correct.
Leo's Tome is elsewhere identified at "Epistle XXVIII". After the reading of Leo's letter to Flavian (written in 449 but never read at the 449 "Robber Synod") at Chalcedon, the following was recorded:
"This is the faith of the fathers, this is the faith of the Apostles. So we all believe, thus the orthodox believe. Anathema to him who does not believe. Peter was spoken thus through Leo..." [taken from Schaff, Wace Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Volume 14: The Seven Ecumenical Councils, Second Series, 1994, Hendrickson, Peabody, MA; p 259]
As I mentioned above, the entire Council ratified/affirmed the letter in its entirety. This would necessarily include the aforementioned quote negating Mary's sinlessness.
Me: - "the Letter of Jeremiah (often printed as the 6th chapter of Baruch) says (in verse 2) that the Jews would be in Babylon for seven generations, whereas Jeremiah (25:11) stated (correctly) 70 years. Or that Tobit was supposedly Tobit was alive when the Assyrians invaded Israel in 722BC (Tobit 1:3), and also alive more than 200 years earlier when Jeroboam’s revolt against Jerusalem (Tobit 1:4-5) divided Israel into northern and southern kingdoms, yet he is said to have lived less than 130 years (Tobit 14:2)."
ReplyDeleteYou: - "Your claims about historical errors in the books have been answered here:
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0120.html "
Those particular claims are not addressed in that website. There is a claim that it is OK for the Apocrypha to contain historical or geographical errors, and that it is no different from (eg) quoting as scripture the friends of Job, whom God admonished at the end of that Book for not speaking of Him what was right. It is not OK, and that would be a false analogy. Please outline in your own words why you consider it acceptable for a book that is supposedly scripture to contain those errors.
"Her foot, does refer back to Genesis 3:15 and the seed of woman."
ReplyDeleteSorry, the Hebrew says HIS foot. Genesis 3:15 (the ‘protoevangelium’), where God addresses the snake of Satan in the garden of Eden after the Fall, reads in accurate translation: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his foot.”
In Ubi Primum, Pius made a high school error in the Hebrew and supposed that it was a woman's foot, so that it would be Mary, not Jesus, who stamps on the serpent. Don't take my word for it - please check it for yourself.
When Pius declared the Immaculate Conception he stated that its deniers were “by their own judgment condemned [and] have made shipwreck concerning the faith.” The normal sense of that last phrase would mean that personal salvation was at stake over this issue. Not something that the Catholic church now believes; was it wrong then or now?
ReplyDeleteTo this, someone responded "The church still holds to this view objectively, but only God can made subjective judgements about a person's heart."
Nicely avoided! And when God does this on the day of judgement, does it all rest on whether someone believes in the Immaculate Conception of Mary as well as the atoning self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ? Pius says Yes, Vatican II says No, what do you say?
Criag,
ReplyDeleteThis was not the subject of the Council. The link you gave me says a particular doctrine has to be DEFINED.
Savvy
Anon@7:57 a.m.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand your question.
God is the ultimate judge.
V2 says there is no salvation outside the "existence" of the church, which is still the ordinary means of salvation, because there in only one church.
Anon@7:51 p.m.
ReplyDeleteGenesis 3:15 says "IT".
In other translations it says,
"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel."
They refers to a plural.
The online Hebrew Bible also refers to a plural "thy"
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0103.htm
I guess Mohammed will have to come to the mountain, as this is where you hang out instead of Facebook or other places. I've been getting caught up on your latest writings.
ReplyDeleteHow are you guys doing these days? Sophia is now dealing with diabetes but doing very well with her diet.
Ben
Anon@7:43 p.m.
ReplyDeleteYou are under the mistake impression that the Catholic church reads the Bible like Protestant literalists.
The Bible is not a history or geography book.
Scholars have found two different versions of Jeremiah. There seem to have been discrepancies in translations, but not in the overall message.
Unless you see the Bible as a history book, which I do not. it does not add or take away from our salvation.
Savvy,
ReplyDeleteYes, and Chalcedon set out to define Christology over against Eutychianism (monophysitism) and Nestorianism. One of the main points stressed was the Incarnation as savific and how Eutychianism and Nestorianism were problematic with respect to effecting salvation. Integral to the doctrine of Christology and an effectual Atonement is Jesus' sinlessness. This is the reason for Leo's statement I quoted earlier:
"...What was assumed from the Lord's mother was nature, not fault..."
Of course, Jesus' sinlessness - as opposed to our original sin/guilt - is spelled in the resultant Chalcedonian Creed/definition:
"...consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted..."
So, to summarize, the doctrine defined at Chalcedon was proper Christology (this is spelled out before the reading of Leo's Tome) and Jesus' sinlessness was part of this. Leo was careful to point out that Jesus received His human nature from Mary yet not any of its "fault".
Not one of the council members affirmed the Tome with any reservations. Leo's letter was affirmed in toto and was recognized as Peter speaking through Leo. This would seem to mean, from an RCC perspective, that Leo spoke ex cathedra.
"Not one of the council members affirmed the Tome with any reservations. Leo's letter was affirmed in toto and was recognized as Peter speaking through Leo. This would seem to mean, from an RCC perspective, that Leo spoke ex cathedra."
ReplyDeleteIn those days, RCC wasn't making the claims it does now. the primacy was EXPLICITLY in the canon based on the political status of Rome itself.
Jesus' sinlessness, not having any of our fault or inclinedness to fault, is stated, but not defined as being because of Mary's supposed sinlessness. It was just something that was done by God, regarding Jesus alone.
" Pius says Yes, Vatican II says No,"
ReplyDeleteboth ex cathedra since the pope of V2 approved its statements. So which pope is wrong? Is infallibility something that is an irresistible grace or a resistible grace? If the latter, you can argue the popes who disobey it can be in error, same as any bishop ergo the need for councils, ergo infallibility is pragmatically out the window, what the pope or any bishop says has to be vetted against The Bible, the Ecumenical Councils and the Fathers and the Creed.
No salvation outside the church - fine, but how do you DEFINE church? whoever believes in Christ is ipso facto in some way in the Church, or only those in communion with Rome, or with the EPO or with some schismatic uber traditionalist group in either camp, or a member of a Baptist church.....
So scripture, which we all agree is written by the Holy Spirit through certain people, can be wrong about history and geography? By attempting to rescue the Apocrypha in this way you put yourself in the company of the liberal theologians, who do the same rubbishing of scripture for different reasons.
ReplyDeleteWhoever's heel is bruised in Gen 3:15 is masculine in the Hebrew. Ask anybody who knows the language. I had it personally explained to me by a Jew and by a Christian theologian who were both fluent. Too bad Pius didn't.
ReplyDeleteTestimony from ex-gay Joe Dallas on Kim Olsen's site:
ReplyDeletehttp://kimolsen.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/answering-the-gay-christian-position-by-joe-dallas/
"...Twenty-two years ago I craved justification for my homosexuality. I had decided I was gay, and I felt utterly incapable of changing my sexual desires. Instead of conforming my actions to biblical standards, I chose to adjust biblical standards to accommodate my actions. My subsequent six-year involvement as a staff member of the pro-homosexual Metropolitan Community Church became the fruit of that compromise and remains a source of deep regret to this day...
"...The sound Bible teaching I received as a young Christian haunted me, pursuing me even in the midst of indescribable rebellion. It would not be ignored; truth finally conquered convenience when I realized I’d been kidding myself into believing what I wanted to believe, rather than what I truly believed.
"As we address the issue of obedience and truth with our friends caught in the deception of pro-gay theology (and other self-serving theologies), we prayerfully hope they, too, may find the truer blessing of a yielded life."
apocrypha - I don't think Tobit and one other is necessarily on track, but that says nothing about I and II Macabbees, events in which are mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Jasher and Jubillees didn't make it into the LXX collection, and are probably worked over through the centuries, but are mentioned, the core original material several times in the OT.
ReplyDeleteHow anyone can say The Bible is wrong on history or geography is a mystery to me. The chronologies outside The Bible have always been in ferment.
Many archaeological discoveries were only made because of looking for what The Bible tells about.
The trouble with gay Christian movements such as the Metropolitan Church is not homosexuality but unrepentance. They even have an evangelical wing that tries to justify itself from the Bible. (The rest just say "God is doing a new thing" as if He would act inconsistently with Himself.) If you do not do your homework then you will lose a theological debate with these people. The words for sexual sin in the Greek NT are quite general, and they exploit that. The way to proceed is to point out that it is a capital sin in Mosaic Law and then to explain, when you get the reflex response "We are not under the Law", that the definition of sin did not change at the Crucifixion, only the way of dealing with it.
ReplyDeleteEven then you will be told that it is only in the context of religious worship that homosexual acts are forbidden, ie gay pagan Temple prostitution. Then you should point out that the prohibitions in Mosaic Law come in the middle of a list of prohibited sexual acts that are not features of pagan Temple prostitution.
Beware also of people like the Archbishop of Canterbury who assert that these prohibitions are on heterosexual people seeking variation in their sex lives, not on homosexual people in supposedly faithful relationships. Mosaic Law prohibited specific ACTS, with no mention of the concept of orientation. God knows what he is doing rather better than the Archbishop does.
Craig,
ReplyDeleteI still have to disagree. A passing reference does not qualify as defining dogma or doctrine.
The doctrine defined at the council of Chalcedon was confirming the two natures of Christ.
The immaculate conception still needed time to be studied and worked out.
If you disagree with this view, maybe you could point me to an authoritative source of the Magisterium that holds this was about the Immaculate Conception.
Savvy
Christine,
ReplyDeleteI think you might have to read the early church fathers on the primacy of Peter. They do not see it as a Political thing.
Christine, you do not understand the concept of ex-Cathedra. It must define something clearly.
"No salvation outside the church - fine, but how do you DEFINE church?"
A Church has Apostolic Succession and valid sacraments.
Those Christians not in the visible church, still are part of the mystical body of Christ.
They are just not in FULL COMMUNION with the church.
Anon@5:17 a.m.
ReplyDeleteJewish and Christian theologians, also hold that this is a plural pronoun, so it can stand for male or female or both.
"This would have been a reasonable argument against including Genesis 3:15 in Category 1, were it not for the ubiquity of the two
pronouns, and , in the Hebrew Bible, and the fact they are used interchangeably in both the singular and plural context, i.e., as “he” and
(singular) “you” as well as “they” and [plural] “you”. "
http://thejewishhome.org/counter/Gen315.pdf
Anon@4:55 p.m and Christine,
ReplyDeleteI never claimed they were not inspired. Just that there might be some hasty translations.
The LXX was considered to be inferior to the Hebrew Bible. This view has changed after the discovery of the dead sea scrolls.
The LXX has been found closer to the original Hebrew.
http://www.bibleandscience.com/bible/sources/deadseascrolls.htm
You can argue with scholars on this one.
Anon@4:55 p.m.
ReplyDeleteLiberal theologians reject everything as metaphor. Literalists hold that everything is literal or exact. Balance lies between the two extremes of scripture.
"No salvation outside the church - fine, but how do you DEFINE church?"
ReplyDelete"A Church has Apostolic Succession and valid sacraments."
Says who? A church that has the apostolic succession and regards it as carte blanche.
In communist China under Mao, church denominations were cut off from their hierarchies. But there were a few Bibles. The outcome has been a flourishing underground house church movement. These believers see themselves simply as Christians, living in a church whose rule of faith is the Bible – the New Testament interpreted through the Old (which needs no church tradition). The human culture and the churchly culture of these believers owe nothing to ancient Greece or Rome, and these believers view the terms ‘Catholic’, ‘protestant’ and ‘Orthodox’ as part of European church history. They have grown to about 3% of the population (1.5 billion) of China, on course to be the largest church movement in history. All have come to Christ under persecution; all have given up or are willing to give up everything for Christ. They manifestly have the Holy Spirit; Brother Yun’s books show the gifts of the Spirit at work in the same strength as in Acts. They do not have the apostolic succession of their episkopoi, but each individual member has picked up the faith from somebody who has picked up the faith from somebody who... who was one of the Apostles. God regards that succession as sufficient, for he has granted his Spirit. When you have God’s anointing, who else’s do you need?
"Liberal theologians reject everything as metaphor. Literalists hold that everything is literal or exact. Balance lies between the two extremes of scripture."
ReplyDeleteThat's over-simplistic. Liberals simply do not believe in the authority of scripture. Those who say it is literally true are in fact saying no more than that it is true, as it is a LITERARY account. What they generally mean is that it is material truth. sometimes it is, sometimes it is metaphor, eg the Hand of God, and which is which was very clear to Jews 2000 years ago and generally clear today, but with a few passages that need the ancient Jewish mindset to interpret them.
Those errors in the Apocrypha remain sufficient to exclude those books, valuable history as they are, from the Canon. Have a look at Sirach chapter 30 as well and see if you do not think it is barbaric about how to bring up your children, and inconsistent with the advice on the subject given by Proverbs, the gospels and St Paul.
Anon@3:36 p.m.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Christianity is growing the fastest outside of the West. This includes the churches with Apostolic succession.
Yes, the Holy Spirit can work through anybody.
But, y does not have to cancel x.
The church had councils to define Christian doctrines, since there were groups with multiple views on a given subject.
If multiple people claim God talks to them, and have conflicting views. Whose voice does one listen to?
"The LXX was considered to be inferior to the Hebrew Bible. This view has changed after the discovery of the dead sea scrolls."
ReplyDeleteNot so, the Isaiah scroll found there amply backed up the Masoretic Hebrew text.
The claim that I think you have in mind is that the LXX was translated from the Hebrew before the Jews allegedly distorted the Messianic passages in the Hebrew OT to make it point less to Jesus' Messiah-hood. To that, I would say that if this was their intent then they did a very poor job of it. We still have prophecies in the Hebrew that Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and then there are Isaiah's suffering servant passages. I'll take the Hebrew any day - too much gets lost in translation through an intermediate language.
Anon@3:42 p.m.
ReplyDeleteYou do realize there are two versions in Hebrew of the same texts?
Scholars have found that the LXX is closer to the original Hebrew, and was discarded because it had prophecies about the Messiah.
As for Sirach, you might as well hold that against the Mosaic law that permitted stoning dis-obedient , and the Gospels that do not.
It's called context.
"If multiple people claim God talks to them, and have conflicting views. Whose voice does one listen to?"
ReplyDeleteGod through scripture, and if different people have different interpretations then LET THEM. Don't be frightened of debate within the body of Christ. There were differing rabbinic schools 2000 years ago and nobody says that that was unhealthy. Have practical confidence in the Holy Spirit.
Anon@3:49 p.m.
ReplyDelete"Not so, the Isaiah scroll found there amply backed up the Masoretic Hebrew text."
This is true of Isaiah, but not of Jeremiah or Tobit.
The LXX back up the ones found in the Dead Sea Scrolls on these books.
It also states that the books are ordered differently.
Anon@3:54 p.m.
ReplyDeleteI do have faith in the Holy Spirit, but have seen the chaos caused by Sola Scriptura. The Apostles did not rebel against each other and set up parallel church.
"You do realize there are two versions in Hebrew of the same texts? Scholars have found that the LXX is closer to the original Hebrew, and was discarded because it had prophecies about the Messiah."
ReplyDeleteYou are aware that the LXX is a Greek translation of the original Hebrew, and the debate is about whether that original Hebrew is different from today's 'Masoretic' Hebrew OT? That is a fine judgement to make given that different languages are involved. Please give me one clear prophecy of Christ that is in the LXX and absent from the Masoretic text.
"I do have faith in the Holy Spirit, but have seen the chaos caused by Sola Scriptura. The Apostles did not rebel against each other and set up parallel church."
ReplyDeleteThe chaos is because sola scriptura protestants failed to get back to the apostolic church structure described in the NT, of a congregation in each town run by an internal council of episkopoi (plural), with NO HIERARCHY above that. Protestants inherited the idea of hierarchy from Rome, and whenever there was a falling-out there was schism into rival hierarchies. That would have been impossible with the apostolic structure. We want more sola scriptura, not less.
http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Woudstra_Gen3_15_CTJ.pdf
ReplyDeleteThis settles the Genesis 3:15 issue: the pronoun HU refers back to ZERA ('seed'), which is a masculine word.
"Please give me one clear prophecy of Christ that is in the LXX and absent from the Masoretic text."
ReplyDeleteJohn 6:35-59 - Jesus' Eucharistic discourse is foreshadowed in Sirach 24:21.
Rev. 19:11 - the description of the Lord on a white horse in the heavens follows 2 Macc. 3:25; 11:8.
There's much more in the NT and LXX found here.
http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/deutero3.htm
"Please give me one clear prophecy of Christ that is in the LXX and absent from the Masoretic text."
ReplyDelete"John 6:35-59..."
My apologies, I was not clear; I meant please give me one clear prophecy of Christ that is in the LXX and absent from the Masoretic text of the same book. That is the reason given by Eastern Orthodox (and Roman Catholics?) for preferring LXX, and this is how I am questioning it.
Anon@4:20 p.m.
ReplyDeleteThe same link you gave me says:
"Another thing of importance to note at this point is the fact that the Hebrew, by using the independent personal pronoun hu', thereby kept the verb forms of "to bruise" in the singular.
There would have been the possibility, consistent with other Hebrew usage, of following the singular zerac with a plural verb form.
Such usage is quite common when it comes to collectives such as zerac.
Anon@4:11 p.m.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with you. Sola Scriptura is not found in scripture.
It was Church teaching through Council that codified the interpretation of Scripture regarding Jesus and His relationship with God the Father.
The New Testament often refers to Jesus as 'the Son of God' but the precise meaning of Jesus's Sonship is not explicitly spelled out in the Bible.
In fact, some early Christians interpreted 'Son of God' to infer the adoption of Jesus by God the Father or in some metaphorical way. It took the Church Council at Nicea in 325 to Codify and clarify the relationship of Jesus to God the Father as being 'on in substance' and that Jesus shares the same Divine nature AS God the Father.
To deny that and other Doctrinal statements made by the teaching arm of the Church is tantamount to wearing blinders and refusing to see the truth of the matter.
Anon@4:29 p.m.
ReplyDeleteWisdom of Solomon 2:12-20
Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected".
"Sola Scriptura is not found in scripture."
ReplyDeleteJesus was a sola scripture man in regard to the scriptures of his day - he made it very clear that they were uniquely authoritative in a way that other Jewish religious traditions were not (Luke 11:46, Matthew 15, Mark 7). Jesus is my master and this is good enough precedent for me.
"The New Testament often refers to Jesus as 'the Son of God' but the precise meaning of Jesus's Sonship is not explicitly spelled out in the Bible."
John 1:1? It is very obvious from scripture that he is divine - just look at how he accepts Thomas' worship as "My Lord and God". Any Jew who was faithful and not divine would have instantly said "Don't worship me."
"In fact, some early Christians interpreted 'Son of God' to infer the adoption of Jesus by God the Father or in some metaphorical way."
And today we have the Jehovah's Witnesses, but they are not recognised as Christians, as part of the church, and that is as it should be. We can hardly burn them, can we?
"To deny that and other Doctrinal statements made by the teaching arm of the Church is tantamount to wearing blinders and refusing to see the truth of the matter."
That is merely your opinion. It is not mine, though.
I said: "My apologies, I was not clear; I meant please give me one clear prophecy of Christ that is in the LXX and absent from the Masoretic text of the same book. That is the reason given by Eastern Orthodox (and Roman Catholics?) for preferring LXX, and this is how I am questioning it."
ReplyDeleteYou replied: "Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20."
?
The Wisdom of Solomon is not in the Masoretic OT.
Anon@5:12 p.m.
ReplyDeleteYou asked me for a quote from the LXX about the Messiah.
I'm not trying to wind you up and I apologise if I'm being unclear. What I've been asking for is a quote from a book that is in the HEBREW OT (the same books as the protestant OT), which is significantly less 'messianic' in the post-Jesus Masoretic Hebrew text than in the LXX. I'm requesting that specifically, because the claim is that the Masoretes doctored the Hebrew text to point less at Jesus of Nazareth' Messiah-hood, whereas the LXX was translated from a pre-Jesus Hebrew text.
ReplyDeleteAnon@5:09 p.m.
ReplyDelete"Jesus was a sola scripture man in regard to the scriptures of his day - he made it very clear that they were uniquely authoritative in a way that other Jewish religious traditions were not (Luke 11:46, Matthew 15, Mark 7)"
Jesus was opposing their hypocrisy, not their office.
This basically says nothing about Sola Scriptura.
"And today we have the Jehovah's Witnesses, but they are not recognised as Christians, as part of the church, and that is as it should be. We can hardly burn them, can we?"
Okay wise guy. Could you please show me using valid church documents (21 Councils), that say burning heretics is OK. Not an opinion piece.
I agree that practise is not always the same as doctrine.
You still have not told me where in scripture do you find Scripture ALONE being taught?
The three-fold model of the priesthood is also found in the NT.
Anon@5:30 p.m.
ReplyDelete"I'm requesting that specifically, because the claim is that the Masoretes doctored the Hebrew text to point less at Jesus of Nazareth' Messiah-hood, whereas the LXX was translated from a pre-Jesus Hebrew text."
The claim is simply that the Masoretes rejected the LXX, an older version, because of the prophecies referring to the Messiah as the Son of God, it contained. The claim about the doctoring the Old testament is not being made.
Sorry, If this was not clear.
Anon@5:09 p.m.
ReplyDeleteI am not denying that scripture is authoritative. I am just saying that it's not the ONLY authority and that it needs a guide to interpret it.
This is the issue with the New Age too.
I also do not want to argue endlessly on Sola Scriptura etc. It's a waste of time. We just have to agree to disagree on this one.
ReplyDelete"Okay wise guy. Could you please show me using valid church documents (21 Councils), that say burning heretics is OK."
ReplyDeleteThe Roman Catholic church simply extracted confessions of heresy from people, often by torture, then handed them over to the secular arm to be burned. That way it could hypocritically claim "Ecclesia non novit sanguinem, the church has never known – ie, shed – blood" while knowing damn well what was going on. And it pressed the secular arm to pass laws for the burning of heretics, such as De Heretico Comburendo in England (1400). Furthermore, medieval Rome’s most influential theologian, Thomas Aquinas, argued that heretics – meaning people who dissent from Rome's understanding of the scriptures – should be put to death in his Summa Theologiae (II-II, Q.11, art.3). Will that do?
On a related subject, has anyone heard of a Christian named Donald Marshall? He is making some outrageous claims that he has been cloned by the elite and is being tortured by the elite in a cloning center. Here is a link to his letter/plea for help.
ReplyDeletehttp://lunaticoutpost.com/Topic-Donald-Marshall-BIGGEST-STORY-OF-THE-CENTURY
This is very scary stuff. I am compelled to believe him with all Constance has been finding and with all the chemtrails, assasinations, 911 issues, Bible prophesy, and on and on...
ReplyDeleteThe argument for sola scriptura is twofold. First, precedent: Jesus quoted the scriptures of his day as the uniquely authoritative word of God over all Jewish traditions. His is a good precedent. Second, the tradition in which to read the New Testament is the Old Testament. Jesus was a Jew who lived in a monotheistic culture forged by the Old Testament, a culture whose record those scriptures were. And no church tradition is needed to make sense of the Old Testament, since it is not about the church. The Old Testament builds upon itself from the Creation onward, an event for which there is no context. So neither Old nor New Testament needs an extra-biblical tradition to interpret it.suczen
ReplyDeleteThe enemy of those who love God are not denominational, but spiritual. There are many Protestants who love Jesus and will enter heaven, and many Catholics who love Jesus and will enter heaven. Those who belong to Him hear His voice.
ReplyDeleteOur common enemy is Satan, the devil who rules this world thought the elite. Maybe the story of Donald Marshall is true. Maybe we are being set up to argue endlessly and needlessly against each other as they secretly set up their NWO under our noses.
When they do, will we be ready?
Donald Marshall claims that there is a lot of homosexual activity going on in those cloning centers. And it also involves several children; abductees who are never found because they are being molested by rich and powerful men and women. If this is true then the elite are operating under the minset of what ever feels good and their impulsive appetites. Once morality erodes from the top of our system, fury and evil will rain on the heads of the lower classes.
ReplyDeleteAnon@5:55 p.m.
ReplyDeleteThe history is a lot more complex.
Yes, everybody knows that Queen Mary, got a little of of control, but she was mad because of the banning of Catholic worship in England after Edward V1 rejected the Mass and had suppressed Catholic practices.
You might want to read Eamon Duffy's "Stripping of the Altars"
I am not sure how actions on both sides qualify as doctrine.
To understand Aquinas's views, which were referring to St. Paul in Romans 13:1-7, teaches that the secular authorities do have the right and the authority from God to execute people.
Heresy was seen as a treason under law.
You are trying to understand these laws through the lens of the 21st century.
Aquinas as I mentioned is also not considered etched in stone as the councils on doctrine are.
A tyrannical ruler lacks judgement. (Proverbs 28:16)
ReplyDeleteThe Old Testament already made it clear that cruel ruel is foolish and against God's juegment. To oppose that is to be unspiritual. Todays ruling elite also think they have the right to depopulate the world. If anyone agrees with this, they sould volunteer to be first in line.
It would be wise to understand the times we live in. The Bible says: "Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy." (Rev 22:11)
ReplyDeleteWe are not going to change people with our own words in the last days. We can only alert the wise. The foolish will fall by their own folly.
Anon@6.26pm,
ReplyDeleteAquinas and De Heretic Comburendo are long before the Reformation and then Queen Mary. I know Duffy's Stripping of the Altars, and I did not find his apologia for neglecting the Lollards in the preface to the 2nd edition convincing. (The criticism had been levelled at the 1st edition.) His "Voices of Morebath" is a much better and less polemical book.
"Heresy was seen as a treason under law."
This really is an over-simplification. For obvious reasons, rulers are generally happy to leave alone people who pay taxes and who are not likely to revolt. In England, for instance, no Catholic was executed for his or her faith in the 12 years from the start of Queen Elizabeth’s reign up to Pius V’s bull Regnans in Excelsis of 1570 stating that “We deprive… Elizabeth of her pretended claim to the kingdom…. And we command and forbid her lords, subjects and peoples to obey her…”. From then to her death in 1603, some 170 clerics who remained loyal to Rome were put to death (and rather fewer laypersons, mainly for harboring clerics). Rome’s political pretensions made it needlessly difficult for Catholics in Elizabethan England to be patriots.
PS Romans 13 does indeed support the death penalty in principle (eg for murder, Genesis 9:6), but it is eisegesis to extend that to heresy.
Today's Queen is being accused of the same crimes, except for sport.
ReplyDeletehttp://lunaticoutpost.com/Topic-Donald-Marshall-BIGGEST-STORY-OF-THE-CENTURY
Anon@6:11 p.m.
ReplyDeleteJudaism did not subscribe to Sola Scriptura.
Jesus said,
"The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice’” (Mt 23:2−3).
Scripture opposes the traditions of men, not those handed down down by the Apostles.
Mark 7:9 - this is the same as Matt. 15:3 - there is a distinction between human tradition (that we should reject) and apostolic tradition (that we must accept).
The NT itself quoted Jewish oral tradition not found in the Old Testament.
Matt. 2:23 - the prophecy "He shall be a Nazarene" is oral tradition. It is not found in the Old Testament. This demonstrates that the apostles relied upon oral tradition and taught by oral tradition.
1 Cor. 10:4 - Paul relies on the oral tradition of the rock following Moses. It is not recorded in the Old Testament. See Exodus 17:1-17 and Num. 20:2-13.
Eph 5:14 - Paul relies on oral tradition to quote an early Christian hymn - "awake O sleeper rise from the dead and Christ shall give you light."
Heb. 11:37 - the author of Hebrews relies on the oral tradition of the martyrs being sawed in two. This is not recorded in the Old Testament.
Jude 9 - Jude relies on the oral tradition of the Archangel Michael's dispute with satan over Moses' body. This is not found in the Old Testament.
It's very easy for just to find things in scripture, because those who came before us already found it first.
Anon@6:19 p.m.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
Yes, some of the writers of scripture quote earlier authors who were not in scripture. To say that this wrecks sola scriptura is a non sequitur. It simply promotes those passages of the authors quoted to the status of scripture.
ReplyDeleteAnon@6:40 p.m.
ReplyDelete"Rome’s political pretensions made it needlessly difficult for Catholics in Elizabethan England to be patriots."
If Parliament suppresses your central act of worship it's time for a revolt or civil disobedience.
"PS Romans 13 does indeed support the death penalty in principle (eg for murder, Genesis 9:6), but it is eisegesis to extend that to heresy."
Hersey was generally seen as disturbing the peace as England later saw catholic as herectics.
People taught differently in those days.