Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries

The ex cathedra doctrine was only put in place during the nineteenth-century. Not many Protestants know this, as Faith's backhanded comment shows.The belief that the pope speaks with special authority dates from before that, of course. But that is just an extension a belief Faith herself holds: that the apostles (and their writings) speak with authority. After all, those apostles laid hands on successors they chose. Those successors laid hands on their own chosen successors, and so on through the centuries. Why shouldn't their modern successors be listened to, just as early Christians listened to their own leaders?The Protestant fundy is in a dilemma here. If one regards early church leaders (James, Peter, Paul of Tarsus) as infallible, one must respect their choices in the matter of successors. If one thinks they made mistakes and chose corrupt individuals who would soon betray their confidence, one has to admit the possibility that any texts authored by those early church leaders or made under their supervision are likewise corrupt.The premise behind both ideas--that church leaders hold authority and that scripture holds authority--is the same. That shared premise is that early church leaders knew what they were doing.

No more nonsensical or anachronistic than your fiction that early Christians were really Protestant fundies, running around with pre-canon, pre-Gutenberg Bibles tucked under their arms.It's all myth.These myths exist to give each community a sense of continuity. The first few centuries of Christian history were actually tumultuous. Little was standardised and beliefs showed a lot of variety. Catholicism says the same thing about popes. Popes are imperfect people who say imperfect things. But the (very rare) ex cathedra statements they make are inerrant, by God's Providence. Catholicism says the same, too, as I've just indicated. (And there's no need to shout.)You and your sect have much in common with Catholicism, really. As well you should, given that all of the first Protestants started out as Catholics. (A reality you might do well to reflect upon more often.)Each group shares a belief that a mystical thing called divine inspiration takes place. Both believe that it infuses certain statements with infallible authority. Both believe the statements of the canon to be inspired in this way. The only difference is where you draw boundaries. Catholicism allows the deity to add to that canon even today if the deity chooses. You don't. That's all.--You know what? Christian history is not a good subject for you. Your notions about Catholicism are routinely misinformed, cartoonish, and belligerent, while your ignorance of ancient history and Eastern Christianity is nearly total.Sad as it is to say, maybe biology is your stronger suit.___Edited by Archer Opteryx, : creditEdited by Archer Opteryx, : clarity

Excellent point.Faith believes that a literal reading of the Bible is always the final word. On this basis she insists that the earth is literally only 6,000 years old, that the planet formed in six literal days, and that a literal worldwide flood once took place.Logically, she should also believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation. The belief naturally follows from a literal reading of Jesus' words:

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While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
- Mt 26.26-28

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While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.
- Mk 14.22-24

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Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
- Lk 22.19-20

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For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ [....] Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgement against themselves.
- 1 Cor 11.24-29

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The 'faith versus works' dichotomy is a Protestant fetish. It reflects the issues of the early sixteenth century in which Protestantism was born.Sales reps for indulgences described 'grace' as a bank account: a certain number of merits could offset a certain number of demerits. The idea was shocking to many Catholics and the backlash gave us both the Reformation (for those who left the Catholic church) and the Counter-Reformation (for those who stayed in). The two movements had much in common.The indulgence controversy was, historically speaking, a momentary annoyance. That overreach has long since gone away. But the backlash remains with us. Fundies who get worked up about 'faith and works' are one artifact of it. Certainly the idea that one must believe a certain formulaic statement about 'faith and works' (as a requirement for club membership, or else be damned to non-Christian status) is a product of that era's sectarian hostilities. As people polarised, they drew lines in the sand.But 'faith versus works' as defined in the Protestant formula did not exist as an issue in early Christianity. When Paul went off in his epistles about faith he set it against 'works of the law.' Protestants like to ignore those last three words but they are important. By this he meant Jewish customs that the Jewish members of his community wanted to see the goyim members follow. The early Christians had lots of problems meshing observant Jews with recently pagan goyim in their community. The issue of indulgences was not even on the horizon.For Martin Luther and John Calvin a millennium-and-a-half later, indulgences were a big issue. Meshing observant Jews with recently pagan Christians in their community was not a problem on their radar screen. Those who put a Protestant interpretation on Paul's writings are engaged in an act of gross anachronism.Actually, when you look at what Yeshua says in the Gospels (especially Matthew) and what James says in his letter, you find a sensible relationship of motive to action. They are two sides of one coin. Any good actor or storyteller or psychologist can tell you that action reveals character and motive expresses itself in action. There is no 'versus'. Together the two stand or together the two fall.Yeshua's teachings about 'good deeds' reflect contemporary Jewish teachings about mitzvot. A mitzvah is an act of compassion by which one creates a connection of heaven to earth. This is what the widow at the temple was doing by giving away her last two coins. This is what Yeshua's disciples do when they hug a leper or give a cup of water to those in need. A later rabbi called mitzvot a means of 'blessing the moment'. In blessing those in need, one blesses oneself, and all.___Edited by Archer Opteryx, : clarityEdited by Archer Opteryx, : typo repair

Let's fix that: There. 'Free gift', 'grace alone', 'faith alone' are catchphrases of your tribe. They do not appear in the scriptures you claim to revere.You are not discussing history. This is a creed statement. No, 'works' means what the writers meant to say. One must respect the text.They said 'works of the law'. The problem facing the writers was how to integrate converts from very different cultures into one community. The issue at hand was whether the Gentile believers should adopt Jewish practices mandated by the Torah. We find frequent mention of circumcision in particular.That's history.You show little interest in Christian history. You spout creed. Exactly. Yeshua, his disciples and the early Christians operated within an ancient and mostly Jewish frame of reference. They weren't trying to solve the guilt issues of a fifteenth-century German monk.You seem to be reasoning that if Luther needs an ancient text to mean something, the text is obligated somehow to mean that. Such an approach is unhistorical and anachronistic by definition. And the word Eucharist was derived by early Christians from the Gospels.Shall we judge your tribe's traditions as you have judged others? It will look great in 3D. Antonio Banderas, please, for Saint Ignatius of Loyola.

This is a good time to begin examining the ways myth and history differ.--Mythical time tends to be circular. The narratives are pattern-based. They show structures like this:A B A'A B C B' A'The first, ABA, is the essential outline of the Golden Age myth. Times were golden, times were dark, times are golden again.The second, ABCBA, is one way that form might be developed. Once could tell a story in which times were golden, golden forces fought dark forces, times were dark, golden forces are fighting dark forces again, times are again golden.Circular structures appeal to our species for a variety of reasons.--History is linear. It follows time. It is event-based, not pattern-based. It yields structures like this:A B C D E F G H I J K...Notice that, unlike myth, historical narrative is open-ended. There is no assumption of an inevitable return.--Both forms are simple at bottom, yet the structures are very different.History works like science. One collects facts, plots those facts on a graph (time in this case), and looks for any patterns that emerge. The goal is to understand actual events.Myth works like art. The pattern is already there. To the extent that one takes notice of facts at all, one uses artistic license. One cherry-picks facts that contribute to the desired shape. Anything that skews the shape is left out. The goal is to experience pattern itself.History--fact--shows us that we never put a foot into the same river twice. In myth it happens all the time. Mythical rivers can work this way precisely because they are not factual rivers. They are symbols.Some people, schooled in the myths of their tribe, recite those myths and call it 'history'. But little need exists for such confusion. History and myth are very different in function and form. Great mischief follows when we ask one form of narrative do the work of the other.___Edited by Archer Opteryx, : expansion of detailEdited by Archer Opteryx, : typo cleanup

If you used that term, you did not quote scripture at all. The phrase 'free gift' does not appear in the original text. It was inserted by King James's translators.0 for 3. Faith fails again.And as an aside, Faith: an honest interpreter would have mentioned that detail herself. The insertion is indicated as such in most copies of the KJV, and other English translations in common use lack the phrase. You surely noticed. (ahem)---Faith's latest failure provides yet another example of the difference between myth and history.In Faith's tribe, the myth is that Protestantism--in some mystical magical fashion--existed 15 centuries before the movement actually began. The tribe's adherents like to think their founders were not making a break but restoring a lost Golden Age. The myth gives the cause more of a glow. It also helps disguise the awkward reality that other traditions are much older.So it is that Faith sees the redundant Protestant catchphrase 'free gift' in her 1611 translation and doesn't ask too many questions about how it got there. The original author of the ancient text didn't say that. But the translators' calendar has a tale to tell.- In 1517 Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to a door in Germany to launch the Reformation.- In 1611 King James's Protestant translators inserted 'free gift' into their rendering of ancient Christian documents.Voil._____Edited by Archer Opteryx, : clarityEdited by Archer Opteryx, : clarity

Irrelevant. The observation stands: the catchphrases you declare indispensable in defining 'true Christianity'--'free gift', 'grace alone', 'faith alone'--are phrases the early Christians easily lived without, if their writings in the canon offer any indication. The pet phrases are just not there.You now want to retreat to a spot where we debate whether using any of these non-canon catchphrases might still be 'OK'. It's irrelevant to the topic. We are not debating theology. The subject is history. We are discussing what actually happened.What actually happened is that the early Christians didn't talk like you. The record they left does not contain your favourite shibboleths. They were not Protestants.Your verbal formulas are the product of a later age's controversies, hangups, and battles.

No Christian tradition teaches that people 'earn' their salvation. All Christian traditions teach that a saving act of God is necessary. All Christian traditions view the life and work of Yeshua as an expression of such an act.This affirmation is basic to Christianity. It defines it.Given this reality, it's hardly surprising that we find the affirmation reflected in the thoughts of Christians throughout history--not only Augustine but Boethius, Gregory, Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila, Francis of Assisi, Meister Eckhart, and countless other figures that go missing in Faith's peculiar treatment of 'history'.Faith has been taught that outside her little sectarian camp a vast pseudo-Christian horde exists that says people 'earn' heaven on their own merit. This is an imaginary construction and a straw man. Christian theology throughout its history has rested on the opposite assertion: human beings can't save themselves. They need rescue.--Readers will note the emphasis Faith's sect places on exclusionary terms like 'alone' and'only' and 'completely.' She uses these exclusionary terms every time she talks. She can't help herself.But most Christians throughout history haven't felt the need to talk this way. This includes the Christians who penned the canon.--Historically, Christianity, like Judaism before it, has taken a holistic view. Motive and action represent two sides of the same coin. Other religious traditions recognise the same thing. That's a psychologically sound view of how human beings operate. Storytellers of all sorts, including playwrights and actors, make use of this in creating believable, motivated characters.Faith's sect has trouble leaving things at that. It wants to drive a knife lengthwise through the centre of the motive-action coin and pry the two halves apart. The sect keeps one half of the defaced coin, calling it 'faith', and throws it at the people it imagines to be holding the other half, which it calls 'works'.What players of this game have not noticed is that no one is holding the other half of the coin. It remains on the table where they left it.The Christian traditions on every side hold the whole coin.Motives are made manifest in action. Actions are rooted in motives. It was ever thus. That's how human beings do things.--Other Christians are not interested in playing one sect's little coin-splitting game. Why should they be?The game is of recent origin. It was invented in Europe in the sixteenth century. The game reflects certain emotional hangups that plagued influential personalities in that era. It also reflects controversies of the period. Splitting the coin of faith and action helped to create a wedge. Some people found this wedge useful.Today the Reformation is done. Yet we still see some of Protestantism's derivative sects perpetuating the old rhetoric, driving the old wedges and playing the old games, as if local monarchs still needed to choose up sides in a Thirty Years War.

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‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
- Jeremiah 31.29

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Favourite Protestant catchphrasesFaith Only / Faith Alone
Grace Only / Grace Alone
Scripture Only
Free GiftThese are the terms we tend to encounter here. The catchphrases do not occur in the original texts. You're not likely to find them even in translations. See for yourself.A few post-Reformation versions do slip in one or two. Luther's German NT of 1522 had 'faith alone' in one passage. When pressed, Luther himself admitted that the word 'alone' didn't appear in the original. The concession made him rather testy, as you can imagine. Some translations and paraphrases since then have done as he did.* The early Christians didn't talk in Reformation-era catchphrases. The early Christians didn't talk like Protestants. They were not Protestants.The canon shows early Christians talking about many things. We find them talking about healing and baptism and grace and salvation and faith and forgiveness and good deeds and generosity and rejoicing and resurrection and feasting and Greek customs and mystic visions and marital fidelity and animal sacrifice and atonement and ancient Hebrew narratives and unequal incomes and laying on hands and the end times and slavery and repentance and circumcision and prophecy and haircuts and groceries. And plenty more besides.What we don't find them doing is obsessing in Protestant-fundy fashion over a handful of items on the above list, inserting exclusionary words around those items--'only' and 'alone' and 'completely'--and declaring that the test of a 'true' Christian.The obsessions and exclusionary terms are a Protestant thing. The catchphrases reflect that later era's hangups, battle lines, and shibboleths.'Scriptura' had little to do with it.__________ * Interestingly, two Catholic translations of the Latin text had 'faith alone' in that spot a couple of generations before Luther. Those would be the Geneva Bible (Italian, 1476) and the Nuremberg Bible (German, 1483). So much for Catholic theologians being a bunch of 'work'aholics!

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CatholicScientist described the view this way in Message 32: 'Salvation comes from the grace of God.' When asked if faith itself was enough to get a person out of jail, he replied: 'No, there's no such thing as "enough", you don't earn salvation by having a belief.'

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History supports that affirmation as orthodox--not only for Catholicism, but for all major traditions in Christianity worldwide.________________Edited by Archer Opteryx, : detailEdited by Archer Opteryx, : typoEdited by Archer Opteryx, : detail

No. The fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus is one of the two oldest complete New Testament manuscripts extant. A number of Christian documents, including NT documents, are represented in manuscripts that are older.The codex is hugely important to scholars because it represents a stage in history when the idea of a Christian 'Bible' was just beginning to gel--in part because the idea was only then becoming technologically feasible.The codex contains the complete NT we have today but puts the documents in a different order. It contains about half of the Greek Septuagint version of the Hebrew scriptures (Apocryphal books included). It includes two early Christian documents that are not part of the NT canon ('The Shepherd' by Hermas and an epistle ascribed to Barnabas). And it includes a number of annotations.More information about this fascinating document appears at the Codex Sanaiticus Project.But for individual books many older manuscripts are extant. This is why translators today usually use an eclectic text (rather than one codex, as you say) for the New Testament. Sources vary for each document in the canon. Taking such an approach allows scholars to avail themselves of the most ancient sources in any given instance. Fidelity to the author has nothing to do with familiarity to you. (You have a funny idea of 'sola scriptura.') The KJV translators were just creatures of their time. The year was 1611, they had only late texts to work with, and they didn't even recognise the parallel structure of Hebrew poetry. They worked by candlelight, rode around on horses, and peed into chamber pots.We have no reason to suppose King James's team wasn't doing its best. But scholarship in every area of human endeavour has moved on. The KJV translators had no access the oldest documents on this list. Today's scholars do. Manuscript discoveries that take us closer in time to the original documents do not cast the Bible 'into doubt'. If anything they increase confidence in the text._____Edited by Archer Opteryx, : detail