THE USUAL SUSPECTS in the study of the holy Fathers ...shed light upon the theology of the mystery of the Eucharist through the teachings of such illustrious Fathers of Christian antiquity as St Irenaeus, St Ambrose, St Cyril of Jerusalem, and St John Chrysostom. - INSTITUTIO GENERALIS MISSALIS ROMANI, May 2007 Any discussion of the Eucharist always leads back to the same crew of Church Fathers primarily because as it is sometimes admitted, along with CHRIST-MASS, it does not exist in the New Testament. To bridge the gap between what is obvious practice and teaching in the New Testament, to the completely alien and DEPARTED practices of Modern Rome and its daughter Churches, one has to justify those many extravagant departures through some form of logic to its ciritics. That justification is always found the same way. Through an appeal to what Rome has always done best, re-writing history. Rome always looks to the same handful of Post-New Testament men that Rome alone had chosen from literally a vast empire of possiblitiies, and had both the followers of, and the writings of, all the rest burned and exterminated. The assurances that Rome picked the right people to kill and the right books to burn always end up reverting back to well Rome knows best. So it hardly makes for a truly honest or convincing argument. And casts more suspiscion on these men than credibility to any objective student of history. Especially if you examine these so-called fathers in any ciritical detail. The claim is made in their defense that they are accepted by this group and that group and this council and that council followed with percentages, polls and relgious celebrity endorsements, which are all very impressive citations of a long history of aberant contradictory apostacy but establish nothing in the way of actual history, or Biblical theology, rending their citations only relevent to audiences that wish them to be so. (i.e., wishful thinkers) IGNATIUS AND IRENAEUS FATHER OF THE MASS OF CHRIST-MASS The very first to be cited in this long history of error, is actually its author, and often admittedly so by its own advocates. While the INSTITUTIO GENERALIS MISSALIS ROMANI cites Irenaeus as its first in the list, most Catholic priests will begin by pointing first to Ignatius. And from there, the practice of the Eucharist is traced to (Saint) Irenaeus. Ironically, what most do not realize, is that far from legitamizing the Eucharist by pointing to its origin in these men, it clearly does exactly the opposite. It points to the illegitamacy of these men as historically Apostolic, and that is not the only evidence one has at their disposal to do so. The fathers of Romes own apostacy are precisely that. What they have preserved is nothing less than a clearly defined record of how they fell away and departed from the Apostolic faith one reads about in the New Testament. While the history and testimony of those who remained faithful to the practices and traditions of the New Testament may have been snuffed out, they did not snuff out a clearly defined, and admittedly embraced, record of their own Apostacy, and the men who are historically responsible for all these many errors. This record in a certain sense is as valuable, as having had the ones they by thier own admission, snuffed out of existence. By studying them critically, one can see in their own words, and in their own admissions, precisely what DEPARTURES from Biblical faith, they were indulging, and why they were doing it. So even though one does not have the written record of whatever traditions remained static with the New Testament practices and beliefs, we do have thanks to Rome, the record of those who departed from it, complete with their own explanations of why. (Which in some ways is even better) If a community remained essentially static with New Testament practices, there would not be much to add to it, obviously. The most critical need for documentation would be the departures themselves and why they were embraced. Which we do have thanks to Rome, but obviously not for the reasons Rome intended.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 16:05:19 +0000
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