Whom did Christ call "that fox"?

Herod. John Foxe was indeed not himself a Church persecuting tyrant, but he served such, like Elisabeth Tudor. In the continuation his work served other such, like Cromwell, like William of Orange.

His Book of Martyrs is held forth as a Historical Resource at "studylight".

Historical Writings
Books by 'John Foxe'
http://www.studylight.org/his/index.cgi?did=ad&aid=4

The Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe, is an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history from the first century through the early sixteenth centuries, emphasising the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the reign of Mary I. First published in 1563 by the Protestant John Day, the book was lavishly produced and illustrated with many woodcuts and was the largest publishing project undertaken in Britain up to that time. Commonly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, one fuller title of the work is Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church. Widely owned and read by English Puritans, the book helped mould British popular opinion about the nature of Catholicism for several centuries.

Indeed I think so much that the present edition* is not that of John Foxe himself. It contains the Affaire Calas in chapter 4. And John Calas or Jean Calas was executed by "vile garrote" (strangulation) in 1762.

Foxe's Book of Martyrs
by 'John Foxe'
Chapter 4 — Papal Persecutions, p. 7
http://www.studylight.org/his/index.cgi?did=ad&aid=4&kid=9&bid=1&cid=4

Martyrdom of John Calas

We pass over many other individual maretyrdoms to insert that of John Calas, which took place as recently as 1761, and is an indubitable proof of the bigotry of popery, and shows that neither experience nor improvement can root out the inveterate prejudices of the Roman Catholics, or render them less cruel or inexorable to Protestants.

....

Seeing my own father is a believer in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, and seeing he is very upset even twenty years later at my Catholic conversion, and seeing he seems to encourage Protestants both here in Paris - far away from his own Sweden - and world wide where I get contacts on the internet to regard me as a madman or a drunkard, and seeing this has ruined my life up to this day, I am not quite sure that Jean Calas was innocent of murdering his son, after another one had already converted to Catholicism, by being disgusted at having two sons convert. Protestant prejudice against Catholicism can be cruel and persistent.

Back to the chapter 4 of "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" (edition n^th with very many additions).

Before that, there has been an account of St Bartholomew's Massacre, of Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but the Calas affaire goes on to the end of page 9 / last of a chapter belonging to a book with a first edition in 1563.

I think it is a safe bet that this is NOT from the first edition. Studylight does not give us any details of what edition they are using. It is very clearly one into which additions have been made after John Foxe, by editors who may or may not have been named in the book itself, but who remain unnamed on the site "studylight" where I have also been accessing John Calvin's comments.

The most part of the chapter 4 is concerned with French Catholicism vs Huguenots. St Bartholomew's Massacre begins at the bottom of page 2. I find it a pretty safe bet, the edition we deal with is heavily inspired by Huguenot emigrants who got a refuge in England and perhaps already then in the Thirteen Colonies - or such of them as were already extant by the time when Louis XIV revoked it and the ensuing years.

BUT, before that we are dealing with some heavily erroneous stuff which can very well be by Foxe himself.

Popery having brought various innovations into the Church, and overspread the Christian world with darkness and superstition, some few, who plainly perceived the pernicious tendency of such errors, determined to show the light of the Gospel in its real purity, and to disperse those clouds which artful priests had raised about it, in order to blind the people, and obscure its real brightness.

The principal among these was Berengarius, who, about the year 1000, boldly preached Gospel truths, according to their primitive purity.

Where in Christendom was the Real Presence of the Sacrament NOT believed by the time of Berengarius? The question is relevant due to Matthew 28.

One sect in Armenia, the Tondrakians, had denied it, and in their time the Armenian Schismatics or Heretics, known as Armenian Apostolic Church, still uphled this, since they condemned Tondrakians for denying it. Be it noted that on some few points Tondrakians were right about certain things. A baptism is valid even if performed by a layman without subsequent immediate chrismation. Which that condemnation by the Armenian Church denied. Even they were unheard of before the 7th or perhaps 6th Century, as far as I know.

But apart from Tondrakians, no one was denying the Real Presence in Berangarius' time, nor did he himself continue to do so.

Catholic Encyclopedia* > B > Berengarius of Tours
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02487a.htm

The imprisonment, however, did not last long. The Bishop of Angers, Eusebius Bruno, was his disciple and supporter, and the Count of Anjou, Geoffrey Martel, his protector. The following year, by order of Henry I, a national synod was held in Paris to judge Berengarius and Eusebius Bruno; neither was present, and both were condemned. At the Council of Tours (1055), presided over by the papal legate Hildebrand, Berengarius signed a profession of faith wherein he confessed that after consecration the bread and wine are truly the body and blood of Christ. At another council held in Rome in 1059, Berengarius was present, retracted his opinions, and signed a formula of faith, drawn up by Cardinal Humbert, affirming the real and sensible presence of the true body of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. (Mansi, XIX, 900.) On his return, however, Berengarius attacked this formula. Eusebius Bruno abandoned him, and the Count of Anjou, Geoffrey the Bearded, vigorously opposed him. Berengarius appealed to Pope Alexander II, who, though he intervened in his behalf, asked him to renounce his erroneous opinions. This Berengarius contemptuously refused to do. He then wrote his De Sacrâ Coenâ adversus Lanfrancum Liber Posterior, the first book of which — now lost — had been written against the Council of Rome held in 1059. He was again condemned in the Councils of Poitiers (1075), and of St. Maixeut (1076), and in 1078, by order of Pope Gregory VII, he came to Rome, and in a council held in St. John Lateran signed a profession of faith affirming the conversion of the bread into the body of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary. The following year, in a council held in the same place Berengarius signed a formula affirming the same doctrine in a more explicit way. Gregory VII then recommended him to the bishops of Tours and Angers, forbidding that any penalty should be inflicted on him or that anyone should call him a heretic. Berengarius, on his return, again attacked the formula he had signed, but as a consequence of the Council of Bordeaux (1080) he made a final retraction. He then retired into solitude on the island of St. Cosme, where he died, in union with the Church.

However, this may have been hidden from Foxe, and the allegation he founded a sect of Berangarians rather than having Eusebius Bruno for sole supporter, more or less, may have come from Catholic sources unduly alarmed of heresies spreading:

According to some of their contemporaries, Berengarius held erroneous opinions about the spiritual power, marriage, the baptism of children, and other points of doctrine. (Bernold of Constance, De Berengerii haeresiarchae damnatione multiplici in P.L., CXLIX, 1456; Guitmond, De Corporis et Sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistiâ, P.L., CXLIX, 1429, 1480.) But Berengarius's fundamental doctrine concerns the Holy Eucharist.

I first though Bernold of Constance lived in the fifteenth Century, but no, he was a contemporary, thouugh his works were published centuries later in print:*

Catholic Encyclopedia > B > Bernold of Constance
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02512c.htm

Historian and theologian, b. in Swabia about 1054; d. at Schaffhausen, 16 September, 1100. [...] His name has ever been associated with the reforms of Gregory VII. The seventeen tracts that have reached us are mostly apologies for the pope's policy, or vindications of men who advocated or enforced it in Germany. Chief among these are: "De prohibendâ sacerdotum incontinentiâ", written against the married clergy; "De damnatione schismaticorum", wherein he justified the pope's condemnation of that abuse; "Apologeticus super excommunicationem Gregorii VII", a defence of the pope's excommunication of Henry IV and his partisans. Bernold is the author of a chronicle (Mon. Germ. Hist., Script., V) which is still highly esteemed.

Now, back to Foxe:

Many, from conviction, assented to his doctrine, and were, on that account, called Berengarians. To Berengarius succeeded Peer Bruis, who preached at Toulouse, under the protection of an earl, named Hildephonsus; and the whole tenets of the reformers, with the reasons of their separation from the Church of Rome, were published in a book written by Bruis, under the title of "Antichrist."

Maybe Foxe had read a book "by Peter de Bruis" which he saw entitled as "Antichrist", but I am not sure of the authorship. Besides, Peter de Bruis was living in a century where book publishing was a bit trickier than it became later, since printing with moveable types in the Latin alphabet** was not yet invented. Books were copied by hand.

I suspect that Reformers were challenged about the tenets of Reformed Religion being innovations - or that much I know, I need not suspect it - and then (this being what I suspect) certain works containing theologemes from Luther, Calvin, Beza, Zwingli and others were being forged under names such as "Antichrist by Peer de Bruis" or "The Wicket by Wycliffe". Before the printing press, book printing was so much less of an issue.

Actually, before the printing press, book publishing was so much less of an issue and book printing not an issue at all.***

Book copying en masse was not done by one or two men with machinery, but by several men - often University Students - who were sworn to obedience to the Bishop under whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction the university lay. And these in turn were not in existance before Pope Alexander III on Third Lateran Council enjoined the duty of Bishops to hold Cathedral schools. After the lifetime of Peter of Bruis.

I had been speculating that the method used by universities like Sorbonne in the times of St Albert or St Thomas, St Bonaventura and Bishop Stephen II Tempier (all of whom I respect, including the bishop who is not a canonised saint) could have been invented earlier by monasteries.

Here I find the common opinion very useful for my cause, even if it is true that I am a very great fan of books and access to them and that the society before, Catholic and Christian though it was, may have been cumbersome to my habits of reading. In the time of Peter de Bruis, there was no possibility of making a great impact by publishing a book.

He did make a great impact by making a bonfire of crosses. He made such a great impact on the Catholic population there that they resorted to lynching him by letting him join the crosses on his bonfire. It may be noted, first of all, that to them as well as to Church men, Peter de Bruis was acting like an enemy to the Holy Cross of Our Lord - and I subscribe to the judgement - and then that the Church men did not take any initiative to burn him, since burning heretics was simply not done. Peter de Bruis was the first in the West.

A bit earlier, a Basileus of New Rome (at the Bosphorus, a k a Constantinople, more recently Istanbul) had also burned a heretic. Alexius Comnenus had burned Basilius the Physician. Now, nobody in Foxe's book of Martyrs mentions Basilius the Physician or Alexius Comnenus - any more than Tondrakians. By this token you may guess the Reformers were not using Tondrakians or Basil the Physician as precedents for Reformed theology. And he was not reformed. Of Genesis 1:1 he would not have believed the words "and Earth" - and of the creator of earth in his book, he did not believe he was God, nor that it was in the beginning, nor that he also created Heaven.°

But by the Fourth Lateran Council, under Innocent III, there was such a horror at mainly Albigensians - that is people agreeing with Basil the Physician - that the Church did after all agree to the burning of relapsed and of pertinacious heretics. This was not so at the time of Berengarius. If it had been he would have been burned for renewing his heresies after the first recantation.

Be it noted that though Albigensians were not encouraging violence as personal behaviour, neither did they consider the human life as sacred. If you know the Kali sect, the Thuggees, with whom English colonial powers had some trouble, and their tenet they were doing the victims a favour by sacrificing them to Kali, you may guess a little what attitude to death - if not to violent killing - the Albigensians had. Suicide by starvation was one of their "Sacraments" or "Sacramentals." I was in prison invited to a hunger strike, I refused to participate. The one who took or tried to take the initiative had, since his crime, converted to Evangelical Pentecostal Christian practise. To me, a Catholic, a hunger strike is far too much like the Albigensian Endura.°° But among Albigensians there was this further thing, making it worse than a hunger strike, that a person on hunger strike might count on prison guards forcing food into him. An Albigensian agreeing to Endura might be helped the other way round, by his Albigensian surroundings: he was prevented from taking food or water. They also procured abortions.

It is thus not any outbreak of personal instability within an otehrwise totally non-violent sect, but rather a thing not usually encouraged but not impossible to expect either, when Albigensians murdered a Papal legate, an act which propelled the "Albigensian crusade" (or Crusade against the Albigensians).

Here is how Foxe treats the event (yes, this passage is very probably from the original edition or one during his own lifetime - with an addition in later ones):

The Albigenses were a people of the reformed religion, who inhabited the country of Albi. They were condemned on the score of religion in the Council of Lateran, by order of Pope Alexander III. Nevertheless, they increased so prodigiously, that many cities were inhabited by persons only of their persuasion, and several eminent noblemen embraced their doctrines. Among the latter were Raymond, earl of Toulouse, Raymond, earl of Foix, the earl of Beziers, etc.

A friar, named Peter, having been murdered in the dominions of the earl of Toulouse, the pope made the murder a pretense to persecute that nobleman and his subjects. To effect this, he sent persons throughout all Europe, in order to raise forces to act coercively against the Albigenses, and promised paradise to all that would come to this war, which he termed a Holy War, and bear arms for forty days. The same indulgences were likewise held out to all who entered themselves for the purpose as to such as engaged in crusades to the Holy Land. The brave earl defended Toulouse and other places with the most heroic bravery and various success against the pope's legates and Simon, earl of Montfort, a bigoted Catholic nobleman. Unable to subdue the earl of Toulouse openly, the king of France, and the queen mother, and three archbishops raised another formidable army, and had the art to persuade the earl of Toulouse to come to a conference, when he was treacherously seized upon, made a prisoner, forced to appear barefooted and bareheaded before his enemies, and compelled to subscribe an abject recantation. This was followed by a severe persecution against the Albigenses; and express orders that the laity should not be permitted to read the sacred Scriptures. In the year 1620 also, the persecution against the Albigenses was very severe. In 1648 a heavy persecution raged throughout Lithuania and Poland. The cruelty of the Cossacks was so excessive that the Tartars themselves were ashamed of their barbarities. Among others who suffered was the Rev. Adrian Chalinski, who was roasted alive by a slow fire, and whose sufferings and mode of death may depict the horrors which the professors of Christianity have endured from the enemies of the Redeemer.

The Albigensians were very much not of the Reformed Religion, since they were very much not believing Genesis 1:1.

They were not condemned on the score of religious discord alone, but because of their horrendous acts.

Simon of Montfort was not a bigot for heading the Crusade, nor was St Leopold Duke of Austria a bigot for joining it. Which he did.

And the sects in Poland and Lithuania may have or not have included people calling themselves Albigensians, but were very much not the original evil thing which the Medieval Inquisition along with Crusaders like Simon of Montfort and St Leopold of Austria stamped out. Be it noted, usually not by killing, but by conversion.

Here is one corrective to the false impression given in this site of "studylight":

The Night's Dark Shade
by Elena Maria Vidal(Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Nights-Shade-Elena-Maria-Vidal/dp/0557159245

Here is another one:

The Name of the Rose: including the Author's Postscript– September 28, 1994
by Umberto Eco(Author), William Weaver(Translator)
http://www.amazon.com/Name-Rose-including-Authors-Postscript/dp/0156001314/

It may be added that 1994 was not the first edition, I read an earlier one in 1984. It dramatically changed my view of the Inquisition, which up to then I had regarded as a diabolical and at least unbiblical aberration. I had not known what Albigensians were till I read it. My mother had in a Bible school been taught the lie (from Foxe) that they were Bible believing Christians.

Since I was even previous to this pro-Catholic (with reservations precisely on Inquisition), and anti-Reformation (since I knew the Reformation was very bloody and Church Persecuting business), this discovery made me decide to become Catholic.

A little later I came across a sweet passage in a novel by Chesterton, the first I ever read by him, in German translation:

THE RETURN OF DON QUIXOTE
BY
G. K. CHESTERTON
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/Don_Quixote.txt

Looking for the quote I come across this one:

"That has been defended economically," said Braintree, with restraint. "One authority has pointed out that the best trades are paid equally already."

"Karl Marx, I suppose," said the expert, testily.

"No, John Ruskin," replied the other. "One of your Victorian giants." Then he added, "But the text and title of the book were not by John Ruskin, but by Jesus Christ; who had not, alas, the privilege of being a Victorian."

Here, rather, the one I was looking for:

"You think he was affected by the Albigensian doctrines?" inquired the librarian, earnestly and almost eagerly. "It is true, of course, that the seat of the heresy was in the south and a great many of the troubadours seemed to have been in that or similar philosophical movements."

"His movements are philosophical all right," said Archer. "I like my movements to be a little less philosophical when I'm making love to a girl on the stage. It's almost as if she really meant him to be shilly-shallying instead of popping the question."

"The question of avoiding marriage seems to have been essential in the heresy," said Herne. "I notice that in the records of men returning to orthodoxy after the Crusade of Montford and Dominic, there is the repeated entry iit in matrimonium. It would certainly be interesting to play the part as that of some such semi-oriental pessimist and idealist; a man who feels the flesh to be dishonour to the spirit, even in its most lovable and lawful form. Nothing of that comes out very clearly in the lines Miss Ashley has given me to say; but perhaps your part makes the point a little clearer."

"I think he's a long time coming to the point," replied Archer. "Gives a romantic actor no scope at all."

"I'm afraid I don't know anything about any sort of acting," said the librarian, sadly. "It's lucky you've only given me a few lines in the play."

He paused a moment, and Julian Archer looked at him with an almost absent-minded pity, as he murmured that it would be all right on the night. For Archer, with all his highly practical savoir faire, was not the man to feel the most subtle changes in the social climate; and he still regarded the librarian more or less as a sort of odd footman or stable-boy brought in by sheer necessity, merely to say, "My lord, the carriage waits." Preoccupied always by his own practical energies, he took no notice of the man's maunderings about his own hobby of old books, and was only faintly conscious that the man was maundering still.

"But I can't help thinking," the librarian was continuing, in his low meditative voice, "that it might give rather an interesting scope for a romantic actor to act exactly that sort of high and yet hollow romance. There is a kind of dance that expresses contempt for the body. You can see it running like a pattern through any number of Asiatic traceries and arabesques. That dance was the dance of the Albigensian troubadours; and it was a dance of death. For that spirit can scorn the body in either of two ways; mutilating it like a fakir or pampering it like a sultan; but never doing it honour. Surely it will be rather interesting for you to interpret bitter hedonism, the high and wild cries, the horns and hootings of the old heathen revel, along with the underlying pessimism."

"I feel the underlying pessimism all right," answered Archer, "when Trelawney won't come to rehearsals and Olive Ashley will only fidget about with her potty little paints."

He lowered his voice a little hastily with the last words, for he realised for the first time that the lady in question was sitting at the other end of the library, with her back to him, bent over books and fidgeting away as described. She had not apparently heard him; in any case she did not turn round, and Julian Archer continued in the same tone of cheerful grumbling.

"I don't suppose you have much experience of what really grips an audience," he said. "Of course, nobody supposes it won't go off all right in one sense. Nobody's likely to give us the bird--"

"Give us what bird?" asked Mr. Herne, with mild interest.

I may add, since Chesterton's day, the idea that Troubadours were inspired by Albigensian ideology has been discredited.

But what stands its ground through the times of Umberto Eco and - much later - Elena Maria Vidal is that Foxe is very discredited in believing Albigensians were Reformed or otherwise in any way Bible Believing Christians.°°°

If someone will ask me if I take the word of three mere novelists over that of Foxe, who was a Church historian, and very respected such among Protestants, I answer definitely yes. He was not a Church Historian from the Tradition of the Church, and the learning he gathered about his matter has since then been very much bypassed. I prefer three novelists who have done their research# to a hack historian who has not done such. I prefer talent neglected to incompetence (that is the best word I can use for Foxe) vaunted and lifted up to the skies.

I respect Kent Hovind when it comes to research he has done about dragons and thunderbirds and other critters that could very well be post-Flood dinosaurs. But when he gets to subjects like Church History, it is a pity he trusts Foxe, and it is a pity he is a friend of the infamous Jack Chick who does so too and on top of that trust men like Avro Manhattan and Hochhuth. It is a pity also that Romanides studied at Harvard, where he got a very lopsided view of Catholic history. But I do respect him for saying Aeneas spoke Greek when he came to Italy. If it is Mycenean Greek and not Koiné he meant. Though in my opinion it could also very well be Hittite, Aramaic, Phenician, perhaps even Etruscan or Sumerian.

I can believe the historical myths or rather legends from mythology. But I cannot believe the mythology of Foxe.## Soyons anti ces mythes. Let's be against such myths, even if that be seen as an Antisemite stand. For part of Jewry also eagerly looks to Avro Manhattan. And perhaps also that Foxe.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Easter Day
20-IV-2014

* Speaking of editions, the one I use of Catholic Encyclopedia is the following:

The Catholic Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/

** Whenever Chinese or Koreans invented their printing, that is of no concern to Peter of Bruis.

*** Thanks to Kent Hovind for lesson in efficient use of misstatements!

° With the Protestants, we Catholics start disagreeing from chapters 3 and 4 of Genesis onward. What was the fall? Did Cain have free will or was he predestined to kill Abel? But with Basil the Physician, the disagreement starts in Genesis 1:1, and therefore we see even Protestants as far more Christian in doctrine than him or other Manichaeans.

°° I have seen the provençal word enduro - Mistralian spelling of same word - used of a motor bike race. I am not into motor bike races either, out of personal taste, but at least they are not sins of suicide. If you tend to think of IRA members as hunger striking, well, IRA of the 1970's was not exactly a fully Catholic organisation, although it was an organisation recruiting among usually not so practising persons of the Catholic confession, since the two religions are there also two ethnicities fighting about the same land (or previously so, up to the famous Good Friday agreement some time ago). Even so, their cause struck me as more just than the Ulster Scots cause, even previously to reading Umberto Eco.

°°° Wonder if BBC had been used as abbreviation for Bible Believing Christians before it became acronym for British BroadCasting (network). Or was it British Broadcasting Company? Either way, Albigensians were not BBC in the other sense - nor in the current one.

# Among these, Umberto Eco is not even a Catholic believer, as far as I know. Meaning that unlike Chesterton and Vidal, he has no bias in favour of the Inquisitors. The Protestants who respect Foxe do not include High Church men like Newman, before his conversion and I think C. S. Lewis knew very much more about the Middle Ages than was usual for his background in Belfast, and so he knew Foxe had at least not spoken the truth about Albigensians.

## Shall I even bother to mention that in chapter 5 he makes St Dominic more or less an Inquisitor and nothing else. A man of prayer, one who spent nights in waking prayer liek St Patrick and Our Lord Jesus Christ, not mentioned. A preacher, not mentioned, or barely. Just that he was connected to the Inquisition insofar as Dominicans and Franciscans became the most usually employed ones. And no, St Joan of Arc was not tried by these.

How is Chick erroneous about where we got the Bible from?

1) Creation vs Evolution : Heard of Libby Anne? , 2) Did Libby Anne misunderstand at least Something about Young Earth Creationism? Or: Why don't they teach logic in these schools?! 3) Further Faulty Logic in Craig A. James's "refutation of a dialogue" 4) Stupid Word Game, Craig A. James? 5) Whose assumptions are best or least well proven? 6) Somewhere else : Is the Genesis "the Basis of the Whole Bible" or are there others? 7) Great Bishop of Geneva! : How is Chick erroneous about where we got the Bible from? 8) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... to Hitchens on Revelation, Decalogue and Evidence for Moses. 9) Correspondence de / of / van Hans-Georg Lundahl : Notifying Craig A. James of a refutation of his refutation ...

Some people may know that I consider Kent Hovind pretty bright when it comes to the question between Bible and modern So Called Scholarship. You know the "deep time" thing and the "evolution thing" and "men and dinosaurs never lived together thing" and a few more like that.

But one thing he is not bright on is exact points of moral theology. Like what you need to avoid to get saved ("drinking any alcohol" is not on the correct list) or what you need to do to get saved (baptism and confession and doing the penance set out in confession are clearly on the list of how one gets one's soul washed in the blood of the lamb - and he would include baptism only as a sign to show one's heart is already washed, which is wrong and not confession, not penance).

Now, since that is so, one might take a real wild guess and ask whether we share the same outlook on Church History. We. Do. Not.

Fortunately for him, he is not the chief culprit in his connexion of this issue. Chick is the guy he follows on such things. Here are some of the calumnies and errors.

And since I just admitted that accepting the Gospel depends on credibility for witness of the Church, it so happens I think Chick is a culprit also for those who reject the Gospel - by not giving it a credible pedigree between God some two thousand years ago and us. He can write a thing like this - he gives a history of the Bible, where he is wrong on part 2 "intertestamental period" in saying no Scripture was written and that there was no Church (the "Jewish Church" existed from Moses to Kaiaphas and Jesus showed his unity with Moses by being part of it, and Maccabees were written), but here we get to some anti-catholic stuff, first a straw man:

God the Holy Spirit inspired them, perfectly and accurately, to write the words of God for the church. The church did not "inspire" anything.

It is perfectly true, but the Catholic Church never claimed the Church inspired the Bible. It claims the Catholic Church recognised which version of OT was inspired and which books were inspired under New Testament. Precisely as the Jewish Church soon after it was founded by the Covenant at Sinai had recognised as Holy the books it had watched Moses write.

Not familiar with the word "Jewish Church"? You have not read Haydock, then. It had authority to make new feasts not found in Torah, as we see from Purim and Hanukkah. Exactly so its Perfect Successor before God, the Catholic Church has the right to decide on feasts. And on fasts. But if ever you studied Hebrew, you may have heard the phrase Qahal Israel. Now, Qahal and Ekklesia mean exactly the same thing. They mean the formal assembly of a nation or a city state.

The problem with what Chick says is not that the Church inspired the Gospels or the Epistles or Apocalypse.

The problem is that he seems to think the phrase "we get the Bible from the Catholic Church" somehow mean that.

Pope Leo XIII very clearly stated way before Chick was born that God is author of the entire Bible and of each book and each part of a book. The one thing He is not original author of is of course quotes from what bad characters in the Bible said. "There is no God" - well, that is not God saying it, He is stating that the fool is saying it in his heart. But apart from examples like that God is saying everything that the Canonic Bible of the Catholic Church is saying. God, not just the Church.

However, under God there are human authors, and just as Moses belonged to the Jewish Church before its apostasy by Kaiaphas, so St Paul after his conversion from that apostate Jewish Church belonged to the Christian Church. And just as the Jewish Church had known Moses was part of it, the Christian Church knew St Paul was part of it. Just as the Jewish Church could assess how credible it was that "God spoke to Moses and said" in the light of the Exodus, so the Christian Church could asses the claims of St Paul when he states a thing like "I say this not from Christ but from me" and in another context "I state this not from me but from Christ" - in the light of St Paul working miracles.

When the apostles wrote their letters, the congregations received them. They read them. They spread them. They copied them for other brethren in Christ Jesus. And they recognized their authority in the Christian's life. So the Scriptures were produced by men of God, not by "the church." But they were produced FOR the church.

The men of God were also men of the Church. It was the Church that recognised them as men of God. They were not private people with no connexions previous to writing inspired books, they were not a Camel driver who suddenly got a vision of one claiming to be Gabriel, nor a shepherd who got insulted and then instructed by nine muses, whom he had observed singing hypns to among others "Kronos of the crooked mind" ... they were men already involved in the Church and therefore already accepted as men of God by the Church when they wrote. Moses was already accepted by what became the Jewish Church for the Passover by the time they arrived at Sinai. St Matthew was already accepted as a Disciple of Christ, one of the Twelve before his Gospel.

But though the original manuscript of each book was rather for the Church than by the Church, its preservation and the fact of copying and spreading it were acts precisely of the Church. Just as the copying of Torah scrolls had been under the Jewish Church.

And the Church accepting it is not very well formulated in his words about "the congregations" ... first Church does not mean any and every kind of congregation, but Ekklesia means the same as Qahal. And second it had a central authority. In Rome. Even when a council assembled elsewhere about a thing (such as that of Carthage about - among other things I presume - Scripture Canon) it was confirmed by Rome.

The last book of the Bible was Revelation, written about 96 AD, just before the apostle John died around 100 AD. After the apostles died, the churches continued to collect the letters they did not have, to read them and understand the authority under God by which they wrote.

Actually the lives we have state that St John wrote the Gospel after returning from exile on Patmos. Meaning after the Apocalypse. The rest of the statement is correct as far as it goes, but bypasses the fact of central authority.

But no one else shared that place. There is an "epistle of Barnabas" (which bears no proof it was written by Barnabas), which many think was penned in the first century. But the difference between its message of salvation and of the apostolic writings is too easy to see. If you believe the Scriptures, you cannot believe the so-called "epistle of Barnabas."

I have not read Epistle of Barnabas, and I do not recollect if it was condemned as spurious or just left alone. I do know that the Epistle to the Hebrews has by some been consiodered as written by St Barnabas rather than by St Paul. I also know that two Gospels are not written by any of the Twelve : Sts Mark and Luke were thus not Apostles in that restricted sense.

There are the writings of Polycarp, disciple of John (when John was very aged). There are writings of Clement and others. But those are all writings of Christians. Just Christians. Some were even martyrs, but their writings depended on the Scriptures--they were not Scripture themselves.

That much we agree on. Thanks to decision of the Church. One early list of NT books includes Pastor Hermas. I think it is the same one which also includes Epistle of Barnabas, but I might be wrong. Their writings are not Scripture themselves.

Their writings depend on the Scriptures? Actually on Scripture and Tradition.

Anyone who would base their faith on them would have a horrid foundation, just as if there were "Lutherans" today, learning of God's word only what they find in Martin Luther's writings. Interesting writing, at times "inspirational" writing, fine. Inspired? Not a chance.

Anyone basing his faith on their writings would have a better basis than if basing it on Martin Luther's. He was a heretic condemned by the Catholic Church. They were men of the Church and men of God, recognised as such by the Church.

And one needs the Truth of the Bible much more than the text of the Bible. Some parts are explained in appearance clearer in these writings.

Διδαχη explains we fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. In the Gospel it says "when the Bridegroom is present his friends are happy and do not fast" (no fasting on Sundays - except individual medical reasons) "but when the Bridegroom is taken away, then will they fast" (Christ was taken away on the Wednesday when Judas received thirty pieces of silver and on the Friday when he hung on the Cross). Without the explanation of the Διδαχη (from the very earliest Christians) some cut off from Tradition might have taken that word from the Gospel as meaning one can fast no more as Christians after Pentecost happened. Indeed one can and should. Christ recommends prayer and precisely fasting. But not on the days when Christ comes to us (Thursdays and especially Sundays) but on those days when in Holy Week he was taken from us. Wednesdays and especially Fridays. As stated in the Διδαχη.

The Roman Catholic church has had only one aim from its earliest, pagan and political origins: To destroy the true Christians, and to destroy their Bible.

When exactly was that? I know of no moment in history which would fit such a description!

If you mean Bergoglio, he seems to be Jewish one day and is accepted as Catholic the other day. As I said, the Jewish Church apostasised through Kaiaphas. And before Vatican II you do not get very great success for Jewish infiltrators (excepting possibly just Pius XII).

That is why they substituted the corrupt Alexandrian perversions of scripture, instead of using the preserved, prophetic and apostolic Words of God as found in Antioch of Syria, where "the disciples were first called Christians" (Acts 11:26).

OK, which of the Apostolic Churches has totally renounced the Alexandrian version (which Genealogy of St Luke agrees with, see "second Cainaan")? Was the OT that Chick describes as preserved found in connexion of a NT? But above all, since we have the Bible in the sense I already explained (and not in the strawman sense Chick needlessly refuted) from the Church, which Apostolic Church preserved exactly that text?

That is why they also added the Alexandrian writings we now call "Apocrypha" to their perverted bibles.

I suppose this means the books excluded from the 66 books version. Included in Septuagint.

That Roman Catholics recognise seven (if you count Baruch a k a "Baruch 1" as a separate book rather than appendix to Jeremiah) plus two chapters in Daniel and some other detail.

The Nestorian or Syrian Old Testament includes several of these or all and Baruch 2. And more psalms than 150. Its NT excludes books which Chick agreeing with RCC accepts as canonic.

The Copts in Ethiopia also have more Psalms than 150, and they have Book of Henoch. Let us quote good old wiki: "The Ethiopian "narrow" canon includes 81 books altogether: The 27 book New Testament; those Old Testament books found in the Septuagint and accepted by the Orthodox; as well as Enoch, Jubilees, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Rest of the Words of Baruch and 3 books of Meqabyan (these three Ethiopian books of Maccabees are entirely different in content from the four Books of Maccabees known elsewhere)."

The diverse Eastern Orthodox Churches also have more books than RCC, not 66. Roumanians have Third and Fourth Maccabees (the last of these is held as written by Flavius Josephus). Russians have Three Books of Ezra instead of the two we often call Ezra and Nehemia. They add a first book that is a prequel to them.

No Apostolic Church has accepted just the 66 books. That is a purely Protestant invention, absent from 1500 years of Christian Tradition. And none of the books that Chick would describe as "added" contradict Genesis either.

That is why they used their Jesuits to infiltrate the Protestant Seminaries, Colleges and Bible Schools.

Well, the first goal of Jesuits - when getting to England rather than Ethiopia or Angola or Brazil as missionaries - was rather to celebrate Mass for faithful Catholics. Some were martyred at Tyburn for it. But if they sometimes tried to reach out to people honestly deluded by Protestantism and pious enough to try to become servants of God, and if they did not directly lie on any point, I am not inclined to grieve for any supposed dishonesty therein.

But look what a giant leap from "earliest Pagan political origins" to the RCC as contemporary with Protestants.

He even skips the clear fact that RCC preceded Protestants. That Protestants actually had been in but not of the Catholic Church.

Their Jesuits became the "teachers" and planted seeds of doubt in the Christians' minds. These doubt-ridden Christians then taught at other colleges and schools. All the while they planted that same seed of doubt of God's word in their students.

Cardinal Newman - I was reading his lecture series about the Idea of an University yesterday - actually said it was Protestant "free exmination" of Scripture which led to doubt. From the first.

Socinians were less Christian the Watchtower Society, as far as Bible doctrine is concerned. Luther wanted to do away with Epistle fo St James. Calvin thought of Jonah as a "religious novel". Anabaptists threw moral doubts about Romans Chapter 13. Modernism came from Protestants to Catholics, not from Jesuits to Protestants. Atheism was proposed by Lord Shaftesbury - in a Protestant nation. Accepting miracles and portents in history (and ultimately therefore also Gospels) was attacked by a Protestant called Bayle. He was followed by one Hume - who was inheritor of the most ruthless Protestant Reformation and the most ruthless hunt of Jesuits of them all - he was a Scotsman.

Darwin was an Anglican. His model in Geology, Lyell, was catering to Protestant modernism at a time when Catholics would only have shook their heads at such things. His model in zoology and "natural theology", Pailey, was an Anglican clergyman, not a Catholic one. The inventor of deep time was also a Scottish Protestant. James Hutton.*

If you want continental Englightenment in the Culprit list, ok, but Kant was a Protestant and Spinoza was a Jew. Rousseau, though converting to Catholicism was not totally true to it (and Confession of a Savoyard Country Priest can be taken as an act of apostasy and was on index of forbidden books). His background also was Protestant. Those with Catholic background still engaging in sowing doubts - like Voltaire - lauded Protestantism as much as a man with Austrian background nevertheless lauded Prussia. I like to remember him as a decent painter. Or as model for a Dictator in a funny film by Charlie Chaplin. But those loyal to Catholicism in Austria were not typical Nazis and those loyal to Catholicism in XVIII^th C. were not sowing any seeds of doubt.

Didn't Christianity consist of the Catholic Church for the first 1500 years?

No. While the Catholic Church was seeking to control the world through religion, true Christians were running for their lives from the Catholic holocaust that ran for centuries.

God has always had His people, faithful to Him and His Word. They had no part in the Roman Catholic Church. Through much of history, organized religion has hunted and slaughtered God's people. For an excellent overview of this, read the classic work, "The Trail of Blood."

Let us suck the marrow of each bone ...

While the Catholic Church was seeking to control the world through religion, ...

Again, since when? I find really and truly no date fitting that description!

... true Christians ...

Who were they? Albigensians who believed Satan had created the world? Bogumils?

Or Donatists who on the one hand differred from Protestants by Seven Sacraments and on the other hand said that someone really fallen after baptism cannot be saved or restored?

The only true Christians I can fit into tenth Century are clearly Catholics. Unless you would like to add Ethiopians and Nestorians. Even Eastern Orthodox were not separate from us back then?

... were running for their lives from the Catholic holocaust that ran for centuries.

Problem 1: Inquisition starts targetting Albigensians, who cannot by any stretch of imagination or charity be called Christians. They were, like a sect that St Augustine left for the Catholic Church, Manicheans.

Problem 2: Inquisition starts well after any kind of societal change that Protestants like these would describe as a fake Church taking the place of the real one.

When Priscillianists are condemned and persecuted, the ecclesiastic condemnation is not equal to asking the Emperor for persecution. He does so because of certain disorders other than merely being heretics condemned by the Church. Same as with revolutionary killing machines among the Donatists.

Problem 3: this means that we would have a real gap between early true Christians and later Protestants.

A gap which contradicts the words of the Lord in Matthew 28 as much as it throws a stupid doubt about the divinity of the Christian Bible.

Unless of course he would settle for pretty late just-before-Inquisition and otherwise clearly Roman Catholics as the very latest early true Christians. But if early Christianity is found in pre-Inquisition Catholicism, how come anyone could settle for Protestantism?

Problem 4: earliest burning of a Heretic for Heresy (as totally distinct from witchcraft or sedition, meaning Priscillianists and Donatists) was not done by the Catholic Church or at demand of the Catholic Church.

One Basil the Physician thought was apprehended and condemned as secret leader of a Bogumil sect. So the Basileus, the Roman Emperor, Alexius I Comnenus tried to convert him, failed and the burned him at a stake. Of the two, certainly Alexius did believe in Genesis and Basil did not. It may be noted Alexius was in schism with Rome in a sense - though the schism was favourably overlooked when he asked Urban II for the help known as First Crusade (which in the end he did not accept as such).

Two heretics had been executed in the West the Century just before - but those were popular lynchings, not official executions. In one of the cases it was a reaction to him burning crosses - which was considered as a pretty clearly diabolic act. And they had as pretty clearly not been providing good copies of the Bible.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre - Paris X
University Library
Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary
11-X-2013

*I could have added that Buffon was a Freemason, and the first lodge was from London and its earliest members Protestants. Cuvier was from a Lutheran family. "Natif d'une famille luthérienne de Montbéliard, territoire alors rattaché au duché de Wurtemberg où l’école est obligatoire, c’est la lecture de Buffon au cours de ses études brillantes qui orientera la vie de Georges Cuvier[2]." Lutheran and from a region with compulsory schools ... not a Catholic, thus.

A Suspicious Testimony

Clear Gospel, Directory, Rev. Ronald R Shea, Esq.
Testimony called: No Infused Grace
http://cleargospel.org/directory/profile.php?id=112

Quotes with my answers and follow up questions:

"As with so many other sects within Christendom, I was taught that my salvation was not contingent upon the work of the Savior, but dependent upon my obedience to the ten Commandments. Actually, the work of the Savior was unknown to me. Every 'good Friday' we would make the 'stations of the cross' reflecting on the torture and death of Jesus. But what was the significance of it? Basically, my theology was, 'look what those mean people are doing to Jesus. This is just TERRRIBLE!.' "

OK, two questions:

1) were you ever taught that Christ's work for your salvation was handed to your personally profiting from it in Holy Mass?

2) were you ever taught to adress Christ on the Cross with the words "tantus labor non sit cassus" = may such a great work not be invalid/unprofitable (for myself) - or were you not?

"But the removal of venial sins was much more complex. Confession absolved you of your sins, but you still faced Purgatory. So I never quite understood what advantageous confession held for venial sins. The only real advantage I could see was that, if some sin were “right on the line” between mortal and venial, it was probably best to confess it and get it erased."

Confessing a venial sin that you do not regret is dangerous, and if you only confess that one without real regret, your confession is worse than worthless, it is a sacrilege. Therefore, when confessing a venial sin you may also search for a sin in the past that you CERTAINLY regret, and your confession will not be a sacrilege. A venial sin can be erased by confession, by communion, by prayer, by anything done out of love for God, since its essence is laxness about the love of God.

A mortal sin is what the Bible calls "crucifying Jesus all over again".

The thing with venial sins is that though they must be erased before one enters heaven, they need not be erased before death. A mortal sin kept in the hour of death on your conscience is persisting in betraying your Lord. Is that too complex for you?

(And yes, previous paragraph means that everyone in Purgatory is headed for Heaven. Nobody in Hell is headed for Heaven, unless God raises him from the dead so once again alive he can repent before dying again. Which has happened a few times.)

"Receiving communion was supposed to 'infuse grace' into me. This mystical substance called 'grace' was supposed to empower me to live a good life, so I would sin less, and consequently, spend less time in purgatory (or—God forbid—hell!)."

Infused grace mean the life of God himself, the Holy Spirit, infused into your soul. It is not just a question of being a good boy, though dead souls will not even be able to do that in the long run.

"There was also a complex system of different kinds of graces. I can only remember two of them now, 'actual grace' and 'sanctifying grace.'"

The "complex system" is precisely those two. The actual graces are what enable you to be a good boy (whether you consciously receive them as graces from God or not), and the sanctifying or infused grace is the life of God becoming life of your soul. Obviously if you die without it, you go where the dead souls go, to the place of eternal death.

Oh, as for Indulgence Prayers, are you sure that Gloria Patri was Fifteen Years and Memorare was Forty-five? I am not quite sure about that. But even if it were true - I suspect it is not, either you lie or your memory fools you but I could be wrong - it could be explained by the fact that Gloria Patri should be prayed daily. There is actually no theological reason why you should not still pray it daily, unless your dissatisfaction with the "Sacramental System" has worn off to be a mistrust in Holy Trinity too.

"I raised my hand in class, and said, 'Sister Ruth Marie, some people won’t have to go to Purgatory when they die, right?' Without hesitation, she responded, 'No, everyone has to go to Purgatory.' "

She might either not have heard your question included the words "when they die" or she might even more probably have been replaced for teaching you wrong. Some people are said to have had all of their purgatory on earth. The Holy Martyrs, or St Thérèse of Lisieux who made in part Tuberculosis her martyrdom (contracted, I think while she was tending to the sick) and in part every little annoyance she could offer up to God by bearing it with a smile to the annoying person.

Your mental calculus about how many years you were spending in purgatory was pretty much misapplied mathematics, due to your superfluous question of where you were standing about avoiding Purgatory. Now, Luther in a dark moment, and he was condemned by Pope Leo X for saying it, stated that the souls in Purgatory love God so much they would hate to leave Purgatory without effecting all the penances, and therefore dislike having indulgences applied to them. That is wrong, they are of course satisfied if God lets them off earlier than supposed. But if you had instead of asking how much Purgatory you were escaping by ten minutes of Gloria Patri tried to use the ten minutes to Glorify actually the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, you might have made it to Heaven, after some stumbles, with pretty good ease (not meaning you would have died already, but meaning you would have already been secure of going to Heaven and not too afraid of going to Purgatory first).

"Still, I recognized that, within me lay the passions that could damn my eternal soul to hell!"

It is not the passions, it is consenting to them, outside the hallowed ground of marriage, which would do that.

Have you not read "who looketh on his neighbours wife with carnal desire has already committed adultery with her in his heart" or "adulterers ... will not enter the Kingdom of God"?

What you needed (and what I for one need too) was marriage. Ask your wife if she wouldn't like to get along back to the Catholic Church with you, that is saving your soul.

"I needed to cloak my question in some measure of piety."

Ouch, pretty much the kind of mistake I used to do pretty often when confessing in certain years after my conversion. Pretty certain attitude to ruin confession for you.

"And in choosing Christ, I needed to 'prove' to myself that I had trusted Christ alone, and not 'Christ plus works.' And this is consistent with Matthew 3:5-9. I not only needed to repent of my dead works, I needed to 'bring forth fruit of my repentance.' I needed to live my life in a way that confirmed I was trusting Christ alone."

What exactly were you trying to do?

Going to Holy Mass is not doing a dead work, it is visiting Christ on Calvary, where he died for you. If you cannot go back in a time machine to the first Good Friday and see Him bleed for you, and if you cannot go to Narnia and be present at the stone table, you can go to Holy Mass. What is "dead works of the law" about that?

"I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is ENOUGH that Jesus died, and that he died for me."

Did he die for Hitler and Stalin and were Stalin and Hitler saved? Or did Hitler and Stalin miss out on something they had to do, like not committing mortal sins that crucified Christ again and like visiting Christ in Holy Mass to renew their love for him? Are you saying that Hell is empty?

Oh, sorry: I saw you are single. But I also saw you with children on photos from a Christmas. Are you actually divorced?

Sorry again, I saw you are married to Ch. R., you will have to correct info on the directory:

Name Rev. Ronald R Shea, Esq. Denomination Baptist Home Church Lindly Avenue Baptist Church Missions Country Pakistan

Gender Male Marital Status Single Address Kept private by request Phone Kept private by request. Email Kept private by request.

"I recited the "Glory Be" for ten minutes straight. . . keeping a tally, of course, for the number of prayers I recited. I realized God could keep track of such things, and I had full confidence in his omniscience. But I also needed to know where I stood."

If you had been told how to pray the Rosary - which can give you plenary indulgence (no time at all in Purgatory for sins committed and forgiven before it was gained), how come you did not try to use knots on a string or even rosary beads for the tally, so you could get your mind off keeping the tally?

Did they never teach you the Rosary?

I mean, testimonies like this look a bit like wilful forgetfulness about your Catholic past. Or, just possibly, with Chick Tract like "honesty" close to Avro Manhattan and Phelps, a lie.

If it were true, I would very much like to know who your bishop was back then, so his sinful negligence in catechism can be duly punished by the Roman Catholic Church.

[He posted his testimony on a FB Group that is Catholic and Sedisvacantist. I was added to it and posted quotes with my answers there first./HGL]

Oh, double sorry, I just saw that Mr R. is not at all the Ronald Shea that the testimony is about.

[So A posted testimony of B, and I confused them, apologioes made on group./HGL]