There Was a Time ... Social Networks were Stabler, and Internet Did Not Exist

I am not trying to assess here whether there is a connexion and which way it goes or if it goes both ways. I am just saying the two have changed the deal when Catholics interact with Protestants.

1924. Catholic on a workplace meets Protestant on a workplace. BOTH probably intend to stay working there. NEITHER probably envisages to quit his job or push the other one out of his job over a religious dispute. BOTH have families to feed, and both priorise this over any kind of missionary duty.

They come to chat over religion. Protestant will say a thing. Catholic will give a simple response.

If the Protestant is at least moderately satisfied, the Catholic thinks he has done his duty, the friendship continues, the question is probably out of the way, for next year, and in the best case scenario the Protestant ends up so satisfied that he converts.

If the Protestant thinks it's baloney, they will probably like each other less, tend to avoid each other a bit more, outside tasks where they are forced together.

Either way, it's not a complete waste of time if the Catholic gives a very superficial answer, though one that satisfies himself. The Protestant won't be a supernerd of amateur theology either. So, while it makes some shortcuts and is not completely true, the Catholic can say "the canon of the Bible was decided at Trent" ... since then, this has backfired longterm into Protestants believing this is all there is to the Catholic teaching. If the Catholic isn't claiming that Tobit or II Maccabees was canon in 1500, the Protestant can get away with saying "II Maccabees was added to the canon in the Council of Trent" as Frank Turek did.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Turek Ill-Informed on More than One Controversy Around S. C. "Apocrypha"
Posted by Hans Georg Lundahl at 8:29 AM Tuesday, April 23, 2024
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2024/04/turek-ill-informed-on-more-than-one.html

My point from that debate is, it pays if the Catholic knows the Fourth Century councils in Rome, Hippo and Carthage. Not just Trent. It pays if the Catholic can say "you got the actual back and forth between Sts Augustine and Jerome wrong, the latter complied by obedience" rather than be totally fallen from the skies by learning Jerome actually opposed their canonicity. It pays if the Catholic can mention St. Jerome didn't just obey St. Augustine as a superior, potentially quasi boss, but obeyed him bc he represented "the bishops" ... (St. Augustine had arguably known all about the synod of Hippo, where he was as yet a monk, not yet ordained, not yet consecrated bishop).

Similar things are true on other controversies we can have over Old Church issues.

Protestant

The Catholic Church didn't exist in AD 33. It was founded in the Fourth Century by Constantine.

Catholic

That's not true. St. Sylvester was the 33rd Pope, starting with St. Peter.

Is it correct as far as it goes? Yes, far more than saying "we had no Bible canon prior to Trent" ...

But does it miss something? Yes, it does that too. Not too bad between two regular blokes on their work in 1924. But it can spell disaster between two blokes on the internet if the Protestant is geekier than that.

So, what exactly does it miss? What would a Protestant answer to such a thing?

Protestant, A

Gavin Ortlund

There was no monarchic episcopacy in Rome, for much of the time. Or anywhere. Jerome admits monarchic episcopacy is a later expedient.

Protestant, B

Ruckman (while he lived)

Sylvester was a heretic and a schismatic. Cornelius was selling out Christian purity and the real Christian Church at this time was often called Novatianism because of his righteous opponent, the rightful pastor in Rome. Sylvester was part of the bastard line started by Cornelius.

Protestants A, B and C

C = Frank Turek

You are aware that Popes had no universal jurisdiction pretensions prior to 500—600 AD or so?

I think it is pretty useful to be able to answer that kind of thing as well. So, I'll try to provide a Catholic answer to each.

Catholic on A

The evidence supposed to be against monarchic episcopacy (as I recall Gavin) can have to do with a tendency of actual wielders of monarchic authority in Rome to step behind assemblies of council.

For instance, if Caesar Nero wanted a law, it is pretty shrewd to guess, the law would not state "Caesar Nero decreed" but "the Senate and the People of Rome decreed" ...

If Gavin would like to invoke details about I and II Clement, perhaps this pope was simply following this Roman custom?

In many sees outside Rome, it could at least in the West be less important who at the moment was its bishop. It could have ten priests and all of them consecrated bishops, and then occasionally if one of them got martyred he was then stated as "our bishop" at this time. It could have only priests and no bishop between getting a bishop martyred and waiting for ordinations and consecrations from elsewhere to be available. It could have no clergy at all and be waiting for the next bishop sent from Rome.

This sort of stuff could contribute to this kind of evidence.

Catholic on B

Ruckman was wrong.

He contradicts Matthew 28:20. There is no line, least of all the one proposed in Trail of Blood, of any actual direct continuity between Novatians back then and Amish now.

Paulicians and Albigensians do not bridge that gap. They were not Christians.

Claudius of Turin was not a bridge between Old Church opponents of a major Catholic dogma and Waldensians, he was a sycofant to Iconoclasts over in the Imperial East.

Catholic on C

First, this is not true. If this had been a central part of my own learning, I would probably not have been part of the Romanian Orthodox from 2006 to 2009, so, let's hear some other guys:

Michael Lofton refers to how St. Athanasius considered the judgement of Pope St. Dionysius as equivalent to a condemnation ... Michael Lofton underlines "by all" = since Dionysius was Pope, his word was the word of all members of the Church.

St. Athanasius on the Papacy | Michael Lofton
Reason & Theology | 22 April 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eDfqvA6XEM

Second, if it had been true, the default for non-papal early Church, as per continuity question, is not some version of Protestantism, it's more sth like Eastern Orthodoxy or Monseigneur Lefebvre. The Protestant making this point would still be obliged to hold to what Catholics have in common with Orthodox, like II Maccabees being canon.

I'm not saying you shouldn't say "St. Sylvester was the 33:rd Pope", but I am suggesting you should be prepared to back that up a bit. Pre-Consiliar resources can be much murer from error than Michael Lofton (whom I recommend only partially), but they can also be deficient in information that has now become relevant in a clime of a more complete debate.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Pope St. Cletus
26.IV.2024

It's also Our Lady of Good Counsel.

Romae natalis beati Cleti, Papae et Martyris; qui, secundus post Apostolum Petrum, rexit Ecclesiam, et martyrio in persecutione Domitiani coronatus est.