Were All Churches Started on Pentecost AD 33?

In a very long video, which I will not link to as long as I'm only answering this point, perhaps later if I go through all of it, a Catholic meme was attacked. Here is first the Catholic meme:

"If you are Methodist, your Church was founded in 1784 by John Wesley
If you are Anglican, your Church was founded in 1534 by Henry VIII / Cranmer
If you are Lutheran, your Church was founded in 1522* by Martin Luther
If you are Orthodox, your Church was founded in 1053** by Michael Caerularius.
If you are Catholic, your Church was founded in 33 by Jesus Christ"

Here is their response.

"The correct answer to when your Church was founded is: in 33 by Jesus Christ"

Explanation:

"Every Church that proclaims the Gospel was founded on Pentecost in 33"

It's a statement that makes lot of sense from a non-denominational denomination's view. If you are two men and you are a Methodist and a Presbyterian, you may not be able to go to each other's communion. There is a real excommunication in the sense that they are not the same denomination, each claims his denomination is at least the best approximation to the correct one, the one of 33. This is not totally true even for Presbyterians and Methodists any more, but the point is, it is definitely sth which the non-denominational ones try to avoid. There may be more ad hoc excommunications, over recent matters, but there is usually none over matters a few centuries old ... except against Catholics and Orthodox.

They may be very Catholic positive at least when it comes to cradle Catholics, but they would often enough try to dissuade someone to convert to Catholicism.***

So, this means, in some way, they actually do excommunicate Catholics and Orthodox.

And this exception is of course a very marginal thing to them. Not the kind of people they usally think of. A little like odd-balls. So, in the main, they aren't much about excommunication.

Nevertheless, this excommunication against Catholicism, if not cradle Catholics, is still a fact. And given there is in fact an excommunication, there also is a ground for asking if the answer actually makes sense.

You see, in AD 500 or 700, you are not likely to find non-denominationals. You are likely to find people who, apart from your romanticisation of St. Patrick or the Culdees, pretty much would have fallen into the Catholic camp. Their position makes sense only if the Reformation never took place. But it took place.

That's why they put in a conditional clause "it if proclaims the Gospel" ... meaning, they usually consider Catholicism doesn't do that.

And that puts to a question another matter. WHAT do they believe is the Gospel? If it is "justification is not from previous works" ... Catholicism says that too. If Catholicism proclaims the Gospel, and they don't care about excommunications, why not be Catholics?

If it is about "nor from any willingness to subsequent works, nor does it involve such willingness" (you could already be justified while not at all desiring to walk in Christ), that's more a stance of Luther and of Calvin, than usually theirs. In fact, their typical stance on this tends to agree with Catholicism against the Reformers.

But often, they will take some cue to find a way to blame Catholics for "works salvation" or for making one's salvation on some level depend on one's own work, as if that were necessarily in contradiction with "not from works" ... they will often very much laud someone for speaking about "walking in Christ" and also very much blame someone for saying "in the state of sanctifying grace, you can and you need to do meritorious works" ... even though on a basic level these phrases mean the same thing.

Perhaps it's about the theological fine print, and in that case, they aren't as non-denominational as they pretend.

Or perhaps it's because they think ill of the kind of works Catholics do. Giving money to beggars. Praying the rosary. Receiving the sacraments. And why not Friday abstinence and fasting?

Or, isn't baptismal regeneration making salvation depend on a human act? Well, from the side of the one receiving, no, he isn't working, he is receiving. And from the side of the one baptising, he's normally supposed to already be justified. Because of that, and because of his ministry and because baptism is part of everyone's ministry in a case of urgene, he can work as a tool of Christ working in and through his acts.

Perhaps their most queezyness about Roman Catholicism is, we teach, even a minister in mortal sin, can give a sacrament. God has so tied himself to certain acts by prpomise that if the conditions He stipulated are fulfilled, the sacrament and God's grace is there for the one receiving, even if the minister has shut off God from his own soul.

Or perhaps it is the insistance that even socially accepted sins can shut you off from God, so that a minister you would respect is in fact in mortal sin.

Or perhaps it is the insistance that this situation happens more frequently with sex than with alcohol. Getting tipsy is not mortal, flirting with a divorcee, let alone "marrying" her, is.

Anyway, when the non-denominational gets across this thing in Catholicism, he suddenly remembers, he does excommunicate some things. And if he excommunicates Catholicism, and Catholicism was, and he wasn't, around in 500 and 700 AD, well, then he has proven himself on the wrong side of the excommunication. Matthew 28:13—20 are very clear that this system cannot be the Church Christ founded or even a Church that Christ founded, if it was not there in 500 AD or in 700 AD, or even worse wasn't there in either year. And how he reacts to Catholicism shows, he's not considering it a small matter, like what shape we attribute to the Tower of Babel° and he's also not considering it a matter of free choice, as between Latin and Byzantine rite.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Médard of Noyon
8.VI.2024

Apud Suessiones, in Galliis, natalis sancti Medardi, Episcopi Noviomensis; cujus vita et mors pretiosa gloriosis miraculis commendatur.

* Let's be accurate, in 1517, Luther was as yet only very strongly Jansenist, he founded Lutheranism only while "reforming" the parish in Wittenberg.
** I am well aware that Orthodox invert the last two.
*** Both was pretty true of my mother, when at 16 I told her I was converting. I really had to find answers if only for that reason.
° My take, Nimrod never got around to actually building the rocket, he was always preparing take off ramps, or if he really wanted to make a sky-scraper rather than a rocket, he never got it any height, but was always trying to broaden the base with more pods. Based on how Göbekli Tepe looks.

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.

Refuting CARM and Matt Slick

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Is unbroken history necessary for true Church? · Great Bishop of Geneva!: Refuting CARM and Matt Slick

Does an unbroken history mean the Roman Catholic Church is true?
by Matt Slick | Jan 4, 2014 | Roman Catholicism, World Religions
https://carm.org/roman-catholicism/does-an-unbroken-history-mean-the-roman-catholic-church-is-true/

The Catholic Church claims to have an unbroken lineage of apostolic authority dating back to Peter who was, allegedly, given the keys to the church (Matthew 16:19).

No. We claim BOTH an unbroken lineage of Popes dating back to St. Peter (or with only short breaks, within lifetimes, like there were three years between two Popes during the persecutions, and 39 years between undoubted Popes in Avignon and undoubted Popes back in Rome, as well as now 32 years between death of Pius XII and election by emergency conclave of Pope Michael) AND also an unbroken, day by day unbroken collection of lineageS dating back to all twelve apostles, including Matthias who replaced Judas.

But again, even if it was true that Catholicism can trace its collective lineage back to Peter, this does not mean the Roman Catholic Church is the true church. Furthermore, Matthew 16:19 says that Peter was given the keys of the kingdom of heaven – not the church – and that what he would bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever he loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Now, the Church is the Kingdom of Heaven as present on earth. In heaven itself, the authority resides with Jesus and His blessed Mother, but they take the authority of the vicars on earth into account.

What Catholics regularly overlook is that the same authority was given to the rest of the disciples in Matthew 18:18.

1) as said, the day by day unbroken lineages dating back to all twelve is even more important, that's the one fulfilling the promise in Matthew 28:20
2) the same authority given to Peter alone was here given to Peter with others.

So, if they want to trace their lineage back to Peter who supposedly has the authority to bind and loose, what does it say about the rest of the apostles who had that same authority?

That these also are in the Catholic Church. With their lineages.

Furthermore, nowhere in Scripture do we find Peter exercising his authority above the other apostles. If anything, we find the reverse. Consider when Paul rebuked Peter . . .

1) In Galatians, it is not clear that Cephas was St. Peter, first one of the twelve, or someone else having that name (shared probably with High Priest Kaiaphas)
2) If he was, he was not rebuked with the authority of a superior over an inferior, but with the authority of truth over error
3) It would seem Peter did continue speaking when the rest of the twelve had fallen silent on Pentecost day.

Many groups claim to have apostolic succession from the early days, but it does not mean they are true. If a church is true, then it must be consistent with Scripture. The Scripture is the measure of the authority on how a church is to behave and what is to teach – not a lineage kept by tradition.

A lineage kept by tradition or a tradition kept by a lineage is a scriptural criterium - Matthew 28:20, third generation apostolic succession St. Paul giving instruction to fourth generation apostolic successioners Sts Timothy and Titus instructions about fifth generation successors to apostles - which is clear all through these three epistles, which is one reason why liberal Protestants put these and Matthew as late books with garbled message. Markan priority is a residue of this ideology in some non-liberal Protestants.

We see in this verse that Paul the apostle wrote to Timothy so that “he would know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God.” This means Paul was writing Scripture and instructing Christians on how to behave within the church. He was giving Scriptural orders to which the church is subject. We do not see in Scripture such authority given to a church because it can trace its lineage back to Peter.

It is right here given to the Church which Jesus founded - also one with lineages traced to the 12 Apostles.

We do find the admonition of the word of God (as the above verse mentions) for the church to submit itself to Scripture.

And to oral tradition, St. Paul puts it along Pauline epistles:

Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.
2 Thessalonians 2:14

Therefore, we would conclude that a church is true if it agrees with Scripture–not if it claims to have a lineage back to early times.

It is easier to determine a controversy on whether a Church even claims to trace its lineage to early times, than to determine one whether such and such a doctrine has support in the Scriptures.

Whether Mary was ever virgin or She personally gave birth to the brethren of Christ, whether She was sinless as the mother doing the will of the Father or whether Her motherhood was replaced by that of any faithful women or the faithful communities at present doing so, is as hard to see for some as it is for some that Christ being the promised Messiah and true God is consistent with OT teaching. The Bereans concluded for, some other synagogues (and yes, Bereans were at this point a synagogue, with people already learned in the OT, not people being handed an OT by Paul and then just passively being told by him to look up what he wanted them to look up) however were against.

But whether Luther, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bucer, Cranmer, Calvin and Knox were born as Roman Catholics or whether they were baptised as infants in the Roman Catholic Church, or whether it was Roman Catholicism they left for the fruits of their own Bible studies, no sane man doubts.

The final list of "not found in Scripture" doctrines supposed to disprove Roman Catholicism has already been answered in a quoran answer.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Andrew Corsini
4.II.2021

The Gates of Hell have not, HAVE NOT prevailed against the Church

Here* is a Baptist who certainly gets the second part of Matthew 16:18 correctly.

Whether St Peter is or isn't involved as rock in the first part, let's leave that aside. For this occasion, not for ever and always. Second part promises perpetuity of the Church.

Here is an explanation:

“…Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” the Lord says here. What He was actually promising was first of all that death will never put an end to the church. Sometimes the enemies of Christ may think that the church will pass away as soon as the fanatics who now lead it die, but the Lord promises here that death cannot stop the Lord’s church. The gates of death will never swallow up the church. The church will always live and defy the power of death.

Secondly what the Lord is promising here is that the powers of Satan will not be able to terminate the church. The principalities and powers of hell will never be able to stamp out the churches of Jesus Christ .

The main point of this promise is clear. The ekklesia will not cease. The powers of death shall not close it down and the power of Satan and his workers shall not defeat it. Neither death nor Satan and his hosts will be able to stop churches from holding, preaching and maintaining the doctrines of Christ in His Word. Neither the grave nor Satan shall finally and totally gain victory over the church in this world.

Perfect. No Roman Catholic (or Greek Orthodox) could have said it better.

Next part:

The gates of hell shall not, shall not, SHALL NOT prevail against the church!

Look here, what tense are you using?

Future? Did the conversation at Caesarea Philippi take place this morning?

Sure, a future is implied in the words as given, and there is still certainly future left of it (Doomsday hasn't crowned Church Militant yet). But a bit less than two millennia of the promised future are already past.

For the promise to be true, we don't need to look only at "will Chuck Missler and Kim Clement have successors? are Trey Smith and Sid Roth still Christians?" but also back in time.

I saw someone claim "the great apostasy was universal, God restored His Church from that" and when I challenged him, "you cannot limit God".

I can hold God to His promise. And in context of when this was said, it doesn't mean something only for our future, but very clearly also for our past. God restoring His Church would be an oathbreaker belatedly summoned to keep a promise already previously broken. God is not like that.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Annunciation of Our Lady
25.III.2019

* Bethel Baptist Church : The Perpetuity of the Church
https://bbc-lawton.org/the-perpetuity-of-the-church/

Dealing with "Trail of Blood" Claims

Copied from:

Trail of Blood, wikimedia upload
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/The_Trail_of_Blood.jpg

My photoshopped combination in vertical is here:



[edit : click for a larger view, so you can read it.]

So, the essential claims are, in chronological order:

• Baptist Churches in 251 excommunicated ("disfellowshipped") the "irregular" Churches (term sounds like taking from lodges, right?) who practise pedobaptism, that is, baptism of infants;
• Constantine at Nicaea gets bishops only from irregular non-Baptist Churches
• Emperor remains head of the Catholic Church until Pope Leo II takes over
• Baptist Churches continue all the time (visible on full chart, as is next)
• Donatists continue from 3:rd into 8:th C (!) and therefore overlap with Paulicians starting in 7:th C, both being Baptists.

So, James Milton Carroll very correctly realised the implications of Matthew 28:20. An on-and-off Church, which ceases to exist with Constantine and comes back to existence with Reformation is a huge no no.

He therefore wrote The Trail of Blood -: Following the Christians Down through the Centuries - or, The History of Baptist Churches from the Time of Christ, Their Founder, to the Present Day to prove his point.

Now, language like "regular" and "irregular" Churches, which is part of what he used but an external is not too fortunate. To someone steeped in Masonic culture as many Anglo-Saxon Protestant countries were, that may not sound too bad, but if you start with Anti-Masonry, as Catholicism did from start, In eminenti apostolatus specula, Papal Bull from April 28th 1738, and as Jack Chick is catching up with as per lately (as also Ulf Ekman who converted, unfortunately only to Vatican II Catholicism), it doesn't sound quite right. But that is an external.

What is worse is the claim Donatism survived into the times of Paulicians, and this is a dualist, a manichaean sect, which most Baptists, especially those embracing Young Earth Creationism, would rightly detest. This is a dual claim, and here is the discussion of each on its merits.

Does secular history agree that Donatism is continuing up to 8th C?

No, more like fith and sixth.

Donatism (Latin: Donatismus, Greek: Δονατισμός Donatismós) was a schism in the Church of Carthage from the fourth to the sixth centuries AD. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to be valid. Donatism had its roots in the long-established Christian community of the Roman Africa province (now Algeria and Tunisia) in the persecutions of Christians under Diocletian. Named after the Berber Christian bishop Donatus Magnus, Donatism flourished during the fourth and fifth centuries.[1]

The Roman governor of North Africa, lenient to the large Christian minority under his rule throughout the persecutions, was satisfied when Christians handed over their scriptures as a token repudiation of faith. When the persecution ended, Christians who did so were called traditors—"those who handed (the holy things) over"—by their critics (who were mainly from the poorer classes).[2]

Like third-century Novatianism,[3] the Donatists were rigorists; the church must be a church of "saints" (not "sinners"), and sacraments administered by traditors were invalid. In 311 Caecilian (a new bishop of Carthage) was consecrated by Felix of Aptungi, an alleged traditor. His opponents consecrated Majorinus, a short-lived rival who was succeeded by Donatus.

Two years later, a commission appointed by Pope Miltiades condemned the Donatists. They persisted, seeing themselves as the true Church with valid sacraments. Because of their association with the Circumcellions, the Donatists were repressed by Roman authorities. Although they had local support, their opponents were supported by Rome. The Donatists were still a force during the lifetime of Augustine of Hippo, and disappeared only after the seventh- and eighth-century Muslim conquest.

This last information is from:

Cross, FL, ed. (2005), "Donatism", The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church, New York: Oxford University Press.

However, if we look at their succession of bishops, that is meagre:

• Majorinus (311–13)
• Donatus Magnus (313–55; exiled 347)
• Parmenian (355–91)
• Primian of Carthage (391–93)
• Maximianus (393–94)
• Primian of Carthage (394–c. 400)

Now, I suppose some may have suspected me of Donatism. Therefore of ultimately sympathising with Donatists and their succession. So, am I a Donatist, this is a little aside?

I am not. Suppose Pope Michael is at present involved in some atrocious crimes against me to block my writings from being read, to keep me poor, to keep me under the sway of some shrinks.

Would that invalidate his papacy? In itself no, not unless he did so with good conscience while knowing the real facts.

Precisely as the kind of favour of the doubt I was giving Ratzinger on similar accusation points, probability of fact, but possibility there is still orthodoxy.

Supposing it invalidated his papacy, because it involved pro-psychiatric heresies - and he was validly ordained priest and consecrated bishop in 2011, would it invalidate the sacraments he makes, like saying Mass, like ordaining priests?

Still, no.

It can invalidate his state of grace, it can invalidate his orthodoxy and therefore his papacy and jurisdiction, but it does not invalidate his sacraments.

Similarily, a priest validly ordained before the new rite, even if celebrating Novus Ordo, certainly would be celebrating a valid Mass if he said the normal Mass, the Mass of St Pius V.

I think he could probably even be saying a valid Mass if he used Novus Ordo - but this is disputed. Or, he could have until I discovered that first mention of "fruits of the earth" in the Bible is with Cain's sacrifice, which was unpleasing to God, so, probably Cain had no cultivated wheat to sacrifice, so, the words would in their first use have involved a matter which is now invalid matter for the sacraments (unless he sacrificed spelt, which is older than cultivated wheat, and which the rubrics allow only on condition that real wheat flour is unavailable).

So, I do not have a Donatist view of the validity of sacraments.

Neither does the SSPX (both I and Pope Michael are former faithful of the SSPX).

Here is the article on Donatism on that subject:

In the Catholic Church, the Society of Saint Pius X has been accused of Donatist beliefs.

Obviously SSPX, Pope Michael, Sedevacantists and so on totally reject that accusation. When Anders Piltz decades ago warned me against SSPX, he accused them of being Donatist. Perhaps, once I had joined them, he or someone of similar prejudice against them stamped me as having become a Donatist, which is false.

Montini may have been a heretic, he may have committed sacrilege even when he said valid Mass after the older rite (which is still the rite of the Catholic Church, unlike Novus Ordo sect), but his masses were still valid, at least presumed to be such, at least as long as he didn't change the rite.

The accusation against Novus Ordo for being an invalid rite is not a Donatist accusation, it is the accusation which Pope Leo XIII confirmed about Anglican sacraments, on the ground that rites had been changed to incorporate a new theology.

Now, the confusion about Donatists leading up to modern Baptists may come from the fact that Wycliffe and the Lollards really did revive the errors of Donatism, the rigorism which says "mortal sin means no more office and no valid sacraments". Lollards also applied this on secular rulers. If the policeman is a sinner, cheated on his wife or whatever, the man in the street on that view has no obligation to obey him as a policeman. Well, how shall we know if the policeman is a sinner? We can't.

I resisted a policeman once twenty years ago, not because he was a sinner, but because he was doing a sin which could not be a valid act of policing, a crime of psychiatric slave hunt. I thought so then, I think so now.

If he hadn't, if he had next day told me to come to the police office for interrogation on this or that subject where I was a suspect, well, interrogating suspects is not a sin, per se, it is not a crime, it is a valid act of policing. I would have obeyed and in fact did obey such acts of valid policing, even if I thought the police were arguably jerks and even heretics about the conditions for marriage (I was a suspect for courting a 14 year old whom I hoped to marry, and in Sweden age of consent is 15 and age of marriage was then normally and now universally 18 : but as to an unjust suspicion of sexual harrassment, I considered myself obliged to obey the police on some accounts as in their doing valid acts of policing. However much jerks and however much heretics they may have been.

So, I do not have a Lollard view of authority, nor do most Baptists who refer to Wycliffe and Lollards, after Waldensians, as the true Church.

Nor do I have even a Donatist view of validity of sacraments.

But, the Baptists do or did have a Donatist view of the validity of ministerial acts.

You find out the pastor who baptised you was cheating on his wife, on that Baptist view, you need to get rebaptised. That is wrong.

That is the impossible Christian life, which Pope Miltiades rightly condemned.

It is impossible, because when it comes to your neighbour's state of grace, freedom of sin, some people are obvious and most are greyzones. And your ecclesial pastors are among those neighbours.

But "The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church" in 2005 incorporated a statement that Donatism " disappeared only after the seventh- and eighth-century Muslim conquest."

I don't believe that.

"Early kharijites, a strict sect of Islam the same Berber region" are cited as Later Influence - I obviously do not believe that either.

The Khawarij, Kharijites, or the ash-Shurah ("the Exchangers") are members of a group that appeared in the first century of Islam during the First Fitna, the crisis of leadership after the death of Muhammad.[1] It broke into revolt against the authority of the Caliph Ali after he agreed to arbitration with his rival, Muawiyah I, to decide the succession to the Caliphate following the Battle of Siffin (657).[2] A Khariji later assassinated Ali, and for hundreds of years, the Khawarij were a source of insurrection against the Caliphate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khawarij
(leaving out IPA and Arabic alphabet, it's pronounced Khawaridge or Kharidge)

Sounds like the kind of chaos Donatism breeds, but I don't think Donatism is relevant. Why?

The origin of Kharijism lies in the First Fitna, the struggle for political supremacy over the Muslim community in the years following the death of Muhammad. After the death of the third Rashidun Caliph, Uthman, a struggle for succession ensued between Ali and Muawiyah I, the governor of Syria and cousin of Uthman, in league with a variety of other opponents. In 657, Ali's forces met Muawiyah's at the Battle of Siffin. Initially, the battle went against Muawiyah but on the brink of defeat, Muawiyah directed his army to hoist Qurans on their lances.[11] Mu'awiya proposed to Ali to settle their dispute through arbitration, with each side appointing referees who would pronounce judgment according to the Quran.[12] While most of Ali's army accepted the proposal, one group, mostly from the tribe of Tamim, vehemently objected to the arbitration and left the ranks of Ali's army.[12]

So, this began "after the death of Mohammed". It's in the East, not in Western North Africa or Maghreb, where a Donatist influence would be possible.

So, one cannot cite, as I suspect Cross did, Kharijites as proof Donatism lingered on to Muslim Conquest.



No where near Tunisia, where Donatists might be expected to be, right?

In 659 Ali's forces finally moved against the Kharijites and they finally met in the Battle of Nahrawan. Although Ali won the battle, the constant conflict had begun to affect his standing.[47] Tom Holland writes "Ali won a victory over them as crushing as it was to prove pyrrhic: for all he had done, in effect was to fertilise the soil of Mesopotamia with the blood of their martyrs. Three years later, and there came the inevitable blowback: a Kharijite assassin."[52]

While dealing with the Iraqis, Ali found it hard to build a disciplined army and effective state institutions to exert control over his areas and as a result later spent a lot of time fighting the Kharijites. As a result, on the Eastern front, Ali found it hard to expand the state.[53]

Ali was assassinated by Kharijites in 661. On the 19th of Ramadan, while Praying in the Great Mosque of Kufa, Ali was attacked by the Kharijite Abd-al-Rahman ibn Muljam. He was wounded by ibn Muljam's poison-coated sword while prostrating in the Fajr prayer.[54] When Alī was assassinated, Muawiyah had the largest and the most organized and disciplined force in the Muslim Empire.

Obviously, Nahrawan in Iraq is far from where the Donatists had been.

Look at the years, this is from article on Muslim Conquest of Maghreb, while involving non-Maghreb conquests too in the text as now accessed:

The first invasion of North Africa, ordered by Abdallah ibn Sa'd, commenced in 647. 20,000 Arabs marched from Medina in the Arabian Peninsula, another 20,000 joined them in Memphis, Egypt, and Abdallah ibn Sa'd led them into the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa. The army took Tripolitania (in present-day Libya). Count Gregory, the local Byzantine governor,[2] had declared his independence from the Byzantine Empire in North Africa. He gathered his allies, confronted the invading Islamic Arab forces and suffered defeat (647) at the Battle of Sufetula, a city 240 kilometres (150 mi) south of Carthage. With the death of Gregory his successor, probably Gennadius, secured the Arab withdrawal in exchange for tribute. The campaign lasted fifteen months and Abdallah's force returned to Egypt in 648.

All further Muslim conquests were soon interrupted, however, by a civil war between rival Arab factions that resulted in the murder of Caliph Uthman in 656. He was replaced by Ali, who in turn was assassinated in 661. The Umayyad Caliphate of largely secular and hereditary Arab caliphs, then established itself at Damascus and Caliph Muawiyah I began consolidating the empire from the Aral Sea to the western border of Egypt. He put a governor in place in Egypt at al-Fustat, creating a subordinate seat of power that would continue for the next two centuries. He then continued the invasion of non-Muslim neighboring states, attacking Sicily and Anatolia (in Asia Minor) in 663. In 664 Kabul, Afghanistan, fell to the invading Muslim armies.

The years 665 to 689 saw a new Arab invasion of North Africa.

The Second Invasion

It began, according to Will Durant, to protect Egypt "from flank attack by Byzantine Cyrene". So "an army of more than 40,000 Muslims advanced through the desert to Barca, took it, and marched to the neighborhood of Carthage", defeating a defending Byzantine army of 20,000 in the process.

OK, so, the territory where remaining Donatists were supposed to have influenced early Kharidgites was, while Kharidgism started, not at all Muslim territory, but either Byzantine or in Vandal hands.

In other words, Kharidgites are no proof Donatists survived past Primian of Carthage.

But how about Paulicians? Trail of Blood claims Paulicians continued where Donatists left off.

Paulicians (Old Armenian: Pawłikeanner; Greek: Παυλικιανοί;[1] Arab sources: Baylakānī, al Bayālika)[2] were a Christian sect, accused by medieval sources of being Adoptionist, Gnostic, and quasi-Manichaean. They flourished between 650 and 872 in Armenia and the eastern themata of the Byzantine Empire. According to medieval Byzantine sources, the group's name was derived from the 3rd century Bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulicianism

The sources show that most Paulician leaders were Armenians.[5] The founder of the sect is said to have been an Armenian by the name of Constantine,[6] who hailed from Mananalis, a community near Samosata. He studied the Gospels and Epistles, combined dualistic and Christian doctrines and, upon the basis of the former, vigorously opposed the formalism of the church.

Regarding himself as having been called to restore the pure Christianity of Paul (of Tarsus), he adopted the name Silvanus (one of Paul's disciples), and about 660, he founded his first congregation at Kibossa, Armenia. Twenty-seven years later, he was arrested by the Imperial authorities, tried for heresy and stoned to death.[7] Simeon, the court official who executed the order, was himself converted and adopting the name Titus became Constantine’s successor. He was burned to death (the punishment pronounced upon the Manichaeans) in 690.[7]

Oh, the Armenian Apostolic Church stoned Constantine Silvanus to death for heresy ... like I said King David would have done if an Albigensian had arrived in his court by a time loop. However, the stoning was not the official punishment, it seems Simeon Titus was ordering someone or was ordered to stone, so it would seem Constantine Silvanus had been killed by his own men. But was burning, reminiscent of later heresy punishments, really the death of Manichaeans or of Symeon Titus?

So, how about a source for this, outside wikipedia? Here:

Constantine-Silvanus, also called Constantine Of Mananali, (died c. 684), probable founder of the Middle Eastern sect of Paulicians, a group of Christian dualists.

Constantine-Silvanus is said to have come from Mananali (Mananalis), near Samosata, Syria. In assuming the additional name of Silvanus, he intended to honour a companion of St. Paul; this duality of names was imitated by subsequent Paulician leaders. Becoming a noted teacher, he founded, during the reign (641–668) of the Byzantine emperor Constans II, a Paulician community at Kibossa, near Colonia, Armenia, and directed it until his death. He died by stoning after his arrest by soldiers sent by the emperor Constantine IV (reigned 668–685) to suppress heresy. The leader of this force, Symeon-Titus, became a convert to Paulicianism and was himself martyred (690).

Insisting that the New Testament (as he interpreted it) should be the only written source of religious guidance, Constantine-Silvanus left no known writings.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-Silvanus

In other words, Constantine Silvanus was a reformer, not a continuer, as far as anyone can accurately tell, and also, he refused the Old Testament, and also, he was killed, not by Papacy, but by Byzantine Empire. Also, this seems at least to omit Symeon Titus was burned at a stake.

It also omits the sources from which we are supposed to know this.

In the absence of own writings, or such of immediate or at least early successors, who really claimed any opposite of what history represents Paulicianism as, we must take the verdict of those martyring them, if "martyring" is the right word. They rejected the Old Testament. They did not believe Creation was Very Good. In other words, like the Manichaeans before them and Albigensians after them, they were not Christians.

And this is where the trail of blood shows some impure blood.

The essential continuity claim outside Catholic Church is broken.

What about the claims about 251 "disfellowshipping" and Constantine getting only "irregular" Churches?

Partly correct, but only as far as exterior events are concerned, that was Novatian's opposition to election of Pope Cornelius:

Novatian's strict views existed before him and may be found in The Shepherd of Hermas.[3] After his death, the Novatianist sect spread rapidly and could be found in every province, and were very numerous in some places.[1] Those who allied themselves with the doctrines of Novatian were called Novatianists. However, they called themselves καθαροι ("katharoi") or "Purists" (not to be confused with the later Cathars) reflecting their desire not to be identified with what they considered the lax practices of a corrupted and what was hitherto a universal Church.

While Novatian had refused absolution to the "lapsi" (those who had renounced their Christianity under persecution but later wanted to return to the church), his followers extended this doctrine to include all "mortal sins" (idolatry, murder, and adultery, or fornication). Most of them forbade second marriage. They always had a successor of Novatian at Rome, and everywhere they were governed by bishops.

Because Novatianists (including Novatian) did not submit to the bishop of Rome, they were labeled by Rome as schismatics. Additionally, Rome also labeled Novatianists heretics for denying that the Church had the power to grant absolution in certain cases (such as to the lapsi). Beyond that, their practices were the same as that of the universal Church, including monasticism in the fourth century.

In the 4th and 5th centuries, the Donatist sect in Africa Proconsulare maintained a similar belief about Christians who had lapsed under the pressures of persecution. They too were declared heretics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novatianism

Novatian Baptists? No. Donatist Baptists? Partly, but not really. Donatists liked to postpone Baptism to the deathbed, like Constantine is said to have done. They did not consider pedobatism invalid, just imprudent.

Or, remaining claim, Pope Leo II taking over after Emperors had headed the Church?

Background and early activity in the Church

He was a Sicilian by birth (the son of a man named Paulus). He may have ended up being among the many Sicilian clergy in Rome, at that time, due to the Islamic Caliphate battles against Sicily in the mid-7th century.[3] Though elected pope a few days after the death of Pope St. Agatho on January 10, 681, he was not consecrated till after the lapse of a year and seven months (17 August 682).[2] Leo was known as an eloquent preacher who was interested in music, and noted for his charity to the poor. [4]

Reign as Bishop of Rome

Elected shortly after the death of Agatho, Leo was not consecrated for over a year and a half. The reason may have been due to negotiations regarding imperial control of papal elections.

These negotiations were undertaken by Leo's predecessor Agatho between the Holy See and Emperor Constantine IV. They concerned the relations of the Byzantine Court to papal elections. Constantine IV had already promised Agatho to abolish or reduce the tax that the popes had been paying to the imperial treasury at the time of their consecration, an imperial policy that had been in force for about a century.[2]

Leo's short-lived pontificate did not allow him to accomplish much, but there was one achievement of major importance: he confirmed the acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–681). This council had been held in Constantinople against the Monothelite controversy, and had been presided over by the legates of Pope Agatho. After Leo had notified the Emperor that the decrees of the council had been confirmed, he made them known to the nations of the West. In letters written to the king, the bishops, and the nobles of Spain, he explained what the council had effected, and he called upon the bishops to subscribe to its decrees.[2]

During this council, Pope Honorius I was anathematized for his views in the Monothelite controversy as tolerant of heresy. Leo took great pains to make it clear that in condemning Honorius, he did so not because Honorius taught heresy, but because he was not active enough in opposing it.[5] In accordance with the papal mandate, a synod was held at Toledo (684) in which the Third Council of Constantinople was accepted.

Regarding the decision of the council, Leo wrote once and again in approbation of the decision of the council and in condemnation of Honorius, whom he regarded as one who profana proditione immaculatem fidem subvertare conatus est (roughly, "one who by betrayal has tried to overthrow the immaculate faith"). In the Greek text of the letter to the Emperor in which the phrase occurs, the milder expression subverti permisit ("allowed to be overthrown...") is used for subvertare conatus est.

At this time, Leo put an end to the attempts of the Ravenna archbishops to get away from the control of the Bishop of Rome, but also abolished the tax it had been customary for them to pay when they received the pallium.[6]

Also, in apparent response to Lombard raids, Leo transferred the relics of a number of martyrs from the catacombs to churches inside the walls of the city. He dedicated two churches, St. Paul's and Sts. Sebastian and George.[6] Leo also reformed the Gregorian chant and composed several sacred hymns for the divine office.

Burial

Leo was originally buried in his own monument; however, some years after his death, his remains were put into a tomb that contained the first four of his papal namesakes.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_II

No trace of all previous Popes (from Cornelius or Sylvester on) taking orders from Emperors, nor of all subsequent Popes being very brave against all imperial intrusions in the ecclesial office or "Church Ministry". Best even trace I can dig out for James Milton Carroll's claim is, he confirmed a Church Council. But all previous ecumenic councils had also been confirmed by Popes, either personally or through legates.

In other words, James Milton Carroll very well knew that for Baptism to be the true Church or Church type, according to Matthew 28:20 he needed Baptist Continuity. What he didn't knew so well (let's charitably presume he was at least subjectively honest) was the actual history on which he based the Baptist Continuity thesis.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Good Friday
30.III.2018

Restorationism is Consistent Protestantism

Or in other words, mainstream Protestantism is Restorationism with inconsistencies. It is also sth else with inconsistencies.

Here is my source for what the word Restorationism means:

What is Restorationism?
on got?questions
https://www.gotquestions.org/restorationism.html

Here is the definition:

“Restorationism” refers to a group of unaffiliated 19th-century movements from within Christianity based upon the premise that the true faith and practice of the church had been lost due to apostasy and that the church needed to be restored to its New Testament model.

Well, how exactly does this differ from Protestantism?

Reformers were accusing the Catholic Church of being an Apostate Sect.

That is what "Babylonian Captivity of the Church" and identifying Papacy over several centuries as the Antichrist was about. No wonder these early Protestant positions are very popular with Restorationist "Churches." Most sites now presenting Newton's famous or infamous reading of the 1260 days as chronologically 1260 years that I know of are 7th Day Adventist ones.

Here is a further discussion of what it means:

While all these groups teach widely divergent theologies, and while some restorationist groups are considered cults (Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses) with other groups being considered valid Christian movements (the Restoration Movement), they have in common the notion that true Christianity had died out many years ago and it needed to be restored to its original New Testament form. Some of these groups believe they alone are the embodiment of true Christianity, some going so far as to teach that all other groups, including mainline Protestant denominations, are not really Christians at all, having lost their way over the centuries to complete apostasy. They are convinced that the drift from Christian principles is so extreme as to render the church irredeemable, and, therefore, it must be completely rebuilt. Denying that past historical patterns have any validity at all, they are free to embrace what they understand to be pure biblical truth as revealed to the apostles.

Well, the thing is, if the Church found by Protestant Reformers was not "irredeemable", why was it so important to them to leave it? Which, after some time of Luther shilly-shallying, they did. With violence about pre-existing Church buildings, which Catholics wanted to keep as they were and Protestants wanted to demolish the interior of, as a consequence.

How much is this "mainstream Protestant" site ready to concede to Restorationism?

Certainly, there have been abuses and misuses of the Word of God down through the years by churches claiming to speak for Christ. One has only to look at the Roman Catholic doctrines of purgatory, prayer to Mary, and the veneration of saints—all of which are completely unscriptural—to agree that, in some cases at least, church tradition has superseded the Bible as authority.

Now, the man writing claims these are "completely unscriptural", a charge which doctrine for doctrine I have answered elsewhere.

If a Church claiming to be that of God has doctrines which are "completely unscriptural", I take this means not just not directly in the Bible but against the Bible, how can it be the Church of God?

Perhaps if such a doctrine is optional. From Pius XII to recently, "Adam's body evolved from primates, but his soul was created immediately by God and so was Eve, from his rib" has been considered optional, a valid option for Catholics wanting to accomodate Evolution.

A diocese which in 1947 or 1950 agreed on this would not automatically become a diocese outside the Church of Christ, since, while this doctrine was strictly unscriptural (a point which Pius XII refused to decide, leaving it for future discussion, like Pilate "washing his hands", nearly), the diocese in Paris in 1947 or some diocese in US or UK on 1950 were not pretending to outlaw the traditional doctrine, both Biblical and Patristic.

I would say, this is true even if the situation has gone on longer. Since at least 1820, Heliocentrism is considered optional. But Geocentrism was not outlawed. The Geocentric Father Anfossi was told he could not condemn the physics book by Settele, but he was not told he had to become a Heliocentric himself.

Also in 1893, Pope Leo XIII was vaguely (without direct mention of the point) commending as optional the Heliocentric view, with an exegesis of "phenomenal language" for Geocentric passages. Note, optional. Or actually, it is saying some phenomenal language does occur, but not specifying if Geocentric expressions are part of that case. Therefore, Heliocentrism is optional. Any theoretical diocese (I have no historic knowledge of a factual one, with certainty) which treated this solution as obliging the faithful to abandon the Biblical and Geocentric world view was at least wrong, and by itself would have been automatically excommunicated : for schism, because arrogating to itself the right to declare illicit what had been lawful before and at times even obliging, when the Pope himself had not declared it illicit, and for heresy, because the doctrinne is in fact unbiblical, and by making it obligatory, they are not excusing individual adherents from the sin of heresy, but falling themselves into that, bishop and clergy along with laymen. It could only have survived as a Catholic Diocese by the Pope excusing the bishop as an overenthusiastic reader of Providentissimus Deus 18 on some few sentences:

To understand how just is the rule here formulated we must remember, first, that the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost "Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation."(53) Hence they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers-as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us - `went by what sensibly appeared,"(54) or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.

Some other sentences make inerrantism exceedingly clear as non-optional, like it has always been.

And that Pope so excusing the bishop remaining Catholic (true of at least Leo XIII, St Pius X, most probably Benedict XV and again certainly Pius XI) as deciding to leave corrections or real decisions for later, when things clear up. And that Pope remaining Catholic also holding the diocese to be Catholic. Just as a King*, representing God's justice on earth, can decide that a murder is not executed, (especially while deciding a bit more if it was murder of self defense) a Pope, representing the Faith and Grace on Earth, can decide that someone not materially orthodox is nevertheless not cut off from grace for heresy.

Is it necessary for the Pope to explicitly have at least in pectore have considered Geocentrism as true and in fact obliging? I think a Pope could also be excused, as long as Heliocentrism remained optional to him.

So, the Catholic Church can remain Catholic, if that is the right Church, as long as unbiblical doctrines like Heliocentrism and Evolution remain optional. If however a diocese starts treating these errors as dogma and the truths as heresy, even the Pope has no power to declare such spiritual tyranny to be acts of a bishop ruling in the Catholic Church over a diocese. A Pope not excommunicating such a diocese would fail in his duties, as lamentably as Honorius I when it came to Monotelethism.

Now, what does this principle mean for the claim of "got questions"?

Supposing "the Roman Catholic doctrines of purgatory, prayer to Mary, and the veneration of saints" had been un-Biblical, the Roman Catholic Church could only have remained the or a Church of Christ by leaving these doctrines as optional.

But in fact it did not.

It was liturgically confessing these doctrines, and therefore obliging anyone participating in the liturgy to "confess with his mouth" these points. Not just since this or that more or less recent Council claimed as Ecumenical, but by the constant liturgic practise. August 15 was a Holiday of Obligation** and each diocese was obliging all faithful not having a particular excuse to be in Church, as on a Sunday, even if it was not a Sunday, because Assumption of Our Lady was kind of equivalent to a Sunday. Attending in Church on that day automatically implied you were accepting the Mariological content of the feast. Or, the Protestants would have it, the "Mariolatrous content".

The feast is older even than the Schism between East and West, in the East it is called Dormition of Our Lady and it is held she did not remain in the grave. She was taken to Heaven and is its Queen, just as Her Son is Heaven's King.

If you don't believe that, you have no business being in Church on August 15, and ALL Catholic dioceses, as well as ALL Orthodox, as well as ALL Coptic and Armenian and as well as ALL Nestorian ones required you to be in Church that day.

Fact checking for Nestorians, first attempt:

Confessional Gadfly : Are You a Nestorian?
Rev. Eric J Brown | Monday, August 16, 2010
http://confessionalgadfly.blogspot.fr/2010/08/are-you-nestorian.html

"Over at his blog, Rev. Mason Beecroft posts his sermon from yesterday in which he laments that the LCMS calls August 15th "Mary, Mother of our Lord" instead of "Mary, Mother of God." (Okay, he rails)."

(Mason Beecroft's blog is private, that is why I cite the post citing it)

In fact, not a good fact check, since LCMS is Lutheran Church in Malaysia and Singapore or Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. While considered by some fellow Lutheran as Nestorianising, it is not the communion going back to Nestorius.

Here is a better fact check:

Tuesday August 15th, 6:00pm
DOUKHRANA d MART MARYAM

Tuesdays are not Sundays.

And here is a liturgic text***:

Source:
http://stmaryassyrianchurch.com/articles/322-commemoration-of-stmary-the-blessed-virgin-doukhrana-d-mart-maryam-btoolta-qadeshta

In the plan of your wisdom
she who bore the Christ in her womb
was raised body and soul in glory to be with him in heaven.

Note, of the Pre-Protestant Churches, Nestorians are furthest away from Roman Catholics. They too believe she remained virgin, and, what Lutherans and Anglicans and Calvinists usually don't do, that she was lifted to Heaven.

If you don't believe that, for centuries you had no diocese to go to and worship with.

A Nestorian Church will consider you as a sinner and as an apostate if you consistently don't go to Church on August 15. Precisely as a Catholic and an Orthodox Church will. On the other hand, if you believe this doctrine is unbiblical, you are committing hypocrisy or even apostasy in your own eyes if you go to Church on August 15 (unless it's a Sunday).

So, a Calvinist not believing this would have to ultimately choose between Restorationism or Catholicism (of some sort, ranging from Roman to Nestorian).

How does "got questions" deal with this?

Of course, parts of the church have apostatized, but there has always been a remnant of the faithful preserved by God for His purposes.

Either believing Our Lady is with Christ in Heaven, body and soul - and this imples she is Queen there, since in Judah the queens were mothers of the King - is not apostasy or it is. If it is not apostasy, "Mariolatry" is no reason to leave the Catholic Church. If it is, the "remnant of the faithful" was an invisible one. Or has since become so to us.

And, as said elsewhere, an invisible remnant is un-Biblical. Whether the rock in Matthew 16 is Christ or St Peter or both, it is clear the Church is built on a rock. One way of looking at it is, the Church is a city built on a Hill.

One cannot have centuries through which a City built on a Hill is hidden behind a city built around a swamp (on seven hills or not). Not even hidden in retrospect.

All attempts to identify this faithful remnant for centuries like the Vth Century AD or VII C. AD have failed - obviously for those thinking the great mass of Catholics back then were apostates. A Catholic need not identify "a remnant" for those centuries, since identifying those centuries as not being the ones after the Great Apostasy, not being the ones in which the true Church is reduced to a remnant.

Note how very different Pope Michael's claim is from the restorationist one. He is Young Earth Creationist and Geocentric and can point to recent decades in which the positions were at least licit.

A Restorationist like Calvin could not point to recent decades in which Catholic dioceses had not been obliging the faithful to August 15.

Now, the mainstream Protestant position of "got questions" is inconsistent.

In 1400, apparently, one could in most places (those not obliged by presence of Hussites or Culdees) celebrate August 15, believing or confessing belief like a Catholic. But in 1600 you were somehow obliged (at least unless stranded among Spaniards) not to do so, on pain of being an apostate.

On the other hand, if in 1600 you were stranded among Spaniards, you would still, on this view, be obliged to confess your horror of "mariolatry" since maintaining silence and pretending too much to acquiesce (like going to Church on August 15°) you would be

In fact, criteria for apostasy can change through Church discipline. Each new council of the Church adds to the criteria. This is why we don't quite consider the Nestorians as Christians, when refusing Her the honour of Mother of God. Ephesus I, 431 AD. I have heard, Nestorius himself accepted the verdict, resigned as Patriarch and went into a monastery, from which he only emerged again after Chalcedon, 20 years later, after 20 years of penitential silence. He considered, after what I heard, Chalcedonian formula is what he meant.

But an act like the Reformation - not involving higher clergy, usually, not pointing back to recent decades of admitted orthodoxy or at worst optionality of heterodox position - is not a licit means for changing the criteria of what is Christian faith, either true or at least possible, and what is apostasy and known to be so.

The Protestants were doing it anyway, because, at heart, they were Restorationists, in the above meaning of the word.

And that meaning is clearly at variance with Matthew 28, as said elsewhere.

Now, the reason Protestants backed down from Restorationism very quickly is, the Catholics pointed out the absurdity and they needed to admit it. Any Lutheran, Calvinist or Anglican today is heir of the admission made in the debates from back then that pure Restorationism is wrong.

So, mainstream Protestantism became inconsistently Restorationist. Catholicism remained consistently, I will not say "anti-restorationist", because that is not the substance, only the comparison, but I will say it remained consistently "Continuationist". The Church of God which was present in Jerusalem when St Stephen was martyred is exactly the same which was present in many places in 1400 and some fewer ones in Europe due to Reformation, but more ones overseas, thanks to Columbus and Cortez and a few more, in 1600 and which required you to participate in the liturgy of August 15.

What is the other thing which mainstream Protestantism was also inconsistently?

The other thing is "Ecclesio-Imperfectionist". Admitting a position of the Church presented as obligatory can in fact be all the time and later also recognised as being damnable. However, for this to be consistent, you need to admit you must be in a Church even if it has a damnable doctrine. But for this to be consistent, you need to say the Reformation was as such a mistake - obviously not one making it wrong to be Lutheran, since the damnable doctrine of the Reformation being necessary did not disoblige people in Lutheran countries from being in a Church.

Since this, the doctrine of "Ecclesio-Imperfectionism"°° has been more purely distilled in the originally Protestant movement of Ecumenism. It is also apparent in the changes due to Vatican II (which is one reason for a Catholic to stand apart from that establishment, and probably also the council texts as such). In other words, the largest "Ecclesio-Imperfectionist" confession in our days is Novus Ordo Catholicism. It is not consistently Continuationist, though many even Novus Ordo worshipping Catholics are very Continuationist. Why? Because, if you agree with "Pope Francis" on matrimonial validity, you disagree with centuries of Church discipline. And you consider that as an imperfection of those centuries without any as yet psychology from Freud and his ilk. And if you agree with the earlier centuries, you consider "Pope Francis" and his Encyclical Amoris Laetitia are after all a clear imperfection, but also not so much of an imperfection as to make discommunion with them necessary.

The doctrine common to Restorationism and Continuationism is, heresy is worse than schism. The opposite doctrine is that of Ecclesio-Imperfectionism, schism is worse than heresy. Isolation from other Christians is worse than error. No, it is not. But Ecclesio-Imperfectionists say it is.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Sts Vital, Revocate and Fortunate
Martyrs of Smyrna
9.I.2018

PS, quoting once more the article I respond to:

The second, and far more destructive, result of restorationist philosophy is that it denies God’s ability, or willingness, to preserve the faith “once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), rejects His sovereignty over His people, and disavows His plan to bring to pass His will without fail, despite attempts by Satan and his minions to derail it. God did not send His Son to die on the cross for the sins of His people only to allow those same people to lapse into apostasy and languish there for 1800 years.

Exactly why I am no longer a Protestant./HGL

* The notion of King would normally include Presidents of the US, even if they are Kings only for 4 years at a time. That they are elected has no bearing, since "king" is not tied to the dynastic principle. Swedish Kings were elected in Westrogothia and could even be deposed by Westrogothia. Even if that was a long time ago - when all Christians were still Geocentric and Young Earth Creationists. ** And as Our Lady was patron saint of Sweden like so many other kingdoms, national feast day of Sweden. (När Nordens Drott blef Jesus Christ, du Nordens Drottning blef förvisst ...) *** Putting it in italics, since not one of the Roman Catholic Church. I think a Catholic liturgic text would be referring to Her as Mother of God. The enumeration of memories for August 15 begins with Assumptio sanctissimae Dei Genitricis Virginis Mariae. ° If last August 15 I did not go to Church it is because in Paris no Church is in Communion with Pope Michael. Many are in Communion with Antipope "Francis". °° My coinage ad hoc, not sure if there already is a word for it.

Contra Sproul

Great Bishop of Geneva! : 1) Makarios · 2) Once Saved, Always Saved - True for Church, Not True for All Christians Individually · 3) Protestants - Not - Getting Around Matthew 28 Last Three Verses: John Calvin's Attempt · 4) Barnes NOT getting around Matthew 28:20 ... · 5) Since St Francis of Sales had Real Objections to Calvinism ... 6) Contra Sproul 7) Barnes on Jewish Tradition 8) If Constantine had Founded the Catholic Church ... 9) Salvation and Schrödinger's Cat Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : 10) ... on Apostolic Succession, both as to Reasons and Answering an Objection or Two (quora)

Sproul had very proud words to say about the Reformation. "The Reformation Rescued the Gospel"*, as more detailed in this passage:

Since the gospel stands at the heart of Christian faith, Luther and other Reformers regarded the debate over justification as involving an essential truth of Christianity, a doctrine no less essential than the Trinity or the dual natures of Christ. Without the gospel, the church falls. Without the gospel, the church is no longer the church.

The Reformers followed this logic:

• 1) Justification by faith alone is essential to the gospel.
• 2) The gospel is essential to Christianity and to salvation.
• 3) The gospel is essential to a church’s being a true church.
• 4) To reject justification by faith alone is to reject the gospel and to fall as a church.

Pushing Back the Dark

The Reformers concluded that when Rome rejected and condemned sola fide, it condemned itself and ceased to be a true church. ...

Apart from the fact that the statues alluded to in the beginning of the essay smell somewhat of the veneration of Saints, vehemently condemned by Calvin, John Knox, Huldrych Zwingli, Theodore Beza, and at least some others (though not totally Luther or Melanchthon, nor Cranmer), this is nearly a good logic.

It falls on exactly one statement:

1) Justification by faith alone is essential to the gospel.

The final statement, which is equally wrong, cannot be concluded without that first one.

Unless, of course, they could document that this had been the fully embraced doctrine of Catholicism before their own time, before their own conflict.

So far, the Bible part involves Luther faking a quote of St Paul about Abraham and even admitting it, while the Patristics part involves overrelying on only St Augustine and even that reading him selectively (Jesuits have amply refuted the Protestant reading of St Augustine), and the scholastic part is lacking.

When what's his name Caerularius condemned Azymes, he argued that Leavened Bread was not just the traditional discipline in Constantinople, but had been so in "the Ancient Rome" (Rome on Tiber, Rome usually so called**) as well.

He therefore concluded that Rome in using Azymes (Unleavened Bread, in the Greek if his time usually referred to as Unleavened, without adding "Bread", which in Greek is azymoi, Azymes) had left what was essential to the Gospel.

While some could shake their heads on this, thinking that the Last Supper at least was Jesus Christ celebrating "the Feast of Unleavened Bread", Caerularius insisted "the Gospel says 'bread' and we don't call Azymes that". While I believe he can be proven wrong, also in assuming that Christ used Leavened Bread, he at least had the local tradition going for him.

A local tradition which Rome has respected. It was not Rome, it was a Norman Lord, who had on Sicily unjustly persecuted the usage of Leavened Bread.

But the Reformers were not claiming to continue even a local tradition.

The monument is clear enough : at least after more discussions, their claim crystallised in the memory of the later Protestants as Post tenebras lux.

It is as if Caerularius had been born in a Latin family, celebrating with Azymes, never heard of anyone using Leavened Bread and even so imposing it as a Gospel necessity. To do him justice, that was not what he was doing.

To do him justice, he was claiming for Constantinople "Post Lucem Lux"***.

While both he and Reformers were claiming for Rome Post Lucem Tenebras*** - and while both he and Reformers could not quite find a clear age up to which Rome had either been celebrating with Leavened Bread or dogmatising that Justification is by Faith Alone.

At least for his own city, he was more coherent than they. Since, for Geneva or Wittenberg, for Sweden and Denmark, for England and Scotland, they were claiming, basically, with one mouth "Post Tenebras Lux", and they could not and cannot now agree on what hour the Tenebrae started in their own Roman birthplaces and missions as well as in Rome.

Why are Catholic Trads not in the same Position? Well, we can point back to Trent as a formally undisputed authority, and we can check that materially it does mean literal inerrantism in Church Father after Church Father making up the overall consensus required by Trent : at least on subjects such as Young Earth and Geocentrism.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Holy Roman Martyrs
Makar, Rufin, Just and Theophil
28.II.2017

* The Reformation Rescued the Gospel
R.C. Sproul / January 23, 2017
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/reformation-rescued-the-gospel

** By contrast with Constantinople, nicknamed New Rome or Second Rome.

*** I had to correct my use of case after post, it is accusative, not ablative. This for those who saw the essay while it said "post luce" in two places.

Reading some from a Mormon Church History

Starting to quote and comment as salient passage from their introduction:

Volume 1 Introduction
Antiquity of the Gospel
https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/volume-1-introduction

"The History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is also the history of the opening and progress of the Dispensation of the fulness of Times;" - so, yes, it is a Mormon Church History. The passage I find most interesting comes after Biblical warnings against apostasy, false teachers and so on.

I have not given this review of the condition of the Church of Christ in the Apostolic age with the view of establishing the idea that the Church at that time was in a complete state of apostasy: nor have I dwelt upon the weaknesses and sins of the early saints for the purpose of holding them up for contempt. My only purpose has been to dispel, first of all, the extravagant ideas that obtain in many minds concerning the absolute sanctity of the early Christians; and secondly, and mainly, to show that there were elements and tendencies existing in the early Church, even in the days of the Apostles, that would, when unrestrained by Apostolic authority and power, lead to its entire over throw.

Note the key words "when unrestrained by Apostolic authority and power" - it would be better to say "if".

We have no good reason to believe that there occurred any change for the better in the affairs of the Church after the demise of the Apostles, no reason to believe that there were fewer heresies or fewer false teachers, or false prophets to lead away the people with their vain philosophies, their foolish babblings, and opposition of science falsely so called.

Correct.

On the contrary, one is forced to believe the prediction of Paul, viz., that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived; 66 for who, after the Apostles were fallen asleep, would stand up and correct the heresies, that were brought into the Church, rebuke the schismatics, the false teachers and false prophets that arose to draw away disciples after them?

Who? The successors of the Apostles, the successors first and foremost of St Peter - in each diocese, insofar as ordinary bishop over chorepiscopoi mirrors Peter over the other 11 in Jerusalem, in the patriarchal dioceses, chronologically speaking by Petrinity, Jerusalem where he resided first (except continuity was interrupted at Jerusalem, year 70), Antioch, where he resided after Jerusalem, Rome, where he came to oppose Simon Magus and defeat his self divinising magic and where he as well as St Paul died as martyrs, and Alexandria, whither he sent St Mark. Later the parish of Byzantion took over eastern part of Patriarchy of Rome, when it became the Patriarchal Diocese of Constantinople. And of these cities, first and foremost the successors of Peter in Rome. Or, of Rome (Avignon being an undisputed past and Topeka a disputed present exile location for such).

If false teachers insinuated themselves into the Church, brought in damnable heresies by reason of which the way of truth was evil spoken of, and the pure religion of Jesus Christ corrupted even while inspired Apostles were still in the Church, it is not unreasonable to conclude that all these evils would increase and revel unchecked after the death of the Apostles.

If God had not told the Apostles to give themselves and each other successors, that would indeed have followed. But He did. He told them in Matthew 28 He was with them EVERY day until the consummation of all time. That must include their successors. Nor does this apply to all faithful as successors of all faithful at the moment, for He said it to the Eleven, not to all who were His disciples and believed the Resurrection. It does not mean He relinquishes the rest of the disciples and is only with Bishops, it means He is, usually, with the rest of the disciples THROUGH the action, both in providing valid sacraments and in condemning damnable errors, of Bishops, as successors of the Twelve and of Peter among the Twelve.

I cannot, of course, in this introduction, enter into even a brief history of false teachers in the early Christian centuries. That of itself would be matter for a volume.

An easy cop out for avoiding to see that the truth was in fact preserved, and preserved precisely through Bishops, against errors.

I shall therefore content myself with making quotations from reliable authorities that will directly establish the fact of the rapid increase in the number of false teachers, and the Pernicious effects of their doctrines upon the Christian religion.

We'll see which these "reliable authorities" are. In advance, I suspect Mormonism is relying on Protestantism and therefore ascribing error to infallible Catholicism.

It should be said before making these quotations, however, that Protestant writers ...

Ah, so the reliable authorities are in fact Protestant Church Historians?

... that Protestant writers are interested in maintaining that the Christian religion was perpetuated, even through the ages of apostasy, and given back to mankind by the agency of the so-called "Reformation" of the sixteenth century.

This is indeed a paradox in Protestant view of Church History. Mormonism is more logical than Protestantism, just as the most logical Mormonism there is, is Islam, insofar as Islam says we Christians, that is we Catholics, corrupted even the texts. That way THEY don't feel the need to bother about Matthew 28, I suppose. Or some of them at least.

Hence in their writings, when stating the corruptions of the early Church, they are especially guarded, lest too strong a statement would lead to the belief that the Christian religion had been utterly subverted.

Yep, Protestants tend to hedge in all their sayings about Church in Late Antiquity and Middle Ages. On the one hand, they must not approve so much that they or their readers can find it licit to become Catholics, and on the other hand they must not approve so little as to suggest Christianity was lost except for a sole uncomprehended text until Luther and some more started comprehending it.

That is why I don't tend to think of them as great intellectuals on this issue. Oh, they can be excellent when it comes to Hebrew history during Old Testament, or such and such an aspect of Genesis, but Church History? Not. Their. Forte. At. All.

Indeed, it is well known that Milner wrote his Church History—which should be regarded not so much as the history of the Church as the history of piety—to counteract the influence of Mosheim's Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, which work Milner considered too frank in its statements of perversions and abuses of religion. The Protestant writers must need set forth the theory that the Christian religion survived all the abuses and corruptions of it through ages of apostasy, else they would have no logical ground for the sixteenth century "Reformation" to stand upon.

Excellent analysis of why Reformation was wrong in theory as well as bloody and cruel and greedy and sacrilegious in practise.

They seem not oblivious to the fact, though never mentioning it, that if the Christian religion was displaced by a paganized religion—a false religion—as is fully predicted, as we shall see later, in the New Testament prophecies, and of which the works of Protestant writers go far towards proving—then the only possible way in which the true Christian religion and the Church of Christ could be restored would be by re-opening of the heavens, and the giving forth of a new dispensation of the Gospel, together with a renewal of divine authority to preach it, and administer its ordinances of salvation.

Excellent analysis of the claims of Muslims and Mormons.

One little problem with these claims. IF the Christian religion was displaced by a paganized religion, and IF this displacement was overall - no remnant with undisputable continuity beside, like St Nicolas du Chardonnet or Palmar de Troya or Vatican in Exile - I currently adher to Vatican in Exile - beside the Vatican II Counter Church. As there is neither a clear Lutheran nor - obviously - a clear Mormon continuity from Gospel to Reformation or from Gospel to Joseph Smith, their claim would mean there was such a displacement and it was universal.

A GREAT apostasy has been prophecied, but NOT a universal one.

So, they would need to demonstrate there was in fact a Universal apostasy - that the traits which Church history anno 300 or 400 or 500 or 600 show to be universal are traits which are apostatic.

This is a very daring claim - I have not seen one back it up.

Catholics hold that there has been no great apostasy in the Church. Their theory is, that there has been a constant, unbroken, perpetuation of the Christian Church from the days of the Messiah and His Apostles until now; and that the Roman Catholic church is that very Church so perpetuated through the ages. Catholic writers admit that there have been very corrupt periods in the church and many wicked prelates, and some vile popes; yet they hold that the church has persisted, that the Christian religion has been preserved in the earth.

Some Catholics by now hold that meanwhile there has been a very great, though not a universal apostasy. Vatican II is a key word. To some Vatican II is the beginning of apostasy formal, to others Vatican II in the bare texts was fine (have they read Gaudium et Spes?) but the spirit of some Council Fathers prevailed through intrigue beside and after council through a culpable but not apostatic lack of vigilance by some real though bad Popes (that is the position of SSPX), some say election of John XXIII was invalid by usurpation of a papacy belonging to thitherto Cardinal Siri, some say Paul VI was drugged and his public documents partially forged, others say he was a clear Apostate and Antichrist. But all Catholic "Trads" agree that there was also opposition to this even if this opposition has tended to disunity and disorganisation.

Others see in this disunity the sign that Rad Trad Catholicism is mistaken and Vatican II with the most official parts of aftermath are obliging.

And on this some reply that being adherent of Vatican II does not result in unity. Between Paul VI and Benedict XVI there were beside the official four "eucharistic prayers" (one of which is a canon of St Hippolytus, sometimes considered as fragmentary, sometimes also as being from his time as schismatic Antipope, one of which is a shortened version or perversion of Roman Canon, these being II and I, while III is a new production, most common, and IV has been nicknamed "Arian canon") a plethora of half official rites, including the near Protestant ones of the Neocatechumenate. A French priest or deacon told me he considered Polish Catholicism (and I converted before a Polish priest) as "nearly Integrist", that is in English terms, "nearly Rad Trad". Which neatly confirms how Vatican in Exile / Pope Michael considered Catholicism survived behind Iron Curtain where most opposed to Communism, even despite some implementation of Vatican II.

Either way, all agree the "great apostasy" if at all happening, has not been a "universal apostasy". Such as Matthew 28 says cannot happen.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Jerome*
30.IX.2016

* In Bethlehem Judae depositio sancti Hieronymi Presbyteri, Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris, qui, omnium studia litterarum adeptus ac probatorum Monachorum imitator factus, multa haeresum monstra gladio suae doctrinae confodit; demum, cum ad decrepitam usque vixisset aetatem, in pace quievit, sepultusque est ad Praesepe Domini. Ejus corpus, postea Romam delatum, in Basilica sanctae Mariae Majoris conditum fuit.

Between Vigilantius and the Waldensians

I have heard Protestants say or more recently read them write* that:

• Benedict XVI/Ratzinger was wrong to affirm the need of Apostolic Succession and to affirm at same time that Protestantism lacked it;
• since to them the continuation of the Church was not tied to the presence of legitimate pastors;
• that a Church - here is the new item for today - was present in the Cottian Alps independently of Rome. And thus, it is presumed, independently of Apostolic Succession as we understand it.

This presumed Church in the Cottian Alps - was the claim insofar as I understood it - had Waldensians simply continuing the non-Roman Catholicism of Vigilantius. Never mind Vigilantius was rather from the Pyrenees! Richard Bennet is Irish, but he shows an US American disregard for European geography here!

Now, Vigilantius' Treaty or other utterance is not preserved to us. His positions are cited and refuted in Contra Vigilantium by Saint Jerome -and the Church Father is presuming Vigilantius or at least anyone else hearing of this would respect the Papal practise of praying over the full body relics of Saints Peter and Paul. Does not quite seem as if Vigilantius belonged to another confession or ecclesiastic body than Saint Jerome, even more so as Vigilantius was only presbyter, not bishop. One must therefore presume he depended on a bishop. Indeed, Exsuperius of Toulouse being his bishop did favour the views of Vigilantius and Saint Jerome intervened because Riparius, also a presbyter, brought forth the complaints against this. Now, this act of the good Catholic Riparius may be a precedent for making appeals against an apostate bishop, and even to good Theologians not necessarily Popes, but not Vigilantius and Exsuperius for Protestantism. Now, like Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine, Vigalantius lived in the 4th and 5th Centuries. Waldensians are recorded as a sect differring from Catholics in the 12th Century.

Here is a little problem for their theory. If Vigilantius was a Protestant rather than just a radical priest of the Vatican II type of disciplinary dissolution - despite depending on a bishop! - and if Protestants survived where he had lived to when they were Waldensians:

• how come they did not preserve the precious treaty of Vigilantius by copying? Of course, if Vigilantius was Pyrenees and they were Cottian Alps, there might have been some Geographical difficulty, but if the lost treaty of Vigilantius could spread to where Saint Jerome could answer it, why not to the Cottian Alps, if there were proto-Albigensians there who might have been willing to preserve it?
• And, did they accept the Bible translation of Saint Jerome, the Vulgate, despite Saint Jerome being a defender of reverence to relics, vigils, burning of tapers, despite defending the sending of alms to Jerusalem, despite his defending monkish poverty and virginal chastity?
  
  What happened when the language spoken in the Cottian Alps drifted further and further away from being basically one sound per each letter written in Latin?** For the Catholic Community, we know what Alcuin did. He made clergymen pronounce Latin as written, probably even more letter by letter than when Christianity began.** As a byproduct writing down the sounds of spoken speech, also letter by letter, started, first no doubt sporadically, as usual preparation for obligatory sermon in vulgar tongue,*** with different individual makeshifts for sounds not found in Alcuin's Latin pronunication, then written Romance languages emerged. But when exactly did writing Latin leave place to writing Occitan in the Cottian Alps? Would these presumed Waldensians also have been reading the Gospel in Latin pronounced as by the people, then obeyed the reform of Alcuin (despite him being a Catholic who venerated relics and wanted monks to be poor and chaste!) then read the Gospel in Alcuin's Latin and then found (what a coincidence with the Council of Tours, if so!) the people needed a translation and then introduced an Occitan suspiciously similar to that produced in Catholic countries like most of the Carolingian Empire? Or what happened? How did it affect the supposed Waldensian community there?
  
  
• Do we have any traces of the supposed Waldensian community at all, between Vigilantius and the historic Waldensians?

Because, if we haven't, neither the kind of traces I have detailed out as possible, nor in general, how can anyone in his right mind affirm there was an uninterrupted Protestant community there?

If it agreed with Vigilantius in censoring relics, how come there are no conflicts with surrounding Catholicism up to the time of the Waldensians? I do not necessarily mean violent conflicts, but things like ...

• Was there any Catholic in the 8th C who complained about the men in the Cottian Alps who refused to honour relics (as Vigilantius had done and as Waldensians would do)?
• Was there any Cottian Alps Protestant who during the 10th C, the Dark Century of Papacy wrote anything like "look what comes of honouring relics"?
• When the supposed Cottian Alps' Protestants saw Iconoclasm in the East, when Emperors agreed on icons what Vigilantius had said about relics and what Waldensians would say about both, but when they were also persecuting Iconodules, i e Catholics, despite the Waldensian tenet against persecuting anyone, as per La Nobla Leçoun, which whether originally Waldensian or not is one writing accepted by Waldensians, do we see any debates among the supposed Cottian Alps' community of Protestants as to which side to take or as to be neutral?

As far as I know, the answer to these three questions is a very resounding NO.

Now, there is another question than indefectibility of the Church involved in the Catholic claim that Apostolic Necessity is necessary.

Berean Bacon is claming the Cottian Alps got their Christianity independently of Rome, in the Apostolic age. That is indeed possible. I do not know it for a fact, but it is possible. The Catholic claim of Apostolic Succession is not concerned with only succession from St Peter in Rome, or from Sts Peter and Paul in Rome, but with succession from the TWELVE. One can be a bishop, in the Catholic sense, and not trace one's lineage as bishop back to St Peter. But one cannot be so and not trace one's lineage back to the TWELVE, of whom St Peter was foremost but of whom he was only one.

Bergamo got its bishop from St Barnabas - codisciple with St Paul of Gamaliel, only seriously considered named rival of St Paul about the canonic writing to the Hebrews - and St Barnabas was ordained or consecrated in Jerusalem along with St Paul before going off as missionary bishops, unless my memory of Acts or Pauline Epistles misleads me. Whether the Simon mentioned was St Peter or Kephas, or someone else, the cheirotonia did go back to the TWELVE. St Paul and the SEVENTY got their succession from them. Spain certainly got a lineage from St James the Greater, brother of Saint John, son of Zebedee. India certainly got a lineage from Saint Thomas Didymus.

These lineages persist also outside the Catholic Community. There is an ontological as well as a juridical side to episcopacy. The ability to ordain priests for the celebration of Holy Mass is there in a schismatic bishop, like those obeying the wrong "Pope" during the Western Schism. It is present in a bishop who is a heretic, like a Monophysite or a Nestorian. When heretical Monothelite bishops became Catholics, forming the Maronite Community, they needed no reordination, no reconsecration. It is only on the juridical side that episcopacy is automatically deficient or lacking when outside and especially when pertinaciously against the true Church.

And the earliest pastors of Protestantism at the Reformation did not receive episcopacy, excepting one Swede. And he did NOT transmit it, because he did NOT intend to. He changed the ritual because he did not believe in the Holy Mass.

Now, we are not monomaniacs about episcopacy irrespective of "congregation" (as they would say), just because Berean Beacon are blind to it and accuses us of being such.

A Catholic "congregation" without a bishop does not cease to be Catholic. It is widowed (as a bishop represents the Bridegroom), but it is not automatically in heresy or schism because it lacks a bishop.

The so-called Petite Église - it means "little Church" - accused Pius VII of apostasy because of his concordate with Napoleon I, for one thing because he made peace with revolutionary clergy (their practises had been condemned in Auctorem Fidei by Pope Pius VI when he condemned the Synod of Pistoia) and for another because he excommunicated remaining Counterrevolutionaries, remaining Chouans. Cadoudal died, executed by Napoleon's men, in communion with Little Church and not with Pius VII. As these considered Pius VII a non-Pope and traitor, they went into schism. They came to lack bishops and after some time even priests.

But it was their consideration of Pius VII which made them schismatic, not just the misfortune of lacking bishops and priests. And this lack could not make them heretics either. When their last priests died, there was noone who could celebrate Holy Mass with them. Their parishes were not just widowed, but now crippled as well. But did they take the Eucharist in the hands of laymen? No. They were not heretics or Protestants. They trusted episcopacy and Holy Mass continued elsewhere, as Christ had promised. They continued Baptism, which laymen can confer in cases of necessity, and they continued marriages, which the spouses are the ones conferring.

But the Protestants seeing no bishop sided with them saw no need for this limitation. They did not see that a congfregation without a bishop even though retaining the faith, is crippled, unable to continue where it is the Holy Eucharist : it has to unite itself to Holy Eucharist celebrated elsewhere.

That is what makes Protestantism so special as a heresy. There is a semi-episcopal or pseudo-epicopal variety of it recently forming the Porvoo Communion.° But it can show no correct episcopal lineage.

In the Cottian Alps, Waldensians finally did not even try to show such a thing, not when joining hands with Calvinists. But for all i know - and better historians than I will confirm it in some detail, I doubt not, if there is time for it before the world ends - Christianity in the Cottian Alps, previous to Waldensians, had bishops, had Holy Mass, had Seven Sacraments. And as Vigilantius was anyway in the Pyrenees, it honoured relics too.

And of course Vigilantius was no Protestant. He agreed with Protestants in some things, at least before getting the answer from Saint Jerome, like about relics. But he did not agree with them about Holy Mass or Apostolic Succession, nor about Seven Sacraments and Episcopal order.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Sunday
28-IX-2014

NewAdvent : Fathers : Jerome : Against Vigilantius
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3010.htm

* Richard Bennet in Berean Beacon, not linking.

** As long as the discrepancy was basically B and V (originally pronounced W) coinciding between vowels as our v, and the ten vowels of Latin, five long and five short, being simplified to the seven mid long vowels of Proto-Romance, and loss of nasality of nasal vowels spelled as vowel plus final m, as long as the morphological impact of this phonetic change was limited to making accusative agrum coincide with ablative agro, or future with perfect as in vocabit/vocavit, vocabimus/vocavimus, it was feasible to consider the written Latin as a way of writing the spoken language. But changes did not stop there. As to Alcuin's pronunciation, -um was not just not omitted or pronounced like -o, but -u- and -m were pronounced as two sounds, as we do today too, rather than as two letters for a nasal -u.

*** Council of Tours of 813 took note of fact that as Alcuin's pronunciation of the Gospel in Latin was not that of the people, these did not understand it. And those speaking a Germanic language, like Frankish or Burgundian, didn't understand it anyway. So, one decided after the Gospel a priest on a Sunday or Holiday had to explain its content in the vulgar tongue. This decision was taken within few decades of Alcuin's reform.

° Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists. Swedish Lutherans being closer than the others to having episcopal succession and even these not even near, when you consider what Laurentius Petri did.