Who really cares what the ECF's had to say?

[Anglian]

Greetings. How did the early ECFs view that "divine mystery" in Revelation?


Revelation 10:7 But in the Days of the voice of the seventh messenger, when-ever he may be being about to be trumpeting, also is finish the Mystery of the GOD, as He brings Good-Message to His bond-servants, the prophets.

Dear LLOJ,

Most of them concentrated on the word of the Incarnate Lord as presented in the Gospels and the expositions provided by the Apostles, feeling that even if Revelation was by St. John (and there remains no agreement on that) it was a rich source of misunderstandings!

But on the verse you quote, Oecumenius in his Commentary says that when the seventh angel blows his trumpet at the appointed time every mystery and every prophetic foretelling will receive its fulfilment.

Peace,
Anglian

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Dear LLOJ,

Most of them concentrated on the word of the Incarnate Lord as presented in the Gospels and the expositions provided by the Apostles, feeling that even if Revelation was by St. John (and there remains no agreement on that) it was a rich source of misunderstandings!

But on the verse you quote, Oecumenius in his Commentary says that when the seventh angel blows his trumpet at the appointed time every mystery and every prophetic foretelling will receive its fulfilment.

Peace,
Anglian

Greetings. If that is the case, how come the RCC sees Pagan Rome as that Great Harlot in Revelation as ALL THINGS would be finished upon the fulfillement of that Mystery

http://christianforums.com/showthread.php?t=7263327
Early ECFs and Queen/Babylon in Revelation

 

[Anglian]

Dear LLOJ,

Because the commentary by Victorinus of Petrovium identifies it as such. This was the earliest extant commentary.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[Secundulus]

2000 years! That can't be true. Even your Liturgy of St Chrysostom mentions that Mary died. You had to add you own comment that we NOW know she's assumed.

[Staff Edit]

The assumption doesn not say that she didn't die. It simply says that after she died she as assumbed body and soul into heaven.

Protestants say this is going to happen to them all the time. Have you ever heard of the rapture. Or are you one that believes [Staff Edit] that what might happen to you could have never happened to her?

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Dear LLOJ,

Because the commentary by Victorinus of Petrovium identifies it as such. This was the earliest extant commentary.

Peace,

Anglian

Ok thanks. My mom just sent me this email and I posted it on the News/Events board. Allahu Akbar!!!! LOL.

http://christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=48056862#post48056862

Workers at the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Shelbyville will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day but will instead be granted the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr.

 

[Rick Otto]

 

[JacktheCatholic]

Dear Jack,

The Anglican Church has always paid great honour to the Blessed Virgin. Beamishboy represents himself and a part of Anglicanism only.

peace,

Anglian

And that is what I was trying to have Beamishboy see.

Thank you as always.

 

[WarriorAngel]

How come you don't see it? We are agreed the "blessed" can mean "happy". See my earlier post on the Greek words. What she says is "All generations will say I'm happy". But the RCs change the meaning of "blessing" through the centuries into something we are now more familiar with than a mere "happy".

That statement is not a prophecy or a command. It's a statement of her present mood. She was happy. You wrote in a post after the one I quote above if she was speaking the truth. Again, you miss the point. Of course she spoke the truth about her feelings - that she was happy.

All generations shall call me happy?

Um, i hate to point out something - but - simeon said her heart would be peirced with a sword. That doesnt sound like happy happy.

THAT means she took on great pain...
And as she was as well as Simeon, filled with grace [Holy Spirit] its safe to surmise she already knew the heartache of taking on the role of the Mother of the Savior.

Just because she pondered things, thru the graces she was filled with, meant only that she knew and kept things to herself.

No, she didnt say 'I am happy' even tho she was knew she was choosen for a very special role. Even tho she was obedient and humble. Even tho inside she was elated to be given this special task....
She already knew altho she was going to be called blessed FOR ALL GENERATIONS to say so, knowing what lie ahead...so in context of the entire scriptures, she didnt say all generations shall me happy.
IN fact, she knew & gave the prophecy she was saying, and it was in regards to her choosen [special] role...

The Bible is not the property of the ECFs. The fact that the Bible exists today is no guarantee that the ECFs were not capable of making mistakes.

It is a credit to them that despite their practices, they did not change the words of the canonical books which show a shocking absence of anything even remotely suggestive of Mary veneration.

But we can't say the same about the ECF writings. They are not held to be canonical or sacred and scribes do make convenient changes. It's for this reason that I personally would not depend on ECF writings. What if Marian veneration passages were added into the writings by scribes. They didn't dare touch the NT because it's the word of God but they sure didn't treat ECF writings that way.

For this reason, I would not accuse the ECFs of heresy. We know that not one of the original manuscripts of the ECFs has survived that dealt favourably with Mary veneration. It's safer to look only at those books that the scribes didn't dare really to change.

The ecf's determined what was heresy....and decided the word heresy.
They determined which books were gnostic, which were credible...
AND they knew because they had Apostolic teachings and the Holy Spirit to carry these things thru all generations.

This is the word of our Lord. Thanks be to God.


Luke 11:27-28 (New International Version

27As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you."

28He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."

Jesus said [in easier English]

'NO, rather blessed is My Mother BECAUSE she did the will of God.'
IE...she was blessed for being obedient - which takes us back to being BLESSED. Her special role, and her acceptance.


bless·ed

–adjective 1.consecrated; sacred; holy; sanctified
2.worthy of adoration, reverence, or worship:
3.divinely or supremely favored; fortunate: to
.

Let me courteously ask you about the Redemptrix Cross where Mary appears on it. Vatican has not condemned such crosses and there are many RCs who accept it. In fact I read somewhere that many RCs want the Vatican to accept the Redemptrix Cross as an official dogma. Not condemning it is bad enough to me; you don't need an official stamp.

I hope you are not referring to the picture where Mary is standing in front of the cross - so as to show her significance to mankind's assistance in their salvation thru obeying God to be His Blessed Mother. Because she is NOT on the cross.

 

[katherine2001]

If you look at the Orthodox icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos, you see her lying dead being surrounded by the Apostles who have come to be with her. You'll also see Christ holding a miniature Theotokos in His arms wrapped in white swaddling clothes (at least that is what it looks like to me), which signifies His taking His mother's soul up to Heaven with Him. The Orthodox do believe that the Theotokos died.

 

[WarriorAngel]

Yes, She did die, and was risen...
As was Henoch, Elijah, Moses, and Her Son...Who took her so as not to let her blessed flesh decay as was is common for sinners of Adam.

 

[MamaZ]

Dear MamaZ,

Again, you demonstrate why an understanding of the ECFs really does matter.

Like the word 'Trinity' the word 'Theotokos' is drawn from Scripture, although neither word is used as such there.

The Nicene Creed teaches that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are of one essence. What does this mean? Here the Fathers who established the doctrine of the Trinity are again our guide.

The Incarnation is at the heart of our salvation, but how are we, the created, to understand this ineffable mystery? St. John tells us that the Word 'became flesh', and, as St. Cyril explains:

Salvation is the work of the whole Trinity, not of one part of it, so either St. Mary was the Godbearer, or she gave birth to a mixture of God and man; that is not what the Church Council at Ephesus in AD 431 decided, nor is it what the Church has taught ever since. This is in the Nicene Creed, which is recited in all Apostolic (and other) Churches; this is our Christian Faith as enunciated through the Fathers from the Scriptures.

Peace,

Anglian

The Godhead is made up of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.. IN the beginning it was God,word,Holy Spirit. So when The word became flesh Mary was the mother of the Man Jesus Christ whom is God in the flesh. But only one third of the Godhead. For God the Father has never been born so therefore does not have an earthly mother. Therefore Mary is not the God bearer but the Christ bearer. Making her the Mother of the Christ..This I will attest to. But her being the HOLY THEOTOKOS I cannot bear. For as has been shown she was the Christ bearer.

 

[MamaZ]

How come no one responded to this post

I guess because the name of Mary wasn't in it.. LOL

 

[MamaZ]

So, are you saying that the human jesus and the divine Jesus are two seperate beings? What does that do to your theology?

Nope that is why I say that Mary was only His mother once He became flesh. So therefore she is only His earthly mother because He had no mother before He became flesh..

 

[Anglian]

Dear MamaZ,

The Council of Ephesus or you? I think I'm going with the Council of the Church which recognised the canon of Scripture, if that's OK with you.

The reasoning was explained earlier, but you have not, alas, engaged with it. I have done my best to engage with your questions, but it does take two to have a dialogue, and I'm a little disappointed that you have not responded to what was posted; but there we go.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[Anglian]

Dear MamaZ,

Perhaps this, from a former Evangelical will help explain why this matters?

Whether we like to face it or not, the Bible teaches Mary is the mother of God. First let's look at the text, then we will discuss why this title is so important to our lives as Christians in the Church.


After Christ had been conceived in her womb, Mary paid a visit to the home of relatives Zacharias and Elizabeth, soon to be parents of John the Baptist. When Mary greeted her cousin, Elizabeth called her blessed and said, "Why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke 1:43). Elizabeth knew that her Lord, the Messiah of Israel, was in the womb of Mary.

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]This title took on great importance in the fourth century, when a heretic named Nestorius-a man who held high office in the Church-claimed that the one in Mary's womb was certainly man, but that He was not God. Orthodox Christians, with one accord, said, "Wrong!" To see Jesus Christ as something less than God in the flesh is sub-Christian. For unless the one in Mary's womb was and is God, we are dead in our sins. To safeguard the full deity of Christ, the Church has always insisted that Mary be rightly called as Elizabeth called her-the Mother of God. This title, of course, does not mean mother of the Holy Trinity, for the Holy Trinity has no mother. Neither does it mean she originated the Person Who is God the Son. It refers instead to Mary being the Mother of the Son of God, Who assumed full humanity in her womb.

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Just as we insist on the Virgin birth of Christ, we also insist that for the nine months she carried Him in His humanity He was at every moment fully God as well. Thus we say boldly and with great insistence that Mary is the Mother of God, Theotokos, God-bearer. To say anything less is to side with those who deny His deity. [/FONT]

[/FONT]No one is making the self-evidently absurd claim that the Blessed Theotokos gave birth to the Trinity; but if the Word was fully God, then she gave birth to God, not to a man. I know you are not claiming that He was just a man, but many have in the past, and so now, so the title is a way of ensuring that false ideas about the Incarnate Word are not preached.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[MamaZ]

Well she was the Christ bearer. I don't have a problem with that. For what was prophecied was fulfilled in that Mary gave birth to the Messiah..

 

[beamishboy]

And that is what I was trying to have Beamishboy see.

Thank you as always.

My dear Jack,

How kind of you to try to have the beamishboy see that his church has a large pro-Rome faction.

But that means nothing to me. Can you understand that? I believe only in the truth and the Bible is the truth. The teachings of the Apostles are what I will adhere to and not the words of a body of men in my church, some of whom are distinctly pro-RC.

A year or two ago, I wanted to get out of the Anglican church and join some other more clearly Bible-believing church. My parents who don't really care for truth and the Bible, were opposed to my going to any other church purely because of culture and heritage. These things mean a lot to them and they don't bother even if the pro-RC faction in my church succeed and the Anglican church becomes a mini Vatican!

I spoke to my vicar and he told me that the CoE is in fact built on the ashes of the Reformers. The Devil has planted the wrong faction in the church in order to lead the church astray. He says it is the duty of all true Englishmen to fight for their true English heritage. Our tradition has ever been Protestant. England has for a long time been anti-RC and we have given the RCs a tough time for a long time. It's because we are nice now that they have done this wretched thing of trying to take over our church.

The beamishboy is not one to turn away from a fight. That is why the beamishboy is a pious Anglican and has remained an altar boy. The beamishboy may want to go into the church in order to fight the faction that is trying to mislead it away from the true path of our great English reformers.

 

[Anglian]

Dear MamaZ,

Yes, she bore the Incarnate Word, but to talk about 'Christ' as separate in some way from 'Jesus' runs the risk of implying that He whom she bore was only human, which is why the Church - and here I include Orthodox, RCC and Anglicans - has always avoided using language that could be misunderstood.

Here is how that did happen and why the Church had to correct it.

In the year 428 Nestorius, a priest-monk of Antioch, was made archbishop
of Constantinople; and he there taught with some of his clergy that
there were two distinct persons in Christ. According to the Nestorian
concept, Christ was two separate persons, the one divine and beyond the reach of human frailty, and the other human and susceptible to all the fragility of the flesh. The divine Christ could neither suffer or die,
and therefore, on the Cross it was the human Christ alone who suffered
and died apart from the divine Christ. Nestorius had spoken out against
calling the blessed Virgin Mary the ``Theotokos'' or ``Mother-of-God.''

Abba Cyril strongly contested these views expounding the Orthodox
doctrine of the indivisible union of the divine and human natures of
Christ, and arguing that if Jesus Christ is God, it follows that his
mother is the ``Mother-of-God'' who bore Him forever. This is what the
Apostles taught us and the doctrine of our Fathers. And just as the
human mother, has no share in creating the soul of her child, yet is
considered the mother of the whole person, and not merely the mother of
his physical nature; so it is with Mary who is the Mother of Christ in
His entirety.

So, again, you help show why it is more than simply useful to read the ECFs.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[Anglian]

Dear Beamishboy,

How kind of you to try to have the beamishboy see that his church has a large pro-Rome faction.

How very judgemental you are about your fellow Christians. You assume they are pro-Rome; might it not just be that you are anti-Rome?

I believe only in the truth and the Bible is the truth.

Are you implying that those who disagree with you do not also believe in truth and the Bible?

A year or two ago, I wanted to get out of the Anglican church and join some other more clearly Bible-believing church.

I see. Well, that would be the honourable course when you are old enough to make the decision; until then you are right to honour your father and mother. That really does explain why you say what you do occasionally about your Church; helpful to know whence you are coming.

I spoke to my vicar and he told me that the CoE is in fact built on the ashes of the Reformers. The Devil has planted the wrong faction in the church in order to lead the church astray. He says it is the duty of all true Englishmen to fight for their true English heritage. Our tradition has ever been Protestant.

If you vicar is calling the Anglo-Catholics the work of the Devil, I should be a trifle worried were he advising my son.

England has for a long time been anti-RC and we have given the RCs a tough time for a long time. It's because we are nice now that they have done this wretched thing of trying to take over our church.

Your evidence that the Catholic Church has any such objective would be precisely what?

The beamishboy is not one to turn away from a fight.

If you would only turn from fighting to the cause of peace, your soul would be a little calmer, I cannot but help feel. Do you not ever feel the urge to understand others before you judge them so harshly?

Do re-read Corinthians 13 if you want to see what the fruits of the Holy Spirit are.

Peace,

Anglian

 

[beamishboy]

Jesus said [in easier English]

'NO, rather blessed is My Mother BECAUSE she did the will of God.'

Hi,

I'm afraid I have to be brutally frank. You are totally wrong in your interpretation. He said "No, rather blessed ARE THOSE..." How can you conclude that the plural "those" means his singular mother? You see how extremely wrong this sort of interpretation is? This is the type of interpretation that convinces me that some of you will stretch and mangle the biblical verse until it's totally unrecognisable so that it will fit into your personal cherished practice, however wrong that practice may be.

I pray that you will be honest with yourself and read the Word of God for what it is and not for what you want it to be. You have agreed that Jesus is saying "No, rather blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it". It's in the Bible anyway. Can you please hear God's word and obey it and be blessed? To say that verse means "No, rather blessed is my mother..." is an outrage to the word of God. The grammar does not even fit it. The conversation just doesn't flow that way.