What happened to the Sabbath?

The Liturgist · Mar 14, 2026

boughtwithaprice said:
At the last supper we have Jesus as the Lamb of God, but He blessed the bread and wine telling the disciples to continue the sacrifice in remembrance of Him.

This is correct.

Now the grand irony here is that Sabbatarians criticize us for literally interpreting the Institution Narrative in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 on the basis of “do this in remembrance of me” despite John 6 (which they do not even interpret as referring to the Eucharist, which is rather odd - I have found no Patristic scholars and am aware of no non-Sabbatarian denominations which do not regard John ch. 6 as referring to the Eucharist in some way or another), which by the way is not a valid point, since the Institution Narrative in St. Matthew and St. Mark lacks the phrase “in remembrance of me” and in St. Luke it is applied to only one of two species; this absence is incompatible with the denial of the real presence on a Solo Scriptura basis, for obvious reasons (in that the first Gospel completed, for general use by the early church, that of St. Mark, lacks the phrase, as does St. Matthew, traditionally placed first among the four Gospels in most manuscripts; given the manner in which Sabbatarians deprecate the writings of St. Paul by misreading 2 Peter 3:16, their reliance on “this do ye in remembrance of me” as a Memorialist proof text, aside from the obvious issue with the Greek word anamnesis in the original manuscript not actually negating a physical presence, by any means, makes this rather ironic - essentially, we are criticized for literally reading the four Gospels and 1 Corinthians on the basis of a phrase that appears only in 1 Corinthians - a letter addressed specifically to the church in Corinth which was not as accessible to other churches, particularly outside of the Greek speaking world, as the synoptic Gospels. Indeed in the case of the Aramaic speaking Christians, who mainly used the Syriac dialect (which basically became the Christian dialect of Aramaic, with other religious communities developing their own dialects alongside it wiith differing systems of writings, and in some cases using Syriac as the basis for their dialect - see Mandaic, the dialect spoken by the Mandaeans who venerate John the Baptist, which uses a script which is basically a more advanced version of Estrangelo and other Syriac writing systems, and geographically covered the largest amount of territory, a region stretching from Judaea to Yemen in the South, Edessa in the Northwest, Mongolia in the Northeast, Tibet in the far Southeast, and spanning all of modern-day Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, nearly all of modern day Turkey, and much of the Arabian peninsula, as well as being the language of the Kochin Jews and the Mar Thoma Christians in Malankara, India, they, like many Christians, first depended on oral preaching by Apostles who had either witnessed the events firsthand in the case of St. Thomas and to a lesser extent Saints Addai and Mari, who were of the Seventy, and later by their disciples and by bishops fluent in Greek, and later, the first parts of the New Testament to be translated into Syriac were the four Gospels (the Vetus Syra, extant in two manuscripts).

The fact that they like to ignore - that the final canon was developed by Nicene Fathers such as St. Athanasius (which is a point which must be deprecated because obviously St. Athanasius, Eusebius of Caesarea et al were not Sabbatarians, even though they all worshipped on Saturday, but this, like the historic fact of the Roman church persuading the Roman civil government to switch from an eight day week to a seven day week and to change the name of the seventh day from Dies Irae to Sabato, must be set aside), and that before the Athanasian canon was universally adopted (first in his own church of Alexandria, then by the Hagiopolitan church, then by the Roman and Constantinopolitan church, and lastly by the church in Antioch, which at the time had an unhealthy opposition to Alexandria despite the most illustrious fathers to come out of Antioch, such as St. John Chrysostom, being ardent admirers of the church of Alexandria; fortunately, the toxic culture that had developed in the Catechtical School of Antioch was corrected at Ephesus in 433 AD and the dissenters left for Nisibis, where they were free to openly advocate Nestorianism and managed to corrupt the theology of the Catholicosate of the East, driving a wedge between it and the Chalcedonian Patriarchate of Antioch which was never fully healed (indeed often the Syriac Orthodox got on better with the Church of the East than the Antiochian Orthodox, for example, during the tenure of St. Gregorios bar Hebraeus as Maphrian, the Syriac Orthodox counterpart to the Catholicos-Patriarch, responsible for the eastern dioceses of the Syriac Orthodox Church, historically the part in the Persian Empire, with his counterpart the Patriarch of Antioch being responsible for the western dioceses in Syria, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Asia Minor and so on).

At any rate, I just find it strange that we get criticized for literally interpreting various New Testament scriptures, and in the case of St. Paul, a literal interpretation of a text such as 2 Colossians 2:16 gets 2 Peter 3:16 hurled at us (and paradoxically, 2 Colossians 2:8), despite the fact that objecting to being judged on our observance of the Sabbath is merely a special case of the more general principle of “judge not lest ye not be judged” which we find elsewhere in St. Paul, in the epistle of St. James, and, most importantly, coming from the words of Christ our True God.

Meanwhile, we are also criticized for not following a hyper-literal interpretation of certain Old Testament texts, despite Luke 24 pointing out that the Old Testament is speaking about Christ (and thus, by implication, pointing out that we should be reading it as Christological prophecy - in and of itself, removed from Christ, the Old Testament becomes merely a literary work, and a depressing one at that; indeed, the failure of so many churches to adequately preach Luke 24 has lead to many Christians leaving the faith after reading the Old Testament and interpreting on a purely literal-historical basis the destruction of cities, or the imprecatory Psalms, for example.

BobRyan · Mar 14, 2026

boughtwithaprice said:
I have no reason to speak with you in a derogatory manner,

happy to hear that. We can discuss Bible facts.

boughtwithaprice said:
I don’t disagree with the Catholic Church.

Then you might find the published Catholic statements I provide, to be welcomed

boughtwithaprice said:
I disagree with the way the argument has been made by sources that claim to come from Catholics.

Typically they are Catholic, unless you are not only opposing the statements made but also the organization that publishes.

In the case of "The Faith Explained" you are opposing a book that actually has the Papal Imprimatur on it. So it starts looking like more than just one Catholic "person" that you sometimes oppose.

boughtwithaprice said:
They may have meant well but there is always a chance they could be mistaken.

indeed. Anyone can make a mistake

boughtwithaprice said:
There are levels of authority in the Catholic Church,

No doubt. But that is one of the reasons for even having something like "Papal Imprimatur" placed on articles/books etc.

boughtwithaprice said:
it would be best to use Papal encyclicals

Which is why I include John Paul II's "Dies Domini' encyclical regarding the fact that the Sabbath was for all mankind , and still is part of the moral law of God written on the heart under the New Covenant.

boughtwithaprice said:
and not books by those that may not even be ordained.

Leo Trese is an ordained priest, and his book is used in Catholic universities, and is considered a reference for every catholic home.

boughtwithaprice said:
Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat
"Imprimatur" is Latin for "let it be printed." An imprimatur is a bishop's permission to print a religious book. The bishop is always the local ordinary of the author who wrote the book. The Catholic Code of Canon Law, canons 822-4, requires pastors to help guide the faithful in their use of social communication and particularly books. The imprimatur is one way that charge is carried out.

An imprimatur is always preceded by a "nihil obstat," which is Latin for "nothing stands in the way." This is the judgment that the religious book contains no significant doctrinal errors. Both the imprimatur and the nihil obstat are negative judgments insofar as they are not meant to positively approve the contents of the book, but are merely meant to say that it is not disapproved. It sometimes happens that imprimaturs or nihil obstats are revoked after a period of time due to a discovery of doctrinal errors in the work

Leo Trese's book has both and was initially printed in 1959, my copy is the Second Edition First Print 1965.

The book has seventh printing in 1964

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boughtwithaprice said:
What is not a mistake is that the Bible says that the Sabbath is to have a perpetual holocaust

What is not a mistake is the Sabbath is in Gen 2:2-3 with no sacrifice at all
That is before the fall of man in Gen 3.. so NO sacrifice

It is the Sabbath Commandment in Ex 20:8-11 with no animal sacrifice as part of the command at all
The Command itself had no animal sacrifice

The Gen 4 sacrifice is not connected to Sabbath at all

It is for all eternity after the cross in the New Earth "from Sabbath to Sabbath shall all mankind come before Me to worship" Is 66:23
with no sacrifice at all.
It is the word of God, the commandment of God that cannot be edited by man's tradition Mark 7:7-13 according to Christ

EX 31:16 16 So the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath, to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.’

In the tent of meeting, outside the veil which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning before the Lord; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout their generations for the sons of Israel. Ex 27:21

You shall gird them with sashes, Aaron and his sons, and bind caps on them, and they shall have the priesthood by a perpetual statute Ex 29:9

When Aaron trims the lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense. There shall be perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations Ex 30:8

So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.’ Ex 31:16

boughtwithaprice said:
, which is a sacrifice. I see sacrifice from the very beginning as we have God sacrificing animals to clothe Adam and Eve in rejection of their fig leaf attire. We see Abel making sacrifice pleasing to God, Cain was rejected so he rose up and slew his brother. In Numbers we have the Sabbath sacrifice consist of bread, wine and lamb. At the last supper we have Jesus as the Lamb of God, but He blessed the bread and wine telling the disciples to continue the sacrifice in remembrance of Him.

WE do see the 'memorial" service at the Lord's Supper
As Paul reminds us in 1 Cor 11:24 This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

A memorial,,, not a sacrifice in the case of 1 Cor 11 remembering the "once for all" sacrifice

The once for all sacrifice Heb 10 of Christ was done "once for all"

11 Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; 12 but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. 14 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified

The only sacrifice mentioned at the Lord's supper is the "once for all" sacrifice at the cross "once for all time:"

The real presence is in Col 1:27
Matt 18:20 "Where two or three are gathered in My name " (Sabbath or not) "there I am in their midst"

BobRyan · Mar 14, 2026

boughtwithaprice said:
At the last supper we have Jesus as the Lamb of God, but He blessed the bread and wine telling the disciples to continue the sacrifice in remembrance of Him.

There is not one "continue the sacrifice" statement in all of scripture connected to the Lord's supper either in the gospels or in 1 Cor 11

Heb 10: but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God

Since then we "tell" of the Lord's death, we proclaim that the Lord died His completed, once for all time sacrifice

you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes Heb 10

boughtwithaprice · Mar 14, 2026

The Liturgist said:
This is correct.

Now the grand irony here is that Sabbatarians criticize us for literally interpreting the Institution Narrative in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 on the basis of “do this in remembrance of me” despite John 6 (which they do not even interpret as referring to the Eucharist, which is rather odd - I have found no Patristic scholars and am aware of no non-Sabbatarian denominations which do not regard John ch. 6 as referring to the Eucharist in some way or another), which by the way is not a valid point, since the Institution Narrative in St. Matthew and St. Mark lacks the phrase “in remembrance of me” and in St. Luke it is applied to only one of two species; this absence is incompatible with the denial of the real presence on a Solo Scriptura basis, for obvious reasons (in that the first Gospel completed, for general use by the early church, that of St. Mark, lacks the phrase, as does St. Matthew, traditionally placed first among the four Gospels in most manuscripts; given the manner in which Sabbatarians deprecate the writings of St. Paul by misreading 2 Peter 3:16, their reliance on “this do ye in remembrance of me” as a Memorialist proof text, aside from the obvious issue with the Greek word anamnesis in the original manuscript not actually negating a physical presence, by any means, makes this rather ironic - essentially, we are criticized for literally reading the four Gospels and 1 Corinthians on the basis of a phrase that appears only in 1 Corinthians - a letter addressed specifically to the church in Corinth which was not as accessible to other churches, particularly outside of the Greek speaking world, as the synoptic Gospels. Indeed in the case of the Aramaic speaking Christians, who mainly used the Syriac dialect (which basically became the Christian dialect of Aramaic, with other religious communities developing their own dialects alongside it wiith differing systems of writings, and in some cases using Syriac as the basis for their dialect - see Mandaic, the dialect spoken by the Mandaeans who venerate John the Baptist, which uses a script which is basically a more advanced version of Estrangelo and other Syriac writing systems, and geographically covered the largest amount of territory, a region stretching from Judaea to Yemen in the South, Edessa in the Northwest, Mongolia in the Northeast, Tibet in the far Southeast, and spanning all of modern-day Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, nearly all of modern day Turkey, and much of the Arabian peninsula, as well as being the language of the Kochin Jews and the Mar Thoma Christians in Malankara, India, they, like many Christians, first depended on oral preaching by Apostles who had either witnessed the events firsthand in the case of St. Thomas and to a lesser extent Saints Addai and Mari, who were of the Seventy, and later by their disciples and by bishops fluent in Greek, and later, the first parts of the New Testament to be translated into Syriac were the four Gospels (the Vetus Syra, extant in two manuscripts).

The fact that they like to ignore - that the final canon was developed by Nicene Fathers such as St. Athanasius (which is a point which must be deprecated because obviously St. Athanasius, Eusebius of Caesarea et al were not Sabbatarians, even though they all worshipped on Saturday, but this, like the historic fact of the Roman church persuading the Roman civil government to switch from an eight day week to a seven day week and to change the name of the seventh day from Dies Irae to Sabato, must be set aside), and that before the Athanasian canon was universally adopted (first in his own church of Alexandria, then by the Hagiopolitan church, then by the Roman and Constantinopolitan church, and lastly by the church in Antioch, which at the time had an unhealthy opposition to Alexandria despite the most illustrious fathers to come out of Antioch, such as St. John Chrysostom, being ardent admirers of the church of Alexandria; fortunately, the toxic culture that had developed in the Catechtical School of Antioch was corrected at Ephesus in 433 AD and the dissenters left for Nisibis, where they were free to openly advocate Nestorianism and managed to corrupt the theology of the Catholicosate of the East, driving a wedge between it and the Chalcedonian Patriarchate of Antioch which was never fully healed (indeed often the Syriac Orthodox got on better with the Church of the East than the Antiochian Orthodox, for example, during the tenure of St. Gregorios bar Hebraeus as Maphrian, the Syriac Orthodox counterpart to the Catholicos-Patriarch, responsible for the eastern dioceses of the Syriac Orthodox Church, historically the part in the Persian Empire, with his counterpart the Patriarch of Antioch being responsible for the western dioceses in Syria, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Asia Minor and so on).

At any rate, I just find it strange that we get criticized for literally interpreting various New Testament scriptures, and in the case of St. Paul, a literal interpretation of a text such as 2 Colossians 2:16 gets 2 Peter 3:16 hurled at us (and paradoxically, 2 Colossians 2:8), despite the fact that objecting to being judged on our observance of the Sabbath is merely a special case of the more general principle of “judge not lest ye not be judged” which we find elsewhere in St. Paul, in the epistle of St. James, and, most importantly, coming from the words of Christ our True God.

Meanwhile, we are also criticized for not following a hyper-literal interpretation of certain Old Testament texts, despite Luke 24 pointing out that the Old Testament is speaking about Christ (and thus, by implication, pointing out that we should be reading it as Christological prophecy - in and of itself, removed from Christ, the Old Testament becomes merely a literary work, and a depressing one at that; indeed, the failure of so many churches to adequately preach Luke 24 has lead to many Christians leaving the faith after reading the Old Testament and interpreting on a purely literal-historical basis the destruction of cities, or the imprecatory Psalms, for example.

That was a really well done analysis. What I’d like to mention my view of the Old Testament, and the depressing nature of it.
The Old Covenant was a covenant directly with man. I will be your God and you shall be my people. God gave Israel a choice. Do all these things and live, else abandon me and die (personal analysis)
But as it says in Jeremiah 17:9, the heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it. I can see the Israelites thinking, sound like a good deal God, but our hearts are going to try and develop some work arounds.

Isaiah 1 says

13 Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, and the sabbaths, and other festivals I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked. 14 My soul hateth your new moons, and your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them. 15 And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood.

The Old Testament is a study in human wickedness and it is a wonder that God spared anyone and even decided to die to redeem us

The New Covenant is a convent of spirit, as Ezekiel 36 says I will put my spirit in them and cause them to walk in my statutes

The Old Testament is distasteful only if we demand God be nice to us while we are evil
The depths of the wicked heart are on full display , as well as God’s mercy

The New Covenant is scary because God still gives us a choice, but He supplies grace to obey if we just ask. Some do not care about obedience and think they can do whatever they want, but Jesus says straight is the gate, narrow is the way that leads to life. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God
People that are tuned off by the Old Teatament have not been given the grace of repentance and fear of the Lord

BobRyan · Mar 14, 2026

boughtwithaprice said:
By God’s command, the Sabbath can be moved to any day He wants, because the holiness of the Sabbath is not the day

Not one text in all of scripture says that, so you "quote you' as your text??

How "instructive" for the unbiased objective reader.

Actual scripture says "The 7th day IS the Sabbath of the LORD" Ex 20:10.
Then we have "you" as our source for "Sabbath is not a day" that is made holy but rather, whatever day you wish??
Seriously??

BobRyan · Mar 14, 2026

The Liturgist said:
The fact that they like to ignore - that the final canon was developed by Nicene Fathers

not true.

NT Scripture was being read and accepted AS scripture in the first century.

Luke 24
27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.

2 Peter 3:14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction

1 Thess 2:13 For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.

Noting in the NT leaves the faithful reader with the impression "We don't yet know what scriptures are, we must wait a few centuries"
Rather they accepted phrases like "in ALL the scriptures", "The REST of scriptures" and 'you accepted our teaching for what it was, the WORD of God"

BobRyan · Mar 14, 2026

boughtwithaprice said:
Isaiah 1 says

13 Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, and the sabbaths, and other festivals I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked.

Isaiah was writing shortly before the Babylonian captivity. So "yeah" there was that. And yet Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel were all OT saints.

boughtwithaprice said:
14 My soul hateth your new moons, and your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them. 15 And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood.

Isaiah called for repentance and reform. Daniel reads Jeremiah in Dan chapter 9 and offers a prayer of repentance. Daniel was a saint approved of by God according to the text of Dan 9 and 10.

In Dan 9, he prays to God directly without any animal sacrifice or priest at all

boughtwithaprice said:
The Old Testament is a study in human wickedness and it is a wonder that God spared anyone and even decided to die to redeem us

ALL the saints in Heb 11 , the chapter of FAITH, are ALL from the OLD TESTAMENT. Not one is from the NEW

boughtwithaprice said:
The New Covenant is a convent of spirit,

The NEW Covenant is OLD Testament Jer 31:31-34.
The NEW Testament quotes the New Covenant from the OT - verbatim , not one change to it. See Hebrews 8

boughtwithaprice said:
People that are tuned off by the Old Teatament have not been given the grace of repentance and fear of the Lord

There is a certain degree of truth to that.

Gal 1:6-9 says there is only ONE Gospel
Gal 3:8 says "The GOSPEL was preached to Abraham'"
Heb 4:1-2 says "The GOSPEL was preached to US JUST as it was to THEM also"

1 Peter 1 : 10 As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, 11 seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

BobRyan · Mar 14, 2026

boughtwithaprice said:
The New Covenant is scary because God still gives us a choice, but He supplies grace to obey if we just ask. Some do not care about obedience and think they can do whatever they want, but Jesus says straight is the gate, narrow is the way that leads to life. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God

True.

And Romans 2 makes that point in triplicate

Rom 2:
4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? 5 But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 6 who will render to each person according to his deeds: 7 to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; 8 but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. 9 There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God.

12 For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; 13 for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.

See Dan 7:9-22

BobRyan · Mar 14, 2026

The Liturgist said:
Meanwhile, we are also criticized for not following a hyper-literal interpretation of certain Old Testament texts, despite Luke 24 pointing out that the Old Testament is speaking about Christ (and thus, by implication, pointing out that we should be reading it as Christological prophecy

false.

The NT speaks of Christ as well and YET the virgin birth is literally true, the death burial and resurrection of Christ is literally true. The 1000 year millennium of Rev 20 is literally true.

Just so, in the OT creation week is literally true. The flood is literally true as 2 Peter 3 emphasizes.
Christ affirms that the creation account is literally true and so are Adam and Eve the first humans
Paul affirms this same detail 1 Tim 2, saying that Adam and Eve were literal right down to Eve being the first to be deceived.
Paul says Adam and Eve were the first humans to sin, literal people, right down to their names

Jude 1:7 Sodom and Gomorrah literal cities literally destroyed
2 Pet 2:6 Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by fire, reducing them to ashes
Many literal events in OT recounted in Heb 11

The Liturgist · Mar 15, 2026

BobRyan said:
false.

What specfically in my argument do you allege is false?

Because I’m pretty sure from the content of your reply, and the various things you listed that you insist are literally true, most of which I agree with, that you did not understand my reply.

To be clear, before you answer, lest I be accused of changing my response ex post facto - in my reply I did not say that Adventists reject a literal interpretation of the entire New Testament, nor did I say that that the Old Testament should not be regarded as literally true (it should, in my view).

Rather, my argument was much more specific.

I object to the minority of Sabbatarians who insist on criticizing the traditional Christians even if we worship on Saturday, and even if we follow sola scriptura (or indeed, in the case of Lutherans, are members of the denomination that popularized “sola scriptura” as a concept; before Luther, the prevailing Patristic view was Prima Scriptura, but Luther apparently felt this was inadequate, and given the problems with the Western Church under like likes of Alexander VI, I can understand his frustration; ultimately, sola scriptura as defined by Luther is not greatly different from earlier modes of Patristic hermeneutics), objecting to the literal interpretation of the Eucharist by traditional Christians, such as the Orthodox (like myself and @prodromos @jas3 @FenderTL5 my other beloved coreligionists), my pious Lutheran friends such as @MarkRohfrietsch @ViaCrucis @Ain't Zwinglian and of course Martin Luther himself, my pious Anglican friends such as @Jipsah, and my pious Roman Catholic friends such as @boughtwithaprice @chevyontheriver @Michie and others, while concurrently criticizing us for rejecting a hyper-literal interpretation of certain Old Testament texts. Meanwhile, certain other Old Testament texts as indicated by our friend @tall73 are not interpreted in a highly literal manner by many Sabbatarians, such as Adventists.

Thus, my argument cannot be reduced to saying that everything in the New Testament is literally true and everything in the Old Testament is allegorical - that would be an absurd hermeneutic (we know, for example, the Song of Solomon is allegorical, but there is no reason even for a highly cynical liberal Christian, which I am not, to doubt the literal truth of a book like Nehemiah - however, I would say that if Nehemiah is not being read in a manner that is Christ-centric, that that would be a problem.

Thus, as for your list of what is literally true and what isn’t, I’m not even going to engage with that, because for the most part it would be a case of “I agree” with the occasional “I disagree” and that would be terribly boring to write and would also lead to a terribly boring debate over those points where I did disagree, and the entire thing would be irrelevant, since it misses the point of my original reply.

The real issue is the Adventist refusal to acknowledge that there are other legitimate interpretations of Scripture, and that the prevailing Adventist interpretation is not the only obvious reading; indeed in many cases it is not an obvious interpretation. However, there are numerous pericopes where the Early Church Fathers never reached a state of complete agreement concerning their meaning (indeed, there is one important text in which there were three common interpretations; that being the Witch of Endor pericope, in which the early church fathers are more or less evenly divided into three camps. This is fine, because whether or not the Witch of Endor was a fraud or the apparition of King Saul was of demonic origin is not extremely relevant to our salvation in Christ. Thus, the Greek fathers referred to this kind of area of legitimate differences of opinion as the province of theologoumemna, meaning considered theological opinions, and the Lutherans later popularized the term adiaphora to refer to such things.

“In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”

Leaf473 · Mar 15, 2026

BobRyan said:
not true.

NT Scripture was being read and accepted AS scripture in the first century.

Luke 24
27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.

2 Peter 3:14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction

1 Thess 2:13 For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.

Noting in the NT leaves the faithful reader with the impression "We don't yet know what scriptures are, we must wait a few centuries"
Rather they accepted phrases like "in ALL the scriptures", "The REST of scriptures" and 'you accepted our teaching for what it was, the WORD of God"

You may be interested in reading what some very early Christians thought was the New Testament.

The Muratorian Fragment

The Muratorian Fragment on Early Christian Writings: the New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, and Church Fathers: information and translations of Gospels, Epistles, and documents of early Christianity.

www.earlychristianwritings.com

BobRyan · Mar 15, 2026

The Liturgist said:
Meanwhile, we are also criticized for not following a hyper-literal interpretation of certain Old Testament texts, despite Luke 24 pointing out that the Old Testament is speaking about Christ (and thus, by implication, pointing out that we should be reading it as Christological prophecy

BobRyan said:
false.

The NT speaks of Christ as well and YET 1. the virgin birth is literally true, 2. the death burial and resurrection of Christ is literally true. 3. The 1000 year millennium of Rev 20 is literally true.

BobRyan said:
Just so, in the OT creation week is literally true. The flood is literally true as 2 Peter 3 emphasizes.
Christ affirms that the creation account is literally true and so are Adam and Eve the first humans
Paul affirms this same detail 1 Tim 2, saying that Adam and Eve were literal right down to Eve being the first to be deceived.
Paul says Adam and Eve were the first humans to sin, literal people, right down to their names

BobRyan said:
Jude 1:7 Sodom and Gomorrah literal cities literally destroyed
2 Pet 2:6 Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by fire, reducing them to ashes
Many literal events in OT recounted in Heb 11

The Liturgist said:
What specfically in my argument do you allege is false?

I find the logic in your response to be "illusive" just then.

The Liturgist said:
Because I’m pretty sure from the content of your reply, and the various things you listed that you insist are literally true, most of which I agree with

Which is why I post them. I point to facts even you would not deny to show that just because the text speaks of a future coming of Christ does not mean that all the events it records are "not literally true", hence "our acceptance of the Old Testament record as being true"

The Liturgist said:
- in my reply I did not say that Adventists reject a literal interpretation of the entire New Testament,

Nor did I accuse you of such a thing.

The Liturgist said:
nor did I say that that the Old Testament should not be regarded as literally true (it should, in my view).

you call it "hyper-literal" when it comes to accepting the OT record as being literally true.

The Liturgist:

"Meanwhile, we are also criticized for not following a hyper-literal interpretation of certain Old Testament texts, despite Luke 24 pointing out that the Old Testament is speaking about Christ (and thus, by implication, pointing out that we should be reading it as Christological prophecy"

The Liturgist said:
Rather, my argument was much more specific.

I object to the minority of Sabbatarians who insist on criticizing the traditional Christians even if we worship on Saturday,

I don't see any "even if we worship on Saturday" statement in your post that I responded to

The Liturgist said:
objecting to the literal interpretation of the Eucharist by traditional Christians, such as the Orthodox (like myself and @prodromos @jas3 @FenderTL5 my other beloved coreligionists), my pious Lutheran friends such as @MarkRohfrietsch @ViaCrucis @Ain't Zwinglian and of course Martin Luther himself, my pious Anglican friends such as @Jipsah, and my pious Roman Catholic friends ....

I don't see any of that in your post about a "hyper-literal interpretation of certain OLD Testament texts". Everything you just mentioned had to do with "New Testament texts".

Again I find your logic illusive.

The Liturgist said:
Meanwhile, certain other Old Testament texts as indicated by our friend @tall73 are not interpreted in a highly literal manner by many Sabbatarians, such as Adventists.

Some things in the OT and NT are parables and symbols can be found in Dan 7,8, 9 just as we see parables and symbols used in the gospels and in the book of Revelation. I don't know of even one denomination that takes the symbols in Rev 12 or in Dan 7 as literal.

Yet many such as the Baptist Confession of Faith, D.L. Moody, Adventists, the Westminster Confession of Faith etc accept the literal nature in the Sabbath Commandment reference to creation week.

Where is the "news" here?

The Liturgist said:
Thus, my argument cannot be reduced to saying that everything in the New Testament is literally true

I never claimed you said that. Rather I am pointing that your logic does not work when you claimed that some things in the OT point as types to Christ as a means to avoid what you call a "hyper-literal" view of OT historic accounts (as in the case of the Creation account I presume)

The Liturgist said:
and everything in the Old Testament is allegorical - that would be an absurd hermeneutic

Indeed. Your use of "hyper-literal" and "absurd heremeneutic" leaves you a lot of room to parse your own definition

The Liturgist said:
(we know, for example, the Song of Solomon is allegorical,

yep and when Jesus said "I am the DOOR" , no one claims Jesus was a wooden door in the NT. So that is not news.

What would be news, is taking the historic accounts in either the OT or NT as "not literal" which is what I stated in the my post you quoted

The Liturgist said:
Thus, as for your list of what is literally true and what isn’t, I’m not even going to engage with that

then maybe this post is not worth exploring

The Liturgist said:
, because for the most part it would be a case of “I agree” with the occasional “I disagree”

which was the point

The Liturgist said:
and that would be terribly boring to write and would also lead to a terribly boring debate over those points where I did disagree

interesting idea of not posting when you disagree. I think that would be a bit "new"

The Liturgist said:
The real issue is the Adventist refusal to acknowledge that there are other legitimate interpretations of Scripture

So you are not opposed to posting when you have some differences, after all

BobRyan · Mar 15, 2026

The Liturgist said:
The real issue is the Adventist refusal to acknowledge that there are other legitimate interpretations of Scripture, and that the prevailing Adventist interpretation is not the only obvious reading; indeed in many cases it is not an obvious interpretation

Here is a consistent Catholic take on my view from #131

BobRyan said:
''The [Roman Catholic] Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has no warrant for observing Sunday. In this matter the Seventh-day Adventist is the only consistent Protestant.'' The Catholic Universe Bulletin, August 14, 1942, p. 4.

BobRyan said:
"Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary change the Church ever did, happened in the first century. The holy day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. "The Day of the Lord" (dies Dominica) was chosen, not from any directions noted in the Scriptures, but from the Church's sense of its own power. The day of resurrection, the day of Pentecost, fifty days later, came on the first day of the week. So this would be the new Sabbath. People who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become 7th Day Adventists, and keep Saturday holy." Sentinel, Pastor's page, Saint Catherine Catholic Church, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995

I don't mind noting points of agreement when I find them

Ain't Zwinglian · Mar 15, 2026

The Liturgist said:
Luther apparently felt this was inadequate, and given the problems with the Western Church under like likes of Alexander VI,

The first time I had ever heard the term "secular pope" was in reference to Alexander VI. He was so corrupt he could not have a funeral in the nave of the cathedral, only in an ante-room of the cathedral.

My favorite quote from Luther on the subject of papal corruption:

.....and the Church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all Churches, has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even antichrist, if he were to come, could devise any addition to its wickedness.

-----Concerning Christian Liberty (1520)------

boughtwithaprice · Mar 16, 2026

Ain't Zwinglian said:
The first time I had ever heard the term "secular pope" was in reference to Alexander VI. He was so corrupt he could not have a funeral in the nave of the cathedral, only in an ante-room of the cathedral.

My favorite quote from Luther on the subject of papal corruption:

.....and the Church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all Churches, has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even antichrist, if he were to come, could devise any addition to its wickedness.
-----Concerning Christian Liberty (1520)------

For that to be your favorite quote reveals a deep hatred and profound misunderstanding of scripture, makes one wonder why?

Who builds the Church, God or man?
Does God destroy and abandon His work in an endless chain of trial and error methodology?
Would that not then lead the demons to say God does not have the power to save His people?

What does scripture say?

Matthew 16:18

Tells us that Jesus will build His own Church.

Psalm 127

Tells us that those who try to build on their own will labor in vain

Matthew 13

Tells us us the parable of the wheat and the tares. This is a direct warning that Satan will send his own operatives into the Church in order to corrupt and destroy it

Exodus 32

Shows us that Luther made the wrong choice. He did not have the heart of Moses to intercede for his people to plead for God’s own honor, but chose His own honor thinking God will build a new church with him instead.

10- Let me alone, that my wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them, and I will make of thee a great nation [Exodus 32:10]

11 But Moses besought the Lord his God, saying: Why, O Lord, is thy indignation kindled against thy people, whom thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, with great power, and with a mighty hand? 12 Let not the Egyptians say, I beseech thee: He craftily brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains, and destroy them from the earth: let thy anger cease, and be appeased upon the wickedness of thy people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou sworest by thy own self, saying: I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven: and this whole land that I have spoken of, I will give to your seed, and you shall possess it for ever. 14 And the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which he had spoken against his people

Did it go well for Luther? From the very beginning he had disagreements with Calvin and Zwingli over the Eucharist. Protestantism has split into so many different viewpoints as it leaves the world wondering what exactly is Christianity?
Would God do this or does it sound like the work of someone else?
If Luther really thought that the Catholic Church was the holiest of Churches, he would have fought for her honor and attempted to cover her nakedness like Shem and Japheth did for Noah.
Gen 9:20-27. Instead he took the path of Ham and mocked her in an attempt to bring her to open shame.

Scripture tells us specifically to not look at people when judging in spiritual battle.
Ephesians 6:12

What should have Luther done? Scripture is very clear. 2 chronicles 7 gives us the answer

14 And my people, upon whom my name is called, being converted, shall make supplication to me, and seek out my face, and do penance for their most wicked ways: then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and will heal their land. 15 My eyes also shall be open, and my ears attentive to the prayer of him that shall pray in this place

1 Tim 4:14 and 2 Tim 1:6 tell us that spiritual authority is not brought about by the will of man, but is passed down by the laying on of hands. This is apostolic succession

Luther abandoned apostolic succession and lost his authority. Others completely abandoned the holy Eucharist which is the same bread and wine that Jesus gave His Apostles at the Last Supper, and a continuation of the Sabbath sacrifice as described in Numbers 28. Why cut yourself off from spiritual food?
I can understand if one is in mortal sin , he needs to repent and confess His sin, because one cannot receive the Eucharist unworthily without grave spiritual harm. 1 Cor 11:27-29

Why not humble yourselves and return to the Lord for spiritual food? If anyone asks why I returned to the Catholic faith, I echo the words of Peter. Where else would I go? She alone has the words of eternal life, is the bride of Christ and preaches the Gospel.
Satan has sent many corrupt people in to scare souls away from the bread of life, but Jesus told us Satan would do that. The mark of the Church is not its people, but the holy sacrifice which is continually offered for the remission of sins of the whole world. Study the divine mercy chaplet
Repent and believe the Gospel. Satan either entices souls away with false promises of a new church, or keeps them out by fear. God is mighty to save, we seek Him and find Him when we search for Him with all of our heart

The Liturgist · Mar 16, 2026

boughtwithaprice said:
For that to be your favorite quote reveals a deep hatred and profound misunderstanding of scripture, makes one wonder why?

This is exactly the sort of hostile polemics that upset me so much, whether they come from Sabbatarians who oppose all traditional Christians and are so strident in doing so they will contradict the views of their denomination’s own scholars and theologians on the issue of the history of the scriptural canon in order to avoid giving any credit to St. Athanasius, despite St. Athanasius having almost single-handedly saved Christianity from Arianism in the post-Nicene persecutions of Christianity, simply because St. Athanasius worshipped on Sunday as well as Saturday and is associated in their mind with Emperor Constantine, despite the fact that St. Athanasius was persecuted in the name of Constantine after the Arian heretic Eusebius of Nicomedia gained influence at court, and was exiled to Trier on the baseless charge of having murdered one of his parishioners (fortunately, the Church of Alexandria was able to prove Athanasius blameless by producing the man he killed, and thus Athanasius was returned to Alexandria, only to be exiled again after the death of St. Constantine and the rise to power of his son, a man less concerned with justice and more concerned with ensuring the propagation of the Arian religion and the suppression of Christianity) , Eastern Orthodox fundamentalists who regard Oriental Orthodox as heretics simply because they’re not in full communion with us, despite the fact they agree with us on all essential definitions of doctrine (as has been confirmed through multiple theological dialogues), have entered into limited intercommunion with the Antiochians and Copts, and are guilty of nothing more than preferring the original anti-Nestorian formulation of Pope St. Cyril of Alexandria to the Chalcedonian formulation proposed by Archbishop Leo of Rome (in response to a problem which had already been effectively resolved).

Now with regards to Matthew 16:18, this verse does not establish Papal Supremacy - it merely creates a basis for the well-accepted status of St. Peter personally as primus inter pares. What it does not say, nor did the early church accept, for indeed no Scripture says this, was that the successors of St. Peter in Rome (but not Antioch or Alexandria - in Antioch St. Peter reigned directly as bishop before proceeding to Rome, and in Alexandria, St. Mark the Evangelist was sent by St. Peter to establish the church there, for which reason these three cities, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 130 AD following the failed Bar Kochba revolt, became the three main centers of the church, a status they would retain until the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the establishment of Constantinopole.

But because @Ain't Zwinglian had the temerity to quote Martin Luther concerning the pre-Tridentine Roman church, which is recognized by Roman Catholic scholars, including the most traditional scholars, of having been extremely corrupt, particularly during the reign of Alexander VI, but realistically, Pope Julius II with his preoccupation with military conquest and Pope Leo X were not much better, which led to the reforms at the Council of Trent, which among other things, prohibited the practice of the sale of indulgences.

If the kind of hyper-Ultramontanism and reverence for the Bishop of Rome that you advocate had always been a thing, St. Irenaeus of Lyons would have been unable to chastise Archbishop Victor for his attempt to exert personal authority over churches in Asia Minor, which were outside of his jurisdiction, and what is more, Archbishop Victor, rather than having to deal with these criticisms, could merely have deposed St. Irenaeus in the same way that Pope Francis ensured the removal or marginalization of bishops and clergy critical of him, such as Raymond Cardinal Burke or Gerhard Cardinal Muller, whose treatment after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI has been a scandal. But because of Papal Supremacy, and, since Vatican I, Papal Infallibility, it is much harder for a sitting pope to be criticized even when making a disastrous error, even if that decision is not one covered by Papal Infallibility (indeed, Vatican I and the Immaculate Conception aside, the only use of Papal Infallibility was by Pope Piux XII to make infallible a doctrine which was already regarded as infallible in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches since time immemorial, that being, the Assumption or Dormition of the Theotokos, but which historically had not been as widely observed in the ancient Roman church and thus lacked official dogmatic status, despite being dogmatic everywhere else (in this respect we are fortunate; the dogmaticization of the Immaculate Conception, which is tied to the Augustinian model of original sin, which the ancient Roman Church derogated in favor of the superior model of ancestral sin advocated by St. John Cassian, another Latin monk, which remains the doctrine in the Eastern churches, and which is thoroughly anti-Pelagian, but which also makes it possible for the Theotokos to be, as the ancient hymns affirm, immaculate, without saying she was conceived differently from other humans, which creates the problem of introducing a categorical difference between her and the rest of humanity, which is problematic because Christ is fully man and fully God, without change, confusion, separation, or division, and we Orthodox Christians have long expressed concern about this doctrine, and also about the filioque.

Now, regarding the Catholic Church and submission to it - canons 6 and 7 of the Council of Nicaea affirm that the churches of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem have the same privileges in their jurisdictions as Rome has, and later canons of Constantinople also clarify that the church of Constantinople and the church of Cyprus were autocephalous, and later, still more churches became autocephalous. The problem is that since the Roman Church established parishes in all of these jurisdictions, and also because of the issue of canonical irregularities in terms of the treatment of the Oriental Orthodox which had the effect of legitimizing the OO church (who are sufficiently Catholic that Catholics ara allowed under the code of canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches to receive communion therein, and vice versa, which is also the case with the Eastern Orthodox - in practice, this is only theoretical with most Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions as most EO clergy will not communicate Roman Catholics nor will they permit their laity to receive the Eucharist from RC clergy, but the OO, particularly the Syriac Orthodox, will communicate Roman Catholics and receive communion from Roman Catholics in the absence of access to an Orthodox parish - which I think is the correct attitude - also the Assyrian Church of the East will also communicate Roman Catholics, and under the same canon law, its members can receive communion from Catholic Churches - indeed the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church proposed reunion with the Church of the East and the Antiochian (Eastern) Orthodox respectively; while the latter proposal was shot down from within the RCC as well as not being received seriously by the Antiochians, the Assyrian proposal was considered, but insofar as the Chaldean proposal did not address the issue of autocephalaous status, which the Church of the East rightfully wishes to maintain, her Holy Synod rejected it.

The idea of autocephalous status is clearly present in the canon law of the ancient ecumenical councils, and it was also because Pope Honorius I was not a supreme bishop but merely the patriarch of the Church of Rome and the West, that it was possible for him to be declared anathema post-mortem at the Sixth Ecumenical Synod, an anathema accepted by the Roman church, because Honorius I actively promoted Monothelitism (thus Pope Honorius I is the only bishop to have been declared anathema by an ecumenical synod accepted by the Roman Catholic Church; if memory serves, a later Pope was also anathematized at the infamous Cadaver Synod in the 10th century due to corruption, in a grotesque spectacle).

One thing is clear: if Popes in antiquity had the powers people like you claim they did, then the Ecumenical Synods themselves make no sense. Why convene a synod to anathematize Arius if the Pope in Rome (who was not even styled Pope - at the time, only the Bishops of Alexandria, who have never claimed supremacy, used that style) could simply do this for Alexander of Alexandria, solving the problem definitively? Why summon a synod at Ephesus to depose Nestorius? it is known that St. Celestine, the bishop of Rome, agreed with Pope St. Cyril of Alexandria and desired Patriarch Nestorius to be deposed.

For that matter, why would Pope St. Gregory the Great be so concerned about bishops claiming universal jurisdiction?*

Thus, your accusing @Ain't Zwinglian of hating Scripture is an ad hominem argument, that is as problematic as the ad hominem arguments made against me by members of Restorationist denominations when I point out that Scripture does not only not prohibit worshipping on the First Day but contains numerous examples of the same.

*Some have tried to claim that Pope St. Gregory was reacting to the Patriarch of Constaninople’s styling himself Ecumenical as a threat to his own authority, but if that was the case, why did St. Gregory use the phrase “any bishop” rather than saying something like “for a bishop other than ourselves to claim this authority”?

Ain't Zwinglian · Mar 16, 2026

boughtwithaprice said:
For that to be your favorite quote reveals a deep hatred and profound misunderstanding of scripture, makes one wonder why?

Luther is using a literary device called sarcasm to make a contrast between what Rome should be and what Rome became. A good college class in Semantics which is the study of how language gives meaning, would be most beneficial for you.

Ain't Zwinglian · Mar 16, 2026

The Liturgist said:
This is exactly the sort of hostile polemics that upset me so much, whether they come from Sabbatarians who oppose all traditional Christians and are so strident in doing so they will contradict the views of their denomination’s own scholars and theologians on the issue of the history of the scriptural canon in order to avoid giving any credit to St. Athanasius, despite St. Athanasius having almost single-handedly saved Christianity from Arianism in the post-Nicene persecutions of Christianity, simply because St. Athanasius worshipped on Sunday as well as Saturday and is associated in their mind with Emperor Constantine, despite the fact that St. Athanasius was persecuted in the name of Constantine after the Arian heretic Eusebius of Nicomedia gained influence at court, and was exiled to Trier on the baseless charge of having murdered one of his parishioners (fortunately, the Church of Alexandria was able to prove Athanasius blameless by producing the man he killed, and thus Athanasius was returned to Alexandria, only to be exiled again after the death of St. Constantine and the rise to power of his son, a man less concerned with justice and more concerned with ensuring the propagation of the Arian religion and the suppression of Christianity) , Eastern Orthodox fundamentalists who regard Oriental Orthodox as heretics simply because they’re not in full communion with us, despite the fact they agree with us on all essential definitions of doctrine (as has been confirmed through multiple theological dialogues), have entered into limited intercommunion with the Antiochians and Copts, and are guilty of nothing more than preferring the original anti-Nestorian formulation of Pope St. Cyril of Alexandria to the Chalcedonian formulation proposed by Archbishop Leo of Rome (in response to a problem which had already been effectively resolved).

Now with regards to Matthew 16:18, this verse does not establish Papal Supremacy - it merely creates a basis for the well-accepted status of St. Peter personally as primus inter pares. What it does not say, nor did the early church accept, for indeed no Scripture says this, was that the successors of St. Peter in Rome (but not Antioch or Alexandria - in Antioch St. Peter reigned directly as bishop before proceeding to Rome, and in Alexandria, St. Mark the Evangelist was sent by St. Peter to establish the church there, for which reason these three cities, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 130 AD following the failed Bar Kochba revolt, became the three main centers of the church, a status they would retain until the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the establishment of Constantinopole.

But because @Ain't Zwinglian had the temerity to quote Martin Luther concerning the pre-Tridentine Roman church, which is recognized by Roman Catholic scholars, including the most traditional scholars, of having been extremely corrupt, particularly during the reign of Alexander VI, but realistically, Pope Julius II with his preoccupation with military conquest and Pope Leo X were not much better, which led to the reforms at the Council of Trent, which among other things, prohibited the practice of the sale of indulgences.

If the kind of hyper-Ultramontanism and reverence for the Bishop of Rome that you advocate had always been a thing, St. Irenaeus of Lyons would have been unable to chastise Archbishop Victor for his attempt to exert personal authority over churches in Asia Minor, which were outside of his jurisdiction, and what is more, Archbishop Victor, rather than having to deal with these criticisms, could merely have deposed St. Irenaeus in the same way that Pope Francis ensured the removal or marginalization of bishops and clergy critical of him, such as Raymond Cardinal Burke or Gerhard Cardinal Muller, whose treatment after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI has been a scandal. But because of Papal Supremacy, and, since Vatican I, Papal Infallibility, it is much harder for a sitting pope to be criticized even when making a disastrous error, even if that decision is not one covered by Papal Infallibility (indeed, Vatican I and the Immaculate Conception aside, the only use of Papal Infallibility was by Pope Piux XII to make infallible a doctrine which was already regarded as infallible in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches since time immemorial, that being, the Assumption or Dormition of the Theotokos, but which historically had not been as widely observed in the ancient Roman church and thus lacked official dogmatic status, despite being dogmatic everywhere else (in this respect we are fortunate; the dogmaticization of the Immaculate Conception, which is tied to the Augustinian model of original sin, which the ancient Roman Church derogated in favor of the superior model of ancestral sin advocated by St. John Cassian, another Latin monk, which remains the doctrine in the Eastern churches, and which is thoroughly anti-Pelagian, but which also makes it possible for the Theotokos to be, as the ancient hymns affirm, immaculate, without saying she was conceived differently from other humans, which creates the problem of introducing a categorical difference between her and the rest of humanity, which is problematic because Christ is fully man and fully God, without change, confusion, separation, or division, and we Orthodox Christians have long expressed concern about this doctrine, and also about the filioque.

Now, regarding the Catholic Church and submission to it - canons 6 and 7 of the Council of Nicaea affirm that the churches of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem have the same privileges in their jurisdictions as Rome has, and later canons of Constantinople also clarify that the church of Constantinople and the church of Cyprus were autocephalous, and later, still more churches became autocephalous. The problem is that since the Roman Church established parishes in all of these jurisdictions, and also because of the issue of canonical irregularities in terms of the treatment of the Oriental Orthodox which had the effect of legitimizing the OO church (who are sufficiently Catholic that Catholics ara allowed under the code of canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches to receive communion therein, and vice versa, which is also the case with the Eastern Orthodox - in practice, this is only theoretical with most Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions as most EO clergy will not communicate Roman Catholics nor will they permit their laity to receive the Eucharist from RC clergy, but the OO, particularly the Syriac Orthodox, will communicate Roman Catholics and receive communion from Roman Catholics in the absence of access to an Orthodox parish - which I think is the correct attitude - also the Assyrian Church of the East will also communicate Roman Catholics, and under the same canon law, its members can receive communion from Catholic Churches - indeed the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church proposed reunion with the Church of the East and the Antiochian (Eastern) Orthodox respectively; while the latter proposal was shot down from within the RCC as well as not being received seriously by the Antiochians, the Assyrian proposal was considered, but insofar as the Chaldean proposal did not address the issue of autocephalaous status, which the Church of the East rightfully wishes to maintain, her Holy Synod rejected it.

The idea of autocephalous status is clearly present in the canon law of the ancient ecumenical councils, and it was also because Pope Honorius I was not a supreme bishop but merely the patriarch of the Church of Rome and the West, that it was possible for him to be declared anathema post-mortem at the Sixth Ecumenical Synod, an anathema accepted by the Roman church, because Honorius I actively promoted Monothelitism (thus Pope Honorius I is the only bishop to have been declared anathema by an ecumenical synod accepted by the Roman Catholic Church; if memory serves, a later Pope was also anathematized at the infamous Cadaver Synod in the 10th century due to corruption, in a grotesque spectacle).

One thing is clear: if Popes in antiquity had the powers people like you claim they did, then the Ecumenical Synods themselves make no sense. Why convene a synod to anathematize Arius if the Pope in Rome (who was not even styled Pope - at the time, only the Bishops of Alexandria, who have never claimed supremacy, used that style) could simply do this for Alexander of Alexandria, solving the problem definitively? Why summon a synod at Ephesus to depose Nestorius? it is known that St. Celestine, the bishop of Rome, agreed with Pope St. Cyril of Alexandria and desired Patriarch Nestorius to be deposed.

For that matter, why would Pope St. Gregory the Great be so concerned about bishops claiming universal jurisdiction?*

Thus, your accusing @Ain't Zwinglian of hating Scripture is an ad hominem argument, that is as problematic as the ad hominem arguments made against me by members of Restorationist denominations when I point out that Scripture does not only not prohibit worshipping on the First Day but contains numerous examples of the same.

*Some have tried to claim that Pope St. Gregory was reacting to the Patriarch of Constaninople’s styling himself Ecumenical as a threat to his own authority, but if that was the case, why did St. Gregory use the phrase “any bishop” rather than saying something like “for a bishop other than ourselves to claim this authority”?

Thanks. A bizillion times more historical information than I have at my fingertips. How do you do this?

The Liturgist · Mar 16, 2026

BobRyan said:
Which is why I post them. I point to facts even you would not deny to show that just because the text speaks of a future coming of Christ does not mean that all the events it records are "not literally true", hence "our acceptance of the Old Testament record as being true"

So you admit to this being an argumentum ad hominem?

Because that’s what it looks like, either that or you failed to understand my point, which was my objection to being criticized by Adventists for accepting that Christ our God was speaking literally when he said “This is my body”, while not accepting a non-Christological hyper-literalist interpretation of certain sections of the Old Testament. The Old Testament, based on Luke ch. 24, is entirely Christological propecy; thus non-Christological readings of the Old Testament are not edifying.

And there are sections of the Old Testament that do not lend themselves to literal interpretation, for example, the allegorical description of Wisdom as feminine in Proverbs, or the Song of Solomon in its entirety.

In still other cases, multiple literal interpretations of the same passage that satisfy the Christological prophecy requirement of Luke ch. 24, but non-Adventists who disagree with the Adventist interpretation of, say, Mark 7:13, just like non-Catholics who disagree with the Roman Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16:18, are accused of disagreeing with Scripture (even when in the case of Mark 7:13 or Matthew 16:18, there are numerous reasons - Scriptural (contextual, exegetical), logical, and historical) to disagree with the official interpretation of these pericopes by these two denominations.

Which goes back to a point I made in my thread on the harm of anti-Catholic critiicsm: non-Catholic traditional Christians such as Lutherans, Orthodox and Anglicans, as well as persecuted Roman Catholics in the Middle East, are suffering harm as a result of this false dichotomy and ad hominem attacks being used in support of it; of course the reverse is also true insofar as some radical Catholics as we have seen use the excesses of Restorationist churches as a means of criticizing traditional Protestants and also the Orthodox - indeed, I have seen the anachronistic allegation that Orthodox Christians “are the first Protestants” being thrown around by some extreme sectarian RCCs, and it makes me very unhappy.

My love for the Roman Catholic Church is great, but it does not extend to supporting its members when they make category errors; conversely, I am no fan of the restorationist churches but I refrain from argumentum ad hominem, and indeed have several friends among Sabbatarian members of this website, from the silent majority who refrain from engaging in these pointless polemics.

And regarding these polemics, my call has been that they should cease, not that one side should capitulate. Everything would be so much better if we simply stopped saying unpleasant things about each other’s denominations. “Above all…charity.”

The Liturgist · Mar 16, 2026

Ain't Zwinglian said:
Thanks. A bizillion times more historical information than I have at my fingertips. How do you do this?

Some accuse me of using AI, but its not true - as can be ascertained by looking at my posts from 2019-mid 2022, before LLM tech became widely available and useful. Rather what it is is simply knowing what to look for and where to look for it - the canon laws of the early church are documented in two useful sources, the Decretals, those received by Rome, and the Pedalion, the slightly more complete nomocanon used by the Eastern Orthodox (unfortunately we lack good English translations of Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and Ethiopian nomocanons). The Pedalion is one of two foundational Orthodox texts compiled from Patristic material in the 18th century by St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite, an Athonite monk, the other being the Philokalia, a collection of writings on monasticism, mystical theology, hesychasm and other subjects by a number of Patristic authors such as St. John of Damascus, St. Maximos the Confessor. St. Nikitas Stithatos, St. Symeon the New and St. Gregory Palamas, among others.

Then, regarding the history of the early church, this happens to be very well documented - by the way, regarding Pope Honorius I, he became a legendary figure due to his having been the only Pope to be anathematized by an ecumenical council (this anathema was post-mortem, meaning I frown upon it in prinicple; such anathemas did not happen at the first three ecumenical synods, which are the only three accepted by the Oriental Orthodox, although their theology agrees in principle with the theology expressed at the subsequent Councils, even Chalcedon, because the actual point of Chalcedon was to refute Monophysitism, the heresy that the OOs are falsely accused of but are in fact innocent of; they rejected Chalcedon not out of opposition to its anathema of Monophysitism, for indeed Pope Dioscorus of Alexandria, who was anathematized at Chalcedon supposedly for supporting Eutyches, had in fact by the time of the council anathematized Eutyches. However the real issue was the OO were extremely uncomfortable with the “in two natures” language of the Tome of Leo, which differed from the “from two natures” language of Pope St. Cyril, who had triumphed over Nestorius. The first council to do post-mortem anathemas was no. 5, which anathematized Theodore of Mopsuestia in an attempt to persuade the Oriental Orthodox to re-enter into communion with the Eastern Orthodox; this probably would have happened in Justinian’s lifespan had it not been for his later apparent volte-face (or someone acting in his name) and arrest and mass execution of Syriac Orthodox bishops - only one escaped, St. Jacob bar Addai, because Empress St. Theodora, who is venerated in both the EO and OO communions, tipped him off, and good for her (because of this, and the fact Justinian incorporated into the Byzantine liturgy the hymn Ho Monogenes, which was in fact composed by Severus, not Justinian, and is used as the introit of the Syriac Orthodox liturgy; the third origin story for the hymn, that it was written by St. Athanasius, is unsupported by historical evidence and was likely something that emerged during the Armenian schism with the rest of the Oriental Orthodox, when the Armenians anathematized Severus, an anathema they later lifted as pan-OO unity became a thing).

What happened to the Sabbath?

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