Baptists origins

[Dark_Lite]

Thank you for your most interesting question!
A quote from Zwingli,the Reformer: The Ana-Baptists have caused the Church nothing but trouble for the past thirteen hundred years."From XTIMELINE.COM "A History of the Baptists". This quote is from 1525 A.D..

There was no Bible available in the early churches.Some portions of the New Testament and some portions of the Old were in circulation among the persecuted (i.e.those outside the Catholic Church).A strictly word-of-mouth oral tradition amongst believers was mostly what was available. Remember,outside of Latin, the Bible was not translated into the "vulgar" tongues.All copies were kept out of the hands of laymen.So Baptists would have looked very much like everybody else. With the following exceptions
1)No infant baptism
2)Adult baptism of believers only
3)Baptism a sacrament, but NOT required for salvation.
4)Local lay preacher ruler,with elders,of their own congregation
5)Lord's Supper sacrament observed as SYMBOLIC.
Other teachings are obscure,as these people were persecuted,hounded,and martyred. And they could only remotely follow the Teachings of the Bible by oral tradition. Therefore, it is not easy to trail these through the early centuries.

A very interesting site I found: medievalchurch.org/ukMany good references.

Yours for the Faith of the Fathers,
Julian of York

Revisionist history is always exciting. It's kind of fun to see people attempt this. All of these supposed protoprotestant are actually heretical groups that have a few superficial similarities to some Protestant groups when you don't consider the entirety of their beliefs. Ok, so maybe they believed that the Eucharist was symbolic, but they also believed in crazy stuff like Manichean dualism. Oops.

 

[BeforeThereWas]

...But the Anabaptists were broken down into a few groups, some advocated polygamy...

Are you saying that some of the anabaptists advocated a marital form that Abraham himself practiced?

The way so many modern and historic people, speaking of those who claim to love Christ, demonize the form of polygamy Abraham practiced, one would think that we may as well expect to see that man and those anabaptists burning in the pits of Hell on judgement day.

BTW

 

[JM]

Are you saying that some of the anabaptists advocated a marital form that Abraham himself practiced?

The way so many modern and historic people, speaking of those who claim to love Christ, demonize the form of polygamy Abraham practiced, one would think that we may as well expect to see that man and those anabaptists burning in the pits of Hell on judgement day.

BTW

I get it. You like Big Love and Sister Wivies on TLC.

 

[MrJim]

Are you saying that some of the anabaptists advocated a marital form that Abraham himself practiced?

The way so many modern and historic people, speaking of those who claim to love Christ, demonize the form of polygamy Abraham practiced, one would think that we may as well expect to see that man and those anabaptists burning in the pits of Hell on judgement day.

BTW

There were many aberrant groups under the anabaptist umbrella. The forebears of the modern anabaptists (mennonites, amish, hutterites) wrote against their practices.

As to the reformers; it is ironic they decided to ditch Rome and interpret the Scriptures for themselves but in essence set themselves up as their own popes and forbade others the same liberty they themselves embraced...

 

[JM]

Ahhh, MrJim...the Eastern Orthodox cross has reappeared!

 

[BeforeThereWas]

I get it. You like Big Love and Sister Wivies on TLC.

Huh? (scratching head)

All I did was connect the dots to the logical conclusions of those who say that polygyny is absolutely immoral.

The inescapable reality is that if they say such, then they must also believe that Christ's coming made changes to the foundations of God's moral absolutes (which creates many other problems) in order to ensure that we don't end up observing Abraham burning to a crisp in the fires of Hell.

That doesn't automatically translate into the idea that I personally believe that men today should run out and get a second wife.

BTW

 

[JM]

Some of the Anabaptists had more then one wife, that was the reason for the reference.

 

[MrJim]

Ahhh, MrJim...the Eastern Orthodox cross has reappeared!

 

[BeforeThereWas]

Some of the Anabaptists had more then one wife, that was the reason for the reference.

Those who had more than one wife had Augustine on their side.....

BTW

 

[JM]

Those who had more than one wife had Augustine on their side.....

BTW

Who is this "Augustine" folks keep talkin' bout?

 

[BeforeThereWas]

Augustine was born on 13 November 354 at Tagaste, in North Africa, and died in 28 August 430, in Hippo.

He is thought by many to have been an important figure in the history of Christianity. He wrote about topics like predestination and original sin. Some of his doctrines separate Western and Eastern Christianity, with Augustine defining some doctrines of Western Christianity. Example: Both Eastern and Western Churches believe there is original sin in the actions of Adam and Eve, but the Eastern Church, not influenced in this by Augustine, does not hold that humans share the guilt, although they experience death as a result.

 

[MrJim]

Who is this "Augustine" folks keep talkin' bout?

..and more importantly...AH gus STEEN or uh GUS tine

(I'd never heard uhGUStine until I listened to Sproul )

 

[JM]

I was joking about Augustine.

 

[billybtennessee]

It seems strange that reference is made that the early church had no scripture. The letters in the NT were all written to (addressed to) churches, and leaders in them, and it is extremely hard to believe they were not read and taught, which is why they exist now. And of course they had the OT scriptures, they quote from them a lot in the letters, as well as teachings we find in the Gospels, and other letters that had already been written. Such as Peters reference to Pauls teachings in the end of 2nd Peter Chapter 3.

It is also strange that many doctrines practiced now, were never mentioned or taught by any of those writers in the NT, and yet many in christendom claim to be followers of what they taught. One thing is sure, we can trace the gospel, and the body of Christ, back to them. 'Churches of Christ', 'Church of God', 'sect of the Nazarenes', and other names are found in their writings, but they never advocate one certain church name that I see. True Christians have the Holy Spirit within, who continues to give witness today, and fruits of the Holy Spirit, as He did then.

 

[Saint Polycarp]

It seems strange that reference is made that the early church had no scripture. The letters in the NT were all written to (addressed to) churches, and leaders in them, and it is extremely hard to believe they were not read and taught, which is why they exist now. And of course they had the OT scriptures, they quote from them a lot in the letters, as well as teachings we find in the Gospels, and other letters that had already been written. Such as Peters reference to Pauls teachings in the end of 2nd Peter Chapter 3.

It is also strange that many doctrines practiced now, were never mentioned or taught by any of those writers in the NT, and yet many in christendom claim to be followers of what they taught. One thing is sure, we can trace the gospel, and the body of Christ, back to them. 'Churches of Christ', 'Church of God', 'sect of the Nazarenes', and other names are found in their writings, but they never advocate one certain church name that I see. True Christians have the Holy Spirit within, who continues to give witness today, and fruits of the Holy Spirit, as He did then.

Sometime around the end of the first century they (the churches that the Apostles established) began to refer to themselves as the Catholic church. Which means the universal church.

A.D. 107, St. Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop, wrote to his fellow Christians in Smyrna , He wrote, "Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church"

St. Polycarp, bishop of the same Church of Smyrna to which St. Ignatius of Antioch had written was martyred around 155, and the account of his sufferings dates back to that time. The narrator informs us that in his final prayers before giving up his life for Christ, St. Polycarp "remembered all who had met with him at any time, both small and great, both those with and those without renown, and the whole Catholic Church throughout the world."
We know that St. Polycarp, at the time of his death in 155, had been a Christian for 86 years. It appears to have been a normal part of the vocabulary of a man of this era to speak of "the whole Catholic Church throughout the world."

 

[Dark_Lite]

It seems strange that reference is made that the early church had no scripture. The letters in the NT were all written to (addressed to) churches, and leaders in them, and it is extremely hard to believe they were not read and taught, which is why they exist now. And of course they had the OT scriptures, they quote from them a lot in the letters, as well as teachings we find in the Gospels, and other letters that had already been written. Such as Peters reference to Pauls teachings in the end of 2nd Peter Chapter 3.

It is also strange that many doctrines practiced now, were never mentioned or taught by any of those writers in the NT, and yet many in christendom claim to be followers of what they taught. One thing is sure, we can trace the gospel, and the body of Christ, back to them. 'Churches of Christ', 'Church of God', 'sect of the Nazarenes', and other names are found in their writings, but they never advocate one certain church name that I see. True Christians have the Holy Spirit within, who continues to give witness today, and fruits of the Holy Spirit, as He did then.

The canon was not anywhere near finalized until the 4th century. The gospels weren't even written until many decades after Jesus' death. Before the Councils were convened to settle the canon, there were numerous canon lists floating around. Many of them more or less agreed with each other, but they all had important differences. Some would include a work, others would reject it. It was only through Councils that a standard list could be made.

 

[billybtennessee]

Sorry. Those letters make up the epistles. We have them now, all Gods doing. They were read, kept, used, that is how they got included in the NT canon. To say they did not have them, is, well, wrong. They did not just appear in the 4th century, being hid away all that time. God has always preserved His word, in spite of man, or satan, or powers, trying to discredit them, or claim them as their own. Give all glory to God, His word will endure forever, just as He said. That is/was a promise. Amen.

 

[Dark_Lite]

Sorry. Those letters make up the epistles. We have them now, all Gods doing. They were read, kept, used, that is how they got included in the NT canon. To say they did not have them, is, well, wrong. They did not just appear in the 4th century, being hid away all that time. God has always preserved His word, in spite of man, or satan, or powers, trying to discredit them, or claim them as their own. Give all glory to God, His word will endure forever, just as He said. That is/was a promise. Amen.

Apparently you misunderstood me. The canon was not anywhere close to finalized until the 4th century. It wasn't even closed in the West until the Reformation. Trent closed the canon for Catholics and the Protestants just kind of decided to close it themselves.

The various writings that make up the New Testament were extant several decades of Christianity (important note: not at the very beginning!). However, the canon, particularly the New Testament, was not finalized. The Early Church Fathers disagreed with each other on what constituted the canon. Some would include the Shepherd of Hermas. Some wouldn't. Some didn't include Revelation. Some did. Some threw out other NT works.

It was not until the regional Council of Carthage was convened that the canon was in any way solidified. That Council promulgated a definitive canon list that included the 27 books of the NT, the Old Testament, and the Deteurocanon. All of this is historical fact.

Fast forward 1,000 years later and the Reformers show up and decide to change the canon again. Some of them tried to throw out parts of the New Testament (notably Luther), but none of them were successful. However, they were successful in throwing out the Deteurocanon from the Old Testament. This is always justified by saying "the Jews rejected them" or "they weren't in Hebrew." Of course, the Jews only rejected them after Christianity got popular, so I question the wisdom of following the rejection justification of a group who rejected Christ.

 

[CryptoLutheran]

The point is this: It's not like when St. John wrote the Revelation he was carrying around a tome of Scripture and then tucked his parchment in and then suddenly Christians everywhere were reading that exact collection of texts.

The process was messy and complicated. Churches in the East had a hard time taking the Revelation of St. John as serious as Churches in the West did, so we have Justin Martyr and Irenaeus speaking of it as authoritative, but others noted that many churches simply didn't accept it. On the other hand, there were a number of churches that read the Revelation of Peter, a completely different text that, after some time, eventually fell out of favor. In fact, among the Christians in the East it wouldn't be until the 7th century that the Revelation was finally accepted as canonical.

Many Christians took issue with some of the epistles, such as 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John. 1 Peter and 1 John were fairly respected, but many in the early Church regarded 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John as spurious and dubious authorship. The Epistle to the Hebrews had some difficulty, Pauline authorship was often the justification for its usage, but many doubted Pauline authorship given its drastically different style; the only reason it did eventually make it in was assumed Pauline authorship (and, for the record, it was again because Paul's authorship was doubted that Luther nearly threw it out of the Protestant New Testament).

There were some books that were very widely read that eventually didn't make it, the Shepherd of Hermas was mentioned already, but there was also 1 and 2 Clement, the Epistle of Barnabus, the aforementioned Revelation of Peter, as well as the Didache. There were some works such as Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans, to the Alexandrians, and 3 Corinthians which enjoyed some wide readership but were ultimately deemed to be spurious and not from Paul's hand; in fact some attributed these to later heretics.

And as important as councils such as Carthage were, it should be pointed out that it didn't solve everything immediately. Since, as noted, here in the West the Canon didn't get completely closed until the 16th century due because of the disagreements between Protestants and Catholics. Trent closed the Canon for the Roman Catholic Church, whereas for us Protestants it more-or-less became closed by general agreement and different church's confessional statements.

Even then, however, it should be remembered that the Deuterocanonical books were not completely removed from Protestant Bibles until between the 17th and 19th centuries--both the Luther Bible and the authorized version of King James contained those books in an appendix between the Old and New Testaments--in fact Luther said that they should be read because they are good and edifying (if not properly canonical).

In some sense it's significant that where Luther was completely prepared to remove Hebrews, James, Jude and the Revelation from his translation because he had a fairly low view of them (particularly James), he regarded the Deuterocanonicals as good to read and edifying for the Christian and simply moved them to an appendix.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[AveMaria_45]

I have heard many theorys on this but was wondering what yall thought

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