quote:
This is even more asinine. Jews were the first Christians and indeed practiced early Christianity in synagogues. The Pauline epistles make this abundantly clear.

Your inability to separate establishment from belief is your downfall here.

The early Christians were very catholic in doctrine. The church of Rome added centralized power to the equation, but Catholicism didn't just pop out of nowhere in the 4th century. Popes, bishops, etc. all existed prior to Constantine. A formal establishment of it all doesn't change what the early Christians practiced or believed.

This post was edited on 10/29/14 at 7:09 pm

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Posted by RollTide1987

Augusta, GA

Member since Nov 2009

65147 posts

Posted on 10/29/14 at 7:12 pm to Roger Klarvin

quote:
The church of Rome added centralized power to the equation

There was centralized power from the beginning, it just became easier for that power to be enforced after Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, bringing the persecutions of Christians to an end.

Pope St. Clement I is the earliest example of a Bishop in Rome exercising this authority when he wrote to the Corinthians in 90 AD. At the time of this letter, St. John the Apostle was still alive and well and was the Bishop of Ephesus - a church located much closer to Corinth than Rome was. Yet the Corinthians appealed directly to Rome for an answer to the chaos that was sprouting up there at that time. Clement's response, now known to us as the Epistle of St. Clement, was revered by the Church in Corinth for many centuries, often read aloud at mass. It was so revered in fact it almost made it into the Bible.

This post was edited on 10/29/14 at 7:16 pm

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