re: Pope (emeritus) Benedict has died

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Irenaeus

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Who is he and why should we care?

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Ignatius

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See above.

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Who is he and why should we care?

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Come on, man.

And?

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And?

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And it's time you understood. The RCC has a looong line of evil and BS, and I don't expect you or anyone else to know which is which. The RCC gives power to men, and power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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(We pray directly to Jesus/God so we don't need weekly snacks to keep Him in mind.)

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Wow. frick that Jesus guy when he told us to eat the bread and drink the wine. Volcanic Tiger knows better than him.

I do enjoy the sola scriptura people deciding that some of that scriptura can be changed when they want to do so.

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I don't think I've ever read the phrase consecrated women before. But I'm not now nor have I ever been Catholic. Does anyonw know what that means?

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A fancy, pious term for women who believe their OTT-devotion to pious, org-annointed clergy "VIPs" will somehow score them extra "good deed" points in helping escape Purgatory sooner.

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And there's absolutely no semblance of the modern Presbyterian church in the early church.

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Really? What do you think "Presbyterian" means? It means a church ruled by elders. Presbuteros is the Greek word for elder, which is how the leaders of the church are described in the New Testament, used interchangeably with episkapos, the word for bishop.

Acts 15 presents a Presbyterian example of governance of the church, where representatives of churches via elders (and Apostles, at the time) met together to discuss a conflict, decided together, and then the elders took the decision back to their churches to implement and teach. That's exactly how we do it today.

The early church started out with elders and Apostles, then added in bishops over time that were separate from the elders, and then the bishops began to have regional authority given to them, and finally one bishop (of Rome) developed preeminence. The hierarchy of the church of Rome developed over several centuries. It started out Presbyterian.

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But I disagree with you. When Justin Martyr was asked what Christians do in the very early 2nd century, he basically described the Mass as its currently celebrated today.

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The quote that was provided in the previous post didn't say anything that is drastically different from what many Protestants practice today. If you'd like to provide other quotes, feel free, but ultimately my authority is scripture.

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Irenaeus would disagree with you. He said the 3 pillars of Orthodoxy are scripture, tradition handed down through apostolic succession, and the Church in Rome.

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Perhaps he did, yet in Against Heresies, Irenaeus says a few different times that the gospel--via the scriptures--is the pillar of the faith.

It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds,(4) while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the “pillar and ground”(5) of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh

WE have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.

Irenaeus also only defended the faith against heretics with scripture, not with tradition or mere opinion.

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Ignatius would also disagree, calling those who do not believe the eucharist to be true flesh heretics.

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He used the word "flesh" to mean "body" in his letters, so it would make sense that he would also refer to the body of Christ as pictured in the elements of the table to be referred to as "flesh" and "blood". Did Ignatius teach transubstantiation? I don't see that in his writings. Perhaps I missed it somewhere.

I know that in his letter to Smyrna, Ignatius said, "they abstain from Eucharist and prayer because they refuse to acknowledge that the Eucharist is the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father by his goodness raised up", however context shows that he's talking about those who deny that Jesus had a literal body and that Jesus only pretended to suffer on the cross. The argument is then that the Eucharist has value because the elements represent a real flesh-and-blood Jesus Christ, not just someone with an appearance of humanity.

The other passages of Ignatius' writings on the Eucharist could be said almost word-for-word by a Baptist, Presbyterian, or Lutheran, so he isn't a great witness to the reality of transubstantiation as Rome teaches.

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He also said to follow the bishop as Christ followed God, as wherever the bishop is, there is Christ, and wherever Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

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Ignatius certainly did have a high view of the bishop, but he had a high view of all the servants of God called to office. Again in his letter to the Smyrnaeans, he said, "See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God".

One thing that's important to remember is that Ignatius in almost all his writings was focused on unity in the body against schisms and heresies that were leading people away. He (rightly) saw the officers of the Church as representing Christ in their leadership over the people, as orthodox believers like myself do today (the elders are Christ's rod of governance and the Deacons are His hands of mercy).

The question I have for you is this: when Ignatius wrote to honor the bishop as God, was he talking about the bishop of Rome, or the bishop of Smyrna (Polycarp)? Rome, today, teaches that only the bishop of Rome is the Vicar of Christ and has preeminence. Would you support that claim from Ignatius' writings?

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And here comes the spin from Foo...

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Forgive me for wanting to provide context.

Much better than the current guy

I'll give you one thing, you sure know how to read your beliefs into writings that were not interpreted the way you interpret them for over 1500 years.

Essentially, when an early church father uses a phrase to support the Catholic position, the writing must have a different meaning than the obvious. When the phrase supports the Protestant position, it means exactly what it says.