GenghisKhan44
New Member
History is only as good as the person recording it. More of history was not recorded than was. I could argue which group seemed to have the most believers, but that is a logically flawed argument as numbers do not indicate correctness of doctrine (appeal to majority).
And yet YOU, as a sola scriptura Protestant, appeal to a BOOK for the source and summit of all your Christian authority!
Joking aside, an appeal to the CURRENT majority would be a fallacy. As would an appeal to the HISTORICAL majority. But that is not what I am advocating.
I am advocating that you look at what the disciples of the Apostles wrote.
Scripture IS (it would seem) limited to the writings of the Apostles and their contemporaries, whom we take for granted died roughly at the beginning at the 2nd century. But the Church, you know, continued well long after that. And I doubt the Apostles left their disciples with only a book. Being teachers, they probably also taught a lot of stuff they thought was important, but that was not written down.
Well, not by the Evangelists's hands themselves. Or if they were, they were not the inspired word of God.
But their students - Ignatius, Clement, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, among others - did write what they learned was important down because it was important.
And later and later theologians, apologists, Church Fathers, preachers, pastors, and scholars wrote down what was seen as important in the eyes of their teachers, and so on and so forth, down to the present day.
In essence, the great river of Christ's Church and its many, sprawling tributaries, flow from the present all the way through history, down to the wellspring of Christ, the source and summit of all of our beliefs. Since from this wellspring there formed a consistent stream of thought, it only makes sense that this teaching should not be consistent only with the Apostles, but with the Church that, not necessarily being the majority, survived continually, without interruption, throughout history. Perhaps thechurch widened and narrowed, twisted and turned, maybe even doubled-back on itself, throughout history. But if the Church failed to exist for an instant, or turned from a river into a swamp or a lava floe, Christ would have not preserved us, and we would be abandoned on this Earth, thirsting with no source of water to drink from.
I present you, gentlemen, links to the writings of the church fathers - the river coming from the mighty Source.
http://www.searchgodsword.org/his/ad/ecf/ant/
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/
Both of these links contain various writings of the Fathers of the Church - the Christians who, as far as we know, practised orthodox (correct-thinking) Christianity and not Gnosticism or other heresies, beginning with those who wrote almost immediately after John the Apostle died if not before, and continuing well into the 400s or 500s.
New Advent generally uses the Ronalds-Donaldson edition of these writings. I don't know what the other uses. New Advent also provides no introduction to any of the writings.