Answering Dr. John Barnett on "Origin of the Catholic Church" or on what happened with Constantine

Answering Dr. John Barnett: on Catholic Oral Tradition · his "7 Reasons Roman Catholicism is Wrong" · on "Origin of the Catholic Church" or on what happened with Constantine

Answering "Asaph Vapor": Answering Asaph Vapor · Continuing the Answer to Asaph Vapor · Asaph Vapor's long answer, part I · On Papacy and Apostolic Succession to Asaph Vapor · Answering Asaph Vapor on Blessed Virgin Mary and Church · On Eucharist, Confession and some Other Matters, to Asaph Vapor

The True Origin of Roman Catholicism
DTBM OnlineVideoTraining | 1.XI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmHFAs7euFw

I

0:12 - 0:23 "historically the Nicolaitans were the ones that believes that the clergy were elevated and had power and the laity the people had no power"

I'd like to know exactly from what historical source you have this.

This "fact" is not mentioned in Apocalypse where it is mentioned that Christ hated their deeds.

"which is the background for Roman Catholicism"

Except, if that were true, Catholics would not be Nicolaitans.

Sure, we believe laity have power only to make two sacraments happen, baptism and matrimony.

All other five, including Eucharist which is the holiest one, depend on clergy. AND this clergy is in its beginning shown in the Gospels where Christ choses 72, then 12, then St Peter.

However, laity have a lot of powers even if they can't consecrate bread and wine or absolve sinners. We can pray, and we can, as I do, defend the Catholic truth.

II

0:38 "where evil was becoming part of the church"

According to Matthew 16:18 and Matthew 28:20 there can have been no such time.

Evil can very well become a part in apostate "churches" (Lutherans, Anglicans, your Church, Vatican II Sect), but NOT of the Church which Christ founded.

III

1:20 "in hoc signo vinces", so far, so good.

I believe this dream came from God who was giving the successors of the Apostles the opportunity to make disciples of all Roman Empire, of all its nations.

You probably believe it didn't.

We'll see when we get to actual disagreements on history ...

"Cross as a sign of victory"

Appropriately, Christ won His victory over Satan on .... the Holy Cross.

"were not going to kill Christians any more"

So far, still correct.

IV

1:53 "but this is what I'm gonna do, I have all the gods of Rome, the Pantheon, and all the gods of the Assyrians and the Babylonians"

What did he have to do with those?

You depend on Hislop claiming Roman paganism was identic to Assyrian and Babylonian, and on top of that Constantine prior to Christianity was a devout worshipper of Roman gods and believer in them.

Neither is true, he was arguably more Platonic than Homeric, and on top of that Roman Pagans of either type were not all that fancying Assyrians and Babylonians.

You are reading a loyalty into Constantine's acts which is not there in his known loyalties.

"And Ashteroth and everybody else."

Venus is roughly speaking Ashteroth, but then we are talking of very roughly. Also, nothing shows Constantine cared very much about worshipping Venus.

"and they're gonna stay gods, I'm just gonna add Christianity to it."

If you mean Roman Paganism remained legal for a few decades after Christianity became so, true.

But if you mean it was incorporated in Christianity (any form of it) - so not true.

V

2:04 "Have you ever wondered where beads in Roman Catholicism comes from, there are no beads in the New Testament"

There are also no microphones for preachers in the New Testament.

Well, to answer your implied question, some monks could read and prayed the psalms, some couldn't and repeated Our Father in the meanwhile, a set number of times.

This was later reused with Hail Mary's in the Rosary.

2:33 On the contrary, none of that is Roman Paganism, except Mardi Gras coming from Lupercalia, and Roman Catholic Church doesn't preach, but tolerate Mardi Gras.

For one thing, beads were definitely not in the Roman religion, Roman paganism had no such thing as Hinduism or Buddhism.

VI

2:46 "all of you are legal now"

Correct insofar as he outlawed neither Judaism nor even Paganism.

But this was not a merger, it was simply a refusal to persecute those who were hanging on to the past.

2:55 Priests of paganism and bishops surviving after persecutions or elected after martyrdoms were indeed both legal.

But they were not legally the same religious body.

3:07 "those who had the Baalim error and those who had the Nicolaitan error, just merged right into the Church"

Baalim error would arguably mean Roman paganism, even if there were actual differences between Roman and Canaanean paganism.

Nicolaitan error - you still have given no credible source for it's being clericalism.

Ancient sources don't show it to be clergy as in Roman Catholicism, but rather to be ... well, Moses David movement and hookers for Jesus. A deacon called Nicolas seems to have allowed people to sleep with his very beautiful wife. Whether or not he was therein culpable, those taking advantage of it and perhaps asking other clergymen to do the same with their wives, certainly were culpable, and these were the Nicolaites.

"The last Western Church Father was Isidore of Seville, who finished the Etymologies, or the Origins, in the year 636 A.D. In Book VIII titled "The Church and sects (De ecclesia et sects)" he wrote, "The Nicolaites (Nicolaita) are so called from Nicolas, deacon of the church of Jerusalem, who, along with Stephen and the others, was ordained by Peter. He abandoned his wife because of her beauty, so that whoever wanted to might enjoy her; the practice turned into debauchery, with partners being exchanged in turn. Jesus condemns them in the Apocalypse, saying (2:6): “But this thou hast, that thou hates the deeds of the Nicolaites.”"

" common view holds that the Nicolaitans held the antinomian heresy of 1 Corinthians 6, although this has not been proved.[5] One scholar who espouses this interpretation, John Henry Blunt, maintains that the comparison between the Nicolaitans and Balaam "proves that the fornication spoken of is not that crime under ordinary circumstances, but fornication connected with religious rites"."

"Irenaeus in Adversus Haereses III. xi. 1; I. xxvi. 3 holds that the Gospel of John was written to counter the teachings of Cerinthus, which he holds was spread by the Nicolaitans. But when Irenaeus focuses on them later, he only presents them as the Book of Revelation did, with no explanation how they can be held to have the doctrines of Cerinthus.[4] Later, Augustine of Hippo ascribed to them Cerinthian doctrines concerning the creation of the world (in his De haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum, v)."

"Victorinus of Pettau held that the error of the Nicolaitans was that they ate things offered to idols.[6] Bede states that Nicolas allowed other men to marry his wife.[7] Thomas Aquinas believed that Nicholas supported either polygamy or the holding of wives in common.[8] Eusebius claimed that the sect was short-lived.[9]"

All these quotes are via wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaism

You may claim these were so many lies, but who in the ancient world if so wrote the "truth" you think there was?

Btw, did you mean Balaam error? I heard it as Baalim ...

VII

3:47 "Roman Catholic is that merging in of all the beads"

Again, you don't find beads in Roman Paganism.

Also, you don't find beads systematically with Hail Mary's before St Dominic of Guzmán, 8 August 1170 – 6 August 1221.

Matthew 6:7-8 cannot refer to beads, it must refer to the heathen that Christ's audience knew, Roman Heathen.

Battologein is a word with little clues to exact meaning, but it is not the normal word for repeat.

The University of Chicago Library
Woodhouse's English-Greek Dictionary, p 696, Repeal to Reply
http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/efts/dicos/woodhouse_test.pl?keyword=^Repeat,%20v.%20trans.

Recite is ρωψωιδειν, perhaps more normally ραψωιδειν, say over and over is υμνειν or θρυλειν.

It is not battologein.

Now, "as the heathen" is a clue, but it can't be applied to Buddhists or Hindoos, since those were not the relevant heathens there and then.

Here is an actual pagan prayer from nearly same year:

Velleius Paterculus, book II (where we know from beginning of book II that the work is from 16th year of Tiberius), chapter CXXXI:

Let our book be concluded with a prayer. O Jupiter Capitolinus, O Jupiter Stator! O Mars Gradivus, author of the Roman name! O Vesta, guardian of the eternal fire! O all ye deities who have exalted the present magnitude of the Roman empire to a position of supremacy over the world, guard, preserve, and protect, I entreat and conjure you, in the name of the Commonwealth, our present state, our present peace, [our present prince[104]!] And when he shall have completed a long course on earth, grant him successors to the remotest ages, and such as shall have abilities to support the empire of the world as powerfully as we have seen him support it! All the just designs of our countrymen * * * *

You see why this would be "battologein" or "speak as a stutterer"? I do. Velleius never got to the point, started over and over again saying nearly same thing in slightly different words to a slightly different deity, as if he were unsure of hitting the right one.

So, beads were not a part of Roman paganism, it was never such an intimate affair as Buddhism and Hindooism can be (even if it is a faulty intimacy). It was about negotiating with the gods.

I keep the quote here, where it mainly serves to illustrate with previous quote, why we don't have ANY Roman historians from AD 31 to AD after 90 preserved in extensive text:

somewhere else : Two of These Quoted (Silent Historians Argument Revisited)
https://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2016/04/two-of-these-quoted-silent-historians.html

VIII

3:53 Candles are probably rather useful if you pray in catacombs, under ground.

Head dresses for Catholic higher clergy are not very well attested from these times.

Sacraments is exactly what Roman Paganism was so not about.

"all of that merged in"

• 1) unrealistic considering legal status to two different religions does not prescribe a merger
• 2) very contradictory to the promise of "all days" in Matthew 28:20 and the promise against gates of Hades in Matthew 16:18.

There are no direct repetitions in what Christ describes in Matthew 6:7-8.