Heschmeyer Honoured Chair of St. Peter

6 Early Church Controversies Protestants Can't Explain
Shameless Popery Podcast, 18 Jan. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwFiyZfg1jU

I have covered intro and controversy 1 in two days and intend to cover one per day, which means the last I cover will be, if all goes right, covered the 24th, and this will be published the 25th.

Intro.

["If you went back in a time machine to the first Christians, would you find Catholics, Reformed, Evangelicals?"]

1:08 You are going to find Catho-Gelicals, absolutely not Reformed.

Marcus Aurelius the persecutor was akin to Cromwell the persecutor. That's Reformed. Like Dawkins, he was not a Christian.

Now, what do I mean by Catho-Gelicals?

For one, they would have been probably on average more eager to see if God would work a miracle for them, than Catholics are generally now.

For another, they were definitely Fundie in the understanding of Joshua 10 or Genesis 1 - 11. Actually, that's simply Catholic, but Karl Keating has been pretty successful in stamping that as Evangelical and even marginal at that.

On the other hand, they would also have had all the characteristics of Catholics that Evangelicals tend to find awkward.

I Gnostics v Real Presence.

4:52 Are you aware, some Protestants today seem pretty happy to agree with Gnostics on this one?

They are not docetists. At least not up to the Crucifixion. But they do pretend that the "resurrection body" is radically different from, and a different thing from, the body one has before dying, and that this also applies to Jesus.

Hence they can be very happy to deny both the Real Presence, and Mary as Mother of God, since the "resurrection body isn't in a place" and therefore cannot miraculously bilocate, and the "resurrection body was not born of flesh" and therefore doesn't have a mother.

Now, this actually ties in with the conflict I have with some Novus Ordos. Do you or don't you agree that Jesus has a resurrected body, qualitatively changed, but numerically identical, to the one that was born in Bethlehem and died on Calvary, and that this body still has 3 dimensions, still is in threedimensional space, and that therefore there is an actual place in Heaven where He is seated?

If no, you agree with Gnostics and those Protestants. If yes, you agree to the common ground between Calvin and Bellarmin, but in doing so, you take the theological side of a position, which also had an astronomical side. To both, as to St. Thomas, there was a sphere, doesn't matter if you take it as solid sphere (disproven), abstract level, or level of an aether which is the substance of space, either way, a sphere of the Moon above us, a sphere of the Sun above that, a sphere of the fixed stars. AND heavenly Jerusalem is in the Empyreic heaven above the sphere of the fix stars.

On the other hand, if you believe in modern astronomy, part of which your Popes are endorsing through CCC § 283, since 1992, the visible heaven is billions of light years across. So, if you agree Jesus still is surrounded by three dimensional space, only above the stars instead of below them, where would you place that? 14 billion light years from us? In a kind of space ship?

Paul Saunders

@iggyantioch

Very well said polemic.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

OK... @iggyantioch ... Iggy Antioch ... do you have any clue on whether Heschmeyer would agree with me and St. Ignatius of Antioch that heaven is a place, or don't you know him all that well?

Paul Saunders

No claims of familiarity

I apologize for any misunderstanding 🙏

I liked your post.

When you stated "your Popes" and 1992

Then went into astronomy and NO Catholics. I may have presumed something that was not.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Thank you, the major misunderstanding is, I thought "@iggyantioch" was an avatar of Mr. Heschmeyer.

Some channel owners very probably use "sockpuppet" channels when anonymously or pseudonymously answering comments on their videos.

I thought that was the case here. My bad.

Meanwhile, I've learned you are Paul Sanders. Sorry, Saunders.

7:32 Speaking of which, is someone pretending I fall under this category because I deny the communion that is una cum papa nostro Francisco as if it were comparable?

I seem to be getting a lot of stonewalling, and I am not a Gnostic. I have believed the Real Presence, actively, without hesitation, except very sporadic ones decades ago, since I was in third or fourth grade and mother had (as back then Lutheran) preferred a Catholic over a Calvinist school catechism (yes, Austria and Germany do have catechesis as a school subject, parents decide in which confession, though).

I would say, someone who does treat this as comparable would be reasonably suspect of himself denying the true presence, as if schism were comparable to Gnosticism.

Paul Saunders

What do you mean by Communion.
The sacrament?
Or the communion of the Church?

Hans Georg Lundahl

@iggyantioch In "the communion that is una cum papa nostro Francisco" I mean the latter, or what corresponds to it.

Obviously I do not think, and I suspect some DO think that denying that is comparable to denying the Sacrament, which is what St. Ignatius talked about.

Paul Saunders

Soo under Pope Francis is that a no or a yes.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I very obviously refuse communion with Jorge Mario Bergoglio, @iggyantioch.

My Pope is a Pinoy, Michael II (successor of a cowboy, Michael I, well, actually he was more of a farmer than a cowboy, but still Midwest).

II Easter Controversy

12:57 "the apostle John" — literally "John who had worn the golden headband"

Fr. Jean Colson takes this as one piece of evidence that St. John the Gospeller a) was not one of the twelve, since that would have been worth mentioning, if true; b) had served as priest, I think "golden headband" would even mean served as high priest.

15:37 "and, moreover, John, who was both a witness and a teacher"

Doesn't say "one of the twelve" unlike with Philip!

"who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and, being a priest, wore the sacerdotal plate"

Pretty much does say he had been an OT priest, a Cohen.

14:27 Are you a non-supporter of II Clement?

15:52 Your position is, the "John" we speak of was described as wearing the sacerdotal plate within the NT liturgy?

Fr. Jean Colson argues, this was within the OT, other supporting evidence:

1) he had a house in Jerusalem, since he could host the Blessed Virgin immediately, from Good Friday on, also consistent with him being the host of the Last Supper
2) he was known to the High Priest.

I agree NT priests were not baptist preachers, but I am not sure this is good evidence of the fact.

16:39 It's not apparent that St. John the Gospeller founded any Church.

I think it is often assumed he founded the seven Churches, but I don't think you find that in either Scripture or the early Church Fathers, except perhaps the Acta Sancti Iohannis, I credit them more than Fr. Colson did, but he seems to have a point that John the Beloved was not founding Churches.

The first bishop of Ephesus was St. Timothy, put there by St. Paul. And John died there, and was never bishop there.

17:58 Excellent point against the ones who pretend the Eucharist cannot be stored in the Sacred Preserve, a k a Tabernacle.

19:38 On this quote, St. Irenaeus calls John "disciple of our Lord" which he was. He does not specify "one of the twelve" ...

I wonder if Fr. Colson could have been wrong in crediting Irenaeus with misidentifying the Beloved Disciple with the Boanerg.

Though, if prior to 16 he had misunderstood sth, and after 16 he was no longer in Asia Minor, not able to consult with those who could have corrected him, he would have been very excusable by being that key figure Fr. Colson thinks he was.

Obviously, Our Lord had more disciples than just the twelve, for instance the 72.

22:11 He is contradicting the OT Church.

I can't find the actual quote in Moses this is or could be based of, but obviously both Purim and Hanukkah are outside the specific instructions in the five books of Moses.

23:01 Obviously, [John Calvin] is referring to worshipping on the hills.

Ironically, Covenanters used to worship on the hills.

But God's problem with worshipping on the hills would be it involved some error. At the minimum the error of withdrawing from the uniform (not necessarily sanctioned by the Law in each detail) worship of the Temple.

25:44 I'm reminded why Chesterton considered Calvinism a form of Satanism.

Mourning at the Resurrection (since Sunday Sabbaths were pretty black things in many ways, impossible to drink in a pub, impossible to prepare a feast meal ...) doesn't suggest a high regard of Our Lord.

III The Eucharist and Fasting.

31:29 Your point three was excellent in all it said.

A point you didn't elaborate however: both sides presume that there are fast days called Stations.

Jesus also once said "when you fast" but He didn't say "if you fast" so He presumed, as both Tertullian and his opponents, that there are times for fasting.

Tertullian and his opponents also both presume there are set times of fasting, not like "I have this thing to pray for, so I'll fast three days", but specifically times when the entirety of at least a diocese, potentially the whole Church, is fasting.

IV Antipope Novatian.

37:57 Can you show that Orthodox and Novatianists in for instance Toledo or Milan or Carthage were taking sides and professing loyalty to either St. Cornelius or Novatian?

As a revert from Orthodoxy, I am glad for proofs for the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, but some seem things that I could have answered back when denying it.

V Persecution of Diocletian

42:07 I'm reminded how Freemasons tend to call Catholics — real Catholics who aren't Masons — "profane" ...

48:05 Perhaps some Protestants think being Catholic is "profane" not much unlike Diocletian and the Freemasons?

[umpteenth mention / old church quote that the sign of the Cross drives away demons]

49:05 Like the Hail Mary.

Pour cause.

"blessed among women" compares Our Lady to Jael and to Judith
= compares the chief demon, Satan, to Sisera and Holophernes.

VI Novatian / Donatist Theology.

50:58 Please note, the Sede / Conclavist idea that Novus Ordo sacraments are invalid (like ordination, and the ones depending on it) is not a Donatist idea about all Novus Ordo clergy being unworthy and therefore inefficacious, it's a question on whether the new rites sufficiently accurately express the key element of sacramental intention.

Plus, the canonic issue on whether a rite issued by an antipope can be valid.

59:47 This opens up a wider discussion on what positions Protestants wouldn't find in time machines (if such things existed) and do not claim to find in actual quotes from periods.

If John McArthur realises that both St. Augustine and Donatus (heresiarch, not grammarian) have a different Gospel than himself, even if he does not state that, where does that leave:

and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.

There were more than one day involved in the St. Augustine / Donatus controversy, and also in lots of other times when John McArthur is not finding his theology.

If he'd like to appeal to a silent majority, not just is it ridiculous to believe century on century has an élite separate on a set number of questions from a silent majority, when we speak of silent majority today, it's about people agreeing with the élite or at least known parts of the élite a few decades ago, but also, their silence is contrary to Matthew 5.

14 You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house.

Note, previous verse to this says, apostasies within the clergy, perhaps even large scale such, are possible.

But what's not possible is a clergy that's apostate centuries on row on any issue, while the majority disagreeing with them, or minority disagreeing with them, remains silent and invisible.

And the only way people like McArthur get around this is basically "all we need is the Bible, history could be totally manipulated from one end to another ..." or whatever they say, if they say anything, purporting to defend not looking into Church history. Perhaps they prefer the unexplained example, like when Tiberius didn't pronounce Augustus a god, but showed him to be one, in Velleius Paterculus (a good read, also because it shows a perfect example of what God meant before His disciples in Matthew 6:7, in the very final words of the work). (As we have it).

1:01:43 — 1:01:54
"I think many Protestants don't understand the Reformation is not the theological retrieval of early Christianity it is totally alien to early Christianity"

Not only that.

If it actually were the retrieval of early Christianity, but was totally alien to the Christianity of for example 400 or 500 or 600 or 800, that would suffice to disprove the truth of the Deformation.

Because a retrieval would disprove the promise of Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:20, the "all days" promise related to the "all I have commanded you" task.

So, even if by some fluke chance someone proved every single thing you have brought up a fake, which is not very believable, that would disprove the Christian faith, rather than prove the Protestant religion. That one is as baseless as a Judaism which hasn't the full Leviticus 16 paraphernalia of Yom Kippur. No, even more. In Deuteronomy 28 it's made clear, Judaism could fail, theoretically. The Jew would only have to ask "where is a sacrifice being offered" ... but the Protestant is directly denying that Matthew 28 was an unconditional and categoric eternal covenant between Christ and His Church.