A Tribute to Rushbo, Prayer for James Coates, Augustine and Zosimus

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. We are here today on a

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Tuesday, the 18th of February. And as most of you know,

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I think most of you heard that yesterday, famed talk show host

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Rush Limbaugh passed away. I'm not going to make comment about the vile elements of humanity that are dancing upon Rush's grave today.

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I'm not even going to give them any more reference. It's sad, very, very sad that that's going on.

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But I did want to point out that, especially back in the 90s, before the internet became what the internet has become, a lot of people would listen to Rush Limbaugh.

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And especially when you get in the car during a certain time of the day, that's pretty much what a lot of people did.

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I saw a lot of people yesterday writing tributes and saying, wow, you know, I can remember very clearly that was sort of part of my life back in those days.

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And certainly he was on the air all the way through the end of the year, once or twice,

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I think, since the turn of the year. But anyway, back in the early 90s, he put out, he started making ties and they were called the

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No Boundaries Collection. And I really couldn't afford them, but I bought them anyways. And I'm pretty certain,

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I'm wearing one, I'm not wearing the one I was going to wear because I couldn't find my black shirt. Black shirts tend to end up in bad places.

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They end up in your workout clothes, you know, black is not a good color for surviving laundry sorting and stuff like that.

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So I couldn't find my black shirt. And I was going to wear this one.

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I even posted a picture. So this is the stained glass

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Rush Limbaugh tie. And so I was going to wear this today. It is certainly the king of the

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Limbaugh ties, I think. And once I can find my black shirt, I will wear it again.

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And so I'm wearing one of the first ties that I got.

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This was the fire tie. This was extremely popular amongst charismatics because you got your fire thing going.

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And so I wore that today because I had to wear a dark blue shirt. I think this was my first one.

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I think this was the first one that I got. I'm pretty certain they had the little chain on the back, which didn't always stay on.

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In fact, I don't, as that one does, but the stained glass one does not have, its chain went bye bye.

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That was one thing that over time would happen if you wore them a lot. And he would do different colors.

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So notice what this is. This is the same one I'm wearing, but a different color scheme, see?

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So he'd normally do two. I think on his couple, he might have done three. I'm not 100 % certain about that. But they'd have these at,

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I think, Macy's, if I recall, over at Metro Center, back when Metro Center was still a thing. Here's another one that I grabbed today.

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I think I have at least 30. I may have 40 Rush Limbaugh ties.

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And I bought them when they first came out. So back in the days. And so my tribute to El Rushbo is to wear my

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Rush Limbaugh tie today. And now, some people, some insane people on the internet have suggested that I should wear a

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Rush Limbaugh tie with a Coogie. Now, I want you to understand something. First of all, Rich just became ill in the other room.

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I think he's looking for a waste paper basket. We just had lunch, and I should have warned him about that.

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But you need to understand that the combination of Rush Limbaugh tie with a Coogie creates a color interaction implosion with possible universe -ending parameters, and definitely would create a singularity that would consume the

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Earth. And so, look, most of you folks do not have the skill set to either do the

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Limbaugh tie or the Coogie. All right? There's a lot of training that those of us who can handle these things have had to go through.

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Rich obviously failed out of that training very early on. Has a few

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Limbaugh ties, so he's got like a level tier one type thing.

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But once you try to get into the upper advanced stuff, just be careful.

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Because did you see what happened to Vulcan? That had nothing to do with some

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Romulan dude. That was actually the combination of a Rush tie and a

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Coogie. That's a little -known backstory to the various timelines in Star Trek.

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That's why that one sort of got cut off. So yes,

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I would highly recommend to you, I was really touched,

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I pulled it back up last night when Rush was given the Freedom Medal during the

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State of the Union Address in 2020. I thought that was really special. And so Rush will be missed.

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I think that a lot of the media opportunities we have today were due to Rush Limbaugh and what he did, even though he started well before podcasting and webcasting and all the rest of that type of stuff.

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He was a geek. And so he got into that stuff pretty early on as well and was always sort of on the cutting edge of those things.

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And I appreciated Mark Stein's words when he said, talent returned to God.

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Because of course, Rush's thing was talent on loan from God. And it really did seem to me toward the end, there was a, you know,

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David Limbaugh, his brother, is a well -known Christian writer. There seemed to be a credible expression of faith in Christ on Rush's part.

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I don't think that was the case early on, but I think that was something that came over time.

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So our condolences to the Limbaugh family, David Limbaugh, Bo Snurdley as well.

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He was, there was somebody that was with Rush for a very, very long time. And let me just simply say, complete shame on all of you who are dancing on Rush Limbaugh's grave.

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It's just absolutely disgusting. One other thing. What? Oh, that's not even, no, they're, that's, you're being way too nice.

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One other thing, I think it's very important for us to recognize that just north of the border here in the

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United States, Pastor James Coates is in prison right now for having church.

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And I've said on Twitter today, and I'm just not even, not even going to be playing these games with those of you who are doing these things, but there are people, of course, lots of people, including people who call themselves

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Christians who are saying, no, he's in prison for violating the proper rules of the state.

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He's trying to kill people. He's not being safe. I even just saw a tweet, the role of the church is to keep us safe.

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I remember that in the New Testament. You remember that in the New Testament? I remember that in the New Testament. Everybody joined the New Testament church for safety reasons in the

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New Testament. Yeah, that early church thing with the lions, let's not worry about that.

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So those people that are pulling this thing, who have completely bought into the panic, they've completely bought into the narrative, they don't look at numbers themselves, they don't do any research for themselves, they just believe whatever

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MSNBC tells them. You folks are going to be the first people lining up to get your church compliance certificates when they come out.

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And they will. And you're going to be the first ones submitting your sermons to the government for compliance.

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And you go, that would never happen. It's happening in, I think it's Sweden, I think it was Sweden that was doing that.

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They're already setting up the system to do that. Might have been another one of the

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Scandinavian countries or one of them up there. I forget which one it was, but I think it was Sweden. And you're going to be the first one ratting out any quote unquote radicals in your numbers to the government.

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So you're going to be just like the state church in China. You know, the ones that get the state approval, which means they're no longer the church.

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That's, you've already given in. You've already given in. So those who haven't and recognize what's actually going on, that this is the very clear steps of tyranny.

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This is Caesar saying, we will tell you what you can and cannot do.

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And, you know, we started off with, you know, two weeks to flatten the curve. And we're, what did

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Joe Biden? Who knows? Joe Biden doesn't know what Joe Biden said, but he's talking about, you know, masking, double masking into 2022 and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

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And we've been saying for months, it has nothing to do with the virus. It has nothing to do with the virus.

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It has everything to do with global reset. It's what it's all about.

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And you can close your eyes to it and you can continue, you know, just recirculating

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TGC articles. But that's just the way it is. So there you go. All right.

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So pray, of course, for James Coates and the church up there and all the faithful Christians in Australia, especially in Victoria, in Canada.

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And look, the greatest thing that Canadian Christians can do for James Coates is to open your church on Sunday and worship

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God and pray for him, okay? Because they won't even let his family come see him.

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They're treating him like he's a terrorist. And that's exactly how they're going to spin this type of stuff.

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I was told years ago, and I've said this on Twitter, Michael Fallon told me years ago, what they're going to do is they're going to use public health emergencies as their mechanism.

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Rich is going, yep, told you the same thing. Yep. And I'm sitting here going, what?

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You know, we're not seeing it around us. But see, he had heard all this stuff. He had been doing these meetings and these conferences, and he's listening.

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I think most of the people didn't think that the people who were setting up the conference schedules would actually be listening.

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Well, he was listening. And he was telling us this stuff. And it was so hard to believe it because you're looking around, you don't see it.

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Well, here it is. Here it is. And oh, has it been effective? Oh, has it been effective?

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The Karen cult has taken off. I think they're probably actually shocked at how effective the

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Karen cult has been. And so here you go. There will always be a threat because we have treated this one disease unlike any other disease we've ever treated in the past 50 years.

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And so there'll always be something else. There'll always be a new strain. Remember, we played for you the audio that came out of the

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Liberal Party in Canada. I think it was October, November. And they said, you know, more lockdowns, stringent lockdowns, and then

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COVID -21 in March. Now we've already got the new strain stuff happening. Just waiting for COVID -21.

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And already seeing news stories about how the vaccines won't do anything for the new strains.

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And so now you got to wait for a new vaccine. And it's just going to be going on and on. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever put these numbers in meaningful comparison to anything else in the past.

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All has a purpose to it. All has a purpose to it. So the best thing Canadian Christians could do on Sunday is cut those padlocks off, open the church and pray for James Coates and pray for your nation.

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And tell Caesar to get back in his lane. That would be the best thing that would happen.

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I'm just gonna let you know right now, we're about to dive into a deep subject, but Rich will tell you that about three minutes before the program started,

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I did three hours on bike last night and then two hours this morning.

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So I've done a hundred and what that turned out to be 110 miles, something like that in 18 hours at over 200 watts average per hour.

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Now, some of you have no idea what that refers to. Fine. If you're a cyclist and you know, okay, did some good, did a good workout.

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Yeah. And then my right hamstring decided to go into a wonderful spasm right before the program started.

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So I'm hoping that's not going to happen again. But if it does, that's going to make a great meme.

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That's all I could say is someone will be so unkind as to turn the screaming and the pain into a meme.

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So you just need to have a very fast commercial break queued up and ready to go in there.

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Huh? No, no, no. You need to hit it fast. It'll take a few seconds.

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Yeah. Because I didn't want to hit again. So yeah. So just warn you ahead of time.

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This could happen. It happened right for the program. I can still feel it down there. We will see.

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We will see. I should have done a recoverite shake. If I had some hammer recoverite around, I'd have

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Rich mix some up and it would help. But just something to keep in mind.

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All right. Let me, I, unfortunately, I found this clip and then somehow it kept going.

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It, so here is,

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I'm going to go wide on this. I want to start off by playing a clip from two,

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I think this is 2001, 2001 was not a space odyssey.

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Um, so we're talking, we're talking 20 years ago.

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I did a debate with Dr. Mitchell, not

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Dr. Father Peter Stravinskis, who has two earned doctorates from Ivy league schools was the editor of the

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Catholic answer. And Stravinskis came into this debate.

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Um, well, Chris Arntzen will tell you when they first contacted him and said, well, who would I be debating a

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James White? Oh, he's harmless. And, uh, he's right. I'm, I'm just a,

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I'm just a soft, lovable fuzzball always have been, but not in debates.

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And so he hadn't read anything I had written. His opening statement was about dialogues that he had had with Jimmy Swagger.

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Yeah, that was right down my alley. And it didn't take long for him to realize that he had made a major mistake to take this debate and to prepare or to not prepare in the way that he had.

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The cross examination was absolutely classic. We have for a long time posted just the cross

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X on first Corinthians, uh, chapter three and the subject of purgatory.

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It was incredibly clear. Uh, it was, um, Michael Fallon was there and, and he told me the story that, um, he was talking to Roman Catholic afterwards.

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And in speaking to the Roman Catholic, Roman Catholic said, oh, when the father was speaking, you could just feel the

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Holy spirit. But when white was talking, you could see the demons coming out of his head.

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Yeah. So he was listening very, uh, fairly and, uh, and things like that.

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Anyway. So I, I want to play you a segment from the second cross examination.

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So we already had the first Corinthians three thing was already done. I want to get back to it. But, um,

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Augustine had come up a couple of times and in his asking me questions, he went to the,

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I wouldn't, he actually, again, he went to the section and he wouldn't give references.

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And I may, I may play this later on. We cover this, uh, at another point, but, um,

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I had, you'll, you'll see, in fact, in this clip, you'll see that I am using a handspring visor, my little doohickey, uh, as he referred to it.

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It's 2001. Okay. Palm pilot had just, you know, the Palm pilot stuff was, had only come out in like 95.

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Gizmo. Yeah. And so I was early on a adopter of tech in debate, basically.

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And so I wanted to get his response. I had responded to his,

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I would not believe the gospel, except that on the testimony of the Catholic church, he expanded that beyond what, what

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Augustine actually said and didn't seemingly know where Augustine said it. And in my response,

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I told him where Augustine said it. And if we have time today, which I doubt we will, but if we have time today, we'll take a look at that too, because it fits into this whole section.

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Um, but I wanted to ask him a question and this was what happened as a result.

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We ready? Here we go. And we got nothing.

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Well, isn't that great. It was working just a second ago.

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Mute unmute. All right. Well, so this is at two 29

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Oh six. We okay.

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I'm sending you sound. So there's, it's more likely that something has changed over there than it is over here.

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We should have tested sound beforehand. We just assumed everything would be working. I can only plug it in one way over here and it's working on my end.

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Um, so, um, I don't know what to say.

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I have reset it. I've reloaded it. Um, I don't know.

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Here, let me, let me try this. Yeah, no, it's, it's on your end.

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Cause this is, this is a different program. So something has gotten moved, uh, discombobulated disconnected something somewhere.

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And that's going to make it impossible to do the program you're going to do today. Uh, cause

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I have to play stuff. So, well, that, that may be what we have to do.

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That's, um, that's going to be all right.

21:48

Well, I apologize folks. Uh, we've not had this problem ever before. Um, but, uh, the sound is no longer getting to the soundboard, uh, or it's happening.

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I don't know what, um, in getting stuff to you. So I will have to, uh, put the sound up as loud as I can.

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And put the microphone down on the PC speakers. That's not a good way of doing things, but don't have any options as far as I can see, uh, right now.

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So, um, this was what took place in the second, um, cross -examination.

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Let's, uh, see if we can pick it up. Don't know if we will, but let's, let's try. I don't think it's, uh, fair to characterize the

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Catholic opposition to. Okay. Let me, uh, I, I had it set up correctly, but, um.

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I want to get back to first Corinthians chapter three here in a moment. But, um, since you read an

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Augustine quote, I wanted to read an Augustine quote and get your take on it. Um, Augustine said, you ought to notice particularly in store in your memory that God wanted to lay a firm foundation in the scriptures against treacherous errors, a foundation against which no one dares to speak.

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Who would in any way be considered a Christian for when he offered himself to them to touch this, he did not. This did not suffice him unless he also confirmed the heart of the believers from the scriptures for he foresaw that the time would come when we would not have anything to touch, but would have something to read.

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Would you find that particular expression of statement by, uh, Augustine, uh, consistent with the denial of solo scriptura that is a part of Roman Catholic theology in which you've presented this evening?

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I don't think it's, uh, fair to characterize the Catholic opposition to solo scriptura as being anti -scripture.

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Um, scripture in Catholic theology is a Norma Normans, which is to say it is a norm that serves as a norm for everything else.

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The Catholic church can never teach anything that is, that is not, excuse me, the

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Catholic church cannot teach something that is explicitly forbidden or condemned in scripture.

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We can take, uh, account of a silence in scripture. Um, again, this was certainly the principle of the reformers that what the scriptures do not talk about, uh, a

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Christian is free to do or not to do. Um, what Augustine, who certainly had a very, very highly developed theology of revelation, which is more than just scripture for Augustine, uh,

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Augustine also would be very much in favor And, uh, Augustine would be very comfortable in saying at another point, Roma has spoken and the case is closed.

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And, sir, could you tell me where that's found? No, again, I don't have my little, is it not true that that's found in sermon 131?

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All right. Have you ever looked at sermon 131, sir? Yes, I have. I taught a course in Augustine. Okay. And are you aware that that phrase that you just quoted never appears in any text of sermon 131?

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I, I can provide you with the actual Latin text. Do you want me to look it up? That does not appear anywhere in, uh, sermon 131.

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Did I, do you think I care about the number of it? It doesn't. No, no, sir. I'm sorry.

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Uh, the, the, the point I was making is you seem, you, you just made a quotation from Augustine and I'm challenging you that, uh, while that is said to appear in sermon 131, uh, that is a, one of the most common apologetic errors of Roman Catholic apologists.

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And what manuscript are you using? The standard one used by, uh, actually anyone. In fact, uh, so, but I, I can't,

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I would be glad to explicate it on that and provide you with the actual Latin, but that is, uh, not, uh, the text of what he said, but going back to what he did say.

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Okay. So, um, was that readable? Okay. All right. Uh, we'll have to do it that way for now anyways, till we can figure out what in the world happened.

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Yeah, I, I, I have, I have no idea. Um, but it's your fault. Uh, anyways.

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So as long as it's understandable, it may not look as good, but it, uh, anyway, anyway, so here was cross -examination and I chose to bail out of that at that point because there was no way in a debate on purgatory for me to explain, because he didn't understand it.

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He, he said he taught a course on Augustine. Well, that's nice. But, um, nowhere in Augustine anywhere does he say

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Romula Cuta S, Causa Finitas. That does not appear anywhere in Augustine. No August, Augustinian scholar says that it does.

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Um, the, that is a interpretation of what is found in Sermon 131.

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Which he evidently did not know what Sermon 131 was about, what its context was, what the historical background was, any of those things.

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Now, this is very, very common amongst even Roman Catholics with two doctorates from Ivy League schools.

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All right. It's very common amongst Protestants to just repeat what you heard somebody else say, but you don't really know what the background is, whether it's true or false.

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You haven't checked it out for yourself. Nobody can check out everything. So I get it, but he's going into a debate.

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He's throwing that out at me and he was wrong. He was just an error.

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Now, how did I know all that? Do I just keep that? No, because years before that, I had written an extensive article, which is still on our website to this day, about Catholic myths and how they get started.

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And I had dedicated pages to the documentation of what

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Sermon 131 was about and the historical background of what happened in North Africa between North Africa, Palestine, and Rome in regards to the

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Pelagian controversy. And there's never been a rebuttal to it.

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No one has ever said, well, you're wrong about that, because I cited from both Protestant and Catholic scholars. It's not, there's not really, on a scholarly level, there's not really any dispute about this.

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It's just that Roman Catholic apologists abuse this statement over and over and over and over again.

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Now, why bring this up? Well, because last year, well, I'm sorry, in 2019,

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Trent Horn, who I debated at the G3 conference a couple years ago, Trent Horn gave a presentation at a

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Catholic Answers event on Protestant distortions of the early

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Church Fathers. Protestant distortions of the early Church Fathers. And one time he does mention me toward the end, but there were clearly other places where he could have, where he was making reference to something about me, but he didn't make reference to me.

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We are going to be working through Trent Horn's presentation and refuting it thoroughly.

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I've already taken the time to go through the video and to reproduce all of his slides.

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So we have the entire presentation. We have the audio. He makes reference to a book.

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We've got the book. I've got that. Oh, I was supposed to have that queued up and forgot to do so.

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We've got the book. And so we want to provide yet another example of the fact that Protestant apologists can go toe -to -toe with Roman Catholic apologists on the subject of Church history, and we will always win.

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You know why? It's real simple. Let me, before we listen to what

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Trent Horn said, let me remind you of something. And this is, I've been saying this every time we have engaged in historical discussions with Roman Catholics, Roman Catholic apologists, etc.,

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etc. I've had to bring this out and to emphasize it.

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Why is our handling of the early Church Fathers to be more trusted than a Roman Catholic's?

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Real simple. I have no magisterial authority telling me what to find in the early

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Church Fathers, because I believe in solo scriptura. So I have a very clear interest in such issues as textual criticism, because the text of the

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Scripture becomes the standard at that point. But I believe in solo scriptura.

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I believe that the ultimate authority is that which is theanustos, that which is

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God -breathed, and that what I believe has to be based upon, find its origin in the consistent reading of all but only that which is theanustos.

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Now, if you're a Roman Catholic, you've probably only heard solo scriptura defined as, in issues of material and formal sufficiency and things like this.

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It's extremely rare, even amongst the best Roman Catholic apologists, to have an accurate, meaningful definition given, partly because most of them do not know what it is, partly because those who came before them gave them bad definitions.

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Carl Keating did this, for example, and there's sort of a hesitation to say, yeah, that wasn't all that great.

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But what solo scriptura says is that there is a genre of revelation that is theanustos, it's

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God -breathed, and it's unique, and it's found only in Scripture, and there's nothing else that's theanustos.

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And so my beliefs have to be derived from a reading of only that which is theanustos, solo scriptura.

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And all that is theanustos, tota scriptura, that then becomes what drives a meaningful, believing, hermeneutic methodology, consistent methodology of interpreting

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Scripture. Now, the Roman Catholic is not in that position.

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Why? Because of the dogmatic teachings of Rome. Let me give an example from the subject of the papacy, because obviously, it was interesting to me.

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Maybe I missed it, but I don't think I did. Trenhorn never mentioned Pope Francis in his talk.

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Now, you might say, well, why should he? Pope Francis didn't live in the early church. Well, it's true. But in my experience back when

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John Paul II was alive, it was pretty unusual to listen to a Roman Catholic go through an entire presentation and not make some reference to the living pope.

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But Catholic apologists know down there in their hearts that Pope Francis is not their friend.

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He does not believe in evangelism in that sense. He does not believe in proselytization.

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And they also know that he's a liberal, and he doesn't believe a lot of things that they believe.

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On one side, they have to go, yes, he does, because he's the pope. Now, on the other side, they go, yeah, I know, but he's the pope.

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It's just, it's a tough day. So anyway, Roman Catholicism tells its people that what it believes is apostolic by definition.

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And therefore, you will always be able to find early church fathers who are teaching what

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Rome teaches, that this is apostolic. Now, there can be development on a certain level, but it's apostolic teaching.

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That's what goes on. So let me give you some examples.

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The Vatican Council, 1870, said, we therefore, for the preservation, safekeeping, and increase of the

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Catholic flock, with the approval of the sacred council, do judge it to be necessary to propose the belief and acceptance of all the faithful in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church, the doctrine touching the institution, perpetuity, and nature of the sacred apostolic primacy.

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So notice the claim, in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church.

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Well, maybe that's just, you know, no. At open variance to this clear doctrine of Holy Scripture, just continuing on, as it has been ever understood by the

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Catholic church, are the perverse opinions of those who, while they distort the form of government established by Christ, the

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Lord, and his church, deny that Peter, in his single person, preferably to all the other apostles, whether taken separately or together, was endowed by Christ the true and proper primacy of jurisdiction, as it has been ever understood by the

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Catholic church. Now, the simple fact matter is that's a lie, and any Catholic historian knows it's a lie.

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They know that every single one of these texts has been interpreted in early church history in a way other than the

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Roman Catholic church takes it, or the way other than Vatican I took it. John Henry Cardinal Newman knew that.

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That's why John Henry Cardinal Newman opposed the promulgation of the doctrine of papal infallibility.

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When Newman then, once it was defined, submitted to it, that's why, and Trent Horn started off his talk about, he was quoting a

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Protestant scholar who said that one of the most arrogant things he'd ever heard was Newman's statement that to go deep in history is to cease to be

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Protestant. Well, that Protestant scholar, whoever it was, he didn't say who it was, was exactly right. Because if you know anything about Newman prior to Vatican I and after Vatican I, then you know he flipped.

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He gave in. And so to go deep into history is to realize that John Henry Cardinal Newman, though a brilliant man, is no guide in these matters, and was no brave man to stand for historical truth either.

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So it is an incredibly arrogant thing when Roman Catholics quote that text.

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But the point is, notice what the, in dogmatic teaching, you have these claims, ancient and constant faith, the universal church, as it has been ever understood by the

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Catholic church. These are untrue statements. And so what happens is, same thing that you saw happening in the first two debates

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I had with Jerry Matitix back in the early 1990s. Coming up on 30 years ago now.

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And what does he do? When I quote an early church father, that's just his private opinion.

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When he quotes an early church father, that's divine tradition. Again, sola ecclesia is what leads to this.

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The church is the final authority. The church defines what scripture is, what scripture means. The church defines what tradition is and what tradition means.

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And so the church isn't under the authority of these things because it defines and interprets all of these things.

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Can't get out of it. It's an epistemological black hole. And as much as they want to try to get out of it, they can't.

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And the more they struggle, the deeper they get in. So the Roman Catholic church has a, there is a document from a number of years ago.

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This is from 1896 called Satis Cognitum. Satis Cognitum.

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Listen to these words. Wherefore, in the decree of the Vatican council as to the nature and authority of the primacy of the

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Roman pontiff, no newly conceived opinion is set forth, but the venerable and constant belief of every age.

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Now my Eastern Orthodox friends know that's not true. I know that's not true.

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Honest Roman Catholic historians know that's not true. And so what Roman Catholics have to do is they have to find in history what

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Rome tells them to find in history. And so I submit to you that if you're going to be a faithful Roman Catholic and you're to believe the dogmas, you're going to believe when the

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Marian dogmas are defined, when the bodily assumption was defined, and you've got the anathemas and you can't even think other than this and so on and so forth, you are forced into a situation to find in the early church what

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Rome is teaching today. I have absolutely no such desire to do that because I don't have that external authority.

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I don't have that pressing upon me. And so the first class

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I taught after I graduated from seminary, Grand Canyon College as scholar in residence was church history.

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I'm teaching church history right now for dear, dear fellowship of brothers and sisters in Germany.

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And at the speed we're going, I'll be a part of church history by the time we would actually finish church history.

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But anyway, it's extremely enjoyable. And so this is a subject that I've been dealing with for a long time, but I have to teach all of church history, not just apologetics.

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And so while my apologist self is very interested in aspects of church history, you have to teach the whole thing.

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And I have taught from the beginning that you have to deal with the early church fathers and let them be who they were.

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Trying to cram them into our debates today will misrepresent them. They simply didn't have interest in a lot of the subjects that we are interested in Asking them particular questions is unfair of them, just as future generations may ask of us questions that we weren't even thinking about.

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And so I want the early church fathers to be the early church fathers.

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And so, for example, like I said, I'm teaching that class. And here is my primary,

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I've had this book out and how long have I put a date? No, I wish I had put a date.

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I started putting dates in the 80s. This is probably early, early 1980s, when probably second year of college, something like that, 83, 84.

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And this is the Apostolic Fathers, Life at Harmer. This is the Greek, English.

41:56

Old now, but it's the one I read. So it has all my markings and all the little doohickey whoppers. You can find the stuff that you want and things like that.

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Font's not that big. Anyway, the font has gotten smaller since I bought the book. It's my story.

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I'm sticking with it. Anyway, so I can find in this volume quotations that are very much in line with what

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I believe. The Epistle of the Diognetius, in Ignatius, in Clement, in the

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Didache. Great stuff. It's got the Shepherd of Hermas and Epistle of Barnabas in it. Some weird stuff in there.

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Stuff that probably is not teaching the way I would teach things. Okay? That's church history.

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We don't have everything that was being written. And so you go with what you got and you're going to get a mixed group.

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That's all there is to it. And so I don't have to turn all these folks into Reformed Baptists because they weren't

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Reformed Baptists. But the Roman Catholic has to turn them into Roman Catholics because Rome says to. And that results in true distortion of the patristic materials.

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True distortion. You want true distortion? It comes from having an authority up here. It says, this is the constant and universal faith of the

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Catholic Church. Find it. Find it. There's the problem. There's the problem.

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And we will document that throughout the course of Trenhorn's discussion.

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Now, I hope that I'm somewhere near where I was needed to be. Our technical difficulties got me all combobulated.

43:40

But you want to try it again? Now, folks, you need to understand, even though what

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I was just sharing with you is valuable, important information,

43:51

Rich did not hear any of it. Because Rich was running wires, replacing wires, everything, because he wants this to work.

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He wants this to work badly. He wants to demonstrate that on the fly, while you were sitting there drinking your coffee, he may be getting old.

44:13

And he is. But he's good. He still is good.

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The problem is I'm building it up, and it may or may not work now. So I'm going to click a little button here and see what happens.

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And negative claims saying that the first Christians did. So, Rich, you want to tell us?

44:36

Did we did we lose a wire? Looks like it just you think you think maybe plugging stuff in and plugging stuff out, taking some might have finally gotten something that was old.

44:49

This is why you keep boxes. I just thought you were trying to get on one of those hoarder shows.

45:00

Had the identical wire, brings it in, and I don't have to put the microphone down near the speakers anymore.

45:06

So, yay. So on the fly, everyone, I want everyone in the audience to be given

45:11

Rich a golf clap because Rush was a big golfer. He was a big golfer.

45:17

Did you know who? Do you know who caddied for him three times and he has a signed ball from him? Kenny. Ken Gontars.

45:25

Uh, Ken's got pictures with him and he even has the recordings from because all three years, he then mentioned him on his program after, after the tournament.

45:35

So he's got, he's got, he sent me a picture of the sign ball and he was unhappy yesterday. And as a lot of us were, um, a lot of us were, a lot of us were, uh, bummed out.

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And so, so you go, Ken, now you've been, you've been mentioned on the Rush Limbaugh show and on the dividing line.

45:51

I mean, can you get any better than that? That's from a guy wearing a

45:57

Limbaugh tie. I mean, there that's, that's pretty special right there. Anyway. Okay.

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I'm not sure where I'm, where I am here, but let's just fire it up and go with it.

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All right. Believe X are fairly easy to disprove because you just have to go back and find one example of where they did believe

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X. So that's something, if you see a claim that, well, the early church didn't believe this, don't take that at face value.

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It could be true, but then we should, you should go back to a reliable collection of the church fathers. Jimmy has a wonderful collection of them.

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The fathers know best that collects them all in his knees. Now, that's not the point, but I, I was going to stop there.

46:38

Um, here's one of the problems I have with Roman Catholic apologists. This is not a collection. This is not a quote book.

46:44

Okay. Uh, when we first started dealing with Catholic answers, their big quote book was by Juergens, three volume, uh,

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Faith, Theory of Fathers. Um, quote books are sometimes useful.

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Um, but where you start and stop and the translation you use will be dependent upon the bias of the editor.

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So if I'm reading from the Epistle of Diagnosis, I'd rather have this because that's the whole thing with the original language.

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So the 38 volume Erdman said is great. There's been all sorts of other publications since then. Uh, many published by Roman Catholic publishing houses and a lot of the stuff is available electronically and things like that.

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I do not suggest using quote collections at all, uh, because you can, you can play with those as Juergens did, to be honest with you.

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We've documented stuff like that in the past. Um, but I, I would not suggest at all doing what he just suggested.

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Reference book to go through in that regard, which by the way, this rule, check your sources, it cuts both ways.

47:51

It goes for us too. You may not recognize this. This is one of my books. Now, by the way, uh,

47:57

I, I will say to Trent, I, I didn't recognize it. Uh, but I do now. I have it on Kindle and, um, uh,

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I actually searched for my name and found out I was referenced only once, uh, in this topic, in fact.

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So, but we did get it. So he says only 12 people have read it. So now it's 13. Well, I haven't read all of it, obviously.

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Uh, but, uh, now it's now it's 13. 12 people bought it because nobody wants their bubble burst about the same quote they have on the post -it note by their computer that turns out to not be true.

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And so it's just so alarming to people. No one wanted to hear the hard truth in that regard. But I cover one of these because sometimes we will quote the fathers and that's not exactly what they said.

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And that's not good because if you are dealing with someone who's intelligent as well, they can throw you for a loop.

48:48

You may have heard this. Roma locuta est causa finita est. Rome has spoken.

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The case is closed. St. Augustine seems pretty open and shut, right? Why watch the debate once with a

49:01

Catholic priest debating a Protestant apologist on the issue of purgatory. And who might that have been?

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I'm not sure that he didn't. I because in the book, give him credit when he addresses this section, he gives just the

49:22

YouTube link to the debate between myself and Peter Stravinskas. So I don't know if he didn't mention who it was because he didn't want people going to see it because he put it in his book.

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He just mentioned the book. I'm thinking it has more to do with Stravinskas because Stravinskas, ever since that debate, remember, he threatened lawsuits against us and all sorts of stuff like that.

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And then my understanding is there have been some other issues with Peter Stravinskas in the 20 years since then.

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So I don't know what that is, but he's referring to what we just watched.

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But listen to how he heard it, okay? They were debating and the

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Catholic priest said, well, we should believe the early church is teaching on purgatory because St. Augustine said when Rome is spoken, the case is closed and you could just see the

50:25

Protestant's eyes light up. And he said, father, where is that in St. Augustine's writings?

50:32

And he was just completely flummoxed and couldn't produce it. And it was not a great moment in the debate.

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Now, what I would say is that this phrase is a... That's not really what happened.

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I mean, he was flummoxed because I knew where it was. I had the reference off the top of my head.

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And I knew that it didn't say Roma Locuta Est. I, okay.

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And I know what the background is, which is what we're going to be explaining to you today. I knew about Pope Innocent.

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I knew about Pope Zosimus. I knew about Pelagius and Colestius and the letters and the synods and all that background stuff.

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I couldn't... In CrossX, that's... You can't bring it up. Well, he had brought it up.

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He was introducing stuff, but that's why I stopped where I did. But it wasn't just, well, he didn't know where it was.

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It was that he had misused it. That's not what is said. And that's what's in his book and what he's about to say.

51:47

Not a quote, but it's a paraphrase of what Augustine says in Sermon 131. So there, he's talking about the

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Pelagian heresy and how the Pelagian heresy has gone through two regional councils in his area and rescripts or reports have already come back from the apostolic sea or from Rome.

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Causa finita est, the cause, the Pelagian cause is finished. The Pelagian heresy that says you can work your way to heaven, you don't need grace.

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Would that the error also be finished? So it's not Roma lacuta est, but you can say rescripts have come.

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My thing is, I wouldn't get into this quote because you get into the nitty gritty about what was said, what wasn't said.

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As I say in What the Saints Never Said, go with a genuine Augustine quote that's more powerful and you can't dispute.

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Which we'll, if we have time, we'll look at in a moment because, which you can dispute and needs to be disputed, we'll look at in a moment.

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Well, not in a moment, but because I, on the program today, want to illustrate, and we're already an hour in, sorry.

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I want to illustrate that if you don't go deep in history, it is very, very easy to misrepresent history.

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And that's what's happened here. That's what's happened here. Now, again, if you want to do a lot of reading on this, there's an entire section on our blog.

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If you just look up Catholic legends and how they get started, an example, sermon 131, you will be able to find the material there, and that should be of great use to you.

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But I want to look at sermon 131, all right? Now, guess who else did this?

53:42

This is found in Catholicism and Fundamentalism by Karl Keating, with The Rome Has Spoken.

53:49

So he made the same mistake. And I guess

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I can understand why Trenthorne might not go, now, our founder made the same mistake. Okay, I guess

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I can understand that. And it's his direct quote, Rome has spoken, the case is closed.

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And he puts those quotes, he puts quotes around the words, as if Augustine actually said that.

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Now, if you want to look up sermon 131 in Minj, it's

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PL 38 colon 734. PL, Patrilogio Latine, 38 colon, volume 38, page 734.

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And what you have is, you have, Missa sunt ad sedem apostolicum.

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So, messages sent to the apostolic see, Into etiem rescripta venerunt, rescripts have been returned.

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So they, in other words, we sent the material, and we know they received it because they acknowledged it, and we got sort of like a receipt back.

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Causa finita est, the plagian cause is finished. Would that the error also be finished?

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So, what's interesting is, sermon 131 isn't about plagianism.

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The sermon was delivered September 23rd, 416. And it begins, ironically, with an exposition of John 653, that is directly contradictory to modern

55:35

Roman teaching and the doctrine of transubstantiation. Since few take the time to actually read the context, the statements about which arguments are based in patristic sources, most often because they don't have access to the full context,

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I realize that, but the internet has not increased the depth of understanding for most people.

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Here I provide the first two sections of the sermon, which show us the direction that Augustine was taking. So this is a little bit of story time with Uncle Jimmy in his

56:10

Reschelin Bataille. We have heard the true master, the divine redeemer, the human savior, commending to us our ransom, his blood.

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For he spake to us of his body and blood, he called his body meat, his blood drink. The faithful recognize the sacrament of the faithful, but the hearers, what else do they but hear?

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When therefore commending such meat and such drink, he said, except you shall eat my flesh and drink my blood, you shall have no life in you.

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And this he said concerning life, who else said it but the life itself. But that man shall have death, not life.

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Who shall think that the life is false? His disciples were offended, not all of them indeed, but very many saying within themselves, this is a hard saying, who can hear it?

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But when the Lord knew this in himself and heard the murmurings of their thought, he answered them thinking, though uttering nothing, that they might understand that they were heard and might cease to entertain such thoughts.

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What then did he answer? Does this offend you? What then if you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before?

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What meaneth this? Does this offend you? Do you imagine that I am about to make divisions of this body which you see and to cut up my members and give them to you?

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What then if you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before? Assuredly, he who could ascend whole could not be consumed.

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Did you catch that? That doesn't get, that doesn't get quoted. And I can almost guarantee you that when

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Peter Stravinskis taught his class on Augustine, he didn't read this part. Because see,

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Augustine's doctrine is that Jesus's physical body is in heaven at the right hand of the father from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead.

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He emphasizes this strongly. And so what does he say? He's mocking the idea his body could be cut up and given to each individual.

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Assuredly, he who could ascend whole could not be consumed. So then he both gave us his body and blood, a healthful refreshment, and briefly solves the greater question as to his own entireness.

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Let them then who eat, eat on and let them that drink, drink. Let them hunger and thirst, eat life, drink life.

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That eating is to be refreshed, but thou art in such wise refreshed as that whereby thou art refreshed, faileth not.

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That drinking, what is it to live? Eat life, drink life. Thou shalt have life and the life is entire.

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But then this shall be, that is the body and blood of Christ shall be each man's life. If what is taken in the sacrament visibly, listening to this, if what is taken in the sacrament visibly is in the truth itself, eaten spiritually, drunk spiritually, for we have heard the

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Lord himself saying, it is the spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing. The words

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I have spoken unto you are spirit and life, but there are some of you, saith he that believeth not. Such were they who said, this is a hard saying, who can hear it?

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It is hard and only to the hard. That is, it is incredible, but only to the incredulous. But in order to teach us that this very believing is matter of gift, not of dessert, he says, as I have said unto you, no man cometh unto me except it were given him of my father.

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Now as to where the Lord said this, if we call to mind the foregoing words of the gospel, we shall find that he had said, no man cometh unto me except the father which has sent me draw him.

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He did not lead, but draw. The violence is done to the heart, not the body. Why then dost thou marvel?

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Believe, and thou comest. Love, and thou art drawn. Do not suppose here any rough and uneasy violence.

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It is gentle, it is sweet. It is the very sweetness that draweth thee. Is not a sheep drawn when fresh grass is shown to it in its hunger?

01:00:05

Yet I imagine that it is not bodily driven on, but fast bound by desire. In such wise do you come to Christ.

01:00:13

Do not conceive of long journeyings where thou believest, there thou comest. For unto him who is everywhere, we come by love, not by sailing.

01:00:22

But for as much as even of this kind of voyage, waves and tempests of diverse temptations abound.

01:00:28

Believe on the crucified, that thy faith may be able to ascend the wood. Thou shalt not sink, but shall be born upon the wood.

01:00:36

Thus, even thus, amid the waves of this world did he sail who said, but God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our

01:00:44

Lord Jesus Christ. So, whole sermon, presentation of grace. And to give the proper context, the actual words of Augustine, read the sections that immediately precede his final statements, because the cause is finished section is at the end.

01:01:01

Hear what God says, who crowns thee with mercy and pity of his mercy. He crowns thee of his pity.

01:01:08

He crowns thee for thou has no worthiness that he should call thee and being called should justify the being justified, glorify thee.

01:01:15

The remnant is saved by the election of grace. But if by grace, then is no more of works.

01:01:21

Otherwise grace is no more grace. For to him that worketh the reward shall not be reckoned according to grace, but according to debt.

01:01:27

The apostle sayeth not according to grace, but according to debt, but he, but the, he crowneth with pity and mercy.

01:01:34

And if thy own merits have gone before, God sayeth to thee, examine well thy merits and thou shalt see that they are my gifts.

01:01:42

This then is the righteousness of God, as it is called the Lord's salvation, not whereby the Lord is saved, but which he giveth to them whom he saveth.

01:01:51

So to the grace of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord is called the righteousness of God. Not as that whereby the

01:01:57

Lord is righteous, but whereby he justified those whom of godly he maketh righteous. But some as the

01:02:03

Jews in former times, both wish to be called Christians and still ignorant of God's righteousness desire to establish their own.

01:02:10

Even in our own times, in the times of open grace, the times of the full revelation of grace, which before was hidden in the times of grace now manifested in the floor, which once lay hid in the fleece.

01:02:21

I see that a few have understood me, that more have not understood whom I will by no means defraud by keeping silence.

01:02:29

Gideon, one of the righteous men of old asked for a sign from the Lord and said, I pray Lord that this fleece, which

01:02:34

I put on the floor, be bedewed and that the floor be dry. And it was so. The fleece was bedewed and the whole floor was dry.

01:02:40

In the morning, he wrung out the fleece in a basin for as much as to the humble is grace given. And in a basin, you know what the

01:02:47

Lord did to his disciples. Again, he asked for another sign. Oh Lord, I would say the fleece be dry and the floor be dude.

01:02:53

And it was so. Call to mind the time of the old Testament. Grace was hidden in a cloud as the rain in the fleece.

01:02:59

Mark now the time of the new Testament. Consider well the nation of the Jews that will find it as a dry fleece, whereas the whole world like that floor is full of grace, not hidden, but manifested.

01:03:10

Wherefore, we are forced exceedingly to beware, bewail our brethren who strive not against hidden, but against open and manifested grace.

01:03:17

There is allowance to the Jews. What shall we say of Christians? Wherefore, are ye enemies of the grace of Christ?

01:03:24

Why rely on yourselves? Why unthankful? For why did Christ come?

01:03:30

Was not nature here before? Was not nature here, which he only deceived by your excessive praise?

01:03:36

Was not the law here? But the apostle says, if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

01:03:42

What the apostle says, the law that say we of nature to these men, if righteousness comes by nature, then

01:03:49

Christ is dead in vain. Then I noted the final words of the sermon.

01:03:54

Then in which we find the key phrase are in reference to this heresy, this error,

01:04:00

Pelagianism, and it's denial of grace. I simply point out that throughout the sermon, you have had one source of authority cited over and over again,

01:04:11

Holy Scripture. No references to anything else. Nothing, no quotations of Popes or prelates, just Scripture.

01:04:24

With this in mind, we come to the actual passage. And I quote, what then was said of the

01:04:30

Jews, the same altogether do we see in these men now? They have a zeal of God. I hear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not in according to knowledge.

01:04:39

What is not according to knowledge? For being ignorant of God's righteousness and wishing to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

01:04:48

My brethren, share with me in my sorrow. When you find such as these, do not hide them.

01:04:54

Be there no such misdirected mercy in you. By all means, when you find such, hide them not.

01:05:01

Convince the gainsayers and those who resist, bring to us. For already have two counsels on this question been sent to the apostolic sea, and rescripts also have come from thence.

01:05:13

The question has been brought to an issue. Would that their error may sometime be brought to an issue too.

01:05:21

Therefore, do we advise that they may take heed. We teach that they may be instructed. We pray that they may be changed.

01:05:28

Let us turn to the Lord, et cetera, which I would assume would mean the introduction of the closing prayer.

01:05:37

I continue from the article I wrote. It is a measure of the utter desperation of the Roman position to have to make reference to such things in our opinion.

01:05:46

The topic is not the Bishop of Rome. It's not the authority of Rome. It is obvious beyond question,

01:05:52

Augustine's point is that Pelagianism is a refuted error. It is not refuted because the

01:05:59

Bishop of Rome has refuted it. It is refuted because it is opposed to scripture. Two councils have concluded this, and the

01:06:09

Bishop of Rome has agreed. From Augustine's position, the error has been exposed and refuted.

01:06:15

If only those who are in error would come to know the truth. Augustine exhorts his hearers to teach the gainsayers and pray they may be dissuaded from their errors.

01:06:26

This then is the context and the content of Sermon 131 of Augustine.

01:06:33

By the way, it is in the Erdmann set, which is available widely. It's in Volume 6 of the

01:06:43

Post -Nicene Fathers, the first one that has Augustine's stuff in it, pages 501 through 504.

01:06:52

Check it out for yourself. Don't go to quote books. Don't go to collections.

01:06:59

I cannot imagine that almost any quote book would have had as much of the sermon as I just read to you, right?

01:07:08

Quote books just can't do that. They wouldn't be quote books anymore. So, Keating is demonstrated to have misrepresented.

01:07:23

Stravinsky is demonstrated to have misrepresented. And Trenthorne would agree that they misrepresented this material.

01:07:32

But Trenthorne goes farther in his book. He goes farther in his book. Are you in time difficulty today?

01:07:42

Are we good? All right. We're all fine here now.

01:07:50

You're just happy with yourself that you found the... got that thing fixed on the fly. That's just... I'm good.

01:07:59

I know I am. Now, there is... except when you're not, right?

01:08:04

That's how we all go. There's more to the situation than that. And Trenthorne knows it because Trenthorne went into it in his book.

01:08:15

Trenthorne knows about what happened historically. Now, he tries to spin it in his book.

01:08:22

Let me just summarize it here because I'm going to read it to you in a second. But in summary, Pope Innocent had agreed with Augustine and North African bishops about the sentence of excommunication on Pelagius and Colestius.

01:08:46

But when... Well, I'll read you the history. But make a long story short. Horne's idea is that when

01:08:54

Innocent dies, he dies right in the middle of all this, which happened a lot in the angel world. Zosimus, who seemed to be

01:09:02

Greek, became Pope in Rome. And the

01:09:08

East has a very different view on issues like original sin.

01:09:17

And he rehabilitates the people that the North Africans and Innocent had excommunicated.

01:09:25

Now, Horne's idea is he was just lied to. He was just fooled. We're going to find out there's a lot more to it than even

01:09:31

Trenthorne says. Now, B .B.

01:09:38

Warfield, Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, was a great theologian.

01:09:44

He did work in textual criticism. And he likewise was quite a church historian.

01:09:54

He would have produced 10 times the amount of material he had, but I just want to mention in passing, I've told the story before.

01:10:00

We have so much less of what Warfield could have produced because Warfield was a wonderful husband. And though the story is somewhat disputed, it seems that his wife was struck by lightning and became an invalid.

01:10:15

And he took care of her and wasn't able to do the traveling and the research and stuff to do much more than he did.

01:10:22

So even though I have a whole collection of Warfield's materials and it's great stuff, he could have done much more, but he was a great husband.

01:10:30

So congratulations to Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield and his awesome beard, which also starts with a

01:10:37

B. Anyway, all right. Sorry. Here is what

01:10:43

B .B. Warfield says. Soon afterwards, two Gallic bishops,

01:10:49

Haros of Arles and Lazarus of Aix, who were then in Palestine, lodged a formal accusation against Pelagius with the

01:10:57

Metropolitan Eulogius of Caesarea. And he convened a synod of 14 bishops, which met at Lydda in Diospolis in December of the same year, 415.

01:11:06

So this is before Sermon 131. For the trial of the case, perhaps no greater ecclesiastical farce was ever enacted than this synod exhibited.

01:11:16

When the time arrived, the accusers were prevented from being present by illness, and Pelagius was confronted only by their written accusation.

01:11:24

This was both unskillfully drawn and was written in Latin, which the synod did not understand. Remember, the great schism of language is vitally important in church history.

01:11:34

Latin in the West, Greek in the East. This was, continued to be a problem for a long, long time.

01:11:43

It was, therefore, not even consecutively read, and was only heard, rendered into Greek by an interpreter.

01:11:52

Pelagius began by reading aloud several letters to himself from various men of reputation, the episcopate, among them a friendly, among them a friendly not from Augustine.

01:12:05

I wonder if that's supposed to be note. I'll have to check that. Thoroughly acquainted with both Latin and Greek, he was enabled skillfully to thread every difficulty and pass safely through the ordeal.

01:12:16

Jerome called this a miserable synod and not unjustly. At the same time, it is sufficient to vindicate the honesty and earnestness of the bishop's intentions that even in such circumstances, and despite the more undeveloped opinions of the

01:12:29

East on the questions involved, Pelagius escaped condemnation only by a course of most ingenious disingenuousness.

01:12:37

And only at the cost, both of disowning Calestius and his teachings of which he had been the real father and of leading the synod to believe that he was anathematizing the very doctrines, which he was himself proclaiming.

01:12:51

There is really no possibility of doubting as anyone will see who reads the proceedings of the synod that Pelagius obtained his acquittal here, either by a lying condemnation or a tricky interpretation of his own teachings.

01:13:03

And Augustine is perfectly justified in asserting that the heresy was not acquitted, but the man who denied the heresy and who would himself have been anathematized had he not anathematized the heresy.

01:13:17

So what Warfield is saying is Pelagius was exceptionally dishonest, even at this synod of only 14 bishops.

01:13:28

However obtained, the acquittal of Pelagius was yet an accomplished fact. Neither he nor his friends delayed to make the most widely extended use of their good fortune.

01:13:36

Pelagius himself was jubilant. Accounts of the synod proceedings were sent to the West, not altogether free from uncandid alterations.

01:13:44

And Pelagius soon put forth a work in defense of free will, in which he triumphed in his acquittal and explained his explanations at the synod.

01:13:52

Nor were the champions of the opposite side idle. As soon as the news arrived in North Africa and before the authentic records of the synod had reached that region, the condemnation of Pelagius and Colestius was reaffirmed in two provincial synods, one consisting of 68 bishops met at Carthage about mid -summer of 416.

01:14:11

That would be just a little bit before then, Sermon 131. And the other consisting of about 60 bishops met soon afterwards in Mila.

01:14:21

Thus, Palestine and North Africa were arrayed against one another, and it became of great importance to obtain the support of the patriarchal see of Rome.

01:14:31

Catch that? So there's a division, and Rome is not seen as the decider, but as somebody you want on your side.

01:14:39

Keep that in mind. Keep that in mind. These local synods aren't going, well, you know, we're just a local synod.

01:14:46

We know that our decisions don't mean anything because the Pope's the infallible vicar of Christ on earth.

01:14:53

No, that's a future concept. That's not the concept at this point. That's certainly not what

01:14:58

Augustine believed. No matter what modern -day Catholics want to tell you, that's reading modern doctrine back into the ancient church.

01:15:08

That's anachronism. And they're forced to it. Remember what Satis Cognitum said?

01:15:15

This is what the church has always believed. So you read stuff like this and, well,

01:15:20

I got to read it in there because the church has told me to. Thus Palestine and North Africa were arrayed against one another, and it became of great importance to obtain the support of the patriarchal sea of Rome.

01:15:33

Both sides made the attempt, but fortune favored the Africans. Each of the North African synods sent a synodal letter to Innocent I, then

01:15:41

Bishop of Rome, engaging his assent to their action. To these, five bishops, Aurelius of Carthage and Augustine among them, added a third familiar letter of their own in which they urged upon Innocent to examine and deplage his teaching and provide him with the material in which he might base a decision.

01:15:58

The letters reached Innocent in time for him to take advice of his clergy and send favorable replies on January 27th, 417.

01:16:07

In these, he expressed his agreement with the African decisions, asserted the necessity of inward grace, rejected the

01:16:13

Pelagian theory of infant baptism, and declared Pelagius and Colestius excommunicated until they should return to orthodoxy.

01:16:21

In about six weeks more, he was dead. But Zosimus, his successor, was scarcely installed in his place before Colestius appeared at Rome in person to plead his case.

01:16:35

While shortly afterwards, letters arrived from Pelagius addressed to Innocent and by an artful statement of his belief and a recommendation from Praelus, lately become

01:16:43

Bishop of Jerusalem in John's stead, attempting to enlist Rome in his favor. Zosimus, who appears to have been a

01:16:49

Greek and therefore inclined to make little of the merits of this Western controversy, went over to Colestius at once upon his profession of willingness to anathematize all doctrines which the pontifical see had condemned or should condemn.

01:17:03

So I'll do whatever you say, sir. Okay, you're good. And wrote a sharp and arrogant letter to Africa, proclaiming

01:17:15

Colestius Catholic and requiring the Africans to appear within two months at Rome to prosecute their charges or else to abandon them.

01:17:27

Now, that's B .B. Warfield. Let's listen to what

01:17:33

Philip Schaff said. Zosimus, who evidently had no independent theological opinion whatever, now issued in 417 to the

01:17:42

North African bishops an encyclical letter accompanied by the documentary evidence censuring them for not having investigated the matter more thoroughly and for having aspired in foolish, over -curious controversy to know more than the holy scriptures.

01:17:58

At the same time, he bore emphatic testimony to the orthodoxy of Pelagius and Colestius and described their chief opponents,

01:18:06

Harris and Lazarus, as worthless characters whom he had visited with excommunication and deposition.

01:18:14

They in Rome, he says, could hardly refrain from tears that such men who so often mentioned the gratia dei and the agitorium divinum should have been condemned as heretics.

01:18:28

Finally, he injured the bishops to submit themselves to the authority of the Roman sea.

01:18:35

So what do we have here? We have Zosimus playing

01:18:41

Pope. So why aren't we all Pelagians? Because the

01:18:48

North Africans said, back to you, Bozo. They said, no way.

01:18:57

Just like Cyprian did to Stephen in the middle of the 3rd century, at the beginning of the 5th century, the

01:19:05

North African bishops tell the Roman bishop, wrong, not going there.

01:19:12

I thought this was the universal faith of the church by dogma. That's a lie.

01:19:18

It's a dogmatic lie. It's not true. History shows it to be not true.

01:19:24

Let's show you what happened. Because I know right now, nothing more exciting has happened today, aside from landing on Mars.

01:19:34

Did that actually land? I have not seen anything. Anyway, let's quote a

01:19:40

Roman Catholic source, shall we? I mean, we want to be fair. Let's quote from J .E.

01:19:48

Merdinger, Rome and the African Church in the time of Augustine, 1997, pages 128 to 129.

01:19:54

How does that sound? All right. Augustine could see through the entire charade.

01:20:00

The Pope had neglected to inquire rigorously into Pelagians and Colestius' understanding of grace.

01:20:05

He had been content to accept superficial responses. A second letter from Zosimus to the Africans, written in September 417, did nothing to dispel

01:20:15

Augustine's worries. Pelagius had written to the Pope once again, thoroughly convincing him of his orthodoxy, and Zosimus had ordered

01:20:21

Pelagius' letters to be read aloud at the papal court in order that everyone could be apprised of his orthodoxy.

01:20:29

To the Africans, Zosimus ebulliently exclaimed, Would that some of you dearest brethren could have been present at the reading of the letters!

01:20:39

What was the joy of the holy men who were present! What was the admiration of each of them!

01:20:46

Some of them could scarcely restrain themselves from tears and weeping that such men of absolutely correct faith could have been suspected!

01:21:00

Was there a single place in which the grace of God or his aid was omitted? At the end of his letter, however, the

01:21:07

Pope lambasted the Africans as whirlwinds and storms of the church and accused them of judging

01:21:13

Pelagius and Colestius wholly unfairly. In Quami Patrum, written in March 418, he deliberately flaunted his apostolic authority and claimed that no one should dispute his judgment.

01:21:27

So great is our authority that no decision of ours can be subjected to review. Such is the authority of Peter and the venerable decrees of the church that all questions concerning human divine laws as well as all disciplinary matters must be referred to Rome for ultimate resolution.

01:21:42

This was high -flown language indeed, and as far as the Africans were concerned, totally unacceptable!

01:21:51

See, Stephen had done that in the middle of the third century. And it was the North Africans that told

01:21:58

Stephen to take a hike. The North Africans, remember, it was

01:22:04

Cyprian who said, Oh, sitting on the chair of Peter, right? Well, so do I. All bishops do.

01:22:12

Oh, wait a minute. But sadus cognitum. Wait a minute. Vatican I, right. They were wrong.

01:22:18

Dogmatically wrong, but they were wrong. It's a

01:22:24

Roman Catholic source. Roman Catholic source. I go back to Warfield because this is exciting, isn't it?

01:22:34

On the arrival of Pelagius' papers, this letter was followed by another in which Zosimus, with the affirmation of the clergy, declared that both

01:22:41

Pelagius and Celestius to be Orthodox and severely rebuked the Africans for their hasty judgment. It is difficult to understand

01:22:47

Zosimus' action in this matter. Neither of the confessions presented by the accused teachers ought to have deceived him, and if he was seizing the occasion to magnify the

01:22:54

Roman sea, his mistake was dreadful. In late, late in 417 or early in 418, the

01:23:01

African bishops assembled at Carthage. In number more than 200 and replied to Zosimus that they had decided that the sentence pronounced against Pelagius and Celestius should remain in force until they should unequivocally acknowledge that we are aided by the grace of God through Christ, not only to know, but to do what is right in each single act.

01:23:20

So without grace, we are unable to have, think, speak, or do anything pertaining to piety. This firmness made

01:23:28

Zosimus waver. He answered swellingly but timidly, declaring that he had maturely examined the matter.

01:23:36

That, by the way, Horn's whole thing in his book is he was just deceived, and once he found out he was deceived, he changed his mind.

01:23:46

No, he didn't. No, he didn't read the original materials.

01:23:54

The North Africans had to say, take a hike, buddy. The firmness made

01:24:00

Zosimus waver. He answered swellingly but timidly, declaring that he had maturely examined the matter.

01:24:05

He didn't say, oh, I've been deceived. He had maturely examined the matter, but it had not been his intention finally to acquit

01:24:12

Celestius, and now he had left all things in the condition in which they were before, but he claimed the right of final judgment to himself.

01:24:22

Matters were hastening to a conclusion, however, that would leave him no opportunity to escape from the mortification of an entire change of front.

01:24:32

This letter was written on the 21st of March, 418. It was received in Africa on the 29th of April. How much faster would things go had they had the internet?

01:24:42

And on the very next day, an imperial decree was issued from Ravenna ordering

01:24:52

Pelagius and Celestius to be banished from Rome with all who held their opinions.

01:24:59

While on the next day, May 1st, a plenary council of about 200 bishops met at Carthage and in nine canons condemned all the essential features of Pelagianism.

01:25:10

Where the simultaneous action was a result of skillful arrangement can only be conjectured, its effect was in any case necessarily crushing.

01:25:18

There could be no appeal from the civil decision, and it played directly into the hands of the

01:25:23

African definition of the faith. The Synod's nine canons part naturally into three triads.

01:25:30

The first of these deals with the relation of mankind to original sin and anathematizes in turn those who assert that physical death is a necessity of nature and not a result of Adam's sin.

01:25:40

Those who assert that newborn children derive nothing of original sin from Adam to be expiated by the labor of regeneration, and those who assert a distinction between the kingdom of heaven and eternal life, for entrance into the former of which alone baptism is necessary.

01:25:53

The second triad deals with the nature of grace and anathematizes those who assert that grace aids us not to sin only by teaching us what is sinful, not by enabling us to will and to do what we know to be right, and that those who assert that grace only enables us do more easily what we should without it still be able to do.

01:26:11

I think maybe certain people living in Dallas should read this. The third triad deals with the universal sinfulness of the race and anathematizes those who assert that the apostles' confession of sin is due only to their humility, those who say that forgive us our trespasses and the

01:26:28

Lord's prayer is pronounced by the saints not for themselves but for the sinners and their company, and those who say that the saints use these words of themselves out of humility and not truly.

01:26:37

Here we see a careful traversing of the whole ground of the controversy with a conscious reference to the three chief contentions of the

01:26:47

Pelagian teachers. The appeal to civil power by whomsoever made was, of course, indefensible, although it accorded with the opinions of the day and was entirely approved by Augustine.

01:26:59

I stopped for just a moment. What he's talking about, somebody got the civil powers involved.

01:27:04

Someone got Rodovena involved. They got the government involved. And the government says, get rid of Pelagius.

01:27:15

Now, Augustine had already allowed governmental authority to be used to suppress the

01:27:21

Donatists in an earlier controversy he was involved in. He initially resisted it. This is the beginning of sacralism.

01:27:29

Well, most people would say Council Nicaea was, but real involvement of the highest magistrates in doctrinal controversy was in the church.

01:27:46

But it was the ruin of the Pelagian cause. Zosimus found himself forced either to go into banishment with his wards or to desert their cause.

01:27:57

He appears never to have had any personal convictions on the dogmatic points involved in the controversy. That should tell you something right there.

01:28:04

I mean, that means a lot. And so, all the more readily yielded to the necessity of the moment.

01:28:12

He cited Callestius to appear before a council for a new examination, but that heresiarch consulted prudence and withdrew from the city.

01:28:22

Callestius ran, in other words. Zosimus, possibly in the effort to appear a leader in the cause he had opposed, not only condemned and excommunicated the men whom less than six months before he had pronounced orthodox after a mature consideration of the matters involved, but in obedience to the imperial decree issued a stringent paper which condemned

01:28:42

Pelagius and the Pelagians and affirmed the African doctrines as to the corruption of nature, true grace, and necessity of baptism.

01:28:50

To this, he required subscription from all bishops as a test of orthodoxy.

01:29:00

Now, if you don't mind my reading my own conclusion, we should remember a few vital points.

01:29:09

First, Zosimus claimed to have maturely examined the issue of the confession of Pelagius and Callestius. He proclaimed them orthodox and Catholic and gave instructions to North Africans based upon his self -proclaimed authority.

01:29:22

Next, the North Africans rejected his instructions. Knowing full well what he intended, the

01:29:28

North African bishops, including Augustine, stood their ground upon the basis of what? Scriptural teaching.

01:29:34

If a person today said, I understand the Bishop of Rome says X about such and such a person and proclaims them orthodox on the basis of mature examination, but I reject his conclusions based upon scriptural teaching, would you identify that person as one,

01:29:48

Roman Catholic, or two, Protestant? Third, despite his claims to authority and despite his claim to have maturely examined the issue, as the

01:29:58

Bishop of Rome, Zosimus had to do a complete about -face. These are some of the things that people before Vatican I were pointing to and going, you know, history, remember

01:30:09

Honorius, monothelitism, history doesn't really support this.

01:30:18

Church didn't care. What changed?

01:30:24

Roman Catholic apologists say Zosimus had just been deceived and he learned of his deception and that he would have done the right thing from the start had he known all the facts.

01:30:32

By the way, I wrote this 20 years before Trenthorne wrote his book, at least 20 years.

01:30:42

But it is too obvious that Zosimus came into the situation desirous of flexing his new muscle as Bishop of the largest sea in the

01:30:48

West and foolishly and rashly made pronouncements about vital issues. Here, the very nature of the gospel, rehabilitating a rank heretic and only reversed course by force and not by conviction.

01:31:01

Next, for those who ask why either side appealed to Rome in the first place, the answer is obvious. The situation pitted the

01:31:08

Palestinian churches against the North African churches and both sides recognized the value of having the only apostolic sea in the

01:31:15

West on their side. The fact that North African churches likewise appealed to the emperor in Ravenna for confirmation of their action no more means they saw the emperor as the head of the church than their appeal to Rome does.

01:31:27

Finally, it is obvious beyond question that Augustine did not take the view that Zosimus was an infallible leader of the

01:31:34

Christian church. If he and the bishops in North Africa had, they would never have acted as they did.

01:31:40

That's the background, folks. That's the background. How many people,

01:31:46

I would ask, in Trenthorne's audience had any idea of any of that?

01:31:56

How much of that does Trenthorne know? I don't know. He knows now because I can assure you he will be informed of not only the content of this program but the ones coming where we're going to work through that entire presentation and provide responses at pretty much every point.

01:32:18

But now he knows. And so I would suggest that what he has in his book needs to be substantially revised if it is going to accurately represent the documentation that's actually there.

01:32:32

So I'm going to leave for Thursday. I'm just not going to touch anything.

01:32:43

This—what? Oh, it is Thursday, isn't it? All right,

01:32:57

I can do this quick. I can do this quick. I know it's been an hour and a half, but I can do this quick.

01:33:05

Okay, ready? You got the audio up? It's going to work, right? You promise me?

01:33:13

In his disputes with the Manichaean heretics, Augustine said to them, okay, so you guys think that you're the one true church.

01:33:21

All right. Well, perhaps you'll read the gospel to me, and can you find a testimony to your founder,

01:33:26

Manichaeus, in there? But what if you met somebody, he says, who doesn't believe in the gospel? Why should I believe in this gospel you have in the first place?

01:33:34

Well, Augustine says, you heretics are out of luck, but for my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the

01:33:42

Catholic church. Because for Augustine, anyone can come up with writings. Why should we believe in their authority or their integrity?

01:33:47

Augustine said, well, we have the unbroken chain of apostolic tradition residing in the Catholic church that vouches for it.

01:33:54

You heretics draw up your list of bishops, but they're always incomplete. You can never establish a chain back to the apostles, but we can.

01:34:02

That is what mattered to him. So that's a quote that I think would be better to use than Roma lacuta est.

01:34:09

Because there is no Roma lacuta est. That was never said. All right.

01:34:16

Real quick, let's look at what Augustine actually said in his anti -Manichaean writings in responding to the epistle that is being said.

01:34:30

Oh, no, no, no, don't look at that. I would have made it much bigger and I couldn't.

01:34:36

So don't worry about it. Here's what he, listen to this argumentation.

01:34:43

All right. He is writing. Now, remember, he's a former Manichaean himself. If we're in the

01:34:49

Catholic church, and again, the Roman Catholic today assumes that every reference to Catholic church in history means that's us.

01:35:01

All right. Rather than recognizing you had the Catholic church, you had the Donatists, you had the Manichaeans.

01:35:07

These are major divisions, not of one church, but major divisions.

01:35:14

And Catholic, just katahalos, according to the whole, found everywhere. For in the

01:35:21

Catholic church, not to speak of the purest wisdom to the knowledge of which a few spiritual men attain this life, so as to know it in the scantiest measure, indeed, because they are, but men will still without any certainty, since the rest of the multitude drive their entire security, not from the acuteness of intellect, but from simplicity of faith, not to speak of this wisdom, which you do not believe to be in the

01:35:42

Catholic church. There are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the church.

01:35:52

So does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age."

01:36:00

This is really interesting because I haven't looked up the Latin to this. The succession of priests keeps me.

01:36:06

I wonder if it is actually sacerdotal there.

01:36:14

Because that would be interesting, since there aren't any priests in the primitive church. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the apostle

01:36:22

Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave it in charge to feed his sheep down to the president of Pisgah.

01:36:28

By the way, the chair of Peter, all bishops sit in that, according to Cyprian.

01:36:38

Remember that? Just keep that in mind, because the Roman Catholic, again, engages in anachronistic interpretation, looks back, takes modern definitions, and reads it into everything in the past, rather than going the right direction.

01:36:49

It's just the nature of how that's done. And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amidst so many heresies, the church has thus retained, so that though all heretics wish to be called

01:37:04

Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house.

01:37:10

Such, then, in number and importance are the precious ties belonging to the Christian name which keep a believer in the Catholic church as it is right they should.

01:37:18

Though from the slowness of our understanding or the small attainment of our life, the truth may not yet fully disclose itself, but with you, where there is none of these things to attract or keep me, the promise of truth is the one thing that comes into play.

01:37:31

Now, if the truth is so clearly proved as to leave no possibility of doubt, it must be set before all things that keep me in the

01:37:38

Catholic church, but if there is only a promise without any fulfillment, no one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the

01:37:48

Christian religion." By the way, there was nothing about apostolic tradition in there anywhere. But anyway, though you might say, well, sure there was.

01:37:57

There was something about succession of priests. Well, okay, if you want to go there. Let us see, and here's the quote, let us see then what

01:38:06

Manichaeus teaches us, and particularly let us examine the treatment which he calls the fundamental epistle, in which almost all that you believe is contained.

01:38:16

For in that unhappy time when we read it, we were in your opinion enlightened. The epistle begins thus,

01:38:22

Manichaeus, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the providence of God the Father, these are wholesome words from the perennial and living fountain.

01:38:31

Now, if you please, patiently give heed to my inquiry. I do not believe Manichaeus to be an apostle of Christ.

01:38:38

Do not, I beg of you, be enraged and begin to curse, for you know that it is my rule to believe none of your statements without consideration.

01:38:47

Therefore I ask, who is this Manichaeus? You will reply, an apostle of Christ. I do not believe it.

01:38:53

Now you are at a loss what to say or do, for you promised to give knowledge of the truth, and here you are forcing me to believe what

01:39:00

I have no knowledge of. Perhaps you will read the gospel to me and will attempt to find there a testimony to Manichaeus.

01:39:07

But should you meet with a person not yet believing the gospel, how would you reply to him were he to say,

01:39:14

I do not believe? For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the

01:39:19

Catholic Church. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manichaeus, how can

01:39:27

I but consent? Take your choice. If you say, believe the Catholics, their advice to me is to put no faith in you, so that in believing them,

01:39:35

I am precluded from believing you. If you say, do not believe the Catholics, you cannot fairly use the gospel in bringing me to faith in Manichaeus, for it was at the command of the

01:39:45

Catholics that I believed the gospel. Again, if you say, you were right in believing the Catholics when they praised the gospel, but wrong in believing their vituperation of Manichaeus, do you think me such a fool as to believe or not to believe as you like or dislike without any reason?

01:39:59

It is therefore fairer and safer by far for me, having in one instance put faith in the

01:40:04

Catholics, not to go over to you, till instead of bidding me believe, you make me understand something in the clearest and most open manner.

01:40:11

To convince me then, you must put aside the gospel. If you keep the gospel, I will keep those who commanded me to believe the gospel, and in obedience to them,

01:40:19

I will not believe you at all. But if happily you should succeed in finding in the gospel an incontrovertible testimony to the apostleship of Manichaeus, you will weaken my regard for the authority of the

01:40:30

Catholics who bid me not to believe you, and the effect of that will be that I shall no longer be able to believe the gospel either, for it was through the

01:40:37

Catholics that I got my faith in it. And so, whatever you bring from the gospel will no longer have any weight with me.

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Wherefore, if no clear proof of the apostleship of Manichaeus is found in the gospel, I will believe the Catholics rather than you.

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But if you read then some passage clearly in favor of Manichaeus, I will believe neither them nor you, not them, for they lied to me about you, nor you, for you quote to me that scripture which

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I had believed on the authority of those liars. Far be it that I should not believe the gospel, for believing it,

01:41:10

I find no way of believing you too. For the names of the apostles that are recorded do not include the name of Manichaeus, and who the successor of Christ's betrayer was, we read in the

01:41:20

Acts of the Apostles, which book I must needs believe if I believe the gospel, since both writings alike

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Catholic authority commends to me. The same book contains the well -known narrative of the calling and apostleship of Paul.

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Read me now, if you can, the gospel where Manichaeus is called an apostle, or in any other book in which

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I have professed to believe. Will you read the passage where the Lord promised the Holy Spirit as a paraclete to the apostles?

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Considering which passage, behold how many and how great are the things that restrain and deter me from believing in Manichaeus.

01:41:51

Now, what's it all about? It's an argument, not about the relationship of divine inspiration in scripture to the church.

01:42:03

It's not about, remember the quote that I gave you from Augustine, there are numerous

01:42:09

Augustinian quotes I can give you, where the church learns from the scriptures and it's speaking and he's not talking about any of that.

01:42:18

He is a former Manichaean laying a trap for the author of this epistle, which claims right at the start that Manichaeus is a apostle of Jesus Christ.

01:42:33

Well, on what authority are you to believe that? Because if you claim he's testified in the gospels,

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I believe the gospels because of my attachment to the Catholic church. But the

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Catholic church tells me to ignore you, so you see what he does. He sets up a circle, and anywhere on the circle, the case falls apart.

01:42:56

So he's not talking about the big issue of what alone is theonistos, what alone is inspired, what is unique about scripture, what is the relationship of the church to that.

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He's talking about, hey, I was a former Manichaean, I've left that, and here's the reasons that I accept this authority over here that tells me that I should believe the gospel.

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And you're telling me the opposite, but you're trying to drive it from what they tell me, but they tell me not to believe you, and he just keeps turning it around until there's no place to go.

01:43:35

That's what that's about. If you want to say, ah, here is Augustine's full -orbed discussion, it's not, it's not.

01:43:45

And I would say that the vast majority, I would say that 98 % of the

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Roman Catholics that have quoted that to me couldn't have told me what Manichaeanism believes if their life depended on them.

01:44:00

No earthly idea, none, none. So, that's what it was about, that's what it was about.

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Which is why I read what I read to Peter Stravinskis, and you notice he never responded to it.

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He never responded to it. All right, so, I told you we were going deep today, okay?

01:44:24

I told you ahead of time, so an hour and 45 minutes, I know that's a long time, and only a few of you are left.

01:44:33

I realize that. But Rich made it, and I made it without my legs cramping up, so that was very good.

01:44:43

That was important to get through it without screaming, because I didn't want to create a meme.

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And we have new wires, and Rich is very happy with the new wires. It's very good. All right, thanks for watching the program today, since it is

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Thursday, and I don't even know what day it is, but hey, that's okay. Lord Willen will be back with you next week, until the

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YouTube censors find us and get rid of us, which they will eventually. But, Lord Willen, we'll see you next week.