SRR #44 | Roman Catholics and Their Queen Part 2

ThornCrown Network iconThornCrown Network

0 views

0 comments

SRR #55 | Roman Catholics & The Mingled Cup Part 3

00:02
I do a podcast. I'm not interested in your podcast. These are these are wolves truth be told that I oftentimes lay awake at night trying to figure out how
00:15
I can get rid of wolves in the church. We are unabashedly unashamedly
00:26
Clarkian and so the next few statements that I'm going to make I'm probably going to step on all of the
00:31
Vantillian toes at the same time and this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio you know we are polemical and polarizing
00:38
Jesus style. I would first say that to characterize what we do as fashion is itself fashion.
00:55
It's not hate. It's history. It's not fashion. It's the Bible. Jesus said woe to you when men speak well of you for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
01:20
It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. Alright welcome back to Simple Riff from on the radio.
01:30
My name is Tim and I am here with the other Tim our expert in Roman Catholicism for another episode on Mother Mary.
01:39
Today we are going to be doing the fourth part in this series on Mother Mary.
01:46
I've titled it Roman Catholics and their Queen and just for continuity sake there's part one part two part three and this is going to be part four.
01:55
So just to recap in case you haven't heard all the episodes the first episode we just gave a basic overview of Mother Mary and and tackled the the idea that she is the
02:07
Queen. The second episode we tackled Mother Mary as the
02:14
Ark of the New Covenant. Did I say that right brother Tim?
02:20
Yes yes you did say that right. Because I know I know last last time
02:25
I was I was saying it I was saying it wrong I was saying that she was the New Covenant. No she's the the
02:31
Ark of the New Covenant and then last week last week was a really good one we tackled the idea that Mother Mary is sinless and so today
02:42
Tim is pressed for time so today we're just gonna jump right in this but before I do that let me just go ahead and play a commercial for the network to let you guys know what other podcasts are on there and that you can check them out.
02:57
This podcast is a member of the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network. All right welcome everybody to another podcast episode with Semper Reformanda Radio.
03:06
Hi welcome to TheologyGal. Welcome everyone to the Logical Belief Ministries podcast.
03:12
Well welcome to the School of Biblical Harmonetics. Welcome everybody to Grappling with Theology.
03:18
What is going on guys shine his lights coming at you. Well welcome to Slick Answers. Good evening and welcome to Conversations from the
03:27
Port. Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Bible Thumping Wingnut Podcast. The Bible Thumping Wingnut Network.
03:36
Ten podcasts, one network. Check them out BibleThumpingWingnut .com
03:41
All right so those are all the other podcasts that are on our network. I want to encourage everybody to check them out.
03:48
Go to the website, make a profile, a friend request us. The website's very interactive.
03:54
Check out the blogs. We write blogs as well but as I said let's just go ahead and jump into today's topic.
04:02
So Tim what what are we gonna be looking at with regards to Roman Catholicism and Mother Mary today?
04:10
Okay today what we're going to focus on is the perpetual virginity of Mary and it's important for us to define what we mean by that.
04:22
All people who claim to be Christians typically would agree that Mary was a virgin at Christ's conception that she and she remained a virgin until Christ was born and the scriptural support for that is that in Matthew 118
04:42
Luke 1 27 to 34. These are the ones that talk about that the Old Testament prophesied that a virgin shall be with child and Luke 1 27 to 34 is when the angel
04:52
Gabriel visited with Mary and announced that she was going to be having the
04:57
Christ child and she responded that how can this be since I do not know man. So the the position from scriptures is that Mary was a virgin when she conceived and as the scriptures also say later you know
05:13
Joseph did not know her until after Christ was born and so we know that she remained a virgin until Christ was born.
05:22
Now what's what's important to understand about the Roman Catholic view of the virginity of Mary is that they believe that she was a virgin before Christ was born then remained a virgin throughout her whole life and that is that she didn't have any other children and then finally that and this is the one that we're really going to focus on today is that she that they believe that she remained a virgin during Christ's birth that is so there's pre partum which is prior to Christ's birth post partum which is after Christ's birth and then there's the virginity in part two which is during the delivery of Christ and what's important to understand at this point is that Roman Catholics believe that when
06:09
Mary delivered Christ her physical virginity was not compromised.
06:17
In other words there was no opening of the womb that was no tearing of the flesh that Jesus miraculously came out completely without compromising
06:30
Mary's physical virginity and we're going to really focus on that today because that's a very important part of our study on Mary in this series is that we have to ask when did this idea come up that Mary was remained a virgin even in childbirth and what we'll find is that this idea that she was she remained a virgin even in childbirth actually comes from a second century document called the proto evangelium of James or the proto gospel of James and it is not canonical and it's not apostolic and in fact
07:11
I would suggest that it's even Gnostic because it actually has
07:17
Jesus just coming through Mary in a flash of light and just showing up in her arms without anything happening to Mary and it's almost what we'll find is some of the early church writers consider that to be a docetic or Gnostic position and that is that this idea that Jesus was just a phantom and this idea that he could he could pass through Mary without compromising her virginity suggested the
07:47
Gnostic position that he was just a phantom to begin with and he never really took on a body and when we get to Tertullian we're going to have him arguing against the position that Jesus was just a phantom by accentuating the fact that she did suffer in childbirth and there was tearing of the flesh when
08:05
Christ was born because Christ's birth was perfectly natural but so that's that's where we are we're not going to focus a lot on pre -partum because everybody's going to agree to that although there's there are people out there that claim that well maybe
08:21
Mary wasn't even a virgin prior to Christ's birth and prior to conception but we won't go there that the scripture is very clear on this that Mary was a virgin when she conceived so so what
08:35
I wanted to focus on is that although there are some writings from the second century that are not apostolic this idea that Mary was a virgin before during and after Christ's birth the whole package of perpetual ever virginity or they call
08:58
Mary ever virgin that's what they mean by that we would say Mary was a virgin and Christ was born of the
09:05
Virgin Mary and we all know what we mean by that Roman Catholics would refer to Mary give her the title as ever virgin and that is that she was a virgin always at all times before during and after the delivery of Christ but what we find is that this does not become settled until the latter part of the fourth century and we've gone through this before with so many other
09:30
Roman Catholic teachings and today we're going to hit another one that it doesn't really resolve to a doctrine of the faith until the latter part of the fourth century and when it does it's based on these apocryphal documents that even
09:43
Roman Catholic apologists acknowledge are not apostolic so so we ready we ready to go with Mary's perpetual virginity yeah let's jump into it
09:53
I'm uh I'm just thinking you have already said some things that I didn't I didn't know about the the the virginity
10:01
I guess with regards to when Christ was born so yeah I'm already learning a lot let's let's just jump into it well so yeah it's important to keep that in mind is it we we may find ourselves in agreement with Roman Catholics that Christ was born of a virgin but what they mean by that is something different than what we mean by it we believe that she she was a virgin all the way up until delivery and then when she delivered
10:28
Christ it was perfectly normal and Christ opened her womb and and it was a perfectly she had childbirth pains just like everybody else and every other woman that's ever had a child and it was a perfectly normal delivery in fact what we find when we get to some of the early writers is that they considered that evidence or their belief in that was because they believed
10:52
Jesus came all the way down he didn't just come partway he became he truly became a man and truly was born of a woman and when we read some of the early writers church fathers they'll talk about that his delivery through Mary was almost as painful as his death because he had to open her womb and it was painful for him because he had to squeeze through and you know it
11:21
I've never I've never given birth to a child I know that my wife her last child was without an epidural and so she knows exactly what that's like and and I know that when a child opens the womb it really is a big deal for that child because he's the first one first one through and it can really compress the skull which is and when my son
11:43
Tanner was born he opened he was the first to open my wife's womb and his head looked like a sausage when it came out because this is what it's like and so so and you know the early writers recognized this and what we'll find to our surprise is that they had to back off that some in the latter part of the fourth century had to change their story in a hurry once they realized that the a new doctrine had come up that Mary was a virgin even in part two so I want to give an example this is what you typically find it and I find this a lot with Roman Catholic apologists is there they'll always talk about well yes this has always been taught by the church why as recently as the late fourth century we have this
12:29
XYZ and we find this there's an outfit called biblical Catholic apologetics and in their article on Mary virgin and ever virgin they have this statement under the subtitle the constant faith of the church and this is the statement great teachers of the church from at least the fourth century spoke of Mary as having remained a virgin throughout her life and I think that's it's almost comical when you realize how often
13:00
Roman Catholics have to make that point why as recently as the late fourth century this that or the other and in this is just one more thing it's one more novelty from the latter part of the fourth century that Roman Catholics have tried to purvey upon the world as an apostolic doctrine but if you can't trace it back earlier than latter part of the fourth century then not only is it not apostolic but it's also misleading to say it was the constant faith of the church and what we'll find as we go through is that it was not the constant faith of the church and and I'll just to give you some examples this biblical
13:33
Catholic apologetics page says well look we have Athanasius Epiphanius Jerome Augustine and Cyril of Alexandria well all of these are from the late fourth century you know that that's their evidence for Mary being a virgin prepartum in part two and postpartum and and even then you'll find that not all of them agreed that Mary remained a virgin in part two it's a very
14:03
I mean among the Roman Catholic teachings that are allegedly apostolic this is one of the most you know confounded and confused and torturous great arguments that they make because everybody they turn to in some way disagrees with what the actual doctrine is so so so now now in some some web pages you're going to come across people say well
14:29
Irenaeus believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary and and I want to return now it is very important that we we draw on established
14:38
Roman Catholic experts in Mariology to talk about what they themselves have acknowledged you remember last week when we talked about the
14:47
Immaculate Conception we drew on Juniper Carroll and and also
14:53
Ola Thorne as well both were very well respected Roman Catholic Mariologists and they would agree that there's no real solid evidence for Mary's immaculacy or sinlessness until the latter part of the fourth century in fact they say that 377
15:08
AD was a turning point in the West where Ambrose had introduced a novelty but at last you know so they said well we can trace it to Ambrose and therefore it must not have a new and the same thing here is that well we can trace this to the latter part of the fourth century and therefore it must be apostolic and that's a huge logical leap and it's one that often even educated evangelicals fall for say wow if that if we can trace it to the latter part of the fourth century must be true well
15:35
I would say to the contrary if you can only trace it to the latter part of the fourth century then it's a novelty and it's not apostolic so but Juniper Carroll when he is writing on the patristic tradition concerning Mary's virginity he says according to those authentic writings of his which would come down to us there is nothing in these translated passages to show that Irenaeus held the permanence of Mary's virginity so here you have a
16:01
Roman Catholic Mario Mariologist a scholar in Mariology and he's saying you know what
16:07
I know some people are out there saying that you know Irenaeus who died in 202 AD so it's really a second century early third century scholar patristic writer he's
16:19
Juniper Carroll says you know what we've looked at this and we just don't find anything compelling in Irenaeus to say that he held to Mary's perpetual virginity so there were some there's some who say that origin and he's also second century mid third century so I would guess that his writings are all from really the third century since he was born in 185 but he has been brought forth as evidence that Mary didn't have any other children after Jesus and what's interesting here is that he draws on apocryphal works and apocryphal are basically works that are not received in the canon of the scriptures are not recognized by anybody as canonical and they are in this case we're talking about the gospel according to Peter and the proto -evangelium of James and and this is something that's very interesting this is origin in his commentary on Matthew book 10 chapter 17 and he appeals to the gospel according to Peter and the book of James or the proto -evangelium of James to support the theory that the brethren of Jesus were actually sons of Joseph by a former marriage and the story here is that that Mary was a consecrated virgin that she had pledged herself to virginity from an early age and she knew that she was not going to marry and was not going to know a man and so Roman Catholics sometimes will fall back on this to say that when
17:51
Mary said to Gabriel how can this be since I do not know a man went to her vow of celibacy this third century and he says but some say basing it on a tradition in the gospel according to Peter as it is entitled or the book of James that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife who he married before Mary and and he he says that you know origins of well
18:22
I think this is in harmony with reason and you see he says well it doesn't make sense to me that that Mary would know intercourse with a man after the
18:33
Holy Ghost came into her that is the Holy Ghost had you know basically become a spouse to her and therefore she's she's taken you know from she's off the market in other words so just make sense that she wouldn't have another that she wouldn't actually be married and know a man and you know or just well you know this seems in harmony with reason but he still just appealing to tradition and not to recognize scriptures but we're gonna come back to the proto evangelium of James a little bit later because Juniper Carol has some things to say about it but what
19:11
I want to highlight is that origin did not believe that Mary's virginity was preserved in childbirth so even if we have origin even giving credence and in whatever the words he actually says in his commentary on Matthew are not really really you know emphatic praise of these sources he just says well there's some people that say this and it seems to me reasonable but he doesn't seem he doesn't convey to this this as if it's some received apostolic doctrine he just says well
19:44
I thought about it and it seems to make sense but no sense that he'd actually received this as an apostolic truth but later in another work and this is his homilies on Luke homily 14 paragraph 7 to 8 he actually says that Jesus birth was normal and that in the case and he says in the case of every other woman it is not the birth of an infant but intercourse with a man that opens the womb but the womb of the
20:10
Lord's mother was opened at the time when her offspring was brought forth so he's here origin is saying that what normally would happen to a virgin on her wedding night is what happened to Mary when
20:23
Christ was born so he's actually here origin is saying that Mary's virginity was compromised in delivery so even if you believe that maybe
20:34
Mary didn't have other I didn't have sex after Christ was born he still believed that his birth was normal and that Mary's womb was opened by his delivery and that's the very thing that Roman Catholics denied they would say that her virginity was preserved in part you but what's interesting to go back to Juniper Carol regarding the
20:55
Gospel of Peter and the proto -evangelium of James this is what he says he says whatever their origins we have no grounds for concluding that the apocrypha contained and transmitted an authentic apostolic tradition concerning the dogma of Mary's perpetual virginity in each instance such a tradition would have to be established an impossible task with our present documentary sources moreover in themselves the apocryphal narratives scarcely measure up to the quality of sober objectivity characteristic of the transmission of a doctrine that is authentically apostolic in origin so so so keep in mind that this is
21:36
Juniper Carol who is you know the preeminent Mariologist Roman Catholicism he said listen I know that origin appeal to them but there's nothing in them that could even be stretched to the level of apostolicity and therefore we just simply can't look at that and assume that they had transmitted an apostolic doctrine and what's more origin didn't believe that Mary was a virgin in part two and Roman Catholic doctrine requires all three pre partum in part two and post partum so do you see how you know as much as people would love to find some evidence as well much as Roman Catholics would love to find evidence of this before Nicaea they really don't find evidence of the doctrine taking hold until the latter part of the fourth century and what you find is an amalgamation of all these different writers who had different views on it and or if they had a view that say
22:33
Mary was a virgin in part two and we're going to get to Clement of Alexandria in a second what we'll find is that the text is compromised and we don't really have any evidence that we aren't really sure that this is something that Clement wrote but but so you with me so far yeah
22:52
I'm with you I'm going along with you on your notes I see that you're on number two now and I know that you're pressed for time so folks
23:00
I'm just gonna I'm gonna sit back today and let let Tim run the show but you know
23:06
I'll just make this one comment you said that they can't find any evidence to support their claims prior to the fourth century but what it sounds like you're saying and what we're gonna continue to show is that there's actually evidence to the contrary so it's not just that hey they can't go past the they can't go further back from the fourth century it's that when you do go back further than the fourth century you find all these individuals saying the exact opposite of what they want them to say and so that's right and you find this consistently when we covered when we did our series on the sacrifice of the mass is that what we found prior to the latter part of the fourth century is that when when when they talked about bread and wine being offered it was in the context of Philippians 418 where when we provide we meet the needs of the fellow saints with the bread and wine that people have brought together as the tithe or the to bring to the church with such sacrifices the
24:07
Lord is well pleased that's what Paul wrote in Philippians 418 but you don't get the sense that they were actually turning the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ and then sacrificing
24:17
Christ's body and blood to God not until the latter part of the century with the Immaculate Conception you have these people talking about the sinfulness of Mary and the
24:27
Catholic Encyclopedia just writes that off as well that's just stray private opinion but it was the constant faith of the church that the
24:33
Pius the Ninth said in his infallible proclamation and what we find is the very opposite is what we find in the early churches that thought that Mary was sinful and here what we're finding is that there was no sense that Mary no apostolic sense that Mary was both a virgin in childbirth and afterward right in other words there's no sense that she was an ever virgin which is a very late development so one one piece of evidence that they would use is
25:04
Clement of Alexandria and so Clement of Alexandria this is from Clement of Alexandria this is from the
25:11
Stromata book 7 chapter 16 and in here here's what he writes it says but as appears many even down to our own time regard
25:19
Mary on account of the birth of her child as having been in the pure pearl state that is the state of childbirth that involves the pain and the travail although she was not that's what that's what he says although she was not for some say that after she brought forth she was found when examined to be a virgin okay so so this is
25:40
Clement of Alexandria and it's possible that he's referring to the proto -evangelium of James now this is what's interesting
25:49
Juniper Carroll again referring to this particular citation from Clement of Alexandria it says the problem is that this citation of Clement of Alexandria on her perpetual virginity comes from an unreliable source he says we cannot absolutely rely on this text since it is a 6th century translated adaptation into Latin by Cassiodorus with the expressed intention of expurgating expurgating anything that might be offensive in other words this is from the 6th century it's a translation of Clement's works and the author explicitly states that he's expurgating anything that might be considered offensive so we can't really know
26:30
I mean this is a Latin adaptation three centuries removed from Clement of Alexandria and so we don't even have evidence that this is really a reliable source so again with Roman Catholics is often well we don't know for sure who wrote this or we don't know when it was written or it like we talked about last week when
26:50
Steve Ray actually put Hestias of Jerusalem in 300 but 300
26:57
AD and it turns out the Catholic Encyclopedia says we really don't know much about him but he's probably from the 5th century well you keep on finding this questionable data from Roman Catholics and their goal is to get us to overlook a 300 year gap between the
27:14
Apostles and their teachings sorry between the Apostles and Roman Catholic teachings and in many
27:20
Roman Catholics fall for this and we've talked about this on their many different podcasts that too many
27:27
Protestants and evangelicals are willing to just grant to Roman Catholicism that 300 year assumption say if it was taught in the latter part of the 4th century then there that must have been something that was continuous from the
27:40
Apostles whereas there's another option that other option is that this is a novelty and the early church did not agree with it so another example is that you know people will appeal to the
27:52
Nicene Creed because the Nicene Creed would refer to Christ was born of Mary ever virgin okay so the
28:01
Nicene Creed is 320 the Nicene Council was from 325 AD the problem is that the original
28:08
Council made no mention of Mary being ever virgin that is a continuously a virgin in all all phases of life and that's not really until like 2nd
28:18
Constantinople the 2nd Council of Constantinople in the 6th century when we start seeing Mary ever virgin being used in the councils and so the
28:27
Nicene Creed that states Christ was born of Mary ever virgin is actually late 4th century or even early early 5th century it's not something that came from the
28:42
Nicene Council some folks folks would also say well Athanasius was at Nicaea and he used the term ever virgin well it's true that Athanasius used the term ever virgin but he does not use that until 360
28:55
AD in his discourses against the Aryans as discourse 2 chapter 70 again late 4th century have you noticed that no matter how hard they try they always end up in the late 4th century and they might say well
29:08
Athanasius believed it and I say I don't care Athanasius isn't enough to persuade me. What matters is it true?
29:17
Is it true? Is it apostolic? Just because Athanasius believed it doesn't matter to me. That response is gold.
29:24
Oh well I don't care. Yeah stop trying to you know
29:31
I'm pulling back the curtain saying look the early church didn't agree with this and they're saying but late 4th century late 4th century come on that's that you got to give us the give us the last 300 years okay we can get you to the late 4th century working backwards from now and you just have to give us the last 300 years
29:46
I'm not going to. The early church didn't agree with this nonsense and Roman Catholics have been trying to you know trying to fool people saying pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and just accept that this must be true because if we can trace it back to the latter part of the 4th century then it must be true and where they trace it back further it's from the proteovangelium of James second century and the reason
30:13
I would although it's not typically classified as a docetic or Gnostic document that docetism comes from the
30:21
Greek word for phantom where there was a heresy that Jesus had not actually taken flesh but he had actually come into the world as a phantom and that is a ghost or a spirit that never actually had a body and and if you remember in our discussion on the sacrifice of the mass that the early church they looked at the bread and the wine that they said
30:46
Jesus would never have used elements of this earth like the bread and the wine as a figure for his body unless there had truly been a body right so they used the elements say wow he said this is my body he must have really become flesh and blood like us they didn't look at it and say oh he really meant this is my body and and so what you find in the early church is that you have the early writers arguing against the
31:09
Gnostics and the Docetists saying Jesus really took on flesh he really took on a body that's why he said this is my body this is my blood and in that Mary really did have childbirth pains because we know
31:21
Jesus really had a body and therefore to come through Mary he must have had she must have had childbirth pains because Jesus had a body now what
31:31
I want to now turn to Roman Catholic apologist James Aiken because he's got a video on YouTube and I would recommend that people watch this it's only three minutes long but it's very telling it's um it's called how did the church fathers explain the perpetual virginity of Mary and if you just you just type in James Aiken Catholic answers perpetual virginity of Mary you'll come across a
31:56
YouTube video like I said it's just a little bit more than three minutes long and he says okay we have two sources one is the apocryphal proto -evangelium of James second century probably about 150
32:09
AD and that's the one that says Joseph became a guardian of Mary who was a consecrated virgin and that the
32:17
Brethren of Christ were from Joseph's previous marriage so Joseph had been married before and he just took on Mary is more like he was a caretaker he was just a custodian in other words and Mary was the consecrated virgin and then
32:34
Joseph just took her on as a into his custody to care for her and as the story goes on there's a when when
32:43
Joseph brings Mary to Jerusalem to give birth there's a flash of light and next thing you know
32:49
Mary is holding Jesus in her arms and he's taking her breast and and beginning to nurse and and it's just well there you go
32:59
Mary's virginity was preserved in part to you it says it right there in the proto -evangelium of James in fact in the story and people can look this up online it's very easy to find if you just search for the proto -gospel of James or proto -evangelium of James you'll find it but it's it's just not written in a sense that is credible and it certainly isn't apostolic but it it turns out that the the the midwife is there as well she's not there in the scriptural narratives but she is in this one and she doesn't believe it she goes and checks and then because the midwife checks
33:33
Mary to verify that she's still a virgin her hand then withers and she she has to pray to God to repent because she questions the holiness of Mary it's all it's all silly nonsense and yet this is what
33:47
James Aiken the Roman Catholic apologist is using is well we have the proto -evangelium of James okay then he says but we also have
33:57
Jerome from the late 4th century okay and Jerome took a different view he said the brethren of Christ are not stepbrothers and sisters but they're actually cousins they're not actual brothers they're just cousins they're near relations but they're not brethren by Mary well hey
34:18
Tim yeah let me before you get into that I just have one real quick question hopefully
34:24
I won't complicate things too much but just just for the sake of clarity when you say the proto -evangelium of James and you're talking about the
34:34
Apocrypha real quick you that would that would mean that these books are included in the
34:41
Roman Catholic Bible is that is that correct no no I see these are these are there's an there's an
34:48
Apocrypha like first and second Maccabees that sort of thing that right and that's that's what
34:54
I'm thinking about so this is yeah that that are apocryphal that even agree that they're not in the
35:02
Bible so okay okay okay all right right so so the Gospel of James and the
35:07
Gospel of Peter Roman Catholics do not regard them as scripture either and so as you can see they're stretching quite a bit to get to a lot yeah okay tremendously so so what's interesting is that James Aiken gives us two possible sources for the antiquity of this doctrine the first is the proto -evangelium of James that even
35:31
Roman Catholics agree is not scriptural they said well but the idea was there and that shows you something
35:38
I said what it doesn't it just shows me the idea was there there's also other ideas that Jesus did not take on a body but what's really interesting what we find is that by the time we get by the time we get to Jerome who believed originally that Jesus birth was perfectly normal he eventually changes his tune and starts adopting a view more consistent with the proto -evangelium of James but we'll get to Jerome in just a second but but at least is his turn from one position to another but what's interesting about when
36:14
James Aiken gives us two possibilities he says there's the proto -evangelium of James from the second century and then there's
36:21
Jerome who had the theory that Christ's brethren in the scriptures are actually cousins and not actual brothers the problem is and this is from 383
36:31
AD this is late 4th century Jerome utterly ridiculed the view from the proto -evangelium of James he thought that was here's what he said this is his letter against Helvetius paragraph 19 he says if we adopt possibility as the standard of judgment we might maintain that Joseph had several wives because Abraham had and so had
36:58
Jacob and that the Lord's brethren were the issue of those wives an invention which some hold with rashness which springs from audacity not from piety so so here we have he says okay if we're really if if our standard of truth is so low that we're going to accept possibility as a standard of judgment then yes we can accept that Joseph had other wives because and that's what that's what it is said explicitly in the in the proto -gospel of James that well the children of the brethren of Jesus are actually sons of Joseph from a prior marriage but but he ridicules it he said well that's an invention which which some hold with rashness which springs from audacity not from piety so the two options were given by James Aitken is one something that even the
37:48
Roman Catholic scholars admit is not apostolic and the other option is Jerome who actually ridicules the proto -evangelium of James but but Jerome did something more than that he said
38:03
I'm going to go even further I'm going to say and the reason that he did not want to accept that Joseph had wives a previous wife before Mary is that he wants to maintain and this too is a novelty from the late 4th century he wanted to maintain that Joseph himself was a virgin so that Christ the virgin
38:21
Savior was born of a virgin mother and a virgin father and so they had a virgin family and this is something that that became very significant in the latter part of the 4th century where the idea of consecrated virginity as as an apostolic doctrine also began to take root it's not an apostolic doctrine the scriptures do say that there are those who do not get married and there are some that are eunuchs for the kingdom of God as Jesus said but this idea of by getting consecrated as a virgin you're actually they actually had wedding ceremonies where the virgin would betroth herself to Christ and that was that's a novelty the latter part of the 4th century and it was
39:12
Ambrose who actually formalized that and made it a practice of the church but but that's something that Jerome had stumbled into as well and so he began to see you he even saw you know in a moment of weakness
39:26
I would say Jerome even said that John would have been a better chief apostle than Peter because God was a virgin you know so but anyway so I don't want to get off I don't
39:38
I don't want to get off track either you're just you said that they would have like around this time that they would have weddings and the bride would would would basically vow to stay a virgin throughout the whole marriage oh okay so there's there's two different issues there one is if someone decides that they want to be a virgin their whole life that they would have a wedding ceremony that was very much it was very much like a wedding ceremony except she would betroth herself
40:09
Oh Christ so but there there's another kind of virginity that became popular this time as well and that is a virginity in marriage and we can cover that in another yeah we can't get into that now that's just bizarre so obviously virginity was a form of piety right nobody denies that celibacy is a form of piety right just wouldn't create the hierarchy that they did that that virginity is the highest state marital virginity is the actually say virginity is the highest state then widowhood is the next one down the next one below that is being married but abstaining and then the lowest lowest on the totem pole of meritorious act is to to actually be a husband and wife engaged in conjugal union raising children that sort of thing that's a that's the whole issue with how virginity became such a fascination of these writers in the latter part of the fourth century but they just almost couldn't focus on anything else it's just fascinating we can get into another episode but what's it's just interesting here that yeah that that Jerome had is
41:30
I'm gonna go even further than you I'm gonna say that Joseph was a virgin too and he remained a virgin his whole life so that we the holy family is the virgin mother virgin father and virgin child because you know it just goes on and on with how
41:43
Jerome invented so much and this is just one more novelty of Jerome and and he insisted he said hey marriage was a product of the fall
41:53
Adam and Eve didn't get married until after they were kicked out of the garden and you know this is all it's all it's all just nonsense and it was
42:01
Jerome just had these ideas and just began just began to gush them forth and everybody bought into them
42:06
I wouldn't say everybody there were obviously some people that rejected them we but that's a matter for another podcast as well but but what's interesting here is in his work against Helvidius paragraph 19
42:24
Jerome believed that he had the support of the early church and he was conveying this idea that the brethren of the
42:32
Lord were not sons of Mary but brethren in the sense of being in point of kinship not by nature that is you know being cousins or relatives and he says he says to Helvidius might
42:46
I not array against you the whole series of ancient writers Ignatius Polycarp Irenaeus Justin Martyr and many other apostolic and eloquent men who held these same views and wrote volumes replete with wisdom if you had ever read what they wrote you would be a wiser man well here's the problem we just heard from Juniper Carroll who is you know the the the
43:10
Mariologist's Mariologist in Roman Catholicism and he says you know what I'm sorry we're just not finding it
43:16
Irenaeus we don't have any evidence that he held at the perpetual virginity and importantly Ignatius Polycarp Justin Martyr there's nothing in any of their works that are existent that have anything that say anything about this and what's interesting about this and having read
43:36
Jerome a good bit is he has a very creative memory and he is just gloriously terrible at church history and he and Ambrose suffer from the same thing you know in Ambrose letter 63 he talked about how the
43:52
Council of Nicaea had forbidden second marriages for clergy and if you go back and look at the look at the canons of the
44:01
Council of Nicaea they actually were saying that they were going to welcome some people who had been apart from the church they were welcome back in and they were just gonna have to accept the fact that they would be ministering with people who are in their second marriage
44:14
I mean that's that's that's all that Nicaea said about second marriages is that we're just gonna have to accept the fact that some people were on their second marriage and Ambrose just out of nowhere just decides that forbidden second marriage is for clergy there's just nothing there and in other articles on say on Jerome I've written about Jerome as he said you know unless I'm deceived the
44:38
Council of Nicaea gave to Antioch the whole Diocese of Oriens and he's just dead wrong historically geographically in fact
44:46
Antioch and Alexandria were both located in the civil diocese of Oriens at the time of the council and there and the whole disagreement that they were resolving by determining the boundaries of the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria is they both were inside the same civil diocese and so they had to establish boundaries for each bishop within a diocese and Jerome just says well unless I'm deceived the council gave the entire
45:15
Diocese of Oriens to Antioch well he's like I said these guys are just notoriously terrible at church history and and what's more they just invent things and then impose them on people as if they're apostolic so the first problem with Jerome in his writing against Helvetius as I was saying that the man that he brings up from church history didn't say anything about what he's talking about but the other problem is and here in this moment of weakness
45:44
Jerome acknowledged that Jesus birth was perfectly normal this from 383 so Helvetius had written he said are we bound this is
45:54
Helvetius who's criticizing Jerome's position on Jerome's he's criticizing
46:01
Jerome's position on other children of Mary okay he says are we bound to blush at the thought of Mary having a husband after she was delivered if they that is the people of Jerome's position if they find any disgrace in this they ought not consistently believe even that God was born of the
46:20
Virgin Mary by natural delivery he's basically saying if if her womb was opened in natural delivery what's the shame in her having a husband hmm after Christ was born and here's where Jerome responded and he says something that is he's gonna have to undo later he never actually retracts this because he was too proud but he simply changes his position and it acts as if that's the one he'd always had he responds to Helvetius and he said if you like Helvetius the other humiliations of nature the womb for nine months growing larger the sickness the delivery the blood the swaddling clothes we do not blush we are not put to silence by these so this is
46:59
Jerome in against Helvetius paragraph 20 conceding that hey you're not gonna shame you're not gonna shame me into thinking that Mary had a husband after Christ was born based on the natural delivery says hey we don't blush at that Mary you know the sickness the delivery the blood the swaddling clothes and here he is basically acknowledging that yeah the birth was natural but that doesn't necessarily mean she had a husband later okay so it's interesting is that he didn't seem to think because he here he was making the point that it's obviously an apostolic truth that the sons of Joseph I'm sorry the sons the brethren of Jesus are actually cousins he seems to be passing on that office an apostolic truth criticizing
47:51
Helvetius for being so stupid and yet he actually concedes that Mary did not remain a virgin in part two so Jerome isn't really a big help to go back to James Aiken he's appealing first to an apocryphal document that even a
48:08
Mariologist would acknowledge doesn't really convey any apostolic truth and then he also offers to Rome but when
48:14
Jerome defends his position that there the idea that the children the brethren of Christ were actually cousins
48:22
Jerome accidentally spills the beans on Mary's natural delivery and doesn't really hold to the idea that she was a virgin in part you know now ten years later in his letter to Promachius what what happened was
48:35
Promachius was a friend of Jerome and Promachius had encountered a man named
48:42
Jovinianus and Jovinianus had maintained apparently that Mary's birth was completely natural
48:49
Promachius had made Jovinianus' writings available to Jerome and here
48:56
Jerome changes his tune and he says and now he's going now he's following he's falling back on the proto -evangelium of James and he says let my critics explain to me how
49:12
Jesus can have entered in through closed doors when he allowed his hands and his side to be handled that is after the resurrection and showed that he had bones and flesh thus proving that he has a that his was a true body and no mere phantom of one so basically let my critics explain how he can go through closed doors when he has a real body and I will explain how the
49:36
Holy Mary can be at once a mother and a virgin a mother before she was wedded she remained a virgin after bearing her son so she he's basically changed his position to talk about how
49:47
Jesus with flesh and blood passed through Mary's womb without compromising her physical virginity in just the same way
49:57
Jesus resurrected body came through the doors but we're talking about two different things here so one is
50:03
Jesus becoming a man like us and when he conquers death he rises and he has not yet ascended to his father but Jesus was able to do those kind of miracles and we know that that Jesus specific and John specifically tells us in John chapter 2 that his turning water into the wine was the beginning of his miracles okay yeah the gospel tells us that he didn't do any miracles until then and so for him to conduct this miracle of passing through Mary without compromising her physical virginity would move his miracles up by about 27 years right so but what's interesting is that Jerome has switched positions in about 10 years and in 393
50:51
AD he's saying that Mary passed through I'm sorry Jesus passed through Mary's womb without compromising her physical virginity but just 10 years earlier he was ridiculing
51:03
Helvidius and but also ridiculing the proto -evangelium of James that said that Jesus passed through Mary's womb without compromising her physical virginity but so what was happening in the latter part of the fourth century was suddenly this was all the rage and what's really interesting that it became it just became something that was just very very popular and we have to remember that popularity in the latter part of the fourth century or the sudden eruption of teaching at the latter part of the fourth century does not make an apostolic doctrine and all the arguments we're hearing from Roman Catholics are trust us on this if you just give us those last 300 years we can get this back to the
51:44
Apostles but but this is the problem that their whole religion is based on novelties that erupted at the latter part of the fourth century and as I've noted that even
51:55
Roman Catholic scholars recognized that this is a novelty so I want to go to David Hunter now and David Hunter was previously the
52:04
Monsignor James Supple Chair of Catholic Studies at Iowa State University and he is currently the
52:10
Cottrell Rolfes Chair of Catholic Studies at University of Kentucky so so he's been the chair of Catholic Studies at two different universities so obviously we're not talking about an uneducated even here this is a this is a guy who's well studied he's he's familiar with the teachings of the early church and he recognizes the same thing that Juniper Carroll did remember
52:37
Juniper Carroll went back and looked and said you know I know that Pius the Ninth says that the whole church since the days of the
52:42
Apostles have been teaching that Mary was sinless but yet when it comes down to it we don't really find a turning point in the in the church's
52:50
Mariology until 377 AD where it begins to be taught that Mary was sinless well
52:56
David Hunter realizes the same thing having studied all this and this is from his book about the
53:03
Jovinian controversy is that he was studying marriage celibacy and heresy in ancient
53:12
Christianity and he was he had written a book on Jovinianus and his confrontation with Jerome and what's really interesting this is from a
53:22
Roman Catholic scholar and he says if there is a single conclusion to be derived from my study it is that Jovinian stood much closer to the center of Christian tradition than previous critics have recognized and then he says something very transparent here and he says
53:39
I realize that by saying Jovinianus stood closer to the center of Christian tradition that I am acknowledging at the same time that his critics stood farther from the center of Christian tradition and his critics were
53:52
Ambrose and Jerome and he says this specifically of Ambrose he said Ambrose's attraction to the ideal of virgin virginal integrity caused him to adopt a
54:03
Marian doctrine virginitas in part two that had only a fragile basis in earlier
54:10
Christian tradition and Jovinianus and so that's the end of this quote this is this is me talking now but remember
54:18
Jovinianus had criticized Jerome for saying that Mary had remained a virgin in part two right and here
54:28
David Hunter says you know what when I studied Jovinianus I realized that he stood closer to the center of Christian tradition than Ambrose and Jerome did and Jerome's ideal of virginal integrity caused him to adopt a
54:40
Marian doctrine that had only a fragile basis in earlier Christian tradition do you know that fragile basis was it was the proto -evangelium of James it was the apocryphal book that Juniper Carroll acknowledged was not apostolic and what what
54:54
David Hunter had done here is he acknowledged that Jovinianus was actually closer to apostolic truth than Ambrose and Jerome and that just like when we talked about Juniper Carroll acknowledged that Ambrose's view of Mary as immaculate and sinless was a novelty of the late 4th century so was the teaching that it was that it was this idea that it was an apostolic truth that Mary was a virgin pre -partum in part two in postpartum that too was a novelty the later 4th century that was relegated to the stuff of Gnostics and apocryphal documents up until this point so again we have this it's just one more brick in this wall that we're building to show that the
55:42
Roman Catholic religion as a whole started in the late 4th century and its claims to apostolicity are 300 years shy of the
55:52
Apostles so much of what they've taught and claimed is not only novelty the late 4th century but explicitly denied by the earlier church so what
56:02
I wanted to do now is go through some of those early church fathers that explicitly state that they did not believe that Mary remained a virgin in childbirth so let's do it ready for that yeah yeah so I know that this is a bit of a firehose but what the encouragement
56:18
I have to our listeners is listen there have been some very well educated evangelicals who have fallen for the nonsense and converted to Roman Catholicism and they've granted to Rome those last 300 years yeah they can trace you say we can trace back to the latter part of the fourth century
56:35
I'm gonna grant you the last 300 years I have some advice for you don't give those 300 years away because in those 300 years we have people who recognize the truth right hot things that are completely inimical to Roman Catholicism right you know you said you said right now that this is like a firehose and the image that I've had in my mind is you you're not just like swatting a fly with a fly swatter you're taking a shotgun to it it's the statements like it's the statements like James Aiken who can't really come up with a consistent story on the apostolicity of perpetual virginity for Mary so it says but I'm gonna give you a couple things you can this is what we've got it's basically throwing his hands up a lot of arm -waving hey we don't have a lot but what
57:21
I do we do have we'll give to you one of them is the prototype evangelical James that is not apostolic and then we have
57:28
Jerome criticized the proto -evangelium of James and also conceded originally that Mary's birth
57:34
Christ's birth was completely natural so we've already covered origin because we talked about how origin even though he was open to entertaining the possibility that Mary didn't have other children he still thought that Christ had opened
57:49
Mary's womb the way or in a regular marriage Christ the husband would open the wife of the womb of the wife so he says remember it is not the birth of an infant but intercourse with a man that opens the womb but in Christ's case that he opened
58:08
Mary's womb through childbirth that's so that's a statement from origin that basically the
58:14
Christ's birth was natural now we'll go to Tertullian and what's interesting about Tertullian is he says that Mary was a virgin of course in conception and then stopped being a virgin at delivery because he recognized that Christ had opened
58:33
Mary's womb he says indeed she ought rather be called not a virgin than a virgin becoming a mother at a leap as it were before she was a wife and what must be said more on this point since it was in this sense that the
58:48
Apostle declared that the Son of God was born not of a virgin but of a woman he in that statement recognize the condition of the opened womb which ensues in marriage that's
58:58
Tertullian on the flesh of Christ chapter 23 in chapter 1 of that same document he says at all events he who represented the flesh of Christ to be imaginary was equally able to pass off his nativity as a phantom so that in the
59:14
Virgin's conception and pregnancy and childbearing and then the whole course of her infant too would have to be regarded as putative this is his way of responding to the
59:26
Gnostics and the Dostetists who had said that Christ had come into the world merely as a phantom and he's criticizing anyone who had entertained the idea that Christ could pass through Mary's womb as a phantom what's interesting is that you get to the end of the fourth century you practically have the
59:45
Roman Catholics adopting that so yes he was incarnated and he truly took on flesh and Mary was truly human of course
59:52
Christ became fully human it's just that he passed through her womb as a phantom in some strange way and here we have
01:00:00
Tertullian rejecting that saying you know that's actually a Gnostic position it's not the
01:00:05
Christian apostolic belief so but again let's see also from a chapter 4 of On the
01:00:13
Flesh of Christ he says since therefore you do not reject the assumption of a body as impossible or as hazardous to the character of God it remains for you to repudiate and censure it as unworthy of him come now beginning from the nativity itself declaim against the uncleanness of the generative elements within the womb the filthy concretion of fluid and blood of the growth of the flesh for nine months long out of that out of that very mire describe the womb as it enlarges from day to day heavy troublesome restless even in sleep changing in its feelings of dislike and desire in vain now against the shame itself of a woman in travail which however ought rather to be honored and considerate consideration of that peril or to be held sacred in respect to the mystery of nature so here's challenging he's challenging the
01:01:04
Gnostics to even speak against the shame of a woman in travail and what he's doing is conceding that Mary had birth pains hmm that the birth was perfectly natural now now people would write off and say okay origin intertulian at some points were known to have subscribed to error and heresy and so they said well they're not real they don't really count so okay let's go to Eusebius he was from 260 to 340
01:01:31
AD he attended the Council of Nicaea and this is from his demonstration of the gospel book 10 chapter 8 this is written around 311
01:01:41
AD so this is before the Council of Nicaea he says Jesus knew that his original union with our flesh in his birth of a woman that was a virgin was no worse experience than the suffering of death while he speaks of his death he also mentions his birth saying to the father quote thou my
01:02:00
God and father like a midwife didst draw the body that thou that had been prepared for me by the
01:02:07
Holy Spirit from my travailing mother so here Eusebius is actually referring to Jesus praying to his father saying that he had drawn his body out of his travailing mother in other words conceding that Mary had birth pains and therefore if you have birth pains it's because your physical virginity is being compromised okay this is
01:02:35
Eusebius from before the Council of Nicaea now we have John Christosom who is referring to the verses in Matthew about Jesus saying to you know who is a mother a brother and a sister to me is anyone who does the will of my father is a mother brother and sister to me and John Christosom is commenting on that verse he says for behold he has marked out a spacious road for us and it is granted not to women only but to men also to be of this rank or rather of one yet far higher for this makes one his mother much more than those pains did so that if that were a subject for blessing much more this in as much as it is also more real ok so this is this is
01:03:22
John Christosom from 349 to 407 AD still holding to this idea that when he's commenting on we become mothers and brothers and sisters of Christ by following him and doing doing
01:03:35
God's will and believing in his words this makes one a mother much more than those pains did so we say we're more a mother to Christ than Mary's birth pains made her a mother to Christ so so here we still have
01:03:52
Mary in birth pain and therefore losing her physical virginity which is a reminder that this you are the constant teaching of the church the constant teaching of the church was the
01:04:04
Christ birth was normal now so and again concession from Roman Catholic scholars and an apologist that Ambrose had come up with a novelty that Jerome had come up with a novelty that Joseph had remained a virgin his whole life criticizing the proto -evangelium of James and and and also that Jerome of course was inconsistent he originally believed that Mary's birth had been normal Christ's birth had been normal by Mary and didn't even he didn't even hesitate to say well why and why of course that we don't blush from that at all and then later completely changes his tune because he'd been exposed to this new doctrine that was being taught in the later latter part of the fourth century that Jesus had passed through Mary's womb leaving it untouched and therefore not compromising her physical virginity preserving her virginity in part two if you want to trace it earlier than latter part of the fourth century you're gonna have to appeal to apocryphal documents that have no apostolic warrant whatsoever and you're gonna have to write off what the early writers were freely admitting about Mary is that she was not her virginity was not preserved in childbirth so the the last thing
01:05:27
I want to wrap up on today and and we'll just call this a wrap and we can continue with another episode because there's much more to be said because I do think that we need to do a wrap up on Mary but I want to just one thing and then we can conclude this this episode but the woman in Revelation 12 is having labor pains and there's just no two ways about it the woman in Revelation 12 is travailing in labor to give birth now we know that birth pains are a consequence of sin you know men have to eat their bread by the sweat of their brow and women have pain in giving birth to children these are the consequences of the fall of man so Roman Catholics tend to identify the woman of Revelation 12 as Mary and so they struggle with this whole issue of the woman of Revelation 12 is travailing in childbirth because if she's travailing in childbirth then she's then her virginity is being compromised right in in childbirth so it's very interesting there's a
01:06:39
Mary of Agreda 16th century Spanish mystic counter -reformational
01:06:46
Spanish mystic in in her in her work the mystical city of God volume one she has a conversation with an apparition of Mary and you know we talked about apparitions of Mary before and I think it's important to say first Roman Catholics will always say that they don't get their doctors from from apparitions of Mary and yet I think you can prove that they actually do but but beside that here we have
01:07:13
Mary of Agreda is struggling with this whole issue in Revelation 12 if the woman of Revelation 12 is
01:07:20
Mary why is she struggling in childbirth pain and this is what the apparition of Mary said to her regarding what
01:07:29
John had written in chapter 12 of Revelation he does not say this because she was to give birth in bodily pain for that is not possible in this divine parturition but because it was to be a great sorrow for that mother to see that divine infant come forth from the secrecy of her virginal womb in order to suffer and die as a victim for the satisfaction of the sins of the world the
01:07:56
Most High had determined to exempt her from guilt but not from the labors and sorrows corresponding to the reward which was prepared for her thus the sorrows of this birth were not the effect of sin as they are in the descendants of Eve but they were the effect of the intense and perfect love of the
01:08:14
Most Holy Mother for her divine son so here we have the solution right is that an apparition of Mary shows up in the 16th century to explain okay we've worked this out we can explain now how is it that the woman of Revelation 12 could be married and yet Mary is known not to have had labor pains and that the apparition of Mary says to Mary of Agrida the sorrows of this birth were not the effect of sin and there's also that you know the appeal to the secrecy of a virginal womb because it's just not possible that she would lose that virginity in childbirth it's just the the sorrows were the effect of her intense and perfect love for her son okay now that would be an interesting answer and we can dismiss it outright because it's from an apparition of Mary those apparitions are demonic but but what's interesting about this is that when the doctrine when
01:09:16
Pius the 12th declared infallibly that Mary had been assumed a body and soul into heaven and and we'll get to this in our next episode when we talk about the assumption of Mary he quoted from John of Damascus and John of Damascus from the 6th century had written about the sword of sorrow in Luke 235 remember we talked about that where the early church thought that the sort of sorry was sort of sorrow was
01:09:48
Mary stumbling into doubt and unbelief so John Pius the 12th when he was proclaiming the infallible allegedly infallible dogma of the assumption of Mary quotes
01:10:03
John of Damascus and said it is it was fitting that she who had seen her son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to him should look upon him as he sits with the father so that's a that's from munificent isomis deus which is the infallible proclamation by Pius the 12th on the assumption of Mary and he's quoting from John of Damascus who says that Mary the sword of sorrow that she received she experienced at the cross but had escaped in the act of giving birth to him so here we have a
01:10:47
Pope saying that Mary did not experience sorrow in the act of giving birth but when the apparition of Mary was trying to explain how the woman of Revelation 12 can be prevailing in birth she said oh those are the sorrows of this birth were because of the intense and perfect love of Mary for her son well we have an infallible proclamation from a
01:11:09
Pope saying that Mary did not experience sorrow in the act of giving birth to him and so here's the thing is it if you want just a summary on the the doctrines the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary the early church did not embrace it did not accept it even when origin was willing to entertain the possibility that the brethren of Christ were from a prior marriage of Joseph that that he appealed to he appealed to apocryphal documents that are that are we everybody acknowledges are not apostolic and have no apostolic weight at all but he also agreed that Mary's womb was opened by Christ when he came forth so he does not hold to the perpetual virginity of Mary what you find is it as a doctrine it doesn't actually take root until the latter part of the fourth century it is just very interesting to see between 383 and 393
01:12:17
Jerome himself switch positions to arrive at the perpetual virginity of Mary to the point that he would he eventually held that Mary Mary's virginity was preserved in part two even though ten years earlier he was so flippant about it that it didn't even bother him to acknowledge that there was blood and pain and sickness when
01:12:43
Christ was born and that is he was willing to acknowledge that her virginity was not preserved in part two and what's interesting about Jerome being willing to concede that remember how he said there's all these other church writers who agree with him notice that he didn't invoke
01:13:02
Clement of Alexandria remember earlier in the podcast we talked about Clement maintained that she had not experienced any that she had not lost her virginity in childbirth and yet Juniper Carroll had to acknowledge that that's actually something from the 6th century it's a
01:13:22
Latin adaptation so we really don't know for sure that Clement believe that if Jerome really wanted to find evidence for his position he could have appealed to Clement of Alexandria but that just shows that Juniper Carroll was right to say that we really can't put our trust in that document from Clement of Alexandria because it was edited and modified in the 6th century we don't really know for sure that that is what
01:13:47
Clement was expressing if Jerome wanted to find proof of his of these doctrines he could have appealed to Clement of Alexandria if Clement had actually believed it but the fact that he actually omitted him shows that Clement's work
01:14:02
Clement really did not hold to Mary's virginity in part two in other words the whole thing with Mary's perpetual virginity it rests entirely on her maintaining her virginity in part two and the early church rejected that as a
01:14:16
Gnostic myth did not did not agree with it and it didn't end up becoming didn't end up becoming a legitimate argument for Mary's virginity in part two until the latter part of the fourth century so again once again we find it's just a novelty of the latter part of the fourth century so much of Roman Catholicism is
01:14:39
Protestants and evangelicals do not have to take Roman Catholic Mary and dogma lying down do not grant to them those last 300 years they can't prove it and they're always trying to persuade you that they can go back earlier than Nicaea the fact is they can't get back past the latter part of the fourth century the whole religion is a novelty is not apostolic in the early church actually believe what we believe about Mary and her brethren
01:15:06
I'm sorry Mary and Jesus brethren and the marriage of Joseph that Mary and Joseph enjoyed a natural marriage after Christ was born and had other brothers and sisters and that's why the scriptures refer to the brothers and sisters of Jesus right hi that's a man you you really hit the nail on the head there brother
01:15:32
Tim and I know that you're pressed on time so we're gonna have to let you go but I'm excited that we're gonna get to do another episode from this because this is really really good stuff so I just want to say thank you again for for coming on I know that you're enjoying this series as well as I am and and by the way
01:15:52
Tim I don't know if you saw but somebody commented that some prefer Mondo radios their favorite podcast and they love it when you're on our show so kudos to you did you did you actually see that yes
01:16:08
I did I appreciate the sentiment and hopefully the series can live up to his expectations
01:16:14
I think it's it's so important for us as we've mentioned this ever since we did an episode on the sacrifice of the mass is that we do not appeal to the early church fathers in order to establish doctrine we do it to show that the whole
01:16:33
Roman Catholic house is just a house of cards and they cannot trace the origins of their religion back any earlier than the latter part of the fourth century and I say plainly to Roman Catholics who say that I need to repent of my 16th century novelty and return to the
01:16:52
Apostolic Church I tell them that I can't leave the Apostolic Church and join them in their late fourth century novelty
01:16:58
I'm gonna hold to what the early church and they need to repent and come back to it amen all right so with that we're going to let everybody go we will we will be doing another part on this regarding the assumption of Mary looking forward to having brother
01:17:18
Tim join us again it's it's always a pleasure so Tim thank you for joining us today thank you it's been a pleasure to have you it's been a pleasure to be on the show so well we'll look forward to episode 5 next week all right with that we're gonna let everybody go looking for that perfect track for your next evangelism outreach look no further at tracked planet comm we have solid biblical tracks that are a breeze to hand out they are beautifully designed and are the highest quality tracks available with over 80 different designs in stock and literally hundreds more available by custom order we're sure to have just the right one for you you can get any of our items printed with your church or ministry information or have us design a brand new track just for you we are committed to the solid biblical message of law to the proud and grace to the humble each tract is firm on the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the necessity of repentance and faith in salvation come check us out at tracked planet comm and make sure you use coupon code
01:18:24
BTWN at checkout for 10 % off your entire order that's