Why Celebrate the Reformation? Reason 187: Rome's Marian Dogmas

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line, last Dividing Line, with me on it anyways, until sometime in early

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June. And if you hear a little shhh in the background, I fired up Logos.

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My poor little computer is steam rising from the keyboard. Everybody who has

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Logos knows what I'm talking about there. It's indexing, and I'm awfully glad to have all the stuff

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I have in Logos, but man, that's just the most bloated software ever designed.

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It's just... Anyway, so it'll get... Now it's not even telling me what percentage...

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Oh, now it's saying 0 % complete? We had to kick the modem. So maybe...

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I didn't think that that had anything to do with anything. Well, that's not good. It'll get done eventually, as long as it doesn't freeze up, because a bunch of the stuff

01:40

I want to read you is in Logos. So what can I say? I can't get back into Twitter either.

01:48

The tweet deck is now just sitting there going, I don't know what to do, it's dead, I restarted it, and it's...

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Yeah, I think we're going to be purchasing a new modem here while you're gone, because this is getting absolutely crazy.

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Ten minutes ago, I did a speed test, and we were screaming. As soon as we connect up, we get a nice big green light.

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It just could be there are certain folks who don't like us. That's possible. I don't want to be paranoid though, so...

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You never know these days. Technology. If you're politically incorrect, there are people who feel it's their duty to do things.

02:26

You never know. Now, for the Star Trek geeks, behind me, a package arrived today, and we had no idea what it was, so of course

02:37

I let Rich open it. And it's part of his calling in life. And you will notice that that is

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Star Trek, the Enterprise -E. Okay, yeah, sure, now you do that.

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That's the Enterprise -E up there, and... So can you figure out what's going on there?

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Because that's the Enterprise -D, and then the Enterprise -E. So by putting them the way

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I did... You get what it is? It spells

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Ed. E and D. Anyway. Okay, those who are listening have no idea what we're talking about, and those who are not

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Trekkies don't get it either. Actually, one of the first things

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I saw this morning, it actually sort of made me happy, was someone had linked to a YouTube video of humorous

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Spock statements from Season 2 of the original Star Trek.

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I guess that's an interesting way to start things at 3 o 'clock in the morning. Someone asking if I can wear

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Star Trek uniforms. No, the funny thing is that despite the fact that they are hundreds of years into the future, obviously there was no advancement in how to make clothes that actually fit or comfortable, because remember how everybody in the next generation had to pull their uniform stuff?

04:15

That was a common comment by people. Wow, that's really weird.

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You would think they would have gotten something done in that time period, but they didn't.

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So it's sort of funny. That makes me think you know what we could do. Probably John Sampson is going to be in here next week, and I'll just make sure that he doesn't wear a red shirt.

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That would be good, but again, it's only certain kinds of red shirts. He's so skinny now, he could actually fit into a red shirt.

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He could probably fit into one of those uniforms. Yeah, he could. Well, okay, there you go.

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We've got things to get to, and we get complaints from people all the time. I don't care about your Star Trek stuff,

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I just want to hear you teach it. Oh, get a life. Some people, there are some

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Calvinists that are so tightly wound that I don't know that I want to be around you.

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Because some days you could go, bang, and it's all going to come flying apart. Anyway, heading to Europe, and I'm excited.

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I got some news, I can't really share it with you. I got some news, I forgot to tell you about this. I got some news about September on the trip that's pretty cool.

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I love how you do that. It's like, let's just stick the little teaser out there and just pull it right back.

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I've got news. I'm not going to tell you anything about the news, but hey, I got news.

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Let's just say Mike's been working on places for me to preach, and did he tell you about that?

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Not that I know of. I mean, he might have, but... It'll be...

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These days, I've got so much going on, I can't keep anything straight. It'll be memorable. Looking forward to that.

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Anyway, but next week, Monday evening, I will be debating with Peter D.

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Williams at the Brompton Oratory in London. I really hope all my London friends will show up.

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I've been there so much recently, maybe you're just going, hey, this happens all the time, don't have to worry about it. Well, who knows how long we're going to have the opportunity to be doing these things.

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But look, this is a really important subject.

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I've often said the Marian dogmas are the clearest example of the result of what happens when you abandon

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Sola Scriptura. And I'm just... There's a couple reasons I'm really excited about this.

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Location's incredible. Haven't had...

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Well, other than doing the Unbelievable broadcast, really haven't had any Roman Catholic debates in London.

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When I think about it, I don't think we have. It's all been over here in the States. So that's going to be a first.

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I would be concerned with this topic with almost anybody but Peter D.

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Williams. Now, look, he and I haven't done a full -on debate. We've done two radio broadcasts together.

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But especially the last one was so, well, sharp, but incredibly useful.

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I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up too high, but I'm thinking this could be a really, really, really useful encounter.

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And I'm really expecting the best from Peter D.

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Williams. No compromise. I don't expect any compromise from him.

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And there's just nothing else that can really get us to the central issues, because other than papal infallibility, the last two major dogmatic definitions have been in this area, 1854 and 1950, with the

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Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Assumption of Mary. So this is a tremendous opportunity.

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I know I'm going to behave. I have great confidence that he is, too. And the best debates are when you have that kind of a situation and when you have two people that are going to go at it fork and tongue, but respectfully.

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And I'm just really looking forward to it. And please pray for the recording. I don't think it's going to be live -streamed, but please pray for the recording that we wouldn't have any issues with that.

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And just looking forward to it. And that's what I'm going to be talking about today in the program is some of the issues relating to the

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Marian dogmas. It's an area that many Roman Catholics...

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Amongst Roman Catholics today, you have those who have Marian devotion out of pure tradition.

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And then you have Roman Catholics who have very little Marian devotion because they just don't really believe those things. They really don't believe what the

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Church has defined. I don't see how you can call yourself a meaningful Roman Catholic and then just put your nose up at what

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Rome has defined dogmatically and just go, you know,

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I'm just not into that stuff. I remember when John Paul II spoke against the idea of cafeteria -style

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Catholics. And he was right. There are an awful lot of those folks out there.

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And Peter D. Williams is not a cafeteria -style Catholic. So it's going to be great.

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But again, prayers appreciated for the trip over. I'll probably at least be in good health for that because normally if you get something on the flight, it takes a couple of days before it hits you.

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But then I go straight from London the next morning to Berlin.

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And then from Berlin to Wittenberg. And then I'm in Wittenberg for a few days.

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I only speak once, but I'll sort of be hanging out with folks and sitting around and chatting or hiding.

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I don't know, it all depends. And then

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I'm going from Wittenberg to the Czech Republic and going to be speaking in depth on Roman Catholicism.

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I'm doing a lot in Rome right now. And then from the Czech Republic to Ukraine.

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And actually, I hadn't realized this, but when I mentioned to my dear son -in -the -faith,

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Nick, that they didn't really need to have me come to do this, that he could just teach this class because he's heard it so many times before.

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He says, you've never done this in Ukraine before. Now, of course, he's heard all of this on The Dividing Line, I don't know how many times.

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But yeah, I've not done a strict apologetics class there in Ukraine.

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So that'll be interesting. And pray that the electricity stays on.

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It's a lot easier to teach when you have live translation than when you have stop -start translation.

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And if the electricity goes off, as it did that one year, sometimes six hours in a day, you can't do the live translation, where Nick is sitting over in the other room,

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I've got a microphone on, he's listening to me, and he's just translating live.

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You have to stop -start, stop -start, which is much slower and much harder both. Well, I'm not sure who is harder on now that I think about it, because I would think live translation would be the hardest thing on Nick.

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But the first time I met Nick, he was doing eight hours a day live translation of me teaching textual criticism.

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If you can imagine what that's like. Most of those translators at the UN and stuff, they'll do half an hour, 45 minutes, then they switch off to somebody else.

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Eight hours a day, that's just exhausting. Absolutely exhausting.

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So, I'm preparing for next week. And going back over stuff,

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I mean, you know, one of the things I did on... I did an inside ride the day before yesterday,

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I think, and I watched the...

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No, no. Take that back. It was an outside ride, and I listened to the first debate

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I did with Jerry on the Merriam -Dogmas. That was the first great debate on Long Island. And, wow, that was educational.

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And every once in a while, I'd get little flashbacks, little snippets of what things looked like, and where I was sitting, where he was sitting, and where people that I met for the first time that night, who

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I'd get to know much better over the number of years, where they were. And I didn't hear the audience questions.

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I didn't get all the way to the end, now that I think about it. But that's where I first ran into Hamza Abdul -Malik.

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He asked a question during the audience questions in that debate, which was interesting. Anyway, digging through old materials,

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I was once again just struck by the origin of the earliest references.

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When you hear Roman Catholics stating that we should be obeying the biblical commands to hold to the traditions which were delivered to us by word of mouth and by letter, the written and the oral, that sounds so good.

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We've gone over Sola Scriptura a number of times in the program. We did it just a few months ago. Actually, last year at some point.

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Did a fairly lengthy discussion of that. We went through this text. When you hear someone, when you hear a

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Roman Catholic apologist who specifically focuses upon trying to reach

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Protestants and bring them into Roman Catholicism, and like Catholic Answers is doing, the reunification of all

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Christians conference around the time of the celebration of the Reformation. That's their response to that.

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That's their counter -Reformation, Jesuit type thing. I guess we're still having problems.

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Up and down, up and down. You said you just kicked something? You just did something? Oh, okay.

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Someone says, got video but no sound now. It'd be better to have sound and no video, believe me. The video part has always been rather irrelevant, at least right now if I was showing stuff.

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Anyhow, I will press on because we're recording it and this will go up one way or the other. I'm sorry if we have problems.

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Yes, Rich is in the process right now of ordering a new modem. Not going to help much today unless Amazon has a really fast delivery service with installation.

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Yes, here comes the drone. Drops it on Rich in the other room. That's pretty quick.

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That's pretty cool. That would be appropriate with the

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Enterprise behind me. Just beam it in. Anyway, try to get focused here again.

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The Roman Catholic will say that we have this tradition. I was listening to Jerry saying, well, there's this tradition, there's this tradition.

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And I kept going, Jerry, can you trace this tradition to the apostles? Is it found in the 1st century?

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Is it found in the 2nd century? Is it found in the 3rd century? Where did it come from? You don't get really good answers, especially when you start talking about the dogmas that have been defined most recently.

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Because the farther we've gone, the farther we've gone from anything that can even be slightly considered to have a biblical basis, have anything to do with the apostles themselves.

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Let me give you an illustration. Because when it comes to the early church, unfortunately, what happens is vast majority

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Roman Catholics and vast majority of Protestants don't read anything in the early church.

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And even if there is any reading, it's normally in fairly orthodox materials, reading the

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Apostolic Fathers, reading from Ignatius or Clement or something like that, reading a little Tertullian, a little

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Irenaeus. A lot of folks have at least tried to read some

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Augustine, maybe some Athanasius, a little Ambrose, something like that.

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But in the vast majority of conversations, you'll have Roman Catholics that'll say something along the lines of, well, the fathers taught this.

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And most of us just immediately go, I don't know anything about these people.

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And as a result, the defense that Rome offers seems somewhat esoteric to us, and we struggle to really engage it.

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If you want to read sort of a mainstream, not really trying to take a bunch of sides,

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I wouldn't necessarily agree with everything he says, but solid documentation and stuff like that, there's a book called

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Early Christian Doctrines by J. N. D. Kelly. And it's a good overview.

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Like I said, a little issue here, a little issue there. I'd say, well, I'm not sure about that.

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But let me read you what he says. Marry in the Antonicene period.

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Now, again, when you hear someone say the Antonicene period, what are we talking about there?

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Well, the Council of Nicaea, 325 AD, tattoo that one on your brain because it's really important.

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It was a dividing line. It was a watershed for many reasons, many, many reasons.

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But generally you will hear people speaking of the Antonicene period before Nicaea, and then you have the

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Nicene and post -Nicene period. And so marry in the Antonicene period, this would be developments up to the time of the

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Council of Nicaea in 325. So 325 is the early 4th century. Some people struggle with that terminology, but that's the early 4th century.

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Here's what J. N. D. Kelly says. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin developed more slowly, being overshadowed by the enthusiastic cult of the martyrs for the first three centuries at any rate.

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It also took rather different forms, thus reliable evidence of prayers being addressed to her or of her protection and help being sought is almost though not entirely non -existent in the first four centuries.

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On the other hand, her role in the working out of God's redemptive plan was relatively early recognized.

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The affirmation embedded in Scripture and primitive tradition that Jesus had been born of the Virgin Mary was the inevitable starting point, but as time went on, not only were the obvious references in the

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Gospels called in aid, but a host of other passages in the Old and New Testaments were interpreted as pointing to her unique experience and role.

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The first Orthodox shrier to give her theological prominence was Ignatius of Antioch, while the other apostolic fathers made no mention of her.

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He was emphatic that Jesus had by God's design been carried in Mary's womb, stressed the reality of her childbearing, and made the cryptic remark that both it and her virginity, like the

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Savior's death, had escaped the notice of the prince of this world, these being three mysteries of loud proclamation which were accomplished in God's silence.

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His primary concern was to safeguard the actuality of the Incarnation against the

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Docetists, and that is exactly what that was about. The Docetists, let me just stop for a moment, the

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Greek term dokhein means it seems, and so the Docetists were those who said that Jesus only seemed to have a physical body, he didn't actually have a physical body, so they would tell the story of the disciple walking with Jesus by the seashore, the disciple looks back and there's only one set of footprints, and it's not because of the corny thing you buy at the

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Christian bookstore that says that Jesus picked you up and carried you. It's because Jesus doesn't leave footprints in the sand because he only dokhein seemed to have a physical body.

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He did not have a physical body. So they were the Docetists. So his primary concern was to safeguard the actuality of the

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Incarnation against the Docetists, but he was already linking the Virgin and her miraculous conception with God's redemptive purpose.

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Well, okay, whether it was his intention, you know, when you're looking backwards at something that has developed so far as the

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Marian doctrines have today, it's sort of like looking at the

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Council of Nicaea, recognizing what was going to happen a thousand years later and going, ah, see, there's the first bit of sacralism, there's the first bit of state church.

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But at the time, could anyone have even begun to see that that was what it was going to develop into eventually?

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Probably not at that particular point in time. It certainly wasn't their intention. Was it Ignatius' intention?

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It couldn't have been. But it's just a first step, and at this point it would not be an unbiblical step.

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His point is the role of Mary was ordained by God.

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She was a true human being. It was a true birth, etc., etc., which is interesting in light of the first doctrine we're going to look at here.

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I go on. Now, he's identifying this as tertiary, as at the fringes.

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Thus, in the ascension of Isaiah, now, make note of these. Sometimes I see people's eyes starting to glaze over when you start mentioning apocryphal books like the

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Ascension of Isaiah, the Protevangelium of James, the Odes of Solomon, and everybody's like, I'm going to tune over to something more interesting to listen to.

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You know, I haven't heard much about the Comey affair. Let's go listen to about 14 more hours of that.

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No, write these down. Thus, in the ascension of Isaiah, we find the earliest affirmation of the belief that she was a virgin not only in conceiving

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Jesus, but also in bearing him, virginity in part two. Quote, her womb was found as it was before she became pregnant.

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Now, you may want to make a decision as to whether you want your children in the room, but there's no way to address this subject without addressing this subject.

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What Rome teaches in the perpetual virginity of Mary is not just that she was a virgin in conceiving

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Jesus, but that she remained a virgin in the birth of Jesus and that then she never bore any other children.

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So she was a virgin her entire life. Now, many people hearing that don't get what's actually being said.

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Let me illustrate it for you. Well, yeah, that's the real tough one.

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Okay, here's another work. Well, here's the

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Ascension of Isaiah. So he just mentioned it. Let me read it for you. Let me read you specifically. But the angel of the

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Spirit appeared in this world and after this Joseph did not divorce Mary, but he did not reveal this matter to anyone and he did not approach

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Mary, but kept her as a holy virgin, although she was pregnant. And he did not live with her for two months.

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And after two months of days, while Joseph was in his house and Mary, his wife, but both alone, it came about when they were alone that Mary then looked with her eyes and saw a small infant and she was astounded.

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And after her astonishment had worn off, her womb was found as it was at first before she had conceived.

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And when her husband Joseph said to her, what has made you astounded? His eyes were opened and he saw the infant and praised the

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Lord because the Lord had come in his lot. And a voice came to them, do not tell this vision to anyone.

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But the story about the infant was spread abroad in Bethlehem. Some said the Virgin Mary has given birth before she has been married two months.

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But many said she did not give birth. The midwife did not go up to her and we did not hear any cries of pain.

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And they were all blinded concerning him. They all knew about him, but they did not know from where he was.

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And they took him and went to Nazareth in Galilee. So they're just in the house one day.

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And, you know, I should have grabbed this because this is the appropriate sound effect.

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I should have grabbed the... Yeah, yeah, the transport beam sound effect from the original

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Star Trek. Because that's how Jesus is born.

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He beams out of Mary. That's just, that's the only way to, that's the only way to put it, just...

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And there he is. No birth pangs, no pain.

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Just, poof, there he is. So there you have the ascension of Isaiah.

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Let me finish reading Kelly and then I'll give you the same story. Well, okay,

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I'm sorry, I'm jumping around. The point is, what's being said, is that when a baby is born, it is impossible for, impossible physically, for certain structures in the female body to remain intact.

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And what Rome is saying is, doesn't matter. Somehow Jesus was born and Mary remained physically a virgin.

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Now, to say there's nothing even hinted at this in scripture is obviously to state the obvious.

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To obviously state the obvious. In fact,

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I would argue that this belief is utterly disruptive of fundamental biblical teaching about the true humanity of Jesus Christ.

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If he was a true man, he was born as a true man. A true human nature requires a true physical body.

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Physical bodies do not beam into existence. Okay? And so, for the atonement to take place, for Isaiah chapter 9 to be true, a child is born to us.

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That term, to be born, has meaning. He was a real child. He was really born.

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There was blood. There was pain. That's how children are born into this world.

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And there is absolutely, positively nothing in scripture. I know some people go to, well, isn't there something in Isaiah later on about how quickly the birth took place?

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To even start to try to make those connections is to immediately demonstrate that you don't care about context.

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You don't care about what would have been communicated by the words of scripture. There's something else going on here, and that something else is the ultimate authority of the modern

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Roman Catholic Church, is what it is. But where did even Rome get this? Well, we're seeing. We read, just saw the ascension of Isaiah.

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And Jesus, wah. I'll just go ahead and read it.

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Well, I'll continue with Kelly, then I'll read it, because he's going to mention it here in a second. Thus, in the ascension of Isaiah, we find the earliest affirmation of the belief that she was a virgin, not only in conceiving

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Jesus, but also in bearing him, virginity in part two. Her womb was found as it was before she became pregnant. Just read that.

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The same idea of supernatural birth involving no physical travail recurs in the odes of Solomon.

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But the work which most richly embroidered the gospel narratives and was destined to exert a tremendous influence on later

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Mariology was the Prodevangelium of James. Written for Mary's glorification, this described her divinely ordered birth when her parents,

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Joachim and Anna, were advanced in years, her miraculous infancy and childhood, and her dedication to the temple, where her parents had prayed that God would give her a name renowned forever among all generations.

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It made the point that when she was engaged to Joseph, he was already an elderly widower with sons of his own, and it accumulated evidence both that she had conceived

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Jesus without sexual intercourse and that her physical nature had remained intact when she bore him.

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These ideas were far from immediately accepted in the church at large. Irenaeus, it is true, held that Mary's childbearing was exempt from physical travail, as did

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Clement of Alexandria, appealing to the Prodevangelium of James. Tertullian, however, repudiated the suggestion, finding the opening of her womb prophesied in Exodus 13 -2, and Origen followed him and argued that she had needed the purification prescribed by the law.

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On the other hand, while Tertullian assumed that she had had normal conjugal relations with Joseph after Jesus' birth, the brethren of the

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Lord being his true brothers, Origen maintained that she had remained a virgin for the rest of her life, virginity postpartum, and that Jesus' so -called brothers were sons of Joseph's, but not by her.

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Indeed, from her lifelong virginity, he concluded that she was the firstfruits and model of chastity for women, just as Jesus himself was for men.

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In contrast to the later belief in her moral and spiritual perfection, none of these theologians had the least scruple about attributing faults to her.

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Irenaeus and Tertullian recalled occasions on which, as they read the gospel stories, she had earned her son's rebuke, and Origen insisted that, like all human beings, she needed redemption from her sins.

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In particular, he interpreted Simeon's prophecy that a sword would pierce her soul as confirming that she had been invaded with doubts when she saw her son crucified.

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The real contribution of these early centuries, however, was more positively theological and consistent in representing Mary as the antithesis of Eve and drawing out the implications of this.

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Justin was the pioneer, although the way he introduced the theme suggests that he was not innovating. Both Eve and Mary, he pointed out, were virgins, but whereas the one contravened

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God's command and as a result brought forth disobedience and death, the other responded meekly to the archangel Gabriel and so made the birth of Redeemer possible.

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Tertullian and Irenaeus were quick to develop these ideas. The latter, in particular, argued that Eve, while still a virgin, had proved disobedient and so became the cause of death both for herself and for all mankind, but Mary, also a virgin, obeyed and became the cause of salvation both for herself and for all mankind.

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Thus, as the human race was bound fast to death through a virgin, so through a virgin it was saved. Irenaeus further hinted both at her universal motherhood and at her cooperation in Christ's saving work, describing her womb as that pure womb which regenerates men to God.

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So there's the early period. And I go back specifically to this idea of now, remember, nothing here about the last

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Marian dogma. Well, the last two Marian dogmas. There's one that's not a dogma yet, it's a doctrine, the queenly coronation, co -redemptrix, co -mediatrix, but certainly bodily assumption, 1950.

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Kelly doesn't even mention it because no one mentioned it. There is absolutely, positively nothing before Nicaea and for hundreds of years after Nicaea to even talk about.

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There's nothing to say. There you go. But, you have the reference to the protevangelium of James and you have the odes of Solomon that were mentioned by J.

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N. D. Kelly. Well, I posted yesterday on the on Facebook.

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I posted the section from the odes of Solomon. One of the reasons

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I did so is that I also listened to the debate that I did with Jerry Matitix, University of Utah.

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And Jerry had challenged me on my identification of the odes of Solomon as being tinged with Gnosticism.

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So, I was getting my quotations put together so it would be easy for me to find. That is, if I'm allowed to take my computer with me.

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You heard the news? Um, they may and hopefully there will be a word today.

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You may not be able to have a laptop or an iPad with you on the plane coming from Europe to the

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United States anymore. Put it in your luggage. Yeah.

36:58

Yeah. Right. So much for traveling overseas.

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Evidently they have some evidence of terrorists turning laptops into bombs. So, I guess

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I guess what will eventually happen I mean, I haven't heard anybody saying this, but I guess what will eventually happen is you you have to get there four hours early and have a special line where you take your laptop through and show them that it can run various programs.

37:32

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I can't imagine that they've been able to actually keep it functional and do the same thing.

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I mean, you look at my MacBook Pro. I mean, it's yay thick. I don't know.

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I don't know. But I saw it on MacRumors yesterday and I heard it on the radio today and there's supposed to be something today and it's just like I can't even

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I can't even imagine putting that computer in my checked bag because I've watched my checked bag put on the plane many times.

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You know, like, yeah, that's gonna be great for the screen. Anyway.

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Well, you know, they've been doing this from certain countries now for a few months and those countries have stopped having flights to the

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United States. It could have a huge impact on air travel and ability to travel around the world.

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I tell you, it's horrible. But anyways, how did I get on to that?

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I was saying something about Oh, Ode to Solomon here. I was putting my notes together so that I would have them all accessible to me if I can bring my computer with me.

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It's not going to be difficult to bring it with me going over. It's coming back that could end up being problematic. But here is the section for the

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Ode to Solomon. Remember, Gerry Matitix challenged me that there's really nothing that would indicate that there's any influence of Gnosticism on the

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Ode to Solomon. So I posted this on Facebook yesterday. Ode 19 from the

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Ode to Solomon. I don't write the folk stuff. I just read it.

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A cup of milk was offered to me and I drank it in the sweetness of the Lord's kindness. The son is the cup and the father is he who was milked.

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And the Holy Spirit is she who milked him. Because his breasts were full and it was undesirable that his milk should be ineffectually released.

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The Holy Spirit opened her bosom. That's the Holy Spirit's bosom. And mixed the milk of the two breasts of the father.

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Nothing Gnostic about this. Then she gave the mixture to the generation without their knowing and those who have received it are in the perfection of the right hand.

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The womb of the virgin took it and she received conception and gave birth. So the virgin became a mother with great mercies and she labored and bore the son but without pain because it did not occur without purpose.

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And she did not require a midwife because he caused her to give life. She brought forth like a strong man with desire and she bore according to the manifestation and she acquired according to the great power.

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Nothing Gnostic about this. And she loved with redemption and guarded with kindness and declared with grandeur.

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Hallelujah. So there you have the ascension of Isaiah and you have the odes of Solomon and there is only one other and that is the protevangelium of James.

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Now I read you the protevangelium of James a few months ago and I warned you then and I'll warn you again.

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This gets a little specific. I mean not the language not so much but the description.

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But remember Clement of Alexandria cites this in his stromata as a source of his teaching.

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This is where the tradition comes from. When you hear Roman Catholic apologizing, well this is tradition.

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Well where did this tradition come from? Well, it came from the protevangelium of James, the ascension of Isaiah and the odes of Solomon.

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And look, the Roman Catholic argument is this. Well, yeah, okay, there's some odd stuff.

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It sounds a little weird. You know, I've never heard, not once I do not claim to have exhaustively listened to every episode of Catholic Answers Live.

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But I've never heard these folks actually reading the context of these statements.

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Oh, they'll make reference to them. But for some strange reason, they actually read the whole thing.

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And there might be a reason. You know, that last one. Well, this one's worse, okay?

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Alright, so, I've given you a warning, parents. You might want to listen to it first.

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So, in the protevangelium of James, I started jumping in. Joseph has run into a midwife.

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And the midwife said to him, Is this true? And Joseph said to her, Come and see. And the midwife went away with him. And they stood in the place of the cave, and behold, a luminous cloud overshadowed the cave.

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And the midwife said, My soul has been magnified this day, because mine eyes have seen strange things, because salvation has been brought forth to Israel.

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And immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave, and a great light shone in the cave, so that the eyes could not bear it.

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And in a little, that light gradually decreased until the infant appeared, and went and took the breast from his mother

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Mary. Again, would there be, would I really be wrong to have the enterprise sound in the background here?

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Because, and immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave, and a great light shone in the cave, so that the eyes could not bear it.

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And in a little, that light gradually decreased until the infant appeared. So, the light goes down and down, then there is the infant.

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And he went and took the breast from his mother Mary. And the midwife cried out and said, This is a great day to me, because I have seen this strange sight.

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And the midwife went forth out of the cave, and Salome met her. And she said to her, Salome, Salome, I have,

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I have a strange sight to relate to thee. A virgin is brought forth, a thing which her nature admits not of.

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Then said Salome, Is the Lord my God liveth, unless I thrust in my finger and search the parts, told you,

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I will not believe that a virgin is brought forth. And the midwife went in and said to Mary, Show thyself, for no small controversy has arisen about thee.

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And Salome put in her finger and cried out and said, Woe is me for mine iniquity and mine unbelief, because I have tempted the living

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God, and behold, my hand is dropping off as if burned with fire.

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And she bent her knees before the Lord, saying, O God of my fathers, remember that I am the seed of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

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Do not make a show of me to the sons of Israel, but restore me to the poor, for thou knowest, O Lord, that in thy name

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I have performed my services, and I have received my reward at thy hand. And behold, an angel of the

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Lord stood by her, saying to her, Salome, Salome, the Lord hath heard thee. Put thy hand on the infant and carry it, and thou wilt have safety and joy.

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And Salome went and carried it, saying, I will worship him, because a great king has been born to Israel. And behold, Salome was immediately cured, and she went forth out of the cave justified.

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And behold, a voice saying, Salome, Salome, tell not the strange things that thou hast seen until the child has come to Jerusalem.

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So, Protevangelium of James, Odes of Solomon, Ascension of Isaiah.

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Here's where you have the first references to the beliefs that become foundational.

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Because if you've studied the Marian dogmas, then you recognize that historically there has been this development over time.

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And to the semi unbiased observer, it is painfully obvious that so much of the early development was connected to the rise of an unbiblical, anti -scriptural monasticism.

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An unbiblical view of marriage, an unbiblical view of sexuality, all you've got to do is read the writings of these, coming out of Egypt primarily, ends up everywhere, but comes out of Egypt primarily, initially, these individuals who have absolutely unbiblical views of men and women, absolutely unbiblical views of marriage, it leads to the medieval idea that the religious life, a life of celibacy, is a higher life than a married life.

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The discipline of the celibate clergy, which of course became a joke during that time period as well, but Mary ends up being elevated to a position of a model, a role model, and this is why.

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What they do is they take from Gnosticism, Docetism, a dualistic worldview.

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This idea that Jesus' birth was a beaming into the world.

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The reason that the Docetists did that was because Jesus doesn't have a real physical body, so he just beams in.

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You don't have to have a real physical body. That would be something that would be against his nature in Gnosticism because the physical is what we're trapped in.

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The physical is what we want to get out of. Salvation is getting out of this physical body. So you take that and then you bring in this idea of the blessedness of virginity and not being married and not engaging in sexual activity with a husband or a wife and bringing forth children, etc.

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You get this ungodly synthesis that becomes foundational, but even at this point, nothing was said by Kelly about the

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Ananiasim period, about the two dogmas that end up becoming the key of the past two centuries in Marian development.

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Immaculate conception, the idea that Mary is conceived without the stain of original sin by a preemptive application of the merits of Christ.

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Oh, early on, you get Mary sinless in the sense of not committing sin, even though there were numerous people the first four centuries

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Oh yeah, sure, Mary committed minor sins. You know, she needed to be redeemed.

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But then very quickly, no, she didn't commit any sins in her life, but it took forever.

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Forever in the sense of a thousand years, more than a thousand years. A British monk named Edmer comes up with the idea that she was actually conceived without original sin.

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The list of early church, of all, anybody can even be conceived of being called early church had no, never taught it, taught against it.

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Same with the bodily assumption, Mary, never taught it and didn't teach against it because it's like saying, well, you know, I've never found anything in the early church where they taught against space aliens from Venus, so it must be true.

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There's just as much discussion of space aliens from Venus in the early church as there is the bodily assumption because it's just no one had even thought about it.

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The idea of saying that's an apostolic tradition empties the term apostolic tradition of all meaning.

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Once a Roman Catholic uses the term apostolic tradition for that, what they mean is whatever

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Rome tells you to believe is apostolic tradition. Has nothing to do with the apostles. Has nothing to do with history.

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Has nothing to do with the Bible. It's just believe what we say. That's it.

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Total authoritarianism at that point. When we look at this early period, you see the forces that are involved in the development of these doctrines.

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All of this goes back to once again absolutely demonstrating why you must have for a church to remain the church, you must have an objective, unchanging revelation from God and that's what sola scriptura protects.

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That's why you have to have sola scriptura. This is sola ecclesia gone to seed.

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This is what happens when you have the church in dialogue with itself.

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You have a church that's proclaimed itself to be infallible and therefore it can infallibly interpret determine what scripture is and interpret it.

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Determine what tradition is and interpret it. Because see, if you didn't have that claim then

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Rome could say well, Rome would have a hard time coming up with these types of beliefs because we could just keep pointing to all these things in history and saying tradition says this, tradition says that.

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But once Rome can say oh, we get to determine what tradition is and what it actually says, now all the brakes are off.

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You've got a runaway train here. That's what

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Rome has done is you read the statements where the emaculate conception, bodily assumption are defined.

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Oh, the theologians have explained and we've got this and that and the early and they'll even make reference to early fathers and anybody who knows church history is sitting there going, really?

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Honestly? What about this guy? What about that guy? What about the fact that you're making this up from whole cloth when you're talking history here?

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And that's why there are so many Roman Catholic historians. They don't believe any of this stuff. They live in this, well, it's called cognitive dissonance.

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Yes, I believe in the one holy apostolic church. Don't believe much of what it teaches but I believe.

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Really? That's no. When you and folks, keep this in mind.

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If you watch me during a debate and I don't think Peer D. Williams, because I know he's watching.

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If he's not watching live, he's gonna. Smart guy. He's just the opposite of people like Peter Stravinskis.

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You know, that never read a word that I said. He's smart enough to realize, I need to listen to what the other side is saying.

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Good man, that's what makes for good debates, so I'm looking forward to it. I don't expect Peter to do the

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Newman thing. To go deep into history is to cease to be

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Protestant. If watch me in a debate with somebody else who would use that line and you will see just how far

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I can roll my eyes. And I won't even try to hide it. Because I'm sorry but that's just simply ridiculous.

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And of course Newman himself was rather skewered by his own words in regards to his opposition to the definition of the infallibility of the

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Pope. And then once it was defined, his having to do a 180 without ever explaining how history had changed.

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Because history didn't change. And he knew that that definition was an ahistorical definition.

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Just as these dogmas are ahistorical as well. So when you hear someone and I'm saying to everybody in the audience, when you hear someone saying, if you just read the early church fathers, every time

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I hear that from someone who turns around and says something about the bodily assumption of Mary, I'm going, yeah, and so just how much reading of the early church fathers have you been doing recently?

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And was it just simply on a website run by Catholic Answers? Or somebody else even worse than Catholic Answers?

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And believe me, believe me, there are a lot worse sites. I know they've got their problems, but wow, there are some...

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I won't mention names because they just thrive on even being mentioned. But there are some internet

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Catholic apologists that just rival some of the best of the

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INC. And the Black Hebrew Israelites. That's just right there on that same high level.

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Anyway, so you might say, wow,

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I didn't expect to be read to from the ProDevangelium of James today.

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Well, again, sorry, but that's where it comes from. And when you're aware of that, then you can sit back and you can see this massive edifice of theology that's been built up in Rome and go, that's why we need

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Sola Scriptura, and that's why we needed the Reformation. Right there. You want to see it? Look at it.

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You want to see the encrustation of the Gospel?

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Masses and priests who are in Altar Christus and indulgences and the treasury of...

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Where does it come from? Why do we need the Reformation? Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura.

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Need to have it. Need to have it. That's what we celebrate. So, there you go. Your prayers for the upcoming trip, extremely desired on my part.

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I hope this information's been useful to you, and I hope once the debate is posted, you will be blessed by it and encouraged to be out there presenting the

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Gospel to those who need to hear the Gospel of Grace. We appreciate you watching and your support, and there will be dividing lines coming up.

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Just won't be me. Don't know who exactly it'll be, but we'll see. We'll see you next time. God bless.