Summary The chart above summarizes what we’ve found throughout this series. First, the ancient liturgy… Dismissal Eucharist Oblation Epiclesis Lord’s Supper …is strongly attested to. Sixteen out of seventeen writers that we examined in the first 300 years affirmatively assert an ancient, non-Roman liturgy. They don’t always discuss all aspects …

Catechism of the Catholic Church One of the big problems with Roman Catholics is that they are often mistaken about what their own church teaches. Though the Magisterium and the infallible pope are supposed to provide all of the correct beliefs, Roman Catholics are largely left to their personal efforts …

Didascalia Apostolorum What is the Didascalia Apostolorum? Let’s let the Catholic Encyclopedia explain: The Didascalia Apostolorum is a heretical forgery of questionable reliability. The document is not completely useless for our purposes, but it’s not particularly helpful either. There are, however, a few areas of interest. The offering described is …

Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430) Augustine became a Roman Catholic Christian in 386, so he is unique in this series in that he was of-a-sorts fully Roman Catholic. And yet he is known for holding a lot of Protestant positions. It will be interesting to discover his views on …

Irenaeus After I posted Part 6: Irenaeus of Lyons, Timothy Kauffman posted a fantastic Twitter thread here that does a great job summarizing the issues. I’ve imported the thread in its entirety here, while adding links, explicit citations and references, and other markup. I’ve also added some of my own commentary at the end. …

First Council of Nicaea Throughout this series I’ve mentioned off and on that the early church banned kneeling. Besides the Council of Nicaea, we have a few other ancient references that make the same attestation: But Roman Catholics are required to kneel, in direct violation with the apostolic teaching. Kneeling …

Hilary of Poitiers (310-367) Let’s start immediately with the quotation that FishEaters provides: Hilary is writing about the Trinity and how the elements of the Last Supper pertain to it. It is a bit vague from this clipped paragraph precisely what is being discussed. Let’s back it up a paragraph: …

Macarius the Elder In Macarius the Elder (390) we see the pattern of doctrinal change that started with Cyril in 350, continued with Serapion in 353, Apostolic Constitutions in 375-380, and Ambrose in 389, and in which Chrysostom would write in c.400: that bread and wine, symbolically representing the body …

Apologetics Perhaps the most famous quote by any Roman Catholic apologist is the one stated by Cardinal John Henry Newman: There is a general view among Roman Catholics that all evidence points to Roman Catholicism. Their church teaches them that their church has an unbroken “apostolic succession” that goes back all …

Ambrose of Milan While we have seen a number of writers altering the ancient liturgy—Cyril in 350, Serapion in 353, Apostolic Constitutions in 375, Chrysostom in 400—it is Ambrose writing in 389 that is most blatant in embracing the doctrinal innovations of the newly risen Roman Catholic Church. Ambrose joins …