Ancient Christian Witness

The verse was known by Saint Cyprian around the year 250 A.D.


KJV
1 John 5:7-9
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.""


The Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume V paper back





On page 423 it says:


Quote:

"The Lord warns, saying, "He who is not with me scattereth." He who breaks the
peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who
gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. The Lord
says, "I and the Father are one;" and again it is written of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," And these three are one." And does any one believe that this unity which thus comes from the divine strength and coheres in
celestial sacraments, can be divided in the Church, and can be separated by the
parting asunder of opposing wills? He who does not hold unity does not hold
God's law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life
and salvation." [1]

[1] "Treatises of Cyprian" page 423 in the book "The Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 5: edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts, Sir James Donaldson & Arthur Cleveland Coxe





In Schaff's:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.v.i.html

QUOTE:

"6. The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous; she is uncorrupted and pure. She
knows one home; she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one couch. She
keeps us for God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom.
Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is
separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of
Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is
an enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for
his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he
also may escape who shall be outside of the Church. The Lord warns, saying, “He
who is not with me is against me, and he who gathereth not with me scattereth.
He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to
Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of
Christ. The Lord says, “I and the Father are one;”
and again it is written
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, “And these three are
one.”And does any one believe that this unity which thus comes from the divine
strength and coheres in celestial sacraments, can be divided in the Church, and
can be separated by the parting asunder of opposing wills? He who does not hold
this unity does not hold God’s law, does not hold the faith of the Father and
the Son, does not hold life and salvation.

7. This sacrament of unity,
this bond of a concord inseparably cohering, is set forth where in the Gospel
the coat of the Lord Jesus Christ is not at all divided nor cut, but is received
as an entire garment, and is possessed as an uninjured and undivided robe by
those who cast lots concerning Christ’s garment, who should rather put on
Christ."

JNORM888

I know, I'm a month late.















Jnorm888

Something cool for bloggers!

The Link:
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This is the new project that the Department of Missions and Evangelism within the AOA recently started.




The Link:
http://www.gettoknowtheoriginal.net/













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I tried not to blog about the current situation facing AOCANA. But here is a link to the mp3's of this years conference:

The Link:
http://ancientfaith.com/specials/antiochian_orthodox_archdiocese_convention_2009













Jnorm888

The link:
http://wesleyanarminian.blogspot.com/2009/07/essay-about-calvinism-by-roger-olson.html










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Link:
Chapter III: Calvin











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This is from the podcast Hearts and Minds by Fr. John

As seen from the website:
"Fr. John illustrates how lowliness and self-condemnation should be our goal, rather than pride and self-esteem."


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An artist posted a song for Calvin's birthday.....however the song is called Apostate Arminian, and here.

The poster is Anonymous, so my question is this, .....why stay anonymous? Also....where was this person when I invited the Arminians to HCR?

What I find funny is that when I invited my Arminian friends over to defend Arminianism, the Calvinists had nothing to say. It seems like they only wanna say something when no one is looking......or when the Arminians are not around to defend themselves.


The song misinterprets and misrepresents the arminian perspective........so if you are going to attack something.........at least get what you are attacking right. If not, then put the M.I.C. down.

Also, if you are going to write a song against something........at least do it with "tact". As an Orthodox Christian, I have to be "tactful" at all times on a mostly calvinistic protestant christian rap website. For anything and everything I say can be seen as being offensive..........so having "people skills" is a must.






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This was taken from the Ancient Faith Presents podcast by Bobby Maddex


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Saint Mary of Egypt Orthodox Church has pictures of the event in their picture gallery:
















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The audio link is from AncientFaith Radio:


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He says the Talmud in a few places calls the book of "Sirach" scripture. He also mentions that the D.C.'s were circulated among the Pharisees........as seen below from the website:

QUOTE:
"All these indications of the continued circulation of many Jewish apocryphal writings among rabbis strongly implies that this apocryphal literature also circulated among pre-70 C.E. Pharisees since it is commonly agreed that the rabbis were the successors of the Pharisees. Since the rabbis had this apocryphal literature, in all probability they received it from the Pharisees. If not from the Pharisees, then from whom? Thus, we are able to expand the Jewish groups known to have had and circulated the apocryphal literature: Pharisees, the Qumran sect (Essenes?), and Christians. We have no information from other groups and unaligned Jews. However, it is clear that this wider circulation including Pharisees is the storehouse from which early Christianity received its scriptures from Judaism, including the apocryphal books."



I disagree with him saying that we got our scripture from nonbelieving Pharisees.......such a thing is unnecessary when the Apostles carried their own scriptures.........so we got it from them. But if he means "early christianity" as in Jesus and the Apostles using the same scriptures as the pharisees........then he may have a point.

Below is the surrounding context of the quote above.

The link:
http://department.monm.edu/classics/Speel_Festschrift/sundbergJr.htm


QUOTE:
"In the Old Testament of the Early Church I over enthusiastically identified the larger source of apocryphal literature as that which circulated freely throughout first century Judaism (Sundberg 1964:82, 103 and 129). This clearly overlooked the restricted canonical usage of Samaritans, who regarded only the Law as canonical.32 Similarly, the Sadducees probably should be excluded from that wider use of apocryphal literature as well.33 Contrary to previous beliefs, however, it is possible to argue that the Pharisees probably participated in the circulation of the wider apocryphal literature of first century B.C.E./ first century C.E. Judaism. Pfeiffer was adamant that the "official Judaism" of the first century B.C.E. and C.E. had nothing to do with the Jewish apocryphal literature prior to the closing of the canon at Jamnia. "All these tendencies toward giving canonical standing to Jewish writings outside the Scriptures," Pfeiffer (1941:66) says, "were contemptuously ignored by the Jewish authorities, and never affected normative Judaism in the least.34 He says, "no true Jew ever entertained the slightest doubt concerning the exact bounds of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (Pfeiffer 1941:66). As we will see, Pfeiffers stance appears to be overstated. In what follows we are not concerned with canonicity, merely possession.

There are evidences of a continued use of this apocryphal literature in rabbinic literature of later times. Sirach is quoted three times in the Talmud as scripture. It is twice quoted with the introductory formula, "for so it is written in the Book of Ben Sira."35 Ben Sira is also sometimes quoted as "Writings" when the rabbis were proof-texting, e.g., "This matter is written in the Pentateuch as written. . . , repeated in the Prophets, as written. . . , mentioned a third time in the Hagiographa, as written, (here Sirach 12.15 is quoted), it was learned in the Mishnah, . . . ."36 Pfeiffer (1941:66) tells us that the Hebrew text of Sirach was still being copied as late as the twelfth century C.E. It is cited by name in Sanhedrin 100b (= Yeb. 63c), which quotes several verses. According to L. Israel (1905:390) single verses appear in: Yer. Ber. 11b; Yer. Hag. 77c; Yer. Ta'an. 66d; Hag. 13a; Niddah 16b; Gen. R. 8, 10, 73; Lev. R. 33; Tan. Wayishlah 8; Tan., Mikkez. 10; Tan. Hukkat. 1; etc.

Origen knew a Hebrew name for the books of Maccabees, "Sar beth Sabnai el."37 Jerome obtained Hebrew texts of Sirach, I Maccabees, Tobit and Judith in Aramaic ("Chaldee"), presumably from Jews, which he, with the help of a hired expert in Aramaic and Hebrew, translated into Latin.38 Marx (1921) noticed that Moses ben Nahaman (Nachmanides, ca. 1194 -1270 C.E.) knew and used an Aramaic (!) text of Wisdom, citing 7.5-8, 17-21 in the introduction and 1.7, 8, 11 on Deut. 20.14 in his Commentary on the Pentateuch; he also noted some acquaintance with the story of Bel and the Dragon and Judith by Jews in Spain in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

In a lecture dealing with Ecclesiastes delivered in Gerona in 1266 or 67, Nachmanides said of Wisdom,

We find another book called The Great Wisdom of Solomon which is written in difficult Aramaic and the Christians have translated it from that language. I believe that this book was not arranged by the Men of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, but that it went with the Jews to Babylon orally and there they fixed it in their language, for it only contains sayings of wisdom and has not been written by inspiration. (Marx 1921:60)

Nachmanides statement, therefore, suggests that Wisdom circulated in Judaism at least until the thirteenth century C.E. Jerome knew Jubilees in Hebrew.39

All these indications of the continued circulation of many Jewish apocryphal writings among rabbis strongly implies that this apocryphal literature also circulated among pre-70 C.E. Pharisees since it is commonly agreed that the rabbis were the successors of the Pharisees. Since the rabbis had this apocryphal literature, in all probability they received it from the Pharisees. If not from the Pharisees, then from whom? Thus, we are able to expand the Jewish groups known to have had and circulated the apocryphal literature: Pharisees, the Qumran sect (Essenes?), and Christians. We have no information from other groups and unaligned Jews. However, it is clear that this wider circulation including Pharisees is the storehouse from which early Christianity received its scriptures from Judaism, including the apocryphal books.

An important aspect of the apocryphal literature at Qumran is that some items are cited in the sectarian writings in ways that are indistinguishable from the ways in which canonical writings (Law and Prophets) are cited. B. J. Roberts (1953/54:84), noting abundant quotations from the apocryphal writings in the sectarian writings of Qumran, observed, "we can visualize the Biblical literature of the New Covenanters as covering a far wider range then either the Hebrew or the Alexandrian canon. And J. Carmignac (1956:234-260 and 375-390), studying quotations and allusions in the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, concluded that one cannot differentiate between the use of the books of the Hebrew canon and the extra-canonical writings in this work. After reviewing the "Zadokite Work" (fragments found at Qumran, the Damascus Document), H. L. Ginzberg (1956:47) has remarked""











Jnorm888

The Link:
http://www.antiochian.org/node/19946

"It is with great joy that His Eminence Metropolitan PHILIP announces the establishment of the Convent of St. Thekla at the Antiochian Village. The Acting Superior of the convent will be Mother Alexandra (Magan), and we welcome her with joy to the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America.

Mother Alexandra will take up residency at the Antiochian Village during the first week of July, and will live in temporary housing until such time as the residence building is constructed on the proposed site for the convent, which is on the main property at the Antiochian Village. This will allow her to experience a good part of the camping season, and to interact with our children.

She also has plans to attend the Archdiocese Convention in late July, and to have a presence at the St. Thekla Pilgrimage which will be held at the Antiochian Village in September."

To read the rest, please visit the Link.





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The Links:
Three Strange Days

He's Got Issues








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The link:
http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/

and

http://www.christianarabic.org/








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This is from Tony's blog "A Catechumen's tale" from the post A Generous Heresy.

QUOTE:
When I first saw the cover of Brian McLaren's book A Generous Orthodoxy long long ago, I thought at first - given the title - it was about Eastern Orthodoxy. This was quickly dashed when I saw the front cover declare that McLaren is a "missional, Evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, Charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglical, Methodist, green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, Emergent," and "unfinished" Christian.

What he essentially means by this is that he believes merits are shared across denominational lines in a kind of inter-Christian universalism. The problem is this: if you go to a buffet and take the cheese of pizza, the macaroni of pasta, and the lettuce of a cheeseburger, and mix them together...are you left with either a pizza, a pasta or a cheeseburger? No - you have something new. Therefore the idea of a "generous orthodoxy" coming from so many different churches is rather contradicting.

The Church Fathers adopted the name "orthodox" because they believed in the faith and tradition taught by the apostles. Is McLaren seeking their advice? Unsurprisingly, no. McLaren's method of figuring out what is "orthodox" seems to be picking what sounds good. Read, for example, his reason for his faith:

to read the rest please visit his post titled "A Generous Heresy"






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As seen from the podcast Speaking the Truth in Love by Fr. Thomas Hopko



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The Link:
http://www.erkohet.com/











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Descriptions

What was the early Church like? Contrary to popular belief, Rod Bennett shows there is a reliable way to know. Four ancient Christian writers—four witnesses to early Christianity —left us an extensive body of documentation on this vital subject, and this book brings their fascinating testimony to life for modern believers. With all the power and drama of a gripping novel, this book is a journey of discovery of ancient and beautiful truths through the lives of four great saints of the early Church—Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus of Lyons.







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The Link:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0624.htm








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