Church History

So I didn't get back the next day to write more about day 3. And to be honest, I'm not going to write about it now either. But it is something "spiritual" if you will.

Ever since we were in Rome, learning about a lot of the history of the Church, I've been dying to know more about the history. I remembered that we had a book on our bookshelf that I should dust off. I haven't read a book in a LONG time. It's just not so possible with children, and honestly, come 8pm, the last thing I want to do is read and think more. I want auto pilot, and tend to just browse the web or tv. But last night, there was nothing on tv, and nothing seemed interesting enough on the internet, not even blogging. (Weird, huh??)

So I picked up the book, and couldn't put it down. In fact, I kept going "Honey, listen to this! Oh, listen to this part too!" as I basically reread everything I read to him. The book is entitled The Catholic Church Through the Ages: A History by John Vidmar, OP. It's great, because it gives you the history, pretty thoroughly, but not too much that you get bogged down and bored. It's also wonderful because now, when they're talking about the Catacombs, or the Circus Maximus, or St. Peter's Square, or about Nero, etc. I know WHERE they're talking about. I've tried to read this book before, and just got a little lost with the places.

But there was one part that blew me away. And I don't mean it as an offense to anyone, but given my past, it seriously did. When Christianity was still in the beginnings, around the year 180, a man named Celsus set out to destroy Christianity, asking questions like "Why should God come to earth, to learn about it? to make it right? Why didn't He come sooner? etc."

There was also a man named Marcion who had questioned the authority and value of the Old Testament, the book of Acts, and Revelation.

There were Christian responses to these attacks by men who likely knew one or more of the original apostles personally. There's a lot more information about this I could discuss, but this is the part that blew me away. The final thing that was created because of the controversy brought on by Celsus and Marcion was the canon, or authorized list of books of Scripture. There were three principles that were created for deciding which books were to be regarded as Sacred Scripture. Directly from the book The Catholic Church Through the Ages: A History by John Vidmar, OP.

1) the book had to go back to apostolic times, at the latest;

2) the book had to be highly esteemed from an early date;

3) the guarantors of this were the bishops who could trace their origins back to the apostles.

Thus, defenders of the "scripture alone" are faced with the dilemma that the "scriptures" were defined by the bishops or by what Catholics call "tradition."

After reading this, I just sat there in awe and amazement. When I first began studying Catholicism, one of my biggest reasons in considering it was that it was from the beginning. The Catholic Church is what dates back to Jesus Himself. Yes, it's not perfect. Just like any church, it's leaders on earth are human. It's seen bad times. But it had remained.

However, since beginning this post, I was going to say more, and realized I was wrong. I was going to say Until the 1500s, Catholicism was the only religion. I am now wondering more about Orthodoxy. It appears that Catholicism and Orthodoxy were together until 1054, when there was the East-West Schism. I am interested in eventually researching that more, but for now, will continue on reading this book to learn what I can about the religion I've embraced. Either way, for the first thousand years, this was Christianity. It's amazing to see how the Scriptures were originally picked.

My moments of peace and quiet I had trying to write this are long gone, and now I can't concentrate to write more. Will have to come back to this later to make sure it makes sense ;-)