Posted by AveMaria on March 24, 1999 at 20:42:45 {MW/mrDAKQdkdU}:
In Reply to: Watchtower will never tell ... posted by RomGabe on March 21, 1999 at 22:57:41:
A study of the writings of the early Church as a whole will tell a different story than what the authors of the pamphlet derive.
"She poured it [the perfume] over his [Jesus'] hair when he sat at the table. But, when the disciples saw
it, they were indignant...God, aware of this, said to them "Why do you trouble this woman? She has done [a beautiful thing for me]...Then one of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priest and said, "What will you
give me for my work?"
(Huleatt fragments 1-3, 50 AD)
"[T]o the Church, beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus Christ our God, by the will of him that willed everything that is."
(Ignatius of Antioch, Letter
to the Romans
1, 110 AD)
"[Christians] are they who, above every people of the Earth, have found the truth, for they acknowledge God, the creator and maker of all things, is in the only-begotten Son and in the Holy
Spirit."
(Aristides, Apology 16, 140 AD)
"We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man."
(Tatian the Syrian, Address to the Greeks
21,
170 AD)
"For the Church, although dispersed the whole world even to the ends of the Earth, has recieved from the apostles and their disciples the faith in one God, Father Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth and sea and
all that is in them; and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who announced through the prophets the dispensations and the comings, and the birth from a Virgin, and the passion
[Jesus' crucifixtion], and the Resurrection of the dead, and the bodily ascension into heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father to re-establish all things; and the raising up again
of all flesh of all humanity, in order that to Jesus Christ our Lord and God and Savior and King, in accord with the approval of the invisible Father, every knee shall bend of those in heaven and on Earth and under the earth..."
(Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 1:10:1,
189 AD)
"The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause of ... our ancient beginning....And now this same Word has appeared as a man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our
good things."
(Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the
Greeks 1:7:1, 190 AD)
"God is alone without sin. The only man who is without sin is Christ; for Christ is also God."
(Tertullian, The Soul, 41:3, 210
AD)
"The origins of both his substances display him as man and as God: from one, born, from the other, not born."
(Tertullian, The Flesh of Christ, 5:6-7, 210 AD)
"That there are two Gods and two Lords, however, is a statement
which we will never allow to issue from our mouth; not as if the Father and the Son were not God, nor the [Holy]
Spirit God, and each of them God; but formerly two were spoken of as Gods and two as Lords, so that when Christ would
come, he might might both be acknowledged as God and be called Lord, because he is the Son of him who is both God and Lord."
(Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 13:6, 126 AD)
"Athough he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man,
he remained what he was. God."
(Origen, The Fundamental Doctrines 1:0:4, 225 AD)
"While we have been sketching the proof of the
divinity of Jesus, we have made use of the prophetic statements concerning him, and have at the
same time demonstrated that the writings which prophesied about him were divinely inspired."
(Origen, ibid., 4:1:6)
"Only [God's] Word is from himself and is therefore also God, becoming the substance of God."
(Hippolytus,
Refutation of All Heresies 10:33,
228 AD).
The list goes on and on. The Church Fathers clearly demonstrated belief in the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Trinity. Those beliefs have been with the Church since the beginning, and are not foreign introductions, as the author of the pamphlet states. Additionally, the quotes from the Church Fathers are not cited, so one does not have the ability to look them up and see whether or not they were taken in context.
{The credit for the quotes above should go to Catholic Answers, because that is where I got this (extensive) list.}