Thanks David! Would you consider signing up for a monthly donation, even a small amount per month? We really need ongoing support to keep producing our podcasts. (Of course, if only a one-time donation is possible for you, that helps too.) catholicculture.org/donate/audio
So many Protestants deny the salvific power of baptism not due to ignorance but willful rejection of the Catholic faith so their baptisms can not be valid due to wrong intention.
I see how Protestants reject Catholicism as it exists because of the bad fruits it produced. They throw the baby out with the bathwater. The students of the apostles would have never mixed Church (Kingdom of God) and the State (Roman's 13 Kingdms of the World).
Hi, I really like the work you've done here outlining the early church fathers and the history behind the controversies. I would just like to ask if it's possible not to apply anachronistic terms to the early church. I understand this is a Catholic podcast so obviously you'll be biased. But at the time period analysed here there is 0 indication of any of the terms 'venial' and 'mortal' sin used. I would appreciate it if you were genuine to these fathers by using the same language they did when discussing these complex theology topics, rather than inserting modern Catholic language into it as if they said it that way themselves. Thanks!
Hello, and thanks for your comment. I appreciate what your asking, and I'll say a couple things in reply. First of all, no matter what words we use for things, we are speaking English in a culture far removed from the Church fathers, so we can't realistically restrict ourselves to the words they used, since the words they used were usually in Greek or Latin, and need to be translated. And in any translation, it's legitimate to translate a phrase with a word, or a word with a phrase, if the translation conveys the correct meaning. So, for example, there is nothing wrong with translating the phrase "sins leading to death" (from I John 5) as "mortal sin." And we can translate "sins not leading to death" as "venial sin." Yes, I'm using modern English terms to translate ancient Greek terms, but that's what you do when you translate. So it's not really a question of anachronistic words, but whether the words convey a meaning that is faithful to the original. Sometimes you can create a true anachronism by using the same words, for example when someone uses "election" to imply a lack of free will, and often we can use words the earliest Church fathers hadn't come up with yet to convey succinctly what they really did believe - and we do this when we use words like "transubstantiation," or "Trinity." As to the concepts, the early Church fathers absolutely did understand the difference between mortal sins and venial sins (they did not believe all sins were equal), even if they didn't use any literal version of those words (though I'm sure I could find examples of Greek and Latin phrases for "deadly" sins, etc.). We can see in the documents the development of thought over time on this topic and the ever growing list of sins which, if committed after baptism, require the sacrament of reconciliation. In any case, it's not really an anachronism, because it accurately conveys what they were saying. Also, I think you're being unfair to say that just because I am Catholic, I'm biased. I've published with Protestant publishers as well as Catholic, and I am a respected member of my field, so I am able to write and speak about the early Church in a way that my audience can trust is not simply apologetics. But the point is, unless we speak in the same languages (Greek and Latin) they did, we can't use "the same language they did" and so I would ask you to trust that I am able to faithfully convey the complex topics in a way that do justice to the early Christians and their beliefs. Don't get hung up on the words, listen to the meaning.
@@TheOriginalChurch You make a valid points, I guess what I'm looking for is something along the lines of you actually saying "'sins leading to death' which which we would call mortal sins" rather than skipping straight to the translation of 'mortal sins'. Obviously all translations are interpretations but I think it would be more useful / neutral to mention both the most literal translation possible first and then the more loose translation second. -----Also, I think you're being unfair to say that just because I am Catholic, I'm biased. That's not what I'm saying at all. Everyone comes in with bias. A bias isn't inherently bad its a reality. I can't expect to come into a podcast published by 'Catholic Culture' and not expect there to be bias. Especially how, as far as I understanding listening to episodes from 4.8-4.10, that you don't aim to give a scholarly perspective, you aim to give a Catholic perspective of the early church. You give all this information, and then conclude by applying it to modern day Catholicism by saying stuff like "that's why we accept the baptism of Lutherans assuming trinitarian form'. That tells me that you aren't just aiming to convey a dry set of information about what the early church said and that it's, but you aim to present it in a way so that modern Catholic's can apply it to their worldview in a positive manner. That's a good thing. Just to further elaborate, a truly neutral perspective would give equal credence to the sacramental theology of Cyprian or of Novatian, but you don't do that and that's totally justifiable. You obviously briefly explain it but you present it in light of the orthodox perspective that emerged later. Either way, a truly neutral perspective is close to impossible. This is now an entirely separate point, I've been using these podcast as my starting point for one of my theological assignment about baptism and Novatian, which it has been absolutely amazing thank you. Anyway in Cyprians Epistles 74.11, Firmilian make a good point about this girl who got baptized by a demon with the correct trinitarian form. 11. What, then, shall we say about the baptism of this woman, by which a most wicked demon baptized through means of a woman? Do Stephen and they who agree with him approve of this also especially when neither the symbol of the Trinity nor the legitimate and ecclesiastical interrogatory were wanting to her? Can it be believed that either remission of sins was given, or the regeneration of the saving layer duly completed, when all things, although after the image of truth, yet were done by a demon? Unless, perchance, they who defend the baptism of heretics contend that the demon also conferred the grace of baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Among them, no doubt, there is the same error- it is the very deceitfulness of devils, since among them the Holy Spirit is not at all. I can see ways to critique the argument (remission of sins is done by God not by the performer), but I was wondering if you'd agree with that idea. That even if a demon performed a baptism it's still valid, assuming they could as the people in Carthage witnessed.
@@mariom.1679 I know it can be frustrating to keep bumping up against the disconnect between the early Church and what you were taught as a Protestant. When I was a Protestant, I was taught (as you probably were) that the Protestant Reformation was all about getting back to an "original Church" that existed before it was Catholic - but that's a myth, and when I actually studied the early Church, I found out that the early Church is the Catholic Church - which is why so many of us patristics scholars end up becoming Catholic. As St. John Henry Newman famously said, "to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant" - and so there will always be this cognitive dissonance if you expect the early Church to look like Protestantism. This is why my RUclips channel is called, "The Original Church" - to debunk that myth. In any case, my approach is scholarly, of course, but you can't put all the scholarly nuance in a short podcast. The podcast is based on all of my research, but if you want to get all the nuance, you would have to read my books. For example my book Reading the Church Fathers (Sophia Institute Press, 2022), or my book on Novatian (in which I DO give him credit for his positive contributions), is called Novatian of Rome and the Culmination of Pre-Nicene Orthodoxy. As far as the Firmilian argument, without taking the time right now to go back and read Ep. 74, my recollection of it is that it's just an argument of reductio ad absurdam, and of course, no one thinks a baptism by a demon would be valid. It's not ONLY the Trinitarian formula, but also you have to use water, etc. Anyway, the argument doesn't really require a response because it's absurd.
@@TheOriginalChurch fyi i am born and raised coptic orthodox, but I'm sure half of what you said applies to orthodoxy if you think that the pre-nicene early church is most preserved in Catholicism. About Firmilian, isn't that point important. What is the etc? The whole point of this debate around baptism is to ask what are the critieria for a valid baptism. As far as I understand Rome + Dionysius says trinity + water, doesn't matter the heretical background. Cyprian and Firmilian says trinity + water + being within the church of God (and thus having the whole spirit work through the giver). So the 'absurd' argument presents a key fact that its not just about the form, but the person performing the baptism also has some sort of involvement in it's efficacy, and that's what Firmilian aims to present.
@@mariom.1679 Ah - my bad for assuming you are Protestant. One of my PhD students is Coptic, and I love the Coptic Church. I do think that the Roman Catholic Church is the heart of the Church, but when I think about the "early Church" I am including the other ancient communions. I personally think the Coptic Church is closer to the heart than the national Orthodox communions, in part because you have a Pope, so you recognize the necessity of that apostolic office. I had high hopes (and I continue to pray) for Catholic-Coptic dialogue, and I still dare to hope that one day we might celebrate Easter together on the same date, and someday even have Eucharistic unity. Regarding the Fermilian argument, the point is that it's not a magic trick, so you can't express it as an equation. Of course, one must be "in the Church," but the point of that is that who is "in the Church" is defined according to the doctrine of the Trinity - so a Trinitarian formula (barring any impediment, like a demon) makes one "in the Church" for the purpose of the baptism. As asacrament, baptism is a tricky thing because a lay person can perform a valid baptism if necessary, so again, it's not a magic trick, God knows intentions, and the level of sincerity. In the Catholic Church, the "etc" is that a person must be intending to do what the Church does when she baptizes. So it can't be a mockery. Anyway, the point is moot. You and I should consider each other both "in the Church."
They were done in various ways in various places. I don't know about the oil, but baptisms were often full-immersion in water and done naked symbolically to represent new birth. However, modesty was protected because a woman would not be baptized by a man in this case (which is why there were female "deaconesses" in the early Church, to avoid immodesty).
So glad to hear that! Would you consider signing up for a monthly donation, even a small amount per month? We really need ongoing support to keep producing our podcasts. (Of course, if only a one-time donation is possible for you, that helps too.) catholicculture.org/donate/audio
He taught that baptisms performed by heretics which used the Evangelic formula (i.e. I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit) were valid.
Thank you for providing such information on a topic I’ve longed to research.
This is a great work from Catholic Culture,these series are needed by many Catholics,in this day of loss of faith.
Thank you very much for this.
Amazing Church (and Western Civilization) history!
Love this series. Keep them coming 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Thanks David! Would you consider signing up for a monthly donation, even a small amount per month? We really need ongoing support to keep producing our podcasts. (Of course, if only a one-time donation is possible for you, that helps too.) catholicculture.org/donate/audio
So many Protestants deny the salvific power of baptism not due to ignorance but willful rejection of the Catholic faith so their baptisms can not be valid due to wrong intention.
I see how Protestants reject Catholicism as it exists because of the bad fruits it produced.
They throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The students of the apostles would have never mixed Church (Kingdom of God) and the State (Roman's 13 Kingdms of the World).
Hi, I really like the work you've done here outlining the early church fathers and the history behind the controversies. I would just like to ask if it's possible not to apply anachronistic terms to the early church. I understand this is a Catholic podcast so obviously you'll be biased. But at the time period analysed here there is 0 indication of any of the terms 'venial' and 'mortal' sin used. I would appreciate it if you were genuine to these fathers by using the same language they did when discussing these complex theology topics, rather than inserting modern Catholic language into it as if they said it that way themselves. Thanks!
Hello, and thanks for your comment. I appreciate what your asking, and I'll say a couple things in reply. First of all, no matter what words we use for things, we are speaking English in a culture far removed from the Church fathers, so we can't realistically restrict ourselves to the words they used, since the words they used were usually in Greek or Latin, and need to be translated. And in any translation, it's legitimate to translate a phrase with a word, or a word with a phrase, if the translation conveys the correct meaning. So, for example, there is nothing wrong with translating the phrase "sins leading to death" (from I John 5) as "mortal sin." And we can translate "sins not leading to death" as "venial sin." Yes, I'm using modern English terms to translate ancient Greek terms, but that's what you do when you translate. So it's not really a question of anachronistic words, but whether the words convey a meaning that is faithful to the original. Sometimes you can create a true anachronism by using the same words, for example when someone uses "election" to imply a lack of free will, and often we can use words the earliest Church fathers hadn't come up with yet to convey succinctly what they really did believe - and we do this when we use words like "transubstantiation," or "Trinity." As to the concepts, the early Church fathers absolutely did understand the difference between mortal sins and venial sins (they did not believe all sins were equal), even if they didn't use any literal version of those words (though I'm sure I could find examples of Greek and Latin phrases for "deadly" sins, etc.). We can see in the documents the development of thought over time on this topic and the ever growing list of sins which, if committed after baptism, require the sacrament of reconciliation. In any case, it's not really an anachronism, because it accurately conveys what they were saying. Also, I think you're being unfair to say that just because I am Catholic, I'm biased. I've published with Protestant publishers as well as Catholic, and I am a respected member of my field, so I am able to write and speak about the early Church in a way that my audience can trust is not simply apologetics. But the point is, unless we speak in the same languages (Greek and Latin) they did, we can't use "the same language they did" and so I would ask you to trust that I am able to faithfully convey the complex topics in a way that do justice to the early Christians and their beliefs. Don't get hung up on the words, listen to the meaning.
@@TheOriginalChurch You make a valid points, I guess what I'm looking for is something along the lines of you actually saying "'sins leading to death' which which we would call mortal sins" rather than skipping straight to the translation of 'mortal sins'. Obviously all translations are interpretations but I think it would be more useful / neutral to mention both the most literal translation possible first and then the more loose translation second.
-----Also, I think you're being unfair to say that just because I am Catholic, I'm biased.
That's not what I'm saying at all. Everyone comes in with bias. A bias isn't inherently bad its a reality. I can't expect to come into a podcast published by 'Catholic Culture' and not expect there to be bias. Especially how, as far as I understanding listening to episodes from 4.8-4.10, that you don't aim to give a scholarly perspective, you aim to give a Catholic perspective of the early church. You give all this information, and then conclude by applying it to modern day Catholicism by saying stuff like "that's why we accept the baptism of Lutherans assuming trinitarian form'. That tells me that you aren't just aiming to convey a dry set of information about what the early church said and that it's, but you aim to present it in a way so that modern Catholic's can apply it to their worldview in a positive manner. That's a good thing.
Just to further elaborate, a truly neutral perspective would give equal credence to the sacramental theology of Cyprian or of Novatian, but you don't do that and that's totally justifiable. You obviously briefly explain it but you present it in light of the orthodox perspective that emerged later. Either way, a truly neutral perspective is close to impossible.
This is now an entirely separate point, I've been using these podcast as my starting point for one of my theological assignment about baptism and Novatian, which it has been absolutely amazing thank you. Anyway in Cyprians Epistles 74.11, Firmilian make a good point about this girl who got baptized by a demon with the correct trinitarian form.
11. What, then, shall we say about the baptism of this woman, by which a most wicked demon baptized through means of a woman? Do Stephen and they who agree with him approve of this also especially when neither the symbol of the Trinity nor the legitimate and ecclesiastical interrogatory were wanting to her? Can it be believed that either remission of sins was given, or the regeneration of the saving layer duly completed, when all things, although after the image of truth, yet were done by a demon? Unless, perchance, they who defend the baptism of heretics contend that the demon also conferred the grace of baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Among them, no doubt, there is the same error- it is the very deceitfulness of devils, since among them the Holy Spirit is not at all.
I can see ways to critique the argument (remission of sins is done by God not by the performer), but I was wondering if you'd agree with that idea. That even if a demon performed a baptism it's still valid, assuming they could as the people in Carthage witnessed.
@@mariom.1679 I know it can be frustrating to keep bumping up against the disconnect between the early Church and what you were taught as a Protestant. When I was a Protestant, I was taught (as you probably were) that the Protestant Reformation was all about getting back to an "original Church" that existed before it was Catholic - but that's a myth, and when I actually studied the early Church, I found out that the early Church is the Catholic Church - which is why so many of us patristics scholars end up becoming Catholic. As St. John Henry Newman famously said, "to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant" - and so there will always be this cognitive dissonance if you expect the early Church to look like Protestantism. This is why my RUclips channel is called, "The Original Church" - to debunk that myth. In any case, my approach is scholarly, of course, but you can't put all the scholarly nuance in a short podcast. The podcast is based on all of my research, but if you want to get all the nuance, you would have to read my books. For example my book Reading the Church Fathers (Sophia Institute Press, 2022), or my book on Novatian (in which I DO give him credit for his positive contributions), is called Novatian of Rome and the Culmination of Pre-Nicene Orthodoxy. As far as the Firmilian argument, without taking the time right now to go back and read Ep. 74, my recollection of it is that it's just an argument of reductio ad absurdam, and of course, no one thinks a baptism by a demon would be valid. It's not ONLY the Trinitarian formula, but also you have to use water, etc. Anyway, the argument doesn't really require a response because it's absurd.
@@TheOriginalChurch fyi i am born and raised coptic orthodox, but I'm sure half of what you said applies to orthodoxy if you think that the pre-nicene early church is most preserved in Catholicism.
About Firmilian, isn't that point important. What is the etc?
The whole point of this debate around baptism is to ask what are the critieria for a valid baptism. As far as I understand
Rome + Dionysius says trinity + water, doesn't matter the heretical background.
Cyprian and Firmilian says trinity + water + being within the church of God (and thus having the whole spirit work through the giver).
So the 'absurd' argument presents a key fact that its not just about the form, but the person performing the baptism also has some sort of involvement in it's efficacy, and that's what Firmilian aims to present.
@@mariom.1679 Ah - my bad for assuming you are Protestant. One of my PhD students is Coptic, and I love the Coptic Church. I do think that the Roman Catholic Church is the heart of the Church, but when I think about the "early Church" I am including the other ancient communions. I personally think the Coptic Church is closer to the heart than the national Orthodox communions, in part because you have a Pope, so you recognize the necessity of that apostolic office. I had high hopes (and I continue to pray) for Catholic-Coptic dialogue, and I still dare to hope that one day we might celebrate Easter together on the same date, and someday even have Eucharistic unity.
Regarding the Fermilian argument, the point is that it's not a magic trick, so you can't express it as an equation. Of course, one must be "in the Church," but the point of that is that who is "in the Church" is defined according to the doctrine of the Trinity - so a Trinitarian formula (barring any impediment, like a demon) makes one "in the Church" for the purpose of the baptism. As asacrament, baptism is a tricky thing because a lay person can perform a valid baptism if necessary, so again, it's not a magic trick, God knows intentions, and the level of sincerity. In the Catholic Church, the "etc" is that a person must be intending to do what the Church does when she baptizes. So it can't be a mockery. Anyway, the point is moot. You and I should consider each other both "in the Church."
I read that sometimes the baptisms were done fully naked and oil applied upon the whole body?? What is up with that? 😅
They were done in various ways in various places. I don't know about the oil, but baptisms were often full-immersion in water and done naked symbolically to represent new birth. However, modesty was protected because a woman would not be baptized by a man in this case (which is why there were female "deaconesses" in the early Church, to avoid immodesty).
@@CatholicCulturePod thanks for the information! Also, God bless what you are doing. You have no idea how much all of your work has helped me!
So glad to hear that! Would you consider signing up for a monthly donation, even a small amount per month? We really need ongoing support to keep producing our podcasts. (Of course, if only a one-time donation is possible for you, that helps too.) catholicculture.org/donate/audio
Did Pope Stephen teach that all baptisms by heretics were valid?
He taught that baptisms performed by heretics which used the Evangelic formula (i.e. I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit) were valid.