>> Hogwash. It doesn't say that at all. You're behaving like a Protestant, interpreting your own bible to say what you want. <<
your words imply that you are a roman catholic. shall i reprove you with a letter from St. Jerome to St. Augustine, the two most highly exalted Fathers of the roman catholic church?
ST. AUGUSTINE
LETTERS 58-86
From the Second Division, which consists of letters which were written from the beginning of his episcopate to just before the time of and before the conference held with the donatists at carthage, and the discovery of the heresy of Pelagius in Africa (a.d. 396-410).
LETTER LXXV. (A.D. 404.)
Jerome's answer to Letters XXVIII., XL, and LXXI.
TO AUGUSTIN, MY LORD TRULY HOLY, AND MOST BLESSED FATHER, JEROME SENDS GREETING IN CHRIST.
13. The matter in debate, therefore, or I should rather say your opinion regarding it, is summed up in this: that since the preaching of the gospel of Christ, the believing Jews do well in observing the precepts of the law, i.e. in offering sacrifices as Paul did, in circumcising their children, as Paul did in the case of Timothy, and keeping the Jewish Sabbath, as all the Jews have been accustomed to do. If this be true, we fall into the heresy of Cerinthus and Ebion, who, though believing in Christ, were anathematized by the fathers for this one error, that they mixed up the ceremonies of the law with the gospel of Christ, and professed their faith in that which was new, without letting go what was old. Why do I speak of the Ebionites, who make pretensions to the name of Christian? In our own day there exists a sect among the Jews throughout all the synagogues of the East, which is called the sect of the Minei, and is even now condemned by the Pharisees. The adherents to this sect are known commonly as Nazarenes; they believe in Christ the Son of God, born of, the Virgin Mary; and they say that He who suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, is the same as the one in whom we believe. But while they desire to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither the one nor the other. I therefore beseech you, who think that you are called upon to heal my slight wound, which is no more, so to speak, than a prick or scratch from a needle, to devote your skill in the healing art to this grievous wound, which has been opened by a spear driven home with the impetus of a javelin. For there is surely no proportion between the culpability of him who exhibits the various opinions held by the fathers in a commentary on Scripture, and the guilt of him who reintroduces within the Church a most pestilential heresy. If, however, there is for us no alternative but to receive the Jews into the Church, along with the usages prescribed by their law; if, in short, it shall be declared lawful for them to continue in the Churches of Christ what they have been accustomed to practise in the synagogues of Satan, I will tell you my opinion of the matter: they will not become Christians, but they will make us Jews. |
