Body: | Sola Scriptura: The Bible alone is enough!
Apostolic Fathers used scripture as the primary defense against false
doctrine.
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Click to View Apostolic Fathers: Dates they lived and other information.
Click to View Apostolic Fathers: Five kinds of Tradition.
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Mandatory: Apostolic Fathers Catechism Class for Catholics and Orthodox.
425 AD: Augustine:
"Whereas, therefore, in every question, which relates to life and
conduct, not only teaching, but exhortation also is necessary; in order
that by teaching we may know what is to be done, and by exhortation may be
incited not to think it irksome to do what we already know is to be done;
what more can I teach you, than what we read in the Apostle? For holy
Scripture setteth a rule to our teaching, that we dare not "be wise more
than it behoveth to be wise;" but be wise, as himself saith, "unto
soberness, according as unto each God hath allotted the measure of faith."
(Augustine, On the Good of Widowhood, 2)
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We don't question that Augustine, like Chrysostom and Jerome, believed in
"unwritten customs and laws" passed down orally by the apostles. But as we
have seen, these customs involve trivial matters like "drinking milk and
honey after baptism". Having said this up front, we observe Augustine's
attitude towards scripture. He clearly believes that we must abide within
scripture. He comments that teaching more than scripture
"Receive, my children, the Rule of Faith, which is called the Symbol
(or Creed). And when ye have received it, write it in your heart, and be
daily saying it to yourselves; ... For this is the Creed which ye are to
rehearse and to repeat in answer. These words which ye have heard are in
the Divine Scriptures scattered up and down: but thence gathered and
reduced into one, that the memory of slow persons might not be distressed;
that every person may be able to say, able to hold, what he believes. For
have ye now merely heard that God is Almighty? But ye begin to have him for
your father, when ye have been born by the church as your Mother.
(Augustine, On the Nicene Creed: a Sermon to the Catechumens, 1)
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Augustine, like all the fathers, believed that every phrase in the Nicene
creed had its origin in the scripture, not some "unwritten oral tradition
of the apostles". He calls the creed, "Rule of Faith" which was first used
by Tertullian in 200 AD. The age of creed making is in full bloom! Today,
every major denomination, including the Catholic and Orthodox believe their
creeds are based directly upon the Bible. This of course cannot be true
since they contradict both one another and the Bible itself!
by Steve Rudd
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