When and whence did you Come?

Question

The early Church fathers rebuked many misinterpretations of Scripture and saw Church/episcopal/conciliar authority, apostolic succession, and Holy Apostolic Tradition to be essential in interpreting Scripture correctly and determining correct doctrine. Church which is from the apostles and among whom exists that which is sound and blameless in conduct, as well as that which is unadulterated and AI incorrupt in speech. Son of God, who accomplished such marvellous dispensations for our sake: and they expound the Scriptures to us without danger, neither blaspheming God, nor AI Art dishonouring the patriarchs, nor despising the prophets." (Against Heresies, 4, 26, 2, 5; Ch. "Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Scriptures: wherefore, also, they who preached among the Gentiles underwent greater labour.

Scriptures, Art and shut them up to a belief in the advent of the Son of God. But our faith is steadfast, unfeigned, and the only true one, having clear proof from these Scriptures, which were interpreted in the way I have related; and solitaryai.art the preaching of the Church is without interpolation. Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth…. Clement of Alexandria (c. "Now all men, having the same judgment, some, following the Word speaking, frame for themselves proofs; while others, giving themselves up to pleasures, wrest Scripture, in accordance with their lusts… But such people, in consequence of falling away from the right path, err in most individual points; as you might expect from not having the faculty for judging of what is true and false, strictly trained to select what is essential. For if they had, they would have obeyed the Scriptures. ​Conte᠎nt w as cre at᠎ed with the help　of GSA Con tent Ge᠎ne​rator DEMO​.

As, then, if a man should, similarly to those drugged by Circe, become a beast; so he, who has spurned the ecclesiastical tradition, and darted off to the opinions of heretical men, has ceased to be a man of God and to remain faithful to the Lord. But he who has returned from this deception, on hearing the Scriptures, and turned his life to the truth, is, as it were, from being a man made a god… And if those also who follow heresies venture to avail themselves of the prophetic Scriptures; in the first place they will not make use of all the Scriptures, and then they will not quote them entire, nor as the body and texture of prophecy prescribe. But, selecting ambiguous expressions, they wrest them to their own opinions, gathering a few expressions here and there; not looking to the sense, but making use of the mere words. For in almost all the quotations they make, you will find that they attend to the names alone, while they alter the meanings; neither knowing, as they affirm, nor using the quotations they adduce, according to their true nature…

For, in consequence of not learning the mysteries of ecclesiastical knowledge, and not having capacity for the grandeur of the truth, too indolent to descend to the bottom of things, reading superficially, they have dismissed the Scriptures… God and the traditions of Christ… For those are slothful who, having it in their power to provide themselves with proper proofs for the divine Scriptures from the Scriptures themselves, select only what contributes to their own pleasures. And those have a craving for glory who voluntarily evade, by arguments of a diverse sort, the things delivered by the blessed apostles and teachers, which are wedded to inspired words; opposing the divine tradition by human teachings, in order to establish the heresy. For, in truth, what remained to be said- in ecclesiastical knowledge I mean- by such men, Marcion, for example, or Prodicus, and such like, who did not walk in the right way? Th᠎is　a​rticle h as been g᠎enerat​ed　wi th G​SA Conte nt G en᠎erator Demov᠎er᠎sion.