Mariology

[JustTheFacts]

That's just crazy.
And this thread is supposed to be about Mariology, so unless you have something to say on the topic I've leave you to your fantasies.

So no proof that what I’ve written is crazy, it just disputes your Catholic theology-including Catholic focus on Mary, so I must be crazy? Spoken like every Catholic I’ve met. Have you read your Catechism book? When I’ve brought up Catholic beliefs to some they’ve called me a liar and started shaking…then walked away.

 

[BruceLeiter]

Erroneous from start to finish. But then you provide no evidence for your opinions.

I learned those facts from church history class at seminary. Why do you disagree?

 

[BruceLeiter]

Was the early church wrong?

What do you mean by the phrase "early church," George?

 

[Stephen]

I learned those facts from church history class at seminary. Why do you disagree?

Not facts - opinions

 

[George]

I learned those facts from church history class at seminary. Why do you disagree?

Those facts hold as much water as a strainer does.

What do you mean by the phrase "early church," George?

Early Christianity - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the historical era of the Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325.

Not facts - opinions

This.

 

[BruceLeiter]

Erroneous from start to finish. But then you provide no evidence for your opinions.

Doctrine was further refined by a series of influential theologians and teachers, known collectively as the Church Fathers.[35] From the year 100 onward, proto-orthodox teachers like Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus defined Catholic teaching in stark opposition to other things, such as Gnosticism.[36] Teachings and traditions were consolidated under the influence of theological apologists such as Pope Clement I, Justin Martyr, and Augustine of Hippo.[37] History of the Catholic Church - Wikipedia

 

[JustTheFacts]

Doctrine was further refined by a series of influential theologians and teachers, known collectively as the Church Fathers.[35] From the year 100 onward, proto-orthodox teachers like Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus defined Catholic teaching in stark opposition to other things, such as Gnosticism.[36] Teachings and traditions were consolidated under the influence of theological apologists such as Pope Clement I, Justin Martyr, and Augustine of Hippo.[37] History of the Catholic Church - Wikipedia

Bruce, I think you are referring to theology rather than history. There are very few documents for the period from 33 AD through about 150 AD that are worth considering and my analysis of them does not prove that Holy men took over the CJC. There is nothing to connect the later church to the disciples or the generation that John claimed were all false teachers. Yes, missing documentation of a once in a eternal event does mean something. In fact, missing documentation of Jesus and the ones Jesus chose to start the CJC, indicates fraud.

 

[BruceLeiter]

More interesting analysis of Mary's prominence:
The goddess, Semiramis, was also known as Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtoreth: the original Queen of Heaven (Jeremiah 44:15–19). Her son, Tammuz, joined her in creating the world's first mother/son cult. The cult spread to Egypt as Isis and Osiris, Venus and Adonis in Greece, and Ushas and Vishnu in Hinduism. The Catholic Church has adapted mother/son worship to its veneration of Mary, perhaps the most blatant idolatry in Catholicism.

Although the practice of veneration of Mary is not biblical, Catholics have made their way by deifying Mary, the mother of Jesus, and attributing to her various Semiramis attributes that make her venerable. Some of these attributes includes but are not limited to:

• Making her a virgin unto death and denying that she ever had any children other than Jesus. These teachings being in contradiction with what the Bible teaches, they aim to attribute to Mary the attribute of Semiramis of being virgin forever.
• Calling Mary queen when she never had such a title and making her holy through the false concept of immaculate conception both aim to elevate her to the rank of a venerated deity.

You will probably have heard many more attributes falsely ascribed to Mary, the mother of Jesus, including her appellation "mother of God" and her [unbiblical] bodily ascension into heaven. All these are attributes of Semiramis who is considered the mother of god incarnate (Baal) and ascended to heaven as a dove to become Queen of Heaven forever. Catholics would not hesitate to defend the modern view that the Queen of Heaven is Mary, the mother of Jesus, regardless of the lack of biblical basis. While it may be easy to link the Catholics’ Queen of Heaven to Semiramis, it is a little more difficult to unveil the concept of Tammuz under the aegis of Jesus and that of Baal under the guise of the "Gloria Patri". Either way, something is obvious, and that is a blend of paganism and Church practice that ushered in a cult of their mother-goddess/Queen of Heaven within the Church. In fact, the adoration of Mary is the modern manifestation of goddess worship that originated in Mesopotamia. https://learn.openchristian.education/blog/sangwa/a-babylonian-goddess-became-virgin-mary

 

[BruceLeiter]

More infomation about Mariology:
But the cult with the greatest influence on early Christianity, according to Benko, was that of the Great Mother (Magna Mater). Known in western Asia Minor as Cybele, she was to become the model for Mariology. Throughout the region, many priests of the new Christian religion were recruited from among the pagan educated classes, and they naturally took their Greek philosophical ideas with them. Thus Stoic and neo-Platonic concepts of mythological earth-mother goddesses were projected onto Mary with little adaptation: Cybele’s devotees saw her primarily as a chaste, beautiful and kind goddess; her worship centered on salvation, and her cult advocated baptism, not in water but in the blood of a freshly sacrificed bull. The cult also enlisted celibate (sometimes self-castrated) priests, as well as virgin priestesses. Similar views relating to celibacy and the evils of sex soon entered the orthodox church and subsequently congealed as official teaching.

Benko describes the process whereby Mary became “the female face of God,” or the spiritualized image of the church. He writes: “Mary was eventually declared to be ‘Mother of God,’ which is a wholly pagan term filled with new Christian meaning. Did Mary become a goddess when this declaration was made? The answer of Christians was, and still is, an indignant No!—but in fact Mary assumed the functions of pagan female divinities and for many pious Christian folk she did, and does, everything the ancient goddesses used to do.”

By the mid-third century, Hellenized forms of Christianity had been granted a level of recognition in the Roman Empire. Sixty years later the emperor Constantine reaffirmed that freedom, and soon the forced conversion of pagans began. Their temples were demolished or “Christianized,” along with the congregations. By the end of the fourth century, pagan cults seemed to have been all but eradicated. But this should not be confused with the end of their influence. As we have seen, syncretism leaves its mark. The Rise and Rise of the Queen of Heaven

 

[BruceLeiter]

Even more Mariology information:
Once people began to worship the mother more than the child, Babylonian priests felt forced to issue an edict deifying the mother also. After the passage of still more time, "her son's birth was boldly declared to be miraculous, and therefore she was called ...the Virgin Mother." (p.76) "The highest titles were then bestowed upon her. She was called the Queen of Heaven. In Egypt, she was styled Athor, i.e., the Habitation of God to signify that in her dwelt all the 'fulness of the Godhead'". (p.77) From this pagan beginning, the story of the Virgin Mother (Queen of Heaven) spread throughout the world. In:

• Egypt, she was called Athor (p77)
• Tibet and China, she was called Virgo Deipara (p77)
• Greece, she was called Hestia (Ibid)
• Rome, she was called Juno, or Dove. (p79). From this designation, the Dove became the symbol of the "deified queen..commonly represented with an olive branch in her mouth." It is startling to listen to the Jesuit author, Malachi Martin, asserting in his book, The Keys Of This Blood, that now "the Dove is loose, the Dove is loose". The entire theme of this book is that the drive to the New World Order is a competition between the world-wide forces of Communism, Western Capitalism, and Roman Catholicism. Martin clearly believes that Catholicism will prevail in this struggle because of the intervention of the Virgin Mary. Incredibly, this Time magazine article states, "The world will recognize in due time that the defeat of Communism came at the hand of the intercession of the Mother of Jesus" (Time, p. 62). When Gorbachev announced his resignation on Jesus' birthday, Christmas Day, this year, this concept was dramatically reinforced in the minds of millions of Catholics world-wide.

Martin did not specify what he meant by this phrase, "the Dove is loose"; clearly, however, he might have been referring to this common Roman depiction of the Virgin Mother. What Martin is saying, then, is that the ancient worship of the Pagan Virgin Mother is now loosed in the world.

Still later in Ancient Babylon, both the worship of the Virgin Mother and her symbol, the Dove, "identified her with the Spirit of all grace ...the Holy Ghost." (p. 79). Thus, the Pagan Trinity is God the Father, the Son, and the Virgin Mother. Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church has made this same claim, as Hislop noted, in the nineteenth century (p. 83). Hislop concludes, "The Madonna of Rome...is just the Madonna of Babylon. The Queen of Heaven in the one system is the same as the Queen of Heaven in the other." (Ibid) Virgin Mary and Pagan Goddess Worship - Historicist.com The Protestant Interpretation of Biblical Prophecy. The Historical Alternative

 

[JustTheFacts]

More interesting analysis of Mary's prominence:
The goddess, Semiramis, was also known as Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtoreth: the original Queen of Heaven (Jeremiah 44:15–19). Her son, Tammuz, joined her in creating the world's first mother/son cult. The cult spread to Egypt as Isis and Osiris, Venus and Adonis in Greece, and Ushas and Vishnu in Hinduism. The Catholic Church has adapted mother/son worship to its veneration of Mary, perhaps the most blatant idolatry in Catholicism.

Although the practice of veneration of Mary is not biblical, Catholics have made their way by deifying Mary, the mother of Jesus, and attributing to her various Semiramis attributes that make her venerable. Some of these attributes includes but are not limited to:

• Making her a virgin unto death and denying that she ever had any children other than Jesus. These teachings being in contradiction with what the Bible teaches, they aim to attribute to Mary the attribute of Semiramis of being virgin forever.
• Calling Mary queen when she never had such a title and making her holy through the false concept of immaculate conception both aim to elevate her to the rank of a venerated deity.

You will probably have heard many more attributes falsely ascribed to Mary, the mother of Jesus, including her appellation "mother of God" and her [unbiblical] bodily ascension into heaven. All these are attributes of Semiramis who is considered the mother of god incarnate (Baal) and ascended to heaven as a dove to become Queen of Heaven forever. Catholics would not hesitate to defend the modern view that the Queen of Heaven is Mary, the mother of Jesus, regardless of the lack of biblical basis. While it may be easy to link the Catholics’ Queen of Heaven to Semiramis, it is a little more difficult to unveil the concept of Tammuz under the aegis of Jesus and that of Baal under the guise of the "Gloria Patri". Either way, something is obvious, and that is a blend of paganism and Church practice that ushered in a cult of their mother-goddess/Queen of Heaven within the Church. In fact, the adoration of Mary is the modern manifestation of goddess worship that originated in Mesopotamia. https://learn.openchristian.education/blog/sangwa/a-babylonian-goddess-became-virgin-mary

Interesting and possible connection. Mary is a very touchy subject for Catholics. I referred to the practice of praying to Mary as "worship" and some Catholics in my life jumped all over me. It sure seems like worship, but they don't like that term applied to her. Calling it "veneration" like you have, is perfect.

 

[JustTheFacts]

More interesting analysis of Mary's prominence:
The goddess, Semiramis, was also known as Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtoreth: the original Queen of Heaven (Jeremiah 44:15–19). Her son, Tammuz, joined her in creating the world's first mother/son cult. The cult spread to Egypt as Isis and Osiris, Venus and Adonis in Greece, and Ushas and Vishnu in Hinduism. The Catholic Church has adapted mother/son worship to its veneration of Mary, perhaps the most blatant idolatry in Catholicism.

Although the practice of veneration of Mary is not biblical, Catholics have made their way by deifying Mary, the mother of Jesus, and attributing to her various Semiramis attributes that make her venerable. Some of these attributes includes but are not limited to:

• Making her a virgin unto death and denying that she ever had any children other than Jesus. These teachings being in contradiction with what the Bible teaches, they aim to attribute to Mary the attribute of Semiramis of being virgin forever.
• Calling Mary queen when she never had such a title and making her holy through the false concept of immaculate conception both aim to elevate her to the rank of a venerated deity.

You will probably have heard many more attributes falsely ascribed to Mary, the mother of Jesus, including her appellation "mother of God" and her [unbiblical] bodily ascension into heaven. All these are attributes of Semiramis who is considered the mother of god incarnate (Baal) and ascended to heaven as a dove to become Queen of Heaven forever. Catholics would not hesitate to defend the modern view that the Queen of Heaven is Mary, the mother of Jesus, regardless of the lack of biblical basis. While it may be easy to link the Catholics’ Queen of Heaven to Semiramis, it is a little more difficult to unveil the concept of Tammuz under the aegis of Jesus and that of Baal under the guise of the "Gloria Patri". Either way, something is obvious, and that is a blend of paganism and Church practice that ushered in a cult of their mother-goddess/Queen of Heaven within the Church. In fact, the adoration of Mary is the modern manifestation of goddess worship that originated in Mesopotamia. https://learn.openchristian.education/blog/sangwa/a-babylonian-goddess-became-virgin-mary

Interesting information and I wonder if any of it applies to the further unraveling of Revelation. The woman giving birth is the CJC started by Jesus and the disciples, then the woman transitions through false teachers creating a pact with the devil to corrupt the CJC and hide the word of God--the light of the world. Revelation 13:3 and 13:12 refer to Peter, but does the woman on the beast connect the Catholic veneration of Mary to false teacher Revelation prophecy? I never considered that.

 

[BruceLeiter]

Interesting information and I wonder if any of it applies to the further unraveling of Revelation. The woman giving birth is the CJC started by Jesus and the disciples, then the woman transitions through false teachers creating a pact with the devil to corrupt the CJC and hide the word of God--the light of the world. Revelation 13:3 and 13:12 refer to Peter, but does the woman on the beast connect the Catholic veneration of Mary to false teacher Revelation prophecy? I never considered that.

What is your information that the false teachers took over the early, pre-Roman church? I have given you information on the people who resisted the heretics who tried to take it over but were unsuccessful.

 

[JustTheFacts]

What is your information that the false teachers took over the early, pre-Roman church? I have given you information on the people who resisted the heretics who tried to take it over but were unsuccessful.

1. Jesus referenced the Synagogue of Satan in Revelation which means the devil was in the Church at the beginning.
2. The statue of Daniel describes the Kingdom of Silver then the Kingdom of Bronze--the pretenders. Jesus came during the time of those kings and through his sacrifice the Old Covenant transferred to the New Covenant of Jesus. There is nothing in-between the Silver and Bronze Kingdoms, meaning the change of power to Catholic control of the Church was immediate.
3. The Ram and the Goat of Daniel mentions Jesus as the horn that grew bigger, then it was attacked by the Goat. As the CJC was starting and growing the Goat attacked. The Goat took total control over the CJC.
4. We know from Revelation chapter twelve and Daniel 12:12 that the disciples started the Church with the guidance and direction of Jesus through the Holy Spirit over a period of 1290 days. God protected Jesus during the mission of Jesus (Revelation 12:6), then God protected the disciples to start the CJC for their 1290 days (Revelation 12:14). After the 1290 days from Daniel 12:12 corresponding to the set time "a time, times, and half a time." the CJC is immediately attacked:

Revelation 12:15 The serpent spewed water out of his mouth after the woman like a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream.

Satan went after the CJC spewing out words that mimicked Jesus (like a river), so the CJC would become hers.

16 The earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon spewed out of his mouth.

The earth--the people of the world--the Romans, helped the Satan to take over the CJC. There is no delay--nothing in-between.

17 The dragon grew angry with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her offspring,[a] who keep God’s commandments and hold Jesus’ testimony.

Those that took over the CJC attacked anyone who didn't submit to their control. Immediately afterwards, the beast--the Catholic Church through Peter is created (Revelation 13:3 and 13:12.

5. The words of John stating that the disciples were turning over the CJC to false teachers--none followed them.

6. The first seal Jesus, the second seal Satan, the third through sixth seals the Catholic Church that will starve the world for the words of Jesus, persecute those who don't succumb to their enticing words, and remove the light of the world, Jesus, from the CJC.

There is nothing in-between any of this prophecy--it's aways Jesus, then immediately the CJC is taken over by those that will form the beast. Pretty much historically who claims the popes from Peter through current times? The Catholics. I'm no expert in the history of the Catholic Church and don't want to be, but with prophecy describing only one kingdom--the bronze and the Catholics claiming they were the original Church, the evidence seems to support it.

 

[Stephen]

More interesting analysis of Mary's prominence:
The goddess, Semiramis, was also known as Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtoreth: the original Queen of Heaven (Jeremiah 44:15–19). Her son, Tammuz, joined her in creating the world's first mother/son cult. The cult spread to Egypt as Isis and Osiris, Venus and Adonis in Greece, and Ushas and Vishnu in Hinduism. The Catholic Church has adapted mother/son worship to its veneration of Mary, perhaps the most blatant idolatry in Catholicism.

Although the practice of veneration of Mary is not biblical, Catholics have made their way by deifying Mary, the mother of Jesus, and attributing to her various Semiramis attributes that make her venerable. Some of these attributes includes but are not limited to:

• Making her a virgin unto death and denying that she ever had any children other than Jesus. These teachings being in contradiction with what the Bible teaches, they aim to attribute to Mary the attribute of Semiramis of being virgin forever.
• Calling Mary queen when she never had such a title and making her holy through the false concept of immaculate conception both aim to elevate her to the rank of a venerated deity.

You will probably have heard many more attributes falsely ascribed to Mary, the mother of Jesus, including her appellation "mother of God" and her [unbiblical] bodily ascension into heaven. All these are attributes of Semiramis who is considered the mother of god incarnate (Baal) and ascended to heaven as a dove to become Queen of Heaven forever. Catholics would not hesitate to defend the modern view that the Queen of Heaven is Mary, the mother of Jesus, regardless of the lack of biblical basis. While it may be easy to link the Catholics’ Queen of Heaven to Semiramis, it is a little more difficult to unveil the concept of Tammuz under the aegis of Jesus and that of Baal under the guise of the "Gloria Patri". Either way, something is obvious, and that is a blend of paganism and Church practice that ushered in a cult of their mother-goddess/Queen of Heaven within the Church. In fact, the adoration of Mary is the modern manifestation of goddess worship that originated in Mesopotamia. https://learn.openchristian.education/blog/sangwa/a-babylonian-goddess-became-virgin-mary

This is nonsense

Even more Mariology information:
Once people began to worship the mother more than the child, Babylonian priests felt forced to issue an edict deifying the mother also. After the passage of still more time, "her son's birth was boldly declared to be miraculous, and therefore she was called ...the Virgin Mother." (p.76) "The highest titles were then bestowed upon her. She was called the Queen of Heaven. In Egypt, she was styled Athor, i.e., the Habitation of God to signify that in her dwelt all the 'fulness of the Godhead'". (p.77) From this pagan beginning, the story of the Virgin Mother (Queen of Heaven) spread throughout the world. In:

• Egypt, she was called Athor (p77)
• Tibet and China, she was called Virgo Deipara (p77)
• Greece, she was called Hestia (Ibid)
• Rome, she was called Juno, or Dove. (p79). From this designation, the Dove became the symbol of the "deified queen..commonly represented with an olive branch in her mouth." It is startling to listen to the Jesuit author, Malachi Martin, asserting in his book, The Keys Of This Blood, that now "the Dove is loose, the Dove is loose". The entire theme of this book is that the drive to the New World Order is a competition between the world-wide forces of Communism, Western Capitalism, and Roman Catholicism. Martin clearly believes that Catholicism will prevail in this struggle because of the intervention of the Virgin Mary. Incredibly, this Time magazine article states, "The world will recognize in due time that the defeat of Communism came at the hand of the intercession of the Mother of Jesus" (Time, p. 62). When Gorbachev announced his resignation on Jesus' birthday, Christmas Day, this year, this concept was dramatically reinforced in the minds of millions of Catholics world-wide.

Martin did not specify what he meant by this phrase, "the Dove is loose"; clearly, however, he might have been referring to this common Roman depiction of the Virgin Mother. What Martin is saying, then, is that the ancient worship of the Pagan Virgin Mother is now loosed in the world.

Still later in Ancient Babylon, both the worship of the Virgin Mother and her symbol, the Dove, "identified her with the Spirit of all grace ...the Holy Ghost." (p. 79). Thus, the Pagan Trinity is God the Father, the Son, and the Virgin Mother. Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church has made this same claim, as Hislop noted, in the nineteenth century (p. 83). Hislop concludes, "The Madonna of Rome...is just the Madonna of Babylon. The Queen of Heaven in the one system is the same as the Queen of Heaven in the other." (Ibid) Virgin Mary and Pagan Goddess Worship - Historicist.com The Protestant Interpretation of Biblical Prophecy. The Historical Alternative

More nonsense.

All this garbage ultimately goes back to that charlatan Alexander Hislop and his piece of fiction - The Two Babylons.

If I get time, and I'm a bit short of time at the moment, I'll start a thread on Mary, Queen of Heaven with Biblical support for that title.

 

[BruceLeiter]

1. Jesus referenced the Synagogue of Satan in Revelation which means the devil was in the Church at the beginning.
2. The statue of Daniel describes the Kingdom of Silver then the Kingdom of Bronze--the pretenders. Jesus came during the time of those kings and through his sacrifice the Old Covenant transferred to the New Covenant of Jesus. There is nothing in-between the Silver and Bronze Kingdoms, meaning the change of power to Catholic control of the Church was immediate.
3. The Ram and the Goat of Daniel mentions Jesus as the horn that grew bigger, then it was attacked by the Goat. As the CJC was starting and growing the Goat attacked. The Goat took total control over the CJC.
4. We know from Revelation chapter twelve and Daniel 12:12 that the disciples started the Church with the guidance and direction of Jesus through the Holy Spirit over a period of 1290 days. God protected Jesus during the mission of Jesus (Revelation 12:6), then God protected the disciples to start the CJC for their 1290 days (Revelation 12:14). After the 1290 days from Daniel 12:12 corresponding to the set time "a time, times, and half a time." the CJC is immediately attacked:

Revelation 12:15 The serpent spewed water out of his mouth after the woman like a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream.

Satan went after the CJC spewing out words that mimicked Jesus (like a river), so the CJC would become hers.

16 The earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon spewed out of his mouth.

The earth--the people of the world--the Romans, helped the Satan to take over the CJC. There is no delay--nothing in-between.

17 The dragon grew angry with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her offspring,[a] who keep God’s commandments and hold Jesus’ testimony.

Those that took over the CJC attacked anyone who didn't submit to their control. Immediately afterwards, the beast--the Catholic Church through Peter is created (Revelation 13:3 and 13:12.

5. The words of John stating that the disciples were turning over the CJC to false teachers--none followed them.

6. The first seal Jesus, the second seal Satan, the third through sixth seals the Catholic Church that will starve the world for the words of Jesus, persecute those who don't succumb to their enticing words, and remove the light of the world, Jesus, from the CJC.

There is nothing in-between any of this prophecy--it's aways Jesus, then immediately the CJC is taken over by those that will form the beast. Pretty much historically who claims the popes from Peter through current times? The Catholics. I'm no expert in the history of the Catholic Church and don't want to be, but with prophecy describing only one kingdom--the bronze and the Catholics claiming they were the original Church, the evidence seems to support it.

Your interpretation of a highly-symbolic book, Revelation, is fascinating, JustTheFacts, but you might be completely wrong. What makes you so sure that you are right? A little humility would say "I think" or "it seems to me" or "I believe that it means." Prophecy is very hard to interpret before it come true.