Responding to Patrick Madrid's Claims about Athanasius and Sola Scriptura

Patrick Madrid in "Envoy for Christ" accuses us of selective patristic quotation. He writes:

Sometimes Protestant apologists try to bolster their case for sola Scriptura by using highly selective quotes from Church Fathers such as Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine, and Basil Caesarea. ... These quotes, isolated from the rest of what the Father in question wrote about church authority, Tradition and Scripture, can give the appearance that these Fathers were hard-core Evangelicals who promoted an unvarnished sola Scriptura principle that would have done John Calvin proud.

John Calvin would likely retort that Madrid is reversing the order - Calvin inherited his view of sola Scriptura in large part from his extensive study of patristics. It's certainly true that the "Church Fathers" were not Presbyterians or Reformed Baptists, but they did treat Scripture as being the only infallible writing they had. The accusations of isolation and selection are misleading at best. If one reads the works of Athanasius, one finds an almost constant appeal to the authority of Scripture, either implicitly or explicitly. It's easy to allege that something has been misleadingly taken out of context, and it is quite another thing to provide the context that clarifies the meaning of the quotation.

Madrid argues:

Athanasius's writings show no signs of sola Scriptura, but rather of his staunchly orthodox Catholicism. Athanasius, for example, wrote:

The confession arrived at Nicaea was, we say more, sufficient and enough by itself for the subversion of all irreligious heresy and for the security and furtherance of the doctrine of the Church. [Ad Afros, 1.]

And:

[T]he very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning was preached by the Apostles and preserved by the Fathers. On this the Church was founded; and if anyone departs from this, he neither is nor any longer ought to be called a Christian. [Ad Serapion, 1:28]

These are his two go-to quotations from Athanasius, but neither of these statements involves any rejection of sola Scriptura. The first statement, for example, does not say that it is because of the authority of Nicaea that the confession is sufficient. Nor does the second statement refer to some extra-scriptural tradition. On the contrary, it refers explicitly to Matthew 28:19. Look at the complete statement in its context:

28. But, beyond these sayings, let us look at the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers kept. Upon this the Church is founded, and he who should fall away from it would not be a Christian, and should no longer be so called. There is, then, a Triad, holy and complete, confessed to be God in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, having nothing foreign or external mixed with it, not composed of one that creates and one that is originated, but all creative; and it is consistent and in nature indivisible, and its activity is one. The Father does all things through the Word in the Holy Spirit. Thus the unity of the holy Triad is preserved. Thus one God is preached in the Church, 'who is over all,and through all, and in all' — 'over all', as Father, as beginning, as fountain; 'through all', through the Word; 'in all', in the Holy Spirit. It is a Triad not only in name and form of speech, but in truth and actuality. For as the Father is he that is, so also his Word is one that is and God over all. And the Holy Spirit is not without actual existence, but exists and has true being. Less than these (Persons) the Catholic Church does not hold, lest she sink to the level of the modern Jews, imitators of Caiaphas, and to the level of Sabellius. Nor does she add to them by speculation, lest she be carried into the polytheism of the heathen. And that they may know this to be the faith of the Church, let them learn how the Lord, when sending forth the Apostles, ordered them to lay this foundation for the Church, saying: 'Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.' The Apostles went, and thus they taught; and this is the preaching that extends to the whole Church which is under heaven.

The final line of the section clarifies and explains the first line of the section, quoted by Madrid. Thus, it turns out that Madrid has misled his readers by quoting Athanasius out of context, as though Athanasius were referring to something other than Scripture.

The letters of Athanasius to Serapion were translated a bit later than some of his more famous works. The editor of the translation, however, points out that there weren't any contemporary critics of authenticity of these letters, and that Erasmus is the most notable person to reject letter 1 (the one that Madrid directed us to). The editor provides this interesting observation (p. 14 - bold emphasis mine):

That the style of these letters is heavier and less attractive than that of Athanasius's best works will readily be admitted. But it must be remembered that it was written under very difficult circumstances, and that the writer himself regards it as needing correction and polish. Parts of it are little more than a series of Scriptural quotations. As Montfaucon says, to complain of a stiff and heavy style in the handling of such material, 'idipsum sit quod nodum in scirpo quaerere'. If further proof is needed, the reader is referred to the notes, which illustrate at many points the close connexion in thought and language between these letters and the other works of Athanasius.

Apart from isolated references in later works, we cannot be certain that Athanasius ever wrote anything further on the doctrine of the Spirit. Few genuine works survive from the last decade of his ministry. Had we, for instance, his correspondence with Basil, the story might be different. As it is, two works which Montfaucon thinks genuine and dates after 362 fall to be considered. The de Incarnatione et contra Arianos deals with the Godhead of the Spirit, 9-10 and 13-19; and the de Trinitate et Spiritu Sancto, which survives only in Latin, is chiefly a series of proof texts in support of that doctrine. The two works are closely connected; without being a transcript, one of them is clearly dependent upon the other.

Notice that this is a comment from someone intimately familiar with the works, not someone considering an isolated quote own its own.

As to the letter Ad Afros, keep in mind that this was a group letter by ninety Egyptian and Liberian bishops (including Athanasius) to the other bishops of Africa. The quotation may sound strongly worded in favor of Nicaea, but consider the opening line of the letter:

The letters are sufficient which were written by our beloved fellow-minister Damasus, bishop of the Great Rome, and the large number of bishops who assembled along with him; and equally so are those of the other synods which were held, both in Gaul and in Italy, concerning the sound Faith which Christ gave us, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers, who met at Nicæa from all this world of ours, have handed down.

Notice the parity with which the African bishops treat the various councils, including those presided over by Damasus. So, it is definitely true that we should be careful about jumping to conclusions just because the group of bishops uses the word "sufficient."

The group of bishops, in Ad Afros, advanced the argument of the council of Nicaea against the council of Ariminum. However, to prove that Nicaea is superior to Ariminum, the group of bishops argue that the Nicene foruma is in accordance with Scripture (section 4) of the letter. Moreover, the bishops defend the term "co-essential" as expressing the sense of Scripture, even though it is not the express term used in Scripture.

Although the letter does appeal to the allegedly ecumenical nature of the council as a persuasive reason for adopting its position, nowhere in the letter does the group of bishops say or suggest that the council's decision has equal authority in itself with Scripture, simply by virtue of being ecumenical. Furthermore, the letter expressly states, section 5, that the council fathers "wished to set down in writing the acknowledged language of Scripture" and that the only reason they used a word not from Scripture was that the Arian party kept twisting the meaning of those phrases. Thus, section 6 explains: "And lastly they wrote more plainly, and concisely, that the Son was coessential with the Father; for all the above passages signify this." In other words, the Nicene fathers weren't passing on unwritten tradition or defining dogma by their authority, but simply expressing the teachings of Scripture.

(Letter Ad Afros) (Letters to Serapion)

Patrick's Pejoratives vs. Rhology's Writing

Patrick Madrid tweets: "Yet another example of the misguided, myopic #Protestant bluster about #SolaScriptura & #sects. Wow. http://t.co/tkoX1PMw #blind #clueless "

His link takes you to this comment by the redoubtable Rhology. Responding to this:

The fact that there are thousands is enough to show sola Scriptura’s fruits: the individual as ultimate interpretive authority of the Scriptures was not God’s intention and has utterly failed to fulfill Christ’s prayer for unity in John 17.

Rhology writes:

Hmmm. Well, RCC’s “real” rule of faith is Apostolic Tradition, which includes written and unwritten tradition from the apostles, both in Scripture and in other places such as the lived-out faith of the church, the liturgies, the writings of church fathers down through the years, etc.
Notice that, like the Scripture, this too forms a corpus with limits. The Da Vinci Code is not part of Apostolic Tradition. Neither is the Qur’an, nor is The Audacity of Hope (though, depending on which Roman priest you ask, that last one might be close). We and others have contended many times, rightly, that the limits to the Roman Canons of Scripture are not only poorly defined but actually non-existent. It is also indisputable that one’s presupposition of an infallible interpreter (whether she be Rome or EOC) will govern which little-t traditions are actually accepted, promoted if you will, to Big-T Sacred Apostolic Tradition, thus forming the basis for Roman or Orthodox dogma, leaving the little-t traditions to rot by the wayside, relegated to “Well, he was just speaking as a private theologian” or “That was just his opinion” status.

But let’s leave all of that aside and grant that there is one big and awe-inspiring God-given Verbum Dei corpus of Scripture and Tradition that is the proper rule of faith for the church of Jesus Christ.

The problem is obvious – Rome, sedevacantists, traditionalist Catholics, Pope Michael-ists, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, and various other churches with incompatible teachings all appeal to this set and limited corpus of Scripture and Tradition. It would appear that the criticism against Sola Scriptura of multiple denominations applies to the Roman and EO rule of faith as well.

The Romanist or Orthodox might object: “But we’re not in communion with those schismatics/heterodox/heretics!” Now, what if I were to reply, as a member of a Southern Baptist church, that, have no fear my non-Sola Scripturist friends, my church holds that everyone who’s not a member of a Southern Baptist church is a schismatic/heterodox/heretic too? Would that make our Romanist or Orthodox friends feel better?
Or would that make them criticise us even more strongly: “See? You Sola Scripturists can’t even hold communion with each other!”? Yep, my money’s on that one, too. We’re darned if we do and darned if we don’t, but somehow if the Romanists or Orthodox don’t hold communion with these other churches, that’s just fine. Such special pleading is just…special.

So let me break this down as clearly as I can. “The Protestant Church” does not exist. Self-named “Protestant churches” vary so widely in doctrine and authority as to make points of comparison impossible to ascertain. If you want to compare unity and disunity, compare the adherences to the competing rules of faith. Or compare churches, like the Roman Church to the Southern Baptist Convention or the Pope Michael Catholic Church to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. What do we find, if we do this? How different from each other are the churches that hold to Scripture alone as rule of faith, and how different from each other are the churches that hold to “Sacred Apostolic Tradition” as rule of faith? Answer that and you’ll know one reason why we consider all this talk about how Tradition and Magisterium make for superior church unity to be just that – talk.

As James Swan recently pointed out:

For those of you who want to see how it's done when playing at Tiber Lanes, visit this discussion, and watch Uncle Rho bowl a perfect game, knocking down all the Romanist pins each time it's his turn. Take notes on his technique because this sort of ability doesn't just "happen." It's the result of years of careful analysis and apologetic encounters.

Now, Mr. Madrid may disagree with Rhology ... but aren't his pejoratives a little farfetched. Rhology seems well-informed, not blind or clueless - even if you disagree with him.

And Rhology goes on to provide more defense of the faith at the link Mr. Madrid provided.

Meanwhile, I'll just point out - Rhology has fairly recently done a debate with a Muslim imam. What debates has Mr. Madrid done lately? It's easy to badmouth people over twitter, but it's another thing to actually enter into debate. Dr. White has debated Patrick Madrid at least twice (Veneration of Saints and Images and Does the Bible Teach Sola Scriptura)

-TurretinFan

Mark Shea on Me on Hitchens and Fry

Mark Shea seems unhappy (link to his post). He states:

Speaking of weird partisanship, here's yet another Calvinist sitting in the peanut gallery and cheering on the atheists because they happen to be quarreling with Catholics. Better that God be blasphemed than that any slight pettiness of the 16th Century quarrel be abandoned for one second. We must have our priorities!

He's complaining because I posted a link to a debate in which a Roman Catholic archbishop and a Roman Catholic member of the British parliament got trounced in a debate with Hitchens and Fry (link to my previous post).

He didn't make the same complaint when I posted a link to a debate between Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza (link to my previous post).

Perhaps that's because I had positive things to say about Dinesh's performance and negative things to say about the performance of Archbishop Onaiyekan. That is a bit odd, though, because I didn't see Shea complain when Patrick Madrid posted this same debate and said negative things about Archbishop Onaiyekan's performance (link to Madrid's post).

Shea mentions something about cheering from the peanut gallery, but frankly if you read my post, there isn't actually any "cheering" going on there. In fact, there was more cheering in the Dinesh post than in the Onaiyekan post.

What makes Shea's botched potshot more amusing is that so far no atheists have complained about "weird partisanship" because of my comments about Dinesh. Although, in fairness, Roman Catholic Dave Armstrong did mock me for my post saying something nice about Dinesh's performance (link to Dave Armstrong's mockery).

So, when I post a debate that went poorly for Rome, I get targeted by Shea while he leaves Madrid alone; meanwhile when I post a debate that goes well by a Roman Catholic debater I get targeted by Armstrong.

The moral of the story: you can't make folks with double standards happy.

Is Roman Catholicism a Force for Good in the World?

The following is a debate featuring Roman Catholics Archbishop John Onaiyekan and MP Anne Widdecombe (Conservative) against Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens. The debate went well for the Negative according to the poll results released during the debate. Patrick Madrid, who brought this to my attention, agreed with Richard Dawkins in characterizing the debate as "a rout." (link to Madrid) Madrid seems to think that if Peter Kreeft, Benjamin Wiker, Robert George, Dinesh D'Souza, Helen Alvare, Alan Keyes, John Corapi, or Scott Hahn had debated for the Roman Catholic position, the result would have been different.

The result is what it is. I would not tend to base my criticism of Roman Catholicism on the grounds that Hitchens and Fry used.

Link to video - Sorry, but embedding seems to have problems not auto-playing.

Blueprint for Reliability Following the Lord's Example

Gennadius (died about A.D. 496) on James of Nisibis (aka "the Wise") (died after A.D. 350): "He composed also a Chronicle of little interest indeed to the Greeks, but of great reliability in that it is constructed only on the authority of the Divine Scriptures." (Gennadius, Supplement to Jerome's Illustrious Men, Chapter 1)

Gennadius (died about A.D. 496) on Evagrius the Monk (lived about A.D. 345 - 399): "He was first to mention or among the first at least to teach these setting against them [i.e. the eight principal sins] eight books taken from the testimony of the Holy Scriptures only, after the example of our Lord, who always met his tempter with quotations from Scripture, so that every suggestion, whether of the devil or of depraved nature had a testimony against it." (Gennadius, Supplement to Jerome's Illustrious Men, Chapter 11)

But, according to Patrick Madrid, Sola Scriptura is a "Blueprint for Anarchy" and alleges that it is "unhistorical, unbiblical and unworkable." Let the reader consider whether to trust Madrid or Gennadius.

-TurretinFan

Blueprints for Anarchy

Patrick Madrid wrote an article attacking Sola Scriptura as though it were a "blueprint for anarchy," which is the title that he gave to the article (link to article). The phrase is catchy among contemporary Roman apologists, and it should be no surprise then that we sometimes need to respond to these claims.

Here are three gentlemen who have recently (within the last month, I believe) provided answers:

James Swan - Follow Up Post
Stanford E. Murrell - Bondage of the Blog
Steve Hays

Enjoy!

-TurretinFan

Clarification on the Madrid Issue

A few of the folks who read my blog have taken umbrage with my recent comments (link) regarding Patrick Madrid's apologetics forum, ironically titled "Speak Your Mind." Two of those I've already addressed in part in a previous post (link) and another has posted comments on his own blog as well (a post creatively titled "Ummm - What?").

The gist of one of the recurrent complaints seems to be that my comment about Madrid turtling is unjustified, because even if he has hidden his apologetic forum from the public eye he still has:

1) Previous debates

2) Published books

3) Live TV/Radio Appearances

4) A Blog

I certainly agree that Mr. Madrid's turtling is not complete. He has not withdrawn himself wholly from the apologetics ring yet, he's just cut off a significant aspect of what used to be his apologetics sphere.

A second complaint is that there is no way to know Madrid's heart, and consequently we cannot infer any intent to conceal his website even from the fact that he has now concealed his formerly public website. As far as I'm concerned such a complaint is frivolous. We reasonably infer that people intend to do what they do.

Perhaps someone will further complain that the issue is not over whether Mr. Madrid intended to hide his candle under a bushel basket in this instance, but over why. In other words, was it to hide from criticism or not? I acknowledge that this inference is not as clear as the first inference. However, considering that his lock-down of public access to his website follows hard on the heels of his complaints that comments from the website were being posted elsewhere, it is a reasonable inference.

A third complaint is that since Madrid has debated Michael Horton and Robert Godfrey (apparently referring to a single debate entitled: "What Divides Us?" in which Madrid, Sungenis, and Marshner took the Romanist side and Horton, Godfrey, and Rosenbladt took the Reformation side), it is unreasonable to suppose that Madrid would be loathe to interact with my friend who uses the nick "Algo" and his critiques. Presumably, the hidden premise is that because my friend Algo isn't (as far as the complainers know) a Westminster Seminary professor, his critiques will necessarily be easier to defeat than those of said professors. Therefore, our critics seem to suppose that it is unreasonable to think that Madrid has significant limited access to limit criticism.

I understand the basic intuition of this objection, and to a small extent I can agree: if Madrid is brave enough to handle Godfrey he should be brave enough to handle my friend Algo. The primary way that Algo relates to our discussion is that he was about the only (if not the only) Reformed voice that had not already been kicked off by the moderators of the site - and he was kicked off when two Reformed blogs posted discussion of his interactions there. In other words, he was essentially given the boot for leaking information.

In any event, I hope the above has helped to clarify matters. If someone has inaccurately inferred from my previous post that I think (or that I want you to think) that Mr. Madrid has entirely withdrawn from apologetics, this post should disabuse them of that erroneous inference.

-TurretinFan

Response to Steve Ray on the Pseudographic Papyrus of Turin

Introduction

As you may recall, we recently identified a spurious quotation from Athanasius that a number of apologists for Rome had been using, including Mr. Steve Ray. Sadly, rather than correct his error and be honest with his readers, Mr. Ray has chosen to pretend the problem doesn't exist, directing his readers, once again, to the video musings of Mr. William Albrecht.

Specifically, in response to the demonstration that Mr. Ray bolsters his case with spurious quotations, Mr. Ray stated:

You may want to watch this video put up by William Albrecht. He addresses one instance in which an opponent wrongly says Catholics wrongly use the Fathers. Funny thing Fundamentalists accusing us of misusing the Fathers! Thanks William!

(link and emphasis on "us" in Ray's original post - that link is to William Albrecht's video)(source)

Notice how Mr. Ray plays the same "hide who the critic is" game that Mr. Madrid plays. On this point, I have to give Mr. Albrecht a little bit of credit. Unlike Mr. Ray and Mr. Madrid, Mr. Albrecht is not afraid to identify his critics and to direct the reader to the criticism in question.

Clearly, Mr. Ray is endorsing and promoting Mr. Albrecht's video. Did Mr. Ray watch it himself? It's hard to say. After all, Mr. Ray's very next blog entry is "We arrived in Greece." Perhaps he is just busy on his pilgrimage profiteering and did not have time to watch Mr. Albrecht's video or consider its content. Perhaps he got second-hand information. Who knows?! Either way he shows a lack of interest in the integrity of his own presentations, which relied upon the spurious source attributed to Athanasius.

So, let's examine Mr. Albrecht's video response. The link has already been provided above. It's about ten minutes long. I think the following pretty much addresses all of Mr. Albrecht's attempted arguments.

Albrecht Preface - "Blunders" Claim

Mr. Albrecht prefaces his video with a claim that various "blunders" were made. As we'll see below, he nowhere substantiates this claim. At best, he disputes some of the facts presented. I'd encourage Mr. Albrecht, who I have already praised for his courage, to consider making more reasonable claims, since he looks bad when he claims that there are "blunders" but then cannot actually substantiate blunders.


Albrecht Argument 1 - Many Lists Omit Works Discovered in the 20th Century

Albrecht's first argument is not to point out any blunder, but simply to try to weaken the fact (which he doesn't dispute) that the work in question is not to be found in any standard list of Athanasian works. He tries to weaken this fact by pointing out that older lists wouldn't have more recently discovered works.

Even leaving aside that this is just an attempt to weaken my position rather than any attempt to substantiate the authenticity of the work, there are a couple of problems with this argument.

First, the argument assumes that this work only came to light in the 20th century. Mr. Albrecht asserts that many lists don't include 20th century findings. Mr. Albrecht, however, is unaware of when this work came to light. This work was already known to scholars in the 19th century and was even published in the late 19th century. Mr. Albrecht seems to think that the publication of the work in Le Muséon was the first time the work had come to light. In fact, however, the work is one of a number of works that were earlier published. The article in Le Muséon was largely of interest because it included a French-language translation of the work.

Second, even if the article in Le Muséon were the first time the work had come to light, the Le Muséon article was over 50 years ago. By now, if the scholarly consensus were that this work were authentic, there would have been time to have the document included within the standard corpus of Athanasian works. But, of course, Mr. Albrecht is unable to identify any such corpus that identifies this homily as authentic.

Albrecht Argument 2 - Speculation Regarding Manuscript's Origin

Mr. Albrecht speculates about the origin of the manuscript, arguing that it may have come from some particular monastery. If Mr. Albrecht had spent more time doing his homework, though, he would have discovered that the reference to "of Turin" in the title of the homily ("Homily of the Papyrus of Turin") is a reference to the Egyptian Museum of Turin/Torino, Italy (link to museum's website). This is a museum in Northern Italy near the foothills of the Alps. Where they were before that, I leave to Mr. Albrecht to see if he can track down.

Regardless of the location from which the museum obtained the manuscripts, speculation regarding the manuscript's origin can hardly be viewed as an argument in favor of its authenticity.

Albrecht Argument 3 - Athanasius Knew and Used Coptic

Mr. Albrecht seemingly misunderstood my comment regarding the evidence for the authenticity of the homily. I had pointed out that the only evidence for the homily is a single Coptic manuscript. Mr. Albrecht went on at some length to point out that Athanasius knew and used the Coptic language. Mr. Albrecht, however, is missing the point. The point is that although Athanasius is a very renowned church father, this homily supposedly went unnoticed by the entire Greek-speaking church, not to mention the Coptic church. Of course, whether Athanasius spoke or used Coptic is really not relevant to the issue of whether a particular Coptic manuscript is a genuine writing of Athanasius.

On the other hand, I am very curious what makes Mr. Albrecht think that whoever wrote this particular homily, wrote it originally in Coptic, rather than in Greek. Given the rest of the inaccuracies in Mr. Albrecht's response, I think it is reasonable to presume he lacks any information on that subject.

Furthermore, as the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 explains:

Post Nicene Fathers. --The homilies, sermons, etc., of the Greek Fathers from the Council of Nicaea to that of Chalcedon were well represented in the Coptic literature, as we may judge from what has come down to us in the various dialects. In Bohairic we have over forty complete homilies or sermons of St John Chrysostom, several of St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Theophilus of Alexandria, and St Ephraem the Syrian, while in Sahidic we find a few complete writings and a very large number of fragments, some quite considerable, of the homiletical works of the same Fathers and of many others, like St. Athanasius, St. Basil, Proclus of Cyzicus, Theodotus of Ancyra, Epiphanius of Cyprus, Amphilochius of Iconium, Severianus of Gabala, Cyril of Jerusalem, Eusebius of Caesarea, and the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Liberius of Rome and St. Ephraem are also represented by several fragments of sermons. We need not say that these writings are not infrequently spurious, and that they can in no case be held up as models of translation.

(emphasis added)

Albrecht Argument 4 - Luigi Gambero Bias Issue

It seems even more certain that Mr. Albrecht misunderstood the issue of Mr. Gambero's bias. Mr. Gambero is a Marianist priest. That is to say, he belongs to the "Society of Mary," a religious order devoted to Mary. This, of course, explains his great interest in the topic of Mary, but it does naturally lead him to tend to be interested in identifying quotations from church fathers that praise this woman to whom he and his religious order are devoted. It's just his natural bias to accept spurious and/or questionable writing as though they were authentic if they praise Mary, just as it would be the nature of his bias to criticize (as questionable or spurious) authentic works that somehow cast aspersion on Mary.

None of this is supposed to prove that Mr. Gambero is lying or doing anything mischievous. As I noted in my original post, I am still hoping to obtain a copy of the relevant pages of the original Italian edition of the book. Perhaps in that book Mr. Gambero correctly identified the work as as pseudo-graphic, and perhaps his translator or English editor simply accidentally removed the relevant qualifier.

Likewise, Mr. Gambero could simply have assumed that the work was authentic without looking into the matter. We simply don't know why he cited it. Nevertheless, his bias is against critical investigation of his sources, and in favor of his acceptance of questionable and spurious sources as authentic, whether or not that bias actually came into play.

Albrecht Argument 5 - Other Things Athanasius Said or Didn't Say

Mr. Albrecht goes off on a tangent when he tries to bring up other things that Athanasius allegedly said, such as things relating to the concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Perhaps Mr. Albrecht is confused about my contention.

My contention (and what I have demonstrated) is that apologists for Catholicism cite a spurious work as though it were Athanasius. It is not a claim that Athanasius was one of the Westminster divines or that he was a drinking buddy of Martin Luther's. My contention is not that he agreed on every point with "Protestants" (an absurd notion given the variety within "Protestantism") nor even was my point in this case that Athanasius disagreed with even one thing that Rome teaches today.

In other debates I have addressed some issues about what the church fathers actually believed. There are plenty of inconvenient facts of history for those who wish to imagine that what their church teaches is "what was always taught from the beginning." But that is not this argument. This argument is that Rome's apologists are using a source that they shouldn't use, if they wish to be considered honest.

Albrecht Argument 6 - The Title of the Homily of the Papyrus of Turin

This particular homily is called the "Homily of the Papyrus of Turin." It is not called "In Praise of the Blessed Virgin." Mr. Albrecht tenaciously insists that he did not err in calling the homily by the latter title. This is just ridiculous. I know exactly where he got that "title" from, but it is not the title of the work. It is just a "tag line" that Mr. Gambero put above the quotation to tell the reader what the quoted section of the homily is about.

Mr. Gambero himself would not make the silly mistake that Mr. Albrecht has made. Mr. Gambero does use that tag line over the section of the homily that Mr. Albrecht read in his previous video. On the other hand, however, Mr. Gambero uses the tag line "Mary Greets Elizabeth" as the tag line for the quotation from the same homily on the immediately preceding page. The same technique can be seen on page 31 of Mr. Gambero's work and in every "readings" section at the end of each chapter of his book. At page 31, the tag line is "Ignation Profession of Faith" but the work is Ignatius' Epistle to the Ephesians.

Given Mr. Albrecht's fascination with Ignatius, one hopes that Mr. Albrecht would have the sense to realize that Ignatius' Epistle to the Ephesians (whether or not genuine, in whole or in part - and when I say "whether or not" I mean I'm not addressing that issue here) is not called "Ignation Profession of Faith" as a title.

Albrecht Argument 7 - Le Muséon is a Reputable Journal

Le Muséon is a reputable journal, no doubt. It is not our intention to suggest otherwise. It was with great pleasure that I leafed through volume 71 of Le Muséon to read (and read about) this particular homily. That's not really the issue.

Mr. Albrecht asserts that Le Muséon claims that the work is authentic. This simply isn't true. I frankly have no idea where Mr. Albrecht got the idea that Le Muséon even took any opinion on the authenticity of the homily.

Le Muséon, after all, is the journal. The fact that an article is published in a journal doesn't mean that the journal itself endorses the content of the article, or stands behind it. Part of the purpose of journals is to put out information so that it can be reviewed by academic peers of the articles' authors.

I suppose, in some instances, a journal could explicitly adopt the position of a particular article published therein. In this case, Le Muséon has not taken such an approach. Le Muséon simply published an article by Mr. Louis-Théophile Lefort.

Of course, and it seems probably Mr. Albrecht was unaware of this, Mr. Lefort was the director of Le Muséon from 1921 until his death in 1959. So, it is almost as though Le Muséon were speaking when Mr. Lefort speaks.

Regardless, Mr. Lefort does not himself (in the article) insist on the authenticity of the piece. Indeed, he concurs with the comment in my previous post that the authenticity of the work is not to be established on the basis of the fact that work has Athanasius' name at the top. This is, of course, due to the fact that there numerous works that are attributed to more famous writers.

I find it highly unlikely that Mr. Albrecht had bothered to look up and read through the article in Le Muséon to see what it said about the supposed authenticity of the work. Had Mr. Albrecht done so, he would (no doubt) have discovered in one of the first lines of the article an indication of the prior publication of the homily in the 19th century.

Albrecht Argument 8 - Reasons Given to Doubt

Mr. Albrecht suggests that we have given him no reason at all to doubt the authenticity of the work. In fact, things are just the opposite of what Mr. Albrecht suggests. The weight of the scholarly consensus is that the work is spurious, and Mr. Albrecht has given us no reason to doubt that consensus. Le Muséon itself did not insist that the work was authentic. Why do Rome's apologists? We had hoped that it was by accident, because they simply didn't investigate their sources.

However, when Rome's apologists try to defend their spurious works with irrelevant, inaccurate, or misleading argumentation, one wonders whether they even care about the truth. One hopes that Mr. Albrecht's video post can be chaulked up to youthful zeal rather than a malicious wish to mislead his viewers. Likewise, we can presume that Mr. Ray simply doesn't take his own work's integrity seriously enough to defend his citation of a spurious work, instead directing his readers to a video that we can be sure he did not fully research for accuracy.

Conclusion

The response of Rome's apologists so far has been disappointing. Mr. Albrecht has been the only one brave enough to try to set forth a detailed response, but sadly he has fallen short. Rather than simply admitting his mistake and appropriately correcting it, Mr. Albrecht has dug himself a deeper hole, and Mr. Ray has joined him there by recommending his video.

I continue to exhort the apologists of Rome to engage in a higher level of discourse. Obviously, here, I am specifically picking on Mr. Ray and Mr. Madrid - two men who seem to be unwilling to let the church fathers be the church fathers, trying instead to make them a part of the religion of modern Roman Catholicism.

-TurretinFan

P.S. As I was bringing this article to a close it came to my attention that Mr. Albrecht had posted a link to his video over at Mr. Madrid's forum (link), where it received a warm reception by those who apparently simply take William's word for it, rather than investigate. The ever-vicious Art Sippo (a medical doctor and lay apologist for Rome) even chimes in calling someone the "son of lies" (I'm not sure if he intended that for me, since he probably didn't even bother to check out who at Alpha and Omega Ministries had written the post) and praising Mr. Albrecht. Of course, Mr. Madrid's forum moderator (Patti) will presumably continue her policy of preventing this response from coming to the attention of the readers of her forum, since it has been her past policy of editing out references both to the Team Apologian Blog and Thoughts of Francis Turretin on the forum.

Madrid vs. Augustine on Bodily Presence

In a recent post on his blog (link), Mr. Madrid took the time to respond (without naming me) to a post I had presented on the Alpha and Omega Ministries web site http://www.aomin.org/ - but Mr. Madrid couldn't actually address Augustine's comment, opting instead to rely on his own assertion and a number of pasted quotations of things Augustine said elsewhere: things that don't contradict the explanation of Augustine found in Augustine himself.



-TurretinFan

Patrick Madrid and Hugh Barbour vs. ECFs

This video (audio only for now) discusses the problems that Patrick Madrid and Hugh Barbour (whom Mr. Madrid was reproducing) encounter when they try to make the Early Church Fathers (ECFs) Roman Catholics, rather than just letting them speak for themselves. The topic is the sacrifice of the Eucharist and the ECFs in question are the Didache and the Epistola Apostolorum.



-TurretinFan

Two Sola Scriptura Debate Transcripts

My own debate on Sola Scriptura with Mr. Bellisario is progressing at a snail's pace (link to debate) - the latest news being that late last night my cross-examination questions for Mr. Bellisario were posted.

For those champing at the bit (or chomping at it, if historical etymology is not important), here are two Sola Scriptura debate transcripts - both of which are rather substantial in terms of reading length.

Gerry Matatics vs. James White (1992)

James White vs. Patrick Madrid (1993)

Enjoy!

-TurretinFan