/lit/ - Literature

>>17913805
>Who is Tacitus?? Who is Josephus??

Regardless, the claim that 'the only contemporary accounts of Jesus come from Christians' is flawed. If someone saw Jesus perform the miracles he performed, how could they not be what was later termed a 'Christian'? They were ordinary people convinced of Jesus' divinity. A better question is how a dozen illiterate fisherman and tradesmen maintained their stories of Christ's resurrection even under penalty of horrific torture and death.

>>17873540
IRENAEUS TAUGHT BY POLYCARP, AN APOSTOLIC FATHER
>“Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time” (ibid., 3:3:4).

AUGUSTINE'S RESPECT OF THE APOSTOLIC TRADITION
>“[T]here are many other things which most properly can keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The unanimity of peoples and nations keeps me here. Her authority, inaugurated in miracles, nourished by hope, augmented by love, and confirmed by her age, keeps me here. The succession of priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15–17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here. And last, the very name Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called ‘Catholic,’ when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house” (Against the Letter of Mani Called “The Foundation” 4:5 [A.D. 397]).

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH AN APOSTOLIC FATHER
>“Ignatius . . . to the church also which holds the presidency, in the location of the country of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and, because you hold the presidency in love, named after Christ and named after the Father” (Letter to the Romans 1:1 [A.D. 110]).

>“You [the church at Rome] have envied no one, but others you have taught. I desire only that what you have enjoined in your instructions may remain in force” (ibid., 3:1).

>>17092590

>>16366074
It seems like the majority of the world absolutely detests Catholicism. Does anyone know why? From the scandals in the Church to strict adherence to religious morality, everyone that is opposed to Catholicism has a reason. Is it the protestant indoctrination, the modernist teachings, the enlightenment? What makes Christ's established Church so hated?

>>6513864