Roman Catholicism hasn't got a clue about its origins

This is just simply excellent in every way.

http://www.whitehorseblog.com/2015/08/02/longing-for-nicaea/

Roman Catholicism, as a religion, is a novelty of the late fourth century, but in order to be taken seriously she must at every opportunity claim Nicæan and ante-Nicæan origins for her novelties. Yet at the same time, there is nothing so foreign to Roman Catholicism as the Nicæan and ante-Nicæan Church. For this reason, while Roman Catholicism constantly attempts to lay claim to apostolicity, she must always at the same time distance herself from the practices and beliefs of the Church of the apostles. It is a love-hate relationship. Rome strives diligently to identify herself with the apostolic era, and then exhausts herself explaining why the Church of that era was so different from Roman Catholicism. What we find as we examine Rome’s vain striving for antiquity and continuity is an uncomfortable truth that lies beneath the surface of all of her posturing, a truth that can never be uttered aloud: She does not know whence she came. ...

To summarize, we simply recall that Rome’s attempts to find Papal Primacy in the 6th Canon of Nicæa is founded upon a gross anachronism. Pope Leo’s attempts to find impute Roman judicial primacy to Nicæa was wholly fraudulent. Bryan Cross’s attempts to place the primacy of the Three Petrine sees in Ignatius of Antioch and Canon 6 of Nicæa required that he impute a late-fourth century teaching retroactively upon the Early Church. Rome’s attempts to find Pontifex Maximus used in the Early Church is based upon Tertullian’s use of the title as an insult. The attempt to place the exhumation and veneration of martyr’s relics before Nicæa required that a late-fourth century practice be incorrectly placed in 312 A.D.. Pius IX’s attempts to impute the Immaculate Conception to the Early Church was found to be a terrible historical inaccuracy. Roman Catholic attempts to prove an ante-Nicæan belief in Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant required a misrepresentation of Hippolytus, and relied upon other documents known to be fraudulent and spurious. Roman Catholic criticism of the allegedly “anti-incarnational” worship of Protestants required evidence from the late fourth century and beyond, because the Early Church was apparently “anti-incarnational” in its worship, too, by Roman Catholic standards. The Sacrifice of the Mass cannot be found at Nicæa, and does not finally find an advocate until Gregory of Nyssa in 382 A.D.. Early proof of the perpetual virginity of Mary required a later modification to the Nicæan creed, and relied upon the words of Athanasius, 35 years removed from the Council. The allegation of the “continuity” of kneeling on the Lord’s Day since the first century required that a thousand years of explicit prohibitions of the practice be ignored, including Nicæa’s outright prohibition of the practice.

In other words, there is at least a 300-year gap between the apostolic era and Rome’s novelties. And importantly, that does not leave a lot of time for doctrines to develop. Rather, they seemed instead to emerge spontaneously. We noted above, in reference to Cardinal Newman’s “Development of Doctrine,” that he attributed the later emergence of Roman Catholic teachings to an unbroken, continuous process of doctrinal development since the apostolic era. But what we find when we examine the historical origins of Roman Catholicism is not a gradual, continuous emergence of the doctrines since the age of the apostles, but rather a sudden, step-wise emergence of error at the end of the fourth century.

And to cover up her later origins, Rome consistently, perpetually, instinctively and relentlessly lavishes her affections upon the Council of Nicæa.

But Nicæa stubbornly refuses to requite them.

The Genteel Duplicity of Roman Catholic Apologists at the Highest Levels

A Roman Catholic Cardinal, Professor,
lazy scholar and spreader of lies.
Typical even today.

Roman Catholicism, which claims to be “infallible”, is, on the contrary, probably the greatest disseminator of “urban legends” in history. For centuries, following the Reformation, absolute lies and untruths were told by Roman polemicists, and repeated, and repeated, and continue to be repeated down to this century. Here, for example, is one for which the source was “from an ‘ex-Calvinist’ turned Roman Catholic” – (I wonder where that came from?) – no doubt a person seeking to do “due diligence”, but who is most likely to pick up and pass on more of these lies and untruths, which were started and disseminated by the “princes” of “the Infallible Church”.

James Swan has made a career out of untangling these falsehoods. (There is no other way to describe them.)

In this his most recent blog post, James sorts out a quote from the work “The Bible and the Rule of Faith” (1875), by the French Theology Professor and later Cardinal and Archbishop of Quebec.

From this “Doctor of Theology, Theological Professor in the University of Laval”, Louis Nazaire Bégin, James provides this quote:

As to the heads of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, I do not wish to judge them myself, for fear of being accused of partiality. I prefer only quoting some short passages of their writings, and repeating the polite speeches they make about one another; the reader can then pronounce for himself as to the sanctity of the origin of Protestantism. The sincerity of Luther is well described in this confidential letter to his friend Melanchthon, August 30th, 1530: 'When once we have nothing more to fear, when we shall be left in peace, then will be the time to rectify our deceits, lies, and errors. 'Peter,' he says elsewhere, 'the greatest of the Apostles, lived and taught contrarily to the Word of God.[58] 'Moses, he says, had a tongue, but a hesitating tongue, which stammered—a tongue of death, of anger, and of sin. Collect all the words of wisdom of Moses, of the gentile philosophers, and you will find that they only express idolatry or hypocrisy. [pg 216]

Here is James’s commentary on that:

Upon checking the source I discovered that it wasn't simply one quote, but three strewn together in the typical Roman Catholic polemical style that has so characterized their treatment of Luther throughout the centuries. While the Cardinal claims an attempt to avoid "partiality," any writer that simply throws a bunch of quotes together without a context or historical background is indeed being "partial." Notice in the first quote (the letter), Luther is presented as a behind-the-scenes liar. In the second quote, Luther characterizes the life and teachings of the apostle Peter as contrary to the Word of God. In the third quote, Luther says all of the words of Moses amount to idolatry. In one short paragraph, the impartial Cardinal has presented the lying, apostle-slandering, law despising Martin Luther.  Elsewhere in the book Bégin says Luther was "a real chameleon" in doctrine and modified his opinions day to day (pp. 49-50). Given Bégin's overall treatment of Luther, I would posit he hadn't actually read much Luther but relied on the opinions and citations of secondary sources.

For more details and actual sources, read the rest of this post here.

It is a very lazy thing indeed to do what this Roman Catholic Cardinal and Professor has done – to re-hash old polemics. That has been the method of Roman Catholics apologetics since the time of the Reformation.