Icons, or Idols? Interpreting the Fathers on Images

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RMfKAqZCPek

Ad Hoc: Assessing John of Damascus’ Argument for Icon Veneration

https://thereformedninja.blogspot.com/2022/08/ad-hoc-assessing-john-of-damascus.html

Here are a few samples:

St. Irenaeus: "As the Church has freely received from the Lord, so does she freely minister, nor does she do anything by invocation of angels...but by directing her prayers clearly, purely, and openly to the Lord, Who made all things, and calling on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Cont. Haer. II. 32.)

St. Clement of Alexandria: "Since there is only one good God, both we ourselves and the angels supplicate from Him alone" (Stromat. VII. 7.)

Origen: "Every prayer and supplication, and intercession and thanksgiving, is to be sent up to God, Who is above all, through the High Priest, Who is above all angels, He being Word and God. For it is not reasonable that they who do not understand the knowledge of angels, which is above man's, should invoke them. If their knowledge...were understood, this very knowledge would not suffer us to dare to pray to any other but to God, the Lord over all, Who is sufficient for all, through our Saviour, the Son of God." (Cont. Cels. VII.)
"To those who place their confidence in the Saints, we fitly produce as an example, 'Cursed is the man which hopeth in man'; and again, 'Do not put your trust in man'; and another, 'It is better to trust in the Lord than in princes'. If it be necessary to put our trust in anyone, let us leave all others, and trust in The Lord." (Hom. I. in Ezek. XVII.)

St. Athanasius: "It is written, 'Be my protecting God, my house of refuge and saviour,' and 'The Lord is the refuge of the poor'; and whatever things of the same sort are found in Scripture. But if they say that these things are spoken of The Son, which would perhaps be true, let him confess that the Saints did not think of calling on a created being to be their helper and house of refuge." (Orat. cont. Arianos, I. 62.)

Council of Laodicea, the same which settled the canon of Scripture: Christians ought not to forsake the Church of God, and depart and invoke angels, and hold meetings, which are forbidden. If anyone, therefore, be found giving himself to this hidden idolatry, let him be anathema, because he hath left our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and hath betaken himself to idolatry." (Canon XXXV.)

It is true that just after this time we find the first germs of the practice at the close of the fourth century in St. Gregory Nazianzen (A.D. 390) and St. Gregory Nyssen (A.D. 396); but their slight apostrophes are very unlike the newer ones, even if their example could set aside a Divine principle: and yet later, St. Chrysostom (A.D. 407), commenting on Coloss. ii. 18, says that the "voluntary humility and worshipping of angels" there condemned by St. Paul, refers to "such as say that we must not approach God through Christ's mediation, that being too great a thing for us, but through the angels," exactly the popular Roman plea.

Quote Gregory the Great:

"I say it without the least hesitation, whoever calls himself the universal bishop, or desires this title, is, by his pride, the precursor of Antichrist, because he thus attempts to raise himself above the others. "

- St. Catherine of Siena, SCS, p. 201-202, p. 222, (quoted in Apostolic Digest, by Michael Malone, Book 5: "The Book of Obedience", Chapter 1: "There is No Salvation Without Personal Submission to the Pope").

It's from a book

“That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the Church herself, if she shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it black.”

– [St. Ignatius Loyola, “Rules for Thinking with the Church”, Rule 13, (cited from: Documents of the Christian Church, pp. 364-365, ed. Henry Bettenson, New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1947.)]

The Failure of Eastern Orthodoxy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AplWYXFiCA

What is the Gospel According to the Eastern Orthodox Church?

https://thereformedninja.blogspot.com/2023/08/what-is-gospel-according-to-eastern.html

SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION: A STUDY OF 2 THESSALONIANS 2:15

https://rlwatsonauthor.wordpress.com/2023/12/21/scripture-and-tradition/

"Not the matter of the bread, but the word pronounced over it, is what profits the one eating not unworthily of the Lord. And this indeed of a typical and symbolical body. Moreover many things could be said also of the word itself, that it was made flesh, and true food, which he who eats, shall live forever, which no wicked person can eat" (Commentary on Matthew 11.14 on Mt. 15:11).

- Origen

John Calvin's Letter to Cardinal Sadoleto (1539)

https://www.monergism.com/john-calvins-letter-cardinal-sadoleto-1539


Cardinal Sadolet's exchange with John Calvin provides the occasion for what is surely the most powerful argument for the Protestant Reformation ever issued.

The occasion of this exchange is John Calvin's sojourn in Strassburg, then a city of Germany. Germany had by then been thoroughly reformed, but Geneva in Switzerland had banished Calvin and Peter Farel in 1538 for trying to enforce reformation too quickly and too strictly.

With the reformers banished, Rome saw opportunity to return the great city of Geneva to the fold. They set Cardinal James Sadolet, one of those rare Catholic prelates that was a man of untarnished character, on the task. Cardinal Sadolet was also an eloquent and cultured man, and he used those talents to write a letter of great force to the council in Geneva in 1539.

https://www.christian-history.org/cardinal-sadolet.html

Here's a perfect example of how Apostolic Succession doesn't mean much. How is some normie with no training supposed to pick which of three contenders is "The Orthodox Church?" @Presbyterianism

Iconology and Imperial Captivity: A Case Study of the Metamorphosis of Theology in the Byzantine Church

http://godlightangels.blogspot.com/2021/10/iconology-and-imperial-captivity-case.html

Veneration vs. Adoration: Eastern Orthodox Iconology and Red Herrings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYWwziUGltg

I wish the reader to understand that as often as we mention Faith alone in this question, we are not thinking of a dead faith, which worketh not by love, but holding faith to be the only cause of justification. (Gal. 5:6; Rom. 3:22.) It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone: just as it is the heat alone of the sun which warms the earth, and yet in the sun it is not alone, because it is constantly conjoined with light. Wherefore we do not separate the whole grace of regeneration from faith, but claim the power and faculty of justifying entirely for faith, as we ought.

– John Calvin, Antidote to the Council of Trent, 6th Session on Justification, Canon 11

Horrible Arguments for the Roman Catholic Priesthood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWztblXbph4

Icon Veneration is STILL an Accretion (Response to Hamilton/Garten)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNEw8PxXky8

Nicea II council (pro-icons) rejected by the Western Latin church

http://forums.anglican.net/threads/nicea-ii-council-pro-icons-rejected-by-the-western-latin-church.4145/