Dennis--thanks for your thoughtful reply. My question about purgatory was
perhaps not clear. Let's see if I can amplify. Was there in the late 13th
or early 14th centuries any struggling with the meaning of ad
inferos--precisely because it refers to the netherworld or world of the dead
rather than specifically to hell. This would be at a time that, for example,
Dante is explicating a full-blown, albeit literary, version of both
purgatory and hell. The wording of the creed with ad inferos seems
consistent, but was the meaning of that phrase a contentious one at any time
within the church? Not did he go there, but where exactly "there" is?
Thanks, Sharon
----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Martin <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 1999 4:20 PM
Subject: Re: creed
> This is a common misconception, based in part on Protestant
> accusations at the time of the Reformation. For polemical purposes
> Protestants accused Catholics of requiring assent to beliefs with no
> scriptural basis. What really was going on was a debate about what
> constituted adequate scriptural basis. Protestants often called for
> "explicit" scriptural support; Catholics argued that development of
> doctrine permitted teachings to be derived by making explicit what was
> merely implicit in scripture. But, of course, what one interpreter
> thought was clearly explicit in scripture (e.g., Luther's salvation by
> grace through faith _alone_ in Romans and other Pauline letters)
> another interpreter (Council of Trent) thought was not only explicitly
> absent from Paul's writings explicitly contradicted (e.g., in the
> epistle of James). So the debate over what constitutes explicit and
> implicit scriptural basis for this or that doctrine or practice.
>
> Underlying all of this really was the question of who authoritatively
> adjudicates such debates over interpretation of scripture. For
> Catholics this was the Church as expressed by bishops in council in
> communion with the pope; for Protestants, after an initial flirtation
> with a self-interpreting Bible (which quickly proved disastrous when
> the Anabaptists began saying that any farmer could do a better job of
> interpreting scripture, if he had the anointing of the Holy Spirit,
> than could a learned professor like Luther), settled largely on
> professional experts in Greek and Hebrew under the guidance of the
> Holy Spirit, i.e., basically a scholarly-philological approach to
> resolving interpretive issues. In other words, the locus of authority
> shifted from the episcopal cathedra to the university cathedra.
>
> In the case of the "descendit ad inferos" of the Apostles Creed, we
> have an apostolic claim (if the creed goes back to the Apostles, as
> was assumed in the Middle Ages; modern scholars do recognize that it
> is a very, very ancient baptismal formula from Rome) which would give
> it an authority parallel to the apostolic writings (scripture). If it
> directly contradicted something found in scripture, a medieval
> theologian would have probably said that the "creed" for that reason
> could not be authentically apostolic. However, as Oriens has noted,
> not only are contradictory scriptures lacking, supporting scriptures
> are present. Had this not been the case, this creed could never have
> developed the authority it had from early times.
>
> Finally, as to the question whether it might parallel LeGoff on
> purgatory, keep in mind that "ad inferos" was normally interpreted as
> the netherworld, the abode of the dead, Hades of the pre-Christ
> patriarchs and sages. This is really not the same thing as the
> Christian idea of purgatory, so I would be cautious about assimilating
> the two.
>
> Dennis Martin
>
>
>
> Well Pat, I'm a Catholic priest, and Catholics certainly are
> required
> to believe it ["descendit ad inferos"], because it is in the Bible,
> at 1 Peter 3:18 ff.
> >>
>
> Excuse me Bill if I jump in from the sidelines, but isn't that beside
> the
> point. If the Church en masse decides on some article of faith isn't
> that
> article then required of every member of the church, regardless of
> scriptural
> support.
>
> mark
>
>
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