Reformed Catholic
Puritan Board Freshman
My exhortation to you guys: It seems in today's post-modern skeptical world, young people more than ever desire to pursue an ancient faith, to be as far away from modernity as possible (which is why most mistakenly go to Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism). We should be aware and use to our advantage the fact that the Reformed faith is THE ancient faith of the church. Ancient Faith for Modern Times.
Feel free to add more that you can find!
St. Epiphanius of Salamis to Emperor Theodosius “Moreover, they are deceiving who represent the likeness of [biblical] saints in various forms according to their fancy, sometimes showing the same persons as old men, sometimes as youths, intruding into things which they have not seen. For they paint the Savior with long hair, and this by guessing because He is called a Nazarene, and Nazarenes wear long hair. They are in error if they try to attach stereotypes to Him, because the Savior drank wine, whereas the Nazarenes [the Nazarites] did not.”
St. Epiphanius, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem (394 AD): "...learning it to be a church, I went in to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints; I do not rightly remember whose image it was. Seeing this, and being loath that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ's church contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a burial shroud for some poor person!"
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, to Constantia (313 AD): "But if you mean to ask of me the image, not of His form transformed into that of God, but that of the mortal flesh before its transformation, can it be that you have forgotten that passage in which God lays down the law that no likeness should be made either of what is in heaven or what is in the earth beneath?"
“The devil was creeping into men’s minds under the pretence of devotion and justice, and, consecrating human nature by divine honours, presented to their eyes various fine images, in order to separate the mind from the one God by an infamous adultery. Therefore, though those who are worshipped are dead, people adore their images, which never had any life in them.” He further remarked, “that there was not a prophet who would have suffered a man or a woman to be worshipped; that neither the prophet Elias, nor St John the beloved disciple of the “Lord, nor St Thecla (who had received the most extravagant praises from the fathers), were ever worshipped; and that, consequently, the virgin was neither to be invoked nor worshipped.” “The old superstition,” says he, “shall not have such power over us as to oblige us to abandon the living God, and worship his creature.”
A Treatise on Relics --John Calvin, quoting Epiphanius
Feel free to add more that you can find!
St. Epiphanius of Salamis to Emperor Theodosius “Moreover, they are deceiving who represent the likeness of [biblical] saints in various forms according to their fancy, sometimes showing the same persons as old men, sometimes as youths, intruding into things which they have not seen. For they paint the Savior with long hair, and this by guessing because He is called a Nazarene, and Nazarenes wear long hair. They are in error if they try to attach stereotypes to Him, because the Savior drank wine, whereas the Nazarenes [the Nazarites] did not.”
St. Epiphanius, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem (394 AD): "...learning it to be a church, I went in to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints; I do not rightly remember whose image it was. Seeing this, and being loath that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ's church contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a burial shroud for some poor person!"
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, to Constantia (313 AD): "But if you mean to ask of me the image, not of His form transformed into that of God, but that of the mortal flesh before its transformation, can it be that you have forgotten that passage in which God lays down the law that no likeness should be made either of what is in heaven or what is in the earth beneath?"
“The devil was creeping into men’s minds under the pretence of devotion and justice, and, consecrating human nature by divine honours, presented to their eyes various fine images, in order to separate the mind from the one God by an infamous adultery. Therefore, though those who are worshipped are dead, people adore their images, which never had any life in them.” He further remarked, “that there was not a prophet who would have suffered a man or a woman to be worshipped; that neither the prophet Elias, nor St John the beloved disciple of the “Lord, nor St Thecla (who had received the most extravagant praises from the fathers), were ever worshipped; and that, consequently, the virgin was neither to be invoked nor worshipped.” “The old superstition,” says he, “shall not have such power over us as to oblige us to abandon the living God, and worship his creature.”
A Treatise on Relics --John Calvin, quoting Epiphanius