DID YOU KNOW the image of the “cross” originated among the Babylonians of ancient Chaldea and was in use surrounding countries such as Egypt? It was later adopted to represent the cross of Christ, although the early Christians shunned its use as a device of shame.
DID YOU KNOW that crosses were introduced into the churches as late as 431 AD?
DID YOU KNOW that one historian noted in reference to the hieroglyphics in ancient Egyptian building that:
“Here unchanged for thousands of years, we find among her most sacred hieroglyphics the cross in various forms...but the one known specially as the ‘cross of Egypt’ or the Tau cross, is shaped like the letter T, often with a circle or ovoid above it. Yet this mystical symbol was not peculiar to this country, but was reverenced... among the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Mexicans, and every ancient people in both hemispheres” [?] (The Cross in Tradition, History and Art, Seymour, 22, 26).
DID YOU KNOW among the Chinese
“the cross...is acknowledged to be one of the most ancient devices...it is portrayed upon the walls of their pagodas, it is painted upon the lanterns used to illuminate the most sacred recesses of their temples”[?] (Ibid.,13).
DID YOU KNOW that Buddhists and several other cults in India mark the heads of their followers with a cross?
DID YOU KNOW in Mexico, when the Spaniards first landed,
“...they could not suppress their wonder as they beheld the cross, the sacred emblem of their own faith, raised as an object of worship in the temples of Anahuac. The Spaniards were not aware that the cross was the symbol of worship of the highest antiquity...by pagan nations on whom the light of Christianity had never shone”[?] (History of the Conquest of Mexico, Prescott, Vol.1, 242).
DID YOU KNOW that though Christ was crucified on only one kind of cross, the Catholic church encompasses forty different types? If the Catholic system’s use of the cross began with just the cross of Jesus’ crucifixion, and not influenced by paganism, why are so many different types used?
DID YOU KNOW that,
“Of the several varieties of the cross still in vogue, as national and ecclesiastical emblems, distinguished by the familiar appellations of St. George, St. Andrew, the Maltese, the Greek, the Latin, etc., there is not one amongst them the existence of which may not be traced to the remotest antiquity”[?] (The Pentateuch Examined, Vol.6, 113).
DID YOU KNOW the phrase “Mother of God” was not used in reference to Mary until 431 years after the death of Christ? Jesus never called her “mother,” only “woman”. If you say she was the “mother of God” you are putting her before God and therefore actually making her God. Mary was simply the mother of the human body of Jesus. Christ has existed from all eternity and was Mary’s Creator (Jn.1:10) He did not require a mother for his existence. Did Jesus not say, “Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn.8:58)?
DID YOU KNOW
“That the prayers addressed to Mary and the saints are idolatrous is clear from the fact that: (1). They are precisely the same kind, and are expressed in the same terms, as those addressed to God; (2).They are presented in the ordinary course of worshipping God; (3).They are offered kneeling; And (4). They form the bulk of the prayers offered”[?] (Roman Catholicism, Boettner, 149-150).
DID YOU KNOW
“The Church of Rome, without any warrant whatever, from Scripture, technically divides worship into three kinds:[?] (1). Latria, the supreme worship, given to God alone; (2). Dulia, a secondary kind of veneration given to saints an angels; and (3). Hyperdulia, a higher kind of veneration given to the Virgin Mary. The theory, however, is useless in practice, for the average worshipper is not able to make the distinctions, nor does he even know that such distinctions exist. The subtleties of definition only confuse the issue, for who can balance his feelings so nicely as to give God, the Virgin, and the saints their due proportion?...We must insist that any religious worship, whether inward or outward, consisting of prayer, or praise, and expressed by outward homage such as bowing, kneeling, or prostration is properly termed worship and belongs to God alone” (Roman Catholicism, Boettner, 150-151).
DID YOU KNOW Jesus subtly redirected attention to obedience to the word and away from the “blessedness” of Mary as we should also? Luke 11:27-28 states,
“...a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.”
DID YOU KNOW that Mary acknowledged herself as a sinner:[?] Only a sinner needs a savior, as no punishment can lawfully be inflicted upon a sinless person, yet we hear Mary say, “my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.” Also after the birth of Jesus she brought two offerings, one of which was a sin-offering. (Lk.2:24 and Lev.12:6-8)
DID YOU KNOW the idea of the Immaculate Conception (the doctrine that Mary was conceived without sin) was met with great opposition by a great number of the “church fathers”? Men like Augustine, Chrysostom, Eusebius, Ambrose, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Cardinal Cajetan and two popes, Gregory the Great and Innocent III.
DID YOU KNOW Roman tradition is against image worship? The Council of Frankfort in 1605 stated,
“It is not to be found that any of the patriarchs, and prophets or Fathers, did worship images, but the Scriptures cry out to worship God, and Him alone to adore and glorify, and the Fathers of the primitive church did forbid the worshipping of images as it appears by Epiphanius and Augustine, who reckon the worshippers of images amongst the Simonians, and the Carpocratian heretics.”
DID YOU KNOW that in the book of Revelation, Jesus commanded John to “write” what he saw 14 times? Yet accord-ing to the Catholic church, “Christ... NEVER commanded his apostles to write” (Question Box, Bertrand L. Conway, The Columbus Press, N. Y., 1913, 1913 edition, 70). Not only did Christ command the apostles to write, but in I Thessalonians 5:27, Paul charged us “by the Lord” that his epistle be read to all the holy brethren.
DID YOU KNOW that Rome’s excuse for forbidding the reading of the holy scriptures is based on love?
“If occasionally she has seemed to restrict its use or its diffusion this too was through an easily comprehensible love and a particular esteem for the Bible, that the sacred book might not like a profane book be made a ground for curiosity, endless discussion, and abuses of every kind” (Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 Volumes Special Edition under the auspices of K. of C. Catholic Truth Committee, The Encyclopedia Press Inc., New York, 1913, XV, 9).
DID YOU KNOW that Rome feels the Bible is not fit to be read by all?
“More than this, parts of the Bible are evidently unsuited to the very young or the ignorant, and hence Clement XI condemned the proposition that the reading of the Scriptures is for all. These principles are fixed and invariable but the discipline of the Church with regard to the reading of the Bible in the vulgar tongue has varied with varying circumstances. In early times the Bible was read freely by the lay people...New dangers came in during the Middle Ages...To meet these evils, the Council of Toulouse (1229) and Terragona (1234) forbad the laity to read the vernacular translations of the Bible. Pius IV required bishops to refuse lay persons leave to read even Catholic versions of scripture unless their confessors or parish priests judged that such reading was likely to prove beneficial” (Catholic Dictionary., Addis and Arnold, The Catholic Publication Society Co., N. Y., 1887, 82).
DID YOU KNOW that Rome believes that reading the Bible in the language of the people does more harm than good?
“Since it is clear from experience that if the Sacred Books are permitted everywhere and without discrimination in the vernacular, there will by reason of the boldness of men arise therefrom more harm than good, the matter is in this respect left to the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor, who may with the advice of the pastor or confessor permit the reading of the Sacred Books translated into the vernacular by Catholic authors to those who they know will derive from such reading no harm but rather an increase of faith and piety, which permission they must have in writing. Those, however, who presume to read or possess them without such permission may not receive absolution from their sins till they have handed them over to the ordinary” (Fourth rule concerning prohibited books, by Council of Trent, and approved by Pius IV, 1563 A.D., Translated by H. J. Schroeder, Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, 274).
DID YOU KNOW that Rome not only calls the Bible the “paper pope of Protestantism”, but they also say,
“The Protestants start with the unapproved assumption that the Bible is the inspired word of God” [?] (Question Box, 66).
DID YOU KNOW Catholicism says:
“...It is said that we deprive the Faithful of the word of God, which is the soul’s daily bread. [?] We may answer this falsehood by stating that while, indeed the Scripture is our soul’s daily bread, Mother Church purportions it to our needs. Just as parents do not give the whole loaf to their children, or a knife with which to cut it lest they injure themselves, so it is the duty of the Church, of the priest or the preacher, to distribute the spiritual bread of the word of God to the people in portions suited to their requirements.” (The Priest, His Dignity and Obligation, “St.” John Eudes, 99).
DID YOU KNOW that in one Catholic publication, they go so far as to say that the New Testament was not a preconceived plan?
“But what we have no right to expect, and what the rationalists always do expect, is to find the whole of Christianity in its written records. Christ nowhere prescribed writing as a means of promulgating his gospel. It was comparatively late in the Apostolic Age, and apparently in obedience to no preconceived plan, that the sacred books began to appear” (Catholic Ency., III, 718).
DID YOU KNOW that in the Catholic Dictionary, page 450, we read:
“There is no reason to suppose that the author of the book , i.e. of Esther received any revelation.”[?]
DID YOU KNOW
“Not only have Catholic authorities used every artifice to to discredit the Bible in the minds of the laity, and did for hundreds of years forbid them to read it, they admit that they have never had a correct copy of the Bible, either English or Latin! In all their learned works they are continually pointing out the blunders of their Bibles, and that, after they have been revised countless times!” (Catholicism Against Itself, Lambert, 72)
DID YOU KNOW that 1 Corinthians 3:21 says, “Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours.” [?]
DID YOU KNOW that 1 Corinthians 4:6 says:
“...that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.”[?]
DID YOU KNOW that Galatians 6:4 says:
“But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.”
DID YOU KNOW that one Catholic Encyclopedia calls the Bible a disappointment?
“Yet it does happen that some devout Christians experience a certain disappointment when they open the Bible. They expect to find uplifting and heartwarming phrases and are faced instead with dry lists of ritual observances, fierce imprecations of some of the prophets and the enigmatic sentences of the Apocalypse-if not the matrimonial adventures of the Kings. It must be admitted that the Bible in no way resembles a manual of devotion; apart from the Gospels and sapiential books, it has little to offer the believer nourished on the Imitation or even the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatious of Loyola” (20th Century Catholic Encyclopedia, Henri Daniel-Rops, Volume 60, 112-113).
DID YOU KNOW one Catholic publication feels the Bible is most boring?
“Inspiration does not prevent the author of Leviticus from being the most boring of lawyers, the compiler of the Chronicles from being totally devoid of talent or the author of the Apocalypse from making many syntatical mistakes in his Greek...Some parts of the book flash with the sparkle of genius, others are undeniably platitudinous and dull” (Ibid., 27 and 47).
DID YOU KNOW
“The Bible is silent or at least is not clear on a number of matters such as the baptism of infants and exact number of the sacraments, concerning which the church follows tradition” (National Catholic Almanac, 1943, 128).
DID YOU KNOW that one Catholic publication disrespectfully contradicts the Bible?
“Probably because Mary Magdalene-AFTER THE MOTHER OF GOD-first beheld the risen savior” (The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Gihr, 490).
“Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared FIRST TO MARY MAGDALENE, out of whom he had cast seven devils.” (Mark 16:9) (Emphasis mine)
DID YOU KNOW that two Catholic Bible versions contradict?
“We shall not all be changed....” (I Cor.15:51) (Douay Version) “
We shall all be changed....” (Westminster Version)
DID YOU KNOW that the Douay Bible changed the word “wife” in 1 Corinthians 9:5, to obscure the fact that Peter had a wife and she traveled with him? It reads:
“Have we not power to carry about a woman, a sister, as well as other apostles, and as the rest of the apostles, and brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?”