"Irenaeus held vastly different beliefs from what the Church taught and yet somehow remained in the Church as a Church Father. "

The Irish Church survived for a long time till it finally knuckled under to the Official RC line.

Since Our Troll wasn't accrediting his sources of cut and paste - easily found, even though he edited them slightly (and seems to do so for all his threads!), why should I? :-)

"The catacombs were used from the 2nd to the 4th centuries. By that time, all the writings that comprised the NT were written"

As I posted, that phrase (NT) was not used at that time as the 'English Language' had not been invented. Further more, the RC had firmly resisted the attempts to 'have the Bible in a language the common uneducated man could read'. Perhaps they could forsee the nonsensical carry ons that would happen, such as the Classically unlearned who could ONLY read that translation insisting on a literal reading of THEIR language version. All Serious strains of The Xtain Cult want their clerics to at least try to study the original languages in which the sacred texts were written. Various attempts had been made to produce an 'English Translation', but the King James version was the first formally accepted one "Old and New Testaments together in the one book"

There was once a serious scholar who was approached to translate the Bible into a language for some East African clients. He did the best he could.

Some years later, as his knowledge of their language had increased, he approached them and revealed that he had made some serious translation errors, one might say, almost heretical, and offered to make appropriate corrections.

Imagine his shuck when the response was "How dare you suggest changing the sacred revealed Word of God!"...

When my brother came home for Xmas Hols from the Seminary, he was having to do extra study as he had not passed his Greek. I looked over his shoulder, asked him if I could help, then said, "Sorry, It's all Greek to me!"

:-)