And there's only One Church emerging from the first century, Vincent of Lerins confirms it. There's One Church movement, and then there are the heresies. These are the only branches of the Christian tradition that existed, this is according to their own testimony, in documents we have from that time. We have the New Testament, we also have two letters from Pope Clement in Rome (successors of Peter sat on Peter's throne, left vacant in Rome when Peter was put to death by crucifixion, although his crucifixion was different because he was hung upside down, which means he must have taken longer to die unless they set him on fire, because crucifixion kills you through suffocation because your core musculature gives out and you can't breathe anymore due to your weight being suspended by just your two arms all day), and then we also have a letter from Ignatius of Antioch (Antioch was also a Petrine see, because Peter was the bishop of Antioch for a while, meaning he lived there, and oversaw Church administration for that city's diocese) written to the same Roman diocese that Paul had written to, not 50 years earlier, in which he indicates how special Rome is because of the papal office residing there, Peter's throne, and the throne of David.
There's the throne of David, and then there's all the heresies. Those are the branches of Christian tradition which emerge from the first century, we know this from documents from the time. There's David's throne, and the movement associated with that, and there's the heresies, which are movements unassociated with David's throne. They're already going off the reservation, even by the first century.
One of them is called the Docetists. They didn't believe, based on independent philosophy, that Jesus could have really come in the flesh. It conflicted with their philosophy, and even though the Pope and all the bishops all taught that Yes He did, they went off on their own.
Ignatius is the first one to condemn people for not believing the Real Presence, and it was the Docetists.
The Docetists are even mentioned by 1st John, in the New Testament.
Like I said, you Dispensationalists have an excuse, you have a reason why the Roman Catholic Church emerging out of the first century is not the Church in the Bible simpliciter, you think, as you indicate here, that that movement was already corrupt.
So you have an excuse. It's users like
@Lon and
@Derf and idk maybe
@7djengo7 (I can't tell if this latter is a Dispensationalist or not yet), who have some 'splainin to do Lucy. Dispensationalists just believe the Roman Catholic Church emerging out of the first century is already corrupt. So they have an excuse.
