By you saying “it is axiomatic” you are saying “It is self-evident and unquestionable . . . .” But then you quote Peter who conversed with Paul and even Peter found it hard to understand Paul. Peter had the mind frame of a Circumcisionist whereas Paul that of an Uncircumcisionist. I have already shown that St. Clement of Rome would have disagreed with Paul concerning the doing of the law. And if history is correct, and Peter handed the keys over to Clement, (which we don’t really know if he did) but if he did then Clement would have been a Circumcisionist.
Eusebius, have you ever read Clement’s letter to the Corinthians? If you ever did, it might result in an alteration of your opinions.
Here is part of an introduction to the letter by Philip Schaff, a Swiss-born, German-educated Protestant theologian and a Church historian who spent most of his adult life living and teaching in the United States:
You can read the introduction here: ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ii.i.html
If you click “NEXT” at the bottom of the page, you can read Clement’s letter.
Yes, I read that. Did you read what I wrote about Clement wanting to do the law of Moses? That is far from Pauline teaching.
Besides, the point is not if those ante-Nicene writers agree with Paul or not. The point is that if you don’t understand Paul’s writings from his own pen, you are wasting your time reading other non-canonical writings. Drink first from the source then, once you really understand the source, branch out.
Which raises 2 questions for me. Suppose one has read the writings of Paul (i.e. your average Baptist, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, etc.)
How do they know, if they properly understand it?
Who is going to judge, if they properly understand it? And what criteria will they use?
Some miscellaneous points:
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The strong emphasis on justification and conceiving it in juridical terms (i. e., “positionally righteous”) can not be found before Augustine of Hippo’s novel interpretations based on his reading of the Latin text in the late 4th and early 5th centuries. The idea that Christians for the first 300 years were blind to something supposedly obvious and vital in Paul strikes me as incredible, especially since many of these Christians faced martyrdom. In comparison, we are spiritual cripples and they were spiritual Olympians.
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Before I read the Apostolic Fathers (starting with St. Clement of Rome and St. Ignatios of Antioch), I felt confused by Paul’s letters. The historical Protestant interpretation struck me as clearly wrong, and the Roman Catholic interpretation didn’t seem much better. When I read the Apostolic Fathers it was like a breath of fresh air came into the room, clearing away the theological cobwebs with their pristine common sense. (This, by the way, was the beginning of my path to Orthodoxy, as the Orthodox Church interprets Paul in accordance with the Apostolic Fathers rather than in accordance with Augustine.)
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The fact that Augustine’s (and, by extension, Luther’s) reading of Paul seems obvious to so many western Christians is a testament to the historical influence of Augustine. There is a reason that he is the favorite “Church Father” of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, while the Orthodox Church basically ignores his writings. If a contemporary western Christian traveled back in time to the 2nd or 3rd century and shared with the Christians what he regarded as the “obvious” reading of Paul, they would look at him funny and would end with the question, “Can’t you read?” In short, the West’s “obvious” understanding of Paul is culturally conditioned by Augustine’s novel reading of Paul.
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I am not at all sure that the man that Paul rebuked in Antioch was St. Peter the Apostle. It’s not uncommon for names to be confusing in the New Testament. Look at the uncertainty of identification of all the men named James, for example. I have a hard time imagining old Apostle Peter acting like the little pipsqueak described in Galatians 2. Even if that fellow was St. Peter, it could not have been more than a temporary lapse on a bad day. I do not see any fundamental disagreement between Peter and Paul or amongst any of the Apostles. The Apostles speak in harmony like strings on a harp.
Sure, but it is also possible when we are resting confidently in God’s love for us to speak hopefully and positively about making progress and growing in Christ-likeness. As an example athletes challenge themselves and their teammates to strive and develop and grow in positive ways. Hebrews 10:24 says “spur one another on to love and good deeds.” Of course this spur can too easily turn into a load of guilt. Yet, I always liked the title of Chambers book, “My Utmost for His Highest”. The motivation to strive is to return our best for God’s unconditional love.
As the current discussion on this thread… one of the challenges of a disciple, learner, follower, is to see things as they really are versus through the grid of a particular way or model of thinking. Hopefully everyone at least appreciates that each of us is influenced by our background, religious tradition, books we have read (or haven’t read), leaders when we were first converted, and the list goes on. It is a very hard exercise to appreciate all those good influences and then sort them out as we read the text of Scripture.
I am encouraged every time I read 1 John chapter 2 which explains that the Holy Spirit is our teacher. Consider His amazing patience as He allows us to be learning and growing yet still at odds with each other and sometimes at odds with Him. So we are reminded to be humble learners.
Yes, I did read that you wrote that. But I didn’t put much stock in it since I saw no evidence of that in Clement’s letter. But perhaps you are referring to the following passage:
I am guessing that you were deceived by the title assigned by the editors of the letter in the Ante-Nicene Fathers. They entitled Chapter XL as “Let us preserve in the Church the order appointed by God.” Clement was not talking about order in the Church here. He was showing in Chapter XL and XLI that there God promoted order under the Old Covenant, and then goes on in Chapter XLII to show that He also enjoined order in the Church under the New Covenant. The “us” to which he refers under the Old Covenant is “us Jews” (since Clement was a Jew). Clement is saying that God had order for “us” (Jews) under the Old Covenant and He likewise has order for “us” under the New. For example he refers to “priests” and “Levites.” Clearly these were not ministerial positions in the Church at any time. And now in XLII, he describes the ministers in the church and how God and Christ made those appointments in an orderly way also.
“And thus preaching through countries and cities, they [the Apostles] appointed the first-fruits [of their labours], having first proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should afterwards believe.”
What caliber of men did the Apostles appoint as the first bishops?
St. Mark (the author of the Gospel) was the first bishop of Alexandria.
St. Barnabas was the first bishop of Milan.
St. Justus was the first bishop of Eleutheropolis.
St. Ananias was the first bishop of Damascus.
St. Philip was the first bishop of Tralles.
St. Prochorus was the first bishop of Nicomedia.
St. Parmenas was the first bishop of Soli.
St. Timothy was the first bishop of Ephesus.
St. Titus was the first bishop of Crete.
St. Epaphras was the first bishop of Colossae.
St. Philemon was the first bishop of Gaza.
St. Onesimus was the first bishop of Byzantium.
St. Silas was the first bishop of Corinth.
St. Silvanus was the first bishop of Thessalonica.
St. Crescens was the first bishop of Galatia.
St. Narcissus was the first bishop of Athens.
St. Rufus was the first bishop of Thebes.
St. Linus was the first bishop of Rome.
St. Hermas was the first bishop of Philippopolis. He was the author of the Shepherd of Hermas.
etc.
The first bishops were a who’s who of the young Christians in the New Testament. Perhaps a skeptic might say, “Ah, you Orthodox just trolled through the New Testament, found the names of minor characters, and haphazardly assigned them bishoprics.” While I of course do not agree with that, let us grant it for the sake of argument. The question arises: Who would the Apostles appoint to be leaders of the Church after the Apostles’ martyrdoms? Losers, morons, and nobodies? Clearly not. They would appoint men of the caliber listed above. Skepticism on this point reminds me of the skeptics who doubt that the four Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If those four men didn’t write them, who did? Losers, morons, and nobodies? And if so, why weren’t these nobodies the leaders of the Church instead of men such as Matthew, Mark, etc.?
Regardless of particular identities, why did the spiritual Olympians appointed by the Apostles as leaders of the Church not expound on the Augustinian/Lutheran/Calvinist/Protestant “doctrine of justification by faith alone”? Why did Timothy, Titus, and all the rest not teach this doctrine which is supposedly so vital and so clearly taught in the letters of Paul? Why did history have to wait for Augustine of Hippo centuries later to finally teach this? Isn’t such a scenario preposterous even on its surface?
I regard the writings of the Apostolic Fathers as great silliness detectors. Any time we get very far from the Apostolic Fathers, we need to ask ourselves, “Wait a minute. Why is this stuff not in the Apostolic Fathers? Am I innovating?”
A follow-up point:
The authorship of the works of the Apostolic Fathers is established on the same criteria as the authorship of the works of the New Testament. In both cases these books were written by leaders of the Church. If they were written by nobodies, then nobody would have cared about them. They would not have been regarded as Scripture or next door to it.
But why do we believe that it was Matthew the Apostle himself who wrote the Gospel of Matthew, and why do we believe that it was St. Clement of Rome himself who wrote I Clement? Because in both cases the ascription is ancient and uncontested. Nobody ever wrote, “Oh, we don’t know who wrote this.” Nobody ever ascribed Matthew’s Gospel to Bartholomew, and nobody ever ascribed I Clement to Barnabas.
If we argue against the traditional authorship of the Apostolic Fathers, we adopt the arguments that the non-Christian skeptics use to deny the traditional authorship of the New Testament writings. Either the argument works too well (in which case why be Christian at all?), or the argument doesn’t work (which I believe to be the case).
And who is to judge, who has the best argument? And what is the criteria, for determining it?
Personally, I would elect a neutral third party. Which would perhaps be a perfected, Artificial Intelligence program 
.
Even if I were a non-Christian, I would be ashamed to assert that Matthew didn’t write Matthew, or that John didn’t write I John, or that Clement didn’t write I Clement, etc. What is to be gained intellectually by asserting that any of these books were written by “committees of anonymous Christians, perhaps from Syria”?
The skeptic finds himself in a Twilight Zone of asserting that all or much of the early Church’s great literature was written by groups of anonymous nobodies, while all or most of the early Church’s leaders were semi-illiterates.
SOMEBODY wrote Matthew.
It wasn’t a NOBODY who wrote Matthew.
The particular SOMEBODY that was always held to have written it was none other than Matthew himself.
The anonymous committees of Christians didn’t show up until modern times.
I mean, good grief. I don’t doubt Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. I don’t doubt that Muhammad wrote the Qur’an. Wouldn’t I be silly to assert that anonymous groups of early medieval Arabs wrote the Qur’an? Wouldn’t I be silly to assert that anonymous groups of early 19th-century New Yorkers wrote the Book of Mormon?
The anonymous groups of nobodies who wrote the world’s great literature is as preposterous a fiction as… Well, I was going to say the Loch Ness Monster. But at least of this latter we have some claimed eyewitnesses and some blurry photographs. We don’t have even that sort of thing for the anonymous committees of spiritual geniuses who wrote the world’s most profound spiritual masterpieces while allowing illiterates to take all the credit.
EDIT: Hey, maybe de Vere really did write Shakespeare! 
As far as that goes, how do we know if anyone understands anything? There is a thing called “common sense” and “God opening a person’s eyes.”
One can be gifted with great common sense and thus understand many things but, if God has not opened up such a one’s eyes to a realization of the truth, then they will not understand what Paul has told the nations.
If Paul says “death passed through into all mankind and for that, all sin” in Romans 5:12 and In 5:18,19 he tells us that due to what Adam did, all mankind were made sinners," it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to take this at face value and believe it for exactly what it states. And in 5:18,19 Paul tells us the remedy for what we got through Adam’s one act.
Many wise do not “get it.” They weren’t meant to. Only those whose eyes have been opened by God will “get it.” Everyone else explains away those verses.
The apostle Paul would never tell believers of the nations to do the above in your quote which you posted from Clement. Don’t you see?
"how do we know if anyone understands anything? " has been a topic of philosophical epistemology for centuries.
“Common sense” implies a statistical mean or norm, by which most of the population abides by.
So Wiki gives this definition:
So if you express a view that’s a statistical outlier (i.e. not commonly adapted) and expect people to see the same thing - is that common sense?
And many claim that “God has opened up their eyes”. But even if we restrict that to the Bible, they have different world views or Biblical hermeneutics - regarding how they see it.
And if I don’t respond to any counterpoints until later, it’s because I’m preoccupied with normal, daily activities.
It takes more than common sense to understand Paul the apostle. The New Testament is rife with accounts of people with lots of common sense but who did not see Jesus as the Messiah and did not understand the words He spoke. Even Peter, whose eyes the Lord opened said the words of Paul are hard to understand. It takes God unclosing our eyes to see the truth.
It is improper to proclaim that if some claim God has opened their eyes when, after all, He has not, to suggest that this is the case with all whose eyes God has opened to the truth.
Then how is the common man supposed to know who has the truth, when different people claim that “God has opened their eyes to the truth”? But those making that claim, express different Biblical viewpoints?
Again, if I don’t respond to any counterpoints until later, it’s because I’m preoccupied with normal, daily activities.
The truths of Paul are not for whom you call “the common man.” The “common man” cannot perceive the spiritual treasures in the Scriptures unless God gives it to them.
Part of the problem is that there are “church goers” and there are “believers.” There are “church goers” and there are “those whom God has chosen from the disruption.” Many “church goers” were not chosen by God to be believing. But all true believers were chosen. “Now they believe, whoever were set for eonian life” (Acts 13:48). So you have some unenlightened teachers in seminaries and bible colleges teaching some unenlightened students. Both don’t get it. I’m not saying this is the case with all. That is why I used the word “some.”
Then you have true believers. These believers are at different levels of maturation. Just look at the Corinthians. There were sects among them. They were breaking into groups. Paul had to set them straight. And Paul said that there will be sects in the churches after he leaves. So it is a fulfillment of prophecy.
Jesus said “you don’t get My word.” Why? Because God didn’t give it to them to get it.
Is there a reason God didn’t give it to them - to get it? Or is that unknown - at this point in time?
I sometimes ask questions, to see how somebody perceives or believes something. It helps with perspective. 
Yes, of course. God always has a reason for hiding the truth from some but revealing it to others.
"At that season, answering, Jesus said, “I am acclaiming Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for Thou hidest these things from the wise and intelligent and Thou dost reveal them to minors” (Matt.11:25).
And, approaching, the disciples say to Him, "Wherefore art Thou speaking in parables to them? Now, answering, He said to them that "To you has it been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of the heavens, yet to those it has not been given. For anyone who has, to him shall be given, and he shall have a superfluity. Yet anyone who has not, that also which he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore in parables am I speaking to them, seeing that, observing, they are not observing, and hearing, they are not hearing, neither are they understanding. And filled up in them is the prophecy of Isaiah, that is saying,
‘"In hearing, you will be hearing, and may by no means be understanding,
And observing, you will be observing, and may by no means be perceiving. For stoutened is the heart of this people,
And with their ears heavily they hear,
And with their eyes they squint,
Lest at some time they may be perceiving with their eyes,
And with their ears should be hearing,
And with their heart may be understanding,
And should be turning about,
And I shall be healing them.’ "Yet happy are your eyes, for they are observing, and your ears, for they are hearing. For verily I am saying to you that many prophets and just men yearn to perceive what you are observing, and perceive not, and to hear what you are hearing, and hear not. "You, then, hear the parable of the sowing.
(Mat 13:10-18)
The concealing of the truth from many Israelites began in Isaiah’s day and continues to this day. But one day God will open their eyes when Christ returns.
Please tell me you did not MEAN this… 
Eusebius Wrote:
