This timeline takes the teachings that the objections on this site answer and asks where each one enters the written record. For each teaching it gives the earliest statement that could be quoted from a primary document on an approved source, in date order, with a link to the objection that answers it. Some of these teachings have forerunners before 1517, and those are shown at their own dates. A few replies of the Church are set at the dates they were given.
Drafted from primary sources. Every quotation is checked against the page it links to. An entry is the earliest statement on this timeline, not the earliest that exists: several earlier texts are not on a source this site can check, and the notes on the entries name the ones we know of. The teachings of Berengar, Wycliffe and the first Anabaptists are quoted from the records of those who answered them, and each entry says so. Zwingli's articles and the theses of Berne are quoted in Latin with our translation, because the linked page gives no English text.
“Therefore, he says, You are Peter; and upon this Rock which you have confessed, upon this Rock which you have acknowledged, saying, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, will I build My Church; that is upon Myself, the Son of the living God, will I build My Church. I will build you upon Myself, not Myself upon you.”
“…the firmness of faith and complete unanimity that the Church displayed in opposing Berengarius who gave in to certain difficulties raised by human reasoning and first dared to deny the Eucharistic conversion. More than once she threatened to condemn him unless he retracted.”
“For it is Christ's body at least in figure and true bread in nature; or, which comes to the same thing, it is true bread naturally and Christ's body figuratively. … Just as John was Elias in a figurative sense and not in person, so the bread on the altar is Christ's body in a figurative sense. And the words, This is my body, are unambiguously figurative, just like the statement "John is Elias".”
“That the pope is supreme pontiff is ridiculous. Christ approved such a dignity neither in Peter nor in anyone else. 20. The pope is antichrist made manifest. Not only this particular person but also the multitude of popes, from the time of the endowment of the church, of cardinals, of bishops and of their other accomplices, make up the composite, monstrous person of antichrist.”
Lutheran: parted from the Catholic Church. Martin Luther publishes the Ninety-five Theses at Wittenberg. Pope Leo X excommunicates him in 1521.
“25. The Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, is not the vicar of Christ over all the churches of the entire world, instituted by Christ Himself in blessed Peter. … 27. It is certain that it is not in the power of the Church or the pope to decide upon the articles of faith, and much less concerning the laws for morals or for good works. … 37. Purgatory cannot be proved from Sacred Scripture which is in the canon.”
“…all Christians are truly of the Spiritual Estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office alone. … Thus we are all consecrated as priests by baptism, as St. Peter says: "Ye are a royal priesthood, a holy nation" (1 Peter ii. 9)”
“Therefore it is a wickedly devised fable, and they cannot quote a single letter to confirm it, that it is for the Pope alone to interpret the Scriptures or to confirm the interpretation of them … we should boldly judge what they do and what they leave undone, by our own understanding of the Scriptures, and force them to follow the better understanding, and not their own.”
“Therefore, we teach clearly according to the Apostle, that every town should elect a pious learned citizen from the congregation and charge him with the office of minister; the congregation should support him and he should be left at liberty to marry or not. … My advice is, to restore liberty, and to leave every man free to marry or not to marry.”
“We must also get rid of another scandal, which is a much greater and a very specious one; that is, that the mass is universally believed to be a sacrifice offered to God. … Unless we hold the mass to be the promise or testament of Christ, according to the plain meaning of the words, we lose all the gospel and our whole comfort. Let us allow nothing to prevail against those words, even if an angel from heaven taught us otherwise. Now in these words there is nothing about a work or sacrifice.”
“Hence it is clear that, as the soul needs the word alone for life and justification, so it is justified by faith alone and not by any works. For if it could be justified by any other means, it would have no need of the word, nor consequently of faith.”
Reformed: parted from the Catholic Church. Ulrich Zwingli defends his Sixty-seven Articles at Zurich, and the city sides with him.
“Christ, who offered himself once on the cross, is the sacrifice and victim that makes satisfaction for ever for the sins of all the faithful. From this it follows that the Mass is not a sacrifice, but a commemoration of the sacrifice offered once on the cross and, as it were, a seal of the redemption through Christ …”
Our translation. The words as written, in Latin:
“Christus qui sese semel in cruce obtulit hostia est et victima satisfaciens in æternum pro peccatis omnium fidelium. Ex quo colligitur, missam non esse sacrificium, sed sacrificii in cruce semel oblati commemorationem et quasi sigillum redemptionis per Christum …”
“God gives us all things through Christ and in the name of Christ. From this it follows that outside this life we need no intercessor but Christ.”
Our translation. The words as written, in Latin:
“Omnia nobis per Christum et in nomine Christi præstat Deus. Hinc sequitur, nobis extra hanc vitam intercessore præter Christum nullo opus esse.”
“Holy Scripture knows of no purgatory after this life.”
Our translation. The words as written, in Latin:
“Scriptura sacra purgatorium post hanc vitam nullum novit.”
“That the body and blood of Christ are received essentially and bodily in the bread of the Eucharist cannot be shown from Holy Scripture.”
Our translation. The words as written, in Latin:
“Quod corpus et sanguis Christi essentialiter et corporaliter in pane Eucharistiæ percipiatur, ex Scriptura Sacra non potest demonstrari.”
“To make images for worship is contrary to the Word of God contained in the books of the Old and New Testament. Therefore, where they are set up with danger of being adored, they are to be removed.”
Our translation. The words as written, in Latin:
“Imagines fabricare cultus gratia, Dei Verbo, Veteris et Novi Testamenti libris comprehenso repugnat. Idcirco si sub periculo adorationis proponantur, abolendæ.”
“…the sacrament of the altar is the sacrament of the very body and very blood of Jesus Christ; and that the spiritual manducation of this body and blood is specially necessary to every true Christian. … And although at present we are not agreed on the question whether the real body and blood of Christ are corporally present in the bread and wine, yet both parties shall cherish Christian charity for one another, so far as the conscience of each will permit”
“Of the Supper of the Lord they teach that the [true] body and blood of Christ are truly present [under the form of bread and wine], and are [there] communicated to those that eat in the Lord's Supper [and receive]. And they disapprove of those that teach otherwise [wherefore also the opposite doctrine is rejected].”
“They condemn the Anabaptists who allow not the Baptism of children, and affirm that children are saved without Baptism.”
“For it will not do to frame articles of faith from the works or words of the holy Fathers … The rule is: The Word of God shall establish articles of faith, and no one else, not even an angel.”
“If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.”
“…He testified, in express and clear words, that He gave them His own very Body, and His own Blood; words which,-recorded by the holy Evangelists, and afterwards repeated by Saint Paul, whereas they carry with them that proper and most manifest meaning in which they were understood by the Fathers,-it is indeed a crime the most unworthy that they should be wrested, by certain contentions and wicked men, to fictitious and imaginary tropes, whereby the verity of the flesh and blood of Christ is denied, contrary to the universal sense of the Church”
“…how futilely those argue who, out of the mere name of Peter, would rear up a governing power over the whole Church. … Peter had confessed in his own name, and that of his brethren, that Christ was the Son of God (Mt. 16:16). On this rock Christ builds his Church, because it is the only foundation; as Paul says, "Other foundation than this can no man lay" (1 Cor. 3:11).”
“But Christ has freed us from anxiety on this head; for the following promises undoubtedly have respect to the future … Again, when he declares, "Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up," (Mt. 15:13), he intimates conversely that those who have their root in God can never be deprived of their salvation.”
“We distinguish between these holy books and the apocryphal ones, which are the third and fourth books of Esdras; the books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Jesus Sirach, Baruch … and the two books of Maccabees. The church may certainly read these books and learn from them as far as they agree with the canonical books. But they do not have such power and virtue that one could confirm from their testimony any point of faith or of the Christian religion.”
Baptist: parted from the Anglican body. John Smyth and a group of English Separatists in Amsterdam form the first Baptist congregation.
“Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ to be unto the party baptized a sign of his fellowship with him in his death and resurrection; of his being engrafted into him; of remission of sins; and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to live and walk in newness of life. 2. Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus, are the only proper subjects of this ordinance.”