Fr. Wathen from his book “Who Shall Ascend”:

This doctrine (believing dogmas on EENS as they are wriiten)  is the basis for the labors of all who seek to maintain and restore traditional Catholicity, though most of those who are engaged in this struggle have yet to realize the fact. Without this doctrine, assented to absolutely, Traditionalists have no cause and no argument against the current "reform" in the Church, as it is called.

Ill side with Augustine over Wathen... who?  lol 

The dogma itself is written very simply. Outside the Church there is no salvation. Plain simple English.

Rationally, I have the same issue as Byzcat where a pagan Chinaman dying a month before the New Covenant having a chance at salvation but one a month after having no chance at it seems nonsensical.

Normally, dogma takes clear precedent there and I submit reason to dogma. But then you have saints and popes saying that the invincibly ignorant CAN be saved after all. And nowadays even the vast majority of Trad Catholic clergy teach that(indeed many teach that even vincibly ignorant infidels can be saved, which is just beyond ridiculous in the face of EENS so I won't even go there). So whether it is true or not, it seems permissable to believe the possibility that they can be saved. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't spread the faith to them, as even if salvation were possible for the invincibly ignorant it would still be a 22k feet fall scenario.

The issue of baptised non-Catholics is a tougher one. Potentially they could be saved if they were somehow forgiven their sins, but both perfect contrition and Confession require you to be within the Church. But I do wonder what exactly qualifies as that. For example, supposing I'm a Catholic in Greece in 1053. 1054 rolls around and the pope and my patriarch excommunicate each other(an event which would later be known as the start of the Great Schism). But I'm some peasant so I don't hear about this and even if I do I probably have no idea what that means. I keep going to my local (eastern rite, i.e newly Orthodox) church. I die. Am I damned for schism?

St Justin refers to the pre Christian period technically but I’m not sure why the two would be strictly differentiated philosophically.

Well, I'm sure; the Church Fathers themselves very strictly differentiated between the OLD economy of salvation and the NEW.  Look, I've read thousands of pages from the Church Fathers, mostly in the original languages, and if one thing is certain it's that they made very strong distinction between how salvation worked in the old covenant and in the new.

Incorrect.  St Thomas said that EXPLICIT faith in Christ the Redeemer and the Trinity were the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM beliefs.  He SPECULATED that if a catechumen (i.e. someone who was taking classes to join the Church) died as a catechumen, they would not be damned to hell (but he also said they would not have their temporal punishment removed, nor would they have the indelible mark of membership).  In summary, this is his SPECULATION.  It's not Church teaching.

References to faith in a Mediator have to do with PRE- new testament economy of salvation.  He believes that it was through a faith in the coming Redeemer and Mediator that the Jews of the OT could be saved.  Some others felt that it was though circuмcision, but didn't adequately explain how women were saved.  ByzCat is garbling things up left and right.  St. Justin Martyr he keeps pulling out even though St. Justin was referring ONLY to those saved in the OLD economy of salvation.

St. Thomas, as you mention, clearly taught that explicit faith the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity are the bare minimum required for salvation.  That notion of "Reward God" belief sufficing was invented by a couple of Jesuits only around the year 1600.

I was referring to this:
//
Reply to Objection 3. Many of the gentiles received revelations of Christ, as is clear from their predictions. Thus we read (Job 19:25): "I know that my Redeemer liveth." The Sibyl too foretold certain things about Christ, as Augustine states (Contra Faust. xiii, 15). Moreover, we read in the history of the Romans, that at the time of Constantine Augustus and his mother Irene a tomb was discovered, wherein lay a man on whose breast was a golden plate with the inscription: "Christ shall be born of a virgin, and in Him, I believe. O sun, during the lifetime of Irene and Constantine, thou shalt see me again" [Cf. Baron, Annal., A.D. 780. If, however, some were saved without receiving any revelation, they were not saved without faith in a Mediator, for, though they did not believe in Him explicitly, they did, nevertheless, have implicit faith through believing in Divine providence, since they believed that God would deliver mankind in whatever way was pleasing to Him, and according to the revelation of the Spirit to those who knew the truth, as stated in Job 35:11: "Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth."//
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3002.htm#article7

... oh, for crying out loud.  What part of OLD TESTAMENT do you not understand?  He's writing about the OLD TESTAMENT economy of salvation.

Bizcat, you are all over the place, just seeking teachers according to your own desires.  

My EENS building has as solid a foundation as can be built in this sea of time, built by the pillars of dogma, the final word of the Holy Ghost.

Your building is a dream built in the sky, with no foundation whatsoever.

The EO are heretics and schismatics, EENS says they can't be saved even if they shed their blood for Christ. END.

If you can invent what only appears to be an EO, but really is not because they are not schismatic and heretical and they don't reject the papacy, then they are Catholic, and if they die in a state of grace, they will be saved as a Catholic, not as EO. Now, my whole family are baptized Catholics, and like I said, out of 100 that died (all educated in Catholic schools prior to Vat II), I am certain that 3 were saved and maybe another 10 went to Purgatory, maybe not. Being Catholic meant nothing in 97% of my family, they are likely all lost. Meanwhile you are attempting to invent an EO who is not a schismatic or heretic and believes in the papacy. Go figure.  

I’m willing to grant that normatively he wouldn’t remain a donatist.  But the way Augustine frames it, the guy ALREADY isn’t a heretic, because of his lack of obstinacy.

A Donatist cannot be compared to a Protestant, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or pagan because Donatism is an attack against Catholicism.  Donatism is similar to the novus ordo.  St Augustine lived during the time of this heresy and he’s commenting on people who were brought up AS CATHOLICS who were confused by the errors or Donatism (much like novus ordo). He’s saying that such and such a person he knows is NOT OBSTINATE in the donatist error, so they aren’t a heretic.  Ok, there are some novus ordo Catholics like this too.
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But St Augustine NEVER said that Donatism = Catholicism or that real donatists can be saved.  He was simply pointing out that the guy he knew is confused and wasn’t obstinate in his confusion.  
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Protestants are so far removed from Catholicism that it’s not close.  You can’t compare Donatism to any other false religion and certainly not to paganism.  

That's irrelevant.  

And frankly this is the *type* of argument a Protestant would use.  "Oh, you have to become like little children, so the faith doesn't have to make sense.  Just accept X, Y, or Z."  It was the rejection of that type of ridiculous thinking that led me out of Protestantism in the first place.

Now that's not to say you can reject a dogma just because I disagree with it.  But the problem is the people on this forum have an excuse for any example I bring up pre Vatican II that disagrees with them, but then they can't actually explain rationally why the reasoning used in the example would not also apply here.  And then they accuse the Baltimore Catechism and similar things of "liberalizing" even though the Church Fathers at times say very similar things, because the thing isn't *exactly* the same, somehow..

It is interesting that you take up the offensive in respose to simple advice from a caring person who is more steeped in the Catholic Faith. 
It seems you haven't quite come out of protestantism. The verse I quoted has not to do with blind obedience but with humility. The next verse reads: 
4] Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven.