Posted on 10/23/2016 1:31:43 PM PDT by marshmallow
Wrong and absurd. That which is wholly-inspired of God is the authority to which the apostles invoked as validation, and is the only substantive body of Truth they affirmed as being wholly inspired of God, which was established as such before there was a church of Rome. And thus your claim for "Apostolic Tradition" must itself be subject to Scripture.
(Sola Scriptura isn't even supported by Scripture.)
That is not necessary here, as Scripture Prima would suffice, but SS is certainly supported, as Scripture alone being the standard for obedience and testing and establishing Truth claims, as is abundantly evidenced, as the only wholly inspired substantive body of Truth, and sufficient in its formal and material senses combined, and with writing being God's means of preservation. (Exodus 17:14; 34:27;Deuteronomy 10:4; 27:3; 31:24; Isaiah 30:8; John 20:31; Revelation 20:12,15) Thus the church was established upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, versus Rome's the novel premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility, which is unseen and unnecessary in Scripture.
Out of the 1st-2nd century book-bazaar of purported scriptural books written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, you wouldn't even know how to pick out the 27 books of the NT were it not for Apostolic Tradition and, of course, the "custom of the Church". Apostolic Tradition is the source of the NT canon.
Wrong. Common souls discerned both writings and men of God as being so before there was a church of Rome. But therefore based upon your reasoning then Jewish Tradition is equal to Scripture, with the historical magisterial stewards of Scripture being the sure authority on what Scripture means. Thus they were to be followed rather than itinerant preachrers of the sect of the Nazarenes, who established their claims upon Scriptural substantiation.
The way God worked was to first reveal Himself and Word in a very limited but profound manner to a very limited amount of people. But when deciding to reveal Himself to a nation corporately, He gave the Law in writing (Gn.-Dt.) by a most manifest man of God. Which body, besides direct communication in wholly inspired writing, placed in writing what was of God that was passed on orally, in effect sifting out the chaff from the oral stream, and placing it in a wholly inspired preserved form. And which preserved written body became the manifest standard for obedience and testing Truth claims. It was not the hearing or oral tradition that caused the king to rent his clothes, and heart, and caused a revival.
And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses... And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes....because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book (2 Chronicles 34:14,19,21b)(I should have such a heart.)
To which body more wholly inspired words were added, some directly into writing, and others preserving what tradition was of God, but recording it (and sometime even expanding or recasting what was said verbatim, as seen by duplicate accounts) as wholly inspired of God, thus in totality being a superior form. Thus we are assured what parts of oral tradition (in which form both wheat and chaff grew together) were of God (such as perhaps the name of Jannes and Jambres: 2Tim. 3:8) by their inclusion in wholly inspired written preservation.
And which writings (as with men of God) were recognized and established as being of God essentially due to their unique and enduring qualities and attestation, with, as with men of God, this being more readily apparent with some than with others.
And thus it was not Jewish oral tradition that the Lord rebuked the devil and leaders by, and established His Truth claims, but upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power.
For Catholic oral tradition to be equal with Scripture then what they say would have to be wholly inspired of God, and even then it would be subject to testing by the established wholly inspired body of Truth, the Scriptures.
Instead of Scripture even having its primary supreme status however, neither it nor her claimed "Apostolic Tradition" is the supreme authority and basis of assurance of Truth. For instead it is Rome herself, who claims one cannot assuredly ascertain what Scripture consists of and means except by her, as the historical steward of Divine revelation, which is contrary to how the church began.
But since Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.
It's like that Old Time Religion. Good enough for Athanasius, good enough for Jerome, good enough for the "custom of the Church", good enough for me.
Really? Then you should agree with Athanasius and Jerome who rejected apocryphal books that Rome later decreed were indisputably part of the canon.
The Catholic Encyclopedia had therefore apologetically stated,
Obviously, the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome. Athanasius of Alexandria was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the "confirmation of the doctrine of the Church", to borrow Jerome's phrase. (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)
So; Apostolic Tradition trumps scripture.
OK...
That silly Jesus!
He should have mentioned the TRADITION of the Fathers a LOT more often than He did!!
How to spot the professional disinfo players by one or more of seven (now 8) distinct traits:
And we only have those verses because we have canonical Scripture --- via Apostolic Tradition.
"You wouldn't even know how to pick out the 27 books of the NT were it not for Apostolic Tradition and, of course, the "custom of the Church". Apostolic Tradition is the source of the NT canon."
You responded:
"Wrong. Common souls discerned both writings and men of God as being so before there was a church of Rome.">
I didn't say a word about the "Church of Rome," and using such a term is tendentious on your part, since I have never belonged to, or defended an entity called the "Church of Rome". Perhaps you mean the "Diocese of Rome." Goodness knows what you mean.
Those "common souls" you refer to were living the Gospel before the Gospels were even written, before there was a NT "Scriptura," and before Peter and Paul ever got to Rome.
I don't think you *mean* to distort what I said, but actually, the "common souls" you refer to, are the body of the Church considered as a whole: the Church Cata Holos.
Which existed before Rome and before the written Gospels.
I mentioned St. Jerome in my last volley because he referred to the Church "cata-holos," NOT to the Pope, when he finally decided to include the disputed 7-book Deuterocanonicals in his translation of the OT, despite his scholarly opinion to the contrary.
He didn't rely on his scholarly opinion.
He didn't get orders from the Pope.
As he said in his reply to Rufinius --- "What sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches?".
So he estab;ished the criterion by which the canon would be settled: not his own judgment; nor some scholarly consensus; nor "orders from the Pope"; nor the judgment of Jews: but rather, the judgment of the Church.
He acknowledged the books that were actually in liturgical use in the churches,
No, you're wrong, and that's a category mistake. Apostolic Tradition can't possibly "trump" Scripture because Scripture is, itself, a major part of Apostolic Tradition.
Don't play semantical games with me. It seems quite evident from past posts that you know that "Rome" is shorthand for the Roman Catholic Church, and "Roman" is a specifying term that has been used by popes or spokespersons, and your protest is a poor substitute for an argument.
Those "common souls" you refer to were living the Gospel before the Gospels were even written, before there was a NT "Scriptura," and before Peter and Paul ever got to Rome. I don't think you *mean* to distort what I said, but actually, the "common souls" you refer to, are the body of the Church considered as a whole: the Church Cata Holos. Which existed before Rome and before the written Gospels.
Actually, it means before the the Lord Jesus was incarnated, and therefore He could invoke the Scriptures as the only authoritative body of writings.
I mentioned St. Jerome in my last volley because he referred to the Church "cata-holos," NOT to the Pope, when he finally decided to include the disputed 7-book Deuterocanonicals in his translation of the OT, despite his scholarly opinion to the contrary. He didn't rely on his scholarly opinion. He didn't get orders from the Pope. As he said in his reply to Rufinius --- "What sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches?".
Yet,
Contextually, the “judgment of the churches” refers to Theodotion’s translation of Daniel which the churches were using instead of the Septuagint version.
I also told the reader that the version read in the Christian churches was not that of the Septuagint translators but that of Theodotion. It is true, I said that the Septuagint version was in this book very different from the original, and that it was condemned by the right judgment of the churches of Christ; but the fault was not mine who only stated the fact, but that of those who read the version. We have four versions to choose from: those of Aquila, Symmachus, the Seventy, and Theodotion. The churches choose to read Daniel in the version of Theodotion. What sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches?
See more here, rather than RC propaganda. A decision by local councils would not qualify as the "judgment of the church." Though he apparently translated apocryphal books which were included in at least most copies of the Vulgate, yet that does not mean he changed his opinion, or that the status of these books was all settled, and his notes that excluded apocryphal books continued.
In reality, scholarly disagreements over the canonicity (proper) of certain books continued down through the centuries and right into Trent, until it provided the first "infallible," indisputable canon — after the death of Luther.
You appear to have made a logic mistake: "...Scripture is, itself, a major part of Apostolic Tradition.
If it is a part then it is necessarily LESS than the whole; thus it get's trumped by your Traditions.
Please don't get this mixed up with small-t tradition, which could be very good, true and beautiful, but not divinely inspired: bequesting your great-grandma's wedding ring.
I’m not Catholic, but I have, over the years, told 2 or3 Catholics about priests historically having been married, and they look at me like I’m crazy. The only benefit I can see for non-married priests, is that the church would have to pay them a living wage if they were married. The Bible says, “it is better to marry than to burn”. And what’s even worse, men who become deacons have to swear not to remarry if their wives die. What is the point of that? Even the Bible says a bishop should be the husband of one wife. Apparently, they’d rather cut off their nose to spite their face, as short of priests as they are. And now that they accept Episcopalian and Russian Orthodox, those priests are allowed to marry. Oh, well, as I said, I’m not Catholic, but things like that don’t make sense to me.
Excellent!
I catch heat for it, but I don’t think it’s natural for a man to go throughout his life without marital relations
Oh for pity's sake, of course I know that. Please tune up your irony detector. The point is, the term "Church of Rome" is not the way Catholics refer to themselves, but is a tendentious way for polemicists to insinuate that the Catholic Church "equals" nothing but Rome, tout court. False. The Catholic Church predates the Diocese of Rome by at least a generation, and will still exist even if Rome were wiped out by a nuke (no doubt one named Abd-Allah or Shaitan.))
Please vet your writings, as I try to vet mine, to delete gratuitous insults like calling a careful consideration of the meaning of words, "semantic games." Sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong, but at no point am I playing games. If you have no respect for the integrity of the discussion, it will be pointless for us to continue.
And here's the exact point in context: Jerome did NOT refer to the Pope or the "Church of Rome" or rabbinical practice or even local councils when he said, in the context of forming the Canon of Scripture, "What sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches?" By this he meant the books which had been received and accepted and used for liturgical reading in the churches, would be acknowledged as the Canon.
It's not "proven" by scholarship, by rabbinical preference, by local councils, by the Pope. It's "proven" -- this is his criterion --- by the customs and practices of the churches. What they actually do.
It's true this didn't "nail in" Septuaginta Sola or the disputed Seven. Far from it. (If I gave that impression, I was mistaken.) My point was, that the custom of the churches is the criterion.
You had no comment on the eye-glazing list of 65 would-coulda been Biblical Books listed at #20. I included the Shem Tov Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, George Howard translation as an illustration that, among some, the dispute over the canon has never been settled.
T'hell with "the custom of the churches" these guys know what the Real Scripture is, and it's not what the Catholic and Orthodox Churches have been using for 2000 years.
"In reality, scholarly disagreements over the canonicity (proper) of certain books continued down through the centuries"
Absolutely true. And not just "right into Trent," but right into 2106.
The only legit way to resolve it, though, is via "the custom of the churches," since we still believe that the Holy Spirit would not let "the churches" continue without a canon of Scripture for centuries. Nor was the Church without a canon until 1563 (Council of Trent) or KJV 1640 (the edition which finally and definitively excluded the even Deuteros) or 1987 (when George Howard finally gave us the True Scripture by translating the Shem Tov Gospel into English!)
I personally believe that in this matter of the Canon the Holy Spirit guided the Church better for 1700 years than did the Anglicans from the 17th century until now.
I don't prefer the 1640 Anglican canon, but if you do, fine. But you can't prove it by "the custom of the churches."
..although the disputes will probably go on until 2106 or until the Lord comes again, whichever comes first.
Although numerically far in the minority, they are relevant to the historic "early church" discussions because so many of their communities were founded so very early, i.e. during Apostolic era. And some of them were outside of both the Roman Empire (West, under Rome) and the Byzantine Empire (Roman Empire East) and thus their customs and canons cannot be assumed to have been driven by empire-politicked councils or edicts.
I can hardly blame you for pretty much excluding them from discussion, since most U.S. and even European Catholics remain practically unaware that they have millions of fellow believers who are not themselves part of the so-called "Roman" Catholic Church.
(Even the term "Roman Catholic" originated as a derogatory label deployed by the Anglicans to legitimize their own use of the term "Anglo-Catholic" over and against that "foreign" Church loyal to the pope of Rome.)
Anyhow, the existence, heritage and testimony of these Eastern Churches is essential to the Catholicity of the Church as a whole. Their spiritual patrimony derives directly from the Apostolic Tradition.
Another reason to hope they are not all annihilated by ISIS. Seriously, at present their situation is grim. Your prayers are solicited.
What is this? In response to your statement "you wouldn't even know how to pick out the 27 books of the NT were it not for Apostolic Tradition and, of course, the "custom of the Church (emp. mine)," and your list of competing books, I pointed out that i could not, since common souls discerned both men and writings of God before there ever was a church of Rome you asserted "I have never belonged to, or defended an entity called the "Church of Rome," as if it is not the Roman Catholic church which asserts she is The Church which provided this custom.
In response you asserted, I have never belonged to, or defended an entity called the "Church of Rome". Perhaps you mean the "Diocese of Rome." Goodness knows what you mean, only to know admit "of course I know that" Rome refers to the Roman Catholic Church.
Thus my refutation remains, as does my statement that the term "Roman" is a specifying term that has been used by popes or spokespersons:
the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing -- Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis [a lie]
[Pope] Pius...each and every article contained in the profession of faith which the Holy Roman Church uses. http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/v1.htm
“By heart we believe and by mouth confess the one Church, not of heretics but the Holy Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Church outside which we believe that no one is saved.” - Pope Innocent III, Eius exemplo, 18 December 1208
the eminent cardinals of the holy Roman Church, - Exsurge Domine1 promulgated by Pope Leo X against Martin Luther
Pope Paul IV, Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio of 1559: ...in the unity of the Holy Roman Church and under obedience to Us
QUO PRIMUM TEMPORE, 4 July 1570... establishing the Traditional Roman Rite of Mass in order that all everywhere may adopt and observe what has been delivered to them by the Holy Roman Church,
Pope Innocent III, Eius exemplo, 18 December 1208: ...the Holy Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Church outside which we believe that no one is saved.”
Papal Bull Cantate Domino, by Pope Eugene IV, 1441: "The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church,
Q. Are there any other reasons to show that heretics, or Protestants who die out of the Roman Catholic Church, are not saved? A. There are several. They cannot be saved.... - Familiar Explanation of Christian Doctrine For the Family and More Advanced Students in Catholic Schools (1875); with imprimatur) ;http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2009/02/absurdity-of-separated-brethren.html
The Protestant goes directly to the Word of God for instruction, and to the throne of grace in his devotions; whilst the pious Roman Catholic consults the teaching of his church, and prefers to offer his prayers through the medium of the Virgin Mary and the saints. - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12495a.htm
we are fairly certain today that, while the Fathers were not Roman Catholics as the thirteenth or nineteenth century world would have understood the term, they were, nonetheless, ‘Catholic,’ (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology)
As far as the term "Church of Rome" is not the way Catholics refer to themselves, they do argue that was their preeminent church, and JP2 celebrated the union of the Greek-Catholic church of Romania "with the Church of Rome," (https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2000/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20000720_unione-romania-roma.html) and Francis (in trouble again) said that a cardinal is "incardinated into the Church of Rome," but what of it? Am i do respond "Goodness knows what you mean" to a RC who refers to us as "Prots," or Protestant rebels?
And here's the exact point in context: Jerome did NOT refer to the Pope or the "Church of Rome"
Indeed, and unlike to the oft-asserted primacy of the specific church of Rome and of the pope.
or even local councils
Actually it was local custom. Other churches could and did differ. "..the Council of Rome found many opponents in Africa.” (http://www.tertullian.org/articles/burkitt_gelasianum.htm)
By this he meant the books which had been received and accepted and used for liturgical reading in the churches, would be acknowledged as the Canon. It's not "proven" by scholarship, by rabbinical preference, by local councils, by the Pope. It's "proven" -- this is his criterion --- by the customs and practices of the churches. What they actually do.
Wrong. Jeremiah says nothing about being "proven," only that it was wrong for him to be criticized for following the judgment of the local churches, though he was critical using the version of a translator whom he regarded as heretic and judaizer (Theodotion). And what was the judgment of the churches when Jerome said,
"As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church"?
It's true this didn't "nail in" Septuaginta Sola or the disputed Seven. Far from it. (If I gave that impression, I was mistaken.) My point was, that the custom of the churches is the criterion.
But the point remains that the NT church relied upon the prior establishment of a body of wholly inspired writings of God, and thus by RC logic then Jewish tradition, under the leadership of the Palestian magisterial stewards of Scripture, (Mt. 23:2) is to be followed.
And as J. N. D. Kelly states,
For the Jews of Palestine the limits of the canon (the term is Christian, and was not used in Judaism) were rigidly fixed; they drew a sharp line of demarca- tion between the books which 'defiled the hands', i.e. were sacred, and other religiously edifying writings. The oudook of the Jewish communities outside Palestine tended to be much more elastic. "While respecting the unique position of the Penta- teuch, they treated the later books of the Old Testament with considerable freedom, making additions to some and drastically rewriting others; and they did not hesitate to add entirely new books to the permitted list. In this way 1 (3) Esdras, Judith, Tobit and the books of Maccabees came to be included among the histories, and Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Song of the Three Holy Children, the History of Susannah, Bel and the Dragon (these last three 'the Additions to the Book of Daniel'), and the Prayer of Manasseh among the poetical and prophetic books.
You had no comment on the eye-glazing list of 65 would-coulda been Biblical Books
What do you mean i have no comment? I took the purpose of your liberal list as arguing as per the above logic, and thus my "comment" was on how writings of God were established as being so, before there was any church which presumed she was essential for assuredly knowing what was of God (apostolic tradition, but means sola ecclesia).
Absolutely true. And not just "right into Trent," but right into 2106.
Wrong, as the issue was that of the canon being truly settled by the judgment of church early on, so that deviation would be censored, versus the status of some books still being a valid question among Catholics, which issue Trent truly settled for them.
The only legit way to resolve it, though, is via "the custom of the churches," since we still believe that the Holy Spirit would not let "the churches" continue without a canon of Scripture for centuries. He did not as regards "a canon," thus the NT church quote manifestly had a limited body of established texts to invoke from, but that "the custom of the churches" was not truly settled for RCs till Trent is the reality.
Moreover, Rome and the EOs differ about the judgment of the church in some cases, even slightly in the OT canon. Thus they must not be the one true church, with the feeling being mutual.
●The Catholic Encyclopedia states,
At Jerusalem there was a renascence, perhaps a survival, of Jewish ideas, the tendency there being distinctly unfavourable to the deuteros. St. Cyril of that see, while vindicating for the Church the right to fix the Canon, places them among the apocrypha and forbids all books to be read privately which are not read in the churches. In Antioch and Syria the attitude was more favourable. St. Epiphanius shows hesitation about the rank of the deuteros; he esteemed them, but they had not the same place as the Hebrew books in his regard. The historian Eusebius attests the widespread doubts in his time; he classes them as antilegomena, or disputed writings, and, like Athanasius, places them in a class intermediate between the books received by all and the apocrypha. The 59th (or 60th) canon of the provincial Council of Laodicea (the authenticity of which however is contested) gives a catalogue of the Scriptures entirely in accord with the ideas of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the Oriental versions and Greek manuscripts of the period are more liberal; the extant ones have all the deuterocanonicals and, in some cases, certain apocrypha.
The influence of Origen's and Athanasius's restricted canon naturally spread to the West. St. Hilary of Poitiers and Rufinus followed their footsteps, excluding the deuteros from canonical rank in theory, but admitting them in practice. The latter styles them "ecclesiastical" books, but in authority unequal to the other Scriptures. St. Jerome cast his weighty suffrage on the side unfavourable to the disputed books... (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament, eph. mine)
● The Catholic Encyclopedia also states as regards the Middle Ages,
In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages [5th century to the 15th century] we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome's depreciating Prologus (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm) ^
I don't prefer the 1640 Anglican canon, but if you do, fine. But you can't prove it by "the custom of the churches."
Actually, the only wholly inspired "custom of the churches" is the NT, and in comparison, doing as the noble Bereans did, it is manifestly evident that what you cannot substantially prove "the custom of the churches" in Catholicism by the wholly inspired Scripture. And which is why the post-apostolic, uninspired writings of so-called church "fathers" are given the deciding weight.
If not, please excuse me if I find your 1900+ words impossible to read and analyze at one go.
I do think that Jaroslav Peliken put it most succinctly when he said, as regards the OT canon, that we can rely on A.D. Pharisee/tannaitic communities, councils and sources which were explicitly anti-Christian (e.g. the Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai and his successors) or we can rely on Christian communities, councils and sources.
He opts for the latter, and I find this persuasive.
Not to some people...
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