Posted on 02/06/2006 1:02:10 PM PST by NYer
It's still a jolt for some people to realize this, but the Bible did not fall down out of the sky, leather-bound and gold-monogrammed with the words of Christ in red, in 95 AD. Rather the canon of Christian Scripture slowly developed over a period of about 1500 years. That does not mean, of course, that Scripture was being written for 1500 years after the life of Christ. Rather, it means that it took the Church some fifteen centuries to formally and definitively state which books out of the great mass of early Christian and pseudo-Christian books constituted the Bible.
The process of defining the canon of Scripture is an example of what the Church calls "development of doctrine". This is a different thing than "innovation of doctrine". Doctrine develops as a baby develops into a man, not as a baby grows extra noses, eyes, and hands. An innovation of doctrine would be if the Church declared something flatly contrary to all previous teaching ("Pope John Paul Ringo I Declares the Doctrine of the Trinity to No Longer Be the Teaching of the Church: Bishop Celebrate by Playing Tiddly Winks with So-Called 'Blessed Sacrament'"). It is against such flat reversals of Christian teaching that the promise of the Spirit to guard the apostolic Tradition stands. And, in fact, there has never ever been a time when the Church has reversed its dogmatic teaching. (Prudential and disciplinary changes are another matter. The Church is not eternally wedded to, for instance, unmarried priests, as the wife of St. Peter can tell you.)
But though innovations in doctrine are not possible, developments of doctrine occur all the time and these tend to apply old teaching to new situations or to more completely articulate ancient teaching that has not been fully fleshed out. So, for example, in our own day the Church teaches against the evils of embryonic stem cell research even though the New Testament has nothing to say on the matter. Yet nobody in his five wits claims that the present Church "invented" opposition to embryonic stem cell research from thin air. We all understand that the Church, by the very nature of its Tradition, has said "You shall not kill" for 2,000 years. It merely took the folly of modern embryonic stem cell research to cause the Church to apply its Tradition to this concrete situation and declare what it has always believed.
Very well then, as with attacks on sacred human life in the 21st century, so with attacks on Sacred Tradition in the previous twenty. Jesus establishes the Tradition that he has not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them (Mt 5:17). But when Tradition bumps into the theories of early Jewish Christians that all Gentiles must be circumcised in order to become Christians, the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) is still necessary to authoritatively flesh that Tradition out. Moreover, the Council settles the question by calling the Bible, not to the judge's bench, but to the witness stand. Scripture bears witness to the call of the Gentiles, but the final judgment depends on the authority of Christ speaking through his apostles and elders whose inspired declaration is not "The Bible says..." but "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us..." (Acts 15:28).
In all this, the Church, as ever, inseparably unites Scripture as the light and Sacred Tradition as the lens through which it is focused. In this way the mustard seed of the Kingdom continues to grow in that light, getting more mustardy, not less.
How then did Tradition develop with respect to the canon of Scripture?
In some cases, the Church in both east and west has a clear memory of just who wrote a given book and could remind the faithful of this. So, for instance, when a second century heretic named Marcion proposed to delete the Old Testament as the product of an evil god and canonize the letters of Paul (but with all those nasty Old Testament quotes snipped out), and a similarly edited gospel of Luke (sanitized of contact with Judaism for your protection), the Church responded with local bishops (in areas affected by Marcion's heresy) proposing the first canons of Scripture.
Note that the Church seldom defines its teaching (and is in fact disinclined to define it) till some challenge to the Faith (in this case, Marcion) forces it to do so. When Marcion tries to take away from the Tradition of Scripture by deleting Matthew, Mark and John and other undesirable books, the Church applies the basic measuring rod of Tradition and says, "This does not agree with the Tradition that was handed down to us, which remembers that Matthew wrote Matthew, Mark wrote Mark and John wrote John.
Matthew also issued among the Hebrews a written Gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also handed down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord who reclined at his bosom also published a Gospel, while he was residing at Ephesus in Asia. (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 3, 1, 1)
In other words, there is, we might say, a Standard of Roots (based on Sacred Tradition) by which the Church weighs her canon. So when various other heretics, instead of trying to subtract from the generally received collection of holy books, instead try to add the Gospel of Thomas or any one of a zillion other ersatz works to the Church's written Tradition, the Church can point to the fact that, whatever the name on the label says, the contents do not square with the Tradition of the Church, so it must be a fake. In other words, there is also a Standard of Fruits. It is this dual standard of Roots and Fruits by which the Church discerns the canon -- a dual standard which is wholly based on Sacred Tradition. The Church said, in essence, "Does the book have a widespread and ancient tradition concerning its apostolic origin and/or approval? Check. Does the book square with the Tradition we all learned from the apostles and the bishops they gave us? Check. Then it is to be used in public worship and is to be regarded as the word of God."
It was on this basis the early Church also vetoed some books and accepted others -- including the still-contested-by-some-Protestants deuterocanonical books of Tobit, Wisdom, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Sirach and Baruch as well as some pieces of Daniel and Esther. For the churches founded by the apostles could trace the use of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament in public worship (a Greek translation of the Old Testament which includes all these books) back to the apostles. In fact, many of the citations of Old Testament Scripture by the New Testament writers are, in fact, citations of the Septuagint (see, for example, Mark 7:6-7, Hebrews 10:5-7). Therefore, the Body of Christ living after the apostles simply retained the apostles' practice of using the Septuagint on the thoroughly traditional grounds, "If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us." In contrast, the churches had no apostolic tradition handed down concerning the use of, say, the works of the Cretan poet Epimenides (whom Paul quotes in Acts 17), therefore they did not regard his works as Scripture, even though Paul quotes him. It was by their roots and fruits that the Church's books were judged, and it was by the standard of Sacred Tradition that these roots and fruits were known.
These Root and Fruit standards are even more clearly at work in the canonization of the New Testament, especially in the case of Hebrews. There was, in fact, a certain amount of controversy in the early Church over the canonicity of this book (as well as of books like 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation). Some Fathers, especially in the west, rejected Hebrews (in no small part because of its lack of a signature). Yet the Church eventually accepted it. How? It was judged apostolic because, in the end, the Church discerned that it met the Roots and Fruits measure when stacked up against Sacred Tradition.
The Body of Christ had long believed that Hebrews said the same thing as the Church's Sacred Tradition handed down by the bishops. Thus, even Fathers (like Irenaeus) who rejected it from their canon of inspired Scripture still regarded it as a good book. That is, it had always met the Fruits standard. How then did it meet the Roots standard? In a nutshell, despite the lack of attestation in the text of Hebrews itself, there was an ancient tradition in the Church (beginning in the East, where the book was apparently first sent) that the book originated from the pen of St. Paul. That tradition, which was at first better attested in the east than in the west (instantaneous mass communication being still some years in the future) accounts for the slowness of western Fathers (such as Irenaeus) to accept the book. But the deep-rootedness of the tradition of Pauline authorship in the East eventually persuaded the whole Church. In short, as with the question of circumcision in the book of Acts, the status of Hebrews was not immediately clear even to the honest and faithful (such as Irenaeus). However, the Church in council, trusting in the guidance of Holy Spirit, eventually came to consensus and canonized the book on exactly the same basis that the Council of Jerusalem promulgated its authoritative decree: "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us..."
Conversely, those books which the Church did not canonize as part of the New Testament were rejected because, in the end, they did not meet both the Root and Fruit standards of the Church's Sacred Tradition. Books like the Didache or the Shepherd of Hermas, while meeting the Fruit standard, were not judged to meet the Root standard since their authors were not held to be close enough to the apostolic circle -- a circle which was, in the end, drawn very narrowly by the Spirit-led Church and which therefore excluded even Clement since he, being "in the third place from the Apostles" was not as close to the apostles as Mark and Luke (who were regarded as recording the gospels of Peter and Paul, respectively). The Church, arch-conservative as ever, relied on Sacred Tradition, not to keep adding to the New Testament revelation but to keep it as lean and close to the apostles as possible. This, of course, is why books which met neither the Root nor Fruit standards of Sacred Tradition, such as the Gospel of Thomas, were rejected by the Church without hesitation as completely spurious.
Not that this took place overnight. The canon of Scripture did not assume its present shape till the end of the fourth century. It was defined at the regional Councils of Carthage and Hippo and also by Pope Damasus and included the deuterocanonical books. It is worth noting, however, that, because these decisions were regional, none of them were dogmatically binding on the whole Church, though they clearly reflected the Sacred Tradition of the Church (which is why the Vulgate or Latin Bible--which was The Bible for the Catholic Church in the West for the next 1200 years looks the same as the Catholic Bible today). Once again, we are looking at Sacred Tradition which is not fully developed until a) the Reformation tries to subtract deuterocanonical books from Scripture and b) the Council of Trent in the mid-1500s finally makes that Tradition fixed and binding. This is the origin of the myth that the Catholic Church "added" the deuterocanonical books to Scripture at Trent. It is as historically accurate as the claim that the Catholic Church "added" opposition to embryonic stem cell research to its tradition during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.
In summary then, the early Church canonized books because they were attested by apostolic tradition. The books we have in our Bibles (and the ones we don't) were accepted or rejected according to whether they did or did not measure up to standards which were based entirely on Sacred Tradition and the divinely delegated authority of the Body of Christ.
I give up. When Christ gave Peter the keys and the authority
to bind and loose it seems obvious -painfully obvious-
that He is setting up a church. Pray tell, what DO the keys REALLY mean?
467 posted on 02/08/2006 9:56:09 PM MST by TradicalRC
Y'shua is speaking: Revelation 1:18 I am the Living One; I was dead,
I always look to the Holy Word of G-d for answers.
Revelation 1:17 ........ “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.
and behold I am alive for ever and ever!
And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
b'shem Y'shua
How does this prove Peter wasn't in Rome? All it says is he was at a council in Jerusalem and in Antioch with Paul.
When Paul wrote to the Romans (about 58 A.D.) He never mentions Peter....but Greets 27 other individuals. If Peter were the Bishop this would be highly unlikely.
Could it be he addressed the head of the Church in separate correspondence? Because that would actually make sense. Still, the fact that Peter isn't mentioned is not proof of any kind.
Once again, you fall into the same trap of trying to prove a negative as implicit of fact. e.g. Scripture doesn't indicate that Paul was a heterosexual, therefore he was gay.
But let's just throw out secular history, too. Because secular historians going back to the time of Christ were known for just making up crap to get on "Oprah".
LACTANTIUS:
"When Nero was already reigning Peter came to Rome, where, in virtue of the performance of certain miracles which he worked . . . he converted many to righteousness AND ESTABLISHED A FIRM AND STEADFAST TEMPLE TO GOD. When this fact was reported to Nero . . . he sprang to the task of tearing down the heavenly temple and of destroying righteousness. It was he that first persecuted the servants of God. Peter he fixed to a cross, and Paul he slew" (The Deaths of the Persecutors, 2, 5 [A.D. 316]).
OPTATIUS:
"You cannot deny that you are aware that in the city of Rome THE EPISCOPAL CHAIR WAS GIVEN FIRST TO PETER; the chair in which Peter sat, THE SAME WHO WAS HEAD--that is why he is also called Cephas--of all the apostles; the ONE CHAIR IN WHICH UNITY IS MAINTAINED BY ALL" (The Schism of the Donatists, 2:2 [A.D. 367]).
DAMASUS I:
"In addition to this, there is also the companionship of the vessel of election, the most blessed apostle Paul, who contended and was crowned with a glorious death along with Peter in the city of Rome in the time of Caesar Nero . . . . They equally consecrated the above-mentioned holy Roman Church to Christ the Lord; and by their own presence and by their venerable triumph they set it at the forefront over the others of all the cities of the whole world. THE FIRST SEE, THEREFORE, IS THAT OF PETER THE APOSTLE, that of the Roman Church, which has neither stain nor blemish nor anything like it" (Decree of Damasus, 2 [A.D. 382]).
So, here we have several positive identifications of Peter not only being in Rome, but ruling the Church from Rome as well. Yet, because the Bible (which John the Apostle declared an utterly incomplete historical document) does not say "PETER WAS IN ROME", he wasn't in Rome? Hmmm... let's see. Who was the ruler of Rome at the time?
Ahhh, yes! Nero!
And what was Nero famous for?
Persecuting Christians!
In fact, Nero was fond of turning Christians (that would include especially someone like Peter) into human torches.
In fact, Nero has long been accepted as "THE BEAST" referred to in Revelation.
Now. You tell me whether or not it would be a good idea to publicize the established presence of Peter as the ruler of the Catholic Church, spreading the Christian faith in Nero's Rome. The situation was so bad, John wrote to fellow Christians in apocalyptic prose to conceal his identity and the identity of those he was writing to after HE HIMSELF ended up getting exiled to Patmos.
I mean, you open up yourself to SO MUCH error by ignoring accepted facts, based on human history, which support the teachings of the Church. You know, the Bible says nothing about dinosaurs. Therefore, dinosaurs didn't exist? If the Bible doesn't say it's okay to make a right turn on red, are you stuck at every red light?
We know for a fact that Peter was crucified in the Circus Maximus. How the heck do you think he got there? Because he was never in Rome?
Babylon means Babylon.
Babylon was Christian code for the Romans who were persecuting them and feeding them to lions and such.
So Christ contradicted Himself when He explicitly gave Peter "the keys"?
Discussions of One God don't fit into that.
Discussions of how many angels can fit onto the head of a pin do.
"For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist."
Correcting ignorance is a spiritual work of mercy, not judgment.
But the Gregorian calendar is accepted to be roughly three years inaccurate. That being the case, the succession of seventh days would not end up on "Saturdays".
"Instead, we had the rapid growth of Christianity outside (INSERT CATHOLICISM), with the Good News of Jesus as the evangelical message. ... This can also comment on God's intent. We may agree that it's likely God wishes His message and incarnation to spread and be known by all. And this is what happened in history - The history of the (PROTESTANT & EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS). It didn't happen in the history of what you wish the Christian Church to be."
Indeed friend.
In light of that what are the implications with regards to Protestant & Evangelical Christianity....
Why would the Catholic church canonize a Bible that clearly condemns some of their practices (e.g., I Timothy 3:2, 4-5)?
"Discussions of One God don't fit into that. "
Are you trying to argue that Jesus is not God?
I don't have my references handy, but I recall a seminar I attended where these verses were examined in the Greek and through other contextual verses.
The jist of it was that the form of petra that is used for Peter is better translated small rock or pebble. And Peter was blown about...strong, upfront, fighting man one day, denying Christ 3-6 times another. Sort of unstable.
The idea was that Jesus said that you are Peter (small pebble, unstable) but upon THIS rock (petros- large stone foundation) (as Jesus points to himself) I will build my church.
Subsequently in Acts we see Peter still shaky. One day he's proclaiming the Gospel to the Gentiles, later he's essentially retracting some of that 'saved by grace' stuff and backstabbing Paul.
I really don't care one way or another if someone wants to have Peter as the first pope, but I do care about trying to interpret the Bible accurately and precisely.
It makes more sense to me that Jesus would build his church on himself and not on Peter, and I think that is what the scripture teaches even if Tradition doesn't.
The Bible CLEARLY states the Jesus is the Son of God, the Son of the Father.
God is the creator of heavens and Earth, Father to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And there is but one God and one mediator between man and God, the man Christ Jesus.
Now if you seem to have decided to reject the clearly written scriptures and interpret others by shaky inference.
When I state what I believe from the scriptures that Jesus is the Son of God you have yet failed to show me (or the Bible) wrong.
But your so called logic of thee that is really one and a son who is really the father and of a man who is really god although no one saw him because God is invisible has more holes in it than substance.
First off - keep your attitude to yourself, friend. It doesn't help the conversation.
Secondly, Jesus created the world.
So who does that make him???
Care to play show-and-tell with this?
...but I do care about trying to interpret the Bible accurately and precisely.
Me too.
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Sorry, it doesn't say Jesus.
Attitude? Puh-leeez...my kids can read with better comprehension. It gets frustratig when someone sees G o d and pronounces is J e s u s .
Now if you think you can take ans swap Jesus for God there, why can't you do that everywhere?
Really, what stops you?
God is spirit. Jesus came in the flesh. Sorry, but they're not the same thing.
Go read Acts. See Peter visit Corneleus. See Peter minister to gentiles.
Then later see Peter try to apply rules to gentiles that God never required.
Good. Then just for fun as an exercise, try this:
First, write down the number of times Peter openly denied Jesus.
Second, go to each gospel and write down the verses that tell of those denials.
Third, write down the who, what, where of each denial.
Fourth, get back with me on what you discovered.
"Sorry, it doesn't say Jesus."
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ... He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. ...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." - John 1
...For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. - Colossians 1
"It gets frustratig when someone sees G o d and pronounces is J e s u s ."
"Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?"
Peter's weakness is exactly why God chose him. Certainly God could have willed it that Christ stayed bodily on earth to build the church, but he chose to do it through His apostles.
9 But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me. 10 So because of Christ, I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in catastrophes, in persecutions, and in pressures. For when I am weak, then I am strong. -2 Corinthians 12:9-10
I believe your comprehension skills to be somewhat lacking in this instance. Again here we go. God confirmed the 7th day in the wildnerness by withholding manna. Jews have observed Sabbath on EVERY 7th day since. It now happens to coincide with the gregorian Saturday. Can it be spelled out any more clearly?
In a blood spilling competition you loose. dems the facts dude.
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