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To: Alamo-Girl; blue-duncan; Kolokotronis; MarkBsnr; hosepipe; Dr. Eckleburg; the_conscience
I provided the tertullian.org link to the "Decretum Gelasianum: De Libris Recipiendis et Non Recipiendis" so that you could have it in English

That's really considerate.

Since the source website is so offensive to you, here it is in Latin:

LOL! The document is a fraud in any language. I documented that Leo I was not the pope in 366 and the doucment calls him the 'blessed pope Leo.'

And on Enoch, the Catholic Church eliminated it in the late 300's. Other books which also were not accepted into the canon we not "burned." But the Church singled out Enoch and other writings it hated and eliminated them. Enoch is particularly offensive because it is quoted in Scripture.

The Bible was no canonized until the end of the 4th century. Codex Sinaiticus (c 350 AD) contains Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermes.

It all shows that no one really knew for sure what the canon was until the Church made a decision at the Counci of Carthage August 28, 397 AD and listed the folloing books as the Christian canon: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Josue, Judges, Ruth, 4 books of Kingdoms, 2 books of Paralipomenon, Job, Psalter of David, 5 books of Solomon, 12 books of Prophets, Isaias, Jeremias, Daniel, Ezechiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, 2 books of Esdras, 2 books of Machabees, and in the New Testament: 4 books of Gospels, 1 book of Acts of the Apostles, 13 letters of the Apostle Paul, 1 of him to the Hebrews, 2 of Peter, 3 of John, 1 of James, 1 of Judas, and the Apocalypse of John.

If the Church hated Enoch, the Church would have thrown out Jude as well.

2,604 posted on 02/21/2008 7:01:16 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50; blue-duncan; Kolokotronis; MarkBsnr; hosepipe; Dr. Eckleburg; the_conscience
I am ignoring your points about the canon and Tertullian since I raised no disputes about either.

If the Church hated Enoch, the Church would have thrown out Jude as well.

Enoch is not only quoted in Jude but is also alluded to in 2 Peter 2 and in Luke 9:35 where the original Greek phrase “ho eklelegmenos” closely matches the term “Elect One” used for Christ in Enoch.

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard [speeches] which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. - Jude 14-15

And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. - Jude 6

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast [them] down to hell, and delivered [them] into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; - 2 Peter 2:4

And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him. - Luke 9:35

et vox facta est de nube dicens hic est Filius meus electus ipsum audite - Luke 9:35 (Vulgate)

There are many other examples both in Scripture and in other early Christian writings. Moreover, the book was cherished by the earliest Christians. Charlesworth’s Pseudepigrapha sums it up this way:

More important, however, is the light it throws upon early Essene theology and upon earliest Christianity. It was used by the authors of Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Assumption of Moses, 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra. Some New Testament authors seem to have been acquainted with the work, and were influenced by it, including Jude, who quotes it explicitly (1:14f) At any rate, it is clear that Enochic concepts are found in various New Testament books, including the Gospels and Revelation.

I Enoch played a significant role in the early Church; it was used by the authors of the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and a number of apologetic works. Many Church Fathers, including Justing Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen and Clement of Alexandria either knew I Enoch or were inspired by it. Among those who were familiar with I Enoch, Tertullian had an exceptionally high regard for it. But, beginning in the fourth century, the book came to be regarded with disfavor and received negative reviews from Augustine, Hilary, and Jerome. Thereafter, with the exception of a few extracts made by Georgius Syncellus, a learned monk of the eighth century, and the Greek fragments found in a Christian grave in Egypt (c. AD 800), I Enoch ceased to be appreciated except in Ethiopia. The relegation of I Enoch to virtual oblivion by medieval minds should not diminish its significance for Christian origins; few other apocryphal books so indelibly marked the religious history and thought of the time of Jesus.

It is tragic that the Catholic Church did not preserve Enoch like it did other apocryphal books. And it raises the question, what else was "burned?"

On the other issue, the document The “Decretum Gelasianum de Libris Recipiendis et non Recipiendis” is helpful in identifying which books were considered apocryphal and subject to elimination, like Enoch. The document itself is traditionally attributed to Gelasius, bishop of Rome 492-496 CE and contains parts which are traced back to Damasus. The document evidently was put together sometime in the 6th century.

Damasus I wound up the clock that resulted in the book burning:

Catholic Encyclopedia Damasus I (paragraph breaks for easier reading, mine)

Damasus defended with vigour the Catholic Faith in a time of dire and varied perils. In two Roman synods (368 and 369) he condemned Apollinarianism and Macedonianism; he also sent his legates to the Council of Constantinople (381), convoked against the aforesaid heresies. In the Roman synod of 369 (or 370) Auxentius, the Arian Bishop of Milan, was excommunicated; he held the see, however, until his death, in 374, made way for St. Ambrose. The heretic Priscillian, condemned by the Council of Saragossa (380) appealed to Damasus, but in vain.

It was Damasus who induced Saint Jerome to undertake his famous revision of the earlier Latin versions of the Bible (see VULGATE). St. Jerome was also his confidential secretary for some time (Ep. cxxiii, n. 10). An important canon of the New Testament was proclaimed by him in the Roman synod of 374.

The Eastern Church, in the person of St. Basil of Cæsarea, besought earnestly the aid and encouragement of Damasus against triumphant Arianism; the pope, however, cherished some degree of suspicion against the great Cappadocian Doctor. In the matter of the Meletian Schism at Antioch, Damasus, with Athanasius and Peter of Alexandria, sympathized with the party of Paulinus as more sincerely representative of Nicene orthodoxy; on the death of Meletius he sought to secure the succession for Paulinus and to exclude Flavian (Socrates, Hist. Eccl., V, xv). He sustained the appeal of the Christian senators to Emperor Gratian for the removal of the altar of Victory from the Senate House (Ambrose, Ep. xvii, n. 10), and lived to welcome the famous edict of Theodosius I, "De fide Catholica" (27 Feb., 380), which proclaimed as the religion of the Roman State that doctrine which St. Peter had preached to the Romans and of which Damasus was supreme head (Cod. Theod., XVI, 1, 2).

When, in 379, Illyricum was detached from the Western Empire, Damasus hastened to safeguard the authority of the Roman Church by the appointment of a vicar Apostolic in the person of Ascholius, Bishop of Thessalonica; this was the origin of the important papal vicariate long attached to that see. The primacy of the Apostolic See, variously favoured in the time of Damasus by imperial acts and edicts, was strenuously maintained by this pope; among his notable utterances on this subject is the assertion (Mansi, Coll. Conc., VIII, 158) that the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Roman Church was based, not on the decrees of councils, but on the very words of Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:18).

The increased prestige of the early papal decretals, habitually attributed to the reign of Siricius (384-99), not improbably belongs to the reign of Damasus ("Canones Romanorum ad Gallos"; Babut, "La plus ancienne décrétale", Paris, 1904). This development of the papal office, especially in the West, brought with it a great increase of external grandeur. This secular splendour, however, affected disadvantageously many members of the Roman clergy, whose worldly aims and life, bitterly reproved by St. Jerome, provoked (29 July, 370) and edict of Emperor Valentinian addressed to the pope, forbidding ecclesiastics and monks (later also bishops and nuns) to pursue widows and orphans in the hope of obtaining from them gifts and legacies. The pope caused the law to be observed strictly.

Damasus restored his own church (now San Lorenzo in Damaso) and provided for the proper housing of the archives of the Roman Church.

Other sources:

C.H.Turner: LATIN LISTS OF THE CANONICAL BOOKS: 1. THE ROMAN COUNCIL UNDER DAMASUS, A. D. 382

Journal of Theological Studies 14 (1913) pp. 469-471, THE DECRETUM GELASIANUM.

Maranatha, Jesus!!!

2,611 posted on 02/21/2008 10:45:54 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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