Doctrine preceded the scriptures..thats what I thought.. also it leaves the church free to come up with new meanings and doctrines out of previously un-infallibly interpreted scriptures..
Well duh! There was no precursor Christian church from which to inherit our New Testament. Our original doctrine came directly from Jesus and from the Paraclete and was only gradually written down and canonized over the next three and a half centuries. Scriptural books were declared canonical or apocryphal based upon whether they made the cut of adherence to established Catholic doctrine.
Every part of the NT was reviewed with a fine-tooth comb by zealous Catholics. The last bishop to eliminate books was that hammer of heretics and bane of emperors, St. Athanasius of Alexandria. His final changes were canonized a few decades later by the council of Rome in the latter half of the Forth Century. Any biblical interpretation that finds fault with Catholic doctrine certainly conflicts with the interpretations of St. Athanasius and his fellow canonists. Otherwise, those books would have been eliminated like the rest.