Posted on 07/21/2013 6:01:01 PM PDT by HarleyD
When did St. Jerome translate it?
Were you addressing me?
Were you addressing me? You know the rules.
“The Protestant scholar JND Kelly runs tight little rings around Webster as a scholar, and he disagrees with you.”
Isn’t Kelly an Anglo-Catholic? And he doesn’t trump Jerome, Pope Gregory, Cardinal Cajetan, and your own Catholic websites on Trent.
Instead of bluffing, stick to what the facts actually are and address them. I care not for bland assertions.
Nice xhart — thanks for the link.
“A second major point that proves the Roman Catholic claims to be spurious is the fact that the universal practice of the Church as a whole up to the time of the Reformation was to follow the judgment of Jerome who rejected the Old Testament Apocrypha on the grounds that these books were never part of the Jewish canon.”
So the Orthodox Churches reject those books because they weren’t part of the Jewish canon at the time of the Reformation? I thought they accepted all those and more? What books to the Orthodox have?
Freegards
And you are ‘evil’ and will ‘experience hellish nightmares tonight’ for even questioning.
William Webster did an excellent job of documenting the issue of the canon of Holy Scripture and he especially noted the motive behind the oft-used criticism several Catholics are known for on this forum. The constant hook they try to utilize is the idea that non-Catholics are "cheated" by having a "truncated" canon unlike them, therefore, ONLY they have the fullness of the Christian faith. It can be historically proven that the Roman Catholic Church only "officially" added the Apocryphal books to the Biblical canon at Trent to respond to the claims of the Reformation specifically related to the rule of faith of Christianity and the church's faithfulness to the ancient doctrines that were "always and everywhere believed".
One of the "biggies" was Purgatory and it was undeniable that this doctrine was unheard of until much later in the history of the Roman church. That's why the book of II Maccabees HAD to be included because it mentions an incident that Catholics insist speaks of Purgatory (but which it doesn't at all). That the Orthodox STILL reject the dogma is proof that this as well as other areas were innovations of Rome and that the complaints the Reformers had against Rome were correct. Thanks for posting this excellent article.
Thank-you and God Bless.
But you HAD to come on a thread and tell eveyone you don’t give a rip? Sounds like a rip to me.
Then let's clarify a bit further...what does "accepted as Scripture" mean? Are you saying the Catholic Church holds these Apocryphal books as fully, Divinely-inspired, Holy Spirit revealed truth as equal to the Pentateuch, the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms and all the books of the New Testament? Are these books binding upon the Christian and useful for the teaching of the doctrines of the faith and morals?
And when the roll is called up yonder I WILL be there!
Thanks for this wholesome and illuminating comment on the perplexing misconception by some of how The Holy Ghost preserves and identifies His Own stamp on the authenticity of the written Word. It is clear that Jerome is not an authenticator, but is able, standing a bit closer to the authors, to underwrite the commonly known limit of genuine components.
Scanning over the article briefly, in effort to evaluate the above statement of yours be true or not, it is plain it be not entirely true, and in fact a bit of spin on your own part.
Much of the quotes are well enough sourced.
Of those which are not, I chose one at random, highlighted "John Beleth-Doctor of Divinity in Paris" (whom I do not recall previously encountering mention of) then executed search from there. That search yielded a book in the #2 hit, the author of which (John Cosin) Webster may otherwise have previously sourced in some of his other works (for the name Cosine rings a bell) although historical account/mention can appear and reappear in any number of volumes.
Try this link for possible source. Scroll up to page 213 where mention of Beleth follows some discussion of Comester, with Beleth purporting to be following Jerome's opinion, which is then at that source followed by mention of Salisbury. That's three down, and a possible source for more uncovered?
Easy as pie. Those three (educated theologians of their times, I take it) are shown to be following Jerome's lead in regards to what I prefer to refer to as "the Apocrypha" (for Jerome himself did upon occasion use that very term, and although seen to later speak towards some acceptance of the works, never fully retracted his own commentary, or his "helmeted" introductions). These three having written as they are apparently documented as doing so does establish yet further support that there were differing schools of thought concerning the OT canon, and this problematic Apocrypha -- most particularly among those more learned as to the matter.
Footnotes in Cosine's A Scholastical History Of The Canon of The Holy Scripture in places give the Latin text which is being translated from, with the name or identity of those texts given within Cosine's own discussion, and/or also in footnote. From there, one may be able to follow the bread crumb scholarly trail, all the way back to the texts Cosine is presenting he is working from. It's the way of scholarship, which Webster does seem to pay heed towards. Whether he himself has gone all the way back along each and every "trail" to original (or as best as possible near-autograph or copies of same) I do not know, although that would be the real test as for verification of information. In these instances, what is being reported on, is what was believed by who, and when, as expressed in part, in their own words. If there is anything of exculpatory nature missing --- hoo-boy. Digging for Cosine's sources could be a daunting task. It may be easier to check for both other usages, and possible refutations of Cosine, as a start.
As for two others Webster speaks of;
How can Catejan and Francis Ximenius be so easily swept aside? (ignored, actually) They were both Cardinals. Would not they be in their own times, or have significant heft within, the magesterium? If that magesterium they both be a part of be infallible --- then how would any of their era know those two to be wrong in their own views towards the Apocrypha, at least before the voting at Trent (where they were outvoted)? Ximenius (also known as Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros) went to considerable effort (and self expense) to produce Complutensian Polyglot Bible as Webster mentioned. If there be any error as to that which is said by Webster to have been included in the Preface, that it not
"[go] on to say that the Church did not receive the apocryphal books for confirming the authority of any fundamental points of doctrine, though the Church allowed them to be read for purposes of edification. This Bible and its Preface was published by the authority and consent of Pope Leo X, to whom the whole work was dedicated."then please show us.
If there is any factual problem with Webster's usage and presentation of the information, as in regards to the information itself (not to be confused with opinions, or allowed to be so easily covered over with "other" information) please show us how and where, precisely.
This complaining about "assertion" as to what sources say without traceable sourcing, I do understand. I have the same problem, not necessarily with yourself doing so, but with many FRoman's doing so by habit, while I myself seem forced to document things as I go along.
Webster, in comparison to that which is jibber-jabbered against himself and a few others, is wide open as to his own sourcing, in many instances of his other writings, documenting each step along the way. Even here, he gave indication for where exactly he was sourcing the bulkier quotations. Not one of those was without some source mention?
I dare say that is better than many if not most Roman Catholic apologetic sites which I have encountered...and beats holy heck out of what we are frequently served up on a daily basis around here in various efforts towards Romanist propaganda. There is some argument by assertion here on this thread already, along with the usual snarling attacks towards any whom dare oppose the Romish "party line", and the presence of those who either whine, or in some way express view along lines of "this is just another attack on the church!", when what it really is, is criticism towards certain particular Romanist claims, and not attack upon the greater universal, which does extend far beyond Romanist confine or wall.
Which leaves this apparent effort to discredit the man for being some way in error for "just asserting what a lot of his sources say" a miserable failure, if it were an attempt to hint that he is misquoting, or taking out-of-context. The information itself appears near beyond reproach.
What now?
... Towards the close of the second century, when as a result of controversy with the Jews it became known that they were now united in repudiating the deutero-canonical books, hesitations began to creep in; Melito of Sardes (fl. 170), for example, satisfied himself, after a visit to Palestine, that the Hebrew canon was the authoritative one. Origen, it is true, made extensive use of the Apocrypha (as indeed of other truly apocryphal works), but his familiarity as a scholar with the Hebrew Bible made him conscious that there was a problem to be faced. A suggestion he advanced was that, when disputing with Jews, Christians should confine themselves to such books as they recognized; but he added with caution that the further extension of such a self-denying ordinance would necessitate the destruction of the copies of the Scriptures currently read in the churches.It was in the fourth century, particularly where the scholarly standards of Alexandrian Christianity were influential, that these doubts began to make their mark officially. The view which now commend itself fairly generally in the Eastern church, as represented by Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus and Epiphanius, was that the deutero-canonical books should be relegated to a subordinate position outside the canon proper. Cyril was quite uncompromising; books not in the public canon were not to be studied even in private. Athanasius displayed greater flexibility, ruling that they might be used by catechumens for the purpose of instruction. Yet it should be noted (a) that no such scruples seem to have troubled adherents of the Antiochene School, such as John Chrysostom and Theodoret; and (b) that even those Eastern writers who took the strict line with the canon when it was formally under discussion were profuse in their citations from the Apocrypha on other occasions. This official reserve, however, persisted for long in the East. As late as the eighth century we find John Damascene maintaining the Hebrew canon of twenty-two books and excluding Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, although he was ready to acknowledge their admirable qualities.
The West, as a whole, was inclined to form a much more favourable estimate of the Apocrypha. Churchmen with Eastern contacts, as was to be expected, might be disposed to push them into the background. Thus Hilary, though in fact citing all of them as inspired, preferred to identify the Old Testament proper with the twenty-two books (as he reckoned them) extant in the Hebrew; while Rufinus described Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith and 1 and 2 Maccabees as ‘not canonical, but ecclesiastical’, i.e. to be read by Christians but not added as authoritative for doctrine. Jerome, conscious of the difficulty of arguing with Jews on the basis of books they spurned and anyhow regarding the Hebrew original as authoritative, was adamant that anything not found in it was ‘to be classed among the apocrypha’, not in the canon; later he grudgingly conceded that the Church read some of these books for edification, but not to support doctrine. For the great majority, however, the deutero-canonical writings ranked as Scripture in the fullest sense ... (Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, revised edition [HarperSan Francisco, 1978], pp. 54-55; bold emphasis added)
We need not rely upon Kelly, alone. It is best to gather from many. The historians are in (as far as I can tell) near unanimous agreement ---- that the history of the canon is not exactly, as GPH said, as "Roman revisionist history" purports it to be.
Bumper sicker idea;
I dunno, but it sure seems someone’s going to have to go to CONFESSION for smacking the RCC.
INDEED!!
Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.[1]
Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy
Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy
Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.[2]
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.[3]
Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony[4]
Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.
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