"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,
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.