Replies

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.

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.

"you know that "Rome" is shorthand for the Roman Catholic Church"

Oh for pity's sake, of course I know that. Please tune up your irony detector. The point is, the term "Church of Rome" is not the way Catholics refer to themselves, but is a tendentious way for polemicists to insinuate that the Catholic Church "equals" nothing but Rome, tout court. False. The Catholic Church predates the Diocese of Rome by at least a generation, and will still exist even if Rome were wiped out by a nuke (no doubt one named Abd-Allah or Shaitan.))

Please vet your writings, as I try to vet mine, to delete gratuitous insults like calling a careful consideration of the meaning of words, "semantic games." Sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong, but at no point am I playing games. If you have no respect for the integrity of the discussion, it will be pointless for us to continue.

And here's the exact point in context: Jerome did NOT refer to the Pope or the "Church of Rome" or rabbinical practice or even local councils when he said, in the context of forming the Canon of Scripture, "What sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches?" By this he meant the books which had been received and accepted and used for liturgical reading in the churches, would be acknowledged as the Canon.

It's not "proven" by scholarship, by rabbinical preference, by local councils, by the Pope. It's "proven" -- this is his criterion --- by the customs and practices of the churches. What they actually do.

It's true this didn't "nail in" Septuaginta Sola or the disputed Seven. Far from it. (If I gave that impression, I was mistaken.) My point was, that the custom of the churches is the criterion.

You had no comment on the eye-glazing list of 65 would-coulda been Biblical Books listed at #20. I included the Shem Tov Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, George Howard translation as an illustration that, among some, the dispute over the canon has never been settled.

T'hell with "the custom of the churches" these guys know what the Real Scripture is, and it's not what the Catholic and Orthodox Churches have been using for 2000 years.

"In reality, scholarly disagreements over the canonicity (proper) of certain books continued down through the centuries"

Absolutely true. And not just "right into Trent," but right into 2106.

The only legit way to resolve it, though, is via "the custom of the churches," since we still believe that the Holy Spirit would not let "the churches" continue without a canon of Scripture for centuries. Nor was the Church without a canon until 1563 (Council of Trent) or KJV 1640 (the edition which finally and definitively excluded the even Deuteros) or 1987 (when George Howard finally gave us the True Scripture by translating the Shem Tov Gospel into English!)

I personally believe that in this matter of the Canon the Holy Spirit guided the Church better for 1700 years than did the Anglicans from the 17th century until now.

I don't prefer the 1640 Anglican canon, but if you do, fine. But you can't prove it by "the custom of the churches."

Another problem with the "Church of Rome" moniker, which is a term that Catholics don't use of themselves, is that it rhetorically excludes the other 21 churches of the Catholic Church: Catholic Copts, Melkites, Maronites, Chaldeans, etc.

Although numerically far in the minority, they are relevant to the historic "early church" discussions because so many of their communities were founded so very early, i.e. during Apostolic era. And some of them were outside of both the Roman Empire (West, under Rome) and the Byzantine Empire (Roman Empire East) and thus their customs and canons cannot be assumed to have been driven by empire-politicked councils or edicts.

I can hardly blame you for pretty much excluding them from discussion, since most U.S. and even European Catholics remain practically unaware that they have millions of fellow believers who are not themselves part of the so-called "Roman" Catholic Church.

(Even the term "Roman Catholic" originated as a derogatory label deployed by the Anglicans to legitimize their own use of the term "Anglo-Catholic" over and against that "foreign" Church loyal to the pope of Rome.)

Anyhow, the existence, heritage and testimony of these Eastern Churches is essential to the Catholicity of the Church as a whole. Their spiritual patrimony derives directly from the Apostolic Tradition.

Another reason to hope they are not all annihilated by ISIS. Seriously, at present their situation is grim. Your prayers are solicited.