Why Purgatory Is a Dangerous Doctrine

Some people are taught to deal with their guilt by placing confidence in the doctrine of "purgatory." I suppose you could compare it to a student working on a project to gain "extra credit" to make up for some bad grades. Unfortunately, the doctrine of purgatory provides false hope because it is based not in fact, but in fantasy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines purgatory as a "purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven," and is for those who are said to be going to heaven but are nevertheless "still imperfectly purified." (CCC 1030) According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, purgatory is "a place or condition of temporal punishment" for a Christian after death. The punishment and purification process in purgatory is said to "purge" away certain sins that still require cleansing.

So what's the problem with this theory? Well, the problem is that this doctrine is not rooted in Scripture. And on top of that, it invites sinners to assume the blood of Jesus and the cross of Christ are not enough to make a believer completely holy in God's sight. Man needs "more" purification, or so goes the misguided line of reasoning.

In reality, every believer is already completely holy in God's sight as a result of the Savior's sacrifice on the cross 2000 years ago. This complete cleansing flows from the miracle of the cross. (1 Peter 2:24,25) Thankfully, every Christian is already "seated with Christ in the heavenly realms." (Eph. 2:6) The complete purification of a sinner's soul occurs the moment the new birth takes place (John 3:6,7) in a person's heart through faith in Christ. (John 1:12; John 3:16)

"We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (Hebrews 10:10)

report this ad This astounding declaration is not man's opinion. It is God's Word on the matter, period.

Now either the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross has the power to make a believer completely holy in God's sight, or it doesn't. And if it does, then who do you suppose would be interested in trying to water down the biblical doctrine of justification through faith? (Gal. 2:16) Does that sound like something God would do, or is the doctrine of purgatory more in line with doctrines the devil would likely spout?

Since Satan is "the father of lies," (John 8:44) our invisible adversary tells unbelievers: "You're good enough to get into heaven by your sincerity and your morality." Meanwhile, he uses a different line of deception when accusing believers: "You're not pure enough! You know you're a terrible person. And you call yourself a Christian...ha...what a joke!"

report this ad The devil hopes to take our eyes off Jesus and the cross where our redemption was earned "once for all." (Romans 6:10) If the prince of darkness can't convince you to reject the cross, his minions work overtime trying to get you to "add to the cross." Satan knows that when it comes to a person's approach to salvation, "Jesus plus something equals nothing." Adding to the cross is just as deadly as rejecting the cross, and no one knows this fact better than the devil himself.

Remember, Satan is an individual angel who has been manipulating a team of evil angels (demons) for thousands of years. And so he has had plenty of time to refine his craft. The devil doesn't want you to know the truth, whether you are a believer or an unbeliever. Either way, Lucifer's bag of tricks and seductive lies are lined up and always ready to be unleashed at a moment's notice.

"The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons....they forbid people to marry, etc." (1 Timothy 4:1,3) And of all the dangerous doctrines that have been conjured up over the centuries, the doctrine of purgatory is a real doozy!

The Holy Spirit certainly did not invent the doctrine of purgatory. The third Person of the Trinity will never guide you to add something to the cross in your quest to be completely purified.

report this ad The reality for the believer is that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7) so that we are now "holy in God's sight, without blemish and free from accusation." (Colossians 1:22) This is the case regardless of a believer's religious label, be it "Catholic," "Protestant," or something else.

Everyone who has been converted through faith in Jesus is instantly forgiven, saved, justified, born again, and redeemed on the front end of their relationship with God. The miracle of conversion is available to man because of the perfection of Christ's sacrifice 2000 years ago, as well as the power of Christ's holy blood that was shed on the cross for our sins.

Believers don't need any "more" purification in order to be holy in God's sight. And the idea that man could somehow be punished or purified in purgatory as a way of preparing his soul for heaven is foreign to the Bible. In fact, this doctrine stands opposed to the teaching of the Gospel and to the biblical message of grace.

Here is a helpful acronym to remember the meaning of G-R-A-C-E: "God's Riches at Christ's Expense."

report this ad The doctrine of purgatory, on the other hand, could be summed up this way: S-P-A-C-E, or "Special Punishment a Christian Earns."

GRACE or SPACE? Which approach will you rely upon for complete purification before God? Christ being punished unto death in your place, or you being punished after death to merit some extra purification for your sins?

The Bible provides us with the only way a sinner is purified before Almighty God: "By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." (Hebrews 10:14) Could it be any clearer?

The focus in the New Testament is always on the punishment Jesus endured for our sins, and not on some supposed punishment a Christian receives in "purgatory." Such a diabolical doctrine strips the cross of Christ of its glory, while ignoring the full atoning power of the Savior's blood to completely wash away the sins of a believer.

report this ad Isaiah prophesied 700 years before Christ's crucifixion, "The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him." (Isaiah 53:5) Rather than giving us the punishment we deserve, God took the punishment upon Himself in order to redeem us from sin, death, and the devil.

And so today, you either have complete forgiveness through Christ alone, or no forgiveness whatsoever. The forgiveness of sins is not given out in parts. Every converted person is purified completely today; right now; prior to their death. If you are waiting until after you die to have all your sins washed away, you will be waiting a very long time to say the least.

Purgatory is nothing more than a seductive and deceptive myth. If truth be told, this doctrine is "all talk" and "no action," no cleansing, and no purging away of sins.

And where does that leave a person who has gone to their grave while relying upon the false promises of purgatory? When it comes to life, death, and eternity, there are no do-overs.

report this ad "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment." (Hebrews 9:27)

Aside from Scripture, we wouldn't know what happens to a soul the moment a person dies. Only God's Word correctly informs our mind and our conscience on such lofty matters.

One biblical passage that has been used in attempting to defend the doctrine of purgatory is 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. But those who do so misinterpret the true meaning of this text. I wrote about the real meaning of this passage in an article entitled, "The Biblical Distinction Between 'Gift' and 'Reward."

At the end of time, a believer's works will indeed be tested with fire to see if the works were done with the right motives. That is to say, were they done by someone trying to shine the light and focus on himself; or instead, trying to shine the light on Christ and keep the focus on the Savior?

report this ad Regarding the works of a believer on that day..."his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." (1 Cor. 3:13-15)

Did you catch that? It describes the man who gets into heaven because he received the free gift of eternal life, and so he was saved; and yet, he "suffers loss" of certain rewards that he would have received if his motives had been different in his service for Christ. He will still of course enjoy a fantastic life in heaven forever, and he will not be even slightly jealous in heaven of anyone's else reward. (Jealousy and the like are only found on earth, and not in heaven.) Before the believer enters heaven, however, the work he completed on earth will be tested with fire to see how much of it was noble, selfless, and Christ-centered.

Eternal life in heaven is a free gift and cannot be merited by man's efforts, either in this life, or in the fictional realm of "purgatory." Rewards, on the other hand, are taught in Scripture as a way God has chosen to bless His children for their works on earth. But if you are not in the family of God through faith in Christ, then the promise of heavenly rewards does not apply to you. It only applies to God's children.

The apostle Paul wrote these words to believers reminding them of the way they entered God's eternal family: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast." (Eph. 2:8,9)

Once the gift is received through faith, salvation is secure. There is no need for any further purification in order to be justified before God. And this explains why the theory of purgatory is so dangerous. Purgatory is a pernicious man-made doctrine that contradicts Scripture and opposes the cross of Christ.

There is nothing man can do to add to what Christ accomplished on the cross. Any attempt to add to the Savior's sacrifice is doomed to fail, and will lead a person to place a measure of faith in something other than the finished work of Christ on the cross.

When those in Galatia were being goaded by the Judaizers to add circumcision to the basis of their eternal hope of salvation, Paul warned them sternly: "That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 'A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.'" (Gal. 5:8,9)

In other words, the moment you attempt to add something to Christ's sacrifice on the cross as the basis of your justification before God, you are on the verge of losing everything.

Paul went so far as to inform the folks in Galatia: "You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace." (Gal. 5:4)

And so the bottom line is this: What am I relying upon in order to be pure in God's eyes? Am I trusting Christ alone and the blood He shed on the cross for my sins? Or am I planning to bear some punishment myself after I die in order to be "purified" to the point of complete perfection?

If so, be careful what you wish for. Those who are determined to receive punishment for their sins should realize that the only people who are punished after death are those who will be punished in hell forever. (Matthew 25:41)

And I know you don't want to receive eternal punishment, correct? So don't dabble with the diabolical doctrine that spews forth the following concept: "A little bit of punishment after death is good for the soul." Yeah right. Don't believe it for a second.

Amidst all of its rotten fruit, perhaps the most offensive aspect of this dangerous doctrine is simply this: The teaching of purgatory is a slap in the Savior's face because it proudly proclaims to do something that only the blood of Jesus has the power to accomplish. (Revelation 1:5)

Wpin:"Your theology is incomplete because after 1,500 years one lunatic decided to correct God and remove some of His Bible."

Luircin:“Whoever told you that Luther removed part of the Bible is a repeating a damnable lie. 1: Catholics didn’t even have an infallable canon until after Luther’s death. 2: Luther did include those books in his translation of the Bible. Whoever taught you is either a liar or an ignoramus.”

Wpin:"The above nonsense is YOUR assertion. It is you who has to prove that crap is true. Good luck..."

If you insist. Since you evidently ignored what I admonished you in in my post 215 (saying read what i provided before you ignorantly parrot RC propaganda again) then in addition to the other links that I provided that you also ignored (such as

"Luther removed books from the Canon" - a few replies

Infuriating Factoids

Luther: The Infallible Church Declared The Contents of Scripture?

The Canon: The Empty Arguments From the Defenders of Rome, then I am somewhat forced to place in front of you some excerpts of the larger work you ignored which exposes the overall fallacious nature of the typical RC propaganda that you evidently have swallowed.

Luther was not alone in questioning or rejecting certain books, and his views (like early church leaders) were part of a process of development, and had the support of scholarly principles, and that of substantial Catholic scholarship from antiquity and right into Trent over the certain books, especially those of the apocrypha. (Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent: St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947; pp. 278, 281-282. More)

Luther and the Reformers (overall) treated the Apocrypha as many others did, which was that these books were not to be held as equal to the Scriptures, but were useful and good to read, but not for establishment of doctrine. Luther's Bible included almost all the apocryphal books of the Catholic canon, wanting them to be available despite not being qualified to be classed as Scripture, and therefore he placed apocryphal works between the Old and New Testaments following the ancient practice of Jerome, who had separately placed such at the end of the Old Testament. (The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, by Michael David Coogan, Marc Zvi Brettler, p. 457) In addition, Luther also doubted the New Testament books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Revelation of John, but did not call them apocryphal. (The Esoteric Codex: Old Testament Apocrypha by Julius Allsop, p. 2) Luther expressed that his canon was his own non-binding judgment, and his views (which he prefaced them with) on some of these books may have changed in later years, and the 66 book Protestant canon is not exactly the same as Luther's. However, it is more ancient than that of Rome's, reflecting a more ancient canon held by Palestinian Jews from before the third century, and which is affirmed in Catholicism: “the protocanonical books of the Old Testament correspond with those of the Bible of the Hebrews, and the Old Testament as received by Protestants.” “...the Hebrew Bible, which became the Old Testament of Protestantism.” (The Catholic Encyclopedia>Canon of the Old Testament; htttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm) The Protestant canon of the Old Testament is the same as the Palestinian canon. (The Catholic Almanac, 1960, p. 217)

bert C. Newman, "THE COUNCIL OF JAMNIA AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON," Westminster Theological Journal 38.4 (Spr. 1976) 319-348. ^

▀ When was the first “infallible” Roman Catholic definition of the Biblical canon?

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the New Testament, (1917), states (emphasis mine throughout the proceeding),

► “The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm)

► "The Tridentine decrees from which the above list is extracted was the first infallible and effectually promulgated pronouncement on the Canon, addressed to the Church Universal. ” (Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm;

► “Catholic hold that the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church.” “The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the OT Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent." (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Catholic University of America , 2003, Vol. 3, pp. 20,26.

► The Catholic Study Bible, Oxford University Press, 1990, p. RG27: "The final definitive list of biblical books (including the seven additional Old Testament books) was only drawn up at the council of Trent in 1546. “Most Christians had followed St. Augustine and included the 'Apocrypha' in the canon, but St. Jerome, who excluded them, had always had his defenders." (Joseph Lienhard, The Bible, The Church, And Authority [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1995], p. 59)

► "...an official, definitive list of inspired writings did not exist in the Catholic Church until the Council of Trent (Yves Congar, French Dominican cardinal and theologian, in Tradition and Traditions" [New York: Macmillan, 1966], p. 38).

► As Catholic Church historian and recognized authority on Trent (2400 page history, and author of over 700 books, etc.), Hubert Jedin (1900-1980) observes, it also put a full stop to the 1000-year-old development of the biblical canon (History of the Council of Trent [London, 1961] 91, quoted by Raymond Edward Brown, American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar, in The New Jerome biblical commentary, p. 1168)

►The question of the “deutero-canonical” books will not be settled before the sixteenth century. As late as the second half of the thirteenth, St Bonaventure used as canonical the third book of Esdras and the prayer of Manasses, whereas St Albert the Great and St Thomas doubted their canonical value. (George H. Tavard, Holy Writ or Holy Church: The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation (London: Burns & Oates, 1959), pp. 16-17)

►It may be a surprise to some to know that the “canon,” or official list of books of the Bible, was not explicitly defined by the Church until the 16th century though there was a clear listing as early as the fourth century. (Leonard Foley, O.F.M., Believing in Jesus: A Popular Overview of the Catholic Faith, rev. ed. (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1985, p. 21)

► "For the first fifteen centuries of Christianity, no Christian Church put forth a definitive list of biblical books. Most Christians had followed St. Augustine and included the 'Apocrypha' in the canon, but St. Jerome, who excluded them, had always had his defenders." (Joseph Lienhard, S.J., A.B., classics, Fordham University, “The Bible, The Church, And Authority;” [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1995], p. 59)

► "in the fifth century a more or less final consensus [on the New Testament canon] was reached and shared by East and West. It is worth noting that no ecumenical council in the ancient church ever ruled for the church as a whole on the question of the contents of the canon." (Harry Gamble, in Lee McDonald and James Sanders, edd., The Canon Debate [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002], p. 291)

Prior lists were by councils that were not ecumenical/infallible.

► “...at the present day, and for many centuries in the past, only the decisions of ecumenical councils and the ex cathedra teaching of the pope have been treated as strictly definitive in the canonical sense...” (The Catholic encyclopedia, http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=6099)

► “Neither Catholics nor the Orthodox recognize Rome or Carthage or Hippo as Ecumenical in their list.” http://www.newadvent.org/library/almanac_14388a.htm http://orthodoxwiki.org/Ecumenical_Councils#List_of_the_Seven_Ecumenical_Councils.

► “The Council of Florence (1442) contains a complete list of the books received by the Church as inspired, but omits, perhaps advisedly, the terms canon and canonical. The Council of Florence therefore taught the inspiration of all the Scriptures, but did not formally pass on their canonicity.” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)

► “The seventh Ecumenical Council officially accepted the Trullan Canons as part of the sixth Ecumenical Council. The importance of this is underscored by canon II of Trullo which officially authorized the decrees of Carthage, thereby elevating them to a place of ecumenical authority. However, the Council also sanctioned were the canons of Athanasius and Amphilochius that had to do with the canon and both of these fathers rejected the major books of the Apocrypha. In addition, the Council sanctioned the Apostolical canons which, in canon eighty-five, gave a list of canonical books which included 3 Maccabees, a book never accepted as canonical in the West.101 Furthermore, the Apostolical canons were condemned and rejected as apocryphal in the decrees of Popes Gelasius and Hormisdas.102 Thus indicating that the approval given was not specific but general.” (http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/Apocrypha3.html)

The claim that the Council of Rome (382) approved an infallible canon is contrary to Roman Catholic statements which point to Trent, and depends upon the Decretum Gelasianum, the authority of which is disputed (among RC's themselves), based upon evidence that it was pseudepigraphical, being a sixth century compilation put together in northern Italy or southern France at the beginning of the 6th cent. In addition the Council of Rome found many opponents in Africa.” More: http://www.tertullian.org/articles/burkitt_gelasianum.htm

Decrees by non-ecumenical early councils such as Hippo, Carthage and Florence were not infallible, and thus doubts and disputes among scholars continued right into Trent. The decision of Trent in 1546 was the first “infallible” indisputable and final definition of the Roman Catholic canon, (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. II, Bible, III (Canon), p. 390; The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent: Rockford: Tan, 1978), Fourth Session, Footnote #4, p. 17, and see below) apparently after an informal vote of 24 yea, 15 nay, with 16 abstaining (44%, 27%, 29%) as to whether to affirm it as an article of faith with its anathemas on those who dissent from it.

This definition, coming over 1400 hundred years (April 8th, 1546) after the last book was written — and after Luther died (February 8,1546) — was issued in reaction to Martin Luther and the Reformation, and in so doing, it not only went against a tradition of substantial weight in pronouncing the apocryphal books to be uninspired, but there is even confusion over whether the canon of Trent is exactly the same as that of Carthage and Hippo. Thus , if the canon list was dogma prior to Trent, then there were many Catholics throughout history who would have been de facto excommunicated. More. (Also, some of the books of the Pseudepigrapha were invoked by some church fathers, and found their way into other canons of various Eastern churches, which also differ with that of Rome, but which is seldom made a major issue by Roman Catholic apologists, unlike as with Protestants).

In addition, present Roman Catholic liberal scholarship impugns the integrity of the Word of God by its adherence to the discredited JEDP theory, and its official Bible for America relegates numerous historical accounts in the Bible to being fables or folk tales, etc. (as shown below).

Two worthwhile pages to see on Luther and the canon are here and here.

▀ The antiquity of the 39 book O.T. canon versus the inclusion of the apocrypha

The strongest evidence shows the apocryphal books were not included in the Hebrew Canon of Jesus day. The Palestinian canon from before the earliest (late century) conciliar lists Roman Catholics point to is held by many as being identical to the Protestant Old Testament, differing only in the arrangement and number of the books, while the Alexandrian canon, referred to as the Septuagint is seen as identical to the Catholic Old Testament. Ancient evidence as well as the Lord's affirmation of a tripartite canon in Lk. 24:44 weighs in favor of the Palestinian canon — if indeed there was a strict separation — being what He held to. Note that the so-called “Council” of Jamnia, and see below, is considered to be theoretical, and with some scholars arguing that the Jewish canon was fixed during the Hasmonean dynasty (140 and c. 116 B.C.), - though not universally (nor is it today). — (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Hebrew_Bible_canon)

"In all likelihood Josephus' twenty-two-book canon was the Pharisaic canon, but it is to be doubted that it was also the canon of all Jews in the way that he has intended." (Timothy H. Lim: The Formation of the Jewish Canon; Yale University Press, Oct 22, 2013. P. 49) By the first century, it is clear that the Pharisees held to the twenty-two or twenty-four book canon, and it was this canon that eventually became the canon of Rabbinic Judaism because the majority of those who founded the Jewish faith after the destruction of Jerusalem were Pharisees. The Jewish canon was not directed from above but developed from the "bottom-up." (Timothy H. Lim, University of Edinburgh: Understanding the Emergence of the Jewish Canon, ANCIENT JEW REVIEW, December 2, 2015)

Knowledgeable [if liberal] New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman also finds,

Most scholars agree that by the time of the destruction of the second Temple in 70 C.E. most Jews accepted the final three-part canon of the Torah, Nevi'im, and Kethuvim.... This was a twenty-four-book canon that came to be attested widely in Jewish writings of the time; eventually the canon was reconceptualized and renumbered an that it became the thirty-nine books of the Christian Old Testament. But they are the same books, all part of the canon of Scripture. (Ehrman, The Bible, 377)

The evidence clearly supports the theory that the Hebrew canon was established well before the late first century AD, more than likely as early as the fourth century BC and certainly no later than 150 BC. A major reason for this conclusion comes from the Jews themselves, who from the fourth century BC onward were convinced that "the voice of God had ceased to speak directly." (Ewert, FATMT, 69) In other words, the prophetic voices had been stilled. No word from God meant no new Word of God. Without proph-ets, there can be no scriptural revelation. Concerning the Intertestamental Period (approximately four hundred years between the close of the Old Testament and the events of the New Testament)

Concerning the Intertestamental Period (approximately four hundred years between the dose of the Old Testament and the events of the New Testament) Ewert observes,

In 1 Maccabees 14:41 we read of Simon who is made leader and priest "until a trustworthy prophet should rise," and earlier he speaks of the sorrow in Israel such "as there has not been since the prophets ceased to appear to them." "The prophets have fallen asleep," complains the writer of 2 Baruch (85:3). Books that were written after the prophetic period had closed were thought of as lying outside the realm of Holy Scripture. (Ewen, FATMT, 70)

Bruce affirms that The books of the Hebrew Bible are traditionally twenty-four in number, arranged in three divisions." (Bruce, CS, 29) The three divisions are the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Here are the main categories of the Hebrew canon found in modern editions of the Jewish Old Testament.

The Law (Torah): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy . The Prophets (Nebhim): Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings (former prophets), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, The Twelve (latter prophets) , The Writings (Kethubhim or Hagi-ographa [Greek]): Psalms, Proverbs, Job (poetical books), Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, Ecclesi-astes (Five Rolls [MegillothD, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles (historical books)

Christ's Witness to the Old Testament Canon

Luke 24:44: In the Upper Room Jesus told the disciples "that all things most needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me" (Asv). With these words Jesus indicated "a threefold categorization of the sacred Scriptures [the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings), the third part of which is identified by its longest and presumably most important book, the Psalms." (Ehrman, The Bible, 377)

John 10:31-36; Luke 24:44: Jesus disagreed with the oral traditions of the Pharisees (Mark 7, Matt. 15), but not with their concept of the Hebrew canon.

Luke 11:51 (also Matt. 23:35): "From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah." With these words Jesus confirms his witness to the extent of the Old Testament canon. Abel was the first martyr recorded in Scripture (Gen. 4:8) and Zechariah the last mar-tyr to be named in the Hebrew Old Testament order, having been stoned while prophesying to the people "in the court of the house of the LORD." (2 Chr. 24:21). Genesis was the first book in the Hebrew canon and Chronicles the last. Jesus, then, was basically saying, "from Genesis to Chronicles," or, according to our order, "from Genesis to Malachi," thereby confirming the divine authority and inspiration of the entire Hebrew canon. (Bruce, BP, 88)

Philo "Around the time of Christ, the Jewish philosopher Philo made a three-fold distinction in the Old Testament speaking of the '[1] laws and [2) oracles delivered through the mouth of prophets, and [3) psalms and anything else which fosters and perfects knowledge and piety (De Vita Contemplativa 3.25)." (Geisler and Nix, BFGU, 103) (Last 10 excerpts above transcribed from "Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World," By Josh McDowell, Sean McDowell, pp. 34-36)

"The term "apocrypha" refers to those books which are found in the Hellenistic Jewish Bible canon of Alexandria, Egypt, but not in the Palestinian Jewish canon . The Hellenistic canon was preserved by the Christian church in the Septuagint and Vulgate Bibles, and the Palestinian canon was handed down in the form of the traditional Hebrew Bible..."

"The desire to supplement Scripture was part of a general tendency in the Greco-Roman period toward 'rewritten Bible.' In such works the authors, out of reverence for the Bible, sought to extend the biblical tradition and often applied it to the issues of their own day. ..."

1 Baruch "is a hortatory work which was treated as a supplement to Jeremiah. It is a pseudepigraphon, purporting to have been written by Baruch, the scribe of Jeremiah... The first part had to have been written by the onset of the first century B.C.E., but the date of the second half cannot be established. It may postdate the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E." From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism, pp. 12-,121, 123,125, 126, Lawrence H Schiffman, PH D, Sol Scharfstein, Ethel and Irvine Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies; KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1991)

The latter aspect means that Baruch (along with some other books of the apocrapha) may not have been written until after the completion of the Jewish LXX in 132 BC.

The Catholic Encyclopedia itself affirms the Palestinian canon as consisting of the same books. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)

● That there was an established, if limited body of writings of God by the time of Christ is manifest by the frequent quotes or references to them as authoratative by the Lord Jesus and the NT writers. Which was never manifest as being an issue with the Scribes and Pharisees whom the Lord affirmed sat in the magisterial seat of Moses, (Mt. 23:2) to whom conditional obedience was enjoined. And it was they who held to a conservative number of Scriptural writings.

● J. N. D. Kelly states,

For the Jews of Palestine the limits of the canon (the term is Christian, and was not used in Judaism) were rigidly fixed; they drew a sharp line of demarca- tion between the books which 'defiled the hands', i.e. were sacred, and other religiously edifying writings. The oudook of the Jewish communities outside Palestine tended to be much more elastic. "While respecting the unique position of the Pentateuch, they treated the later books of the Old Testament with considerable freedom, making additions to some and drastically rewriting others; and they did not hesitate to add entirely new books to the permitted list. In this way 1 (3) Esdras, Judith, Tobit and the books of Maccabees came to be included among the histories, and Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Song of the Three Holy Children, the History of Susannah, Bel and the Dragon (these last three 'the Additions to the Book of Daniel'), and the Prayer of Manasseh among the poetical and prophetic books. FONT FACE="Arial, sans-serif">(J. N. D. KELLY, EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES, FOURTH EDITION, ADAM & CHARLES BLACK LONDON, p. 53 )

Although some apocryphal books contain a few texts which correspond to New Testament ones, this is also true of some works which are found outside the apocrypha, which the Bible sometimes quotes from. (Acts 17:28; Jude 1:14) Texts from the apocrypha were occasionally quoted in early church writings, and were considered worthy reading even if not included as Scripture, but the apocrypha was not accepted in such early O.T. lists as that of Melito (AD 170) bishop of the church in Sardis, an inland city of Asia Minor, who gives a list of the Hebrew canon, minus Esther, and makes no mention of any of the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books

● Origen in the 2nd century (c. 240) rejected the apocrypha as he held to the Palestinian canon (plus the Letter of Jeremiah), and likewise Cyril of Jerusalem (plus Baruch), but like St. Hilary of Poitiers (300-368) and Rufinus who also rejected the apocrypha, Origen used them or parts thereof , as others also did with these second class books.

● Jerome (340-420), the preeminent 3rd century scholar rejected the Apocrypha, as they did not have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and were not received by all, and did not generally work toward "confirmation of the doctrine of the Church." His lists of the 24 books of the O.T. Scriptures corresponds to the 39 of the Protestant canon,

Jerome wrote in his Prologue to the Books of the Kings,

“This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a helmeted [i.e. defensive] introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be assured that what is outside of them must be placed aside among the Apocryphal writings. Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd [of Hermes?] are not in the canon. The first book of Maccabees is found in Hebrew, but the second is Greek, as can be proved from the very style.

In his preface to Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs he also states,

“As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church.” (Shaff, Henry Wace, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, p. 492)

J. N. D. Kelly finds,

"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."Kelly, [J. N. D. (1960). Early Christian Doctrines. San Francisco, USA: Harper. p. 55.

Like as Luther's inclusion of books in his Bible which he disallowed as canonical, the apocryphal books had been disallowed by Jerome as properly canonical even though they were included in them.

It is argued that Jerome later accepted the apocrypha due to him later translating them and including them in his Latin Vulgate, but what he translated with certainty only includes a couple (Tobit and Judith), and which was due to a request in the later case and (likely) pressure in both, and which he could allow due to some Catholic sanction. Regarding Judith he states, “But because this book is found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures, I have acquiesced to your request.” And as regards Tobit: “But it is better to be judging the opinion of the Pharisees to displease and to be subject to the commands of bishops.”

These do not reflect his own judgment on them as inspired Scripture, but that of a church yet in flux as regards the status of all the apocrypha. Some think Jerome later defended the apocrypha based on comments about Daniel, but which is countered here

● Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 367), excluded the Book of Esther (which never actually mentions God and its canonicity was disputed among Jews for some time) among the "7 books not in the canon but to be read" along with the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Judith, Tobit, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_of_Alexandria#New_Testament_canon)

Gregory of Nazianzus (330 – 390) concurred with the canon of Anastasius.

● The list of O.T. books by the Council of Laodicea (363) may have been added later, and is that of Athanasius but with Esther included. It also contains the standard canon of the N.T. except that it omits Revelation, as does Cyril, thought to be due to excessive use of it by the Montanist cults

● John of Damascus, eminent theologian of the Eastern Church in the 8th century, and Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople in the 9th century also rejected the apocrypha, as did others, in part or in whole.

● The fourth century historian Euesibius also provides an early Christian list of both Old and New Testament books. In his Ecclesiastical History (written about A.D. 324), in three places quoting from Josephus, Melito and Origen, lists of the books (slightly differing) according to the Hebrew Canon. These he calls in the first place 'the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, undisputed among the Hebrews;' and again,'the acknowledged Scriptures of the Old Testament;' and, lastly, 'the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament.' In his Chronicle he distinctly separates the Books of Maccabees from the 'Divine Scriptures;' and elsewhere mentions Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom as 'controverted' books. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/eusebius.html)

● Cyril of Jerusalem (d. circa. 385 AD) exhorts his readers “Of these read the two and twenty books, but have nothing to do with the apocryphal writings. Study earnestly these only which we read openly in the Church. Far wiser and more pious than thyself were the Apostles, and the bishops of old time, the presidents of the Church who handed down these books. Being therefore a child of the Church, trench thou not upon its statutes. And of the Old Testament, as we have said, study the two and twenty books, which, if thou art desirous of learning, strive to remember by name, as I recite them.” (http://www.bible-researcher.com/cyril.html)

His lists supports the canon adopted by the Protestants, combining books after the Hebrew canon and excludes the apocrypha, though he sometimes used them, as per the standard practice by which the apocrypha was printed in Protestant Bibles, and includes Baruch as part of Jeremiah.

● Likewise Rufinus:

38.But it should also be known that there are other books which are called not "canonical" but "ecclesiastical" by the ancients: 5 that is, the Wisdom attributed to Solomon, and another Wisdom attributed to the son of Sirach, which the Latins called by the title Ecclesiasticus, designating not the author of the book but its character. To the same class belong the book of Tobit and the book of Judith, and the books of Maccabees.

With the New Testament there is the book which is called the Shepherd of Hermas, and that which is called The Two Ways 6 and the Judgment of Peter.⁷ They were willing to have all these read in the churches but not brought forward for the confirmation of doctrine. The other writings they named "apocrypha,"⁸ which they would not have read in the churches.

These are what the fathers have handed down to us, which, as I said, I have thought it opportune to set forth in this place, for the instruction of those who are being taught the first elements of the Church and of the Faith, that they may know from what fountains of the Word of God they should draw for drinking. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/rufinus.html)

●Summing up most of the above, the Catholic Encyclopedia states,

At Jerusalem there was a renascence, perhaps a survival, of Jewish ideas, the tendency there being distinctly unfavourable to the deuteros. St. Cyril of that see, while vindicating for the Church the right to fix the Canon, places them among the apocrypha and forbids all books to be read privately which are not read in the churches. In Antioch and Syria the attitude was more favourable. St. Epiphanius shows hesitation about the rank of the deuteros; he esteemed them, but they had not the same place as the Hebrew books in his regard. The historian Eusebius attests the widespread doubts in his time; he classes them as antilegomena, or disputed writings, and, like Athanasius, places them in a class intermediate between the books received by all and the apocrypha. The 59th (or 60th) canon of the provincial Council of Laodicea (the authenticity of which however is contested) gives a catalogue of the Scriptures entirely in accord with the ideas of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the Oriental versions and Greek manuscripts of the period are more liberal; the extant ones have all the deuterocanonicals and, in some cases, certain apocrypha.

The influence of Origen's and Athanasius's restricted canon naturally spread to the West. St. Hilary of Poitiers and Rufinus followed their footsteps, excluding the deuteros from canonical rank in theory, but admitting them in practice. The latter styles them "ecclesiastical" books, but in authority unequal to the other Scriptures. St. Jerome cast his weighty suffrage on the side unfavourable to the disputed books... (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament, eph. mine)

● The Catholic Encyclopedia also states as regards the Middle Ages,

In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages [5th century to the 15th century] we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome's depreciating Prologus (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)

▀ The LXX (Septuagint) and Dead Sea Scrolls...

Philo of Alexandria (1st c A.D.) states that only the Torah (the first 5 books of the O.T.) was commissioned to be translated, leaving the rest of the O.T. following in later centuries, and in an order that is not altogether clear, nor do all LXX manuscripts have the same apocryphal books and names.

For many reasons (and see note on Jamnia) it is held that the Septuagint is of dubious support for the apocrypha.

For while Catholics argue that since Christ and the NT quotes from the LXX then we must accept the books we call the apocrypha. However, this presumes that the Septuagint was a uniform body of texts in the time of Christ and which contained all the apocryphal books at that time, but for which there is no historical evidence. The earliest existing Greek manuscripts which contain some of them date from the 4th Century and are understood to have been placed therein by Christians.

Furthermore, if quoting from some of the Septuagint means the whole is sanctioned, then since the Psalms of Solomon, which is not part of any scriptural canon, is found in copies of the Septuagint as is Psalm 151, and 3 and 4 Maccabees (Vaticanus [early 4th century] does not include any of the Maccabean books, while Sinaiticus [early 4th century] includes 1 and 4 Maccabees and Alexandrinus [early 5th century] includes 1, 2, 3, and 4 Maccabees and the Psalms of Solomon), then we would be bound to accept them as well.

Also, Scripture can include an inspired utterance such as from Enoch, (Jude. 1:14,15; Enoch 1:9) but the book of Enoch as a whole is not Scripture. (Enoch also tells of over 400 foot height angelic offspring, and of angels (stars) procreating with oxen to produce elephants, camels and donkeys: 7:12-15; 86:1-5.)

Addressing the theory that the first century Septuagint contained the the apocryphal books, we have such scholarly testimony as the below:

The Septuagint is a pre-Christian Jewish translation, and the larger manuscripts of it include various of the Apocrypha. Grabe's edition of the Septuagint, where the theory was first propounded, was based upon the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus.

However, as we now know, manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were not used in the first centuries of the Christian era," and since, in the second century C.E., the Jews seem largely to have discarded the Septuagint in favour of revisions or translations more usable in their controversy with the church (notably Aquila's translation), there can be no real doubt that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, which start appearing in the fourth century, are all of Christian origin.

An indication of this is that in many Septuagint manuscripts the Psalms are followed by a collection of Odes or liturgical canticles, including Christian ones from the NT. Also, the order of the books in the great fourth and fifth-century Septuagint codices is Christian, not adhering to the three divisions of the Hebrew canon; nor is there agreement between the codices which of the Apocrypha to include. Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus all include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, and integrate them into the body of the or rather than appending them at the end; but Codex Vaticanus, unlike the other two, totally excludes the Books of Maccabees.

Moreover, all three codices, according to Kenyon, were produced in Egypt," yet the contemporary Christian lists of the biblical books drawn up in Egypt by Athanasius and (very likely) pseudo-Athanasius are much more critical, ex-cluding all apocryphal books from the canon, and putting them in a separate appendix. Mulder, M. J. (1988). (Mikra: text, translation, reading, and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in ancient Judaism and early Christianity. Phil.: Van Gorcum. p. 81 )

Edward Earle Ellis writes, “No two Septuagint codices contain the same apocrypha, and no uniform Septuagint ‘Bible’ was ever the subject of discussion in the patristic church. In view of these facts the Septuagint codices appear to have been originally intended more as service books than as a defined and normative canon of Scripture,” (E. E. Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity [Baker 1992], 34-35.

British scholar R. T. Beckwith states, Philo of Alexandria's writings show it to have been the same as the Palestinian. He refers to the three familiar sections, and he ascribes inspiration to many books in all three, but never to any of the Apocrypha....The Apocrypha were known in the church from the start, but the further back one goes, the more rarely are they treated as inspired. (Roger T. Beckwith, "The Canon of the Old Testament" in Phillip Comfort, The Origin of the Bible [Wheaton: Tyndale House, 2003] pp. 57-64)

Manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were not used in the first centuries of the Christian era, and since in the second century AD the Jews seem largely to have discarded the Septuagint…there can be no real doubt that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, which start appearing in the fourth century AD, are all of Christian origin.

Nor is there agreement between the codices which the Apocrypha include...Moreover, all three codices [Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus], according to Kenyon, were produced in Egypt, yet the contemporary Christian lists of the biblical books drawn up in Egypt by Athanasius and (very likely) pseudo-Athanasius are much more critical, excluding all apocryphal books from the canon, and putting them in a separate appendix. (Roger Beckwith, [Anglican priest, Oxford BD and Lambeth DD], The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church [Eerdmans 1986], p. 382, 383; http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/01/legendary-alexandrian-canon.html)

Likewise Gleason Archer affirms,

Even in the case of the Septuagint, the apocryphal books maintain a rather uncertain existence. The Codex Vaticanus (B) lacks [besides 3 and 4] 1 and 2 Maccabees (canonical, according to Rome), but includes 1 Esdras (non-canonical, according to Rome). The Sinaiticus (Aleph) omits Baruch (canonical, according to Rome), but includes 4 Maccabees (non-canonical, according to Rome)... Thus it turns out that even the three earliest MSS or the LXX show considerable uncertainty as to which books constitute the list of the Apocrypha.. (Archer, Gleason L., Jr., "A Survey of Old Testament Introduction", Moody Press, Chicago, IL, Rev. 1974, p. 75; http://www.provethebible.net/T2-Integ/B-1101.htm)

The German historian Martin Hengel writes, “Sinaiticus contains Barnabas and Hermas, Alexandrinus 1 and 2 Clement.” “Codex Alexandrinus...includes the LXX as we know it in Rahlfs’ edition, with all four books of Maccabees and the fourteen Odes appended to Psalms.” “...the Odes (sometimes varied in number), attested from the fifth century in all Greek Psalm manuscripts, contain three New Testament ‘psalms’: the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Nunc Dimittis from Luke’s birth narrative, and the conclusion of the hymn that begins with the ‘Gloria in Excelsis.’ This underlines the fact that the LXX, although, itself consisting of a collection of Jewish documents, wishes to be a Christian book.” (Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture [Baker 2004], pp. 57-59)

Also,

The Targums did not include these books, nor the earliest versions of the Peshitta, and the apocryphal books are seen to have been later additions, and later versions of the LXX varied in regard to which books of the apocrypha they contained. “Nor is there agreement between the codices which of the Apocrypha include. (Eerdmans 1986), 382. The two most complete targums (translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic which date from the first century to the Middel Ages) contain all the books of the Hebrew Bible except Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel.

And Cyril of Jerusalem, whose list rejected the apocrypha (except for Baruch) exhorts his readers to “read the Divine Scriptures, the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, these that have been translated by the Seventy-two Interpreters,” the latter referring to the Septuagint but not as including the apocrypha. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/cyril.html) ^

As for the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran,

these included not only the community's Bible (the Old Testament) but their library, with fragments of hundreds of books. Among these were some Old Testament Apocryphal books. The fact that no commentaries were found for an Apocryphal book, and only canonical books were found in the special parchment and script indicates that the Apocryphal books were not viewed as canonical by the Qumran community. — The Apocrypha - Part Two Dr. Norman Geisler http://www.jashow.org/Articles/_PDFArchives/theological-dictionary/TD1W0602.pd

▀ Council of Jamnia...

Many refer to a Council of Jamnia as authoritatively setting the Hebrew canon around 100 A.D., but modern research research no longer considers that to be the case, or that there even was a council, while some scholars argue that the Jewish canon was fixed earlier by the Hasmonean dynasty (140 and c. 116 B.C.). — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Jamnia Robert C. Newman writes, Among those who believe the Old Testament to be a revelation from the Creator, it has traditionally been maintained that the books composing this collection were in themselves sacred writings from the moment of their completion, that they were quickly recognized as such, and that the latest of these were written several centuries before the beginning of our era. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus appears to be the earliest extant witness to this view. Answering the charges of an anti- Semite Apion at the end of the first century of our era, he says: “We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. other. Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time....” — Josephus, Against Apion, 1,8 (38-41)

On the basis of later Christian testimony, the twenty-two books mentioned here are usually thought to be the same as our thirty-nine,2 each double book (e.g., 1 and 2 Kings) being counted as one, the twelve Minor Prophets being considered a unit, and Judges-Ruth, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Jeremiah-Lamentations each being taken as one book. This agrees with the impression conveyed by the Gospel accounts, where Jesus, the Pharisees, and the Palestinian Jewish community in general seem to understand by the term "Scripture" some definite body of sacred writings."

"...the pseudepigraphical work 4 Ezra (probably written about A.D. 1208)...admits that only twenty-four Scriptures have circulated publicly since Ezra's time."

Newman concludes,

"In this paper we have attempted to study the rabbinical activity at Jamnia in view of liberal theories regarding its importance in the formation of the Old Testament canon. I believe the following conclusions are defensible in the light of this study. The city of Jamnia had both a rabbinical school (Beth ha- Midrash) and court (Beth Din, Sanhedrin) during the period A.D. 70-135, if not earlier. There is no conclusive evidence for any other rabbinical convocations there. The extent of the sacred Scriptures was one of many topics discussed at Jamnia, probably both in the school and in the court, and probably more than once. However, this subject was also discussed by the rabbis at least once a generation earlier and also several times long after the Jamnia period. No books are mentioned in these discussions except those now considered canonical. None of these are treated as candidates for admission to the canon, but rather the rabbis seem to be testing a status quo which has existed beyond memory. None of the discussions hint at recent vintage of the works under consideration or deny them traditional authorship. Instead it appears that the rabbis are troubled by purely internal problems, such as theology, apparent contradictions, or seemingly unsuitable content...

But no text of any specific decision has come down to us (nor, apparently, even to Akiba and his students). Rather, it appears that a general consensus already existed regarding the extent of the category called Scripture, so that even the author of 4 Ezra, though desiring to add one of his own, was obliged to recognize this consensus in his distinction between public and hidden Scripture." — Robert C. Newman, "THE COUNCIL OF JAMNIA AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON," Westminster Theological Journal 38.4 (Spr. 1976) 319-348

▀ Dissent before and in Trent

Among those dissenting at Trent was Augustinian friar, Italian theologian and cardinal and papal legate Girolamo Seripando. As Catholic historian Hubert Jedin (German), who wrote the most comprehensive description of the Council (2400 pages in four volumes) explained, “he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship” at the Council of Trent.” Jedin further writes:

►: “Tobias, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, the books of Esdras, Ecclesiasticus, the books of the Maccabees, and Baruch are only "canonici et ecclesiastici" and make up the canon morum in contrast to the canon fidei. These, Seripando says in the words of St. Jerome, are suited for the edification of the people, but they are not authentic, that is, not sufficient to prove a dogma. Seripando emphasized that in spite of the Florentine canon the question of a twofold canon was still open and was treated as such by learned men in the Church. Without doubt he was thinking of Cardinal Cajetan, who in his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews accepted St. Jerome's view which had had supporters throughout the Middle Ages.” (Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), pp. 270-271)

►“While Seripando abandoned his view as a lost cause, Madruzzo, the Carmelite general, and the Bishop of Agde stood for the limited canon, and the bishops of Castellamare and Caorle urged the related motion to place the books of Judith, Baruch, and Machabees in the "canon ecclesiae." From all this it is evident that Seripando was by no means alone in his views. In his battle for the canon of St. Jerome and against the anathema and the parity of traditions with Holy Scripture, he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship.” (ibid, 281-282; https://aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?blogid=1&query=cajetan)

Cardinal Cajetan who himself was actually an adversary of Luther, and who was sent by the Pope in 1545 to Trent as a papal theologian, had reservations about the apocrypha as well as certain N.T. books based upon questionable apostolic authorship.

►"On the eve of the Reformation, it was not only Luther who had problems with the extent of the New Testament canon. Doubts were being expressed even by some of the loyal sons of the Church. Luther's opponent at Augsburg, Cardinal Cajetan, following Jerome, expressed doubts concerning the canonicity of Hebrews, James, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. Of the latter three he states, "They are of less authority than those which are certainly Holy Scripture."⁶³

►The Catholic Encyclopedia confirms this saying that “he seemed more than three centuries in advance of his day in questioning the authenticity of the last chapter of St. Mark, the authorship of several epistles, viz., Hebrews, James, II Peter, II and III John, Jude...”— http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03145c.htm

►Erasmus likewise expressed doubts concerning Revelation as well as the apostolicity of James, Hebrews and 2 Peter. It was only as the Protestant Reformation progressed, and Luther's willingness to excise books from the canon threatened Rome that, at Trent, the Roman Catholic Church hardened its consensus stand on the extent of the New Testament canon into a conciliar pronouncement.⁶⁴http://bible.org/article/evangelicals-and-canon-new-testament#P136_48836

►Theologian Cardinal Cajetan stated, in his Commentary on All the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament (dedicated to Pope Clement VII ):

"Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St. Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecciesiasticus, as is plain from the Protogus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome.

Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the Bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage.” . ("A Disputation on Holy Scripture" by William Whitaker (Cambridge: University, 1849), p. 48. Cf. Cosin's A Scholastic History of the Canon, Volume III, Chapter XVII, pp. 257-258 and B.F. Westcott's A General Survey of the Canon of the New Testament, p. 475.)

►Following Jerome, Cajetan also relegated the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament to a secondary place where they could serve piety but not the teaching of revealed doctrine. — Jared Wicks tr., Cajetan Responds: A Reader in Reformation Controversy (Washington: The Catholic University Press of America, 1978). See also Cardinal Cajetan, "Commentary on all the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament," Bruce Metzger, An Introduction to the Apocrypha (New York: Oxford, 1957), p. 180.)

Cajetan was also highly regarded by many, even if opposed by others: The Catholic Encyclopedia states, "It has been significantly said of Cajetan that his positive teaching was regarded as a guide for others and his silence as an implicit censure. His rectitude, candour, and moderation were praised even by his enemies. Always obedient, and submitting his works to ecclesiastical authority, he presented a striking contrast to the leaders of heresy and revolt, whom he strove to save from their folly." And that "It was the common opinion of his contemporaries that had he lived, he would have succeeded Clement VII on the papal throne.” — Catholic Encyclopedia>Tommaso de Vio Gaetani Cajetan

► The late (if liberal) British bishop and Scripture scholar B.F. Westcott reported, “Some proposed to follow the judgment of Cardinal Caietan [as sometimes spelled] and distinguish two classes of books, as, it was argued, had been the intention of Augustine. Others wished to draw the line of distinction yet more exactly, and form three classes, (1) the Acknowledged Books, (2) the Disputed Books of the New Testament, as having been afterwards generally received, (3) the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. (B.F. Westcott, The Bible In The Church, p. 256)

Another argument for the canonicity of the apocryphal books is that some were used by some early church leaders, yet some of the books of the Pseudepigrapha were also invoked by some church “fathers,” and found their way into other canons of various Eastern churches. And since Jude 1:14 evidently quotes from the Book of Enoch 1:9, then according to the logic of this argument that book would be Scripture also, even though Enoch also states in section 7:1-4 (in a section of the Book of Enoch dated to about 250 B.C.B.) that the "giants" mentioned in Genesis 6:4 were 300 cubits (or about 450 feet, though i think i read somewhere that an Egyptian manuscripts makes it more like 40 feet). The apostle Paul even quoted truth uttered by a pagan prophet, (Acts 17:29) but such does not sanction the whole source.

While some ancients reference texts from (what we call) the apocryphal books, texts from books of the Pseudepigrapha and otherwise non-canonical books (as per Trent) were also referenced or alluded to by some church “fathers”, and books which also found their way into other canons of various Eastern churches.

As Jerome explains,

“In his famous ‘Prologus Galeatus’, or Preface to his translation of Samuel and Kings, he declares that everything not Hebrew should be classed with the apocrypha, and explicitly says that Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobias,and Judith are not in the Canon. These books, he adds, are read in the churches for the edification of the people, and not for the confirmation of revealed doctrine” (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament)

The distinction then is that while “good,” they were not for doctrinal use. As the above source states regarding St. Athanasius, “Following the precedent of Origen and the Alexandrian tradition, the saintly doctor recognized no other formal canon of the Old Testament than the Hebrew one; but also, faithful to the same tradition, he practically admitted the deutero books to a Scriptural dignity, as is evident from his general usage.

An excerpt from the Prologue to the Glossa ordinaria (an assembly of “glosses,” that of brief notations of the meaning of a word or wording in the margins of the Vulgate Bible) expresses this distinction:

The canonical books have been brought about through the dictation of the Holy Spirit. It is not known, however, at which time or by which authors the non-canonical or apocryphal books were produced. Since, nevertheless, they are very good and useful, and nothing is found in them which contradicts the canonical books, the church reads them and permits them to be read by the faithful for devotion and edification. Their authority, however, is not considered adequate for proving those things which come into doubt or contention,or for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogma, as blessed Jerome states in his prologue to Judith and to the books of Solomon. But the canonical books are of such authority that whatever is contained therein is held to be true firmly and indisputably, and likewise that which is clearly demonstrated from them. (note 124, written in AD 1498, and also found in a work attributed to Walafrid Strabo in the tenth century... http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/Apocryphaendnotes3.html)

► Also, among other authorities, different canons were sanctioned by the Council in Trullo (Quinisext Council) in 692 and the seventh Ecumenical Council (787)

And just prior to Trent, The Polyglot Bible (1514) of Cardinal Ximenes separated the Apocrypha from the canon of the Old Testament and soon received papal sanction.

In addition,

►“Luther's translation of the Bible contained all of its books. Luther also translated and included the Apocrypha, saying, "These books are not held equal to the Scriptures, but are useful and good to read." He expressed his thoughts on the canon in prefaces placed at the beginning of particular Biblical books. In these prefaces, he either questioned or doubted the canonicity of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation (his Catholic contemporaries, Erasmus and Cardinal Cajetan, likewise questioned the canonicity of certain New Testament books). Of his opinion, he allows for the possibility of his readers to disagree with his conclusions. Of the four books, it is possible Luther's opinion fluctuated on two (Hebrews and Revelation). Luther was of the opinion that the writers of James and Jude were not apostles, therefore these books were not canonical. Still, he used them and preached from them.” (Five More Luther Myths; http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=2089)

► Regarding James and Hebrews,

“Most writing from before 200 do not mention the Epistle of James. One significant text does quote James: The Shepherd of Hermas, written before 140 M66. The theologian and biblical scholar, Origen, quotes James extensively between 230 and 250. He mentions that James was Jesus' brother, but does not make it clear if the letter is scripture M138. Hippolytus and Tertullian, from early in the third century, do not mention or quote James. Cyprian of Carthage, in the middle of the third century, also makes no mention. The "Muratorian Canon," from around 200, lists and comments on New Testament books, but fails to mention James, Hebrews, and 1 and 2 Peter. Yet by 340 Eusebius of Caesarea, an early Christian historian, acknowledges that James is both canonical and orthodox, and widely read. However, he categorizes it, along with the other catholic epistles, as "disputed texts" M203. Two Greek New Testaments from that time each include James, along with the other catholic epistles M207. In 367 Athanasius lists the 27 New Testament books we presently use as the definitive canon M212. But the battle for James was not won. Bishops in 428 and 466 rejected all the catholic epistles M215. Early bibles from Lebanon, Egypt, Armenia, India and China do not include James before the sixth century M219. A ninth century manuscript from Mount Sinai leaves out the catholic epistles and the Syriac Church, headquartered in Kerala, India, continues to use a lectionary without them still today M220. (James and Canon: The Early Evidence: http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/james/Background/Canon.htm

Another researcher states,

“He [Luther] had a low view of Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Revelation, and so when he published his New Testament in 1522 he placed these books apart at the end. In his Preface to Hebrews, which comes first in the series, he says, "Up to this point we have had to do with the true and certain chief books of the New Testament. The four which follow have from ancient times had a different reputation."'

And on James, he states in his preface,

“Though this epistle of St. James was rejected by the ancients,¹ I praise it and consider it a good book, because it sets up no doctrines of men but vigorously promulgates the law of God. However, to state my own opinion about it, though without prejudice to anyone, I do not regard it as the writing of an apostle; and my reasons follow.

In the first place it is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture in ascribing justification to works. It says that Abraham was justified by his works when he offered his son Isaac; though in Romans 4 St. Paul teaches to the contrary that Abraham was justified apart from works, by his faith alone, before he had offered his son, and proves it by Moses in Genesis ¹⁵.”

“In the second place its purpose is to teach Christians, but in all this long teaching it does not once mention the Passion, the resurrection, or the Spirit of Christ.” (Antilegomena; http://www.bible-researcher.com/antilegomena.html )

But Luther's rejection of these does not mean he did not include them in his translation, and thus some may think he held them as inspired Scripture, which he did not, and as he did also did with the apocrypha (in a separate section as in ages past), but this not make them inspired Scripture.

“In terms of order, Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation come last in Luther’s New Testament because of his negative estimate of their apostolicity. In a catalogue of “The Books of the New Testament” which followed immediately upon his Preface to the New Testament… Luther regularly listed these four—without numbers—at the bottom of a list in which he named the other twenty-three books, in the order in which they still appear in English Bibles, and numbered them consecutively from 1–23… a procedure identical to that with which he also listed the books of the Apocrypha

Likewise the Apocrypha:

The editors of Luther’s Works explain, “In keeping with early Christian tradition, Luther also included the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. Sorting them out of the canonical books, he appended them at the end of the Old Testament with the caption, ‘These books are not held equal to the Scriptures, but are useful and good to read.’

It also should be understood that as with early church fathers, Luther was working his way through his theology and the canonization of Scripture. Also of note is that the words “canon” and “Scripture” could be used less formally sometimes than they would be later on. (And it would not be until the year of Luther's death that Trent presented its finalized canon.) The canon which Protestantism came to hold is that of the ancient 39 book Old Testament and the 27 book New Testament canon. Which, like authoritative Old Testament writings by time of Christ, came to be accepted due to their qualities and other Divine attestation through the consensus of the faithful, without a purportedly infallible conciliar decree.

Two worthwhile pages to see on Luther and the canon are here and here.

Here is information as regards Eastern Orthodox Acceptance Of The Hebrew Canon

Information on the formal criteria and processes of acceptance of books can be seen here.

Webster provides substantial works on the unsettled status of the apocryphal books prior to Trent, such as seen here, here and here.

See a list and basic summary of the 66 books of the Bible, and more links on the exclusion of the apocrypha

Essential means of establishment of Scripture

Finally, it is should be stated that, as helpful as they are, ecclesiastical decrees themselves are not what established writings as Scripture (much less can Rome declare that it is assuredly infallible, whenever she speaks in accordance with her supposedly infallibly defined formula), but as with true men of God, writings which were wholly inspired of Him became progressively established as being such due to their conflation and complementarity to what was prior manifest as being from God, and by unique enduring qualities, (Ps. 119) and the holy effects and other supernatural Divine attestation which results from trusting and obeying the Word of God. (1Thes. 2:13) In contrast, the Sadducees erred, “not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” (Mt. 22:29)

To reiterate what was expressed at the beginning of this section, Abraham's faith and morality was supernaturally attested to by God, as was that of Moses, whose writings further expanded and defined the faith and morality which was of God, which became the standard by which further revelation would be tested and substantiated by. (Is. 8:20) The writing of the word of God being normally written, immediately or afterward, and becoming the authority for faith and doctrine, is a principal continuously seen in Scripture for establishing truth claims as being of God.* (Mt. 22; Jn. 5:36,39; 14:11; Lk. 24:27,44; Acts 17:2;11; 28:23; Rm. 15:19) True men of God themselves, especially those who added new teaching to to Scripture, were established as being of God by a holiness and doctrine which conformed to that which was written, and the effects of believing, which in turn affirmed the veracity and Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. And to be the church of living God so must we, in proportion to grace given and our claims (and i sadly yet come much short of what I could be, yet I look in faith to Ps. 138:8).

More on the canon and the apocrypha here and here. Here is more in the formation of the canon, and here as regards Luther overall.

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Fully Catholic

History Of The Catholic Church And The Bible
Introduction
Many Catholics the world over have been bombarded with questions about the Catholic faith by other religious groups and sects. Many Catholics either have not been privileged to be exposed to the authentic teachings of the Church, or simple never made the effort to find out about their faith. This topic is meant to clear up the misconceptions that Catholics as well as people of other beliefs, have about the Catholic Church, her teachings and her authenticity. There is a misconception that all of the Church’s teachings and practices must be found in the Bible. This topic will show that the Catholic Church existed for several hundred years before the Bible was printed.

Audio Player
Please click on the “play button” above to listen to the lecture on the history of the Catholic church by Fr. John Theodore.

The origin of the Catholic Church
After creation, sin took over the world – the story of Adam and Eve – and God decided that he would start over; that he would bring man back to himself. God choose Abraham, a Jew, as the starting point and said to him, “From you, I will start a new people.

Now the climax of the Jewish people was the coming of the Messiah, our lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In John’s gospel Chapter 4 verse 22, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, “salvation comes from the Jews.”

After Jesus’ work on earth was done and before he ascended into Heaven, he left a group of men – his disciples – behind. The Greek word for group in the ecclesia, which comes from the word ecclesiastics, which means church.

In Matthew 28: 16-20, we see Jesus on ascension morning commissioning his disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations; baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I give you.” Jesus assured them by saying, “And know that I am with you always; yes to the end of time.” That was a promise that Jesus made to his group – the Church – which he left.

In John 10: 16, Jesus says, “There are many other sheep I have that are not of this fold, and these I have to lead as well. They too will listen to my voice and there will be one flock and one shepherd.” Note the oneness of which Jesus speaks. His desire is that there should be only one group and not the tens of thousands that currently exist, each claiming to the the truth.

The group of men that Jesus left were not left alone. Jesus left his Holy Spirit to be with them and to teach them. John 14: 25-26 says, “I have said these things to you while still with you; but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all I have said to you.”

John 16: 12-13 says, “I still have many things to say to but they would be too much for you now. But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of things to come.” This is the same Holy Spirit that Jesus said will be with his group until the end of time. So to summarize so far, we have:

Mankind fell from grace with God (The story of Adam and Eve)

God started over with the Jews (Abraham)
The climax of the Jewish people was the coming of the Messiah – Jesus Christ

Jesus left a group – ecclesia, from the word ecclesiastics, which means Church

Jesus left his Holy Spirit to be with that group until that group – the Church – always, and further promised them that he will be with them until the end of time.

The only group that can trace itself all the way back to the original group that Jesus left is the Catholic Church and that is a historical fact. The Catholic Church can trace from Her present Pope all the way back to Her very first leader, Peter. Click Here for a list of all the popes.

This Church that Jesus left was a distinct reality in the time of the first apostles. St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15: 9, “I am the least of the apostles; in fact, since I persecuted the Church of God, I hardly deserve to be called apostle.”
1 Corinthians 15: 3 says, “Well then, in the first place, I taught you what I had been taught myself, namely that Jesus died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures;” St. Paul says here that he teaches what he was taught. This is how the faith of the Church was handed down and lived by the early Christians since there was no ‘formal documentation’ on her teachings.

1 Corinthians 15: 11 says, “but what matter is that I preach what they preach, and this is what you all believed.” St. Paul underscores the importance of the Church teaching one doctrine.

Whenever the Church had a problem, it would always call a council to discuss the problem and then decide the way forward under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus left with the Church. An example of this, the first such council, can be seen in Acts 15: 1-29. Here the early Church had a problem where “some men came down from Judaea, and taught the brothers ‘unless you have yourself circumcised in the tradition as Moses, you cannot be saved’.” This posed a problem to the Church at Antioch because it was not what they were taught. It is important to note the tone of the letter that the Church wrote to the people (Acts 15: 22-29). Verse 24 says that ‘they acted without authority from us’; and verse 28 goes on to say, “It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and ourselves not to saddle you with any burdens beyond these essentials.” So from the very beginning, the Church was speaking with absolute authority because she had the Holy Spirit.

This letter that the early Church wrote is important because:

She speaks with absolute authority
Some people have no authority because they were not sent by the Church. Another example of this can be seen in Romans 10: 13-15.

The Church’s authority is based on the Holy Spirit

The Bible And Its Origin
2000 plus years ago, after Jesus rose from the dead, He did not leave a Bible. He left a group of people – group is ekklesia which means church. Matthew 28: 16-20

Jesus also empowered the group with His Holy Spirit and left the Holy Spirit as a promise for the future. John 14: 25-26, John 16: 12-13

Jesus therefore left a group (the church) and His Holy Spirit.

The Catholic Church is the only church that can trace itself back to this original group. This can be seen by looking at the line of Popes from the very first one Peter, all the way down to our present Pope. Click here to view list.

The Church was a recognized reality preaching a simple doctrine. 1 Cor. 15: 8-11, Eph. 5: 28-29

Early Christians received their faith from the life of the Church. There was no Bible at that time. 1 Cor. 15: 3-7, 2 Thes. 2: 14-15

A very important scripture that demonstrates how the early church existed can be found in Acts 15: 1-29. In this passage we see that the Church has authority coming from the Holy Spirit. – “It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves, not this value with any burden beyond these essentials:” Acts 15: 28

Some persons have no authority because they have not been sent by the Church.

Acts 15: 24 – “We hear that some people coming from here, but acting without any authority from ourselves, have disturbed you with their demands and have unsettled your minds”
Romans 10: 14-15 clearly tells us that preachers must be sent, and Catholic Church has that authority; “How then are they to call on him if they have not come to believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard of him? And how will they hear of him unless there is a preacher for them? And how will there be preachers if they are not sent? As scripture says: How beautiful are the feet of the messenger of good news.“

The Church has clear leadership that decides on to the of doctrines. We see this in Acts 15: 23 – 29

The Bible came about as a result of one of the Church’s Councils – The Council of Carthage in the year 397. Prior to that there were many writings which were divided into three groups:-

Those that were accepted by all
Those that will be rejected by all

Those that were rejected by some and accepted by some.

In the year 397 the Council of Carthage decided upon the 73 books as inspired by the Holy Spirit that made up the Bible.

The Bible therefore comes to us through the authority of the Church. Therefore, the correct question to ask is not ” wind do you find this in the Bible?” but rather ” what does the Church teach about to this?” it is the Church that tells us that the Bible is the word of God.

It is important to note that the Protestant Bible is different from that of the Catholic Bible. The Protestant’s Bible has less books. This came about as a result of a man called Luthor who broke away from the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century. He left out the following six books from the Bible so as not to contradict what he was teaching :

Tobit
Baruch

Wisdom

Ecclesiasticus

1 & 2 Maccabees

He left out part of the books of Esther and Daniel, and changed up parts of the New Testament. For instance, the original text says that ‘we are justified by faith’, but Luthor wrote that ‘we are justified by faith alone’. Because he was teaching that there was no Purgatory, and the books of Macabees says otherwise, he omitted them.

The Bible needs someone in authority to give correct interpretation of scriptural passages. Only the Catholic Church can do this since she is the author of the Bible.

2 Peter 3: 16 tell us, “He makes this point too in his letters as a whole wherever he touches on these things. In all his letters there are of course some passages which are hard to understand, and these are the ones that uneducated and unbalanced people distort, in the same way as they distort the rest of scripture–to their own destruction. Since you have been forewarned about this, my dear friends, be careful that you do not come to the point of losing the firm ground that you are standing on, carried away by the errors of unprincipled people. Instead, continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory, in time and eternity. Amen
Acts 8: 26-35 tells the story of Philip meeting the eunuch who was reading the scriptures but could not understand what it all meant. So Philip sat next to him and explained the good news of Jesus to him.

Matt 28: 16-20 reminds us of Jesus’ command to the eleven to “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.”

The Catholic Church has the authority to teach. The Bible tells us that there are many false teachers who can work miracles.

1 John 4: 1-6, we are warned – “My dear friends, not every spirit is to be trusted, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets are at large in the world. This is the proof of the spirit of God: any spirit which acknowledges Jesus Christ, come in human nature, is from God, and no spirit which fails to acknowledge Jesus is from God; it is the spirit of Antichrist, whose coming you have heard of; he is already at large in the world. Children, you are from God and have overcome them, because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world, and therefore the world inspires what they say, and listens to them. We are from God; whoever recognises God listens to us; anyone who is not from God refuses to listen to us. This is how we can distinguish the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood.”
2 John: 7-11 tells us, “There are many deceivers at large in the world, refusing to acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in human nature. They are the Deceiver; they are the antichrist. Watch yourselves, or all our work will be lost and you will forfeit your full reward. If anybody does not remain in the teaching of Christ but goes beyond it, he does not have God with him: only those who remain in what he taught can have the Father and the Son with them. If anyone comes to you bringing a different doctrine, you must not receive him into your house or even give him a greeting. Whoever greets him has a share in his wicked activities.” Note how the Bible say we should treat with those who preach and teach different doctrines.

In Rev. 16: 12-14, we hear that not every miracle comes from God – “The sixth angel emptied his bowl over the great river Euphrates; all the water dried up so that a way was made for the kings of the East to come in. Then from the jaws of dragon and beast and false prophet I saw three foul spirits come; they looked like frogs and in fact were demon spirits, able to work miracles, going out to all the kings of the world to call them together for the war of the Great Day of God the Almighty.“

2 Thes. 2: 9-10 tells us “But the coming of the wicked One will be marked by Satan being at work in all kinds of counterfeit miracles and signs and wonders, and every wicked deception aimed at those who are on the way to destruction because they would not accept the love of the truth and so be saved.”

Conclusion
To conclude, I want to encourage you to embrace the Catholic Faith; be what you are – Catholic; live the Catholic Faith; share the Catholic Faith and be ambassadors of Christ Jesus our Lord. God has spoken and continues to speak to the human race. There has to be a place to hear his voice with absolute clarity. That place is the Holy Roman Catholic Church, the church that he has left.

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ONE COMMENT

JB Willson
March 14, 2019 at 7:14 am
Other protestant bibles leave out Sirach or Ben Sira as well. That would bring the total actually left out of the Protestant bibles to 7.

https://www.fullycatholic.com/history-of-the-catholic-church-and-the-bible/

The Catholic Church finally agreed on which writings should go into the Bible at the Council of Rome in 382 AD during the time of Pope Damasus.
Damasus encouraged St. Jerome to translate the Scriptures into Latin since Latin was the common language of all educated people.
Throughout the Middle Ages, portions of the Scriptures were translated into vernacular languages.
In the mid-1400s, the Bible started to be translated into European languages more widely.
In the 16th century, some Reformers published Bibles with bits missing, faulty translation work, and subversive notes.
The authorities tried to regulate which Bibles were acceptable in order to control erroneous teaching.
Throughout the years, the Catholic Church encouraged Bible reading, but kept control of the interpretation of the Bible as part of the Church’s inspired authority to teach the truth and preserve the unity of the Church.
Pope Leo XIII published a letter in 1893 encouraging Bible study.
Pius XII in 1943 also encouraged the faithful to study and love the Bible.
The second Vatican Council in the 1960s encouraged all the clergy and people to study the Bible faithfully.

https://www.catholic365.com/article/6029/a-short-history-of-the-bible.html

https://www.catholic.com/qa/who-compiled-the-bible-and-when

The Catholic Church’s Origin
The question of the Catholic Church’s origin is not just academic.

Understanding the historical origin of the Catholic Church is not just an interesting question about history. It’s an essential issue for your faith!

After all…

…if it was the will of Christ to found a Church to teach, sanctify, and govern in his name, doesn’t that demand something from each of us?

Gospel evidence: Jesus founds a Church
Pope Benedict XVI (when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger) teaches us that Jesus’s creation of the Twelve was first clear sign of the Catholic Church’s origin. St. Mark writes in his Gospel, “And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons” (Mk 3:14-15). The Pope comments:

The symbolic value of the Twelve is… of decisive significance: …the number of Jacob’s sons, the …twelve tribes of Israel…. [In doing this,] Jesus presents himself as the patriarch of a new Israel and institutes these twelve men as its origin and foundation. There could be no clearer way of expressing the beginning of a new people, which is no longer formed by physical descent but by ‘being with Jesus’….
(Called to Communion, p.24-25)
After this, we see the first explicit testimony of the Catholic Church’s origin when Jesus chooses Peter to be the rock of the Church’s foundation. Here, Jesus plainly says that he is founding a new Church:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
(Mt 16:18-19)
This is important!

Based on this Scripture passage, our faith should account for three things:

The will of Christ was to found a Church, and promised that “the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”
He gave to Peter “the keys of the kingdom of heaven”.
He also gave Peter the power to “bind” and “loose”, a power that is also binding in heaven. (This power is promised first to Peter, in this passage. Later in Mt 18:18, it’s also promised to the Apostles as a whole.)
Catholics take this passage seriously. We trace the Catholic Church’s origin to this point! We believe that Jesus clearly expresses his will here, and that will is to “build my church”, invest it with his own authority, and give Peter a special role as the head of that Church.

But why did Jesus want to do this?

Well, let’s look at Scripture some more…

Mission: the reason behind the Catholic Church’s origin
After the Resurrection, Jesus commissions his Apostles:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”
(Mt 28:18-20)
In this passage, Jesus tells us the reason behind the Catholic Church’s origin: he’s creating his new Church to teach, sanctify, and govern.

Pope John Paul II put it more simply: “In order to make this ‘encounter’ with Christ possible, God willed his Church.” (Veritatis Splendor [“The Splendor of Truth”], 7) The Pope said the Church “wishes to serve this single end: that each person may be able to find Christ, in order that Christ may walk with each person the path of life” (Redemptor Hominis [“The Redeemer of Man”], 13).

The Apostles carry out their mission
In the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles testifies to the fact that the Apostles clearly understood the mission Jesus gave them.

On Pentecost, we see the external “birth” of the Church through the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the definitive creation of the Church in all its fullness, the historical date of the Catholic Church’s origin.

On Pentecost, Peter and the other Apostles boldly proclaim the Gospel of salvation:

Peter… lifted up his voice and addressed them: “…Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.” And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
(Acts, 2:14; 36-42)
This passage is a beautiful example of the Church carrying out her purpose: proclaiming Christ, and bringing others to Christ through Baptism, “the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,” and “the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

This Church still exists!

It’s called the Catholic Church, and we still keep to that very same mission.

That means we each have a choice…

A challenge to each of us
From these passages, we’ve seen how the Catholic Church’s origin is firmly rooted in Scripture and history.

The existence of the Catholic Church presents each of us with an invitation: Do you want to come to Christ? Will you use the means Jesus himself gave us – his Church and his Sacraments – or will you try to go your own way?

I know; it’s a challenging question!

I struggled with it for years before realizing that, just like those who listened to Peter on Pentecost, I wanted to be one of “those who received his word”.

Since the Catholic Church’s origin, it’s been the place where people “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

Other good sources are the Catechism’s section on the Catholic Church’s origin, and Catholics United for the Faith’s article about the Catholic Church’s origin.

"The Catholic Church with its beginnings in Jesus Christ is the ONLY true authority for Jesus’ church. We have the complete Bible divinely inspired many centuries before a lunatic decided he would correct God...we have the traditions from first hand accounts. The tens of thousands of Protestant variations on the “truth” of God’s Word is at best a mockery of God."

Which is argument by mere assertion, parroting refuted propaganda (again and again) and rather than "a lunatic decided he would correct God" in holding to the most ancient Hebrew canon we have a doctor of your church joining with some other scholars in expressing their own -non-binding judgments as they could, without rebuke, since there simply was no indisputable complete canon for RC until after the death of Luther (see my lengthy post above) - and whose judgment Protestantism did not wholly follow anyway.

"Peter’s grave being under the Basillica is not in dispute by any reputable sources. Its just Protestant propaganda that politicized Gods words and acts."

Actually while it remains that Scripture nowhere interpretive of Mt. 16:18 affirms that Peter is the rock upon which the church is built, versus the Rock of his confession, the assertion that "Peter’s grave being under the Basillica is an example of confirmation bias, in which "reputable sources" for each side can only be that which confirms what you want. The Smithsonian reports "So how does the Catholic Church know these bones belonged to St. Peter? In 1968, Pope Paul VI said that the connection was “convincing,” but no scientific evidence has been available to shore up the claim." (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/are-these-the-bones-of-saint-peter-180947833/) Instead, the evidence Pope Paul VI said that the connection was “convincing" is circumstantial. And while the Smithsonian references a report by Kathy Schiffer writing for Patheos, a religious website, she states, "On one graffiti wall, amid Christian symbols and petitions, the name of Peter is carved at least twenty times, usually accompanied by prayers for the dead person," which reveals that these were not NT Christians, since there is not one one example where anyone prayed to anyone in Heaven but the Lord, amid the approx. 200 prayers the Holy Spirit recorded for us in Scripture.

Moreover, it seems there was politics and bias involved in deciding what inscriptions meant. As the Atlantic reports,

In 1939 workmen preparing a tomb below the high altar for the recently deceased Pius XI unearthed a stretch of ancient masonry, part of a sumptuous Roman building. The scholarly new pontiff, Pius XII, ordered a systematic excavation of the site by Antonio Ferrua and three distinguished colleagues. It was a courageous decision (previous popes had prohibited such exploration), though courage had its limits. All four excavators were Vatican habitués, who worked under a vow of secrecy. The decade-long investigation, which brought to light, along with the necropolis, the aedicula thought to mark Peter's grave, was closely overseen by Pius XII's longtime collaborator Monsignor Ludwig Kaas, and the actual digging was done by the sampietrini, the hereditary corps of Vatican City workmen. It was an inside job.

In 1951, after twelve years of silence from the excavators and feverish speculation in the world outside, Ferrua and his colleagues published their official report. It caused an immediate uproar. Critics accused them of faulty and haphazard archaeology and the loss of valuable artifacts. Evidence emerged of a running feud between the four excavators and Monsignor Kaas, and of nocturnal meddling at the work site. Kaas had even begun cutting the power to the dig when he and the sampietrini were absent, to prevent the archaeologists from making any unsupervised discoveries.

Given the inherent difficulty of the site, Ferrua and his colleagues had in fact worked with remarkable objectivity: despite intense pressure from the Vatican community, they reported no trace of Peter—not one inscription that named him, not even amid all the graffiti on his supposed tomb. Strangest of all, they discovered that the earth directly beneath the aedicula was empty.

Pius XII soon authorized further research in the necropolis by Margherita Guarducci, an eminent classical epi-graphist and another fervent Catholic. Guarducci rapidly overturned the previous findings and admitted a sultry breeze of Italian-style polemica. She discovered inscriptions and drawings in Peter's honor that Ferrua and his colleagues had, in her view, inexplicably omitted from their report; the most important of these, an inscription near the aedicula that she read as "Peter is within," she claimed Ferrua had removed from the site and secreted in his monastic cell. In the snarl of graffiti on Peter's tomb she discerned a "mystic cryptography," with countless coded messages about the Apostle. At length she even produced Peter's remains. A sampietrino had shown her a wooden box of bones, she explained, which were inside the masonry surrounding the aedicula when the archaeologists first discovered it. Somehow they had overlooked the precious relics, and Monsignor Kaas later tucked them away for safekeeping. Scientific tests arranged by Guarducci indicated that the bones had been wrapped in a cloth of royal purple stitched with gold, and were those of a man of sixty to seventy years and a robust physique—the bones, she argued, of the Apostle.

Guarducci's results, which she published in a steady stream of articles and books, were criticized by the scholarly community in tones ranging from derision to outrage. Her mystic cryptography was widely questioned, as was every scrap of logic and science she had used to link the bones in the box to Peter. Her most caustic critic was Antonio Ferrua, who subjected each of her publications to a withering (and frequently hilarious) review. "Thus one can either commiserate with or admire the illustrious Authoress for her immense exertions, carried out with commendable passion and ingenuousness, and indeed with a faith that ought to move mountains," he wrote of Guarducci's three-volume exposition of the coded graffiti at Peter's tomb. "But all this cannot suffice to make us accept a work that is fundamentally wrong." Some time after Guarducci announced that she had found Peter's actual remains, Ferrua wrote a ferocious memorandum to put Pope Paul VI on his guard. Having methodically dismantled Guarducci's account, he reviewed with high irony the contents of the famous box, which in addition to human remains held sheep, ox, and pig bones, and the complete skeleton of a mouse.

Paul VI apparently believed Guarducci, for he soon announced that Peter's authentic relics had been found. But Padre Ferrua had the last laugh. Shortly after Paul's death, in 1978, Guarducci was banned from the necropolis, and subsequently from the basilica archives. The presumed relics, which had been reinstalled with great fanfare in the masonry surrounding the aedicula, were removed. In later writings a bitter Guarducci criticized Paul's successor John Paul II for his lack of attention to Peter's remains, and implied that the forces of darkness, in the person of Antonio Ferrua, were sabotaging her work in the necropolis—her "apostolate," as she called it. Nonetheless, Vatican guides today refrain from reading mystical meanings into the graffiti on Peter's grave, and make no comment about his bones.

This is only the most recent episode in the age-old mystery of Peter's tomb. In 1624 Pope Urban VIII ordered that the deep foundation work for Gianlorenzo Bernini's towering bronze canopy over the high altar begin. No sooner had ground been broken, however, than the excavators started dropping dead. Urban himself fell ill, and all Rome whispered of Peter's curse, said to strike down those who disturbed the Apostle's rest. Meanwhile, horrified eyewitnesses watched a steady stream of pagan relics issue from the Church's holiest soil, some so scandalous that the Pope ordered them dumped in the Tiber. One of the finds, a funerary statue of a man reclining bare-chested on a dining couch with a gentle epicurean smile, fortunately survived the papal wrath, together with its inscription:

Tivoli is my home town, Flavius Agricola my name—yes, I'm the one you see reclining here, just as I did all the years of life Fate granted me, taking good care of my little self and never running short on wine. Primitiva, my darling wife, died before me, she too a Flavian, chaste worshipper of Isis ... Friends who read this, do my bidding. Mix the wine, drink deep, wreathed in flowers, and do not refuse to pretty girls the pleasures of sexual intercourse. When death comes, earth and fire devour all.

In Urban's time speculation about what lay beneath the high altar was already a thousand years old. Writers of the early Middle Ages mentioned the terrifying apparitions that haunted those who dared to meddle with the Apostle's tomb. Others alluded to caves and secret passageways beneath the church, and to the odd notion that Peter lay buried in a pagan temple. Such ideas may have stemmed in part from chance discoveries in the pagan necropolis that we now know underlies the basilica. But they also arose from a deeper uncertainty about where Peter died and was buried that is rooted in the Bible itself. - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/inside-job/302801/

"Where your cracker hacks interpretations fall short is not only within the Bible itself (especially the true bible) but in historical and traditional facts themselves. Like uour disrespect for Mary, mother of God’s importance during Jesus time on earth and now even portrayed in Revelations."

The actually "cracker hacks" is that of distinctive Catholic teachings which are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels).

"Like uour disrespect for Mary,"

What disrespect for Mary? Mary was a holy, virtuous instrument of God, but of whom Scripture says relatively little, while holy fear ought to restrain ascribing positions, honor, glory and powers to a mortal that God has not revealed as given to them, and or are only revealed as being possessed by God Himself. But like as the Israelites made an instrument of God an object of worship, (Num. 21:8,9; 2Kg. 18:4) Catholics have magnified Mary far above what is written. (cf. 1Cor. 4:6) and warranted and even allowed, based on what is in Scripture.

In which the NT church Never recorded a women who never sinned, and was a perpetual virgin despite being married (contrary to the normal description of marriage, as in leaving and sexually cleaving: Gn. 2:24; cf. Ruth 3:9) and who would be bodily assumed to Heaven (despite lack of evidence) and exalted (officially or with implicit sanction) as,

• an almost almighty demigoddess to whom "Jesus owes His Precious Blood" to,

• whose [Mary] merits we are saved by,

• who "had to suffer, as He did, all the consequences of sin,"

• and was bodily assumed into Heaven, which is a fact (unsubstantiated in Scripture or even early Tradition) because the Roman church says it is, and "was elevated to a certain affinity with the Heavenly Father,"

• and whose power now "is all but unlimited,"

• for indeed she "seems to have the same power as God,"

• "surpassing in power all the angels and saints in Heaven,"

• so that "the Holy Spirit acts only by the Most Blessed Virgin, his Spouse."

• and that “sometimes salvation is quicker if we remember Mary's name then if we invoked the name of the Lord Jesus,"

• for indeed saints have "but one advocate," and that is Mary, who "alone art truly loving and solicitous for our salvation,"

• Moreover, "there is no grace which Mary cannot dispose of as her own, which is not given to her for this purpose,"

• and who has "authority over the angels and the blessed in heaven,"

• including "assigning to saints the thrones made vacant by the apostate angels,"

• whom the good angels "unceasingly call out to," greeting her "countless times each day with 'Hail, Mary,' while prostrating themselves before her, begging her as a favour to honour them with one of her requests,"

• and who (obviously) cannot "be honored to excess,"

•

"You can cherry pick Bible verses to try to fit God into your belief system, but it will not get you closer to God. "

More mere false assertions while as shown, it is Catholics who compel Scripture to support their church-god, like an abused servant! ,

"Learn actual Catholic doctrine from good Catholic sources."

If you actually read my posts more you would see that I actually rely on "good Catholic sources" which provided the rope that hangs them.

" I had a near death experience in which I was in a state of Purgatory "

Appeal to a delusional subjective unScriptural experience only further indicts your claims as deception.

"You can banter all you like and quote individual Bible verses out of context "

More mere fallacious spitwads, and thus the more you flail away then the more you have provides an argument Catholicism

May God peradventure grant you "repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." (2 Timothy 2:25) Before it is too late.

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