- I accept the comments of the Early Church Fathers and theMagisterium over the history of the Church as authoritative.
WHAT A DODGE. I didn't ask you what you believed. Instead, you had just said it was up to ME to prove Paul did not look to Apocrypha as holy writ, (which I have made progress towards) when actually, it is still up to you to prove otherwise, for you were the one to bring the claim to the contrary here, in this discussion.
Appealing to Early Church "fathers", as a link I provided in my last comment towards you shows, doesn't help either your own latest rhetorical flourish (that Paul was somehow no longer a Jew?) for in response to my pointing out that Paul was a Pharisee (as he himself claimed), You said;
- Saul was a Pharisee. St. Paul was a celibate Catholic priest and bishop.
which comes across as some sort of attempt to distract from my own pointing out that Paul didn't accept Apocrypha...
...to continue appeals to Early church notables seriously challenges if not refutes your overall positions, even as it rhetorically shifts away from what WAS being discussed. To get back to the present flow;
You said;
- On the contrary, one must prove that St. Paul excluded it, which his successors clearly did not.
Oh, but many of the so-called successors did exclude the Apocrypa. Unless you'd care to more specifically name Paul's own succesors...
Who are they? Be specific. Name them. You claimed "they clearly did not". They must have names if they "clearly" did ANYTHING. Where are the quotes? From "Early Chruch Fathers". It is you whom blends those with "magesterium". Whom are you depending upon? How about checking the provided link? You'll see some Early Church Fathers in disagreement with you, or at the least, in agreement that Apocrypha isn't up to par with Hebrew Tanakh.
But your reply to me here, seems yet another case of the "fuzzy infallibles" as near as I can tell, naming and claiming "your belief" in the magesterium being always correct in it's results (that was not what was under discussion)...for there is abundant evidence (brought to and linked right to this FR thread) that the truth of the matter is much different than your own vague & specious assertions.
Very simply, again,
Paul came from the Pharisee tradition, was instructed by a top Pharisee. We were talking specifically about whether or not Paul would have considered Apocrypha as holy writ. The Pharisees most certainly did not. ADDRESS THAT.
Can that be proven otherwise, or there be some reply other than the type of short side-show, rhetorical song & tap dance/recital, you have sent my way in your last reply? I doubt it, or else we'd have all known of it, long before now. Save the Romish special pleadings. I'm a' gonna' hit 'em with a rock, each time I see one scurry across the pages here, if I can keep finding the time and energy, that is. Get used to the idea.
What now? Somebody else will chime in again with claims from "scripture-catholic", that apocrypha was quoted right and left in the NT? Oh, puh-leeze! I was able to refute several of those claims easily enough off-hand (before they reorganized their presentation, making it painfully slow to need to dredge out what they are talking about, instead of publishing the precise quotations), and I'm no bible scholar...and found yet another refutation (a NT use from OT which "scripture-catholic" cited as being only from their beloved "deuterocanonicals") quite by accident, when looking up something else in the OT.
For comparisons sake, if one was to find some passage quoted from the likes of the book of Jasper, used in the NT, that wouldn't qualify that book for inclusion in Christian canon.
What have you brought to show to the contrary (that Paul looked to Tanakh as completed scripture) that was not by vague allusion to some imprecisely named or cited persons much later than "early church father's" opinions, for ANY of what otherwise we, you and I, have also been discussing on this thread? Nothing, that's what!
It is possible to cite a few on one side of the ledger...and on the other, at the same time. THAT is the truth of the matter.
Vague reference to "magesterium" or calling Paul a capitalized letter "C" catholic "bishop", long after the fact, does not change in the slightest any of what has been laid out here, in plain sight.
This "Magesterium" you reference was still debating the OT canon right up until Trent, so there's not much help for you there, if we are looking for actual unanimous consent of long standing, nor is Trent any help if we are also looking for "early church fathers". The Apochrypa was discussed/debated at Trent as towards what it's proper status should be. (the canon most certainly was not "closed" in earleir centuries, as you otherwise also have claimed). Some preferred Jerome's admonition and warning towards those works. Others, for reasons I've delved into [slightly] on previous occasions, wanted for the Apocrypha the same status as Torah, and greater Torah (Tanakh) long enjoyed amongs the Jews. Which leaves you nothing much there (beyond possible johnny-come-lately opinion) indicating Paul considered Apocrypha on par with Tanakh (Jewish bible), other than possibly opinions such as you seem to express now, evidently being based on RC self-reverential attitudes of flawlessness (of the magesterium) which could lead to the assumption Paul must have thought just the way those at Trent did in majority, ending up voting in majority (but not unanimously) to include Apocrypha sans Jerome's warnings, re-naming the same "dueterocanonical" at that juncture.
The world didn't have that word "deuterocanonical" until it was made up, devised at Trent (or at least first introduced & adopted there) to get away from the [embarrassing] word Apocrypha. Yet at this late date, comes the baseless claim that Paul regarded Apocrypha as "scripture". Is it based on reliance upon claims of infallibility regarding the "teaching authority" of the Magesterium? Seems so...and I can say that without mind-reading, or attributing motive, for otherwise that attitude towards "the teaching authority of the Magesterium", has been often seen clearly stated, previously on these pages, more than a few times, by yourself. In fact, when the issues are pressed hard enough, what emerges but claims the RC church has never erred in it's "teaching authority"?
Paul was no less born a Jew and remained Hebrew, a "Jew" for reason Roman Catholics later claim Paul was or became "one of them", a RC (to the exclusion of other Christians, it may be added). Paul himself never used the word "catholic", much less capitalized the word into transforming from being an adjective, originally meaning universal, to being a pronoun. That today's Roman Catholics have shifted usage of that word yet further, to be in regards to chiefly themselves (if not only themselves) is yet more of the same. There is seeming no end to it...for it relies upon and continually returns back to the same sets of circular logic "navel gazing".
But Paul DID say that he himself was "A Hebrew of Hebrews". Once a Jew, born a Jew...always a Jew. Ask most any Jew, I'm sure they'd agree. Paul...one of the first Messianic Jews, maybe? And an early convert to Christ, by way of his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus.
A Jew today, converting to Christianity, only becomes less Jewish according to that famous club, "Jew who hate Jesus". Ok, I know there is no such actual club, I made that up for effect.
Paul never ceased being Jewish, even as being the one who wrote most of the book (NT) which Christians rely upon. Christ came to fulfill the law (that exact same law much taught to Paul by the Pharisee Gamaliel) not to do away with it.
John 4
- 22Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
Take this additional peculiar argument or point raised; that Paul somehow became something other than Jewish after in a blindingly spectacular moment, Paul encountered the risen Christ, the King of the Jews Himself, to that same King of the Jews, Jesus Himself. I'm running out of patience with those sort of passive-agressive stunts, or methods of discussion.
