No golfing (maybe football) for me or playing games on Sunday, but my fingers are increasingly stiff due to arthritis, so that my fingers do hardly move independently, usually resulting in multiple typos per sentence and little touch typing, so it takes awhile, long with mental fatigue. But God looks at what one does with what he has, (2Cor. 8:12) and thus the Lord's commendation, "she hath done what she could," (Mk. 4:8) not that i all have, and can multiply what we offer Him. (Mt/. 14:17-21) Now to always have that attitude.
Ok, so you we can at least agree that Trent was the final definition
So we can at least agree that Trent "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)
And that doubt and disagreement continued down thru the centuries and right into Trent , so that Luther was not a maverick in his non-binding present judgment on the canon, and which, as with church "fathers," was part of his theological development. The page to see on Luther and the canon is here , while Protestantism did not follow him as a pope even in regards to his canon.
In any case, even if you had an "infallible" canon from the 4th century under a pope who employed a murderous gang in seeking to secure his papal seat, of what import is this? The issue is the very premise of the assured veracity of Rome. Regarding this, the more foundational issues which we do not both agree on is that,
1. Scripture materially provides for the magisterial office as an indispensable part of the visible church, yet an assuredly infallible magisterium is not essential for providence and assurance of truth, including discerning both writings and men of God as being so, and preservation of faith.
2. Being the instrument, steward and discerner of both writings and men of God and inheritors of promises or God's presence, guidance and preservation, does not require or promise assured infallibility.
3. The laity can be right while the magisterium is wrong, and God often provides and preserves Truth by raising up men from with the magisterium to reprove it.
4. Both writings and men of God are what they are regardless of whether the powers that be - which are sppsd to affirm them as being so - do so or not.
5. While conciliar decrees are proper in affirming both writings and men as being of God, the establishment of such is essentially due to their unique and enduring heavenly qualities and attestation. (Ps. 19:7-11)
6. Scripture is the supreme transcendent standard for testing and est. Truth claims, as it is abundantly evidenced to be.
7. OT Scripture materially provided for the recognition of both Christ and additional conflative complementary writings, and thus for a canon.
As for Pope Damasus, can we now agree that there indeed was a Council in Rome that meet circa 382AD, per the Canons and Letters from the Council of Constantinople. So these internet so called protestant apologist posting on their blogs no such Council happened is incorrect.
I have not followed this, as i thought GPH was dealing with it, and despite all the attention you give it, it is not a critical issue in the light of the above, and the fact that scholarly doubts and disagreement continued, as no infallible definition was provided. But as far as i know the charge is not that Council in Rome did not exist, but that the Gelasian decree was a later work.
“What is commonly called the Gelasian decree on books which are to be received and not received takes its name from Pope Gelasius (492-496). It gives a list of biblical books as they appeared in the Vulgate, with the Apocrypha interspersed among the others. In some manuscripts, indeed, it is attributed to Pope Damasus, as though it had been promulgated by him at the Council of Rome in 382. But actually it appears to have been a private compilation drawn up somewhere in Italy in the early sixth century. (Source: F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1988], p. 97)
Lacking a written formal record of the proceedings at the Council of Rome, it seems there is a lot of historical speculation about the decree of the Canon by Damasus.
. Now as for the Decree-Tome of Pope Damasus, two of my Catholic sources, both recent, Fr. Jurgens Faith of the Early Fathers, Volumes 1-3, published in 1979.
I have not read him, but have seen his integrity impugned for allegedly for passing along forged and fake documents as if they were real or due to misuse of using partial statements of major Church fathers, interpreting them as supportive of papal primacy.
Yet he also affirms such thing as that Gregory the Great (a doctor of the Church and bishop of Rome from A.D. 590-604) met Bishop Leander of Seville about the year 578, who asked him to write a commentary on the Book of Job, which he completed in thirty-five books about the year 595 A.D. (The Faith of the Early Fathers (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1979), Volume III, p. 313.)
But in which pope Gregory denied canonical status to 1 Maccabees [stating the position of the Church of his day] long after the Councils of Hippo and Carthage:
With reference to which particular we are not acting irregularly, if from the books, though not Canonical , yet brought out for the edification of the Church, we bring forward testimony. Thus Eleazar in the battle smote and brought down an elephant, but fell under the very beast that he killed (1 Macc. 6.46). (Joseph Gildea, Gregory the Great, A Synthesis of Moralia in Job (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1991, Part 1, Book 3, p. 126.)
Of course, this is just one example of how unsettled the canon was until Trent.
And Jurgens favors Augustine over all others.
If we were faced with the unlikely proposition of having to destroy completely either the works of Augustine or the works of all the other Fathers and Writers, I have little doubt that all the others would have to be sacrificed. Augustine must remain. Of all the Fathers it is Augustine who is the most erudite, who has the most remarkable theological insights, and who is effectively most prolific (William Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1979), Vol. 3, p. 1).
Yet faced with support from him for Reformed views, Augustine has been treated with scorn by other RC apologists.
Again, see Schaff’s notes on the COuncil of Constantinople and the Tome of the Western Church, which he does attribute to Pope Damasus
But as re the Decretal of Gelasius, later the Journal of Theological Studies 14 (1913) finds , "The proof that the document is not a real Decretal of Gelasius or any other Pope is almost as decisive, if not quite so startling....
But as said, the very premise of an infallible magisterium being essential for the providence and assurance of Truth, and that Rome is it (thus her canon must be held), is the real issue.
Daniel1212:
Whoever put the Decretal Togther is not the issue. The issue is what was put into it. What were the documents, where did they come from. There was no canonical debate going on during the late 5th century so Pope Gelasius and a Council in Rome in 494 did not address the canon. So whoever put the Decretal together, and it contained among other things, a updated translation of the Church Fathers, a list of heretical books, an a canonical List. So, whoever put the Decretal together, lets say it was a Roman Priest who did it and put it under the Pope’s name is not relevant. What was put into it, i.e. the canonical list was not something drawn up in 494, for lists going back to the COuncil of Carthage in 419AD had 46OT and 27NT, which was confirmed by Pope Boniface, Pope Innocents Letter to Bishop Exsurpius in 405 contains the same 46OT and 27NT and Hippo and Carthage in 393 and 397, along with Saint Augustine’s listing in Christian Doctrine had a list, and of course the Council of Rome in 382 would, in that time, be dealing with the canon as it was under debate full force at that time. Damasus, in directing Jerome to do a Vulgate Translation of the Bible directed him of course to follow the Tradition of the Church and given that Jerome conceded to translating the 46OT and 27NT canon, Damasus at the Council of Rome putting together a Canonical List is legitimate.
Fr. Jurgen’s is only impugned among Protestants. That is polemical BS. I have read P. Scaff’s translation of the Fathers and his commentary, he downplays anything that hints a Catholic, because he is Reformed. Should I impugn his integrity are just realize that his ex ante Reformed theology shapes how he writes things in his translations of the Fathers.
Pope Gregory may have personally thought 1 Mac was non-canonical, yet he never ordered it out of the Catholic Canon. In this case, this was his personal theological opinion, but he did not impose his personal view against the constant tradition that came before him. Popes can and do have personal theological opinions, but they also are bound to defend and protect the faith. Gregory was a Great Pope and while I am aware of his views, what you will not see is Gregory calling a council to reexamine the Canon. The reason is, it did not happen. The canon during Gregory the Great’s time was the canon of Pope Boniface (419), Innocent I [405] time and Damasus in 382.
As for Saint Augustine, when you say “apologist” you are referring to Lay Catholics who go to Protestant “internet theologians [apologist} to use your word] and argue. No Catholic Scholar denies Saint Augustine’s theology, what they do reject is Reformed misuse of it. The Eastern Orthodox do however, believe that Augustine’s theology is to much the dominate thought in Catholic theology, but the Catholic Church has always viewed Augustine as one of the 4 Great Doctors of the Church in the Roman-Latin Tradition.
As for Bruce, whom you site, that is his opinion, although it is purely conjecture. Fr. Jurgen’s takes the opposite view and I think his arguments are much more solid given the sources he sites, the canons from the Council of Constantinople and the Synod Opening Letter speak of a Council in Rome under Damasus and “Tome from the Western Church” Phillip Scaff, who I think is much more cited as a Protestant Church History and Patristic Scholar compared to Bruce [who I admit, I know nothing about], has a detailed Introductory on the Council of Constantinople and he concludes that the Tome mentioned was indeed from Pope Damasus from around 380. The Decrees, which were part of the Tome, are attached to it, are in historical context, dealing with issues in the 4th century, not the early 6th.
And again, you are repeating Von Dobschutz’s arguments, which hing on a quote from Saint Augustine to argue that everything in it most be after that date. That is faulty as it could also mean that the Decretal added works from after the time of Damasus into one work.
As to murderous gang? Are you saying Pope Damasus was killer, Was Pope Innocent, Boniface, Leo the Great? I really am not sure what you are doing with this so I am just going to leave it alone.
I'm confused as to why he's bringing this debate from the other thread into THIS thread. Perhaps to get away from the beating I've given him in the other one?