Canon of Scripture

[Mannyfit75]

The Christian acceptance of the deuterocanonical books was logical because the deuterocanonicals were also included in the Septuagint, the Greek edition of the Old Testament which the apostles used to evangelize the world. Two thirds of the Old Testament quotations in the New are from the Septuagint. Yet the apostles nowhere told their converts to avoid seven books of it. Like the Jews all over the world who used the Septuagint, the early Christians accepted the books they found in it. They knew that the apostles would not mislead them and endanger their souls by putting false scriptures in their hands – especially without warning them against them.

But the apostles did not merely place the deuterocanonicals in the hands of their converts as part of the Septuagint. They regularly referred to the deuterocanonicals in their writings. For example, Hebrews 11 encourages us to emulate the heroes of the Old Testament and in the Old Testament “Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life” (Heb. 11:35).

There are a couple of examples of women receiving back their dead by resurrection in the Protestant Old Testament. You can find Elijah raising the son of the widow of Zarepheth in 1 Kings 17, and you can find his successor Elisha raising the son of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4, but one thing you can never find – anywhere in the Protestant Old Testament, from front to back, from Genesis to Malachi – is someone being tortured and refusing to accept release for the sake of a better resurrection. If you want to find that, you have to look in the Catholic Old Testament – in the deuterocanonical books Martin Luther cut out of his Bible.

The story is found in 2 Maccabees 7, where we read that during the Maccabean persecution, “It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine’s flesh. . . . **ut the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, 'The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us . . . ’ After the first brother had died . . . they brought forward the second for their sport. . . . he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. And when he was at his last breath, he said, ‘You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life’” (2 Macc. 7:1, 5-9).

One by one the sons die, proclaiming that they will be vindicated in the resurrection. “The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them . . . [saying], ‘I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws,’” telling the last one, “Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again with your brothers” (2 Macc. 7:20-23, 29).

This is but one example of the New Testaments’ references to the deuterocanonicals. The early Christians were thus fully justified in recognizing these books as Scripture, for the apostles not only set them in their hands as part of the Bible they used to evangelize the world, but also referred to them in the New Testament itself, citing the things they record as examples to be emulated.**

 

[Mannyfit75]

The early acceptance of the deuterocanonicals was carried down through Church history. The Protestant patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly writes: “It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the [Protestant Old Testament] . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or deutero-canonical books. The reason for this is that the Old Testament which passed in the first instance into the hands of Christians was . . . the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. . . . most of the Scriptural quotations found in the New Testament are based upon it rather than the Hebrew… . . In the first two centuries . . . the Church seems to have accept all, or most of, these additional books as inspired and to have treated them without question as Scripture. Quotations from Wisdom, for example, occur in 1 Clement and Barnabas. . . Polycarp cites Tobit, and the Didache [cites] Ecclesiasticus. Irenaeus refers to Wisdom, the History of Susannah, Bel and the Dragon *, and Baruch. The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary” (Early Christian Doctrines, 53-54).

The recognition of the deuterocanonicals as part of the Bible that was given by individual Fathers was also given by the Fathers as a whole, when they met in Church councils. The results of councils are especially useful because they do not represent the views of only one person, but what was accepted by the Church leaders of whole regions.

The canon of Scripture, Old and New Testament, was finally settled at the Council of Rome in 382, under the authority of Pope Damasus I. It was soon reaffirmed on numerous occasions. The same canon was affirmed at the Council of Hippo in 393 and at the Council of Carthage in 397. In 405 Pope Innocent I reaffirmed the canon in a letter to Bishop Exuperius of Toulouse. Another council at Carthage, this one in the year 419, reaffirmed the canon of its predecessors and asked Pope Boniface to “confirm this canon, for these are the things which we have received from our fathers to be read in church.” All of these canons were identical to the modern Catholic Bible, and all of them included the deuterocanonicals.

This exact same canon was implicitly affirmed at the seventh ecumenical council, II Nicaea (787), which approved the results of the 419 Council of Carthage, and explicitly reaffirmed at the ecumenical councils of Florence (1442), Trent (1546), Vatican I (1870), and Vatican II (1965).*

 

[Mannyfit75]

The deuterocanonicals teach Catholic doctrine, and for this reason they were taken out of the Old Testament by Martin Luther and placed in an appendix without page numbers. Luther also took out four New Testament books – Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation – and put them in an appendix without page numbers as well. These were later put back into the New Testament by other Protestants, but the seven books of the Old Testament were left out. Following Luther they had been left in an appendix to the Old Testament, and eventually the appendix itself was dropped (in 1827 by the British and Foreign Bible Society), which is why these books are not found at all in most contemporary Protestant Bibles, though they were appendicized in classic Protestant translations such as the King James Version.

The reason they were dropped is that they teach Catholic doctrines that the Protestant Reformers chose to reject. Earlier we cited an example where the book of Hebrews holds up to us an Old Testament example from 2 Maccabees 7, an incident not to be found anywhere in the Protestant Bible, but easily discoverable in the Catholic Bible. Why would Martin Luther cut out this book when it is so clearly held up as an example to us by the New Testament? Simple: A few chapters later it endorses the practice of praying for the dead so that they may be freed from the consequences of their sins (2 Macc. 12:41-45); in other words, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. Since Luther chose to reject the historic Christian teaching of purgatory (which dates from before the time of Christ, as 2 Maccabees shows), he had to remove that book from the Bible and appendicize it. (Notice that he also removed Hebrews, the book which cites 2 Maccabees, to an appendix as well.)

To justify this rejection of books that had been in the Bible since before the days of the apostles (for the Septuagint was written before the apostles), the early Protestants cited as their chief reason the fact that the Jews of their day did not honor these books, going back to the council of Javneh in A.D. 90. But the Reformers were aware of only European Jews; they were unaware of African Jews, such as the Ethiopian Jews who accept the deuterocanonicals as part of their Bible. They glossed over the references to the deuterocanonicals in the New Testament, as well as its use of the Septuagint. They ignored the fact that there were multiple canons of the Jewish Scriptures circulating in first century, appealing to a post-Christian Jewish council which has no authority over Christians as evidence that “The Jews don’t except these books.” In short, they went to enormous lengths to rationalize their rejection of these books of the Bible.

 

[Mannyfit75]

In later years they even began to propagate the myth that the Catholic Church “added” these seven books to the Bible at the Council of Trent!

Protestants also try to distort the patristic evidence in favor of the deuterocanonicals. Some flatly state that the early Church Fathers did not accept them, while others make the more moderate claim that certain important Fathers, such as Jerome, did not accept them.

It is true that Jerome, and a few other isolated writers, did not accept most of the deuterocanonicals as Scripture. However, Jerome was persuaded, against his original inclination, to include the deuterocanonicals in his Vulgate edition of the Scriptures-testimony to the fact that the books were commonly accepted and were expected to be included in any edition of the Scriptures.

Furthermore, it can be documented that in his later years Jerome did accept certain deuterocanonical parts of the Bible. In his reply to Rufinus, he stoutly defended the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel even though the Jews of his day did not.

He wrote, “What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susanna, the Son of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume, proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I was not relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us” (Against Rufinus 11:33 [A.D. 402]). Thus Jerome acknowledged the principle by which the canon was settled – the judgment of the Church, not of later Jews.

Other writers Protestants cite as objecting to the deuterocanonicals, such as Athanasius and Origen, also accepted some or all of them as canonical. For example, Athanasius, accepted the book of Baruch as part of his Old Testament (Festal Letter 39), and Origen accepted all of the deuterocanonicals, he simply recommended not using them in disputations with Jews.

However, despite the misgivings and hesitancies of a few individual writers such as Jerome, the Church remained firm in its historic affirmation of the deuterocanonicals as Scripture handed down from the apostles. Protestant patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly remarks that in spite of Jerome’s doubt, “For the great majority, however, the deutero-canonical writings ranked as Scripture in the fullest sense. Augustine, for example, whose influence in the West was decisive, made no distinction between them and the rest of the Old Testament . . . The same inclusive attitude to the Apocrypha was authoritatively displayed at the synods of Hippo and Carthage in 393 and 397 respectively, and also in the famous letter which Pope Innocent I dispatched to Exuperius, bishop of Toulouse, in 405” (Early Christian Doctrines, 55-56).

It is thus a complete myth that, as Protestants often charge, the Catholic Church “added” the deuterocanonicals to the Bible at the Council of Trent. These books had been in the Bible from before the time canon was initially settled in the 380s. All the Council of Trent did was reaffirm, in the face of the new Protestant attack on Scripture, what had been the historic Bible of the Church – the standard edition of which was Jerome’s own Vulgate, including the seven deuterocanonicals!

 

[Pwrlftr]

Are Ximenes and Erasumus councils of the Church? The Church declared those Deutrocanonical inspired, not biships. Take a look at the Council of Hippo, and Carthage. 2/3 of the NT cited books from the Deutrocanonical.

Manny,

I am guessing you believe the church bound it upon the conscience of believers to accept the canon as stated at HIppo and Carthage, am I right?

If you believe that you somehow have to account for the fact that faithful Catholics such as Cajetan and Ximenes rejected at least parts of the deutero/apocrypha. Heck, Ximenes even had a study bible published that rejected the books and it was published w/ the popes consent. Pope Gregory the Great even rejected either 1 or 2 Maccabbees. I think it was 1 Maccabbees but don’t have my notes in front of me.

Additionally, at the council of Trent you find cardinals that reject the canon as promulgated by Hippo and Carthage.

I’ll try to find it later but I know I’ve run across at least one Catholic apologists who realizes that there was freedom regarding the acceptance of the canon before Trent.

 

[jmcrae]

Apparently he was sure 'cuz he included the all the books you have in your Bible and only rejected the canonocity of the deutero/apocrypha. When you play the Luther card you have to be careful.

What Luther did, which was different from what Catholics were doing, was deciding to base his entire religious system on Scripture alone.

As Catholics, we base our religious system on the Oral Tradition, so if we’re not completely sure what Scripture is at some point along the way, it’s not that big of a deal, because we’re not relying on it for doctrine.

But for Luther to, on the one hand, say that the doctrine of the faith can be found only in the Scriptures, and then on the other hand, not be completely sure whether certain books are part of the canon of the Scriptures (and thus, whether or not those books actually contain Christian doctrine, or not) sets up a shifting sand situation where, “Christian doctrine is whatever I happen to be thinking, at any particular moment in time.” Which is not really a very good way to operate a religion.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Manny,

I am guessing you believe the church bound it upon the conscience of believers to accept the canon as stated at HIppo and Carthage, am I right?

If you believe that you somehow have to account for the fact that faithful Catholics such as Cajetan and Ximenes rejected at least parts of the deutero/apocrypha. Heck, Ximenes even had a study bible published that rejected the books and it was published w/ the popes consent. Pope Gregory the Great even rejected either 1 or 2 Maccabbees. I think it was 1 Maccabbees but don’t have my notes in front of me.

Additionally, at the council of Trent you find cardinals that reject the canon as promulgated by Hippo and Carthage.

I’ll try to find it later but I know I’ve run across at least one Catholic apologists who realizes that there was freedom regarding the acceptance of the canon before Trent.

Did the Pope invoke a Council to declare fully that these books were not inspired? Nope.

He did not speak under his office. He merely voice his own opinions.

 

[Pwrlftr]

Manny,

If one rejects the books, there is no other way to describe it other than saying your church added them. If they aren’t inspired they would be false additions to the canon, there is no other way to state it.

It is a fact that some ECF’s did not accept them and we find evidence of this all the way up until Trent.

It is entirely false to say that only a “few isolated writers” were all that rejected the books.

Pope Gregory the Great had misgivings toward at least one book.

The Glossa Ordinaire (major study bible of the middle ages) flatly rejected them.

Cardinal Ximenes who wrote at the time of the reformation rejected the books and his study bible was approved by the pope.

There are/were of course others but it isn’t just a case of a few isolated writers who rejected them.
Opposition at the Council of Trent:

“In his opposition to accepting the Florentine canon and the equalization of traditions with Holy Scripture, Seripando did not stand alone. In the particular congregation of March 23, the learned Dominican Bishop Bertano of Fano had already expressed the view that Holy Scripture possessed greater authority than the traditions because the Scriptures were unchangeable; that only offenders against the biblical canon should come under the anathema, not those who deny the principle of tradition; that it would be unfortunate if the Council limited itself to the apostolic canons, because the Protestants would say that the abrogation of some of these traditions was arbitrary and represented an abuse… Another determined opponent of putting traditions on a par with Holy Scripture, as well as the anathema, was the Dominican Nacchianti. The Servite general defended the view that all the evangelical truths were contained in the Bible, and he subscribed to the canon of St. Jerome, as did also Madruzzo and Fonseca on April 1. 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.”

Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), 281-282.

 

[Pwrlftr]

Did the Pope invoke a Council to declare fully that these books were not inspired? Nope.

He did not speak under his office. He merely voice his own opinions.

Were the councils of Carthage and Hippo ecumenical? Nope.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Manny,

If one rejects the books, there is no other way to describe it other than saying your church added them. If they aren’t inspired they would be false additions to the canon, there is no other way to state it.

It is a fact that some ECF’s did not accept them and we find evidence of this all the way up until Trent.

It is entirely false to say that only a “few isolated writers” were all that rejected the books.

Pope Gregory the Great had misgivings toward at least one book.

The Glossa Ordinaire (major study bible of the middle ages) flatly rejected them.

Cardinal Ximenes who wrote at the time of the reformation rejected the books and his study bible was approved by the pope.

There are/were of course others but it isn’t just a case of a few isolated writers who rejected them.

You noted some and a few. Oddly, enough, the Council of Trent accepted the Deutrocanonical Books as inspired.

Do you want me to quote it?

Even if Cardinal Ximenes approve his study of the Bible, it would not make any difference. The Deutrocanonical Books have been used by the Christian Church for about 2,000 yrs.

 

[Pwrlftr]

But for Luther to, on the one hand, say that the doctrine of the faith can be found only in the Scriptures, and then on the other hand, not be completely sure whether certain books are part of the canon of the Scriptures (and thus, whether or not those books actually contain Christian doctrine, or not) sets up a shifting sand situation where, “Christian doctrine is whatever I happen to be thinking, at any particular moment in time.” Which is not really a very good way to operate a religion.

But Luther in the end, was sure, was he not?

You’re statment "“Christian doctrine is whatever I happen to be thinking, at any particular moment in time.” is a gross mis-representation.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Were the councils of Carthage and Hippo ecumenical? Nope.

They were Local Synods. The list in both Council are same you will find in the Ecumenical Council of Florence in 1430.

 

[jmcrae]

Were the councils of Carthage and Hippo ecumenical? Nope.

Right. The canon of the New Testament was infallibly declared by Pope Innocent I, seven years after the Councils had been completed.

The Old Testament at that time consisted of the 46 books that we Catholics continue to know and love.

Yes, there were questions being asked by some people, but if you looked at the Bibles that were being distributed to the Churches, they looked pretty much like the Catholic Bibles of today - 46 books in the Old Testament, and 27 in the New.

 

[Pwrlftr]

You noted some and a few. Oddly, enough, the Council of Trent accepted the Deutrocanonical Books as inspired.

Do you want me to quote it?

Even if Cardinal Ximenes approve his study of the Bible, it would not make any difference. The Deutrocanonical Books have been used by the Christian Church for about 2,000 yrs.

Do I want you to quote what? If you are talking about the council of Trent I’ve already read it. BTW, I have never denied that Trent dogmatically defined the canon and included the 7 books we are discussing. Why would you state “Oddly, enough, the Council of Trent accepted the Deutrocanonical Books as inspired.”? Did I lead you to believe I was unaware of this?

I am not sure what you are discussing but I was attempting to discuss whether or not the councils of Carthage and Hippo were binding upon the conscience of believers or not. My opinion is that they were not.

I never denied that the books weren’t accepted at the earlier councils.

 

[jmcrae]

But Luther in the end, was sure, was he not?

Not really. The Protestant canon of the Scriptures wasn’t fully established until after his death.

You’re statment "“Christian doctrine is whatever I happen to be thinking, at any particular moment in time.” is a gross mis-representation.

It may be an oversimplification, but it’s pretty much what you boil down to when you reject the Tradition, and you’re not completely sure of the Scriptures. Besides, didn’t Martin Luther actually say something along those lines to the Pope, in one of his more famous essays? Perhaps he was just joking - even so, I think he did say something of the kind, at one time.

 

[Pwrlftr]

Right. The canon of the New Testament was infallibly declared by Pope Innocent I, seven years after the Councils had been completed.

You mentioned this earlier. Why do you think Pope Innocent infallibly declared the canon at this point?

 

[jmcrae]

You mentioned this earlier. Why do you think Pope Innocent infallibly declared the canon at this point?

Because he promulgated the canon of the New Testament to the Churches of the whole world by a proclamation and via messengers, and he commanded St. Jerome to translate them in addition to the books of the Old Testament that he was already doing under the previous command of Pope Damasus, and afterwards, to arrange to make copies for the Churches.

 

[Pwrlftr]

Not really. The Protestant canon of the Scriptures wasn’t fully established until after his death.

But do you think Luther had resolved the canon issue in his own mind before his death?

It may be an oversimplification, but it’s pretty much what you boil down to when you reject the Tradition, and you’re not completely sure of the Scriptures. Besides, didn’t Martin Luther actually say something along those lines to the Pope, in one of his more famous essays? Perhaps he was just joking - even so, I think he did say something of the kind, at one time.

I am no Luther expert so I’m not sure what you are alluding to. Can you be more specific? Luther was likely to say most anything at any time.

I don’t know of many folks who are in a quandry over what is and what isn’t scripture. I guese there is a new interest in gnosticism but don’t see that being all that large a movement and it probably attracts as many protestants as it does Catholics.

If you have ever taken the time to read/study any systematic theology (non-Catholic) I would think you would realize that it’s not a matter of “whatever I happen to be thinking at any particular moment in time”. Contemporary theologians such as Sproul, Moo (funny name but a brilliant guy) or Grudem aren’t as flaky as you make them out to be.

 

[Pwrlftr]

Because he promulgated the canon of the New Testament to the Churches of the whole world by a proclamation and via messengers, and he commanded St. Jerome to translate them in addition to the books of the Old Testament that he was already doing under the previous command of Pope Damasus, and afterwards, to arrange to make copies for the Churches.

Good point.

I don’t mean to make you work tonight, but do you have a website that discusses this?

What do you make of the apparent dissent?

 

[jmcrae]

But do you think Luther had resolved the canon issue in his own mind before his death?

There is no way of knowing.

I am no Luther expert so I’m not sure what you are alluding to. Can you be more specific? Luther was likely to say most anything at any time.

When he changed the Scriptures from “The just shall live by faith” to say “The just shall live by faith alone,” he said, “Tell that bastard Pope that Dr. Martin Luther would have it so.”

I don’t know of many folks who are in a quandry over what is and what isn’t scripture.

Doubtless because they simply accept whatever tradition they have been handed by their ancestors.