Canons of the Apostles not recognized by RC?

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Why does the Western Roman Catholic Church recognize only 50 Canons of the Apostles whereas the Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes all 85 Canons of the Apostles?

I read on: newadvent.org/cathen/03279a.htm:
Nevertheless, from their first appearance in the West they aroused suspicion. Canon 46 for example, that rejected all heretical baptism, was notoriously opposed to Roman and Western practice. In the so-called Decretum of Pope Gelasius (492-96) they are denounced as an apocryphal book, i. e. not recognized by the Catholic Church (Thiel, epistolæ Rom. pontificum genuinæ, 1867, I, 53-58, 454-71; Von Funk, op. cit., II, 40), though this note of censure was probably not in the original Decretum, but with others was added under Pope Hormisdas (514-23). Consequently in a second edition (lost, except preface) of his Collectio canonum, prepared under the latter pope, Dionysius Exiguus omitted them; even in the first edition he admitted that very many in the West were loath to acknowledge them (quamplurimi quidem assensum non prœbuere facilem). Hincmar of Reims (died 882) declared that they were not written by the Apostles, and as late as the middle of the eleventh century, Western theologians (Cardinal Humbert, 1054) distinguished between the eighty-five Greek canons that they declared apocryphal, and the fifty Latin canons recognized as orthodox rules by antiquity.
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This certainly does not make my Church look very “Orthodox” 😉 To question that the canons were written by the Apostles at all is surprising to me.
 
Chris_McAvoy said:
Why does the Western Roman Catholic Church recognize only 50 Canons of the Apostles whereas the Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes all 85 Canons of the Apostles?

I read on: newadvent.org/cathen/03279a.htm:

This certainly does not make my Church look very “Orthodox” 😉 To question that the canons were written by the Apostles at all is surprising to me.
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Grace and Peace,

This link appears broken… 😦
 
Chris_McAvoy said:
Why does the Western Roman Catholic Church recognize only 50 Canons of the Apostles whereas the Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes all 85 Canons of the Apostles?

I read on: newadvent.org/cathen/03279a.htm:
This certainly does not make my Church look very “Orthodox” 😉 To question that the canons were written by the Apostles at all is surprising to me.
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huh :confused:

From the very quote you provide it indicates that the authenticity of some of the cannons were suspect.

Just because someone says something is from the Apostles doesn’t make it so.
It is the function of the Church to separate the real from the questionable.
Why would you be surprised when She does so?
 
Once again I ask why does the Roman Catholic Church reject 35 of the Apostolic Canons, whereas the Greek Orthodox Church accepts the entire 85 canons?

That is my only question here.
The article does not say why the Roman Latin Church rejected 35 canons.
 
Chris_McAvoy said:
Once again I ask why does the Roman Catholic Church reject 35 of the Apostolic Canons, whereas the Greek Orthodox Church accepts the entire 85 canons?

That is my only question here.
The article does not say why the Roman Latin Church rejected 35 canons.
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The short answer seems to be two fold:

From answers.com/topic/canons-of-the-apostles:
  1. the Canons are not Apostolic in origin:
Most modern critics agree that they could not have been composed before the Council of Antioch of 341, some twenty of whose canons they quote; nor even before the latter end of the fourth century, since they are certainly posterior to the Apostolic Constitutions. Von Funk, admittedly a foremost authority on the latter and all similar early canonical texts, locates the composition of the Apostolic Canons in the fifth century, near the year 400. Thereby he approaches the opinion of his scholarly predecessor, Drey, the first among modern writers to study profoundly these ancient canons; he distinguished two editions of them, a shorter one (fifty) about the middle of the fifth century, and a longer one (eighty-five) early in the sixth century
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and

2): they contain heresy (the denial of the validity of baptism adminsitered by any heretic when in fact some such baptisms are valid…according to “orthodoxy”).
Canon 46 for example, that rejected all heretical baptism, was notoriously opposed to Roman and Western practice.
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What more is required?

Keep the Faith
jmt
 
John_Taylor said:
The short answer seems to be two fold:

From answers.com/topic/canons-of-the-apostles:
  1. the Canons are not Apostolic in origin: and
2): they contain heresy (the denial of the validity of baptism adminsitered by any heretic when in fact some such baptisms are valid…according to “orthodoxy”). What more is required?
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It seems problematic to label the rebaptism of those who had received baptism outside the Church as heresy since the Popes permitted this to happen in the Eastern portion of the Catholic Church during all the time it was under the Pope’s control (up until the schism of 1054.) Would the Popes have allowed an heretical practice to continue for centuries?

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Fr_Ambrose said:
It seems problematic to label the rebaptism of those who had received baptism outside the Church as heresy since the Popes permitted this to happen in the Eastern portion of the Catholic Church during all the time it was under the Pope’s control (up until the schism of 1054.) Would the Popes have allowed an heretical practice to continue for centuries?

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…I don’t know, I read the canon in question only after reading and posting a response based on the OP’s link (should have read the canons first!) and wasn’t sure what the issue over it was for the Western Church. It reads:
  1. We command that a bishop, or presbyter, or deacon who receives the baptism, or the sacrifice of heretics, be deprived: "For what agreement is there between Christ and Belial? or what part hath a believer with an infidel? "
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If what you say is true then could it be that “rebaptism” was allowed because the first baptism was judged invalid? or was the “rebaptism” that was allowed “conditional” as is done when the validity of the first baptism is in question? As for the reasons for the Catholic Church’s rejection of “35 of the 85 canons” in question - I can’t see this as in anyway arguing against the Catholic claim for being the One True Church founded upon the Rock of St Peter by our Lord, Jesus Christ, even if the canons in question were Apostolic in origin (but I may be overstating myself).

Reading the canons…

See The Ecclesiastical Canons of the Same Holy Apostles at ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-07/anf07-50.htm#P7376_2463844

…they appear to be disciplinary in nature and thus changeable by the Authority of Christ’s Church and of the 35 “rejected” canons are they incorporated otherwise within the Code of Canon Law??? I don’t know.

Back to the original point from the OP’s linked article - which includes the statement that:

“Canon 46 for example, that rejected all heretical baptism, was notoriously opposed to Roman and Western practice”

I think the operative phrase is “rejected ALL heretical baptism”…only those which are invalid need to be “repeated”…maybe that’s the problem seen by the Catholic Church.

In any event, it’s not a burning issue in my mind and I’ll leave it to others more qualified to settle. I guess I was just reacting to the OP’s insinuation that somehow this issue proved something against the Catholic Church in favor of the Orthodox Church…but given that the “Orthodox” in the five cases when they broke communion with Rome prior to 1054 were wrong - by both the later Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) criteria - leads me to conclude that it is the Bishop of Rome who the Holy Spirit prevents from falling into error (when teaching dogmatically to the whole Church).

Keep the Faith
jmt
 
John_Taylor said:
but given that the “Orthodox” in the five cases when they broke communion with Rome prior to 1054 were wrong
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There seem to have been seven times of schism if the Catholic Encyclopedia is correct.

We need to bear in mind that at this period the Church of East and West was ONE church. It was the Catholic Church and indeed the Catholic Church in the East far outnumbered in membership the Church of the West. These are internal schisms within the Catholic Church. These are also not schisms which affected all the Eastern Catholic Churches (Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch) but Constantinople.

(1) The schism in connexion with St. Athanasius and Arianism, from the Council of Sardica (343) to the accession of St. John Chrysostom to the See of Constantinople (398) – 55 years;

(2) in connexion with the condemnation of St. John Chrysostom by the episcopate of the East (404-15) – 11 years;

(3) in regard to the Byzantine patriarch Acacius and the Emperor Zeno’s “Henoticon” edict (484-519) – 35 years;

(4) arising out of the Monothelite movement of Sergius and Heraclius (640-81) – 41 years;

(5) arising out of the first Iconoclastic conflict, begun by Leo III, the Isaurian (726-87) – 61 years;

(6) arising out of the adulterous marriage contracted by the Emperor Constantine VI (795-811) – 16 years;

(7) in connexion with the second Iconoclastic persecution (814-43) – 29 years.

**Merry **Christmas!
 
Some people would say than that if Alexandria and Antoich remained in communion, it proves that Peter’s other see’s are of a similar nature to Rome.

That is one of the more important points, Constantinople was always the one causing the most problems, as it was a sort of illegitimate bourgeois upstart see. With the exception of the Non-Chalcedonians schism, the Sees of Peter, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome were the ones most free of heresy.

It was not Rome alone, Antioch and Alexandria had its back to fight Constantinoples heresies, which arose because of it’s secular mercantile power.
 
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