Catholic Church compiles the New Testament

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Benedict16

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It is a fact of history that the Council of Carthage, which was held in 397 A.D., mainly through the influence of St. Augustine, settled the Canon or collection of New Testament Scriptures as we Catholics have them now, and decreed that its decision should be sent on to Rome for confirmation. No Council (that is, no gathering of the Bishops of the Catholic church for the settlement of some point of doctrine) was ever considered to be authoritative or binding unless it was approved and confirmed by the Roman Pontiff, while the decisions of every general council that has received the approval of Rome are binding on the consciences of all Catholics. The council of Carthage, then, is the first known to us in which we find a clear and undisputed catalogue of all the New Testament books as we have them in our Bibles now.
 
That’s is my understanding too, that no Council or Pope has approved and confirmed all the book of the bible not even the Council of Trent which only declared the use of the Vulgate for sermons and disputations.

Their are some Orthodox churches that have some more books in the bible then we do.

Ref. Council of Trent
 
Actually it was even a little earlier than that! The regional or local Catholic Church Councils of Hippo, 393 A.D., and Carthage, 397 A.D., and later, Carthage 419 A.D. gave us the canon of Sacred Scripture as we know it today. Although these were just local councils, Saint Augustine did insist that the list given by these councils be sent to Rome for approval. Pope Saint Siricius (384-399 A.D.) approved the canon just as his papal predecessor Pope Damasus I had done in a Synod in 382 A.D. with a formal writing “Decretal of Gelasius”, de recipiendis et non recipiendis libris. (The archeological findings and analysis pertaining to the Council of Rome 382 A.D. and some of the Popes may not be a settled fact.)
 
It is true that many Fathers and Doctors and Writers of the church in the first three centuries from time to time mention by name many of the various Gospels and Epistles; and some, as we come nearer 398, even refer to a collection already existing in places. For example, we find Constantine, the first Christian Emporer, after The Council of Nicea, applying to Eusebius, Bishop of Casarea, and a great scholar, to provide fifty copies of the Christian Scriptures for public in 332 A.D. the contents of these copies are known to us, perhaps (according to some, even probably) one of these very copies of Eusebius’ handiwork has come down to us; but they are not precisely the same as our New Testament, though very nearly so. Again, we find lists of the books of the NT drawn up by St Anthanasius, St Jerome, St Augustine, and many other great authorities, as witnessing to what was generally acknowledged as inspired Scripture in their day and generation and country; but I repeat that none of these corresponds perfectly to the collection in the Bible that we pocess now; we must wait til 397 for the Council of Carthage, before we find the complete cllection of NT books settled as we have them today, and as all Christendom had it til the sixteenth century, when the Reformers changed it.
 
Not all the Reformers changed it. And there is no argument of this.

What’s the point of this thread? 🤷
 
Benedict16 said:
It is true that many Fathers and Doctors and Writers of the church in the first three centuries from time to time mention by name many of the various Gospels and Epistles; and some, as we come nearer 398, even refer to a collection already existing in places. For example, we find Constantine, the first Christian Emporer, after The Council of Nicea, applying to Eusebius, Bishop of Casarea, and a great scholar, to provide fifty copies of the Christian Scriptures for public in 332 A.D. the contents of these copies are known to us, perhaps (according to some, even probably) one of these very copies of Eusebius’ handiwork has come down to us; but they are not precisely the same as our New Testament, though very nearly so. Again, we find lists of the books of the NT drawn up by St Anthanasius, St Jerome, St Augustine, and many other great authorities, as witnessing to what was generally acknowledged as inspired Scripture in their day and generation and country; but I repeat that none of these corresponds perfectly to the collection in the Bible that we pocess now; we must wait til 397 for the Council of Carthage, before we find the complete cllection of NT books settled as we have them today, and as all Christendom had it til the sixteenth century, when the Reformers changed it.
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You are greatly over simplifying this. Carthage was not an ecumenical council and had no authority to “settle” the issue of the canon.

Additionaly, between Carthage and Trent, and in fact at Trent we find the rejection of the deuterocanonicals to be commonplace. If I remember correctly only 44% of those who voted on the canon at Trent voted in favor of including the deutero’s.
 
O.S.Luke said:
Not all the Reformers changed it. And there is no argument of this.

What’s the point of this thread? 🤷
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That the origins of scripture and specifically the New Testament canon rests within the Catholic-Orthodox Church?
 
No a civilized methodist like you will arge that but some SDAs and fundamental baptists do:banghead:
 
Furthermore, before the collection of the NT books was finally settled at the Council of Carthage, 397, we find that there were three distinct classes into which the Christian writings were divided. This we know (and every scholar admits it) from the works of early Christian writers like Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and a whole host of others that I could name. These classes were:
  1. The books acknowledged as canonical
  2. Books ‘disputed’ or ‘controverted’
  3. Books declared ‘spurious’ or false.
    Now, in class 1, those acknowledged by Christians everywhere to be genuine and authentic, and to have been written by Apostolic men, we find such books as the Four Gospels, 13 Epistles of St. Paul, Acts of the Apostles. These were recognized east and west as ‘Canonical’, genuinely the works of the Apostles and Evangelists whose names they bore, worthy of being in the ‘Canon’ or sacred collection of inspired writings of the church, and read aloud at Holy Mass.
    But there was (2) a class and Protestants should particularly take notice of the fact, as it utterly undermines their Rule of Faith ‘the Bible and the Bible only’–of books that were disputed, controverted, in some places acknowledged, in others rejected; and among these we actually find the Epistle of St. James, Epistle of St. Jude, 2nd Epistle of St. Peter; 2nd and 3rd of St. John, Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocylypse of St. John.
    Class (3) were spurious and false, full of absurd fables, and superstitious.
I shall finish this later as I am very tired.
 
Benedict16 said:
Furthermore, before the collection of the NT books was finally settled at the Council of Carthage, 397, we find that there were three distinct classes into which the Christian writings were divided. This we know (and every scholar admits it) from the works of early Christian writers like Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and a whole host of others that I could name. These classes were:
  1. The books acknowledged as canonical
  2. Books ‘disputed’ or ‘controverted’
  3. Books declared ‘spurious’ or false.
    Now, in class 1, those acknowledged by Christians everywhere to be genuine and authentic, and to have been written by Apostolic men, we find such books as the Four Gospels, 13 Epistles of St. Paul, Acts of the Apostles. These were recognized east and west as ‘Canonical’, genuinely the works of the Apostles and Evangelists whose names they bore, worthy of being in the ‘Canon’ or sacred collection of inspired writings of the church, and read aloud at Holy Mass.
    But there was (2) a class and Protestants should particularly take notice of the fact, as it utterly undermines their Rule of Faith ‘the Bible and the Bible only’–of books that were disputed, controverted, in some places acknowledged, in others rejected; and among these we actually find the Epistle of St. James, Epistle of St. Jude, 2nd Epistle of St. Peter; 2nd and 3rd of St. John, Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocylypse of St. John.
    Class (3) were spurious and false, full of absurd fables, and superstitious.
I shall finish this later as I am very tired.
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I don’t see how you can say the canon was finally settled at Carthage. Can you explain what you mean by “finally settled”?
 
Yea sure…The Roman See in the fourth century of our era prevented anything spurious being admitted into it. There were spurious books ‘floating’ about in the Christian church, without a doubt in the early centuries; this is certain, because we know their very names; and it is precisely in her rejection of these, and in her guarding we now see the great work that the Catholic church did, under God’s Holy spirit, for all succeeding generations of christians, whether within the fold or outside of it.
It is through the Roman Catholic church that Protestants have got their Bible; there is not a Protestant that vilifies and condemns the Catholic church for her treatment of Holy Scripture, but owes it to that church that he has the Scripture at all.
What mighty God might have done if Rome had not handed down the Bible to us is a fruitless speculation with which we have nothing whatever to do.
What we are concerned with is the order of things and the sequence of history in which we are now living, and which we know, and which consequently God has divinely disposed; and in this arrangement of history it is a fact, as clear as any other historical fact, that Almighty God chose the Catholic church, and only her, to give us His Holy Scriptures, and to give them as we have them ow, neither greater nor less. And I have proved it in my previous posts.
 
Benedict16 said:
Yea sure…The Roman See in the fourth century of our era prevented anything spurious being admitted into it. There were spurious books ‘floating’ about in the Christian church, without a doubt in the early centuries; this is certain, because we know their very names; and it is precisely in her rejection of these, and in her guarding we now see the great work that the Catholic church did, under God’s Holy spirit, for all succeeding generations of christians, whether within the fold or outside of it.
It is through the Roman Catholic church that Protestants have got their Bible; there is not a Protestant that vilifies and condemns the Catholic church for her treatment of Holy Scripture, but owes it to that church that he has the Scripture at all.
What mighty God might have done if Rome had not handed down the Bible to us is a fruitless speculation with which we have nothing whatever to do.
What we are concerned with is the order of things and the sequence of history in which we are now living, and which we know, and which consequently God has divinely disposed; and in this arrangement of history it is a fact, as clear as any other historical fact, that Almighty God chose the Catholic church, and only her, to give us His Holy Scriptures, and to give them as we have them ow, neither greater nor less. And I have proved it in my previous posts.
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I just don’t see how you can say Carthage or Hippo settled the canon since neither of those councils were ecumenical and their canon doesn’t match Trent’s dogmatic declaration of the canon.

Additionaly the vulgate that was sent out contained the deutero’s but also contained Jerome’s negative comments to their canonocity causing many to doubt their inspiration. Even at Trent we find only 44% of those who were tasked with voting on the canon voting in the affirmative when it came to canonizing the deutero’s.
 
What Church did those that canonized The Holy Bible belong to?

[SIGN]Hint: Only a name is needed. 👍 [/SIGN]
 
Pwrlftr said:
I just don’t see how you can say Carthage or Hippo settled the canon since neither of those councils were ecumenical and their canon doesn’t match Trent’s dogmatic declaration of the canon.
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It is important to note how Carthage (419 AD) settled this:

Let this be sent to our brother and fellow bishop, Boniface, and to the other bishops of those parts, that they may confirm this canon, for these are the things which we have received from our fathers to be read in church.

It is interesting that the canon was sent to the bishop of Rome for confirmation and approval, as well as to the other bishops in their Patriarchates. So we can see that the Council, even though local, has sent the canon to the other Patriarchs and bishops for confirmation, and no one objected. So the matter, as far as the Church was concerned, was already settled. 1,000 years later, Protestantism came along, and decided for itself that the matter wasn’t fully settled, at which Rome replied that it already was with the Council of Trent. Trent reaffirmed what was done in Carthage 1,000 years previously.
 
Milliardo said:
It is important to note how Carthage (419 AD) settled this:

Let this be sent to our brother and fellow bishop, Boniface, and to the other bishops of those parts, that they may confirm this canon, for these are the things which we have received from our fathers to be read in church.

It is interesting that the canon was sent to the bishop of Rome for confirmation and approval, as well as to the other bishops in their Patriarchates. So we can see that the Council, even though local, has sent the canon to the other Patriarchs and bishops for confirmation, and no one objected. So the matter, as far as the Church was concerned, was already settled. 1,000 years later, Protestantism came along, and decided for itself that the matter wasn’t fully settled, at which Rome replied that it already was with the Council of Trent. Trent reaffirmed what was done in Carthage 1,000 years previously.
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If the canon was settled at either Hippo or Carthage, why did the pope authorize the vulgate to be sent out complete with Jerome’s negative comments to the canonocity of the deutero’s which caused many to doubt their canonocity?

Why do we find Pope Gregory the Great rejecting Maccabee’s?

Why was the Glossa Ordinaire the main study bible of the church for centuries but contained text that rejected the canonocity of each of the deutero’s?

Why did both Cardinal’s Ximenes and Cajetan reject the deutero’s? Ximenes went as far as to have a bible published which rejected the deutero’s.

Why did only 44% of the cardinals/bishops at Trent who were tasked with determining the canon vote in favor of including the deutero’s?

Why did/does Trent’s canon differ from Carthage and Hippo? In particulare if the canon of Carthage was approved by the pope at that time, why would Trent’s canon differ?

I just don’t see how anyone can say the canon was settled at any of the earlier councils in particular since they weren’t ecumenical.
 
Pwrlftr said:
If the canon was settled at either Hippo or Carthage, why did the pope authorize the vulgate to be sent out complete with Jerome’s negative comments to the canonocity of the deutero’s which caused many to doubt their canonocity?
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There is need to still have the comments of Jerome on it, to balance out things and let people decide for themselves. It wouldn’t help if Jerome had comments on it and it was suppressed, when it would be critical for the overall evaluation of the canon. The point is despite the comments on it, the canon stayed as it was without revision or deletion.
Why do we find Pope Gregory the Great rejecting Maccabee’s?
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The better question is, did the Pope order the canon to be revised or Maccabees deleted from the canon? That it was never done will already show a lot.
Why did both Cardinal’s Ximenes and Cajetan reject the deutero’s? Ximenes went as far as to have a bible published which rejected the deutero’s.
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Again, same point as above; each and every objection you raised can be answered simply thus: with each supposed objection, was there any move to revise or edit the canon? If there was none, then we can see that these objections were found to be baseless as a whole, and the canon stayed. Trent reaffirmed Carthage; Carthage completed the canon, and the Church found it sound despite the few objections made by some. We can go on with saying this and that person had an objection but it will come back to one point–the Church did not make a move to revise or delete the canon, thus we can see that as far as the Church was concerned, the canon is sound.
Why did/does Trent’s canon differ from Carthage and Hippo? In particulare if the canon of Carthage was approved by the pope at that time, why would Trent’s canon differ?
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In what way would they differ?
 
Pwrlftr said:
Your church didn’t dogmatically declare the canon until Trent.
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I’m sorry, but that’s not an answer to the question.

The question was, what Church did the canonizers of The Holy Bible belong to (I even gave a hint as to what the answer was…it was a “name”)?

(Not said rudely or sarcastically) I didn’t ask for a “when” or a “how” or for even a reference to The Church, but for the “name”.

Do you know the name of that Church?
 
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