Certain video too uncharitable toward Martin Luther?

[SirStephen]

Jon,

The canon was first formally set in 382 at the Council of Rome and was ratified by the Decree of Pope Damasus. It was confirmed by Council of Hippo (393 a.d.) and Carthage (397 a.d.). No less a personage than St. Augustine himself had to stand down St. Jerome. The canon has not only never changed, it has never been at serious risk of being changed within the Catholic Church. Trent was careful to “affirm” the original canon so as to make clear that they were making no modifications. In his book Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger, Gary Michuta verifies your observation that the canon was always argued but also that it was never at risk of being changed. He also points out that St. Jerome’s commentaries were always at the core of the contention.

Jerome’s contention that the Old Testament be based on the Hebrew Canon was heavily influenced by the fact that he lived in Jerusalem and studied with the Rabbi’s. Hence, his mastery of Hebrew is uncontested, a point that modern scholars should not lose sight of given that their understanding is only academic. The surviving rabbinate was Pharisaic, going back to somewhere between 90 a.d. (those making the questionable “Council of Jamnia” argument) to 132 a.d. (more likely, those associating the initial setting of the Jewish Canon with the High Priest Akiva and the Koch Bar Rebellion). What can be said is that it was in this time that the Septuagint was rejected along with all non-Hebrew texts along with the entire Christian canon. From the Catholic perspective, the canon in use at the time of Christ can be shown to have been the Septuagint, that it was used by the Apostles when writing New Testament scriptures, and that, after the Pentecost, the mantle for establishing the inspiration of texts shifted to the Christian community. Hence, any decision by the Jewish authorities on the inspirational value of texts after that point had no bearing on the status of Old Testament texts moving forward. On the rejection of the Septuagint, this made sense from a Jewish perspective. Following the destruction of the Temple and being made a diaspora population, the decision was to fix on only the Hebrew texts so as to preserve a sense of identity. This may not have been clear to Jerome in his time. It was only with the translation of the Hebrew copy of the Septuagint found at Qumran that we know that the Kione Greek was a direct and accurate copy of that text instead of being a poor “gisted” translation of the Pharisaic canon. Certainly this was not known in Luther’s time.

Regarding Martin Luther’s treatment of the Deuterocanon, from Gary Michuta’s Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger, on pages 153-4:

Luther’s German Translation introduced more than one radical innovation. With rare exceptions, Christian bibles before Luther had not only included he Deuterocanon, but had intermixed by them category among the Protocanon of the Old Testament. … It was Luther’s bible which broke with this traditional practice in favor of a new chronological or near chronological order. This new arrangement may have proved advantageous for those readers who wished to pursue the Bible cover to cover, but the new order removed the Deuterocanonical books from their former place in the story of salvation. Luther’s new order inevitably lead those who read his bible (and the translation that followed his) to view the Deuterocanon as something extraneous to the word of God. Luther’s second novelty was the gathering of the Deuterocanonical books into an appendix at the end of the Old Testament and marking them Apocrypha. The title page of this new appendix is prefaced by the following explanatory remark:

• Apocrypha – that is, books which are not held equal to the Holy Scriptures, and yet are profitable and good to read. (Citation to Luther’s German Bible (1545), as quoted in Metzger, Introduction, 183.)

 

[SirStephen]

By what authority did Luther come to his conclusions? Nothing but his own personal authority, which is no authority at all. The Catholic Church speaks with the authority given to it directly by Jesus Christ as described by Holy Scripture. And Jesus Christ give that authority only to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is God-made. The Protestant churches are man-made.

Ran

Ran, it is important to keep in mind that at the time of Luther, the Church was so corrupt, and the especially the Papacy, that there was a movement within Catholic theological circles actively debating a corollary doctrine on authority. Having come off the Babylonian captivity where the Popes were pawns of the French court followed shortly thereafter by the outrageously corrupt period of the Medici and Borgia control of the papacy (the HBO series is reasonably accurate wrt the level of corruption), even hard core Catholic encyclopedias and related treatments cast an extremely dim light on the Papacy of that era. It is lucky that their corruption never actually touched the theology. It is also true that they were actually shaking the faithful down.

While things developed along lines that caused a breach, it should be noted that nothing of Luther’s 95 Theses were heretical. In fact, reforms were radiating out from Italy at the time. They had not reached the backwater of Northern Germany.

SCC

 

[RobbyS]

Jon,

The canon was first formally set in 382 at the Council of Rome and was ratified by the Decree of Pope Damasus. It was confirmed by Council of Hippo (393 a.d.) and Carthage (397 a.d.). No less a personage than St. Augustine himself had to stand down St. Jerome. The canon has not only never changed, it has never been at serious risk of being changed within the Catholic Church. Trent was careful to “affirm” the original canon so as to make clear that they were making no modifications. In his book Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger, Gary Michuta verifies your observation that the canon was always argued but also that it was never at risk of being changed. He also points out that St. Jerome’s commentaries were always at the core of the contention.

Jerome’s contention that the Old Testament be based on the Hebrew Canon was heavily influenced by the fact that he lived in Jerusalem and studied with the Rabbi’s. Hence, his mastery of Hebrew is uncontested, a point that modern scholars should not lose sight of given that their understanding is only academic. The surviving rabbinate was Pharisaic, going back to somewhere between 90 a.d. (those making the questionable “Council of Jamnia” argument) to 132 a.d. (more likely, those associating the initial setting of the Jewish Canon with the High Priest Akiva and the Koch Bar Rebellion). What can be said is that it was in this time that the Septuagint was rejected along with all non-Hebrew texts along with the entire Christian canon. From the Catholic perspective, the canon in use at the time of Christ can be shown to have been the Septuagint, that it was used by the Apostles when writing New Testament scriptures, and that, after the Pentecost, the mantle for establishing the inspiration of texts shifted to the Christian community. Hence, any decision by the Jewish authorities on the inspirational value of texts after that point had no bearing on the status of Old Testament texts moving forward. On the rejection of the Septuagint, this made sense from a Jewish perspective. Following the destruction of the Temple and being made a diaspora population, the decision was to fix on only the Hebrew texts so as to preserve a sense of identity. This may not have been clear to Jerome in his time. It was only with the translation of the Hebrew copy of the Septuagint found at Qumran that we know that the Kione Greek was a direct and accurate copy of that text instead of being a poor “gisted” translation of the Pharisaic canon. Certainly this was not known in Luther’s time.

Regarding Martin Luther’s treatment of the Deuterocanon, from Gary Michuta’s Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger, on pages 153-4:

Luther’s German Translation introduced more than one radical innovation. With rare exceptions, Christian bibles before Luther had not only included he Deuterocanon, but had intermixed by them category among the Protocanon of the Old Testament. … It was Luther’s bible which broke with this traditional practice in favor of a new chronological or near chronological order. This new arrangement may have proved advantageous for those readers who wished to pursue the Bible cover to cover, but the new order removed the Deuterocanonical books from their former place in the story of salvation. Luther’s new order inevitably lead those who read his bible (and the translation that followed his) to view the Deuterocanon as something extraneous to the word of God. Luther’s second novelty was the gathering of the Deuterocanonical books into an appendix at the end of the Old Testament and marking them Apocrypha. The title page of this new appendix is prefaced by the following explanatory remark:

• Apocrypha – that is, books which are not held equal to the Holy Scriptures, and yet are profitable and good to read. (Citation to Luther’s German Bible (1545), as quoted in Metzger, Introduction, 183.)

Very good commentary. Speaking of St. Jerome, he was also a master of Greek, fluent in the way no modern scholar can possibly be, and so his translation of the New Testament into Latin OUGHT to be bowed to. Certainly his knowledge of Greek was surperior to that Of Erasmus and he must have had access to manuscripts that no 16th century, or 21st century scholar has access to. Iy could be that his portion of the Vulgate is still a more reliable translation of the original Greek than any version in a modern language.

 

[SirStephen]

Very good commentary. Speaking of St. Jerome, he was also a master of Greek, fluent in the way no modern scholar can possibly be, and so his translation of the New Testament into Latin OUGHT to be bowed to. Certainly his knowledge of Greek was surperior to that Of Erasmus and he must have had access to manuscripts that no 16th century, or 21st century scholar has access to. Iy could be that his portion of the Vulgate is still a more reliable translation of the original Greek than any version in a modern language.

Your point is spot on. A few commentaries in this thread state that many in the Western Roman Empire - it was still the Roman Empire in the time of Jerome - lacked proficiency in Greek. What a hoot. It was among the lingua francas of the time. And as I suggested and you brought out, a fluent speaker of Latin, Kione Greek and Hebrew, where the language was alive and the nuances understood and lived, placed Jeromes translations on a much higher level than what is even possible today. Same is true with Augustine and the educated (at least wrt the K Greek).

It is one of the conceits of our time that that scholars today would presume, in the main, to challenge the veracity of Jerome as if coming from a intellectually higher plane. As for the historical critical approach, while it has its place, it has been made to do too much in the interest of – well, you name it.

 

[RyanBlack]

Your point is spot on. A few commentaries in this thread state that many in the Western Roman Empire - it was still the Roman Empire in the time of Jerome - lacked proficiency in Greek. What a hoot. It was among the lingua francas of the time. And as I suggested and you brought out, a fluent speaker of Latin, Kione Greek and Hebrew, where the language was alive and the nuances understood and lived, placed Jeromes translations on a much higher level than what is even possible today. Same is true with Augustine and the educated (at least wrt the K Greek).

It is one of the conceits of our time that that scholars today would presume, in the main, to challenge the veracity of Jerome as if coming from a intellectually higher plane. As for the historical critical approach, while it has its place, it has been made to do too much in the interest of – well, you name it.

Actually, by the time of Ss. Jerome and Augustine, proficiency in Greek was becoming increasingly limited in the West, oftentimes limited to the ruling class. By the early 5th century, I don’t think Greek could any longer be called the lingua franca of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, while St. Jerome had an excellent command of Greek, St. Augustine–as educated was he was–did not, as he readily acknowledged.

 

[RobbyS]

Actually, by the time of Ss. Jerome and Augustine, proficiency in Greek was becoming increasingly limited in the West, oftentimes limited to the ruling class. By the early 5th century, I don’t think Greek could any longer be called the lingua franca of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, while St. Jerome had an excellent command of Greek, St. Augustine–as educated was he was–did not, as he readily acknowledged.

Somewhere I have read that Jerome grew up in a Greek-speaking community and so knew the language from childhood. If so, then that would have given him a huge advantage as a scholar. As Koine was always a “street language,” by living on that street, you acquired understandings that no “alien”can hope to acquire.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

The canon was first formally set in 382 at the Council of Rome and was ratified by the Decree of Pope Damasus. It was confirmed by Council of Hippo (393 a.d.) and Carthage (397 a.d.). No less a personage than St. Augustine himself had to stand down St. Jerome. The canon has not only never changed, it has never been at serious risk of being changed within the Catholic Church. Trent was careful to “affirm” the original canon so as to make clear that they were making no modifications. In his book Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger, Gary Michuta verifies your observation that the canon was always argued but also that it was never at risk of being changed. He also points out that St. Jerome’s commentaries were always at the core of the contention.

The “Council” of Rome and the “Council” of Hippo at best attempted to solidify the canon for the Latinate Church. The Churches of the East all had their own biblical canons—which are all longer than the Western Canon—and thus they either ignored the rulings of Rome and Hippo or were simply ignorant of them. (Thus, Gary Michuta could have just as easily titled his book Why Catholic Bibles Are Smaller–it all depends on whose canons are being compared.)

There have been numerous threads here about the tenuous place of the book of Baruch, which didn’t show up in the Western Canon until the 9th century (forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=713745)

The canon in use at the time of Christ can be shown to have been the Septuagint.

This could have only been the case in the Greek speaking world. And even if a canonical Septuagint had existed at the time, why did the West choose to develop their own shorter canon?

Hebrew copy of the Septuagint found at Qumran that we know that the Kione Greek was a direct and accurate copy of that text instead of being a poor “gisted” translation of the Pharisaic canon. Certainly this was not known in Luther’s time.

There was no Hebrew copy of the Septuagint found at Qumran.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Very good commentary. Speaking of St. Jerome, he was also a master of Greek, fluent in the way no modern scholar can possibly be, and so his translation of the New Testament into Latin OUGHT to be bowed to. Certainly his knowledge of Greek was surperior to that Of Erasmus and he must have had access to manuscripts that no 16th century, or 21st century scholar has access to. Iy could be that his portion of the Vulgate is still a more reliable translation of the original Greek than any version in a modern language.

The amazing this is that today we have biblical manuscripts that are much older than those that would have been available to Jerome.

 

[SirStephen]

With apologies, I will take this response in a few bites.

With apologies, I really must throw down the (you know what) flag. Accusing Voris of “bearing false witness” is simply inappropriate. He is fundamentally correct with regard to both the question of consubstantiation and Luther’s taking the Deuterocanonicals out of the Bible. There are some semantic word games going on that obscure this. The term “consubstantiation” has come to apply to Luther’s concept of “true presence” when compared to the Catholic. That the actual term “consubstantiation” was coined later to identify Luther’s concept does not change this. However lacking in its merits, “consubstantiation” has become the common use term used to identify a Lutheran construct even as it may also be true that it does not necessarily fully comport with the Lutheran views that the term has come to identify (but not define). From New Advent, the Catholic Encyclopedia, on Consubstantiation, it states that “it (consubstantiation) was maintained by Wyclif (Trialog, IV, 6, 10) and Luther (Walch, XX 1228), and is the view of the High Church party among the Anglicans at the present time.” New Advent goes even deeper in this discussion wrt Luther in its discussion of Luther where it states:

• The casus belli was the doctrine of the Eucharist. Carlstadt in his two treatises (26 Feb. and 16 March, 1525), after assailing the “new Pope”, gave an exhaustive statement of his doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. The literal interpretation of the institutional words of Christ “this is my body” is rejected, the bodily presence flatly denied. Luther’s doctrine of consubstantiation, that the body is in, with, and under the bread, was to him devoid of all Scriptural support. Scripture neither says the bread “is” my body, nor “in” the bread is my body, in fact it says nothing about bread whatever. The demonstrative pronoun “this”, does not refer to the bread at all, but to the body of Christ, present at the table. When Jesus said “this is my body”, He pointed to Himself, and said “this body shall be offered up, this blood shall be shed, for you”. The words “take and eat” refer to the proffered bread — the words “this is my body” to the body of Jesus. He goes further, and maintains that “this is” really means “this signifies”. Accordingly grace should be sought in Christ crucified, not in the sacrament. Among all the arguments advanced none proved more embarrassing than the deictic “this is”. It was the insistence on the identical interpretation of “this” referring to the present Christ, that Luther used as his most clenching argument in setting aside the primacy of the pope at the Leipzig Disputation. Carlstadt’s writings were prohibited, with the result that Saxony, as well as Strasburg, Basle, and now Zurich forbade their sale and circulation. This brought the leader of the Swiss reform movement, Zwingli, into the fray, as the apologist of Carlstadt, the advocate of free speech and unfettered thought, and ipso facto Luther’s adversary.

As common usage, even Merriam-Webster defines consubstantiation in a way that specifically associates it with Luther:

Definition of CONSUBSTANTIATION
: the actual substantial presence and combination of the body and blood of Christ with the eucharistic bread and wine according to a teaching associated with Martin Luther — compare TRANSUBSTANTIATION

From the Encyclopedia Britannica discussion on “Real Presence,” we have:

• TITLE: Protestantism (Christianity)
SECTION: Luther’s manifesto
…taught the doctrine of consubstantiation, though he never used that term. He believed that the Lord’s Supper was one of the central mysteries of the faith and that the body of Christ was physically present in the communion offering because Christ said, “This is my body.” Therefore, Christ’s body must be “with, in, and under” the elements of the offering. The bread and…

• TITLE: Lutheranism (Christianity)
SECTION: Church, sacraments, and ministry
…that in the Lord’s Supper Christ is bodily present “in, with, and under bread and wine” proved to be the great divisive issue of the 16th century. The Lutheran teaching of the “real” presence left open the question of whether Christ is present in the bread and wine because he is present everywhere, ubiquitously, as some Lutherans contend, or because he promises…

From The Theopedia – An Encyclopedia of Christianity
• Consubstantiation is commonly—though erroneously—associated with the teachings of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon. Lutheran teachings reject any attempt to explain philosophically the means by which Christ is present in the Eucharist. Luther did teach that the body and blood of Christ are present “in, with, and under the forms” of bread and wine, and present-day Lutherans hold to this statement while disagreeing about its exact meaning. Some Lutherans do use the term “consubstantiation” to refer to this belief, but the theology intended is not the same as the philosophical theory described above.

I could keep this going. I understand both that consubstantiation refers to Lutheran concepts of the Eucharist even as I also accept - and would not presume to contest - when Lutheran theologians insist that this term is inadequate or even inaccurate when used as a definition. Protestant, Catholic, secular and even some Lutheran sources associate the term with Luther and Lutheranism. As most of the sources accurately associate the term with Luther’s “in, with, and under the bread and wine” construct, the association is not entirely unreasonable. In its normal usage, the term is not used in a derogatory manner to disparage Lutherans. Hence, Voris is on very firm ground when using the term “consubstantiation” as applied to Luther’s concept of communion as his central point was that Luther’s position broke from Rome in a manner that was in-line with the point Voris’ sought to make.

 

[SirStephen]

Voris is also correct when stating that Luther “cut” the Deuterocanonicals from the cannon of sacred scripture. Cutting through the clutter, this is a historical fact. As just noted in an earlier post relying on Michuta, Luther removed the Deuterocanonicals from the body of the Old Testament and did in fact re-classify them as Apocrypha that designated them as uninspired. This constitutes “cutting” it from the Bible because it was redacted from the canon as inspired text. Hence, in the sense that Luther de-sacralized the Deuterocanonicals, it is demonstrably true that he “cut” them from the canon of sacred scripture regardless of whether he still printed them as Apocrypha in the process.

Regarding the Orthodox community, at best, all one can argue is that they included more Deuterocanonical texts than did the Catholic Church and yet accepted all the Deuterocanons decreed by the Church from the Decree of Pope Damasus. As important, the Orthodox Church attended the Synod of Carthage (397 a.d.) that ratified the Decree of Pope Damasus (382 a.d.). St. Augustine presided over the Synods of Hippo and the two Carthages and successfully defended the Septuagint’s status, including against St. Jerome. Also, the Orthodox Community did not formally recognize the additional Deuterocanonicals until the Council of Jerusalem in 1672. All of the Apostolic Churches that reach back to the Apostolic era recognize all the Deuterocanons in the Catholic canon and have since the canon was first set in 382. There is no record of any protests from the Eastern Churches from that time. Only Protestant denominations, including Lutherans, excluded them from their canon some 1100 years later. In this, it should not be lost on anyone that the technical arguments followed (did not precede) the theological need to do so to eliminate contradictions.

Regarding St. Augustine, it was noted in a post that he did not speak Greek. Kione Greek was the Greek of St. Augustine’s time. When noting his dislike for Greek, it concerned his young school years when he struggled to get through Homer (Archaic Greek) and of his need to use translation aides to translate classic Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle as a “professor”. Yet he did get through them. In fact, St. Augustine’s treatment of Plotinus in his City of God is from his own translation. Hence, his self-deprecations concerning his failings in Greek should not be taken to mean he was without ability.

Left unstated in this discussion thread is an issue of central importance. The reason the Deuterocanonicals prevailed had much to do with the fact that they were known to be a part of the canon, the Septuagint, that was used by the Apostles when writing their inspired words when quoting the Old Testament thus elevating the status of those words as well. To deny the Septuagint, in some sense, was to undermine the New Testament Canon that drew from it while under the influence of that inspiration. While one can fairly suppose that St. Augustine could have been receptive to St. Jerome’s arguments as an intellectual pursuit, they necessarily had to be trumped by higher considerations concerning the nature of inspiration.

Hence, it is misleading to say that Voris misstated anything. If one feels that he did, state it and refute it substantively. The idea that Voris was “bearing false witness” or being “uncharitable” is incorrect and inappropriate. He is correct in his statements that end up reflecting settled understandings of what constitutes Luther’s views using the common-use terms to identify them. What is uncharitable is the invective – comingled with unsubstantiated claims by many Catholics in this forum – directed at Voris in the name of branding him uncharitable. I am all for ecumenism and getting along with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and even in narrowing the gaps, but not at the expense of truth even when rigorously stated, even when not in the form one would prefer. While the Alinskyist-style turn on the repurposing of Catholic terms like charity is for another discussion, it should be noted that its use to passive-aggressively silence debate puts it in the service of enforcing intolerance in the name of tolerance. This is specifically what Pope Benedict refers to when stating his deep concern regarding extreme relativism, in this instance through a seemingly benign form of what Pope Benedict labels “negative tolerance”:

• A new intolerance is spreading, that is quite obvious … These then are announced in terms of so-called “negative tolerance” … With that we are basically experiencing the abolition of tolerance … In the name of tolerance, tolerance is being abolished; this is a real threat we face. (Pope Benedict, Light of the World, 52, 53)

 

[SirStephen]

Finally, a few pointers regarding other later comments. 1) Greek was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire as was Latin. The Western Academies taught it and, as noted earlier, even as St. Augustine disliked it, he, along with the other students, were taught it. St. Jerome was conversant in Koine Greek not as a classicist studying of past language but rather as a contemporary speaker of the language. 2) It is premature to argue too large a distinction between the “Latinate Church” and the Eastern Orthodox when referring to the late 4th/early 5th Centuries concerning issues of doctrine. The “Decree of Damasus” was a Papal decree by a universally recognized see that set a canon that was affirmed at Synods and Councils at Hippo, and Carthage (twice) in that period and for which there is no evidence of opposition. The Council of Trent purposefully used language that affirmed the earlier decrees and pronouncements for the purpose of demonstrating continuity with past decisions. 3) My earlier reference to a “Hebrew copy of the Septuagint” was imprecise shorthand to make the point that the Qumran texts demonstrate that the Septuagint was based on an underlying Hebrew text that was different from the Masoretic Text – a text that was formed after the Apostolic era (when reliance on the Septuagint can be demonstrated). For example, from the Institute for Biblical and Scientific Studies on the Old Testament Scrolls from Qumran:

• Most Scholars saw the LXX as inferior to the Hebrew Bible called the Masoretic Text (MT). With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, this all changed. Ancient Hebrew scrolls were found that follow the LXX, not the Masoretic Text. The DSS showed that the LXX had an underlying Hebrew Text that was different from the MT.

 

[JonNC]

=SirStephen;10055834]With apologies, I will take this response in a few bites.

With apologies, I really must throw down the (you know what) flag. Accusing Voris of “bearing false witness” is simply inappropriate. He is fundamentally correct with regard to both the question of consubstantiation and Luther’s taking the Deuterocanonicals out of the Bible. There are some semantic word games going on that obscure this. The term “consubstantiation” has come to apply to Luther’s concept of “true presence” when compared to the Catholic.

First, Stephen, I do not think voris is "bearing false witness, but I do think he is fundamentally wrong regarding consubstantiation. I do think that one can say that Luther did not regard the D-C’s as scriptural in the same sense that the attested books are. However, as evidenced by the Lutheran Confessions not listing a canon, it cannot be said that Lutherans “reject” them, but only that we view them in a different light. While Catholics may not use scripture to determine doctrine, Lutherans do, and it is in this way that we differentiate between them.

That the actual term “consubstantiation” was coined later to identify Luther’s concept does not change this. However lacking in its merits, “consubstantiation” has become the common use term used to identify a Lutheran construct even as it may also be true that it does not necessarily fully comport with the Lutheran views that the term has come to identify (but not define).

Actually, the term consubstantiation is an earlier term, generally linked to John Duns Scotus, then others used the term to identify the Lutheran belief in the real presence. Otherwise, true.

From New Advent, the Catholic Encyclopedia, on Consubstantiation, it states that “it (consubstantiation) was maintained by Wyclif (Trialog, IV, 6, 10) and Luther (Walch, XX 1228), and is the view of the High Church party among the Anglicans at the present time.” New Advent goes even deeper in this discussion wrt Luther in its discussion of Luther where it states:

• The casus belli was the doctrine of the Eucharist. Carlstadt in his two treatises (26 Feb. and 16 March, 1525), after assailing the “new Pope”, gave an exhaustive statement of his doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. The literal interpretation of the institutional words of Christ “this is my body” is rejected, the bodily presence flatly denied. Luther’s doctrine of consubstantiation, that the body is in, with, and under the bread, was to him devoid of all Scriptural support. Scripture neither says the bread “is” my body, nor “in” the bread is my body, in fact it says nothing about bread whatever. The demonstrative pronoun “this”, does not refer to the bread at all, but to the body of Christ, present at the table. When Jesus said “this is my body”, He pointed to Himself, and said “this body shall be offered up, this blood shall be shed, for you”. The words “take and eat” refer to the proffered bread — the words “this is my body” to the body of Jesus. He goes further, and maintains that “this is” really means “this signifies”. Accordingly grace should be sought in Christ crucified, not in the sacrament. Among all the arguments advanced none proved more embarrassing than the deictic “this is”. It was the insistence on the identical interpretation of “this” referring to the present Christ, that Luther used as his most clenching argument in setting aside the primacy of the pope at the Leipzig Disputation. Carlstadt’s writings were prohibited, with the result that Saxony, as well as Strasburg, Basle, and now Zurich forbade their sale and circulation. This brought the leader of the Swiss reform movement, Zwingli, into the fray, as the apologist of Carlstadt, the advocate of free speech and unfettered thought, and ipso facto Luther’s adversary.

Ok.

As common usage, even Merriam-Webster defines consubstantiation in a way that specifically associates it with Luther:

Definition of CONSUBSTANTIATION
: the actual substantial presence and combination of the body and blood of Christ with the eucharistic bread and wine according to a teaching associated with Martin Luther — compare TRANSUBSTANTIATION

Key word, associated, and it was applied by others to us, not by Lutherans. The intent of Sacramental Union was to compare to Transubstantiation.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica discussion on “Real Presence,” we have:

• TITLE: Protestantism (Christianity)
SECTION: Luther’s manifesto
…taught the doctrine of consubstantiation, though he never used that term. He believed that the Lord’s Supper was one of the central mysteries of the faith and that the body of Christ was physically present in the communion offering because Christ said, “This is my body.” Therefore, Christ’s body must be “with, in, and under” the elements of the offering. The bread and…

How the writer could be so wrong in the first line, then so right in the next is astonishing.

• TITLE: Lutheranism (Christianity)
SECTION: Church, sacraments, and ministry
…that in the Lord’s Supper Christ is bodily present “in, with, and under bread and wine” proved to be the great divisive issue of the 16th century. The Lutheran teaching of the “real” presence left open the question of whether Christ is present in the bread and wine because he is present everywhere, ubiquitously, as some Lutherans contend, or because he promises…

The confessions directly deny ubituity

continued

 

[JonNC]

From The Theopedia – An Encyclopedia of Christianity
• Consubstantiation is commonly—though erroneously—associated with the teachings of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon. Lutheran teachings reject any attempt to explain philosophically the means by which Christ is present in the Eucharist. Luther did teach that the body and blood of Christ are present “in, with, and under the forms” of bread and wine, and present-day Lutherans hold to this statement while disagreeing about its exact meaning. Some Lutherans do use the term “consubstantiation” to refer to this belief, but the theology intended is not the same as the philosophical theory described above.

Best of the listed definitions.

I could keep this going. I understand both that consubstantiation refers to Lutheran concepts of the Eucharist even as I also accept - and would not presume to contest - when Lutheran theologians insist that this term is inadequate or even inaccurate when used as a definition. Protestant, Catholic, secular and even some Lutheran sources associate the term with Luther and Lutheranism. As most of the sources accurately associate the term with Luther’s “in, with, and under the bread and wine” construct, the association is not entirely unreasonable. In its normal usage, the term is not used in a derogatory manner to disparage Lutherans. Hence, Voris is on very firm ground when using the term “consubstantiation” as applied to Luther’s concept of communion as his central point was that Luther’s position broke from Rome in a manner that was in-line with the point Voris’ sought to make.

Following is the Lutheran stance, which, IMO, Mr. Voris is obligated to present and defend his belief against, if his apolegetics are to be considered sincere. IOW, it is of no value to disagree with us over something we disagree with.

Jon

 

[JonNC]

I reference here some of the quotes at this link, as they provide an understanding from Lutheran theologians, not others who disagree with us.

stand-firm.blogspot.com/2012/06/lutheran-view-on-consubstantiation-and.html

One can read the link, but a few quotes:
Dr. Franz Pieper

The discussion of the twofold material and the unio sacramentalis gives rise to the question how to define more definitely the manner (modus) of the taking of body and blood. We say: (1) Because the twofold material is combined into a sacramental unity, that is, since Christ gives His body with the bread and His blood with the wine, we receive with the mouth (manducatio oralis) not merely the bread and wine, but also the body and blood of Christ. (2) Since, however, the union of the material coelestis with the material terrena is not a natural or local, but a supernatural union (no localis inclusio, impanatio, consubstantiatio), we receive the body and blood of Christ with the mouth not in a natural, but in a supernatural manner. On the basis of the unio sacramentalis the Formula of Concord, on the one hand, adheres to the oral receiving of Christ’s body and blood; on the other hand, to the supernatural manner of the reception. It says: “When at the table and during the Supper [mensaie assidens], He [Christ] offers His disciples natural bread and natural wine, which He calls His true body and true blood, at the same time saying: ‘Eat and drink.’ For in view of the circumstances this command evidently cannot be understood otherwise than of oral eating and drinking, however, not in a gross, carnal, Capernaitic, but in a supernatural, incomprehensible way.” (Trigl. 995, Sol. Decl., VII, 64.) [Pieper, Vol. III, 362]

Charles Porterfield Krauth

…When this presence is called substantial and bodily, those words designate not the MODE of presence, but the OBJECT. When the words in, with, under, are used, our traducers know, as well as they know their own fingers, that they do NOT signify a CONSUBSTANTIATION, local co-existence, or impanation. The charge that we hold a local inclusion, or Consubstantiation, is a calumny. The eating and drinking are not physical, but mystical and sacramental. An action is not necessarily figurative because it is not physical. [Charles Porterfield Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007) 768.]

and

II. Consubstantiation. The charge that the Lutheran Church holds this monstrous doctrine has been repeated times without number. In the face of her solemn protestations the falsehood is still circulated. It would be easy to fill many pages with the declarations of the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and of her great theologians, who, without a dissenting voice, repudiate this doctrine, the name and the thing, in whole and in every one of its parts. In the “Wittenberg Concord,” (1536,) prepared and signed by Luther and the other great leaders in the Church, it is said: **“We deny the doctrine of transubstantiation, as we do also deny that the body and blood of Christ are locally included in the bread.” …**The manduction is not a thing of the senses or of reason, but supernatural, mysterious, and incomprehensible. The presence of Christ in the supper is not of a physical nature, nor earthly, nor Capernaitish, and yet it is most true.”

Hermann Sasse

It is impossible to define Luther’s doctrine as consubstantiation. Even the words ‘in the bread’, ‘with the bread’, ‘under the bread’, or ‘in, with, and under the bread’, were never regarded by Luther as more than attempts to express in these old, popular terms inherited from the Middle Ages the great mystery that the bread is the body, the wine is the blood, as the Words of Institution say. [This is My Body: Luther’s Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar, (Adelaide, South Australia: Openbook Publishers, 1959) 129.]

Lots more in the link,and in the Confessions. In fact, without equivocation or qualification, Lutherans do not believe in consubstantiation, but instead reject it, as is the history of every Lutheran theologian from Luther to the present time.

Jon

 

[SirStephen]

JonNC,

I will save your first comment for last. As a general proposition, I accept your comments in the sense that they reflect an ecumenically minded Lutheran’s statement on the position of the Lutheran Church wrt its own doctrines that can also make bona fide claims to representing Lutheran articles of faith. Having married into the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (and also among others), however, I can also easily picture Lutherans taking a less permissive stands (in the context of ecumenism) and not necessarily being wrong for that reason. It’s the tension in almost every Christian community between purist and ecumenists. Let’s call it the “only Nixon could go to China” syndrome. It is fair to say that Voris reflects a more purist view in the Catholic community while not being wrong for it.

On consubstantiation. I have no problems with your comments on the fact that the common-use term associated with Lutheran concepts of “real presence” misses the mark. Yet “consubstantiation” has been the common-use term in larger ecumenical and secular settings. In the prior post, recognition was given to both realities. From my own experience, I am not unsympathetic to having to labor on an issue where the other side successfully but inaccurately defined a term that I’ve had to subsequently deal with as if it were true. It should be noted that the term “consubstantiation” as applied to Lutherans, did not originate from the Catholic side.

With regard to Voris, I think you argue your point too hard when stating that he is obligated to meet a burden others are not required to meet in similar circumstances especially in an instance where it is disproportionate to what Voris said given his message and forum. One can easily visualize a conference on “real presence” as part of an inter se discussion among Lutherans that never uses the term “consubstantial” and yet easily visualize those same Lutheran’s accepting the terms use in an ecumenical or secular forum because it has become – albeit with unwanted baggage - the term (descriptor, tag) associated with the Lutheran concept that is actually used to initiate such discussions and yet not be put-off because of it. I suspect you know this even as it may chafe. A simple Google search would show that if you put the term “consubstantiation” in the field and then entered the letter “v,” you would get, before you keyed anything else in, the search term “consubstantiation v. transubstantiation” with pages of Google hits including multiple hits to Catholic Answers forums that associates the term with Lutheranism – even as many of the discussion threads subsequently reject the association. I would bet that in a forum of “lay” Lutherans, if the terms “sacramental union” and “consubstantiation” were put side by side, a strong plurality – if not a majority – would more readily associate with consubstantiation wrt real presence. (Please don’t take this as a slight, Catholics are just as bad with the term transubstantiation). For the point Voris was making, that Lutheran concepts of real presence broke with the Catholic, his use of the term consubstantiation was fairly argued at a level of granularity that reasonably matched the point he was making.

On the Deuterocanons. Again, I fully respect your explanation of the status of the Deuterocannons from the perspective of an ecumenically minded Lutheran. You know that there are Lutherans who can and do use more fiery invectives when comparing the Lutheran with the Catholic. In either construction, the Lutheran position constitutes an actual substantive break from both Catholic and all Orthodox canons – i.e., of ALL the Apostolic Churches. As stated earlier and restated here, Luther’s German Bible had the following note at the beginning of the Apocrypha:

• Apocrypha – that is, books which are not held equal to the Holy Scriptures, and yet are profitable and good to read. (Citation to Luther’s German Bible (1545), as quoted in Metzger, Introduction, 183.)

“NOT HELD EQUAL TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURE” is a rejection of the Deuterocanons as scripture. From this perspective, Voris is dispositively correct. One senses that, with many Reformation / Counter-Reformation battles receding into history alongside the emerging understanding of the consequences of what is now known from Qumran, that the Deuterocanons will start finding their way back into Protestant canons. The Catholic and Orthodox position holds too much of the high ground along too many axis not for this to happen. There are indicators that this is already happening. Personally, I think 2 Maccabees defines our times scary close.

 

[SirStephen]

Your suggestion that the Catholic Church does not use Scripture to determine doctrine is simply very incorrect. A simple inventory of the footnotes of the current Catechism of the Catholic Church would quickly bear this out. The point at which you say that ‘Lutherans use scripture to establish doctrine,’ the only thing you are ultimately disagreeing with is the status of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church when compared to its Lutheran counterpart on issues of authority. Because, once you establish that Lutherans in fact do set doctrines, you are held to the reality that there must be an entity vested with such authority capable of determining those doctrines with a view to enforcing them. The Catholic Church simply formally recognizes this reality and designates it as such under the category of “Tradition.”

Finally, you are correct, you did NOT say that “Voris was bearing false witness,” others did. I fully respect the positions you take and you for taking them. They reflect a defense of faith that I recognize even as I may disagree. There is some obligation to defend ones faith and minimally, it should mean that one should not be too quick to attack a co-religionist (not the best term but one that comes first to mind) when one is not clear on the underlying datum. This last point is not directed towards you but rather to those Catholics who seem all too eager to condemn Voris and people like him before any case has been made – often in the absence of any case - in an effort, it seems, to validate ones “ecumenical” bona fides at the expense of that faith however (un)tastefully articulated. A purist who states his case in purist terms, Voris still in not wrong for doing so. As indelicately and crass as some may think, Voris is ultimately correct on the Catholic view to the events discussed concerning Luther. Had he been forced into a more academic milieu, he could have easily recast his commentary to that level of granularity and still easily prevailed with no substantive difference between the two levels of commentary. He easily survives the challenges in this instance. Where one can objectify ones comments, attacks based on “charity” should be severely suspect. The fact that this leaves too many in the Catholic crowd with nothing other than resorting to naked “negative tolerance” attacks under the guise of being uncharitable in an attempt to silence such voices is a deep concern. In a question and answer interview that was largely positive on the issue of ecumenism, Jimmy Akin published Pope Benedict’s comments on ecumenism where the Pope expressed the following concerns:

• Today we can note the many good fruits yielded by ecumenical dialogue. However, we must also recognize that the risk of a false irenism * and of indifferentism * — totally foreign to the thinking of the Second Vatican Council — demands our vigilance. This indifferentism is caused by the increasingly widespread opinion that truth is not accessible to man; hence it is necessary to limit oneself to finding rules for a praxis * that can better the world. And like this, faith becomes substituted by a moralism without deep foundations.***

 

[Dave_Noonan]

My earlier reference to a “Hebrew copy of the Septuagint” was imprecise shorthand to make the point that the Qumran texts demonstrate that the Septuagint was based on an underlying Hebrew text that was different from the Masoretic Text – a text that was formed after the Apostolic era (when reliance on the Septuagint can be demonstrated). For example, from the Institute for Biblical and Scientific Studies on the Old Testament Scrolls from Qumran:

• Most Scholars saw the LXX as inferior to the Hebrew Bible called the Masoretic Text (MT). With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, this all changed. Ancient Hebrew scrolls were found that follow the LXX, not the Masoretic Text. The DSS showed that the LXX had an underlying Hebrew Text that was different from the MT.

The fact that the LXX follows a different textual tradition doesn’t make that particular tradition older or superior–simply different. Furthermore, the Qumran sources that follow the proto-Septuagintal text are in the distinct minority. For one source see Lawrence Shiffman, Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism, page 37: “It is now clear that the proportion of the three text types [proto-Septuagintal, proto-Masoretic and proto-Samaritan] are grossly unequal. Proto-Septuagintal and proto-Samaritan texts are available only in small numbers. In fact, most of the biblical manuscripts at Qumran indicate that the proto-Masoretic text type was predominant.” You can also review the numerous posts here on this topic.

To claim that the Masoretic text was “formed” in or after the Apostolic Era is truly ignoring the evidence from Qumran. And since the Catholic Church follows neither the canon nor text of the Septuagint (as opposed to say, the Greek Orthodox Church) and instead defers to the Masoretic Text, it’s really a moot point anyway.

What you might call “imprecise shorthand” others see as playing fast and loose with the facts. This is exactly what is at issue with Voris’ video.

 

[NovusAugustus]

Not uncharitable at all.

 

[RobbyS]

The amazing this is that today we have biblical manuscripts that are much older than those that would have been available to Jerome.

Even assuming we know everything that Jerome ever saw, the advantage of dealing with living languages rather than dead ones must be considered.

 

[RobbyS]

The fact that the LXX follows a different textual tradition doesn’t make that particular tradition older or superior–simply different. Furthermore, the Qumran sources that follow the proto-Septuagintal text are in the distinct minority. For one source see Lawrence Shiffman, Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism, page 37: “It is now clear that the proportion of the three text types [proto-Septuagintal, proto-Masoretic and proto-Samaritan] are grossly unequal. Proto-Septuagintal and proto-Samaritan texts are available only in small numbers. In fact, most of the biblical manuscripts at Qumran indicate that the proto-Masoretic text type was predominant.” You can also review the numerous posts here on this topic.

To claim that the Masoretic text was “formed” in or after the Apostolic Era is truly ignoring the evidence from Qumran. And since the Catholic Church follows neither the canon nor text of the Septuagint (as opposed to say, the Greek Orthodox Church) and instead defers to the Masoretic Text, it’s really a moot point anyway.

What you might call “imprecise shorthand” others see as playing fast and loose with the facts. This is exactly what is at issue with Voris’ video.

There is that the complication that the Jews also used Aramaic translations of the Sctriptures. From what I can tell the language situation in the Holy Land makes it hard to know who was reading what. It is odd that we call our Lord by his Greek name and do not know for sure that he used the Semitic version of his name.