How early were scriptural works considered scripture?

[Contarini]

H
No other “Christian Church” other than Catholicism existed until Luther comes on to the scene 1500 years after Christ to try to hijack the name “Christian” under the banner of the state governments rather than papal rule. To this day there is still only one apostolic Christian faith - Catholicism. Everything else is heretical and man made.

End of topic.

James

Well no, because your claim is obviously false. Here are just a few churches that existed before the Reformation:

The Montanists
The Novatianists
The Donatists
The Church of the East (Nestorians)
The Monophysites
The Orthodox Church (after the schism with Rome)
The Waldenses

There were a lot more, but I’m picking the churches that were unambiguously Christian by any standard (i.e., I missed out the flagrantly heretical Marcionites, Valentinians, Arians, Paulicians, Bogomils, Albigensians, etc.).

Edwin

 

[clmowry]

Well no, because your claim is obviously false. Here are just a few churches that existed before the Reformation:

The Montanists
The Novatianists
The Donatists
The Church of the East (Nestorians)
The Monophysites
The Orthodox Church (after the schism with Rome)
The Waldenses

There were a lot more, but I’m picking the churches that were unambiguously Christian by any standard (i.e., I missed out the flagrantly heretical Marcionites, Valentinians, Arians, Paulicians, Bogomils, Albigensians, etc.).

Edwin

Would you happen to know off the top of your head which non-Catholic Christian churches formed prior to the reformation continue to present times?

Obviously the Orthodox Church &…?

Chuck

 

[utunumsint]

Would you happen to know off the top of your head which non-Catholic Christian churches formed prior to the reformation continue to present times?

Obviously the Orthodox Church &…?

Chuck

I think the Nestorians survive in the Assyrian Church.

God bless,
Ut

 

[CentralFLJames]

Well no, because your claim is obviously false. Here are just a few churches that existed before the Reformation:

The Montanists
The Novatianists
The Donatists
The Church of the East (Nestorians)
The Monophysites
The Orthodox Church (after the schism with Rome)
The Waldenses

There were a lot more, but I’m picking the churches that were unambiguously Christian by any standard (i.e., I missed out the flagrantly heretical Marcionites, Valentinians, Arians, Paulicians, Bogomils, Albigensians, etc.).

Edwin

No - it is you who are wrong because you missed my quotes on ther term “Christian” and are choosing to split semantics here without regard to how I want to use the term. An Arian for example is not Christian - he is simply a heretic or more broadly - non-Catholic.

By definition anyone who follows heretical teaching is not Christian - though they may embrace some portion of the Christian moral code. By your kind of a standard anyone who believes in God would be Christian if they were baptised - even if they later renounced all apostolic teaching and invented anything they wanted.

Anyone who teaches or follows considerably false doctrine from what the apostles taught puts themselves outside the definition of “Christian”. These are not part of The Church anymore so than was Judas when he broke communion with Christ and the other disciples; and just as Luther and his minions broke company with The Church.

The entire OP asks a ridiculous question since it implies that scripture just spontaneously presented itself independent of any recognizing and validating authority.

James

 

[qui_est_ce]

What works were being widely accepted by the church at large that Rome/Hippo had to condemn? I’m not talking about small groups of heretics who never gained any kind of mainstream support (Marcionism or Arianism, for instance).

Arianism was a huge group in the Christian Church. All the Barbarian Christians in Europe were Arians. St. Constantines’ mother, St. Helen of the Cross was Arian. The Vulgate was used by Arians. But this is off topic.

It’s not as though heresy had completely overtaken the church at this point in time.

The implication is that Arians would have to have taken over the Church in order to qualify as a major movement? This is certainly not historically accurate

No – rather, I think that what they did was only clarify the well-accepted opinion of the church at large, though I’m still continuing in research to demonstrate that conclusion.

I think not. St. Athanasius himself did not agree with Pope St. Damasius as to the inclusion of the Septuagint in the Vulgate. (I understand Septuagint is OT, and you wish to discuss NT, I am pointing this out in order to show you that there was disagreement regarding the Scriptual Authority certain writings by mainstream leaders in the Church in the period leading up to the official canon in the Vulgate).

If such primacy had existed, there would have been no reason for the African bishops to dispute Rome’s actions, nor for them to convene their own meeting to declare what works were canon – they would have simply promulgated information from Rome.

This is an incorrect assumption made by you. Primacy of Rome does not rule out that there were dissident bishops. The Council of Trent again reaffirmed the Canon in response to the Reformation. This again is evidence that the Church’s Teachings are more often reactively than proactively defined.

You answered the question of where we get scripture, how it’s preserved and/or how we know scripture is valid.

Ah, what would we know of Scripture had not the Church preserved and reproduced them? The Roman Persecutions burned as much of the writings as they could.

Please, stay on topic here. If you want to discuss the validity of canonical works, start a separate topic for that. I’m just working on the history of the recognition of such.

As we cannot know how much of the hisotorical evidence was destroyed, we have to follow the traditions that continued underground.

It would seem that Christians who had no ability to hear the apostles speak (in far-reaching places where the apostles did not often travel) would have cherished the letters of Paul, and the gospels at least. It would seem other early writings would have been highly valued as well.

Indeed, until the advent of parchment in the 800’s, the papyrus was the medium used for the writings. Papyrus is notoriously fragile and is susceptible to both moisture and excessive dryness, thus fragmenting itself in a short period of time.

Putting aside that I don’t agree there was a “sacred liturgy” as you might think of the concept,

Although this is off topic, you are not properly understanding the concept of the importance of oral teaching over the written word. Jesus only wrote two times in the Bible. Is this to say he never wrote anything? I find this highly doubtful, but again, we have no historical evidence of any writing attributable to him.

In short, I’m trying to piece together a historical timeline regarding the acceptance of various works in “the Bible” as scripture.

It is highly since you reject evidence with which you have been presented here. This is because you would have to become a Catholic (a position you ardently resist from the tone of your posts) if you accepted were to accept evidence. You would have to literally illogical to remain Protestant and maintain that the written word was already well accepted by “mainstream churches” since the earliest writings.

 

[qui_est_ce]

No - it is you who are wrong because you missed my quotes on ther term “Christian” and are choosing to split semantics here without regard to how I want to use the term. An Arian for example is not Christian - he is simply a heretic or more broadly - non-Catholic.

By definition anyone who follows heretical teaching is not Christian - though they may embrace some portion of the Christian moral code. By your kind of a standard anyone who believes in God would be Christian if they were baptised - even if they later renounced all apostolic teaching and invented anything they wanted.

Anyone who teaches or follows considerably false doctrine from what the apostles taught puts themselves outside the definition of “Christian”. These are not part of The Church anymore so than was Judas when he broke communion with Christ and the other disciples; and just as Luther and his minions broke company with The Church.

The entire OP asks a ridiculous question since it implies that scripture just spontaneously presented itself independent of any recognizing and validating authority.

James

I did not mean to contradict you when I used the term “Christian” for the Barbarian Arians, because it is what they called themselves. I realize the Arianism is not Christian, but the Barbarians were not heretics in the sense that they were once Trinitarians, and then became Arians. Rather they converted to Arianism from Paganism. Then gradually to true Christianity.

Your post appeared while I was still working on mine.

My point was they were a major “sect” if you will, that was not Christian, yet accepted the Bible as inspired-inerrant.

 

[Randy_Carson]

This came from another thread, but I figured it’s best answered separately:

How early were the various works in scripture each considered as scriptural by the early church?

I’m not talking about canonization here – I’m asking how early individual churches considered these to be valid as scripture. I hope it’s not the contention of anyone here that no one considered any of them as scripture until a council defined them – after all, these councils consisted of bishops, who each would have had to come to the conclusion of the canonicity of the works some time before the respective councils met to discuss the issue. The question is…how long before? A day, a month, a year, 10 years, a generation or more?

2 Peter 3:16
He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Within the lifetimes of Peter and Paul, Peter, the first Pope writing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has already declared Paul’s writings to be scripture.

Hope this helps. :tiphat:

 

[PC_Master]

No. Stop. If you can’t even do the rudimentary historical analysis to realize that the only text we have referring to the council of Rome comes from the Gelasian Decree, then no one here should listen to you.

Okay – that’s enough. If you can’t present your arguments with a bit of charity, please leave this thread. You’re obviously too wrapped up in this.

The authorship and timeline of the Gelasian Decree, which I will research more fully now that you’re insisting on its validity is (this is fact, not supposition) widely disputed. Period. My apologies for being forceful here, but the fact is that scholarly opinion on this item is divided. I can post another thread on this if you really want, but that’ll take more time than I’d like to spend on this one piece of evidence.

My opinion at this point is that I don’t believe we can say for certain that it actually belongs to the council of Rome, though it’s possible its information is accurate.

You feebly use the council of Rome to try and beat us Catholics over the head with it. Now you question the validity of the only text that references it? Unbelievable.

You’re bringing in part of the topic from the other thread, which doesn’t belong here. Please don’t engage in such thread hijacking. Thank you.

To clarify the point briefly (and then hopefully to move back on to the main topic) – my point was merely that if the Gelasian Decree was authentic and such a decision was actually made at the Council of Rome, then there’s a very odd gap between this decision (made by Rome, the supposed ruler of the whole church) and the other information we have about canonization. However, I’ll state again that this thread isn’t about canonization – if you want to address that, please start a thread of your own. Thanks!

How do you know any of the groups I cited weren’t widely spread out in the Christian community? You just say it, and therefore, it must be true. An authority unto yourself. Perhaps you can provide some historical evidence.

You’re right – I’m making an assumption here. However, why should I believe that such heresy was widespread without historical evidence to support such a claim. In this case, we’re both making assertions. The only difference is that I’m assuming we’d see documentary evidence of how widespread the heresy was, and you’re assuming that we wouldn’t.

Now – if you want to claim that any non-canonical work was widely accepted by the church as a whole at some early point in church history, please do so, but provide some sort of further information demonstrating this. Again, this thread is about establishing how early scripture (and I’ll extend this to encompass heretical works) was accepted as scripture by the church at large.

So would I. What is the “church at large” anyway? You never answered that question.

This is my way of referring to “a majority of the congregations that considered themselves to be Christians”. Is that more clear?

Just within the entire Alexandrian church. Is that a big enough deal for you?

No, because there’s no reason to believe that this spread to other areas. Thus, when comparing from one region to another, it would be obvious which works were accepted by the majority of the church, and which weren’t. And this is what I’m trying to discern here – a timeline of when the majority of the church embraced each written work as scriptural.

All of Egypt is publicly declaring an apocryphal text, and you don’t give a damn. It’s just a small little problem, just like all of the other heresies plaguing the Church that you dismiss so lightly. Christians gave their lives over these things PC.

A heresy contained within a small group does need to be addressed, but it’s a far cry from “without these councils, heresy would have overrun the whole church”, which is the position you seem to be taking.

Then give me your sources. Give me any historical evidence at all.

Why do I need to provide sources to counter claims that have nothing supporting them? It’s true that the burden or proof can be tossed around either way, but it certainly is easier to prove that something was in use than that it wasn’t. So that’s what I’m asking you to do here. You’re saying that the use of heretical works was widespread throughout the whole church, and that this is the reason the councils were so important, right? If so, back up the claim, don’t just do a “I’m going to say it’s true and demand that you prove me wrong” dance. That’s really not fair to any of us (myself included).

Wrong. The council of Carthage that I cited was held in A.D. 419. As usual, you have done no historical analysis, given no citations. And you are just plain wrong. The last council of Carthage was held in the fifth century. But you don’t care.

The last one was indeed in the early fifth century, but many of the others were in the late fourth century (382 [maybe], 393, 397). Anyway, this seems a rather small point, so let’s just drop it.

As for most of the rest of your post – it’s far too heated for me to address. Please rephrase things in a calmer fashion. Also, I’d like to point out that none of what you’ve said shames me, nor should it. I’m just looking for the truth about an issue – I have no axe to grind. And by the way, if your goal is to shame me, as you seem to have said, I’d suggest you look at your motives for being here. Some prayer might be adviseable too.

Continued…

 

[PC_Master]

The canon doesn’t matter?

Scripture is what matters, not what was canonized by a council. Canonization is not the topic of this thread. Again, the topic is how early individual works (heretical or legitimate) were recognized as scripture by the early church. This is a tough quesiton, I’ll admit (due to lack of historical information), but I want to try to answer it separately from the issue of canonization.

…and it is quite evident that you haven’t done any historical analysis to back up your position or refute the Catholic position. That tells me that you don’t care. You’ve already made up your mind on the basis of something else - your own unfounded presuppositions.

This seems to be nothing but hate and slander. I’ll pray for you (and I don’t mean that to be a snide comment or any sort of social engineering – I genuinely will be praying that God will calm your spirit and allow you to look at this with a bit less anger).

It would be interesting to find out how the Protestant reformers determined the canon. Who were they, what were their arguments, what was the processess, then we can conpare it to what we see in early church history.

I agree – this would be interesting to see. However, at the moment I don’t have the time to pursue it.

If someone does want to start that discussion, please start a new thread (don’t hijack this one, please), and provide a link in this thread. Thanks.

Indeed. The books of the Bible *were *Scripture from the moment they were written. They were not “considered” Scripture until some Christian community began using them as such.

Amen to that!

I would like to see evidence for [the claim that there were five different Jewish canons].

After seeing your comments on the subject, I would like to see evidence too. If anyone can recommend some reading on the subject, that’d be great too.

If that’s going to go into much discussion, however, can we move it to another thread as to not destroy this one?

That appears to be the case. But that is irrelevant to the point at issue. You do not have to have universal agreement for a book to be Scripture. You’d have to ask, universal agreement among whom? The very question makes no sense.

True – the question I ask is what the majority of those who claimed themselves Christian believed.

In fact, you’d really have to provided evidence showing that Christians from the first three centuries had a concept of an “infallible declaration” which they recognized hadn’t happened yet, but with criteria which were recognizably met by the fourth-century councils.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head regarding canonization.

One scholar (Carsten Thiede) has claimed this. One swallow does not make a summer. The scholarly consensus is against him.

Do you mean in regards to dating of the gospel, or in regards to the one text? My understanding is that there’s good reason to believe that the synoptic gospels were written before the destruction of the temple in 70AD. Scholarship seems divided on the issue, but there’s at least a strong following for earlier dating.

The only problem is that most scholars think II Peter is not actually by Peter, and was probably written late in the first century or even at the very beginning of the second. I’m on the fence on this, but for purposes of controversial argument we can’t assume that II Peter was written in the 60s.

You bring up a very good point. I’ll have to look into that. Though, if the date is later, this shows that Paul’s letters were still in regular use at this point, possibly indicating that they never stopped being used from the time they were written.

No - it is you who are wrong because you missed my quotes on ther term “Christian” and are choosing to split semantics here without regard to how I want to use the term. An Arian for example is not Christian - he is simply a heretic or more broadly - non-Catholic.

In other words, if such churches that differed with Roman Catholic teaching did actually exist in the early centuries, you wouldn’t call them Christian – so really, your statement that no Christian churches existed except the RCC is begging the question, and thus is useless to us.

Continued…

 

[PC_Master]

The entire OP asks a ridiculous question since it implies that scripture just spontaneously presented itself independent of any recognizing and validating authority.

I don’t know that I’d say it “presented itself” as such, for scripture is comprised of words on a page, and pages are inanimate (last I checked, anyway). However, yes, I think I would suggest what you’re getting at – that scripture was recognized as such without a validating council or whatever.

Regardless – if you think it’s ridiculous, feel free not to participate. But don’t hijack the thread. Thank you.

So, in all, where are we:

II Peter references the works of Paul as scripture. II Peter dates most likely to the late first century, indicating that Paul’s writings were considered scripture at this point.

Justin Martyr (~150AD) writes that the church would gather on Sunday and read from the “memoirs of the apostles” and the “prophets” for as long as time permits. I assume this to reference the gospels and possibly Paul’s works as memoirs, and the Old Testament prophets.

In the late fourth century (382, 394, 397 and later) we have several councils/synods which establish the 27-book canon we have today. I’ve not yet seen evidence that this was contrary to the general belief of the church.

There’s still a lot missing – help me fill it in!

What else do we have?

(I see that several other replies have been posted since I started working on this one. I’ll hopefully have time to address these later.)

 

[guanophore]

I was referring more generally to the form and structure, which I doubt would be even close to the modern Roman Catholic presentation.

Now, bear in mind that this takes after the Jewish custom of, on the Sabbath, reading from the OT scriptures. Also, though this is certainly off-topic, we see no other liturgical form mentioned here. Just a thought.

Actually the pattern is identical to that described in the second century, and not just “Roman”,but all the liturgies East and West that were founded upon Apostolic Teaching. I visited them, just to make sure.

It is, as you say, lifted from the synagogue service that Jesus and the Apostles attended (visted there too!) I think it has bearing on the topic because the only documents read at these services were considered the Word of God. Although the presider would make comments (sermon) that may not be considered as such, the documents themselves were. This is why inclusion in the Liturgy from the first time a work became available was one of the criteria to be included in the canon. For that reason, it is instructive to study the oldest extant litugical forms, because we can seen in them the use of language taken from sources considered scriptural.

The prophets could possibly be referring to the major and minor prophets found in the OT.

Yes, but we must bear in mind that these were rejected as scripture by many Jews, the Saducees being the largest most vocal group.

Bearing in mind that the use of Torah can include much more than the Pentateuch, could you give us a scripture reference for this consideration?

Acts 23:6-10
“Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead I am on trial.” 7 And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sad’ducees; and the assembly was divided. 8 For the Sad’ducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. 9 Then a great clamor arose; and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” 10 And when the dissension became violent…

Paul really seemed to enjoy stirring up this kind of dissention. I suppose it got the focus off himself. The main reason that Sadducees did not believe in resurrection, angel, or spirit is that all these are contained in OT documents outside of the Pentateuch. Well, that is probably not the ONLY reason, but Jesus told them more than once they were wrong, meaning they had the scriptural canon wrong. “You know neither the scriptures…”

Was it? What works were being widely accepted by the church at large that Rome/Hippo had to condemn? I’m not talking about small groups of heretics who never gained any kind of mainstream support (Marcionism or Arianism, for instance). I think we need to be clear about “widely used”. It’s not as though heresy had completely overtaken the church at this point in time.

No – rather, I think that what they did was only clarify the well-accepted opinion of the church at large, though I’m still continuing in research to demonstrate that conclusion.

Continued…

These were not small or insignificant. It was necessary to define and clarify which teaching was Apostolic because these splinter groups were rampant. When you study the schism you will find that 80% of the Eastern Bishops had fallen into the heresy of Ariansim. If it were not for St. Athanasius, the Church would be Arian today!

The link above that lists the many books floating around at the time will provide some clarity. Most of these are not extant today, but even among those that are, the number included is only a fraction (maybe 5%) of what was available.

 

[PC_Master]

All right – here we go:

Arianism was a huge group in the Christian Church.

This is frequently claimed, but the reading material I can find on this (mostly just by Googling for “Arianism” or “Council of Nicea” – admittedly not a comprehensive search) doesn’t seem to support this claim. Got something to back the claim up? From what I can tell, it was even rejected in Alexandria by a Synod.

According to Wikipedia (which I admit could be wrong) only 3 bishops in attendance at the Council of Nicea didn’t sign the Nicene Creed (which conflicted with Arianism). This was out of ~300 bishops in attendance (Wikipedia cites various sources claiming numbers from 250 up to 318).

The Vulgate was used by Arians.

I doubt the Arians were the only ones to use it, so what’s your point here? Events around and after the late fourth century don’t seem to have too much bearing given that we haven’t even really covered the first two centuries of the church in respect to this topic yet.

The implication is that Arians would have to have taken over the Church in order to qualify as a major movement?

No. The point is that you can’t call something that’s represented by 1%, or even 2% or 3% of the church population as widespread. And widespread is what we’re looking for here.

Primacy of Rome does not rule out that there were dissident bishops.

But why wouldn’t Hippo/Carthage simply say “Rome has already said X; the case is closed”? Also, if the majority (say 90% of the church recognized certain works as scripture, do you even need a council to say that they are? If 10% (bear in mind that this is much greater than the number of any of the heresies) want to dispute it, there’s not a lot they can do – and it’s not as though they’ll listen to someone who tells them they’re wrong anyway.

Ah, what would we know of Scripture had not the Church preserved and reproduced them?

Nothing – but this is not the RCC, but rather the church (the community of Christian believers). Even so, you’re getting way into the canonization issue, which isn’t what this thread is about.

As we cannot know how much of the hisotorical evidence was destroyed, we have to follow the traditions that continued underground.

To an extent, I agree with you – but how can we know what those traditions were? We’ve seen the change just in my own lifetime of less than three decades. Thus, we need historical data to verify that things were a certain way. We can’t just assume that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have always been considered scripture on the basis that we call them that today. No, instead we look at history and see that others in the earliest times of the church considered them such as well.

Although this is off topic, you are not properly understanding the concept of the importance of oral teaching over the written word.

It doesn’t apply to this thread.

…you reject evidence with which you have been presented here. This is because you would have to become a Catholic (a position you ardently resist from the tone of your posts) if you accepted were to accept evidence. You would have to literally illogical to remain Protestant and maintain that the written word was already well accepted by “mainstream churches” since the earliest writings.

So your premise is that for over 300 years the church didn’t know which works were scriptural and which were not? Justin Martyr said that they read from the “memoirs of the apostles” (I take this to be at least the gospels, probably Acts, and possibly Paul’s and other writings). The Muratorian fragment seems to indicate that the majority of the churches accepted most of the 27-book canon we have today as scriptural, to be read along with the prophets and the law.

To argue that there was a full canon in place by 100AD seems unprovable, but to say that there was not one in place well before 300AD, at least in terms of common use, seems unbelievable, given the evidence presented in this thread.

Actually the pattern is identical to that described in the second century, and not just “Roman”,but all the liturgies East and West that were founded upon Apostolic Teaching. I visited them, just to make sure.

You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it. Got a link?

Yes, but we must bear in mind that these were rejected as scripture by many Jews, the Saducees being the largest most vocal group.

Your quote, and following supposition is highly speclative. Do you have something a little more concrete?

These were not small or insignificant. It was necessary to define and clarify which teaching was Apostolic because these splinter groups were rampant. When you study the schism you will find that 80% of the Eastern Bishops had fallen into the heresy of Ariansim. If it were not for St. Athanasius, the Church would be Arian today!

80%? All that, and only 3 who refused to sign the Nicene Creed? Are you sure about that? Can you please provide a source for this information? I can’t find anything on this.

The link above that lists the many books floating around at the time will provide some clarity. Most of these are not extant today, but even among those that are, the number included is only a fraction (maybe 5%) of what was available.

Of those not in the canon, which of them had gained widespread use in the church prior to 382? The amount of heretical works matters not if they were not recognized as legitimate works.

 

[guanophore]

This is frequently claimed, but the reading material I can find on this (mostly just by Googling for “Arianism” or “Council of Nicea” – admittedly not a comprehensive search) doesn’t seem to support this claim. Got something to back the claim up? From what I can tell, it was even rejected in Alexandria by a Synod.

This one might be a little more helpful

One of the reasons the Emperor was so keen to have the council was because half of the Empire was Arian, and he was sick of the constant bickering. He wanted the Bishops to make a decision. Same with the Sabbath. He did not want commerce shut down two days in a row, so he wanted them to pick one.

 

[qui_est_ce]

This is frequently claimed, but the reading material I can find on this (mostly just by Googling for “Arianism” or “Council of Nicea” – admittedly not a comprehensive search) doesn’t seem to support this claim. Got something to back the claim up? From what I can tell, it was even rejected in Alexandria by a Synod.

You reject the historical evidence provided by Guanophore based on your admittedly limited knowledge and

According to Wikipedia (which I admit could be wrong) only 3 bishops in attendance at the Council of Nicea didn’t sign the Nicene Creed (which conflicted with Arianism). …

You reject a more credible historical reference provided by Guanophore based on your admittedly limited knowledge and Wikipedia which you also “admit could be wrong” and go on to say:

No. The point is that you can’t call something that’s represented by 1%, or even 2% or 3% of the church population as widespread. And widespread is what we’re looking for here.

Your quote, and following supposition is highly speclative. Do you have something a little more concrete?

It is evident that you are the one who is being speculative

I’m not talking about small groups of heretics who never gained any kind of mainstream support (Marcionism or Arianism, for instance).
qui est ce;3630205:

Arianism was a huge group in the Christian Church. All the Barbarian Christians in Europe were Arians. St. Constantines’ mother, St. Helen of the Cross was Arian. The Vulgate was used by Arians. But this is off topic.
The implication is that Arians would have to have taken over the Church in order to qualify as a major movement? This is certainly not historically accurate I think not. St. Athanasius himself did not agree with Pope St. Damasius as to the inclusion of the Septuagint in the Vulgate. (I understand Septuagint is OT, and you wish to discuss NT, I am pointing this out in order to show you that there was disagreement regarding the Scriptual Authority certain writings by mainstream leaders in the Church in the period leading up to the official canon in the Vulgate).
PC Master;3631474:

I doubt the Arians were the only ones to use it, so what’s your point here? Events around and after the late fourth century don’t seem to have too much bearing given that we haven’t even really covered the first two centuries of the church in respect to this topic yet.

If you would stop taking quotes out of context and dimissing concrete evidence as off topic this thread would be much more productive.

But why wouldn’t Hippo/Carthage simply say “Rome has already said X; the case is closed”?

Speculative on your part.

but this is not the RCC, but rather the church (the community of Christian believers).

Off topic, nevertheless simply historically inaccurate

To an extent, I agree with you – but how can we know what those traditions were? Thus, we need historical data to verify that things were a certain way.

The Catholic Church is the living history of these Tradions. Scripture flows from the Catholic Church, not the other way around. The two cannot be separated, and this is why you OP is illogical.

We’ve seen the change just in my own lifetime of less than three decades.

Off topic, but please elaborate on which teachings of the Church and mass have changed?

Although this is off topic, you are not properly understanding the concept of the importance of oral teaching over the written word. Jesus only wrote two times in the Bible. Is this to say he never wrote anything? I find this highly doubtful, but again, we have no historical evidence of any writing attributable to him. You reject evidence with which you have been presented here.
PC Master;3631474:

So your premise is that for over 300 years the church didn’t know which works were scriptural and which were not?

Again, it would be helpful to the discussion if you responded within context. It is clearly not my premise that for over 300 years the Church did not know which writings were Authoritative and which were not. Various mainstream groups disputed and misinterpreted Scriptures, beginning with the Jews, as Guanophore pointed out.

To argue that there was a full canon in place by 100AD seems unprovable, but to say that there was not one in place well before 300AD, at least in terms of common use, seems unbelievable, given the evidence presented in this thread.

This is simply disingenious on your part. Nowhere was it stated that NO common use was in effect. What was stated is that SOME were disputed. Your all or nothing conclusions over disagreements with your “speculations” along with your transparent need for fuel to attack the Catholic Church serve only to sow doubt as to your integrity.

Of those not in the canon, which of them had gained widespread use in the church prior to 382? The amount of heretical works matters not if they were not recognized as legitimate works.

Heretical works do matter. It is because of heresy that doctrine had to be defined. In other words, much of what is accepted today as Bible was accepted since the earliest times. As the Church grows in her understanding of the the Word, this understanding becomes the basis of defined treaching.

 

[PC_Master]

This one might be a little more helpful

While I appreciate the link, and it is an interesting read, it does little more than make vague reference to how far Arianism had spread. Yes, we know that Arius and others siding with him had sway in the schools of Alexandria. But beyond this, what do we know, and where’s a source that tells us?

In a discussion like this, we cannot assume heresy was widespread without some evidence thereto. If we’re going assume that the heresy had spread so widely, let’s at least admit that we’re making an assumption that is unproven.

One of the reasons the Emperor was so keen to have the council was because half of the Empire was Arian, and he was sick of the constant bickering. He wanted the Bishops to make a decision.

This is simply blind assertion. You’ve shown nothing to indicate that half of the empire actually was Arian (which only relates to this thread in that we could say that at the time of the council of Nicea the church was certainly divided on what works were scripture). What little information I can find doesn’t do anything to substantiate the claim (admittedly I haven’t read through all of the “original” sources yet).

You reject the historical evidence provided by Guanophore based on your admittedly limited knowledge and

No – what Guanophore introduced was a claim that you believe is based on historical evidence. I cannot find evidence to support the claim, so I dismiss it as invalid unless evidence is presented. Since Guanophore has made such claims, he probably has the evidence easily-accessible.

You reject a more credible historical reference provided by Guanophore based on your admittedly limited knowledge and Wikipedia which you also “admit could be wrong” and go on to say:

What “more credible reference” did Guanophore present in this thread that actually provides some specific information about the topic of this thread? I obviously missed it.

If you’re claiming that Wikipedia is wrong, which is admittedly the case, give me specifics: if it wasn’t 3 bishops that opposed signing the Nicene creed, how many was it? How many were ever in support of the Nicene creed? In the mean time, in the interests of fairness, I’ll go consult the sources cited by Wikipedia, and other information I can find, and will try to present those here, as I’m able.

It is evident that you are the one who is being speculative
If you would stop taking quotes out of context and dimissing concrete evidence as off topic this thread would be much more productive.

The goal of this thread is to establish which works were considered scripture, and how early this came to happen – in the context of the majority of the church (not small heretical groups that can’t demonstrate to have held sway with more than a handful of bishops). Now, if Arianism can be demonstrated to have been a very large movement which threatened to throw the whole church into heresy, then we might have some room to discuss their written works.

Speculative on your part.

Questions are supposed to be speculative. Even so, as I’ve said, that particular issue is not the subject of this thread.

Off topic, nevertheless simply historically inaccurate

By your opinion, perhaps, but yes, off-topic.

The Catholic Church is the living history of these Tradions. Scripture flows from the Catholic Church, not the other way around. The two cannot be separated, and this is why you OP is illogical.

Even if this is the case, it’s still worth discussing the history of acceptance of works as scripture.

Again, it would be helpful to the discussion if you responded within context.

I do – it’s just not the context of assuming that the RCC has always existed. I don’t see that as factual, and so do not consider that the context of history.

Continued…

 

[PC_Master]

It is clearly not my premise that for over 300 years the Church did not know which writings were Authoritative and which were not.

Good, good – so this discussion has some merit after all?

If the church knew what scripture was and what it wasn’t, how early did they know this, and what did they say it was?

Various mainstream groups disputed and misinterpreted Scriptures, beginning with the Jews, as Guanophore pointed out.

Judaizers are dealt with directly by Paul (as well as Acts). This happened in the infancy of the church, with the religion they were very closely tied to. Trying to lump Arianism and/or other groups in as mainstream like this is to compare apples to oranges. However, it should also be noted that it’s historically demonstrable (start with Josephus) that Judaism was a very large movement (larger than Christianity) in the beginning of the church. Fortuantely the apostles dealt with this for us.

Also, aside from the Judaizers, those who kept with the Jewish faith, never considered themselves Christian (as far as I know). My original question pertains to Christian beliefs in scripture, not worldwide ones.

This is simply disingenious on your part. Nowhere was it stated that NO common use was in effect. What was stated is that SOME were disputed.

In that case, which ones, and how do we know? This is part of the information I’m trying to put together.

Your all or nothing conclusions over disagreements with your “speculations” along with your transparent need for fuel to attack the Catholic Church serve only to sow doubt as to your integrity.

Ad hominem. Nothing more need be said about that, as it doesn’t belong here.

Heretical works do matter. It is because of heresy that doctrine had to be defined.

If I lived in the second century AD, wrote 100 gospels/letters to churches/etc and get a couple hundred people to follow my teachings and believe my writings…yes, it’s heretical, but it’s nowhere near widespread. The quantity of heretical works do not matter – what matters is their acceptance by the mainstream church.

In other words, much of what is accepted today as Bible was accepted since the earliest times.

Great, now let’s prove that.

 

[guanophore]

While I appreciate the link, and it is an interesting read, it does little more than make vague reference to how far Arianism had spread. Yes, we know that Arius and others siding with him had sway in the schools of Alexandria. But beyond this, what do we know, and where’s a source that tells us?

One of the sources we have is the history of reunification. The Church replaced the heretical bishops and had to re-catechize. In attempting unification to this day with the Eastern Churches, exploration is being made into Teachings that have been misguided from the early centuries, such as rejection of the hypostatic union. This present day reflection of the fruit of Arianism is telling of the ancient history.

In a discussion like this, we cannot assume heresy was widespread without some evidence thereto. If we’re going assume that the heresy had spread so widely, let’s at least admit that we’re making an assumption that is unproven.

I agree.

This is simply blind assertion. You’ve shown nothing to indicate that half of the empire actually was Arian (which only relates to this thread in that we could say that at the time of the council of Nicea the church was certainly divided on what works were scripture). What little information I can find doesn’t do anything to substantiate the claim (admittedly I haven’t read through all of the “original” sources yet).

Well, not blind, unless my seminary professor in early heresies is also blind. However, I do not think he was. It is true, however, that I am not at home, and do not have access to the "original sources’ you are seeking. I can appreciate that my memory of these lectures is not sufficient for you.

No – what Guanophore introduced was a claim that you believe is based on historical evidence. I cannot find evidence to support the claim, so I dismiss it as invalid unless evidence is presented. Since Guanophore has made such claims, he probably has the evidence easily-accessible.

What about a more open minded approach, PC? Supposing you created a cateagory of “unconfirmed” that would not have to start out as “invalid”? I think your need for evidence is valid, but your closed attitude makes on wonder what ultimate good any evidence can do, since you seem to have a prejudice against it from the start. I regret that I do not have the evidence easily accessible right now. When I get back I will dig out my textbooks, and find out where these " blind assertions" came from, since they did not originate from me.

What “more credible reference” did Guanophore present in this thread that actually provides some specific information about the topic of this thread? I obviously missed it.

No, you did not miss anything, except an open and charitable attitude.

If you’re claiming that Wikipedia is wrong, which is admittedly the case, give me specifics: if it wasn’t 3 bishops that opposed signing the Nicene creed, how many was it? How many were ever in support of the Nicene creed? In the mean time, in the interests of fairness, I’ll go consult the sources cited by Wikipedia, and other information I can find, and will try to present those here, as I’m able.

Thanks. I will do the same.

The goal of this thread is to establish which works were considered scripture, and how early this came to happen -- in the context of the majority of the church (not small heretical groups that can't demonstrate to have held sway with more than a handful of bishops). Now, if Arianism can be demonstrated to have been a very large movement which threatened to throw the whole church into heresy, then we might have some room to discuss their written works.

This will be difficult, because I think the Church went to great pains to destroy all the gnostic and arian works they could possibly find. The best evidence we have to what they taught is the Catholic apologists that were refuting them (such as Athanasius). What is that they say, history is written by the victors?

Questions are supposed to be speculative. Even so, as I’ve said, that particular issue is not the subject of this thread.

Yes, of course, but assuming that any information that comes up is “blind assertion” and “invalid” does not seem like a very open minded approach to investigation.

Even if this is the case, it’s still worth discussing the history of acceptance of works as scripture.

I agree.

I do – it’s just not the context of assuming that the RCC has always existed. I don’t see that as factual, and so do not consider that the context of history.

I agree with you here also. In fact, these topics are much better studied through the Eastern Churches, established prior to the development of the Roman Rite in the West. The evidence is found primarily in the Oriental and Asian areas than further West.

 

[Contarini]

Actually, 1 Timothy 5:18 also joins an Old Testament reference and a New Testament reference and calls them both collectively as ”Scripture”.

This is an interesting argument, and I’m ashamed to say that I’d never thought of it before. I guess I always assumed that this was just a proverbial statement–I note that Calvin takes this approach in his commentary on the passage. It’s not grammatically clear whether the phrase “Scripture says” applies to both sayings or only one. I will look into this more. If Paul (or whoever wrote 1 Timothy) is really referring to Luke here, that would have interesting implications for the relative dating of the two documents. It might imply that Luke was written early but that 1 Timothy was written by someone other than Paul. Or I suppose they both could have been written late or early, with Luke just a bit earlier. (You appear to believe that Luke was written early 60s and 1 Timothy not long before Paul’s death–is that right?) I probably don’t need to tell you that most scholars would put both texts relatively late in the first century, with 1 Timothy maybe even pushing the 2nd century. If indeed Luke was written by Luke and 1 Timothy by Paul, that would explain why Paul would know about Luke so early and would cite it immediately as Scripture. Anyway, this is definitely worth following up, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention!

It would not have been unusual in the context of first-century Judaism for an Old Testament passage to be called “Scripture”. But for a New Testament passage to be called “Scripture” so soon after it was written says volumes about Paul’s view of the authority of the New Testament books.

Assuming that 1 Timothy is by Paul, yes. Of course, that’s not the view taken by the majority of NT scholars. (And of course, the majority can be wrong!)

I’ve never particularly liked the argument that the early apostles did not know what was considered “Scripture” from the earliest times, and that it had to be later defined centuries later. This seems to be a distorted perception of the times from which the Catholic Church grew.

It’s refreshing to hear a Catholic say that! I do think that it may have taken a while in many cases–my problem is with the claim that until all doubt is removed a book cannot be considered canonical Scripture.

More accurately, the Bible most likely was known from the earliest periods and the later proliferation of unauthentic books (mostly Gnostic) as the Church spread throughout the world forced the Catholic Church to define the canon more accurately so as to avoid confusion and error, something which I definitely accept as a Catholic.

That’s certainly the traditional view–until Catholic apologists after the Reformation gave unwitting impetus to skepticism by their arguments against sola scriptura!

I’m not sure myself. Walter Bauer’s famous study arguing that “heresy” was in some places the original and dominant Christian view has attracted plenty of criticism and I don’t necessarily buy it. But I also don’t think we are bound to believe that the orthodox view was well-defined from the beginning. It’s pretty clear from church history that orthodoxy often defines itself under pressure from heresy (and in fact Christians have often affirmed this). Just how unclear things were before that is probably something we have no way of knowing.

Newman’s *Essay on Development *argues (in ironic agreement with Bauer) that Catholicism (however we define it) always existed as one embattled alternative among many. I am inclined to think that Newman is right there.

Edwin

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

No - it is you who are wrong because you missed my quotes on ther term “Christian” and are choosing to split semantics here without regard to how I want to use the term.

No, I didn’t miss the quotes. I chose not to take advantage of them, because I could make my point without them and I didn’t know what you meant by them. The groups I have cited were clearly Christian in the same way that Protestants are Christians. That is all I need to refute your claim.

An Arian for example is not Christian - he is simply a heretic or more broadly - non-Catholic.

That is why I chose not to mention the Arians. I would not say that they are “simply not Christians,” but the point is irrelevant. I repeat: there were a number of churches that were just as Christian as the Protestants. If you want to say that all non-Catholics are not Christians, then your point becomes a tautology and your reference to Luther is irrelevant. (But do you really want to say that the Orthodox–who were separate from Rome long before Luther–are not Christians?)

By your kind of a standard anyone who believes in God would be Christian if they were baptised - even if they later renounced all apostolic teaching and invented anything they wanted.

I wasn’t putting forth a standard. I was accepting the one you explicitly used by speaking of Luther as initiating a “Christian” church not part of Catholicism. I would indeed use the word “Christian” more broadly, but we don’t need to fight about that. The only point I’m interested in making is that if Christians were divided after the Reformation, they were certainly divided before it. At the very least, the Chalcedonian Churches of the East (i.e., the Orthodox in communion with Constantinople) are clearly more unambiguously Christian by a Catholic standard than are the Protestants. So no matter how you define Christian, you are wrong.

Edwin

 

[guanophore]

No. The point is that you can’t call something that’s represented by 1%, or even 2% or 3% of the church population as widespread. And widespread is what we’re looking for here.

Handicapped by not being with my library, I am progressing rather slowly, but I did find one scholarly article on the subject of Arianism:

monachos.net/library/A_World_Full_of_Arians

In particular, see footnote # 6, a reference to Jerome who made this observation.

 To an extent, I agree with you -- but how can we know what those traditions were?

This is one reason we look to the early liturgies. The Church believes as she prays, so many of these early Traditions are reflected in the liturgies. Here is a link to some ancient liturgies:

users.csbsju.edu/~eknuth/itr/ltgy/index.html

The oldest we believe is the Liturgy of St. James. It reportedly was actually 6 hours long, so was shortened both by Basil and Chrysostom.

They all seem to have a very Jewish flavor to them to me. If you ever attend one of these liturgies, you will probably feel, as I did, as if you stepped backwards 1800 years into Christian history. Actually I think that when James presided over Liturgy it was probably very short and simple, so I doubt all the elements ascribed to James were actually used by him.

You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it. Got a link?

Oh, I do indeed! I am well aware of your anti-Catholic bias, and predisposition to dismiss anything that sounds too Catholic, so no, I would not expect you to accept my word about anything. Especially an issue such as this, since it is to Tradition that Catholics say they appealed to defeat the Arians.

Here is a good link with a summary of non-Roman Catholic churches:

salvationhistory.com/library/liturgy/sacraments/eastern.cfm

Most of these communities fell into Arianism in the latter half of the fourth century. This link does not seem to contain any info about that, but it will give you an idea of where we can look for more info.