And to get the stataments of Schaff, Kelly, and Pelikan “on the table” – here is what these Protestant scholars say about the Fathers and sola scriptura
Philip Schaff, Presbyterian/Reformed –
“The church view respecting the sources of Christian theology and the rule of faith and practice remains as it was in the previous period, except that it is further developed in particulars. The divine Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as opposed to human writings;
AND the ORAL TRADITION or LIVING FAITH of the catholic church from the apostles down, as opposed to the varying opinions of heretical sects –
TOGETHER FORM THE ONE INFALLIBLE SOURCE AND RULE OF FAITH. BOTH are vehicles of the same substance: the saving revelation of God in Christ; with this difference in form and office, that the church tradition determines the canon,
furnishes the KEY TO THE TRUE INTERPRETATION of the Scriptures, and guards them against heretical abuse.” (Schaff, History of the Christian Church, volume 3, page 606)
JND Kelly, Anglican
“It should be unnecessary to accumulate further evidence. Throughout the whole period Scripture
AND tradition ranked as complementary authorities, media different in form but coincident in content. To inquire which counted as superior or more ultimate is to pose the question in misleading and anachronistic terms. If Scripture was abundantly sufficient in principle,
tradition was recognized as the SUREST CLUE TO ITS INTERPRETATION, for in
TRADITION the Church retained, as a legacy from the apostles which was embedded in all the organs of her institutional life,
an UNERRING GRASP of the real purport and MEANING of the revelation to which Scripture
AND tradition alike bore witness.” (Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, page 47-48)
“Thus in the end the Christian must, like Timothy [cf. 1 Tim 6:20] ‘guard the deposit’, i.e. the revelation enshrined in its completeness in Holy Scripture
and CORRECTLY interpreted in the Church’s UNERRING tradition.” (Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, page 51)
Jaroslav Pelikan, Lutheran (now Orthodox), The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine
“The catholic response to this claim [of the Gnostics], formulated more fully by Irenaeus than by any other Christian writer, was to appeal to ‘that tradition which is derived from the apostles.’ Unlike the Gnostic tradition, however, this apostolic tradition had been preserved publicly in the churches that stood in succession with the apostles…Together with the proper interpretation of the Old Testament and the proper canon of the New, this tradition of the church was a decisive criterion of apostolic continuity for the determination of doctrine in the church catholic. Clearly it is an anachronism to superimpose upon the discussions of the second and third centuries categories derived from the controversies over the relation of Scripture and tradition in the sixteenth century,
for 'in the ante-Nicene Church…THERE WAS NO NOTION OF SOLA SCRIPTURA, but neither was there a doctrine of traditio sola [tradition alone].’…So palpable was this apostolic tradition that even if the apostles had not left behind the Scriptures to serve as normative evidence of their doctrine, the church would still be in a position to follow ‘the structure of the tradition which they handed on to those to whom they committed the church.’ This was, in fact, what the church was doing in those barbarian territories where believers did not have access to the written deposit, but still carefully guarded the ancient tradition of the apostles, summarized in the creed – or, at least, in a very creedlike statement of the content of apostolic tradition…The term ‘rule of faith’ or ‘rule of truth’ did not always refer to such creeds and confessions, and seems sometimes to have meant the ‘tradition,’ sometimes the Scriptures, sometimes the message of the gospel.” (Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, volume 1, page 115-117)
“…To identify orthodox doctrine, one had to identify its locus, which was the catholic church, neither Eastern nor Western, neither Greek nor Latin, but universal throughout the civilized world (oikoumene). This church was the repository of truth, the dispenser of grace, the guarantee of salvation, the matrix of acceptable worship. Only here did God accept sacrifices, only here was there confident intercession for those who were in error, only here were good works fruitful, only here did the powerful bond of love hold men together and ‘only from the catholic church does truth shine forth.’…[It was] the tendency of heretics to teach doctrines that were not contained either in Scripture or in tradition. But the church of the four Gospels and the four councils [Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon] was faithful to Scripture and to tradition and was universal both in its outreach and in its authority.” (Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, volume 1, page 334-335)
Webster/King no surprise left these statements out of their 1,100+ pages, I wonder why?
Afraid of the truth?
Phil P
