The history of the New Testament canon from the apostolic church to the present
All
Christians agree that Scripture is the heart of the Christian tradition.
However, what they mean by this affirmation often differs. To shed light on how
this affirmation ought to be understood, this paper will trace the history of
the New Testament canon from the apostolic church to the present. The goal is
to show how we know that the Church properly identified all and only those
books that belong in Sacred Scripture and to consider the implications of the
process of identification.
When the
church began, there were no New Testament books. Old Testament texts alone were
used as scripture. The first book written was probably I Thessalonians (or possibly Galations which may be c. 50-there is some controversy over the
dating of Galatians). The last books were probably John, the Johannine
epistles, and Revelations toward the end of the first century.The books were
written to deal with concrete problems in the church-immoral behavior, bad
theology, and the need for spiritual "meat".
Thus, the
church existed for roughly twenty years with no New Testament books, only the
oral form of the teaching of the apostles. Even after a book was written, it
was not immediately widely available. Some books like II Peter were read almost
exclusively in their target area, a situation which continued for a long time,
leading to their (temporary or permanent) rejection from the canon due to
doubts about their apostolic origins. Thus, for instance, II Peter was rejected
for centuries by many, and it is rejected by Nestorians to this day. Even if not universally accepted, a
book was highly regarded by its recipients and those church's in the
surrounding areas. This led to local
canonicity, a book being used in public worship in a particular
region. Twenty-seven of these books came in time to have universal canonicity,
but others (e.g. Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, Barnabas, I Clement, Gospel of
the Hebrews) were rejected for inclusion in the New Testament canon, even
though they often retained a reputation for being profitable Christian reading.
Although the
New Testament books we have today were written in the first century, it took
time for them to be accepted as universally authoritative. Initially, only the
life and sayings of Christ were considered of equal authority with the Old
Testament scriptures. For instance, Hegessipus in the first half of the second
century accepted only "the Law, the Prophets, and the Lord" as norms
"to which a right faith must conform" The Didascalia Apostolurum which
appears to have been written in the first half of the third century in Northern
Syria similarly states the authoritative norms are "the sacred scriptures
and the gospel of God" (which it also refers to as "the Law, the book
of the Kings and of the Prophets, and the Gospel" and the "Law,
Prophet, and Gospel").
Moreover,
the "Gospel" spoken of was often the Oral Gospel and not exclusively
the four Gospels we have in our current Bible. There were also many apocryphal
gospels written between the late first and early third centuries. Some of them
appear to accurately preserve some of Christ's sayings and were long used in
Christian circles (for instance, Eusebius writes that the Gospel of
the Hebrews was still in use although not widely accepted); others were written
to support some heretical sect. While use was made of the four Gospels,
The reason
for this is that the authority of Christ's words came from Christ having spoken
them and not from the words appearing in a sacred text in a fixed form. As a
result, sayings from apocryphal sources and the Oral Gospel appear alongside
quotes from the four Gospels of our present New Testament.Many early
Christians, in fact, had a preference for oral tradition. For instance, Papias
in the first half of the second century, said that he inquired of followers of
the apostles what the apostles had said and what "Aristion and the
presbyter John, disciples of the Lord were still saying. For I did not imagine
that things out of books would help me as much as the utterances of a living
and abiding voice." However, he does mention the Gospels of St. Mark and
St. Matthew by name.Early Christian preference for oral tradition had rabbinic
parallels-for instance Philo though oral tradition was superior to scripture.
In Semitic thought, the idea persisted for a long time. As late as the
thirteenth century, Arab historian Abu-el-Quasim ibn `Askir said, "My
friend strive zealously and without ceasing to get hold of [traditions]. Do not
take them from written records, so they may not be touched by the disease of
textual corruption."
St. Irenaeus , Bishop of Lyons and a great fighter against heresy, was the
last writer to use the Oral Gospel as an independent source. He initially
fought heresy using only the Old Testament and the church's Oral tradition.
However, later, in response to needs arising from fighting Gnosticism and
Marcionism, he came to use the books of New Testament extensively.
Besides the
Oral Gospels, the Diatessaron served as an alternate Gospel. The Diatessaron
was a harmony of the four gospels, written by Tatian. It circulated
widely in Syriac-speaking churches-it was their standard text of the gospels
until it was superseded by the Peshitta in the fifth century. The Diatessaron's
use shows that the four gospels were considered important authorities, but not
exclusive authorities. The Diatessaron by itself constituted as the New
Testament scriptures for the Syrian churches until the fourteen Pauline
epistles were added in the third century.
Thus, we see
that for a considerable period of time, many Christians (particularly those in
Syria and those from a Jewish background) accepted only the Gospel alongside
the Old Testament as Scripture. Further, many accepted it in the form of the
Oral Gospel or of both the Oral and written Gospel (where the written Gospel
might contain either more or fewer books than are currently accepted).
The Pauline
letters achieved acceptance in a fixed form considerably earlier; they were
circulating as a body of writing "well before AD 90."In fact, recent
research makes it quite likely that,
an early collection of Pauline letters should be dated in the late first
century. The letters were known and circulated among both orthodox and
heretics as a collection from the early second century. The collection probably
contained ten Pauline letters: Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians,
Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I and II Thessalonians, and Philemon.
The first
person to attempt to define the canon precisely was the heretic Marcion.
Marcion believed that the God of the Old Testament, the Creator God, was
contemptible, a very different God from the God of the New Testament. He
believed the Christian Gospel was a Gospel of Love to the exclusion of Law. He
rejected the Old Testament as a result. His message was quite popular-it was
the chief rival to Orthodox Christianity in the latter half of the second
century. He accepted only the Lukan gospel and ten Pauline letters, which
he probably chose based on the standard circulating collection.He felt St. Paul
alone understood Christ-he was certain that the disciples completely
misunderstood their Master. Marcion's motivation for accepting only St. Luke's
gospel is complex; he took St. Paul's reference to "his gospel" or
"the gospel" to refer to a particular book at St. Paul's disposal and
set out to find it. The Oral Gospel was out of the question as the sayings
could not be confirmed and hence were dubious-he wanted documents which might
have preserved the truth in a pure form. (Incidentally, he is the only critic
of the Oral Gospel, or any written Gospel, known in the early church.) St.
Matthew, while the most popular Gospel, was out of the question as too
"judaising"; St. Mark was not widely used. St. John was a mixture of
things he liked and didn't like-and there were questions on its age and
authenticity. From Marcion's perspective, St. Luke's Gospel had the fewest
problems; further, St. Luke was associated with St. Paul.
However,
Marcion was not satisfied with accepting the eleven books of his canon in the
form he received them. He was convinced that they had been interpolated with
"judaising" material. He set out to reconstruct the original,
uncorrupted text, free from all distortions. His mind was too narrow and
his ideology too rigid to conceive that there were multiple perspectives on the
same truths in St. Paul, that God's Law and Grace while contrasted were not put
into opposition-although God's Law and man's laws were. He eliminated all but
one perspective from his Gospel and Epistles. This perspective, however, was not
St. Paul's, but Marcion's. However, it should be noted that he only subtracted,
he never added to the texts he received. (His canon and a number of other
canons are summarized in tabular form in the appendix.)
Before
Marcion, the question we are addressing in this paper as to how we can be
confident that all and only those books that belong in the New Testament in
fact are in the New Testament had not begun to be formulated. Marcion
formulated part of the question in his attempt to determine a collection of
authoritative books. His answer was very wrong, but he forced the church to
consider the question of what books should be included in the canon as
Marcion's was clearly too small. It left out too much of the Christian message.
In responce
to Marcion's canon, the expansion phase of the New Testament canon began. The
books in his canon in unmutilated form were at the core of both the final canon
and most approximations of it on the path to the final canon. The church
insisted on a catholic scripture-one that encompassed Jewish and Gentile
Christianity and that faithfully reflected the apostolic teachings. (Marcion
had accepted only a small strand of Gentile Christianity and added in much that
was his own.) The book of Acts is absolutely crucial to a catholic New
Testament because it honored Ss. Peter, Paul, and James. Some Jewish Christians
revered St. James and hated St. Paul's memory. Some heretics like Marcion
rejected all that was Jewish. However, this polarization is impossible for
those who take Acts seriously.
St. Justin
Martyr, the preeminent apologist of the early church and a
vigorous opponent of Gnosticism including Marcionism, was unwilling to accept Marcion's
truncated canon. He "quoted freely from" the four canonical gospels,
Acts, the Pauline Epistles including Hebrews, and I Peter. However, he does not speak of a canon-for
instance he was apparently unacquainted with treating the four church gospels
as a unit.
St.
Irenaeus, who was previously mentioned in connection with the Oral Gospel,
produced the first known catholic canon. He was the first to adopt Marcion's
notion of a new scripture. He used this idea to fight heresies, including
Marcion's. He recognized the four gospel canon as an already established entity
and championed it as "an indispensable and recognized collection against
all deviations of heretics." Thus, sometime in the last half of the
second century, the four church gospels began to be viewed as a single unit. He
defended the four gospels by letting the various heresies that accepted only
one of the gospels testify on behalf of the gospel they adhered to (the
Ebionites, Docetists, Marcionites, and Valentinians for the gospels of St.
Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John respectively.) He refused to accept
new gospels, arguing from symbology the appropriateness of having four gospels.
He defended Acts by pointing out that it is illogical to accept St. Luke's
gospel and reject Acts (as the Marcionites did). The Pauline letters needed no
defense as even the heretics acknowledged them as authoritative. He cited
most of them, in fact he cited from every New Testament book except Philemon
and III John.(Given that both are extremely short, this does not indicate one
way or the other what he thought of their canonicity.) While citing both
Revelations and the Shepherd, he did not cite them as canonical books, although
he considered them important.
St. Clement
of Alexandria made use of an open canon. He seemed
"practically unconcerned about canonicity. To him, inspiration is what
mattered." In addition to books that did not make it into the final
New Testament canon but which had local canonicity (Barnabas, Didache, I
Clement, Revelation of Peter, the Shepherd, the Gospel according to the
Hebrews), he also used the Gospel of the Egyptians, Preaching of Peter,
Traditions of Matthias, Sibylline Oracles, and the Oral Gospel. He did,
however, prefer the four church gospels to all others, although he supplemented
them freely with apocryphal gospels. He was the first to treat non-Pauline
letters of the apostles (other than I Peter) as scripture-he accepted I Peter,
I and II John, and Jude as scripture.
The
expansion phase considerable enlarged the accepted canon. It reached near final
form in many quarters by around 200, containing the four gospels, Acts, and the
Pauline Epistles. The main books disputed after that time were: Revelations,
Hebrews, Philemon, and the Catholic Epistles (I and II Peter, I and II and III
John, and Jude). For instance, the Old Latin translation of the New
Testament contained the present day canon other than II Peter, James,
and Hebrews.
The
Muratorian Canon written by a private theologian states that the New
Testament canon consists of the following: the four gospels (the beginning of
the document is mutilated, but it speaks of "the third book of the gospel:
according to Luke," which almost certainly implies the Gospels of St.
Matthew and St. Mark were included), Acts, the thirteen Pauline epistles, two
letters of John (probably I and II John), Jude, and Revelation-as well as the
Revelation of Peter ("which some of our people will not have to be read in
the church," but which "may be read") and the Wisdom of Solomon. However,
it rejected the Shepherd for public reading in church because it was
"written by Hermas in the city of Rome quite recently, in our own times,
when his brother Pius occupied the bishop's chair in the city of Rome."
(Pius was bishop of Rome during part of the reign of Antoninus Pius whose reign
ran from 138-161.) It was, however, considered good private reading. The
reasoning is that the work was post-apostolic and hence that it could not
possibly be canonical. (The history backing up the reasoning is open to debate,
dates as early as 90 and as late as 157 are plausible.)
The
expansion phase was forced to come to an end by the Montanist heresy, an
apocalyptic movement that demanded incredible moral and ascetic rigor of its
adherents and was convinced that it was Spirit-inspired prophets and not
clerics who should lead the church. Montanists claimed that they were
completing Christ's unfinished work, that rejecting their three prophets was
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Just as Marcion forced the church to think
about what books ought to be in the canon of New Testament scripture, the
Montanists forced the church to think about what should be excluded from the
canon. The attitude that the canon is closed can be found in a quote in
Eusebius written "more than thirteen years" after the last of the
three Montanist "prophets" died. The writer explains that he was
hesitant for a time to write against Montanism
Scripture
came to be seen as a fixed collection of authoritative books, and it was
believed to be presumptuous to add to the collection.
While the
ideas of a canon became more clear, only the core described previously was
certain. Revelation in particular was attacked by many because Montanism had
made apocalyptic material suspect. Gaius of Rome, an early third century
churchman, attacked the inclusion of the Gospel of St. John, Hebrews, and
Revelation on anti-Montanist grounds (he ascribed St. John's Gospel and
Revelation to Cerinthus, a Gnostic heretic who was a contemporary of St. John). In
general, however, apocalyptic material, while treated with caution, was not
considered as suspect in the West as in the East. The Shepherd was dropped from
the Western canon; the Revelation of Peter and the Revelation of John were both
challenged. However, in the East (the Greek speaking parts of the world and
Egypt), there was nearly universal refusal to allow apocalyptic writings into
the canon until Western influence began to sway the Eastern Christians in the
fourth century. Moreover, Hebrews was rejected in the West because it was used
by the Montanists to justify their harsh penetential system and because the
West was not certain of its authorship. Hebrews was not accepted in the West
until the fourth century under the influence of St. Athanasius.
Origen, the most influential Biblical commentator of the first three
centuries of Christianity, categorized books into three categories: those
acknowledged by all the churches, the disputed books which some churches accepted,
and the spurious books. The acknowledged books were the four gospels, Acts, the
thirteen Pauline epistle, I Peter, I John, and Revelation. The disputed books
were II Peter, II John, III John, James, and Jude. He may have considered
Barnabas, Didache, and the Shepherd canonical as well-he used the word
"scripture" for them. Both Bruce and von Campenhausen indicate that
Origen did view them as canonical (although, Origen became more cautious about
both Revelation and the Shepherd in later life), while Davis states that even
though Origen used the word "scripture" for them, Origen "did
not consider them canonical." Origen personally came to consider
Hebrews as canonical, stating
In the
epistle entitle To the
Hebrews the diction does not exhibit the characteristic
roughness of speech or phraseology admitted by the Apostle himself, the
construction of the sentences is closer to Greek usage, as anyone capable of
recognizing differences of style would agree. On the other hand the matter of
the epistle is wonderful, and quite equal to the Apostle's acknowledged
writings: the truth of this would be admitted by anyone who has read the
Apostle carefully ... If I were asked my personal opinion, I would say that the
matter is the Apostle's but the phraseology and construction are those of
someone who remembered the Apostle's teaching and wrote his own interpretation
of what his master had said. So if any church regards this epistle as Paul's,
it should be commended for so doing, for the primitive Church had every justification
for handing it down as his. Who wrote the epistle is known to God alone: the
accounts that have reached us suggest that it was either Clement, who became
Bishop of Rome, or Luke, who wrote the gospel and Acts.
Origen's
views were important in making Hebrews widely accepted throughout the East; it
had previously been accepted as Pauline and canonical only in Egypt. In time,
Eastern acceptance led the West to accept Hebrews as scripture.
For instance, Eusebius wrote in his History of the
Church that Paul was obviously and
unmistakeably the author of fourteen epistles, but we must not shut our eyes to
the fact that some authorities have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews,
pointing out that the Roman Church denies it is the work of Paul.
Eusebius'
view of the canon was very similar to Origen's, both for the canon's bounds and
for the method of specifying the bounds-the main difference being Eusebius'
outright rejection of Barnabas, Didache, and the Shepherd. Eusebius followed
Origen's classification of alleged New Testament books, stating
It will be
well, at this point, to classify the New Testament writings already referred
to. We must, of course, put first the holy quartet of gospels, followed by the
Acts of the Apostles. The next place in the list goes to Paul's epistles, and
after them we must recognize the epistle called I John; likewise I Peter. To
these may be added, if it is though proper, the Revelation of John, the
arguments about which I shall set out when the time comes. These are classed as
Recognized Books. Those that are disputed, yet familiar to most, include the
epistles known as James, Jude, and II Peter, and those called II and III John,
the work either of the evangelist or of someone else with the same name.
Among
Spurious Books must be placed the `Acts' of Paul, the `Shepherd', and the
`Revelation of Peter'; also the alleged `Epistle of Barnabas', and the
`Teaching of the Apostles' [Didache], together with the Revelation of John, if
this seems the right place for it; as I said before, some reject it, others
included it among the Recognized Books. Moreover, some have found a place in
the list for the `Gospel of Hebrews', a book which has a special appeal for
those Hebrews who have accepted Christ. These would all be classed with the
Disputed Books, but I have been obliged to list the latter separately,
distinguishing those writings which according to the teaching of the Church are
true, genuine, and recognized, from those in a different category, not
canonical but disputed, yet familiar to most churchmen; for we must not confuse
these with the writings published by heretics under the name of the apostles,
as containing either Gospels of Peter, Thomas, Matthias, and several others
besides these, or Acts of Andrew, John, and other apostles. To none of these
has any churchman of any generation ever seen fit to refer to his writings.
Again, nothing could be farther from apostolic usage than the type of
phraseology employed, while the ideas and implications of their contents are so
irreconcilable with true orthodoxy that they stand revealed as forgeries of
heretics. It follows that so far from being classed even among Spurious Books,
they must be thrown out as impious and beyond the pale.
The final
form of the canon was nearly at hand. Emperor Constantine's order for fifty
copies of scripture may have been important in the process. While their exact
contents are not certain, some surmise that these copies may have contained the
27 books of the final New testament canon.The canons of the council of Laodicia accepted all the
books of the final canon except Revelation. The first list of canonical
books of the New Testament that exactly matches our own, having neither more
nor fewer books, was contained in St. Athanasius' Easter Letter of 367 which
states that
In addition
to the books of the canon, he mentions that other books are profitable for
instruction,
The ancient
distrust of the Western Church for Hebrews continued. It was probably St.
Athanasius' influence during his stay in Rome (he fled there in 339) which
helped convince many influential Western churchmen to accept Hebrews as
canonical, although not necessarily Pauline. A diversity of opinion as to its
authorship continued, but it was eventually accepted.
The final
acceptance of exactly this set of 27 books by everyone except the Nestorians
(who accept five fewer) and the Ethiopians (who accept more) took some time
particularly for Hebrews (because the Roman church was unsure of its
authorship), Revelations (because it was easily misused by those with
apocalyptic fantasies), and Jude (because it quoted from the apocryphal book of
Enoch). While II Peter previously was the most disputed book, by this
point, it was less controversial to the Christian mainstream. For instance, St.
Cyril of Jerusalem and St. Gregory Nazianzus (329-389) accepted
all 27 books except Revelation. On the other hand, in 405, Pope Innocent I
wrote a letter which affirms a 26 book canon that excluded Hebrews. Clearly,
it took some time to achieve universal acceptance among the Orthodox for
Hebrews in the West, and Revelation in the East.
The Western
Council of Hippo (393) was probably the first council to specify the limits of
the canon, and it accepted the 27 book canon, allowing only them to be read in
church under the name of canonical writings. It "permitted, however, that
the passions of martyrs, be read when their [martyrdoms'] anniversaries are
celebrated."
Some
accepted larger canons as well. St. Epiphanius of Salamis accepted
all 27 books but also accepted the Wisdom books of Solomon and Ben Sirach. The
late fourth century Codex
Sinaiticus included Barnabas and the Shepherd "at the end
but with no indication of secondary status." The early fifth century Codex Alexandrinus made
"no demarcation between I and II Clement" and the rest of the New
Testament. St. Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate and one of
the greatest scholars of the early church, seemed to believe that Barnabas and
the Shepherd were worthy of inclusion. However, he recognized that they were
not in the accepted canon, and he did not believe that anyone had the authority
to add them. He also noted that many still rejected Jude because of its
quotation from Enoch.
The canon of
the Syriac-speaking churches in the third century included the Diatessaron and
the fourteen Pauline epistles. In the early fifth century, the Peshitta became
the official text of Syriac-speaking churches. It replaced the Diatessaron with
the four gospels. It contained the 22 books of our New Testament other than II
Peter, II John, III John, Jude, and Revelation. (The Peshitta is traditionally
held to be the work of Rabulla, bishop of Edessa from 412-435. However, it
probably built on work of the previous century.) The Nestorian church still
uses this 22 book canon. In 508, the Jacobite branch of the Syriac church came
to accept the standard 27 book canon.
The longest
Biblical canon belongs to the Ethiopian church. Their Old Testament contains
the Septuagintal books, Jubilees, the Ethiopic Enoch, IV Edras, the Rest of the
Words of Baruch, the Ascension of Isaiah, and other books. Their New Testament
includes the Shepherd and other books. Some manuscripts of the Ethiopian New
Testament include the Epistle of Eusebius to Carpianus and the Eusebian Canons
which were written by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea.
Thus, we see
that producing the final form of the New Testament canon took a considerable
period of time. It took still longer to produce near universal agreement.
However, to this day, there exist ancient churches which have either never
accepted certain books or which accept more than 27 books. The canon in its
present form was not a self-evident fact, but the result of a prolonged
struggle-we reap the fruits of other men's labors.
The reasons
for formalizing the canon included determining which books should be used
liturgically and in theological and moral reasoning, heretical stimuli (e.g.
Marcionism, Montanism), the "missionary stimulus" which required
determining which books to translate, and the need to know which books must be
preserved at all costs in persecution. There were a number of principles used
in formalizing the canon. Apostolic authority (which required that the book
have been written by an apostle, by someone associated with an apostle-for
instance St. Mark and St Luke, or by a member of the Lord's family) was a
crucial principle in determining canonicity. A corollary was that the book had
to be from the apostolic age. It had to conform to Orthodoxy as opposed to
Docetism and Gnosticism. Regular use of a book liturgically was also an
important principle-and the book must have been widely accepted for a long time
and in many places. Note that liturgical use both provided a powerful
motivation to produce the canon (since knowing what books ought be used in
public worship was critical) and was itself an important determinant in setting
the bounds of the canon.
The
complexity of the process demonstrates that we can know that all and only those
books that belonged in the canon are in fact in the canon only because we know
that God is faithful, that He will give us all that is necessary for salvation,
that He promised to protect His Church so that the gates of hell will be
impotent to prevail against her. If, however, we accept that He led the Church
aright in the matter of preserving the apostolic teachings, it seems logical
that He must have preserved His bride from errors in other matters as well. The
myth of the Church abandoning its Master's precepts shortly after the apostolic
age or after the beginning of the Constantinian era must be abandoned by those
who wish to affirm the New Testament scripture for those scriptures were
recognized by that church.
Many
practices that are deplored by Protestants were common before the beginning of
the fourth century, a time when many if not most Christians rejected inclusion
of at least some of the following books in the canon: Hebrews, James, II Peter,
II and III John, Jude, and Revelations; while others accepted additional books
like Barnabas and the Shepherd. For instance, the practice of praying for the
dead comes to Christianity from Judaism. This practice is testified to in II
Macabees 13:42-45 (RSV) which tells how Judas Maccabeus (d. 161 B.C.) and
his men
II Timothy
1: 16-18 may also be a prayer for a departed believer; I Corinthians 15: 29
speaks not merely of prayer for the dead, but even of baptism on their behalf.
Many inscriptions in the catacombs contain prayers for the souls of the
departed-for instance an inscription for "the dear and well-loved
Sirica" concludes with the prayer "Lord Jesus, remember our
daughter." The inscription for Agape pleads, "I beg you to pray when
you come here and to entreat Father and Son in all your prayers. Do not fail to
remember dear Agape so that God Almighty may keep Agape safe forever."The
early liturgies typically commemorated the dead. The writings of Tertullian (c.
160-c. 225), St. Cyprian (d. 258), and others demonstrate that private prayers for
the dead were also common. While the fourth century heretic Aerius denied the
"efficacy and legitimacy" of such prayers, his views on this and
other matters were rejected.
Similarly,
requesting the prayers of the departed was also common. For instance, the
catacombs contain inscriptions like "Atticus, sleep in peace, carefree in
your security, and pray earnestly for our sinful selves," and "Holy
Xystus, have Aurelius Repentinus in mind during your prayers."
Inscriptions like "Paul and Peter, pray for Victor" appear
frequently.
The tangible
expressions of God's grace through the relics of the saints is attested to in
both the Old and New Testaments. For example, II King 13: 21 (RSV) states,
The woman
with the issue of blood was healed by touching Christ's garment and not his
person (Matthew 9: 21). Also, Acts 19: 11-12 (RSV) states that.
And God did
extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that handkerchiefs or aprons
were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the
evil spirits came out of them.
This
knowledge that God's grace is associated in a special way with objects from
holy persons led the early church to pay great respect to the relics of the
martyrs. Thus, in The Martyrdom of Polycarp 18: 2, 3, we read that after St.
Polycarp (traditionally c. 69-c. 155) was killed and his body burned, his
congregation
Here, we see both the honoring of relics and the
celebration of saints' days. These practices, though an integral part of the
faith of the early Christian martyrs are tragically a source of divisions among
Orthodox and Protestants. It is not because they differ on the central role of
scripture in the life of faith. Both Protestants and Orthodox affirm that
everything in the Church is judged by the Bible... Nothing in the Church may
contradict it. Everything in the Church must be biblical; for the Church, in
order to be the Church, must be wholly expressive of the Bible; or more
accurately, it must be wholly faithful and expressive of that reality to which
the Bible is itself the scriptural witness.
The point of
disagreement is, then, not on scripture's role, but on the proper method of
interpreting scripture. The differences comes not because one group studies
scripture more carefully and respects it more. Commendable as such diligence
is, careful and respectful study, while indispensable, is insufficient to
discover the truths of the Christian faith if one comes to the Bible with the wrong
set of assumptions. Most Orthodox and Protestant believers must admit that the
Jehovah's Witnesses study scripture more carefully than they do-the Jehovah's
Witnesses may even respect it more. However, like all of us, the Jehovah's
Witnesses come to scripture with a set of presuppositions-this cannot be
avoided since
The
Jehovah's Witnesses provide a sobering warning that one's devotion to scripture
is not enough-the presuppositions of their tradition prevent them from seeing
scripture clearly despite their devotion to it. It is also clear, for instance,
that the presuppositions of an early Christian who grew up in a Judaism that
was used to praying for the dead will be quite different from those of a
twentieth century Protestant who grew up in a culture that has deplored prayer
for the dead for over four-hundred years. Both would read the New Testament as
justifying their status
quo, but the status
quo being justified would be quite different. However, it
makes more sense to assume that the interpretations of the early church are
correct; being closer to the founding of the faith, they share more of the
presuppositions of Christ and the apostles, both in terms of general cultural
assumptions and in terms of oral tradition.Only scripture is ultimately
authoritative for the defense of doctrine, but only with tradition can we
obtain the correct presuppositions so that we can interpret scripture aright.
Personal interpretation leads only to the chaos of literally tens of thousands
of denominations-established because each founder, having his own personal
presuppositions, taught a somewhat different gospel.
In avoiding
the pitfall of incorrect interpretation, then, good intentions are
insufficient. Wisdom, accurate information, and the leading of the Spirit are
all required-if one is missing any of them, one will almost certainly go
astray. However, an accurate reading of history tells us that the Church
existed about twenty years with no New Testament books; roughly 150 years
before most of the books of the final New Testament canon were known and
accepted by some important
churchmen-and then, they accepted some additional books and did not know or
knew and rejected some of the 27 books; almost 340 years before the first list
that exactly matches the final canon was produced; and almost 480 years before
the present canon was accepted by the last major group to resist (other than
the Nestorians who reject five books to this day). Clearly, it was possible for
people to be Christians with something less than total clarity about the
contents of the New Testament. They were able to be Christians because they
belonged to the Church which existed before the New Testament existed and has
frequently been forced to make do with no written copies in whole areas due to
persecution or poverty. The Church preserved and preserves the teaching of
Christ and of His apostles, and not only the words on the pages of sacred
scripture, but also the correct set of presuppositions, the authentic tradition
which is required to interpret scripture correctly. Scripture is only properly
interpreted in the context of the Church. If one's presuppositions are leading
one to conclusions that differ from those of the early Church, one needs to
change one's presuppositions. The simplest and safest way to do this is to
learn and obey the tradition of the Church.
