Canonicity and the Self-Authenticating Scriptures

Posted on September 7, 2014 by Kristofer Carlson

Antique Homemade Carpenter’s Level

Protestants are told the scriptures are self-authenticating; because the scriptures are God’s word, they have the power to convince us of their truth. This idea is promoted as a means of determining whether a particular book is canonical or not. However plausible this may sound, this is not a useful principle for determining canonicity. The self-authenticating principle can draw one astray into all manner of enthusiasms, allowing an individual or group to determine their own canon of scripture. This was the error of Marcion, who is the first one to devise a Christian canon that “self-authenticated” his preexisting heresies.

The problem is in the nature of canonicity, which is the principle (or principles) by which the scope of the canon is determined. Regarding this process, Dr. Eugenia Constantinou writes:

On what basis were certain books accepted and others rejected? What criteria were used? Did the authority of the book precede its canonization or was it recognized as authoritative because of its history or a particular quality that ultimately rendered it officially canonical? Which qualities were most important? Apostolicity? Prophecy? Spirituality? Perceived inspiration of the writer? Inspired reaction in the reader? Dogmatic importance? Orthodoxy of doctrine? Use by the community of faith? Didactic usefulness? Resonance with Christian experience?[1]

Scholars debate two different approaches: what John C. Peckham defines as the Community-Canon approach and the Intrinsic-Canon approach. Peckham describes the Community-Canon as “a collection of books deemed authoritative by a given community”, and the Intrinsic-Canon as “a collection of authoritative books that are authoritative because God commissioned [inspired] them.”[2] On the one hand, a text is authoritative because the community declared it to be so; on the other hand, a text is authoritative apart from the community’s declaration of the text to be scripture.

The Community-Canon Approach

The Community-Canon approach is based on the community’s declaration of certain books to be Scripture. This presupposes the existence of said books, and their recognition by and use within the community. The pure Community-Canon approach implies that the books are not Scripture until the community declares them to be so, but this is something of a straw man. There is no evidence for such an idea among the various Christian communities and their individual canons of Scripture. The early church was more concerned to declare particular books outside the canon than to positively decide upon the limits of the canon. But, when pressed by outside forces, or out of necessity, the community of faith found itself in the position of creating an authoritative collection of inspired writings.

Objections to the pure Community-Canon approach include the hostile reaction of the community of faith to the prophets, and the failure the community to immediately declare a text to be scripture. For example, Jeremiah’s writings were not immediately recognized as scripture. John C. Peckham writes:

The biblical concept of a true prophet refers to one divinely authorized to speak for God (Jer 15:19; Acts 3:18, 21). There is then, by definition, a divinely appointed authority belonging to true prophets that is thereby inconsistent with the epistemological[3] primacy of the community.[4]

In layman’s terms, the prophet’s being authorized to speak for God exists independently, apart from any criteria the community might use to determine the prophetic authority of the prophetic writing. The prophetic authority is, therefore, intrinsic to the text, and exists apart from the texts witness to and existence within the community.

Peckham then raises another interesting question: “What Constitutes a Legitimate and/or Adequate Community?” There were various canons circulating in the early church; seemingly each Bishop had his own opinion. And there were different communities of faith which considered themselves Christian, and considered themselves to have the authority to determine canonical issues. Among these was the early heretic Marcion, whose canon did not include the Old Testament, and included only portions of the New Testament. The Gnostics also had their own canonical texts that were rejected by the orthodox Christian community. Peckham writes:

Perhaps one might posit that a later community, whether a community of a particular time and place or the collective early Christian community over a period of time, is authoritative to determine canonicity. Yet the same problems apply to later communities. On what grounds should one accept that a later community is more legitimate and/or adequate to determine canonicity? As was the case for the earliest Christian community, the “community” is not monolithic decades or even centuries later. There are now and have been in ages past numerous communities that differ regarding the scope of sacred writings as canon. Examples include the times of the early church (the so-called canon of Marcion and Irenaeus’ view of the scriptures vs. his Gnostic opponents), over one thousand years later (the canon posited by the Council of Trent vs. the Thirty-Nine Articles), and more recent times (the Gospel revisions of the Jesus seminar). Hence, asserting that a later community might be authoritative to determine the canon likewise raises the question, “which community?”[5]

John C. Peckham fails to mention that this argument also applies to the Reformation. The idea that the Reformers could determine for themselves the canon of Scripture raises the question of their authority to do so. Did the Holy Spirit reveal Himself to the Reformers in a way that He had not revealed Himself to the previous 1,500 years of the body of Christ? By what authority were the Reformers able to make that decision on behalf of themselves and their followers, over and against the authority of the witness of the Holy Spirit to the historical Church? What were the criteria the Reformers used to determine which books were truly Scripture — which books were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? It is interesting that Peckham mentions the Jesus Seminar, but fails to recognize that the Reformers functioned in exactly the same way when they devised their truncated canon.

Objections to the Community-Canon Approach

We must deal with the objections to the Community-Canon approach, so clearly defined by John C. Peckham. First, how do we account for the fact that the larger community of faith does not immediately attest to the inspiration of a particular book? Did not the Holy Spirit inspire the author to write it? And was it therefore not Scripture before the community declared it to be so? The solution to this dilemma is that communities are not time bound, but change and grow. The Holy Spirit is not subject to time; witness of the Holy Spirit comes as a still, small voice, working within the heart of the community, just as He worked within the heart of the prophet. Just as dripping water will eventually wear a hole through a rock, so the voice of the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, leading the community of faith to recognition of same.

The question of which community has the authority to decide is a more difficult one.[6] Just what is the proper basis upon which the community determines the canon? This is an important question, and was answered in different ways by different communities in the early church. Some churches used books that were later dropped from the canon by the larger community. Other books that were later included in the canon which were rejected at some point by large parts of the Christian world. Different bishops produced different canonical lists, lists which in some cases were changed by later bishops using different criteria. So what were these criterion used?

The primary basis was apostolicity. This did not mean that every New Testament book was written by an apostle, but that every book was consistent with the witness of the apostles. While this is a highly subjective assessment today, it was considerably more objective in the primitive church, which contained people who had been taught by the apostles themselves. As the earliest canonical testimonies contained the core of the New Testament as we know it today, we can safely say these books were confirmed by those who actually were taught by the apostles.

Part of apostolicity has to do with orthodoxy, with the regula fidei — the rule (or deposit) of faith. When the apostle Paul reminded the Thesselonians of all that he had taught them concerning the Gospel, he used the term “traditions”, which is a way of referring to the apostolic deposit, the rule of faith.

But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.(2 Th 2:13-15)

Paul uses a similar line of thought when he addresses the Corinthians, telling them he is sending Timothy to remind them of “his ways” which he teaches everywhere, and to every church. In this extended passage he tells them not to follow the teachings of men, but to follow the rule of faith which is held in common among the churches — which we call orthodox doctrine.

I beseech you, be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church. (1 Cor 4:16-17)

Another part of apostolicity is antiquity. Indeed, one of Tertullian’s arguments against the truncated canon of Marcion is that it doesn’t pass the test of antiquity. Tertullian argues the unedited version of Luke had been accepted from the time it was written, while Marcion’s edited version was unknown to the Church. In his writing, he connects apostolicity and antiquity.

That Gospel of Luke which we are defending with all our might has stood its ground from its very first publication; whereas Marcion’s Gospel is not known to most people, and to none whatever is it known without being at the same time condemned. It too, of course, has its churches, but specially its own—as late as they are spurious; and should you want to know their original, you will more easily discover apostasy in it than apostolicity, with Marcion forsooth as their founder, or some one of Marcion’s swarm. Even wasps make combs; so also these Marcionites make churches. The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to the other Gospels also, which we possess equally through their means, and according to their usage—I mean the Gospels of John and Matthew—whilst that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter’s whose interpreter Mark was. For even Luke’s form of the Gospel men usually ascribe to Paul.[7]

Another important criterion was authorship. Was the author of a particular book known and accepted as an authority? The book of Hebrews was troubling, because the book does not state who wrote it, and the book’s authorship has been lost. Some, such as Eusebius, attribute the book of Hebrews to the apostle Paul. Yet the Pauline authorship is doubtful, and the Western Church did not include the book in its list of approved texts on the basis of its disputed authorship. Yet eventually, Hebrews was accepted as Sacred Scripture. The important thing to note is that authorship is a criterion while the status of a book is in doubt. Once the general consensus of the Church declares this or that book to be Scripture, the issue of authorship is no longer relevant.

Today there are any number of disputes as to the authorship of various books of the Old and New Testament. Many scholars believe that II Peter was not written by Peter, but instead by Peter’s disciples after his death. Some scholars believe the John who wrote Revelation is not the same as the John who wrote the Gospel of John. The authorship (in the modern sense) of the five books of Moses is in dispute. All this is troubling to the Protestant mind, and some have even lost their faith over issues such as these. Yet these issues are unimportant to the Orthodox, and indeed to other Christians. For them the Church has spoken, and the issue is settled. The books of Hebrews, II Peter, Revelation, and the Pentateuch are Scripture, no matter who the author is.

It should be obvious that one of the criterion used was that a book was consistent and free of contradiction. Of course the writing had to be internally consistent, but more important was that it did not contradict other writings considered to be either scripture or authoritative. Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, argues that scripture does not contradict itself.

If a Scripture which appears to be of such a kind be brought forward, and if there be a pretext [for saying] that it is contrary [to some other], since I am entirely convinced that no Scripture contradicts another, I shall admit rather that I do not understand what is recorded, and shall strive to persuade those who imagine that the Scriptures are contradictory, to be rather of the same opinion as myself.[8]

Another important canonical criterion is that the writings were read in church. For a writing to be read in church, it needed to be authoritative. For example, Paul’s letters were written to be read aloud in church. They were then copied and passed on to other churches, who found them to be valuable and worthy of being read in church. The use of our New Testament books became part of regular church usage, a process Eusebius describes as their being “recognized” and “encovenanted”. Steve Rudd writes:

The regular use of writings in the ancient churches was also an important factor in their selection for the New Testament canon. This is what Eusebius had in mind when he mentioned that certain writings were “recognized” (homolegoumena) among the churches and became “encovenanted” (endiathekoi = “testamented” or “canonical”).[9]

One criterion that applied to the book of Jude was that a writing should not quote from books that were not part of the canon. Since Jude quotes the Book of Enoch, which was not part of the Septuagint, some argued that the book of Jude should not be approved for reading in church. Eventually this argument was deemed unpersuasive, and Jude became part of the New Testament canon.

These different criterions were not applied as part of some algorithmic process. There are books that meet these criterions, yet did not make it into the canon. The Didache was written prior to 70 A.D. and the destruction of the temple. Some wanted to attach it to the end of the Gospel of Matthew, where it seems a natural fit. As it describes the regular functioning of the church, its use was normative in the early church. It certainly does not contradict any other scripture text. And yet it did not make it into the canon. Some books like Clement 1, the epistles of Ignatius, and the Shepherd of Hermas were fully orthodox in doctrine, and were often read in church. And yet, eventually, they were left out of the canon.

The process of canonical formation is not a smooth, logical process. The rules were applied loosely, and sometimes were bent or ignored. The only rules that were applied across the board were that a writing had to be consistent with other scripture, and that it be fully orthodox in doctrine. The rest of the rules were applied in a seemingly haphazard fashion, a process that suggests a supra-rational approach, following the leading of the Holy Spirit working within the community of faith.

Epistemology and the Community-Canon Approach

Perhaps the greatest problem with the Community-Canon approach is that it uses an epistemological criterion (one determined by propositional knowledge) to determine the suitability of a book for inclusion into the canon. If the Biblical canon is a list of authoritative and inspired books compiled by the Christian community, then only the Christian community can recognize and define that list. If, however, canonicity is an epistemic criterion, then individuals and groups can each use different criterion and reason their way towards producing different lists. William Abraham describes the key difference between these two views.

The older way was prepared to leave scripture as both a gift of the Holy Spirit and as subject to the ongoing activity of the Spirit without worrying overmuch about epistemology. In my terms, the older way was content to leave scripture as a means of grace. The new fashion was to give primacy to ideas of revelation and inspiration as applying in some unique fashion to the Bible, and to limit scripture to the Bible. However, it is only someone already smitten by epistemology, and more precisely by the kind of epistemology furnished by Aquinas, who can accept the shift identified here so gladly and readily.[10]

For us to understand this argument, we must discuss the development of an epistemological role in theology — the foundation, source, and validity of revelatory truth. Richard Foley comments: “For the medievals, religious authority and tradition were seen as repositories of wisdom”. According to Foley, it was the enlightenment views of men like Descartes and Locke who “regarded tradition and authority as potential sources of error and took reason to be the corrective”.[11] But interestingly, this view did not originate with Locke and Descartes, but has its roots in the writings of Aquinas. William Abraham develops this thesis following this quote from the French theologian Yves Marie Joseph Cardinal Congar, who claims Thomas Aquinas inherited the following crucial assumptions from the Middle Ages:

First, the attributing of all true (and holy determinations of the life of the Church, to a [revelation, inspiration, suggestion], of the Holy Spirit.

Second, the practice of including the Fathers, the conciliar canons and even the pontifical decrees and (more rarely) the more outstanding treatises of the theologians, in the Scriptura Sacra [sacred Scripture], or again, without distinguishing, in the divina pagina [interpretation of scripture].[12] This is a practice of long standing; there seems no doubt but that it arises from the Decretum Gelasianum [Gelasian Decree ][13], which …had passed into canonical collections, and into those chapters which dealt with sources and rules.[14]

For William Abraham, and likely with Protestants in general, the implications are quite startling.

‘Scripture’ was not originally confined to the Bible; it had a much wider frame of reference. …What we see emerging in what follows is a quite different range of sense and reference. Over time, Scripture was cut back to apply materially to the Bible; and its primary function lay in that of operating as an authority.[15]

According to William Abraham, Thomas Aquinas developed that “special kind of rigour in theology”, and was therefore the first to distinguish the authority of the Bible from that of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.[16] Thus, it was Aquinas that laid the foundations for the Reformation’s outright rejection of the Bible as interpreted by the Father’s and the Councils, and in favor of the Bible as interpreted by Reason and Conscience.

The Intrinsic-Canon Approach

As we have spoken unfavorably of the Community-Canon approach, and particularly with its reliance upon human reason and epistemological criteria, we bring ourselves to the Intrinsic Canon approach.

John C. Peckam’s arguments against the Community-Approach apply to the Intrinsic-Canon approach as well. As previously mentioned, Peckham defines the Intrinsic-Canon approach as “a collection of authoritative books that are authoritative because God commissioned [inspired] them.” There is something important missing here: is a book inspired apart from its being part of a collection of authoritative books? And how can there be a collection of such books apart from the community who collected them?

Peckham’s own explanation of the Intrinsic-Canon approach argues for the community’s recognition of certain texts as authoritative. Why? Because an inspired scripture is of no use to anyone if it is not recognized as such. The Holy Spirit bears witness to the inspiration of the writing, and this witness takes place within and to the community of believers — the Church.

If we deal with the two views atomistically, they seem like alternate and opposing approaches. However, we have already noted that the Intrinsic-Canon approach does not preclude the community’s involvement in recognizing that a particular book is authoritative and inspired. Therefore, in practical terms, the two approaches are much the same, and attempts to separate them are short-sighted at best.

As you will remember, John C. Peckham wrote of the prophet as being one “divinely authorized to speak for God.” Thus we must conceive of the Holy Spirit primarily working with individuals, and of inspiring them to write Sacred Scripture. Just as the Holy Spirit works with individuals apart from the community, so then the text produced is inspired apart from its being part of “a collection of authoritative books.”

This raises some important questions. Can we conceive of a single book being inspired, apart from its inclusion in a collection of inspired books? More importantly, is a book inspired apart from its witness to and within a community? And what is the role of the Holy Spirit in all this?

Objections to the Intrinsic-Canon Approach

The idea of an Intrinsic-Canon, of the inspiration of the text apart from the community’s recognition of said inspiration, is a problem historically. A prophet would speak, and then he, his amanuensis, or his followers would write down what he had to say. For the text’s continued existence, it had to be copied by hand, which was an expensive and laborious process. Thus we cannot conceive of a text’s existence apart from its usefulness to and recognition by the community.[17]

The case of Jeremiah is important in this regard. The original text of Jeremiah was destroyed by Jehoakim, king of Judah, and Jeremiah had to dictate another scroll to his scribe, Baruch. (Jeremiah 36) So the question becomes which text was inspired: the first scroll, or the second? Actually, both of them were inspired, but only one is canonical. How can this be? Because the Scripture is a witness to the revelation, not the revelation itself. Therefore, a pure Intrisic-Canon approach will not do, as it does not account for the problem of Jeremiah.

The Verbal Icon and the Witness of the Holy Spirit

Karl Barth, the most important Protestant theologian of the twentieth century, seems to argue against the Community-Canon approach when he states: “the Bible is the witness of divine revelation.” Barth thus draws a distinction between the revelation of God and the Bible as the witness to that revelation. Barth goes on to state: “there is a Word of God for the Church: in that it receives in the Bible the witness of divine revelation.”[18] Thus the Bible is the Word of God for the Church precisely because of its witness to divine revelation. Regarding this proposition, Barth writes:

A witness is not absolutely identical with that to which it witnesses. This corresponds with the facts upon which the truth of the whole proposition is based. In the Bible we meet with human words written in human speech, and in these words, and therefore by means of them, we hear of the lordship of the triune God. Therefore when we have to do with the Bible, we have to do primarily with this means, with these words, with the witness which as such is not itself a revelation, but only — and this is the limitation — the witness to it.[19]

Barth is careful to say that the Bible mediates the original revelation; that it is the means by which the revelation comes to us, the means by which the revelation accommodates itself to us, and the means by which the revelation of God becomes “an actual presence and event.”[20] In other words, the revelation of God is primary; the text of the Bible is absolutely dependent upon the initial revelation, and is a faithful witness to that revelation, but must be distinguished from it.

Here would be a good place to develop the idea of the “Verbal Icon”. The icon is an image of a thing, and not the thing itself. Thus the icon resembles and is symbolic of the object to which it refers. The icon therefore interprets and illumines reality.[21] When God says “Let us make man in our image” (Gen 1:26), the Hebrew word used is צלם (tselem, pronounced tseh’- lem). The Greek translation of that term is εικων (eikon,pronounced i-kone’), which is the source for our English word icon. Thus an icon is not, as is often thought, merely a visual symbolic representation: humans are the created icon of God; paintings may be the icon of Jesus, of saints, and of angels; and the Bible may be a “verbal icon” of God.[22]

This is important because the Scriptures are written in human language. Words are not the thing itself, but are symbols of that thing. The word “running” represents the act of running; the word “love” represents an abstract concept; the word “God” represents many things, not of which capture the essence of divinity. It is because of the consideration and condescension of God that we have this verbal icon at all. As St. John Chrystom says in his Homily 17 on Genesis:

Let us follow the direction of Sacred Scripture in the interpretation it gives of itself, provided we don’t get completely absorbed in the concreteness of the words, but realize that our limitations are the reason for the concreteness of the language. Human senses, you see, would never be able to grasp what is said if they had not the benefit of such great considerateness.

Robert C. Hill, the translator of Chrysostom’s Homilies on Genesis 1-17, writes of “the delicate balance or the two correlatives: in Chrysostom’s “theology of the Word — divine transcendence and considerateness for human limitations.” It is as though the text of Sacred Scripture represents both the immanence and transcendence of God. It is as if, to use an idea from C.S. Lewis, the inside is larger than the outside.[23] St. John of Damascus writes of the “womb in which the Uncontained dwelt.”[24] Germanos of Constantinople describes the infant Jesus, as being “wider than the heavens.”[25] Our Lord Jesus Christ was both locally present according to his humanity, and everywhere present and filling all things according to his divinity. We should therefore not be astonished at the idea that the God who is ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever existing and eternally the same, nevertheless shows consideration of human weakness by allowing His divinity to be circumscribed in human language. The bible is the verbal icon of God Himself.

If we accept the idea that the initial revelation of God is separate and distinct from the capture of that witness in the pages of Sacred Scripture, then we have a problem, for the Bible is witness to that revelation, and therefore not that revelation itself. Thus the Intrinsic-Canon approach to canonicity will not work. But the Community-Canon approach will not work either, for the revelation of God predates the community’s recognition of its witness in the text.

The resolution to this problem is quite simple, and remarkably profound. The previous approaches to canonicity ignore the work of the Holy Spirit. If we accept the Holy Spirit’s role as working with “holy men of God” (2 Pet 1:21) as opposed to the community as a whole, then it is possible for an inspired text to exist apart from its recognition as Scripture by the community. We know that it took time after a book was written and in use by the community before the community began to refer to it as Scripture. In nearly every case (with the possible exception of 1 Tim 5:18 and 2 Pet 3:15-16), what the New Testament authors speak of as Scripture is the Old Testament, even while using the books that would become the New Testament in their services. And, as we have mentioned previously, Paul referred to his own writings as “traditions” and “epistles” (meaning letters), rather than as Scripture (2 Th 2:15).[26]

However, the thesis that the Holy Spirit’s ministry is primarily to the individual is a problem. The very concept of the individual is a recent western phenomenon. The ancients considered themselves to be persons, but persons who were part of a larger whole. Their identity as persons, their self-worth and reason for living, was tied to the community they were part of. Thus the prophet was moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Pt 1:21) to be a witness to the community and, eventually, his witness was accepted as such by that same community, as influenced by that same Holy Spirit. The Protestant conception of the Holy Spirit’s working primarily through individuals was unknown to the biblical authors, for whom inspiration developed within a community, and functioned as a witness to that community. Thus the inspiration of Sacred Scripture was for the community the witness of the Holy Spirit’s witness to the community, through the inspired text, of the original revelation of God. Thus the Holy Spirit doesn’t work at one level, through the person, but within and through the community as well.

If we accept the idea that the Holy Spirit works within the community, and in a special way to persons as a witness to that community, then it is possible a text could be inspired apart from the community’s initial recognition of such. However, the Holy Spirit works within the community towards its recognition of the Scriptures. And although we are limited by time, the Holy Spirit is not. From God’s perspective, it is unlikely there is any difference between the scripture’s recording of revelation, and the community’s recognition of that record as inspired.[27]

Bibliography

Abraham, William J. Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Ambrose. “Letter XLII.” In The Letters of S. Ambrose, Bishop Of Milan, by Ambrose, translated by H. Walford, 282-287. London, Oxford, & Cambridge: James Parker And Co., And Rivingtons, 1881.

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics I.2: The Doctrine of the Word of God. New York: T&T Clark, 2004.

Constantinou, Eugenia Scarvelis. “Introduction to the Bible – Lesson 2: Inspiration and inerrancy.” Search the Scriptures. Ancient Faith Ministries, Jun 14, 2008.

Contantinou, Eugenia Scarvelis. Andrew of Caesarea And The Apocalypse in the Ancient Church of the East: Studies and Translation. Translated by Eugenia Scarvelis Contantinou. Laval: Faculté des études supérieures de l’Université Laval, 2008.

Cunningham, Mary B., trans. Wider Than Heaven: Eighth-century Homilies on the Mother of God. Kindle Edition. Yonkers, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011.

Fiorenza, Francis Schüssler. Systematic Theology: Tasks and Methods. Vol. 1, in Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, by Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin, 1-88. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1991.

Foley, Richard. Intellectual Trust in Oneself and Others. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Kruger, Michael J. “The Gospel Coalition.” Apocrypha and Canon in Early Christianity. March 13, 2013. http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/apocrypha-and-canon-in-early-christianity/ (accessed July 13, 2014).

Lewis, Clive Staples. The Last Battle. New York: Collier Books, 1970.

McGinn, Bernard. Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Rudd, Steve. Criteria used by apostolic fathers to determine canon. n.d. http://www.bible.ca/b-canon-criteria-of-apostolic-fathers.htm (accessed September 6, 2014).

Schaff, Philip. ANF01 The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Vol. 1. 10 vols. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1884.

Schaff, Philip, and Allan Menzies. ANF03 Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian. Vol. 3. 10 vols. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2006.

Wimsatt, William Kurtz, and Monroe C. Beardsley. The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry. Kindle Edition. The University Press of Kentucky, 1953.

Endnotes

[1] (Constantinou, Andrew of Caesarea And The Apocalypse in the Ancient Church of the East: Studies and Translation 2008, 31)

[2] (Peckham, Intrinsic Canonicity and the Inadequacy of the Community Approach to Canon-Determination 2011)

[3] Epistomology is a philosophical concept having to do with the foundation, scope, and validity of knowledge.

[4] (Peckham, Intrinsic Canonicity and the Inadequacy of the Community Approach to Canon-Determination 2011, 209)

[5] (Peckham, Intrinsic Canonicity and the Inadequacy of the Community Approach to Canon-Determination 2011)

[6] There are a variety of ways to approach the issue. For myself, the question was answered when I became convinced through the pages of Scripture, the witness of the church fathers, and the evidence of Church history that the fullness of the Church was to be found only in Eastern Orthodoxy. However, my situation is odd, in that I began life as a Fundamentalist, coexisted uneasily with the Evangelicals for a time before I became Lutheran, and finally ended up as Eastern Orthodox. You could think of me as open-minded, or as unstable as water. Frankly, the question is between you and the Holy Spirit. Once you prayerfully examine the evidence, it may well be that the Holy Spirit wants you to stay where you are, using the canon approved by your community.

[7] (Schaff and Menzies, ANF03 2006, 581-582)

[8] (Schaff, ANF01 1884, 370)

[9] (Rudd n.d.)

[10] (Abraham 1998, x-xi)

[11] (Foley 2001, 13)

[12] Divina pagina refers to the interpretation of Scripture, (McGinn 1998, 127) and is one of the three early medieval terms used for theology, the other two being sacra doctrina and sacra scriptura (Fiorenza 1991)

[13] Tradition attributes the Decretum Gelasianum [Gelasian Decree ] to Pope Gelasius I, who was Pope from 492-496. The second part of the Decretum Gelasianum is a list of canonical scriptures. The list includes the Old Testament Scriptures which the Protestants consider to be Apocryphal, and the entire New Testament with the exception of 2 Corinthians. The third part discusses the authority of the Bishop of Rome. The fourth part makes the ecumenical councils authoritative and receives the works of a number of the church fathers. Finally, the fifth part contains a list of books compiled or recognized by heretics and schismatics, works which are not received by the church. It is possible that the list of Apocryphal books represents a tradition that can be traced back to Pope Gelasius, but was not actually written by him.

[14] (Abraham 1998, ix)

[15] (Abraham 1998, ix)

[16] (Abraham 1998, x)

[17] The idea that the preservation of a text is related to the community’s acceptance of the text leads to the idea that the number of preserved or extant manuscripts reflects the importance of that manuscript to the community. Michael J. Kruger, author of The Question of Canon, describes this as “Extant Manuscript” evidence, which concept us used to demonstrate the canonicity of the New Testament books over against the New Testament apocryphal writings — in particular, the gnostic texts recently discovered in the Nag Hammadi library. (Kruger 2013)

[18] (Barth, Church Dogmatics I.2: The Doctrine of the Word of God 2004, 462)

[19] (Barth, Church Dogmatics I.2: The Doctrine of the Word of God 2004, 463)

[20] (Barth, Church Dogmatics I.2: The Doctrine of the Word of God 2004, 463)

[21] (Wimsatt and Beardsley 1953, Kindle Locations 35-38)

[22] (Constantinou, Introduction to the Bible Lesson 2 2008)

[23] (Lewis 1970, 180)

[24] (Cunningham 2011, Kindle Location 1458)

[25] (Cunningham 2011, Kindle Location 3328)

[26] The recognition that Paul did not refer to his own writings as Scripture is significant, because Paul was something of a braggart. I understand that Paul was forced to defend his apostleship, as he was not one of the original twelve. Still, we know more about Paul’s torments from his own mouth, rather than from the mouths of others.

[27] Although God created time and is aware of its limitations upon us, God is apart from time, seeing the particular moment and the sweep of history all at once.

Canon and Canonicity

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Kristofer Carlson

Antique Homemade Carpenter’s Level

The meaning of the Greek word canon (κανών) is problematic. Karel van der Toorn says the term itself is of “Christian coinage.”[1] The term canon means table, rule, or measuring stick. In early Christian usage, the term canon has reference to the regula fidei, the rule of faith. This concept is best captured by the apostle Paul when he says the scriptures are “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim 3:16-17) This idea of canon as the regula fidei, the rule of faith, does not contain the idea of a list of authoritative writings.

When we think of the canon today, we generally think in terms of a list of inspired scriptures. However, the idea of canon as a list is a relatively recent development; the ancients used different term (pinakes or katalogos) for a catalogue of writings. Lee McDonald writes:

The word canon was not regularly used in reference to a closed collection of writings until David Ruhnken used it this way in 1768. In his treatise entitled Historia critica oratorum Graecorum, he employed the term canon for a selective list of literary writings. …In antiquity [the Greek word] pinakes is more commonly used of catalogues or lists.[2]

When modern theology conceives of canon as a list, it speaks solely of the text; when ancient theology conceives of canon as the rule of faith, it speaks of the revelation contained within the text. The two thoughts are not opposed to one another; a book becomes part of a list of scriptures texts because of the revelation contained therein. However, when we conceive of canon solely as a list, we wind up arguing over issues of canon and canonicity, rather than focusing on the revelation of Jesus Christ — which is, after all, the whole point of the Sacred Scriptures.

Catalogue, Dead Sea Scrolls

F. F. Bruce writes:

The Christian church started its existence with a book, but it was not to the book that it owed its existence. It shared the book with the Jewish people; indeed, the first members of the church were without exception Jews. The church owed its distinctive existence to a person — to Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, dead and buried , but ‘designated Son of God in power … by his resurrection from the dead ’ (Rom. 1: 4). This Jesus, it was believed, had been exalted by God to be universal Lord; he had sent his Spirit to be present with his followers, to unite them and animate them as his body on earth. The function of the book was to bear witness to him.[3]

Given that the function of Scripture is to bear witness to Him, it is curious that the idea of canon has shifted away from this idea to a mere listing of books. The discussion of the canon as a list of authoritative and inspired books, and canonicity as the process by which an individual text became part of that collection of books, has taken on increased urgency following the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the gnostic writings contained in the Nag Hammadi library. Together these have fueled the imagination of biblical scholars, and have added detail to the background of our Sacred Scriptures — all of which have sparked a renewed interest in the subject of canon and canonicity.

The debates over canon and canonicity are taking place more among the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches than among the Christian communions of the east. Seemingly every Protestant introduction and commentary on the Scriptures covers the issues surrounding the canon. But in the 16^th century theological conversation between the Protestants and the Orthodox, the issues of canon and canonicity didn’t come up at all — in part because the Lutherans never mentioned their use of a different canon.[4] Instead, the Lutherans argued for the authority of Scripture, an issue then Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II accepted without comment. The discussion between the Lutherans and the Orthodox really focused on what was authoritative for faith and practice. The Lutherans kept bringing up Scripture as the authority, and the Patriarch accepted their position but included Holy Tradition as part of that discussion. In a sense, neither of them understood the other’s position, and so they simply talked past one another.[5]

As for the Eastern Orthodox position, consider the following. The two-volume Introduction to the Old Testament by the Very Rev. Paul Nadim Tarazi[6], Professor of Old Testament at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, does not discuss the issues of canon and canonicity at all. This topic is also glossed over or ignored in most Eastern Orthodox dogmatics. By way of example, Dumitru Staniloae’s five-volume “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” discusses the nature of revelation, its relationship with the world at large, and its relation to the Church and Holy Tradition, but his books do not deal in any substantive manner with canonicity — at least not in a way the western Church would recognize. In Fr. John Breck’s book, entitled “Scripture in Tradition”, he avoids the subject of the canon altogether, instead focusing on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. How do we account for the difference between these approaches? What impact do these issues have upon the regula fidei, the faith once delivered to the saints?

While the use of canon as list is relatively modern, the issues regarding canon and canonicity have their roots in the Middle Ages. Fr. John Breck writes:

Scripture determines what constitutes genuine Tradition, yet Tradition gives birth to and determines the limits of Scripture. To many people’s minds, this way of envisioning the circular relationship between Scripture and Tradition appears untenable. The Protestant Reformers attempted to break this form of the hermeneutic circle by advancing the teaching known as sola scriptura [Scripture alone], holding that Scripture alone determines faith and morality… This was to a large extent in reaction to medieval Roman Catholicism which had separated Scripture and Tradition into separate domains, giving priority to the latter.[7]

When we debate the issues of canon and canonicity, it is helpful to discuss the Old Testament and the New Testament separately, because they each took very different paths in their development. As we know, the Old Testament is called “Scripture” by the New Testament authors, but there is little indication that the New Testament as we know it today was considered to be Scripture. There are two passages which may suggest some parts of the New Testament were considered Scripture (1 Tim:18 and 2 Pet 3:15-16), but as we will discuss in a later chapter, these are by no means conclusive. The apostle Paul did not refer to his writings as scripture, but instead categorized his teachings as “traditions”, and referred to his books as epistles (2 Th 2:15). Moreover, nowhere in the New Testament do we have a catalogue of canonical books, neither for the Old Testament books (which are explicitly called scripture) or for the writings of the New Testament.

The earliest evidence for the current list of Old Testament books comes from the period after the fall of Jerusalem, and is the first statement of what we now call the three divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. F. F. Bruce writes:

One of the clearest and earliest statements of these three divisions and their respective contents comes in a baraitha (a tradition from the period AD 70—200) quoted in the Babylonian Talmud, in the tractate Baba Bathra. This tradition assigns inspired or authoritative authors to all twenty-four books, and discusses their order.[8]

Babylonian Talmud

The problems with this reference to the Babylonian Talmud begin with the dates. A tradition dating from after the fall of Jerusalem, and as late as the end of the 2^nd century, can scarcely be used to describe the state of Judaism in the time of Christ. This is especially true when we know that Judaism was forced to change in response to the destruction of the temple and the rise of Christianity. After the fall of Jerusalem, the center of Judaism could no longer be the temple, but was focused instead on the Hebrew Scriptures. And the Scriptures themselves changed in response to the growth of Christianity as a rival sect, a sect that used the Septuagint as its own Sacred Scriptures. This change in the Hebrew Scriptures began in the mid-2^nd century, as demonstrated by Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.[9]

Another problem is that the baraitha (or Babylonian tradition) quoted in the Babylonian Talmud was not authoritative, but was one of many voices in an ongoing discussion. That this particular bairaitha was not authoritative is demonstrated by its failure to be included in the Mishnah, which was completed sometime between 200 – 220 A.D. Not only that, but the proposed three-fold division of the scriptures was not adopted by the Christian community, who devised their own ordering and division of books.[10]

The example from the Babylonian Talmud demonstrates something that needs to be kept in mind, which is this: we cannot derive the pre-Christian status of the Jewish canon from post-Christian sources, because these are all arguing a point of view — one that is largely informed by and in opposition to Christianity.

The modern conception of canon as a list first began with the dispute between the Church of Rome and the Protestants, each of whom made the issue of the canon part of their dispute. But as there has never been a Reformation among the Orthodox, the issues of canon and canonicity are of no dogmatic importance in the East. Any splits among the Orthodox, including the Great Schism between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics, were about Christology, not the Canon; each collection of authoritative writings arose by common consent among the different groups, rather than as part of a formal dogmatic stance.

The Ecumenical Councils were generally uninterested in the issues of canon and canonicity. Dr. Constantinou writes:

By that time, certain books were unquestioned, while most apocryphal works were recognized as such and universally rejected. But individual churches and bishops exercised their own discretion among disputed works. Clearly the issue was not resolved at [the first council of Nicea because no pressing need to create a definitive canon was perceived: the question of the canon was simply not a divisive issue. This lack of concern among the participants of the Nicene council with respect to the canon indicates that opinions about the canon were not essentially dogmatic. Two persons could disagree about the canon and both could be entirely orthodox in doctrine.[11]

So how were the limits of our current canon determined? Initially, while Christian writings were shared between the churches, the title of Scripture was reserved only for the Old Testament, while the boundaries of the Old Testament were somewhat undefined.[12] Dr. Eugenia Constantinou writes:

Until the end of the second century, the term “Scriptures,” referred exclusively to the Jewish scriptures. Just as they had been the sole Scriptures for Christ and the apostles they remained the only Holy Scripture of the Church for many decades. Christ himself had quoted them, appealed to them, interpreted them and, most of all, fulfilled them. The Law and the Prophets had been normative for so long that it was difficult to conceive of any other writings achieving such high status. Although it appears that Christian documents were read within the context of Christian worship services by the early second century, another hundred years passed before they were recognized as possessing a level of authority that placed them on par with the Old Testament.[13]

Unlike what many of us were taught, and what seemed reasonable given the Protestant understanding of the canon, the development of the list of New Testament books occurred over some time, in fits and starts. The early church had the regula fidei, the rule of faith, as their guide. This guide led them to gradually accept certain books as scripture, and reject others as either not consistent with the rule of faith, or not rising to the level of scripture. Many of us were taught that the New Testament canon was closed with the death of the apostle John, who before his death was able to grant his apostolic seal of approval to all the New Testament books. But the historical evidence does not support this idea. Instead, what we see is the process of the Church gradually coming to a consensus on the limits of the New Testament canon, a process guided by the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit, working in and through the Church, the Bride of Christ.

There never was any formal agreement which settled the issues of canon and canonicity for the New Testament. This is why Martin Luther was able to consider eliminating books from the corpus of the New Testament — because in his day, the idea of canon as a list of books did not exist. Thus, when Martin Luther came into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church, he appealed to his peculiar regula fidei as his guide to determining which books should be in the canon. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and Luther was not allowed to alter the catalogue of the New Testament (although he was allowed to separate the “Apocrypha” from the rest of the Old Testament. The restrictions placed upon Luther’s alteration of the canon was likely done for practical reasons; by this time the canonical consensus was deeply ingrained, and the people would not have stood for it.

In response to the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church held their Concilium Tridentinum, or Council of Trent, and in their fourth session (8 April, 1546 A.D.) published their catalogue of the biblical books. This catalogue was not new, having previously been published by the Council of Florence in 1422 A.D., and contained our current 27 book canon of the New Testament. Since the Council of Trent was convened in response to the Protestant Reformation, it had dogmatic significance for Catholic and Protestant alike (in the sense that it hardened the dogmatic positions of each.) Thus, although the list of New Testament books remains the same for Catholics and Protestants alike; what differentiates them is the manner and context in which the texts are interpreted.

Bibliography

Breck, John. Scripture in Tradition: The Bible and Its Interpretation in the Orthodox Church. Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001.

Bruce, F. F. The Canon of Scripture. Kindle Edition. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010.

Constantinou, Eugenia Scarvelis. Andrew of Caesarea And The Apocalypse in the Ancient Church of the East: Studies and Translation. Translated by Eugenia Scarvelis Contantinou. Laval: Faculté des études supérieures de l’Université Laval, 2008.

Mastrantonis, George. Augsburg and Constantinople: The Correspondence between the Tübingen Theologians and Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople on the Augsburg Confession. Edited by N. M. Vaporis. Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1982.

McDonald, Lee Martin. The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority. 3rd. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.

van der Toorn, Karel. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Endnotes

[1] (van der Toorn 2007, 233)

[2] (McDonald 2007, 51)

[3] (Bruce, The Canon of Scripture 2010, 27)

[4] In the late 17^th century, a group of Lutheran theologians sent a Greek translation of their Augsburg confession to Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople. What followed is an intriguing correspondence which took place over a period of years. While this theological correspondence is well known among the Orthodox, surprisingly few Lutherans and Protestants know anything about it, and fewer still have read the actual texts. It is unclear what the Lutherans were trying to do. Some think the Lutherans were trying to convert the Ecumenical Patriarch (unlikely). Some think the Lutherans were trying to become part of the Orthodox Church (also unlikely). The text seems to indicate that the Lutherans merely wanted the Ecumenical Patriarch to accept that the Lutheran doctrine was consistent with that of the Orthodox Church; the position of the Ecumenical Patriarch is that it was not.

[5] (Mastrantonis 1982, passim)

[6] The Very Rev. Paul Nadim Tarazi is a controversial and polarizing figure, so perhaps we should not read too much into his failure to deal with the issue of canonicity.

[7] (Breck 2001, 11)

[8] (Bruce, The Canon of Scripture 2010, 29-30)

[9] (Schaff, ANF01 1884, Chapters LXXI and LXXII)

[10] (McDonald 2007, 164-165)

[11] (Constantinou, Andrew of Caesarea And The Apocalypse in the Ancient Church of the East: Studies and Translation 2008, 38)

[12] (McDonald 2007, 22)

[13] (Constantinou, Andrew of Caesarea And The Apocalypse in the Ancient Church of the East: Studies and Translation 2008, 32)

The Hebraic Origins of Matthew’s Gospel

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A number of the New Testament Greek texts we have today may not be the original language the books were conceived in, let alone written in. This is most obviously true in the case of Matthew, for which we have explicit evidence for its being originally written in Hebrew. The earliest church fathers are generally known as the Ante-Nicene Fathers, who form a contiguous chain from the Apostles to the 1^st Ecumenical Council ( A.D., 325), also known as the Council of Nicea. They provide a consistent testimony to the Hebraic origins of Matthew’s Gospel.

The earliest witness to the Hebraic origin of Matthew is Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, in Asia Minor. The church historian Eusibius references his (now lost) Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord (c. 100), where he speaks concerning the Hebrew origin of the Gospels. Eusebius quotes Papias as follows:

Matthew put down the words of the Lord in the Hebrew language, and others have translated them, each as best he could. (Schaff 1890, 317)

Irenaeus (120-202 A.D.) was Bishop of Lyons in France. Most of his literary endeavors were undertaken in the last quarter of the second century A.D. Irenaeus states:

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their owndialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. (Schaff, ANF01. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus 1884, 685)

Origen (first quarter of the third century), in his commentary on Matthew, states:

Among the four Gospels,which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of Godunder heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once apublican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts fromJudaism, and published in the Hebrew language. (Schaff, NPNF2-01. Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine 1890, 571)

Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (circa 325 A.D.), writes:

For Matthew, who had at first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, committed his Gospel to writing in his native tongue, and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence. (Schaff, NPNF2-01. Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine 1890, 265)

There are additional references in the later church fathers (generally known as the Post-Nicean Fathers, dating from approximately 325 A.D.). Epiphanius, for instance, writes at length about the Jewish-Christian sect of the Nazarenes:

They have the entire Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew. It is carefully preserved by them as it was originally written, in Hebrew script. (Bivin and Blizzard Jr. 1994, Kindle Locations 214-215)

Epiphanius also writes about the Ebionites, another Messianic sect:

And they too accept the Gospel of Matthew. . .They call it “according to the Hebrews,” and that is the correct way of speaking since Matthew alone of the New Testament writers presents the gospel in Hebrew and in the Hebrew script. (Bivin and Blizzard Jr. 1994, Kindle Locations 215-217)

Eusebius writes of Saint Pantaenus the Philosopher, a second century convert from the Stoics, who for a time was a missionary to India, and who discovered a Hebrew edition of Matthew that had reportedly been left there by Bartholemew.[1]

Pantænus was one of these, and is said to have gone to India. It is reported that among persons there who knew of Christ, he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival. For Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached to them, and left with them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language, which they had preserved till that time. (Schaff, NPNF2-01. Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine 1890, 445-446)

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Catechetical Lectures, says the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew. (St. Cyril of Jerusalem 2013, Kindle Locations 4317-4318)

The great bible scholar St. Jerome provides some of the most compelling testimony to Matthew’s Gospel being originally written in Hebrew. In his De Viris Illustribus, or On Illustrious Men (A.D. 492), Jerome writes of extant copies of the Gospel of Matthew that still existed in the library at Caesarea and among the Nazarenes.

Matthew, also called Levi, apostle and aforetimes publican, composed a gospel of Christ at first published in Judea in Hebrew for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed, but this was afterwards translated into Greek though by what author is uncertain. The Hebrew itself has been preserved until the present day in the library at Cæsarea which Pamphilus so diligently gathered. I have also had the opportunity of having the volume described to me by the Nazarenes of Berœa, a city of Syria, who use it. In this it is to be noted that wherever the Evangelist, whether on his own account or in the person of our Lord the Saviour quotes the testimony of the Old Testament he does not follow the authority of the translators of the Septuagint but the Hebrew. Wherefore these two forms exist “Out of Egypt have I called my son,” and “for he shall be called a Nazarene. (Schaff, NPNF2-03. Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius, & Rufinus: Historical 1892, 626)

David Blivin and Roy Blizzard Jr., in their book Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus, write of the Hebraic background of the New Testament. They point out that although the New Testament documents are written in Greek, they are thoroughly Hebrew in their grammatical construction, which accounts for what many scholars call the “poor Greek” of the New Testament.

It should be emphasized that the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) is, in its entirety, highly Hebraic. In spite of the fact that portions of the New Testament were communicated in Greek, the background is thoroughly Hebrew. The writers are Hebrew, the culture is Hebrew, the religion is Hebrew, the traditions are Hebrew, and the concepts are Hebrew. (Bivin and Blizzard Jr. 1994, Kindle Locations 82-84)

Regarding the Gospel of Matthew, Dr. David Scaer notes that as Matthew was written as a catechesis, Matthew would have used several scribes as amanuenses. Thus, there would have been multiple autographs. (Scaer 2004, 102) It is unclear when the Gospel of Matthew was translated into Greek, but it must have happened rather quickly, after which the Greek text became the standard text, used in the increasingly Gentile church in preference to the original Hebrew text.

So what does this matter, you may ask? It matters because the only texts we have of the Gospel of Matthew are in Greek, and are therefore translations of the original Hebrew. We have the witness of Papias, as recorded by Eusebius, not only to the original text of Matthew’s Gospel being composed in Hebrew, but that it was translated into Greek by multiple people, “as best they were able.” This would account for some of the differing textual traditions of the Gospel of Matthew, and for the extensive Hebraisms found therein.

A Hebraism is a Hebrew idiom that is a literal word for word translation into another language — in our case, Greek. From there, our English bibles tend towards a literal, word for word translation of the Greek text. An idiom is generally defined as “a speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, as in keep tabs on.” (FARLEX n.d.) A literal, word for word Greek translation of a Hebrew idiom results in a text that is obscure, often violates the rules of Greek grammar, and is therefore amenable to misinterpretation. From David Bivin and Roy Blizzard Jr.’s book, we will provide but a single example of a Hebraism from the Gospel of Matthew, one that changes the typical interpretation of the text.

A mistranslation of the eighth beatitude may also have been the cause of erroneous theology. Matthew 5:10 reads: “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” On the basis of this translation, one would quite naturally assume that there is some religious merit in being persecuted for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Early in the second century A.D. this idea developed and found its fruition in the martyrdom of millions during the years of the ten severe persecutions until the Edict of Toleration by Constantine in 311 A.D. The idea of gaining religious merit through suffering persecution or through martyrdom has continued in the theological consciousness of the church to the present day. Is this really what Jesus is referring to in Matthew 5:10? Does Jesus mean that religious merit can be obtained by suffering persecution? Are we to seek persecution? No! This eighth beatitude should be translated: “How blessed are those who pursue righteousness, for of these is the Kingdom of Heaven.” There are actually four mistranslations in this one verse. We should not translate “persecute,” but “pursue.” Secondly, “righteousness” is an unfortunate translation in English. “Salvation” or “redemption’ would be more accurate. (See our discussion on page 60.) Thirdly, “theirs” also leaves the wrong impression. We do not possess the Kingdom. The correct translation would be “of these,” or “of such as these” as in Luke 18:16, “Let the children come to me and do not prevent them, for of such as these is the Kingdom of God.” Fourthly, the Kingdom of Heaven is not futuristic, as is so often understood. (See our discussion on pages 62-65.) In the eighth beatitude Jesus is not discussing persecution at all. He is describing people whose chief desire is for God to redeem the world. The Beatitudes are a description of the kind of people who make up the Kingdom of Heaven. This beatitude, like the others, characterizes the “Kingdom Man,” who wants above all else for God to rule in the life of every person. The eighth beatitude echoes the fourth beatitude which speaks of those who “hunger and thirst [i.e., ‘desire above all else’] for righteousness,” in other words, for God to save the lost. It also echoes Matthew 6:33 in which Jesus says that we are to “seek first [i.e., ‘desire above all else’] His righteousness [i.e., ‘salvation ].” (Bivin and Blizzard Jr. 1994, Kindle Locations 591-604)

Bibliography

Bivin, David, and Roy Blizzard Jr. Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus: New Insights From a Hebrew Perspective. Revised Edition. Shippensburg: Destiny Image Publishers, 1994.

FARLEX. The Free Dictionary. n.d. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/idiom (accessed April 26, 2014).

Scaer, David P. Discourse in Matthew: Jesus Teaches the Church. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2004.

Schaff, Philip. ANF01. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Vol. 1. 10 vols. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1884.

—. NPNF2-01. Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Translated by Arthur C. McGiffert and Ernest C. Richardson. Vol. 1. 14 vols. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1890.

—. NPNF2-03. Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius, & Rufinus: Historical. New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem. The Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Kindle Edition. Translated by Edwin Hamilton Gifford. 2013.

[1] There was a Roman trade route to India, with a sizeable Jewish population living there.

The Development of the NT Canon

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Kristofer Carlson

The Supposed Timeline of the New Testament Canon

The Ecumenical Councils were generally uninterested in the issues of canon and canonicity. Dr. Constantinou writes:

By that time, certain books were unquestioned, while most apocryphal works were recognized as such and universally rejected. But individual churches and bishops exercised their own discretion among disputed works. Clearly the issue was not resolved at Nicea because no pressing need to create a definitive canon was perceived: the question of the canon was simply not a divisive issue. This lack of concern among the participants of the Nicene council with respect to the canon indicates that opinions about the canon were not essentially dogmatic. Two persons could disagree about the canon and both could be entirely orthodox in doctrine. (Constantinou 2008, 38)

Over time, certain writings from the New Testament period were considered to be Scripture by various churches, but sometimes that status was granted and then taken away. Lee McDonald writes:

When a particular writing was acknowledged by a religious community to be divinely inspired and authoritative, it was elevated to the status of Scripture, even if the writing was not yet called “Scripture” and even if that status was only temporary. For example, the noncanonical writings Eldad and Modad, Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement, and the letters of Ignatius were initially given this status in the church, but in time that practice ceased. There was limited discussion or agreement in the early church on such matters, and in the first two centuries only selective agreement on books acknowledged as Scripture took place. (McDonald 2007, 23-24)

Even the four Gospels were not considered to be Scripture, on par with the Old Testament, until the end of the 2^nd Century. Evidence for this is shown by the heretic Marcion, who rejected the gospels with the exception of Luke, and who produced a redacted version of Luke. Then there was Tatian the Assyrian, whose Diatesseron harmonized the four gospels into a single book, a book which replaced the four Gospels in the Syriac churches until the 5^th century. Eusebious reports that Tatian also attempted to rewrite the gospels, which itself is a testament to their not being considered on par with Scripture. (Constantinou 2008, 32-35)

The canon of Scripture gradually coalesced around a common core of books, but a number of books remained in dispute, with different bishops and regional councils weighing in on the issue. Constantinou writes:

It can only be said that by the end of the fourth century a consensus existed in both the East and West for the core of the canon: our present fourfold gospel corpus, Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of PauL, 1 John and 1 Peter. However, Hebrews, James, 2 and 3 John, Jude, 2 Peter, and Revelation remained disputed at least to the extent that they were not universally accepted. (Constantinou 2008, 39)

The Book of Revelation is unique among the New Testament books, both for its claim to divine inspiration, and to its strange canonical history. In the 2^nd century, Revelation was widely accepted as authoritative on the basis of its authorship and apostolicity; however, by the 4^th century it had fallen out of favor — primarily because of the influence of the Montanist heresy. Constantinou writes:

Montanist prophecy was primarily eschatological in orientation. The message contained chiliastic and apocalyptic expectations which were associated with the Revelation of John, such the promise of a New Jerusalem. The three prophets proclaimed the imminent coming of the end of the world and professed to be the divinely appointed agents sent to warn Christians that the second coming of Christ was at hand. (Constantinou 2008, 65)

The Montanist heresy was so pervasive as to have drawn away the founder of Latin Christianity, Tertullian. The response to the Montanists was an attempt to discredit the writings that had been used by the Montanists — in particular, the Book of Revelation. (Constantinou 2008, 68-71)

Another reason why Revelation lost its canonical appeal was that the symbolism was mysterious and no longer understood. Revelation was written to the seven churches of Asia Minor, who presumably understood its cryptic imagery due to their familiarity with the author. But later generations did not have that intimate connection with the author’s meaning, and it was easily misinterpreted. In addition, the apocalyptic imagery of the Revelation arose from a Jewish apocalyptic tradition, a tradition which was foreign to the increasingly gentile Church. (Constantinou 2008, 72-73)

Around 332 A.D., the Roman emperor Constantine the Great commissioned Eusebius to provide fifty copies of the scriptures for the churches in Constantinople. Unfortunately, none of these copies exist today, and Eusebius does not tell us which books were included. Some authorities contend they only contained the gospels; others think they would have contained only the books Eusebius considered canonical, which would have excluded the book of Revelation. (Constantinou 2008, 92) F. F. Bruce believes it would have contained our current 27 book canon, including Revelation. (Bruce, The Canon of Scripture 2010, 204) However, Bruce fails to mention that the canonicity of Hebrews was disputed in the west (due to its unknown author) for at least another hundred years. (Constantinou 2008, 92) Moreover, Bruce fails to provide convincing evidence for the inclusion of the Revelation, supposing that it would have been included because emperor Constantine the Great used its imagery as “imperial propaganda.” (Bruce, The Canon of Scripture 2010, 204) However, since the Byzantine lectionary (or cycle of bible readings) dates to the 4^th century and did not include the book of Revelation, an argument can be made for its not being part of the bibles produced by Eusebius.

Some point to the works such as the Synod of Laodicea (363 A.D.), the festal letter of Athanasius (367 A.D.), or the Third Council of Carthage (397 A.D.) as evidence that the canon of the New Testament was closed, when in fact what this shows is the matter was in some dispute, leading various bishops and regional councils to weigh in on the issue. The Council of Trullo (692 A.D.), known as the Quinisext Ecumenical Council, ratified the conflicting canons of the previous councils and apostolic fathers, yet failed to settle the issue. Eugenia Constantinou writes:

With regard to the canon of Scripture, rather than creating clarification, the Council of Trullo only compounded the confusion. The question of the New Testament canon of the East remained hopelessly muddled and even contradictory because the Quinisext synod did not compose its own list of canonical Scripture but only ratified earlier decisions, ignoring the fact that the canons of Scripture enumerated by earlier councils and various Fathers were not in agreement, especially with respect to Revelation. For example, Athanasius, Basil the Great and the Synod of Carthage accepted Revelation, while the Council at Laodicea and the 85 Apostolic Canons rejected it. They ratified Aniphilochios’ canon, but it is unclear whether he accepted or rejected Revelation or the catholic epistles. On the other hand, the 85 Apostolic Canons accepted 1 and 2 Clement as Scripture, something which earlier synods and the ratified Fathers did not. All of these synodal decisions and patristic canons of Scripture were ratified at Trullo. (Constantinou 2008, 107)

Unlike what many of us were taught, and what seemed reasonable (given the Protestant understanding of the canon), the development of the list of New Testament books occurred over some time, in fits and starts. The early church had the regula fidei, the rule of faith, as their guide. This rule of faith led them to gradually accept certain books as scripture, and reject others as either not consistent with the rule of faith, or not rising to the level of scripture. I was taught that the New Testament canon was closed with the death of the apostle John, who before his death was able to grant his apostolic seal of approval to all the New Testament books. But the historical evidence does not support this idea. Instead, what we see is the process of the Church gradually coming to a consensus on the limits of the New Testament canon, a process guided by the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit, working in and through the Church, the Bride of Christ.

Bibliography

Bruce, F. F. The Canon of Scripture. Kindle Edition. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010.

McDonald, Lee Martin. The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority. 3rd. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.

Is the Bible the Word of God? (Updated)

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Kristofer Carlson

The Word of God, or the Revelation of the Word of God?

Protestants and others sometimes refer to the bible as the “Word of God.” As a boy, I became used to using that term to refer to the text of the Sacred Scriptures. But the Holy Bible I take from my shelf, hold in my hands, and read — in what sense is the book itself the Word of God?

Archimandrite Daniel Byantoro says that for Islam, the Quran is the Word of God made text. The Quran, the Word made text of Islam, existed from eternity with God, but is separate from God. For Christians, by way of contrast, Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. Our Bible says the Word made flesh was from eternity with God, and was God. Within the triune Godhead are three persons in eternal and interpersonal communion — which communion the Word made flesh (the incarnate Son of God) shares with us. (Byantoro 2008) As evidence of the Christian view, John’s gospel is quite clear: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (Joh 1:1, 14).

The Old Testament has a strange relationship with the concept of the Word. In many cases the Word is most readily understood as a reference to the Mosaic law, the law of the Deuteronomic Covenant — being the covenant made with the Hebrew nation before they entered the land of promise. But as we know, for Christians the Old Testament is always interpreted in light of the Christ event, as Christ Himself taught Cleopas and the unnamed disciple[i] on the Emmaus Road:

Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:25-27). (d’Hyères 2006)

One of the best ways of understanding the use of the term “Word” in the Old Testament is to examine Ps 119, the psalm whose purpose is to (according to Matthew Henry) “magnify the Divine law, and make it honourable.” Of the ten ways of speaking about the “Divine revelation”, Henry notes that “Word” represents “the declaration of His mind.” (Henry 2014) John Calvin notes the connection between Ps 119’s use of the term “Word”, and the New Testament’s use of the term “Logos” when he writes: “The term here rendered word means the Λόγος, or Word of God, in its most divine sense; the announcement of God’s revealed will; his command; his oracle; at times, the special communication to the prophets.” Interestingly, Calvin says the ten terms for the divine revelation used in Ps 119 are basically synonymous; thus, whenever we read the terms law, testimonies, precepts, statutes, commandments, judgments, saying, and way, we can think of them as the Word, the Logos of God. This makes the meaning of “Word” quite important. (Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms – Volume Fourth n.d.)

Matthew Henry and John Calvin seem to view the Word in the Old Testament as different than the Word as expressed in John’s Gospel — as part of the Old Covenant rather than the new. And yet Jesus made it clear that we are to view the Old Testament in its Christological context. I contend this is the easiest and most logical way to view Ps 119, as a reference to Christ as the Logos, the divine self-revelation of God and the express image of the Father (Heb 1:3).

I remember one verse from this Psalm being drummed into us children, and which we were told was a reference to the Bible, the Word of God. “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Ps 119:11). This was used as a means to motivate us towards memorizing Scripture, which is certainly commendable. However, this verse discloses something else — that the Word of God was to be hidden in our heart, our spiritual consciousness, and not our intellect. We may consider this verse through its New Testament counterpart: “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things” (Mat 12:35). So what is this “good treasure of the heart?” Interestingly, the commentaries of John Calvin skip over this verse, for reasons that are unclear. (Calvin, Commentary on Matthew, Mark, Luke – Volume 2 1999) However, the commentary by Blessed Theophylact makes no mention of the “good treasure of the heart” being the text of the Sacred Scriptures. Instead, as Blessed Theophylact notes in his comments on the parable of the hidden treasure (Mat 13:44), the treasure is “the preaching and knowledge of Christ.” (Blessed Theolphylact 1992)

There are examples in Ps 119 where the Word quickens or strengthens, where it is a source of mercy, of kindness, or of comfort — all of which is more suggestive of God Himself, rather than a text. But the most telling when the psalmist says the Word is eternal. “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (Ps119:89). If the Word described here is a text, then we have arrived at a very Islamic interpretation of the Word made text, rather than the Word made flesh.

There are some places in the New Testament where it could be interpreted that the phrase “Word of God” refers to the inspired text. However, it is clear from the context, and from the other places where the phrase is used, that “Word of God” includes the content contained within the text, but is not the text itself.

This can be illustrated most clearly in the book of Hebrews. We read in chapter 11, the so-called “roll call of faith”: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” [emphasis added] (Heb 11:3). The Word of God in this passage is clearly a reference to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for as the apostle John wrote: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (Joh 1:3).

Given that Hebrews uses the phrase “Word of God” to refer to the Christ, the Son of God, what do we make of the following passage, also from Hebrews, one which is often interpreted as referring to the Bible?

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do [emphasis added] (Heb 4:12-13).

If you stop with verse 12, then considering the “Word of God” to be scripture is reasonable. Once you move on to verse 13, which continues the thought, it is clear the author is not talking about a book, but a person — indeed, the person before whom all creatures are made manifest, and before whom all things are naked and open. The author goes on to say this person is He “with whom we have to do.” Thus, this entire passage is obviously a reference to Jesus Christ, revealed by the Holy Spirit. This revelation is made through the pages of Sacred Scripture, yet it is clear that it is the person of Jesus Christ who is the “Word of God”, not the actual peculiar combination of marks on paper — both in the Old and New Testaments.

Bibliography

Blessed Theolphylact. The Explanation by Blessed Theophylact of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew. Translated by Christopher Stade. House Springs: Chrysostom Press, 1992.

Byantoro, Daniel. “Christ the Word Become Flesh.” Christ the Eternal Kalimat. Ancient Faith Radio, August 30, 2008.

Calvin, John. Commentary on Matthew, Mark, Luke – Volume 2. Translated by William Pringle. Vol. 2. 3 vols. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1999.

—. Commentary on the Book of Psalms – Volume Fourth. Translated by James Anderson. Vol. 4. 5 vols. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, n.d.

d’Hyères, Sylvie Chabert. “WHO WAS CLEOPHAS’ COMPANION?” Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis: The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. January 2006. http://codexbezae.perso.sfr.fr/comm/jacob_en.html (accessed January 22, 2014).

Henry, Matthew. “Psalm 119 – Matthew Henry’s Commentary – Bible Commentary.” Christ Notes: Bible Search & Bible Commentary. 2014. http://www.christnotes.org/commentary.php?com=mhc&b=19&c=119 (accessed January 22, 2014).

[i] Tradition holds that this unnamed disciple was none other than Luke himself. Perhaps the best evidence of this, apart from the tradition, is that Luke is a careful historian, yet names only Cleopas as one of the two disciples. This could be considered a historian’s way of writing himself out of the story.

Redating the New Testament

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Kristofer Carlson

Redating the New Testament by John A.T. Robinson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bishop Dr. John A. T. Robinson (1919-1983) was a thoroughgoing theological modernist. He began writing this book as a theological exercise, as “little more than a theological joke”. At some point he asked himself “why any of the books of the New Testament needed to be put after the fall of Jerusalem in 70.” He notes that none of the books make any reference (actual or metaphorical) to the destruction of Jerusalem as a past event. He contrasts this with the apocryphal books, with their use of the earlier destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians standing in for the recent Roman actions. (Robinson contrasts the restrained style of the canonical books with the more flamboyant and detailed post-event writings of II Baruch, II Esdras, and the Sibylline Oracles.) Ultimately he supports the (then shocking) conclusion that none of the New Testament books were written after 70 A.D. (C.E., for those with scholarly pretensions).

One of Robinson’s contributions is to draw attention to the chains of inferences and preconceptions that are used by those arguing for the late dating of the canonical New Testament scriptures. That there is no reason to accept the late dates becomes increasingly clear as these preconceptions are dealt with and swept aside.

What is also clear is that Robinson (as a theological modernist), has no conception of the church or tradition as an authority. He, like most western theologians since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, view the authors of scripture primarily as competing individuals rather than as part of the Church. He has difficulty accepting the authors of scripture as people who cooperated in the proclamation and promulgation of the Gospel.

To the western scholar and theologian, the questions of who wrote what and when are quite important. However, for the Eastern Church, the question of who wrote what is subordinate to the question of inspiration and canonicity. Where the modern scholar might look askance at seeming interpolations such as the ending chapter of the Gospel of Mark, within the Eastern Church this interpolation is not a problem, because the Church determined that the supposed (and probable) interpolation is part of inspired scripture. Thus the question of whether the apostle Peter wrote the epistle of II Peter is unimportant, despite its being the subject of never-ending speculation on the part of the theological liberals.

Yet Robinson does the Church a great service by laying bare the ephemeral nature of the claims that many of the New Testament writings were not written by their ascribed authors. He notes that the claims based on statistical word counts, diction, and style are all over the map, pointing to the probability that their differences can be ascribed as much to differences in the preconceptions used to construct the statistical algorithms. He notes as well that “there is an appetite for pseudonymity that grows by what it feeds on.” Once you assume pseudonymity, you see it everywhere. He argues against a tradition of pseudonymity on the basis of historical church writings which reject books on that basis, and mention the deposing of a bishop who wrote such a pseudonymous book. He notes as well the Pauline attitude towards those circulating books claiming to be written by him. (II Thess 2:2; 3:17).

Whether you are a scholar or merely a theological dilettante (like me), you need to have this book in your library.

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Spiritual Combat, Social Cohesion, and Monasticism

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Kristofer Carlson

St Anthony the Great, founder of Christian Monasticism

The experience of the early church is somewhat analogous to that of soldiers in combat — men (and women) who are motivated and held together by social cohesion. The early church lived within the Roman empire, and the presence of occupying soldiers served as an ever-present reminder that violence and death was never far away. The New Testament reflects this reality, and the language of warfare is often used as a description of the spiritual life. The apostle writes: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds)” (2 Cor 10:3-4). And again: “This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; Holding faith, and a good conscience” (1 Tim 1:18-19). In his epistle to the Ephesians, the apostle exhorts them to put on their spiritual armor, reminding them: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6:12).

The early church saw itself as an army engaged in a spiritual battle. They were persecuted by the Roman Empire, which was a physical manifestation of the spiritual battles they faced together. This united them in common cause. Luke describes the situation of the primitive church in this manner:

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. …Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. (Acts 4:32, 34)

A study by the Strategic Studies Institute (Wong, et al) entitled Why They Fight: Combat Motivation in the Iraq War puts it this way:

Social cohesion appears to serve two roles in combat motivation. First, because of the close ties to other soldiers, it places a burden of responsibility on each soldier to achieve group success and protect the unit from harm. Soldiers feel that although their individual contribution to the group may be small, it is still a critical part of unit success and therefore important.

…This desire to contribute to the unit mission comes not from a commitment to the mission, but a social compact with the members of the primary group.

…The second role of cohesion is to provide the confidence and assurance that someone soldiers could trust was “watching their back.” This is not simply trusting in the competence, training, or commitment to the mission of another soldier, but trusting in someone they regarded as closer than a friend who was motivated to look out for their welfare. In the words of one infantryman, “You have got to trust them more than your mother, your father, or girlfriend, or your wife, or anybody. It becomes almost like your guardian angel.”

The presence of comrades imparts a reassuring belief that all will be well. As one soldier stated, “It is just like a big family. Nothing can come to you without going through them first. It is kind of comforting.” One soldier noted, “If he holds my back, then I will hold his, and nothing is going to go wrong.” Another added, “If you are going to war, you want to be able to trust the person who is beside you. If you are his friend, you know he is not going to let you down. . . . He is going to do his best to make sure that you don’t die.” (Wong, et al. 2003, 10-11)

Sebastian Junger, in the book War, describes the bond that unites people who have engaged in combat.

When men say they miss combat, it’s not that they actually miss getting shot at — you’d have to be deranged — it’s that they miss being in a world where everything is important and nothing is taken for granted. They miss being in a world where human relations are entirely governed by whether you can trust the other person with your life.

It’s such a pure, clean standard that men can completely remake themselves in war. You could be anything back home — shy, ugly, rich, poor, unpopular — and it won’t matter because it’s of no consequence in a firefight, and therefore of no consequence, period. The only thing that matters is your level of dedication to the rest of the group, and that is almost impossible to fake. (Junger 2010, 233-234)

As the apostle notes, the church of Jesus Christ engages in warfare against “principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” But whereas the armies of this world mete out death and destruction on a horrific scale, the armies of the Lord are content to die with Him, and for Him. Therein lies the fundamental difference between the armies of this world and the armies of the Lord. In his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, Chris Hedges writes of “the narcotic of war that quickly transforms men into beasts”, and of “the ecstatic high of violence and the debilitating mental and physical destruction that comes with prolonged exposure to war’s addiction.” (Hedges 2002, 87) Whereas war turns men into beasts, engaging in spiritual battle has the opposite effect — it turns individuals into persons, and persons into sons of God. War is about death and desolation, whereas spiritual battle is about re-creation, sanctification, and ultimately about salvation.

Soldiers may enlist for reasons of ideology and patriotism, but men do not fight and die for an ideology. They will, however, fight and die for each other. (Junger 2010, 243) Chris Hedges, embedded with the Marines prior to the invasion of Iraq, reports the following conversation:

No one ever charges into battle for God and country. “Just remember,” a Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel told me as he strapped his pistol belt under his arm before we crossed into Kuwait, “that none of these boys is fighting for home, for the flag, for all that crap the politicians feed the public. They are fighting for each other, just for each other.” (Hedges 2002, 38)

It would be easy to say that the early church was the same way — that early Christians were motivated more by their love for each other than their love for the Lord. There are two factors to consider here. First, the primary motivation of the primitive church was the living memory of Jesus as proclaimed by those who knew him in his life, death, and resurrection. This apostolic witness, which was later written down for subsequent generations, was the primary motivation for the growth of the church. It must be understood that for the early church, this was not a matter of ideology, nor of mythology, but the passing on of eye-witness and personally verifiable accounts. The primitive church was filled with people who were eyewitnesses of the risen Lord. The apostle John reminds us of what he personally witnessed, saying that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (Joh 1:14). Jesus was not the subject of a dead ideology; instead, He is the risen Lord of all. The author of Hebrews notes of Christ: “both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb 2:11). Our Lord was made man, and remains yet a man; as Chalcedon says, He is: “consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted.” (P. Schaff, NPNF2-14. The Seven Ecumenical Councils 2005, 388) What was true of Christians in the early church is true of us today: we are His brothers, which makes us all brethren in Christ.

But secondly, we must not discount the degree to which the teachings of the apostles and the witness of the martyrs and confessors served to create and reinforce the social cohesion of the early church. There is a clear historical distinction to be made between the early church and the post-Constantine church. After the edict of Milan that made Christianity legal, it became socially respectable and financially advantageous to attach oneself to the church. The witness of Christ and for Christ was weakened, as was the essential brotherhood of all believers. The desire to recover the living witness and brotherhood of the early church in all its intensity was (and still remains) the primary reason for monasticism.

Bibliography

Hedges, Chris. War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. New York: Anchor Books, 2002.

Junger, Sebastian. War. New York: Hachette Book Group, 2010.

Schaff, Philip. NPNF2-14. The Seven Ecumenical Councils. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2005.

Wong, Leonard, Thomas A. Kolditz, Raymond A. Millen, and Terrence M. Potter. “Why They Fight: Combat Motivation in the Iraq War.” Strategic Studies Institute. July 2003. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub179.pdf (accessed August 9, 2010).

Why Mary Matters

Tag Archives: New Testament

Canonicity and the Self-Authenticating Scriptures

The Community-Canon Approach

Objections to the Community-Canon Approach

Epistemology and the Community-Canon Approach

The Intrinsic-Canon Approach

Objections to the Intrinsic-Canon Approach

The Verbal Icon and the Witness of the Holy Spirit

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Canon and Canonicity

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The Hebraic Origins of Matthew’s Gospel

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The Development of the NT Canon

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Is the Bible the Word of God? (Updated)

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Redating the New Testament

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Spiritual Combat, Social Cohesion, and Monasticism

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The Community-Canon Approach

Objections to the Community-Canon Approach

Epistemology and the Community-Canon Approach

The Intrinsic-Canon Approach

Objections to the Intrinsic-Canon Approach

The Verbal Icon and the Witness of the Holy Spirit

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