Posted on 03/01/2010 10:29:02 PM PST by Salvation
This website surveys the origin and development of Roman Catholic Christianity from the period of the apostolic church, through the post-apostolic church and into the conciliar movement. Principal attention is paid to the biblical basis of both doctrine and dogma as well as the role of paradosis (i.e. handing on the truth) in the history of the Church. Particular attention is also paid to the hierarchical founding and succession of leadership throughout the centuries.
This is a set of lecture notes used since 1985 to teach the basis for key doctrines and dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. The objectives of the course were, and are:
The course grew out of the need for the authors to continually answer questions about their faith tradition and their work. (Both authors are active members of Catholic parish communities in the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Robert Schihl was a Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Communication and the Arts at Regent University. Paul Flanagan is a consultant specializing in preparing people for technology based changes.) At the time these notes were first prepared, the authors were spending time in their faith community answering questions about their Protestant Evangelical workplaces (Mr. Flanagan was then a senior executive at the Christian Broadcasting Network), and time in their workplaces answering similar questions about their Roman Catholic faith community. These notes are the result of more than a decade of facilitating dialogue among those who wish to learn more about what the Roman Catholic Church teaches and why.
Background Chart: Development of the Old Testament Canons
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Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Foundation: Apologetics Without Apology
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Foundation: An Incomplete Picture
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Foundation: Dearly Beloved Catholic Brothers and Sisters
Being Catholic and Christian: Faith and Salvation
Catholic Biblical Apologetics:Being Catholic & Christian:Faith and Salvation-Authoriative
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Being Catholic & Christian: Apostolic Confessions of Faith
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Post-Apostolic Confessions of Faith
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Salvation: A Biblical Portrait
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Salvation: "Being Saved"
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: The Catholic Response to "Are You Saved?"
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: The Knowledge of Salvation
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Faith and Works
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: The Process of Christian Initiation
The Church: A Biblical Portrait - A New Testament Apologetic
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: The Church: A Biblical Portrait - A New Testament Apologetic: Jesus Christ preached a Reign or Kingdom, the Kingdom of God (or of heaven).
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Jesus preached an end-times kingdom but one already existing on earth
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Jesus preached that the kingdom was primarily spiritual and internal but also visible and external.
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Christ called and founded an exclusive, inner core group of twelve men called the "apostles."
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Christ committed His very mission to this twelve man inner core group, his Apostles, alone.
Christ gave to the Twelve, the Apostles, the power of ruling, teaching and sanctifying.
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: This same church Christ willed to endure until the end of the world.
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Christ instituted only one church, and that society was both formally and specifically a visible one.
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: The Marks of the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Labels Among Christians
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Genealogy of Christian Faith Communities, Roman Catholicism
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: American Christian Branches Among European Founded Churches
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Modes of Transmitting Authoritative Doctrine
Divine Revelation "By Letter" (2 Thes 2:15) The Bible
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Divine Revelation "By Letter" (2 Thess 2:15): The Bible
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Divine Revelation
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: The Bible: Written Revelation
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: The Hebrew Scriptures: Books of the Old Testament
Historical and Geographical Background for the Development of the Two Old Testament Canons
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Background Chart: Development of the Old Testament Canons
Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Catholic Discussion Ping List.
393 AD: Council of Hippo (North Africa): approved list of OT and NT canon, the same as the Council of Trent list.
397 AD: Council of Carthage (North Africa): approved list of OT and NT canon, the same as the Council of Trent list.
These were LOCAL counsels not ecumenical and carried no weight with the headship of the church.
The books remained optional and not canonical and they were continued to be held as “spiritual readings” as opposed to inspired in Jerome’s translation
At no time did God remove the care and authority over the OT from the Jews , to whom the books were given, and give it to the Christian church
Two things:
First they are Councils, not counsels
Secondly, more information will be forthcoming through this series on your thoughts as to the validity of The Council of Hippo and the Council of Carthage.
The Council of Trent will also be covered.
Third thing, those local councils accepted the canon written by issued by Pope Damasus and the Synod of Rome in 382. Thus, on both sides of the Mediterranean, the same canon was used.
This is not quite right. The seventh ecumenical council adopted all of the anathemas of Hippo and Carthage. Carthage, in particular, anathematized anyone who didn't accept the deuterocanonical books in the following statement:
But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.
The seventh ecumenical council adopted that anathema via the following comment:
"For all these, being illumined by the same Spirit, defined such things as were expedient. Accordingly those whom they placed under anathema, we likewise anathematize; those whom they deposed, we also depose; those whom they excommunicated, we also excommunicate; and those whom they delivered over to punishment, we subject to the same penalty. (In canon I of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of II Nicaea II)."
Trent, therefore, merely dogmatised the anathema that was given at Carthage and subsequently adopted by the seventh ecumenical council.
Trent, therefore, merely dogmatised the anathema that was given at Carthage and subsequently adopted by the seventh ecumenical council.
Yes, it did. But the vote wasn’t even a majority. There were more nays and abstentions than yeas. Must be that some of the assembled bishops and theologians, all Catholic by the way, didn’t think the matter was anywhere near so clear as seems to be the assertion nowadays.
My personal opinion is that the vote was made primarily as a matter of perception than necessity. The perception among Catholic theologians was that Luther had given the deuterocanon a far lesser place than had been historically so. In one way I agree. That Luther placed the deuterocanon in a section separate from the rest of scripture by default gave the appearance of a secondary status that had not previously existed. On the other hand, Luther spoke of the deuterocanon in much the same way as theologians prior to him. Indeed, even Cardinal Cajetan, Luther's questioner, recognizes that the deuterocanon holds something of a secondary status, yet he still refers to them as canonical:
For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the bible for that purpose.
This language is similar to the language that Luther uses, but I believe his setting the books apart from the rest if scripture reduced them to a status that is not in keeping with the historical canonicity of the books. Long and short, I believe the deuterocanon was and is canon, even as it is not as authoritative as Jerome's canon. Perhaps that's the reason there wasn't a hard "yea" vote.
I probably am not far from you in my opinion of the so-called deuterocanonical books. The bottom line is that there has always been doubt about their worthiness to be considered part of the Old Testament Scriptures. Your position seems to be, and if I misstate it, please correct me, that they are to be considered part of the Old Testament Scriptures, but not with the same status as, for example, Exodus or Isaiah.
Luther readily agreed that the content of the better of them, for example, the Wisdom of Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, was very valuable both historically and theologically, though more so historically. I think this is right. Whoever wrote them did so in order to bring glory to God, and not to put forth a different theology. And they should be read and honored in that light. However, having read them pretty thoroughly, both in English and Greek, I really don’t think their authors had the idea that they were inspired in the same sense as the writings of Moses or Isaiah. In fact, there seems to be real consciousness that prophecy of that sort had not been present in Israel for a very long time. Take a single example, 1 Maccabees 9:27. It is difficult to read this without drawing from it the conclusion that the author knew that no prophet sent from God had appeared in Israel up to his time, and that he was making no claim himself to be such. And there are other passages that give the same impression.
I think it is very unfortunate that the deuterocanonicals are not included in most English language Bibles today. But, finally, I cannot see where the term canonical, in any sense, can be according them. How could there be two levels of canonicity? Of authority? What can be accorded them rightly is that stand as witnesses that there were faithful in Israel between the Testaments, that the true canonical Scriptures were regarded as the word of God, and that there was a real effort made in those intervening years to preserve and disseminate the Old Testament Scriptures. All of this provides invaluable background for understanding the world in which the ministry of the Christ was carried out.
Your position seems to be, and if I misstate it, please correct me, that they are to be considered part of the Old Testament Scriptures, but not with the same status as, for example, Exodus or Isaiah.
Yes, that would be a good summation. I believe there's ample evidence that the deuterocanonical books have played an important role in the life of the church, but they have not widely been regarded with the same weight as the books you reference. Indeed, I used to attend an LCMS church and I recall the Old Testament lectionary reading one week coming from the Book of Maccabees.
I really dont think their authors had the idea that they were inspired in the same sense as the writings of Moses or Isaiah.
It's funny you mention this. I hadn't thought of Maaccabees in that way, but I did have precisely that feeling as I was reading the Book of Ezra a couple weeks ago. In some books, there does seem to be an internal recognition that what is being written isn't perhaps as authoritative, or inspired, as other Scripture proclamations.
How could there be two levels of canonicity? Of authority?
This can be sticky, but I do believe the multi-level view of scripture has some merit. For example, the Book of Revelation was not accepted in the East for many centuries after it was written. In the west it was accepted, but with a somewhat lesser authority than that of the epistles. In this sense, I think there is a natural "rack and stack" mentality that goes along with canonization. I believe it was Keith Mathison, author of The Shape of Sola Scriptura, who said that the church has historically believed in a fallible list of infallible books. I think that's probably pretty close to the historical norm, though I'd need him to flesh out his definition of "infallible."
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