Catholic Champion
Because the Truth is a matter of life and death.
Defending the Scripture
Canon.
Part I: A Protestant scholar's view of the Deuterocanonical books, and how the early Fathers and witnesses of the Church viewed them.
A subject that has been brought up by Protestant apologists of late, is the subject of the Sacred Canon of Scripture, or what the Catholic Church refers to as Holy Writ. We know that the correct Scripture Canon is the 73 book Canon (Alexandrian Canon) that the Catholic Church has brought forth through the centuries and not the Protestant canon of 66 books. Todays Protestant apologists like James White refuse to be intellectually honest about history and the living witness of the Church regarding the Sacred Canon of Scripture and its early writers and Fathers. In this article I will substantiate from many sources including historical, archaeological and Patristic, that the 73 book Canon is without a doubt the correct Canon. What are the implications of removing these 7 books from the Canon as Protestants have done? Although there are many implications that arise from this action, there are two that rise to the top of the list.
The question of authority is the first. If we cannot agree as Christians as to which Canon of the Bible is correct, then how can we go any further as what doctrines and dogmas are correct? If their is no authority to define the Canon then we as Christians are left with an insurmountable problem. The second implication is that of interpretation. How are we to determine the correct understanding of the Sacred Scriptures with regard to doctrines and dogma. We have nearly 300 mainline Protestant churches and several thousand splinter groups that disagree on many fundamental teachings. In fact, the Protestant seminary Gordon-Conwell lists over 9000 "denominations" on their university website. (World Christian Database 2004) These doctrines range from but are not limited to liturgical worship, the operations of baptism, Holy Communion, marriage and divorce, moral issues like abortion, and birth control and the list goes on and on. The fact is that division runs deep outside of the one true Church of Jesus Christ. We hear some Protestants say, regarding doctrine, that the "plain things are the main things and the main things are the plain things." This statement however is not found anywhere in Sacred Scripture, nor is this minimalist mentality. The Catholic Church considers the whole Canon of Sacred Scripture to be of central importance, and everything in it is to be understood in its proper context. The main thing and the plain thing is that the whole Canon in its entirety is to be held with utmost importance, and its entire and correct interpretation is central to our faith. If there is no unity in the interpretation of Sacred Scripture then our faith is not what it claims itself to be. One cannot rely on only a strict literal, personal interpretation of them from a 21st century point of view and expect to be in line with the Holy Spirit and the Church. We end up having as many interpretations as we have readers. Joseph Lienhard (1995) points out that when Saint Paul says to the Christians at Corinth:
(1 Cor 15:3-5) "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ dies for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve."
Obviously Saint Paul was referring to the Old Testament Scriptures in which Jesus is nowhere mentioned by name, nor his literal crucifixion or resurrection. He understands this implicitly by his understanding and interpretation of the Old Testament Scriptures, of course, enlightened by teaching handed on to him directly by Jesus. We obviously see that many others did not interpret the Scriptures as he did since many Jews at the time rejected Saint Paul's interpretation. So interpretation is of the utmost importance. Left with these hurdles, and many others, we as Christians must face up to this issue of the Canon with the utmost urgency.
So now you may ask, where is the evidence proving the Catholic Canon? Since the Old Testament books is generally what is contested by those outside the Church, we will focus on the OT books. The Alexandrian Canon known as the Greek Septuagint is what we will look at here in part I. It was completed and used in the known Greek world by 150BC. (Murphy 1978) All of the early Christians used this Greek text version exclusively until the 4th century. (Romer 1988) The Dead Sea Scrolls also attest to copied manuscripts by early Christian Scholars of the Septuagint as well. (Romer 1988) When the Bible is quoted in the New Testament, it is almost always quoted from the Septuagint. (Metzger 2001) In fact Saint Paul throughout his letter to the Romans references ideas or parallels in his statements, from passages of the book of Wisdom at least 8 times. Passages in other New Testament books also reveal many parallels with Wisdom, most notably Eph. 6:11 and II Cor. 5:1-9. (Metzger 1957) Protestants generally agree with the Catholic New Testament book count of 27 so we will not concern ourselves with the New Testament in this essay. To start off with I will not appeal to Catholic scholars for evidence, but I will continue referencing a well respected Protestant scholar Bruce Metzger. He was an expert on Greek Biblical manuscripts. He wrote many scholarly presentations on Sacred Scripture and was the editor of the Oxford RSV and NRSV Bibles. Although he never committed to calling the Deuterocanonical books part of the "Canon" he often referred to the books as being considered Scripture by early Fathers, and wrote extensively on these books. He was also intellectually honest enough to respect recorded history and look at it with a true scholarly mind. The books I am referring to are classified by the New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (Expanded Edition 1973, 1977) RSV Commentary which lists them as 15 books, parts of books or added texts, so they have them broken up different that what the Catholic Bibles have them listed. They are listed as:
The First Book of Esdras
The Second Book of Esdras
Tobit
Judith
The Additions to the Book of Esther
The Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach
Baruch
The Letter of Jeremiah
The Prayer of Azariah and the song of the Three Young Men
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
The Prayer of Manasseh
The First Book of Maccabees
The Second Book of Maccabees
There are an additional three texts that are listed of which some Eastern Orthodox Churches include in their Canons. We will not be concerned with these in this essay, but for reference I will list them as well. This gives witness to the fact that even the Eastern Churches hold the above texts, and some of them hold the below texts in addition as being part of the Canon of Sacred Scripture. The Catholic Church is not alone in referring to the Deuterocanonical books as Sacred Scripture.
The Third Book of Maccabees
The Fourth Book of Maccabees
Psalm 151
The notes of the RSV give a history as to the origin and status given to these books held by the Catholic Church as Canonical. The following passage goes against James White's latest retort on the early witnesses of the Church. The text reads as follows:
"During the early Christian centuries most Greek and Latin Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus, Tertulian, Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian (none of whom knew any Hebrew), quoted passages from the Apocrypha as "Scripture," "divine Scripture," "inspired," and the like. In this period only an occasional Father made an effort to learn the limits of the Palestinian Jewish canon (as Melito of Sardis), or to distinguish between the Hebrew text of Daniel and the addition of the story of Susanna in the Greek version (as Africanus)."
So we can see that this completely flies in the face of Protestant apologists such as James White who misinterpret these early writings and claim that they did not believe that these were inspired works. If we read these texts properly, one cannot deny that these early Church Fathers as well as other early writers, held these books to be inspired. Metzger implies that this was done out of ignorance, and that is fine, that is his assessment. But the fact that the early Fathers believed this is not to be disputed. The commentary continues on with the fourth century writers:
"In the fourth century many Greek Fathers (including Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianus, Amphilochius, and Epiphanius) came to recognize a distinction between the books in the Hebrew canon and the rest, though the latter were still customarily cited as Scripture. During the following centuries usage fluctuated in the east, but at the important Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 the books of Wisdom, Judith, Tobit, Bel and the Dragon, Susanna, Maccabees, and Ecclesiasticus were expressly designated as canonical.
In the Latin Church, on the other hand, though opinion has not been unanimous, a general high regard for the books of the Apocrypha has prevailed. More than one local synodical council (e.g. Hippo 393, and Carthage 397 and 419) justified and authorized their use as Scripture."
This again demonstrates that the notion of these books as being inspired is not something of fantasy. It is a historical one. Yes we have Saint Jerome who leaned heavily towards the Hebrew canon, but he was rather unique in this position, especially in the West. Only later in the West was the canon of the Old Testament brought up again, and some Catholic theologians actually started to separate the two sets of books from one another. (The Hebrew texts and the Deuterocanonical texts.) We can see this with the Dominican, Sanctes Pagnini's Latin version of the Bible (1528) where letters from Pope Adrian VI and Pope Clement VII separate the two in reference, but did not call them uninspired or unscriptural. There was another edition of the Latin Bible that was released at Nuremberg in 1527 by Johannes Petreis that notes the Apocryphal books as not being part of the Canon. (Metzger 1957) What is interesting is that it did not take long for the Church to put an end to this confusion that was arising during this period. The Council of Trent (1545- 1563) would settle the dispute for all time by officially defining the Canon. This is in completely consistent with how the Church always acts. When confusion and disputes arise concerning a certain doctrine or dogma, it comes out when necessary and sets the record straight. Based on a majority of witnesses both in the East and the West, the Catholic Church defined these books as being inspired and part of the Canon of Sacred Scripture. This is based on historical principals as well as theological. Protestants, based on their own authority do not accept them as such, referring instead to the Hebrew canon defined by the Jews in 90 AD rebelling against Christianity, completely contradicting what the Christians at that time in history continued to use. Metzger (2001) points out:
“By the end of the first century of the Christian era, more and more Jews ceased using the Septuagint because the early Christians had adopted it as their own translation.”
So even the Jews up to this point had been using the Septuagint for the better part of 200 years. It is contested as to what Apocryphal books they considered to be Scriptural since there are limited texts referring to them. Some scholars such as Metzger use this as part of their argument for not accepting them as Canonical. I can respect his reasoning here, but he also did not hold to the authority of the Church to ultimately decide the Canon. He, like other Protestants took the evidence that they had and decided what should and should not be in the canon, while we as Catholics expect the authority given to the Church and its bishops to decide what should and should not be canonical by the presented evidence, etc. So we can see even from Metzger's work that the Catholic position is based on historical writers of the early Church. It is not a lack of historical data in this case, but how the data is interpreted that causes the division. At least Metzger had the integrity to present the historical data with intellectual honesty, although I believe, as the Catholic Church does, that he comes up with the wrong conclusion by his own faulty reasoning. Many of today's Protestant armchair apologists only embarrass themselves when they try and substantiate that all or a majority of these Early Church Fathers and early witnesses did not consider any of these books as being Scripture. As Metzger points out this is not true. Saints Irenaeus, Cyprian, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianus all sited these books as being Sacred Scripture. This is a fact and no amount of sophistry can disprove it. In part II I will continue with perspectives from Catholic scholars as to why the books are to be held as canonical.
Matthew James Bellisario 2008
Metzger, Bruce M., and May, Herbert G., New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha Expanded Edition RSV. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.
Metzger, Bruce M. The Bible in Translation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001
Metzger, Bruce M. An Introduction to the Apocrypha. New York: Oxford UP, 1957
Lienhard, Joseph T. The Bible, the Church, and Authority. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1995
Romer, John. Testament The Bible and History. Old Saybrook: Konecky & Konecky 1988
Murphy, Richard T.A. O.P. Background to the Bible. Ann Arbor: Servant Books 1978
Part I: A Protestant scholar's view of the Deuterocanonical books, and how the early Fathers and witnesses of the Church viewed them.
A subject that has been brought up by Protestant apologists of late, is the subject of the Sacred Canon of Scripture, or what the Catholic Church refers to as Holy Writ. We know that the correct Scripture Canon is the 73 book Canon (Alexandrian Canon) that the Catholic Church has brought forth through the centuries and not the Protestant canon of 66 books. Todays Protestant apologists like James White refuse to be intellectually honest about history and the living witness of the Church regarding the Sacred Canon of Scripture and its early writers and Fathers. In this article I will substantiate from many sources including historical, archaeological and Patristic, that the 73 book Canon is without a doubt the correct Canon. What are the implications of removing these 7 books from the Canon as Protestants have done? Although there are many implications that arise from this action, there are two that rise to the top of the list.
The question of authority is the first. If we cannot agree as Christians as to which Canon of the Bible is correct, then how can we go any further as what doctrines and dogmas are correct? If their is no authority to define the Canon then we as Christians are left with an insurmountable problem. The second implication is that of interpretation. How are we to determine the correct understanding of the Sacred Scriptures with regard to doctrines and dogma. We have nearly 300 mainline Protestant churches and several thousand splinter groups that disagree on many fundamental teachings. In fact, the Protestant seminary Gordon-Conwell lists over 9000 "denominations" on their university website. (World Christian Database 2004) These doctrines range from but are not limited to liturgical worship, the operations of baptism, Holy Communion, marriage and divorce, moral issues like abortion, and birth control and the list goes on and on. The fact is that division runs deep outside of the one true Church of Jesus Christ. We hear some Protestants say, regarding doctrine, that the "plain things are the main things and the main things are the plain things." This statement however is not found anywhere in Sacred Scripture, nor is this minimalist mentality. The Catholic Church considers the whole Canon of Sacred Scripture to be of central importance, and everything in it is to be understood in its proper context. The main thing and the plain thing is that the whole Canon in its entirety is to be held with utmost importance, and its entire and correct interpretation is central to our faith. If there is no unity in the interpretation of Sacred Scripture then our faith is not what it claims itself to be. One cannot rely on only a strict literal, personal interpretation of them from a 21st century point of view and expect to be in line with the Holy Spirit and the Church. We end up having as many interpretations as we have readers. Joseph Lienhard (1995) points out that when Saint Paul says to the Christians at Corinth:
(1 Cor 15:3-5) "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ dies for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve."
Obviously Saint Paul was referring to the Old Testament Scriptures in which Jesus is nowhere mentioned by name, nor his literal crucifixion or resurrection. He understands this implicitly by his understanding and interpretation of the Old Testament Scriptures, of course, enlightened by teaching handed on to him directly by Jesus. We obviously see that many others did not interpret the Scriptures as he did since many Jews at the time rejected Saint Paul's interpretation. So interpretation is of the utmost importance. Left with these hurdles, and many others, we as Christians must face up to this issue of the Canon with the utmost urgency.
So now you may ask, where is the evidence proving the Catholic Canon? Since the Old Testament books is generally what is contested by those outside the Church, we will focus on the OT books. The Alexandrian Canon known as the Greek Septuagint is what we will look at here in part I. It was completed and used in the known Greek world by 150BC. (Murphy 1978) All of the early Christians used this Greek text version exclusively until the 4th century. (Romer 1988) The Dead Sea Scrolls also attest to copied manuscripts by early Christian Scholars of the Septuagint as well. (Romer 1988) When the Bible is quoted in the New Testament, it is almost always quoted from the Septuagint. (Metzger 2001) In fact Saint Paul throughout his letter to the Romans references ideas or parallels in his statements, from passages of the book of Wisdom at least 8 times. Passages in other New Testament books also reveal many parallels with Wisdom, most notably Eph. 6:11 and II Cor. 5:1-9. (Metzger 1957) Protestants generally agree with the Catholic New Testament book count of 27 so we will not concern ourselves with the New Testament in this essay. To start off with I will not appeal to Catholic scholars for evidence, but I will continue referencing a well respected Protestant scholar Bruce Metzger. He was an expert on Greek Biblical manuscripts. He wrote many scholarly presentations on Sacred Scripture and was the editor of the Oxford RSV and NRSV Bibles. Although he never committed to calling the Deuterocanonical books part of the "Canon" he often referred to the books as being considered Scripture by early Fathers, and wrote extensively on these books. He was also intellectually honest enough to respect recorded history and look at it with a true scholarly mind. The books I am referring to are classified by the New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (Expanded Edition 1973, 1977) RSV Commentary which lists them as 15 books, parts of books or added texts, so they have them broken up different that what the Catholic Bibles have them listed. They are listed as:
The First Book of Esdras
The Second Book of Esdras
Tobit
Judith
The Additions to the Book of Esther
The Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach
Baruch
The Letter of Jeremiah
The Prayer of Azariah and the song of the Three Young Men
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
The Prayer of Manasseh
The First Book of Maccabees
The Second Book of Maccabees
There are an additional three texts that are listed of which some Eastern Orthodox Churches include in their Canons. We will not be concerned with these in this essay, but for reference I will list them as well. This gives witness to the fact that even the Eastern Churches hold the above texts, and some of them hold the below texts in addition as being part of the Canon of Sacred Scripture. The Catholic Church is not alone in referring to the Deuterocanonical books as Sacred Scripture.
The Third Book of Maccabees
The Fourth Book of Maccabees
Psalm 151
The notes of the RSV give a history as to the origin and status given to these books held by the Catholic Church as Canonical. The following passage goes against James White's latest retort on the early witnesses of the Church. The text reads as follows:
"During the early Christian centuries most Greek and Latin Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus, Tertulian, Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian (none of whom knew any Hebrew), quoted passages from the Apocrypha as "Scripture," "divine Scripture," "inspired," and the like. In this period only an occasional Father made an effort to learn the limits of the Palestinian Jewish canon (as Melito of Sardis), or to distinguish between the Hebrew text of Daniel and the addition of the story of Susanna in the Greek version (as Africanus)."
So we can see that this completely flies in the face of Protestant apologists such as James White who misinterpret these early writings and claim that they did not believe that these were inspired works. If we read these texts properly, one cannot deny that these early Church Fathers as well as other early writers, held these books to be inspired. Metzger implies that this was done out of ignorance, and that is fine, that is his assessment. But the fact that the early Fathers believed this is not to be disputed. The commentary continues on with the fourth century writers:
"In the fourth century many Greek Fathers (including Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianus, Amphilochius, and Epiphanius) came to recognize a distinction between the books in the Hebrew canon and the rest, though the latter were still customarily cited as Scripture. During the following centuries usage fluctuated in the east, but at the important Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 the books of Wisdom, Judith, Tobit, Bel and the Dragon, Susanna, Maccabees, and Ecclesiasticus were expressly designated as canonical.
In the Latin Church, on the other hand, though opinion has not been unanimous, a general high regard for the books of the Apocrypha has prevailed. More than one local synodical council (e.g. Hippo 393, and Carthage 397 and 419) justified and authorized their use as Scripture."
This again demonstrates that the notion of these books as being inspired is not something of fantasy. It is a historical one. Yes we have Saint Jerome who leaned heavily towards the Hebrew canon, but he was rather unique in this position, especially in the West. Only later in the West was the canon of the Old Testament brought up again, and some Catholic theologians actually started to separate the two sets of books from one another. (The Hebrew texts and the Deuterocanonical texts.) We can see this with the Dominican, Sanctes Pagnini's Latin version of the Bible (1528) where letters from Pope Adrian VI and Pope Clement VII separate the two in reference, but did not call them uninspired or unscriptural. There was another edition of the Latin Bible that was released at Nuremberg in 1527 by Johannes Petreis that notes the Apocryphal books as not being part of the Canon. (Metzger 1957) What is interesting is that it did not take long for the Church to put an end to this confusion that was arising during this period. The Council of Trent (1545- 1563) would settle the dispute for all time by officially defining the Canon. This is in completely consistent with how the Church always acts. When confusion and disputes arise concerning a certain doctrine or dogma, it comes out when necessary and sets the record straight. Based on a majority of witnesses both in the East and the West, the Catholic Church defined these books as being inspired and part of the Canon of Sacred Scripture. This is based on historical principals as well as theological. Protestants, based on their own authority do not accept them as such, referring instead to the Hebrew canon defined by the Jews in 90 AD rebelling against Christianity, completely contradicting what the Christians at that time in history continued to use. Metzger (2001) points out:
“By the end of the first century of the Christian era, more and more Jews ceased using the Septuagint because the early Christians had adopted it as their own translation.”
So even the Jews up to this point had been using the Septuagint for the better part of 200 years. It is contested as to what Apocryphal books they considered to be Scriptural since there are limited texts referring to them. Some scholars such as Metzger use this as part of their argument for not accepting them as Canonical. I can respect his reasoning here, but he also did not hold to the authority of the Church to ultimately decide the Canon. He, like other Protestants took the evidence that they had and decided what should and should not be in the canon, while we as Catholics expect the authority given to the Church and its bishops to decide what should and should not be canonical by the presented evidence, etc. So we can see even from Metzger's work that the Catholic position is based on historical writers of the early Church. It is not a lack of historical data in this case, but how the data is interpreted that causes the division. At least Metzger had the integrity to present the historical data with intellectual honesty, although I believe, as the Catholic Church does, that he comes up with the wrong conclusion by his own faulty reasoning. Many of today's Protestant armchair apologists only embarrass themselves when they try and substantiate that all or a majority of these Early Church Fathers and early witnesses did not consider any of these books as being Scripture. As Metzger points out this is not true. Saints Irenaeus, Cyprian, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianus all sited these books as being Sacred Scripture. This is a fact and no amount of sophistry can disprove it. In part II I will continue with perspectives from Catholic scholars as to why the books are to be held as canonical.
Matthew James Bellisario 2008
Metzger, Bruce M., and May, Herbert G., New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha Expanded Edition RSV. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.
Metzger, Bruce M. The Bible in Translation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001
Metzger, Bruce M. An Introduction to the Apocrypha. New York: Oxford UP, 1957
Lienhard, Joseph T. The Bible, the Church, and Authority. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1995
Romer, John. Testament The Bible and History. Old Saybrook: Konecky & Konecky 1988
Murphy, Richard T.A. O.P. Background to the Bible. Ann Arbor: Servant Books 1978