A Protestant View Of The Early Church

[TER]

Make that one, holy, catholic (universal) and apostolic (which is in the creed we say every Lord's Day) and we have a deal.

Enjoy the Lord's Day, HB.

Good morning Louise!

An article I read last night reminded me of this post above and I include it here. With regards to the word catholic, we must understand how the Church Fathers used and understood the word. The article below is a nice primer.

Vincent of Lérins and the Catholicity of the Church

MAY 24, 2015 BY GABE MARTINI


On May 24, the Orthodox Church commemorates Vincent of Lérins, a fifth century Gallic monk. St. Vincent spent the earlier part of his life as a Roman soldier, later converting to Christianity and accepting a monastic vocation. He lived his remaining years at the castle monastery on the island of Lérins in the French Riviera.

Leaving only a solitary written work behind, St. Vincent’s Commonitorium (ca. A.D. 434) is a treatise on the “catholicity” of the Church—especially as it relates to the then-contemporary Nestorian controversy, having been condemned at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus some three years prior.

So what does it mean, according to both St. Vincent and the Orthodox tradition, for the Church to be catholic?

To Be a Catholic Christian

The word catholic is derived from the idea of being whole or complete. The “catholic faith” is the whole, complete, and fully sufficient faith of the Church. The opposite of catholic, then, is that which is isolated, sectarian, and heretical. While many Protestants today have come to use the term catholic to describe a disposition that is accepting of all perspectives across a loosely defined “Christianity,” this is actually the opposite of true catholicity.

To be a catholic Christian is to be one that has accepted wholesale the entire faith of the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. A catholic Christian believes everything that the Church believes, while these Protestants would say that a catholic Christian accepts everything that any Christian believes. The two could not be more distinct, with the latter having absolutely no grounding in either Church history or the Creed itself.

Universality, Antiquity, and Consent

In Vincent’s definition of the catholic faith, he summarizes it as that (2.6):

… which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense “Catholic,” which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent.

By universality, Vincent means that the catholic Church confesses the one, true faith, which is accepted throughout the world and in all orthodox churches.

By antiquity, Vincent means that the catholic Church holds to this one, true faith as confessed and defended (often by death) by our forefathers and mothers. Their interpretations of the Scriptures, their sacred hymns, their lives and martyrdoms. For St. Vincent, antiquity is the reverse of novelty; it is the opposite of individualism.

By consent, Vincent means the conciliar and ecumenical foundation of our dogmatic beliefs; specifically, the imperial or Ecumenical Councils and other important local synods of the catholic Church through history, along with their canons.

For those matters not touched upon by an ecumenical or general council, Vincent explains that a catholic Christian must look to the interpretations of the Fathers and Saints, holding to the opinions most commonly found. And of these latter opinions, St. Vincent exhorts all catholic Christians to accept them “without any doubt or hesitation” (3.8). They are not mere theologoumena or “pious opinions.”

A Faith for Everyone, Everywhere

The Church is catholic because, as I have written elsewhere, she is a Church “for all ages, nations, and races.” No one is excluded from the great wedding feast of the Lamb by birth or tongue, and the doors are open to all who accept Christ’s kingdom with the fear of God, faith, and love.

By this, we must also understand that any semblance of racism, nationalism, ethnic pride, or exclusivity—of status, caste, or culture—is not only unacceptable as catholic Christians, but also a denial of the Christian Gospel. To be a catholic Church is to be a Church that has good news for everyone. The good news of Jesus Christ—the King of Kings and Lord of Lords—is not a news conditioned by any specific culture, language, or race. There is not a single aspect of the Gospel that depends upon anything but Christ, as this good news can be preached to anyone, at any place, and at any time.

Indeed, in the catholic Church, there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free (Gal. 3:28). Catholic Christians are not so by birth or ethnicity, but because they have a change of heart through an encounter with God (Rom. 2:28–29)—for not all descended from Israel are Israel (Rom. 9:6). In other words, there are no “cradle” Christians; every member of the catholic Church is a convert.

It’s All About Jesus

Ultimately, the Church is catholic because Jesus Christ is the head of the Church.

The catholicity of the Church, as the Body of Christ, is—like all other creedal attributes, including holiness, singularity, and apostolicity—part of her very existence. The Church is catholic because she is the Church. And the Church is such because she is the Body of Christ, the pleroma or “fullness” of God (Eph. 1:23), as the apostle writes.

Catholicity is not something human beings can effect, either from within or without. It is nonsense to presume sinners could cobble together the catholicity of the Church as a result of either accepting heterodoxy or sanctioning schism.

Catholicity comes not from accepting anything that anyone broadly defined as a Christian happens to believe. On the contrary, the catholicity of the Church is a theanthropic (Divine-human) attribute, present because of the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Only by joining ourselves to his one, true Body can we thereby be truly catholic.

 

[TER]

Monday, March 15, 2010

Did Martin Luther Remove Books From the Bible?

When reading books by theological liberals it is often common practice to avoid any areas of disagreement between opposing denominations. Fuzzy language is used that can sound appealing but has no real substance. The writer often doesn't even really even agree with his own theological heritage--he views it as primitive and archaic.

Ecumenical conversations are much more helpful when conducted by people who actually subscribe the original intent of their respective confessions and are actually willing to discuss the core issues that separate them. Unfortunately, different traditions have their own vocabulary and assign different meanings to words. There are also many misunderstandings about what other groups actually teach and often even when people are trying really hard there is even misunderstanding about what a person's own tradition actually teaches.

I've been reading a book by an Eastern Orthodox writer that I have some respect for. I enjoy her writing even though I disagree with her synergistic understanding of salvation. She made the claim that Christian throughout history accepted the Apocrypha but that Martin Luther removed books from the Bible and that's why Protestants don't have the Apocrypha in their Bibles. This is a common statement made by both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Generally Protestants respond by saying that Martin Luther did not remove books, the Roman Catholic church added them. Then the argument usually involves two people who really don't know what they are talking about arguing about which books should be included and why. I've heard some Protestants even use strange mathematical formulas to prove that they have the correct number of books.

But the Reformation did not occur because of a dispute over the canon. If we spend our time arguing about the canonical books we miss an opportunity to discuss the real issues. There were always Christians who questioned the canonicity of various Biblical books. It wasn't until the Council of Trent that any formal declaration was made as to which books were canonical by the Roman Catholics, no such list was made by Lutherans. There has always been widespread belief in the canonicity of the Gospels, the letters of Paul, and the books contained in the Hebrew Bible, but there was disagreement about other books and people were not excommunicating one another over it.

Did Martin Luther remove books? Nope. He questioned the canonicity of the books but he did not remove them. He put them in a separate section but he did not take them out. Did his descendants? Nope. Did the translators of the KJV? Nope. One of the bishops who translated the KJV made it illegal to print KJV Bibles without the Apocryhpa. It wasn't until the 1880's that Protestants began printing Bibles without the Apocrypha. The Apocryphal books should not occupy the same place in our theology that the Gospels do but they should not become the chief article that divides us. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Lutherans all hold up the Gospel Book and give it a special place in the service. The same is not done with the Apocrypha in any of the churches. All make some use of the Apocrypha in the liturgy.


Posted by Chuck Wiese at 10:05 PM

Informative Protestant opinion, Louise, however, I would strongly disagree on the conclusion. The books rejected by Luther were indeed held to be canonical by the Eastern Church for at least a thousand years before the Protestant Reformation, and Luther used the Old Testament list held as authorative by the Jewish authorities (namely the Sanhedrin) which was compiled and completed 700 years after the Sanhedrin sentenced Christ to death. The Reformers chose the later Jewish sources instead of their own earlier fathers of the Christian Church, which was a big mistake, and this has distorted their theology regarding many important points of doctrine which was held as catholic and orthodox by the Church.

That is like a German subject in the year 2776 using an edited version of the U.S. Constitution drafted by the British Parliament in the year 2476, in which the British altered and edited out portions of the documents which were originally complied and written by the Founders of the American Nation in order to hide the parts they didn't like.

 

[Eagles' Wings]

Professor Clark is one of my favorites. Please take a look at his blog at: http://heidelblog.net/about/ In a recent column he says:


The confessional Protestants, by contrast, beginning with Luther, Tyndale, Calvin et al were committed to the sole, unique, final, and perspicuous authority of Scripture as the Word of God but none of them read Scripture as if they were the first to read it. They read Scripture with the church. They read Scripture with other Christians. They regarded Scripture as normative and definitive, as the final authority. They did not start with reason or religious experience. When Luther spoke of “plain reason” at Worms he was not asserting the final authority of the human intellect. He was recognizing that humans do indeed interpret Scripture.

We do draw good and necessary inferences from Scripture. There are inferences that are unavoidable that we are bound to believe. There are other inferences that are less certain and those are debatable. The church universal (i.e., the church catholic) has confessed those good and necessary inferences in the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Definition of Chalcedon, and the Athanasian Creed. The Reformed Churches have confessed their understanding of Scripture in their confessions, which are the product of reading the Scriptures with the church universal and reading the Scriptures together. Yet, at every point the church has submitted itself to Scripture. It has not regarded, as Rome does, itself as the mother of Scripture. We have not granted to ourselves authority to create new sacraments (as Rome did in the 13th century) or to impose upon believers ceremonies, doctrines, or experiences which God’s Word does not.

When Luther stood on the sole, final and perspicuous authority of God’s Word he could not have known all the ways in which that assertion would be twisted but he knew most of them since they had already happened in the history of the church. Biblicism is one thing and sola Scriptura is another. Biblicism is rationalist and irrationalist but sola Scriptura is not. If you’re not reading the Scriptures with the church and in the communion of the saints you’re not following Sola scriptura and the confessional Protestants.



Posted by R. Scott Clark | Sunday, April 19, 2015 | Categorized Church History, History of Reformed Theology, History