Missing pages from one's bible

[disciple Clint]

That is not so, Dei Verbum is quote "extensive"

8. And so the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved by an unending succession of preachers until the end of time. Therefore the Apostles, handing on what they themselves had received, warn the faithful to hold fast to the traditions which they have learned either by word of mouth or by letter (see 2 Thess. 2:15), and to fight in defense of the faith handed on once and for all (see Jude 1:3) (4) Now what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.

This tradition which comes from the Apostles develop in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. (5) For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (see Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfilment in her.

The words of the holy fathers witness to the presence of this living tradition, whose wealth is poured into the practice and life of the believing and praying Church. Through the same tradition the Church's full canon of the sacred books is known, and the sacred writings themselves are more profoundly understood and unceasingly made active in her; and thus God, who spoke of old, uninterruptedly converses with the bride of His beloved Son; and the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel resounds in the Church, and through her, in the world, leads unto all truth those who believe and makes the word of Christ dwell abundantly in them (see Col. 3:16).

CHAPTER III

SACRED SCRIPTURE, ITS DIVINE INSPIRATION AND INTERPRETATION

11. Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles (see John 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:15-16), holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself.(1) In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him (2) they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, (3) they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted. (4)

Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation. Therefore "all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind" (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text).

20. Besides the four Gospels, the canon of the New Testament also contains the epistles of St. Paul and other apostolic writings, composed under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, by which, according to the wise plan of God, those matters which concern Christ the Lord are confirmed, His true teaching is more and more fully stated, the saving power of the divine work of Christ is preached, the story is told of the beginnings of the Church and its marvelous growth, and its glorious fulfillment is foretold.

For the Lord Jesus was with His apostles as He had promised (see Matt. 28:20) and sent them the advocate Spirit who would lead them into the fullness of truth (see John 16:13).
​

There are a good number of lists of the canon of scripture in Catholic Church councils and their documents.

Are you attempting to argue against the evidence written in the Catholic Encyclopedia, is that authority not sufficient?

 

[disciple Clint]

.

This is a funny post with a lot of false information.

To start off with St. Jerome was a priest who was commissioned by Pope St. Damasus to revise at least the Gospels and maybe the whole NT, but that information is lost. Later St. Jerome at the request of many of his friends translated most of the writings of the OT over his lifespan. That being said St. Jerome had no authority whatsoever to decide the Catholic Canon. None. He had his opinions yes; but his opinions had no authority.

Concerning the writings that are currently found in the OT of the Catholic bible. Pope St. Damasus at the Synod of Rome confirmed our biblical canon. The synod of Hippo presided over by St. Augustine confirmed this canon. Pope St. Innocent in 405 again confirmed it. The acceptance the Catholic canon was required by the Council of Florence in the 14th century for the some of the Coptic Christians to enter full communion with the Catholic Church.

At the council of Trent due to the Protestant rejection of the full Christian bible canon, the fathers of that council felt the need to define what books are included in the Christian Bible. The same canon read in the Latin Church for the 15 centuries.

The official position of the Catholic Church on all the books of the OT were that they were equally inspired.

Now we do have certain books that were considered good for reading but not inspired. These were normally included in many Latin Vulgates, which included the Prayer of Manasseh, 3rd and 4th Esdras, and some even had the letter of St. Paul to Loadicea.

Now the Eastern Church does have a more complex understanding of Canonicity, which I do find interesting. You can see this here: Classification of the books of the Holy Bible

While this post is interesting it lacks evidence and is arguing against the Catholic Encyclopedia which I would think is accurate. I have provide evidence for the posts I have made, evidence should be provided to rebut that evidence.

 

[disciple Clint]

Adding to the fantastical argument it seems?

NO adding to the posts that I have properly provided authoritative evidence, rebut the facts with facts.

 

[disciple Clint]

This is NOT true. You are reading fiction.

Maybe and if so you should be able to rebut it with authoritative evidence.

 

[disciple Clint]

Just because a website makes a claim doesn't make it automatically true. Doubly so when it does so with such scant proof (pointing to Jerome and an isolated statement of a single cardinal is not proof that "the practice of the Church up to the time of the Reformation was to follow the judgment of Jerome"). Triply so when it's a polemic, as is the case in your link.

Speaking of that cardinal in question, it sends up a major red flag about the article. Here is the quote and citation it offers:

""Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St. Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecciesiasticus, as is plain from the Protogus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned 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. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage." (Cardinal Cajetan, "Commentary on all the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament," cited by William Whitaker in "A Disputation on Holy Scripture," Cambridge: Parker Society (1849), p. 424)"

I was curious so I looked it up, making absolutely certain I was looking at the edition cited (it was printed in 1849, by Cambridge, and was "Translated and Edited for the Parker Society" so this is a match). This quote is not found on page 424. It is found on page 48. This leaves us with two possibilities.

The first, and more charitable explanation, is that it was a typo. However, this seems unlikely. If it said 47 or 49 or 58 or even 408 I could see it, but how does one, even via typos, get from 48 to 424?

The second, and in my view more likely explanation, is that they just copied the citation from someone else without checking it. This is highly problematic. For it shows a considerable lack of research if they grabbed a citation and quoted it without any checking at all. Someone might say that the quote is found in the work, but that's besides the point--to offer up a quote and citation that you have not confirmed is a mark of someone who has not done proper research and is just grabbing what they saw other people say without verifying them to be sure. Certainly, someone who is unwilling or unable to check on their own citations is not someone I would trust to tell me what "the practice of the Church up to the time of the Reformation" was.

But, someone might say that, even if the page is not trustworthy, what of the specific quote offered? Is it genuine? This at least seems to be accurate, and it's a rather popular one for Protestants to throw around. However, the statement of one cardinal does not "the practice of the Church up to the time of the Reformation" make. How the deuterocanonical books were viewed throughout history is much more complicated than that.

You raise so good questions and if I were to continue beating this horse I would explore some additional evidence.

 

[JSRG]

While this post is interesting it lacks evidence and is arguing against the Catholic Encyclopedia which I would think is accurate. I have provide evidence for the posts I have made, evidence should be provided to rebut that evidence.

Let's look at that quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia (actually the New Catholic Encyclopedia) you cited. Here is, for reference, what you posted:

"“St. Jerome distinguished between canonical books and ecclesiastical books. The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good spiritual reading but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries...For example, John of Damascus, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicolas of Lyra and Tostado continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books. According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church at the Council of Trent. The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent” (The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Canon)."

Now, you didn't produce this quote yourself--it was taken from a web site you linked to. I already noted how it got its other citation wrong, indicating it was just copying and pasting someone else's citation without checking on it, which is a bad sign. In retrospect I should have handled this one at the time as well. Indeed, this one fares no better, and in fact is worse.

Before that, though, let's suppose the above quote is absolutely completely true. This does not support its claim that "the practice of the Church up to the time of the Reformation was to follow the judgment of Jerome". At most it would demonstrate some disagreement and confusion on the issue, but not that the church as a whole followed Jerome's judgment. So already the claim falls short.

But now let's take a look at the quote itself. So first off, the statements in question are not from an article called "The Canon". Rather, they are mostly from an article named "Bible, III" in the subsection "Canon of the Old Testament Among Christians" and its own sub-subsection "Canon of the Western Church". This already shows it hasn't been verified, as the article title is wrong (or if they were the one who put up the quote itself, it shows they are very bad at citation). But things get worse, because the quote itself has been edited. So, here is the full quote, from volume 2, page 390 of the New Catholic Encyclopedia (I apologize for any typos, as I had to type it up manually). I have underlined removed material:

"St. Jerome distinguished between "canonical books" and "ecclesiastical books." The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good "spiritual reading" but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. St. Augustine, however, did not recognize this distinction. He accepted all the books in the LXX as of equal value, noting that those designated as apocryphal by Jerome were of either unknown or obscure origin. Augustine's point of view prevailed and the deuterocanonical books remained in the Vulgate, the Latin version that received official standing at the Council of Trent.

The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries, although the tendency to accept the disputed books was becoming all the time more general. In spite of this trend some, e.g. John Damascene, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicholas of Lyra and Tostado, continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books. St. Thomas Aquinas has for a long time been listed as a dissenter because of his supposed doubts about Wisdom and Sirach, but P. Synave has argued convincingly to clear him of this imputation (RevBibl 21 (1924) 522-533). The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the OT Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent."

Note all of the changes made! The two important sentences about Augustine are cut out entirely, and they didn't include any ellipsis to show something was cut out! At least the removal of "although the tendency to accept" through "this trend some" had an ellipsis to show something was cut out, but what is there is highly important, as its removal removes the qualifications that the New Catholic Encyclopedia is clearly giving. The mangled quote also for some reason changes "e.g." to "for example". It then completely cuts out the sentence about Thomas Aquinas (this one is less important to keep, but note it offers no ellipsis to admit something was cut).

And then the quote adds in a sentence not even found in the article! "This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church at the Council of Trent." This is taken from another article, "Canon, Biblical" found on page 29 of volume 3, though it changes the punctuation a little (in the original it has parentheticals around "at the Council of Trent"). Then it switches back to the original article, and at least gets the last two sentences right.

This one is far worse than the other quote I looked at! At least in that there was the possibility of it being a typo (even if it seems unlikely), and the error there was of citation, not of quoting. This cannot be a typo, though, and the quote itself is highly mangled. In this case there are only two possibilities I see.

The first possibility is that the author of the article cited made this quote himself, cutting out important qualifications and then randomly inserting in something from a separate article without making any admission of them doing it. In that case, the author of the article you linked to is either highly dishonest or extremely incompetent.

The second possibility is that the author of the article simply copied this from someone else and never bothered to check or verify it. In that case, the author did not bother to verify their own citation, which is bad enough, but even worse due to the errors in the quote they provided.

In neither case do I find any reason to believe that I should accept "the practice of the Church up to the time of the Reformation was to follow the judgment of Jerome" simply on the assertion of a web page by someone who botched these citations and quotes so badly.

EDIT: I forgot to give links to the New Catholic Encyclopedia so people could check them to verify what I said (as well as view them in greater context). Here they are:
New Catholic encyclopedia : Catholic University of America : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive (volume 2)
New Catholic encyclopedia : Catholic University of America : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive (volume 3)

Those links should take you directly to the pages I discussed, though you may need to have an archive.org account to look at them.

 

[disciple Clint]

Let's look at that quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia (actually the New Catholic Encyclopedia) you cited. Here is, for reference, what you posted:

"“St. Jerome distinguished between canonical books and ecclesiastical books. The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good spiritual reading but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries...For example, John of Damascus, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicolas of Lyra and Tostado continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books. According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church at the Council of Trent. The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent” (The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Canon)."

Now, you didn't produce this quote yourself--it was taken from a web site you linked to. I already noted how it got its other citation wrong, indicating it was just copying and pasting someone else's citation without checking on it, which is a bad sign. In retrospect I should have handled this one at the time as well. Indeed, this one fares no better, and in fact is worse.

Before that, though, let's suppose the above quote is absolutely completely true. This does not support its claim that "the practice of the Church up to the time of the Reformation was to follow the judgment of Jerome". At most it would demonstrate some disagreement and confusion on the issue, but not that the church as a whole followed Jerome's judgment. So already the claim falls short.

But now let's take a look at the quote itself. So first off, the statements in question are not from an article called "The Canon". Rather, they are mostly from an article named "Bible, III" in the subsection "Canon of the Old Testament Among Christians" and its own sub-subsection "Canon of the Western Church". This already shows it hasn't been verified, as the article title is wrong (or if they were the one who put up the quote itself, it shows they are very bad at citation). But things get worse, because the quote itself has been edited. So, here is the full quote, from volume 2, page 390 of the New Catholic Encyclopedia (I apologize for any typos, as I had to type it up manually). I have underlined removed material:

"St. Jerome distinguished between "canonical books" and "ecclesiastical books." The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good "spiritual reading" but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. St. Augustine, however, did not recognize this distinction. He accepted all the books in the LXX as of equal value, noting that those designated as apocryphal by Jerome were of either unknown or obscure origin. Augustine's point of view prevailed and the deuterocanonical books remained in the Vulgate, the Latin version that received official standing at the Council of Trent.

The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries, although the tendency to accept the disputed books was becoming all the time more general. In spite of this trend some, e.g. John Damascene, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicholas of Lyra and Tostado, continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books. St. Thomas Aquinas has for a long time been listed as a dissenter because of his supposed doubts about Wisdom and Sirach, but P. Synave has argued convincingly to clear him of this imputation (RevBibl 21 (1924) 522-533). The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the OT Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent."

Note all of the changes made! The two important sentences about Augustine are cut out entirely, and they didn't include any ellipsis to show something was cut out! At least the removal of "although the tendency to accept" through "this trend some" had an ellipsis to show something was cut out, but what is there is highly important, as its removal removes the qualifications that the New Catholic Encyclopedia is clearly giving. The mangled quote also for some reason changes "e.g." to "for example". It then completely cuts out the sentence about Thomas Aquinas (this one is less important to keep, but note it offers no ellipsis to admit something was cut).

And then the quote adds in a sentence not even found in the article! "This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church at the Council of Trent." This is taken from another article, "Canon, Biblical" found on page 29 of volume 3, though it changes the punctuation a little (in the original it has parentheticals around "at the Council of Trent"). Then it switches back to the original article, and at least gets the last two sentences right.

This one is far worse than the other quote I looked at! At least in that there was the possibility of it being a typo (even if it seems unlikely), and the error there was of citation, not of quoting. This cannot be a typo, though, and the quote itself is highly mangled. In this case there are only two possibilities I see.

The first possibility is that the author of the article cited made this quote himself, cutting out important qualifications and then randomly inserting in something from a separate article without making any admission of them doing it. In that case, the author of the article you linked to is either highly dishonest or extremely incompetent.

The second possibility is that the author of the article simply copied this from someone else and never bothered to check or verify it. In that case, the author did not bother to verify their own citation, which is bad enough, but even worse due to the errors in the quote they provided.

In neither case do I find any reason to believe that I should accept "the practice of the Church up to the time of the Reformation was to follow the judgment of Jerome" simply on the assertion of a web page by someone who botched these citations and quotes so badly.

EDIT: I forgot to give links to the New Catholic Encyclopedia so people could check them to verify what I said (as well as view them in greater context). Here they are:
New Catholic encyclopedia : Catholic University of America : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive (volume 2)
New Catholic encyclopedia : Catholic University of America : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive (volume 3)

Those links should take you directly to the pages I discussed, though you may need to have an archive.org account to look at them.

interesting and informative but my argument was that the canon was decided at Trent this is confirmed by the Catholic Encyclopedia (the old one). " The great constructive Synod of Trent had put the sacredness and canonicity of the whole traditional Bible forever beyond the permissibility of doubt on the part of Catholics. By implication it had defined that Bible's plenary inspiration also. The Vatican Council took occasion of a recent error on inspiration to remove any lingering shadow of uncertainty on this head; it formally ratified the action of Trent and explicitly defined the Divine inspiration of all the books with their parts." I took that quote directly. Canon of the Old Testament - Encyclopedia Volume - Catholic Encyclopedia - Catholic Online

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

interesting and informative but my argument was that the canon was decided at Trent this is confirmed by the Catholic Encyclopedia (the old one).

This is not history, nor is it accurate; it's a talking point for Protestant apologists, that's all. Here is what Trent says about the canon:

CONCERNING THE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES

FIRST DECREE

Celebrated on the eighth day of the month of April, in the year 1546.

The sacred and holy, ecumenical, and general Synod of Trent,--lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the Same three legates of the Apostolic See presiding therein,--keeping this always in view, that, errors being removed, the purity itself of the Gospel be preserved in the Church; which (Gospel), before promised through the prophets in the holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first promulgated with His own mouth, and then commanded to be preached by His Apostles to every creature, as the fountain of all, both saving truth, and moral discipline; and seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament--seeing that one God is the author of both --as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ's own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession.

And it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in any one's mind, which are the books that are received by this Synod. They are as set down here below:
of the Old Testament:

the five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, the first book of Esdras, and the second which is entitled Nehemias; Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidical Psalter, consisting of a hundred and fifty psalms; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; Ezechiel, Daniel; the twelve minor prophets, to wit, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, Malachias; two books of the Machabees, the first and the second.​

Of the New Testament:

the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke the Evangelist; fourteen epistles of Paul the apostle, (one) to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, (one) to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, (one) to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter the apostle, three of John the apostle, one of the apostle James, one of Jude the apostle, and the Apocalypse of John the apostle.​

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.

Let all, therefore, understand, in what order, and in what manner, the said Synod, after having laid the foundation of the Confession of faith, will proceed, and what testimonies and authorities it will mainly use in confirming dogmas, and in restoring morals in the Church.​

The council of Trent understood their work to be to record what was already believed and always was believed in the Catholic Church concerning the canonical books of the Old and the New Testaments. It is an entirely false reading of the council's canons to present this as the definition of the Canon "for the first time", when in point of fact the authors of the canon understood their role to be to record what was already received as canonical scripture from ancient times.

 

[disciple Clint]

This is not history, nor is it accurate; it's a talking point for Protestant apologists, that's all. Here is what Trent says about the canon:

CONCERNING THE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES

FIRST DECREE

Celebrated on the eighth day of the month of April, in the year 1546.

The sacred and holy, ecumenical, and general Synod of Trent,--lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the Same three legates of the Apostolic See presiding therein,--keeping this always in view, that, errors being removed, the purity itself of the Gospel be preserved in the Church; which (Gospel), before promised through the prophets in the holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first promulgated with His own mouth, and then commanded to be preached by His Apostles to every creature, as the fountain of all, both saving truth, and moral discipline; and seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament--seeing that one God is the author of both --as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ's own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession.

And it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in any one's mind, which are the books that are received by this Synod. They are as set down here below:
of the Old Testament:

the five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, the first book of Esdras, and the second which is entitled Nehemias; Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidical Psalter, consisting of a hundred and fifty psalms; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; Ezechiel, Daniel; the twelve minor prophets, to wit, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, Malachias; two books of the Machabees, the first and the second.​

Of the New Testament:

the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke the Evangelist; fourteen epistles of Paul the apostle, (one) to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, (one) to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, (one) to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter the apostle, three of John the apostle, one of the apostle James, one of Jude the apostle, and the Apocalypse of John the apostle.​

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.

Let all, therefore, understand, in what order, and in what manner, the said Synod, after having laid the foundation of the Confession of faith, will proceed, and what testimonies and authorities it will mainly use in confirming dogmas, and in restoring morals in the Church.​

The council of Trent understood their work to be to record what was already believed and always was believed in the Catholic Church concerning the canonical books of the Old and the New Testaments. It is an entirely false reading of the council's canons to present this as the definition of the Canon "for the first time", when in point of fact the authors of the canon understood their role to be to record what was already received as canonical scripture from ancient times.

Thank you, you just made my point, clearly the canon was set out in Trent.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Thank you, you just made my point, clearly the canon was set out in Trent.

No, clearly the canon was ratified by the council of Trent; there's a world of difference between ratifying an already existing standard and inventing it.

 

[disciple Clint]

No, clearly the canon was ratified by the council of Trent; there's a world of difference between ratifying an already existing standard and inventing it.

Well we are making progress, OK I will settle for that, we have come a long ways.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Well we are making progress, OK I will settle for that, we have come a long ways.

Previously I observed that Vatican II also ratified the canon in the document called Dei Verbum; Vatican II did not invent the canon nor did Trent nor did Florance, one needs to go back to the fourth century to come to a time when a claim about "inventing" the Christian canon of Holy Scripture could be justifiably made.

 

[The Liturgist]

Maybe you did not see this: The practice of the Church up to the time of the Reformation was to follow the judgment of Jerome who rejected the Old Testament apocrypha on the grounds that these books were never part of the Jewish canon. These were permissible to be read in the churches for the purposes of edification but were never considered authoritative for establishing doctrine. The Protestants did nothing new when they rejected the apocrypha as authoritative Scripture. It was the Roman church that rejected this tradition and ‘canonized’ the ecclesiastical books.
St Jerome and the Canon

That’s not historically accurate. The Eastern Orthodox church, for example, regards Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus as more important than Numbers and Leviticus, and reads the first two in church, but not third and fourth book of the Torah. Deuteronomy is used mainly as a source for one of the Odes, or Canticles.

 

[The Liturgist]

The 24 that are explicitly mentioned in the documents of the Catholic Church.

see The Rites of the Catholic Church (catholicnewsagency.com)
​

I am pretty sure the Rites of Braga and Lyons are variants on the Roman and not the Gallican Rite, as are the Catholic Order rites. Note the Benedictines and Cistercians differ only in their Divine Office, and the Franciscans and other orders also had some variations in that respect.

Also, surprisingly, the Ethiopian / Eritrean Ge’ez Rite is actually Antiochene in origin, most closely related to the West Syriac, Maronite, old Armenian and Byzantine liturgies. The reason for this is that “The Seven Syrian Saints” were among the missionaries who helped set up the Ethiopian church, and they implemented the liturgy along Syrian lines, despite the new church being an autonomous province of the Church of Alexandria.

 

[Hawkins]

If you believe God exists, then a Canon is made by God at the end, not men. If otherwise you don't believe God then the whole canonization with its discussion is completely meaningless. It's all just about how humans dealt with a series of books. You may then discuss it in some history forums instead of Christianity forums.

Canonization is more or less about our guess on what God wants His Scripture to be done.

Roughly it works like this,
When we need the truth(s) to be told in the US, we rely on the mass media for truths to be contained in the pieces of news broadcast. You then rely on a media you deem credible to get to the truth by your trusting of this media with faith. You can cross check the news from the different media as long as your truth with faith goes. That's how you get to the truths on a daily basis.

Shall the US government has anything important to announce, it goes through the same mass media which the majority deemed credible.

In the same manner, God's chosen people Israel serves the same as God's chosen media to announce His important messages.

The mass media actively look into stories from the supposedly first hand eyewitnesses by examining carefully about the creditability of these eyewitnesses with their stories then broadcast them to the public.

Similarly, Israel actively examine the credibility of the prophets as God's eyewitnesses then recorded down their stories to finally form the Scripture. It's more or less resembles how histories are written. Canonization is thus more about which books are actually God breathed divinely. That's the true meaning of canonization. God did this through the hands from King Hezekiah till Ezra, and from Ezra till the Pharisees. That's how the Jewish canon was formed for its purpose. In the end, it's God demands this to be done to stand a witness on how He conveys His own messages through Israel acting as His mass media to humans as a whole.

In a similar fashion, God made use of the apostles as His own eyewitnesses then for Christianity acting as His new mass media (since the Jews failed to do so), and for His gospels (i.e., the news from God) to be broadcast (termed as preached) to all mankind. What left is thus which NT books are truly divine as a witness from the apostles' accounts regarding to what Jesus did, together with the theology behind His deeds. That's the point of canonization of NT, while its counterpart the OT Canon was already done through the hands of the Jews (as God's old and obsolete mass media).

Of course, you can't have more than one mass media to cross check, as there's only one Jesus died in one ancient city witnessed by only His chosen witnesses. It's more or less like you can't expect other civilizations have records about the Chinese 5000 years ago. Only the Chinese account of histories has records about what Chinese did 5000 years ago.

 

[Philip_B]

If you believe God exists, then a Canon is made by God at the end, not men. If otherwise you don't believe God then the whole canonization with its discussion is completely meaningless. It's all just about how humans dealt with a series of books. You may then discuss it in some history forums instead of Christianity forums.

Canonization is more or less about our guess on what God wants His Scripture to be done.

Roughly it works like this,
When we need the truth(s) to be told in the US, we rely on the mass media for truths to be contained in the pieces of news broadcast. You then rely on a media you deem credible to get to the truth by your trusting of this media with faith. You can cross check the news from the different media as long as your truth with faith goes. That's how you get to the truths on a daily basis.

Shall the US government has anything important to announce, it goes through the same mass media which the majority deemed credible.

In the same manner, God's chosen people Israel serves the same as God's chosen media to announce His important messages.

The mass media actively look into stories from the supposedly first hand eyewitnesses by examining carefully about the creditability of these eyewitnesses with their stories then broadcast them to the public.

Similarly, Israel actively examine the credibility of the prophets as God's eyewitnesses then recorded down their stories to finally form the Scripture. It's more or less resembles how histories are written. Canonization is thus more about which books are actually God breathed divinely. That's the true meaning of canonization. God did this through the hands from King Hezekiah till Ezra, and from Ezra till the Pharisees. That's how the Jewish canon was formed for its purpose. In the end, it's God demands this to be done to stand a witness on how He conveys His own messages through Israel acting as His mass media to humans as a whole.

In a similar fashion, God made use of the apostles as His own eyewitnesses then for Christianity acting as His new mass media (since the Jews failed to do so), and for His gospels (i.e., the news from God) to be broadcast (termed as preached) to all mankind. What left is thus which NT books are truly divine as a witness from the apostles' accounts regarding to what Jesus did, together with the theology behind His deeds. That's the point of canonization of NT, while its counterpart the OT Canon was already done through the hands of the Jews (as God's old and obsolete mass media).

Of course, you can't have more than one mass media to cross check, as there's only one Jesus died in one ancient city witnessed by only His chosen witnesses. It's more or less like you can't expect other civilizations have records about the Chinese 5000 years ago. Only the Chinese account of histories has records about what Chinese did 5000 years ago.

To me, the argument here borders on the bizarre. The Bible is not some sort of ancient CNN. To me, it seems quite reasonable to conclude that God is (beyond existence) and that the canon of scripture is indeed a human product, though I would argue for inspiration. Indeed it is not a binomial proposition.

Much of what has been tedious in this debate thread is in part because the importance of scripture in the Reformed Tradition has a different flavour to the importance of scripture in the Catholic and Orthodox Traditions. It is also partly distorted because the word 'Catholic' may be conceived to be the 2nd note of the Church as expressed in the Nicene Creed, or may be used to speak of the Church in Communion with the Bishop of Rome in the denominational sense. Because people are not clear when they use the word, one is left to deduce what was intended. Sometimes I think that lack of clarity has been intentional.

I understand for some of the RCC members don't draw that distinction, however, 50 years on from Vatican 2, there has been a lot of leadership to suggest that perhaps they should, and certainly in an oecumenical setting.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

If you believe God exists, then a Canon is made by God at the end, not men. If otherwise you don't believe God then the whole canonization with its discussion is completely meaningless. It's all just about how humans dealt with a series of books. You may then discuss it in some history forums instead of Christianity forums.

One can both believe in God and also believe that human beings decided which books are to be received as canonical for Christians, because one can believe that God moved men to decide correctly, just as it is believed that God moved men to write the holy scriptures while inspiring them to write what he intended to have written.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

I understand for some of the RCC members don't draw that distinction, however, 50 years on from Vatican 2, there has been a lot of leadership to suggest that perhaps they should, and certainly in an oecumenical setting.

It's my habit to type Catholic Church when I intend the churches in communion with the bishop of Rome and to type catholic when I intend something along the lines of 'according to the whole [body of christians]'. The former is about a specific Church the latter is about what is generally received. Thus, the Nicene Creed is catholic while the Catechism of the Catholic Church appertains to precisely one Church.

 

[disciple Clint]

Previously I observed that Vatican II also ratified the canon in the document called Dei Verbum; Vatican II did not invent the canon nor did Trent nor did Florance, one needs to go back to the fourth century to come to a time when a claim about "inventing" the Christian canon of Holy Scripture could be justifiably made.

What evidence is there for that conclusion?

 

[disciple Clint]

That’s not historically accurate. The Eastern Orthodox church, for example, regards Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus as more important than Numbers and Leviticus, and reads the first two in church, but not third and fourth book of the Torah. Deuteronomy is used mainly as a source for one of the Odes, or Canticles.

I have a question that I think you can answer, does The Eastern Orthodox church consider itself a Catholic Church?