The basis for acceptance of the Canonical Books
The majority of Protestants blindly accepts a Regulation (Canon) that
includes (only) the 66 Books of the Holy Bible, because SOMEONE TOLD
THEM that those are the only Books that comprise the entire Holy Bible.
They were “told” that there are the regulation (Canonical) Books and the
secondary (Deuterocanonical) Books, and that only the 66 are Canonical,
while the other 10 are apparently Deuterocanonical and therefore not
“divinely inspired”. In fact, they have even confused the
Deuterocanonical Books with the “Apocrypha”, which is an entirely
different category of Books. We Christians on the other hand
acknowledge the other 10 Books as Canonical Books and naturally we accept
them as the product of a decision issued by an Ecumenical Synod, unlike
the arbitrary Protestant acceptance.
In order to justify this arbitrary decision, Protestants have concocted
a fake statement, which, out of ignorance, the followers have accepted
without question. They claim that:
“The Lord and the Apostles completely
disregarded the “Deuterocanonical” Books that the Orthodox have accepted,
and did not use them as references. On the contrary, they make
references only to the other Books that we have acknowledged, therefore
those only are the books that are Divinely inspired and Canonical (regulation) Books.”
Of course this statement is not only unfounded, it is positively false.
We shall immediately present here an example proving that the Apostles
(and naturally the Lord) profusely referred to the so-called
“Deuterocanonic” Books (which are actually Canonical). Our question is:
When we prove this point, are Protestant
believers willing to acknowledge these 10 other Books, just as the
Apostles had acknowledged them?
We need not mention here the hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of
examples found in the New Testament that are also mentioned in these
ten, gravely misjudged Books. One, VERY CHARACTERISTIC example will be
enough:
Let’s present
just a few of the references that the Apostle Paul
mentioned in his Epistle to Romans, and compare them
(for instance) to the Book of Solomon’s Wisdom. (Imagine how many
similar examples we can extract in the same way, from the entire New
Testament!)
Solomon’s Wisdom 13:1: «They
became defeated, through their own deliberations»
Romans 1:21:
«They became defeated, through their own deliberations».
Solomon’s Wisdom 13: 5:
«From the grandeur of the creations’ beauty, their
creator is recognized»
Romans 1:18-32:
«…since the creation of the world, invisible though they may be, they
are comprehended and visible through the things that He created … ».
Solomon’s Wisdom 11:22:
« who can withstand the might of Your arm ? »
Romans 9:19-23:
«
who has ever withstood His will? »
Solomon’s Wisdom 15:7:
«doesn’t the potter create fine vessels as well as lesser ones from the
same clay?»
Romans 9:21:
«
Doesn’t the clay potter have the authority to create (vessels), some of
which are for ceremonial use and some for baser use?»
As you can see, the above selection of extracts is just a VERY SMALL
example of how the Apostles not only accepted the Books of the Holy
Bible that the Protestants have rejected, but they actually quoted from
them. This fully proves that the Protestant claim that such verses
were apparently “completely disregarded” by the Apostles, is
altogether untrue.
But we would like to ask the Protestant believer the following: Why is
it, that they have acknowledged (for example) the Book of Esther as a
Canonical (regulation) Book of the Bible? Can they tell us exactly
where the Lord or His Apostles have quoted references from this
Book? Because, if they have considered it imperative that the New
Testament refers to extracts in the Old Testament - in order for that
Book to be acknowledged as a Canonical (regulation) Book - they must
present an example of such a referencing from the Book of Esther, which
they have claimed as Canonical. Therefore, we ask, exactly why has
this Book been accepted as Canonical?
Could it be, that the “quoting of verses” by the New Testament has
nothing to do with the Books being Canonical? Therefore, we ask again :
On what grounds have the Protestants decided that the Books
which have been acknowledged by them are truly Canonical (regulation)
Books?
Delicate distinctions in the matter of Divine Inspiration
and Regularity
It is time that we made certain clarifications and a few delicate
distinctions:
As you may
know, the Church expresses itself Synodically, from the first
Apostolic Synod (Acts 15), to this day. It is therefore necessary to
find the decisions of the Church that pertain to the Regularity of the
Holy Bible, as expressed in the Ecumenical Synods, in order to validate
a Canon regarding the Holy Bible. As proven above by the references
found in the Book of Solomon’s Wisdom, the Protestant isolation of
Biblical Books on the basis of New Testament usage is neither sufficient
nor correct. Without the approval of the Church, nothing can be
declared Canonical.
We therefore must turn to the Quinisext Ecumenical Synod, which
validated six of the numerous Canons (regulations) that had been
formulated at the time. These Canons are as follows: Of Laodicea,
of Carthage, the 85th Apostolic canon, of Saint
Athanasius, of Gregory the Theologian and Amphilochius of Ikonion.
Thus, although no canon has been given directly by an Ecumenical Council
concerning the Books of the Holy Bible, we do have 6 validated canons
based on conciliar decisions that are guidelines for the acceptance of
the Books of the Holy Bible.
1.
Of the above
canons, the
Synod of
Laodicea
issued a broad canon regarding the Regulation and Proposed Reading
books.
2.
The
Synod of
Carthage
issued a fixed canon regarding the Regulation, Divine and Proposed
Reading books.
3.
The
85th
Apostolic Canon
issued a canon regarding Venerable and Holy books.
4.
Saint
Athanasius
issued a canon regarding Divine Books for Canonization and another canon
for Proposed Reading Books for the newly catechized.
5.
Saint
Gregory the Theologian
issued a canon for the Genuine Books,
6.
and
Saint
Amphilochius of Ikonion
issued a canon of the Divinely Inspired Books.
The fact that the books in these canons are not
exactly identical to each other is attributed to the fact that each
one of these canons has different “characteristics”. Given that one
canon speaks of “divine” books and another canon speaks of “divinely
inspired” books of the Holy Bible, we cannot confuse the one with
the other kind.
There is a difference
between the terms “Divine” and “Divinely Inspired”.
Not every Book in the Holy Bible is Divine and
Divinely Inspired. Nor are all the “Venerable” books “Divine”. We
Christians make very careful distinctions in our expressions, which
is something that Protestants do not perceive, hence their assertion
that all the books in the Holy Bible are Divinely Inspired.
But the Bible does not contain only Divinely Inspired Books.
The Books of the Bible are referred to in the
Canonizing sources either as Divine, or Divinely Inspired, or
Canonical (Regulation), or Proposed Reading, or Beneficial, or
Venerable, or Canonized. These characterizations are not
incidental. Differences do exist, hence, all books do not belong to
every category. In the Church of Christ we speak with precision and
make very delicate distinctions; we do not resort to coarse
distinctions such as “Canonic” (Regulation) and “Deuterocanonic”
(Secondary).
Summarizing the above, we could say that :
The Holy Bible
contains books ( such as the three Books of the Maccabees ) which
are only Venerable, but not Divinely Inspired or Divine or
Canonical. The Bible contains books ( such as Judith and Tobit )
which are Canonical, but not Divinely Inspired or Divine. And the
Bible also contains Divine books ( such as Solomon’s Wisdom ) which
are not however Divinely Inspired.
We have listed below a number of important
clarifications, because we shall encounter these phrases during our
further study of the Church’s canons that relate to the Canon on the
Holy Bible:
Venerable
is a book that Christians have a duty to respect.
Proposed Reading
is a book that can be read by all.
Church
Text
is that which can be read in Churches.
Newcomer Reading
is that which is useful for the newly catechized.
Canonical
is that which belongs to a Canon (regulation).
Canonized
refers to those texts that may belong to a canon, but
for which the final decision on their selection has not yet been
reached, in order to validate the canon.
Reputable canon
is a canon worthy of acceptance.
Holy
is a book that is merely beneficial and not
necessarily infallible or Divine or Divinely Inspired. In other
words, it can be used as an aid, but it cannot be used to support
dogmatic or canonical truths.
Divine
is the book that has bee written under the
supervision of the Holy Spirit, and possibly even by human wisdom.
Divine books are infallible in matters pertaining to salvation, but
are not necessarily Divinely Inspired.
Divinely Inspired
is the book that contains a REVELATION of the Holy Spirit. It is
also considered Divine and infallible in matters of salvation, as
presented by that revelation of course.
We shall deal with the deeper analysis of these 6
validated canons in other, separate studies, where we will examine
and analyze them, one by one.
The information
was borrowed from the excellent book by the esteemed Professor of the
Athens University,
Mr. Panayiotis
Boumis,
Dr of Theology, titled:
"The Canons of
the Church regarding the Canons of the Holy Bible".
Áthens
1986.