Introduction // Chapter 2 // Contents

 

First of all, let’s take a look at the affiliation between the Holy Bible and the Church.

Before we commence, it would be worth listening to an opinion expressed by saint John the Chrysostom regarding written tradition, which will be also of special interest to Protestants  - for different reasons, naturally.

2. The Golden-speaking (Chrysostom) Father says the following, with reference to the Gospel of Matthew (P.G. 57, 13-15):

We really shouldn’t need the help of the written texts; we should be able to display such a clean lifestyle, that the grace of the Holy Spirit would act directly onto our hearts. Just as books are inscribed by ink, that is how our hearts should be inscribed by the Spirit. But, since we have distanced ourselves from this grace, let us accept this second alternative with appreciation.

That the previous conditions were much better, is evident in both the Old as well as the New Testaments. In the Old Testament, God didn’t address the patriarchs and the prophets with written texts, but spoke to them directly, because He found their hearts to be pure. But, because the Hebrews sunk into depths of malice, written texts and stone tablets became necessary.

The same applied in the age of the New Testament. The Lord gave the Apostles nothing in writing, but He promised to give them -in place of a text- the grace of the Holy Spirit: “He (the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete) will teach you everything and will remind you of everything that I told you” (John 14:26). Paul had also said that he had received the law, “not on stone tablets, but on the tablets of our fleshy hearts” (Corinthians II, 3:3). But because people were again drawn towards evil, it was necessary to provide reminders in written form.

You must therefore perceive how great an evil it is – even now – that this second medication is not being utilized: by whom? By us, who are supposed to live such pure lives, that we shouldn’t need any written texts.

These were the words of saint John the Chrysostom.

So, it seems that the medicine for the sick is (according to saint John) the written Tradition of divine will. Just as any other medicine, this too should be given with the prescription of a specialist. With all that follows below, we shall attempt to discern the identity of the healing physician and learn from him the instructions regarding the usage of the medicine.

To begin with: What is the Holy Bible?  Is it perhaps a book like all other books, whose meaning we should consider that the reader can naturally grasp immediately?  Of course not. It is a holy book, which chiefly addresses the faithful. Naturally, anyone can read it like a piece of literary work, but it is doubtful (even improbable) that the reader can understand its true message. The Holy Bible as a whole, as a book, obviously has a specific message. Saint Ilarius stresses: “The message of the Holy Bible is not revealed by reading, but by comprehending its content” (non in legendo sed in intelligendo).

In other words, this is a book that is more or less “locked”.  So, who holds the key?  Who can unlock it?

2. To reply to this question, we must trace the origin of the texts that are included in the Holy Bible, with the help of father Florovsky.

“It is obvious”, observes father George, “that the Bible is the creation of a community, both in the Old providence, as well as in the Christian Church”. (Holy Bible, Church, Tradition - Pournaras Publications, pages 9-13).

How is it obvious?

Quite simply: we can see that “the Holy Bible is not just a COLLECTION of all preserved texts that contain a revelation of God, but a SELECTION of only a few of them”. Which ones? The ones whose usage (especially their liturgical usage) within a community caused them to be approved and acknowledged as authentic. In which community? In a community with specific elements of identity: with a history, with hierarchy, with visible and verifiable criteria of its continuance and unity.

And with what specific criterion did this community select the books of the Holy Bible? Obviously with the criterion that John the Evangelist mentioned: “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and thus believing, you attain life in His name”.  Let us recall that this criterion was also used by John, when he had to make a compulsory choice: “For indeed, Jesus also performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not recorded in this book; these have been written down in order that you believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, so that thus believing, you attain life in His name”. (John, 20:30-31) So, there was a specific purpose that dictated this choice. The same applies, more or less, to the entire Holy Bible.

We should not therefore consider it a chance event that an assorted selection of texts, by different authors of different times, comprised a single book, whose purpose was to deliver the single message of the only truth. 

It is this very identity of the message that bestows the various texts their true unity, despite the variety of their forms.  Isn’t it noteworthy how, despite the inclusion of various traditions – for example in the Gospels – the Church staunchly resisted all attempts to replace the four Gospels with one, composite Gospel, or, the transformation of the Gospels into one “Of Four”? And all of this, despite the many differences (with or without quotation marks) of Evangelists, with which differences Augustine had to struggle sufficiently in order to sort things out.

Thus, certain texts were selected and subsequently delivered to the faithful as one, specific, unified edition of the divine message. The message is divine. It comes from God. But the specific, faithful community is the one that recognizes the preached word and bears witness to its truth.

4. Since the Holy Bible therefore, as a book, was composed within the community of the Church with its primary target the teaching of this community, it is a natural conclusion that: the Holy Bible did not give birth to the Church, but the Church gave birth to the Holy Bible. The Church is the mother and the Holy Bible is its daughter. That is why it is impossible to dissociate this book from the Church.

That is why Tertullian was understandably unwilling to discuss questionable topics of faith with heretics, on a biblical basis. Given that the Bible belongs to the Church, the heretics’ recourse to it is unlawful. They have no right to foreign property. This was his chief argument, in his famous treatise “De praescriptione haereticorum”. He who does not acknowledge the mother has no right to put his hands on her daughter.

Moving within the spirit of this speculation, the late preacher Dimitrios Panagopoulos wrote: “We ask Protestants to show us, in which part of the New Testament does it say that its books are 27? Nowhere, of course! Well then, who informed you? The tradition of the Church of course, which you have rejected.  So, aren’t you acknowledging a motherless daughter? Where is the logic in holding onto the daughter – the New Testament – and rejecting her mother – the Tradition and authority of the Church?” (Evangelists: the anti-Evangelists, page 26)

In another part, with reference to Protestants, he said: “After coming out of the bowels of the Western Church totally naked, with only the New Testament in their hands, they resemble the son who had a confrontation with his father and left the paternal home in the night, naked, absconding with a valuable object. And when asked where he found it, he avoids answering!” (Evangelists: the anti-Evangelists, page 24)

Perhaps it is preferable that they avoid replying! Because it is truly weird, when they reply by admitting that the Canon for the books of the Holy Bible took on its final form by the Church’s Councils of the 4^th century, yet they simultaneously regard the Church of that century an “apostate”. How is it possible for a Church who is in apostasy to rule correctly on such a crucial issue as the “charting” of the infallible (as they call it) Charter of Christianity, in other words the final selection of the validated books of the Holy Bible? And how can an “apostate” Church generate such a host of martyrs and apologetes? What was the criterion that characterized the “golden era” of the Church a “period of apostasy”?

5. The former protestant Frank Schaeffer, after having escaped from this schizophrenia, considers the history of the Canon of the New Testament a very charming topic and extremely crucial for the comprehension of both the Bible as well as the Church. “Just think”, he says, that for more than 200 years, a number of books which we now consider by definition as comprising a part of the New Testament, were being extensively discussed before being included in it. And many other books which were considered suitable for inclusion were finally excluded from it. (Frank  Schaeffer,  Dancing alone ,page. 291,  greek  edition).

The oldest, complete index of the 27 books of the New Testament did not exist until 367 A.D., which was the time that it was given to us by Athanasios the Great.

This signifies that the first comprehensive catalogue of the New Testament books - as we have it today – did not appear until 3oo or more years after the first gospels had begun to be drafted… In other words: If the New Testament had begun to be written at the same time as the American Constitution, we would not have seen a finalized text before the year 2087!…. 

During a lengthy procedure, the Church discerned which texts were genuinely apostolic and which were not. The Ecclesiastic Councils (Synods) were part of this procedure. Two Councils among them stood out:

a. The Council (Synod) of Laodicea, in 363 A.D. ruled that only the Canonic books of the Old and New Testaments should be used in worship. It enumerated the canonic books of the Old and the New Testaments, just as they are today, with the exception of John’s Book of Revelations.

b. The third Concil (Synod) of Carthage, in 397 A.D.. This Council, which was also attended by the holy Augustine, gave a complete list of the Canonic books, as we know them today. This Council also acknowledged that only these books should be read in Church, as divine Scripture.

So, Schaeffer is indeed correct in saying that the history of the Canon of the Holy Bible is a very charming topic; because, in this history, it is clearly apparent that between the Mother (=Church) and the Daughter (=Holy Bible) there is an age difference of at least…. 300 years! In milder terms, the mother was gestating the daughter for at least…300 years! This is an indisputable historical fact. Even Protestants may perhaps suppress it or ignore it, but they certainly cannot dispute it! 

If, therefore (according to Protestants) the Holy Bible is self-sufficient and self-evident; if the Bible comes before and above the Church; if it is the Bible that vivified, convened and interpreted the Church – instead of the opposite – then we are led, at least in medical terms, to acknowledging something monstrous: an unformed embryo, which has been nurturing and preserving the mother that has been gestating it for more than 300 years!!!

 

Introduction // Chapter 2 // Contents