AgLiving06 said:Bob Lee said:AgLiving06 said:Dies Irae said:AgLiving06 said:Dies Irae said:AgLiving06 said:Dies Irae said:AgLiving06 said:Dies Irae said:
Why didn't you bold and highlight this portion? Are you familiar with the history of the Church and what role the councils played in the formation of Christianity?
Why don't you tell us about all the Bishops who were in favor of Arianism? There were many. Tell me about the musings of St John Chrysostom on the Jews and how St Jerome thought that Satan would be reconciled one day. There are very holy people who get things wrong, which is why we rely on the Councils and the Magisterium.
The councils of Hippo and Carthage set the canon for Christianity; this is why the "apocrypha" is included in both Orthodox and Catholic scripture. Are there levels of "God-breathed"? Do we need to revise Timothy with saying "only some scripture is profitable"?
So it's now your claim that a local council set the canon for the entire church? That may be more novel than Trent trying to set the canon itself.
The rest really just supports the Protestant view. Church history is messy and there was rarely a uniform belief. To claim some singular viewpoint as Rome forces something on the fathers that just wasn't there.
Rome was specifically mentioned as being needed to confirm the scriptural canon proceeding the Council of Carthage. This is how the Church works, not by one monk deciding to add words, or remove books on his own authority, but by the Holy Spirit working through the Apostles of Christ, and their successors the Catholic Episcopate.
And yet the Synod of Laodicea which was held prior to this council determined the Apocrypha was not part of teh canon.
Canon 60:
These are all the books of Old Testament appointed to be read: 1, Genesis of the world;
2, The Exodus from Egypt; 3, Leviticus; 4, Numbers; 5, Deuteronomy; 6, Joshua, the son of Nun; 7, Judges, Ruth; 8, Esther; 9, Of the Kings, First and Second; 10, Of the Kings, Third and Fourth; 11, Chronicles, First and Second; 12, Esdras, First and Second; 13, The Book of Psalms; 14, The Proverbs of Solomon; 15, Ecclesiastes; 16, The Song of Songs; 17, Job; 18, The Twelve Prophets; 19, Isaiah; 20, Jeremiah, and Baruch, the Lamentations, and the Epistle; 21, Ezekiel; 22, Daniel.
And these are the books of the New Testament: Four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; The Acts of the Apostles; Seven Catholic Epistles, to wit, one of James, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude; Fourteen Epistles of Paul, one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, one to the Ephesians, one to the Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Hebrews, two to Timothy, one to Titus, and one to Philemon.
So if we are going to suddenly claim the local councils are somehow dictating the doctrine of the entire church, things are going to get real interesting real quickly.
I do recall someone making the argument that the reason we shouldn't hold to councils as infallible is because they tend to contradict each other....
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So what you are asking us to do is ignore councils and prominent historical church fathers who disagree with something that not even Rome could get an actual majority for on their own vote.
That seems suspect.
We are not even certain that they discussed the canon of the Bible at the council of Laodicea, as it mainly focused on behavioral matters;. Either way you shouldn't hang your hat on this council as it was a very small regional council of about two dozen who may or may not have published a canon which excluded the book of Revelation. This was also not sent to Rome for confirmation, so was more of a Q&A forum, which is why no one talks about the council of Laodicea
And it appears we have no record of the Council of Hippo except for Carthage and yet you claim that as a source. Even with Carthage, there are seeming problems with some of the text that was added.
You're taking the stance that the only councils that are valid are the ones you agree with, which as I've already shown goes in direct contrast to the beliefs of many significant church fathers, who did not attend or even seem to agree with these councils.
What is abundantly clear is that the Apocrypha was around and that they were controversial books (by definition). Some groups affirmed them in some capacity, some did not.
This is why what Rome did at Trent is novel. Instead of taking the historical view, that is well documented, that these books were disputed and many did not see them as canon, but as useful, they forced them on par.
They had been on par for over a thousand years. They were included in Protestant bibles even after Trent and were only removed by publishers to save money on printing. Yes, it is embarrassing but you need to embrace it. You cannot argue that the so-called "apocrypha" was part of of the settled Biblical canon of all of Christianity for over 1000 years before the reformation. Your only argument is that some scripture isn't as important as other scripture. Again, is the Gospel of John more divinely inspired than Revelation? Than Acts?
Yeah, Not true and of course, no support provided.
Edit...And think of what you're saying. A group, after the fact, decided that the early church got it wrong...That the earliest Fathers, and maybe the Apostles just didn't understand the proper canon, but 500+ years later, they were suddenly definitive on those books.
That's the argument you want to make?
When you say the "early church". Can you define your terms? That there was disagreement between some Church fathers is not the same as saying the Church. Jerome also did not reject all of the parts of Deuterocanonical books and he included all 7 in the Vulgate because he recognized the Church's authority given to it by God to determine the canon.
I provided a pretty large response on the disagreement earlier in this thread. That would be a good starting point. But really a quick google search shows just how mixed the response was towards these books.
And as with Faithful Ag, the question is not whether they were included or not, but as to their status and Jerome gave them the name Apocrypha because they were disputed texts.
But you're conflating church fathers with One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Magisterial teaching is not a Chinese menu of Saint quotes to pick from here and there on this and that.