As an amateur wildlife photographer, one of my long-standing targets has been the okapi, formerly known as the African Unicorn. An interesting historical fact about okapis is that, though they are now found in various zoos around the world, they were once believed by the scientific community to be as mythical as their colloquial namesake.
Human arrogance is the absolute bane of scientific study. Many people have made a religion out of science, failing to recognise both its limits, and how far away from them it falls. Nowhere is this more visible than in the field of cryptozoology. Cryptozoology is the study of "hidden" animals, i.e. those that have not yet been formally confirmed by Western science. These animals, known as "cryptids", often leave significant amounts of evidence, but not enough to convince the oober sceptical. The okapi is one such example. Known by locals as the Atti, or the o'api, the okapi resembles a giraffe, yet it shares a lot of features with donkeys and zebras also. Before 1901, this beautiful creature was considered to be purely mythological, to the extent where some cryptozoologists even used it as an emblem. However, in 1901, Sir Harry Johnston obtained an okapi skin and a skull. Not long after this, a live okapi was finally captured. The so-called "African Unicorn" was no longer a legend, but is now a well known, very real animal.
Human arrogance has often lead sceptics to be embarrassed by people of superstition. Indeed, the okapi is just one of many such "legends" that have been confirmed true. The platypus, the giant squid, even a turtle that was once worshipped as a god (Hoan Kiem Turtle), science worshippers have often had to eat their own words upon the discovery of creatures once said to be purely fictitious. Yet, to my knowledge, few of them ever try to steal the previous work of the cryptozoologists, whom they had previously mocked, and claim it as their own. But imagine if they did?
If they did, they would be in the same league as the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church often tries to make the argument that the Bible is a Catholic book. The canon, by their estimation, was not recognised until the Councils of Hippo (393 A.D.) and Carthage (397 A.D.). Thus, they claim, without the Catholic Church, Christians would not have a Bible. Therefore, they claim, it is sheer hypocrisy to reject their authority. This claim is no less foolish than a scientist trying to piggyback on the work of cryptozoologists, claiming that without them, you would not know okapis exist.
The first and most critical problem Catholics must overcome is that the canon is, in effect, a contents page. It is a list of books, and as such, the books themselves must have preceded any and all such canonical lists. This causes a huge headache for Catholics, as this brings in what I call the "divine inspiration dilemma". The divine inspiration dilemma is that both Catholicism and the Bible teach that the scriptures are of divine origin. In the original Greek, that word is theopneustos (θεόπνευστος), which means "God Breathed". Because all scripture is breathed out by God, that means its authority is intrinsic; as surely as if God Himself stood before you and said the words out loud. In other words, just like our okapi, it existed before anyone formally recognised it. Scripture did not become authoritative when the first Christian recognised it as such, neither was scripture any less authoritative before it was formally recognised.
This already puts Catholics on their back feet. Put simply, canon is canon, and no Church will ever be able to say otherwise. But the problem gets far worse. See, although formal lists did not start popping up until a few centuries later, all evidence suggests that the scriptures were accepted organically, albeit with healthy scepticism (as was good practice), in the first century.
The first piece of evidence for this comes from within the scriptures themselves. The most clear cut evidence would be Paul's use of Luke 10:7 in 1 Timothy 5:18, wherein he uses the phrase "For the Scripture says..." before quoting Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7 seamlessly. This is irrefutable proof that Luke's gospel was both in existence, and being used as scripture, while Paul was still breathing. Peter, while he is far less specific, likewise refers to the epistles of Paul in 2 Peter 3:14-16, in which he claims these writings had been written "according to the wisdom given to him", and that untaught and unstable men twisted these writings, as they do with "the rest of" the scriptures. In this declaration, Peter seems to take for granted that his intended audience would know what he was talking about, taking no time to clarify which of Paul's letters he was referring to. Indeed, this entire statement makes no sense unless Paul's epistles were equal to the rest of the scriptures.
This is clear cut proof that the scriptures were received organically even while the Apostles were still breathing. Indeed, the canon of scripture was a matter of widespread consensus, not any official pronouncement. This leads us to the question, whence commeth the disputes?
Disputes over the canon arose as a result of three main factors:
- Slow dissemination of the scriptures compared with the fast dissemination of the Gospel.
- The relative independence of local congregations
- Rampant heresy
First, we need to consider that the first century was nowhere near as technologically advanced as we are in the modern day. We live in an era when any amount of information can be disseminated all across the world in a matter of seconds. This article, for example, can reach people in America the moment I hit "publish". Back then, however, every book had to be meticulously copied by hand. Think of how much of a struggle it is to read a whole epistle, then think how much of a pain it must have been to copy all of it, in the original languages. Reproducing any written work was very expensive, and time consuming. Oral tradition, less so. You could preach the content of the Bible much faster than you could produce individual Bibles for each congregation to own. In fact, ironically, it is this fact that delayed the Reformation, and allowed the Catholic Church to effectively have a monopoly on the Bible for so long. The invention of the printing press made the Reformation possible.
That brings us to our second reason disputes about the canonicity of the Bible arose. Churches popped up very quickly, far more quickly than new scriptures were being spread. This ultimately forced these new churches to depend almost entirely on Apostolic authority. This is why we find verses like 2 Thessalonians 2:15, which states "Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle." Put simply, during the first century, and even fairly late into the second, many faithful churches depended very heavily on oral tradition and a few of their own scattered writings. While churches founded by the Apostles themselves were in a good position to help other churches, the fact is most churches acted independently. There was no central authority saying "these books are canon", and so naturally, as each "new" book was received, faithful congregations would properly vet it before accepting it as inspired.
And once again, this was good practice. We see in the very beginning, the Gospel itself was heavily vetted by faithful Jews, such as those in Berea. When Paul and Silas headed into Berea to preach the Gospel, the Jews "received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11). This same Paul likewise warned the Church to test all things and hold on to that which is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Paul was actually such a strong proponent of showing adequate discernment that in his epistle to the Galatians, he effectively threatened himself and his fellow Apostles, stating "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:8-9). In other words, we see that although the Apostles did have authority from God to declare the truth, they themselves were under the authority of God, being accounted as stewards of that truth (1 Corinthians 4:1; 9:17), for which they were held individually accountable.
There is a very good reason for this, and it is the third factor that explains disputes over canon. See, even while the Apostles were still preaching, Satan had raised up heretics, preaching some very dangerous messages to draw away the sheep (e.g. 2 Peter 2:1). Most worrying is the fact that these heretics existed even within the faithful churches, meaning really, no one was safe, save those who immunised themselves against such heresies through the word of God.
Among the most famous of the ancient heretics are the Gnostics. Gnosticism was a popular Greek philosophy that distinguished between the physical realm, which they believed to have been created by an evil god, and the spiritual realm, which of course was inherently good. Applied to the Christian faith, this sect naturally believed it was impossible for God to become flesh. In other words, they did exactly as John warned the spirit of the antichrist would do (2 John 1:7). Furthermore, these Gnostics rejected the Old Testament, affirming only the letters of Paul, and a severely corrupted form of Luke's gospel. An important takeaway from that little story is that just because a dispute over canon exists does not mean it is legitimate, or even that the canon had not been unofficially recognised.
As a matter of fact, conflicting with yet another Catholic argument, the early Church "Fathers" relied very heavily on scripture. Clement of Rome, erroneously claimed to have been the second Pope, is said to have quoted from 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament in his first letter to the Corinthians alone. Now, there are complications in this. Sometimes, for example, Clement was known to merge quotes (as is standard practice even within the New Testament, and is a tradition continued to this day, including by myself). Clement is also known to have used quotes which may be from the New Testament, but in which the New Testament itself quotes the Old. Ultimately, at this particular moment in time, I have no desire to either know, or tell you, exactly how many New Testament works Clement quoted from, but safe to say, he affirmed, relied upon, and took their authority as scriptures for granted.
Clement was not alone. Other Church "Fathers", such as Ignatius of Antioch, and Irenaeus, both referred to the Gospels as scripture, along with citing other New Testament works. Likewise, Tertullian opposed the aforementioned Gnostics, accusing them of abusing what he called "the instrument", i.e. the New Testament scriptures.
Perhaps the biggest nail in the argument's coffin, so to speak, is the fact that both complete and relatively complete canonical lists predate the Councils of Carthage and Hippo by a few decades at the very least. First and foremost is the Muratorian Fragment. The Muratorian Fragment is the oldest canonical list known to have existed. Originally discovered in the Ambrosian Library by Ludovico Muratori, and published in 1740, the original Muratorian Fragment is dated to around 180 A.D. Of the 27 books of the New Testament, the Muratorian Fragment contains 22. It is especially noteworthy that, although certain "disputed" books, such as James, are absent, the 22 books listed are sufficient to establish several major Christian doctrines, including the deity of Christ, the Incarnation, the bodily resurrection, and Sola Fide. In other words, outside of arguing against Catholicism's claims to be the final authority on the canon, the Muratorian Fragment is actually an excellent insight into the Evolution, or rather lack thereof, of Christianity, as it shows that less than 150 years after the death and resurrection of Christ, Christians had a very solid, consistent doctrine. Furthermore, the additional books certain conspiracy theorists talk about, such as the famous Gospel of Thomas, are noticeably absent from any early discussions on the canon.
But the Muratorian Fragment is only partial. 22 books is not 27. For the oldest canonical list, we must go not to Hippo or Carthage, but to Athanasius, who in 367 A.D., wrote in his 39th Festal Letter "Continuing, I must without hesitation mention the scriptures of the New Testament; they are the following: the four Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, after them the Acts of the Apostles and the seven so-called catholic epistles of the apostles -- namely, one of James, two of Peter, then three of John and after these one of Jude. In addition there are fourteen epistles of the apostle Paul written in the following order: the first to the Romans, then two to the Corinthians and then after these the one to the Galatians, following it the one to the Ephesians, thereafter the one to the Philippians and the one to the Colossians and two to the Thessalonians and the epistle to the Hebrews and then immediately two to Timothy, one to Titus and lastly the one to Philemon. Yet further the Revelation of John." It is worth noting that in this same letter, Athanasius disputed the canonical status of the Deuterocanon, which the modern Catholic Church erroneously calls scripture, further destroying their claim to have produced the canon.
So we see, a solid 30 years before Carthage, Athanasius was already familiar with the full list of New Testament books. However, although his is an official list, the actual honor of the oldest known accurate list of New Testament books goes to Origen, who, in his book "Homilies on the Book of Joshua", symbolically used Joshua's conquest of Jericho to describe the New Testament. Here, he wrote: "But when our Lord Jesus Christ comes, whose arrival that prior son of Nun designated, he sends priests, his apostles, bearing “trumpets hammered thin,” the magnificent and heavenly instruction of proclamation. Matthew first sounded the priestly trumpet in his Gospel; Mark also; Luke and John each played their own priestly trumpets. Even Peter cries out with trumpets in two of his epistles; also James and Jude. In addition, John also sounds the trumpet through his epistles, and Luke, as he describes the Acts of the Apostles. And now that last one comes, the one who said, “I think God displays us apostles last,” and in fourteen of his epistles, thundering with trumpets, he casts down the walls of Jericho and all the devices of idolatry and dogmas of philosophers, all the way to the foundations".
There is one minor dispute here, which I personally chose to erase from the above quote (however, if upon your own research, you decide it was genuine, then by all means include it). That is, although Origen's other writings clearly show he counted Revelation as scripture, it features in this list only in some doubted textual variants. Whether Revelation belongs in this description or not, this quote from Origen's writings shows that as early as 250 A.D., a whopping 143 years before the Council of Hippo, Origen of Alexandria, a well respected Christian scholar, recognised the entire New Testament canon.
So, with all this evidence, what remains for the Catholic Church? Specifically, what is left of their claim that we must submit to their authority because they produced the New Testament in 393-397 A.D.? Answer: The rains came down, the floods came up, and the ruin of their house was great. So shall be the ruin of their souls, and of their bodies. But as in the parable to which I just alluded (Luke 6:46-49), there is hope for them. Rather than trying to wrestle the authority of God from His hands, a fight they shall never win, Jesus says "Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock." Therefore, Catholics need to repent. Not in the "sin on Saturday, confess on Sunday" kind of way, but in the sense of a complete change of heart towards sin, and towards God. Submit to Jesus, being ready to do His will, for all authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Him. Therefore, no Church has the authority to dictate if and when His words are authoritative. All we get to decide is whether or not we will obey and be rewarded, or disobey, and find ourselves acting against the teachings of the Apostles, and the command of God. Make your choice, Catholics. Blasphemy is not a sin you want to remain on your record.