Have Prophecies Ceased: Answering Tough Questions

An analysis of the primary text regarding cessationism and of the two main stances on its meaning--scriptural cessationism and eschatological cessationism--yielded a picture of spiritual gifts which were given to Christians in the interim until the final consummation of creation. Spiritual gifts roughly correspond, oddly enough, to the gift of the Spirit who was promised by Christ to come in his stead until the time of his triumphant return. Unless you are part of a small and largely disregarded minority that believes Christ has already "returned," this means that the spiritual gifts which Paul subordinates to love in 1 Cor. 13 are very much alive and well in the present, or at least they ought to be. This leaves the thoughtful Christian with a number of important questions that warrant answering. The treatment here will necessarily be cursory but should serve at least as an introduction to what this author thinks is the best way to tackle the legitimate problems.

The first issue that arises is one of semantics and may seem trivial at first. It is important, however, because it is these small matters of translation that allow people to more easily perpetuate misunderstandings of the text. Years ago when I first raised this question to my spiritual and intellectual betters, I found their explanation that "the perfect" was the New Testament to be entirely satisfactory. It would not be until much later when I had studied Greek, hermeneutics, and theology that I could more fully evaluate their proposal. The sad truth of the matter was that if the text had been translated more appropriately, I may never have fallen into error at all. The question then is this: should το τελειον be translated "the perfect" or "the end?"

In the interest of fairness, I will make what I consider to be a reasonable demand of biblical translators. When translating the world, all that matters is that they translate the three parallel instances in 1 Corinthians the same way. If they want to change the other two references to το τελειον to "the perfect," I suppose I can live with that (though I doubt that they could). Otherwise, its smacks of intellectual dishonesty to deliberately elect for a translation which runs against the standard usage in a given book, and that even before the obvious nature of the immediate context is considered. The more I reflect on it, the more audacious it is to me that any translator should opt for a divergent translation of το τελειον in 1 Cor. 13 when the typical translation not only maintains consistency but also accords better with the sense of the text.

In truth, however, I think that there is no truly appropriate translation of the term. I am of the opinion that Paul intends το τελειον as a double entendre. The first and obvious sense is "the end," since Paul has been stressing temporal issues (i.e. the transience of spiritual gifts and the permanence of love). Yet, as the other passages clearly indicate, the expected end is one in which Christ comes. In this sense, "the perfect" is a very appropriate translation as it is the arrival of the perfect one which signifies the end. I would love to see a biblical translation which opts for "the end" in the text and comments on this richer meaning in a footnote.

It was previously discussed that the view that the New Testament represented "the perfect" which would come arose as a defense of biblical authority against Pentecostalism. This raises two important questions that may be answered in turn. If authoritative prophecy continues, what is the grounds for biblical authority which all Christian bodies claim? If spiritual gifts persist, should we not all join Pentecostal movements? The questions and their answers are interrelated, but for organizational purposes they will be answered individually.

For Christians who have a view of biblical authority dependent on an idea of miraculous spiritual inspiration which has since ceased, the belief that miraculous spiritual gifts does present a serious, even unanswerable challenge. If the Bible is normative because the Spirit inspired it and the Spirit continues to inspire prophecies, then Scripture is put on the same level as whatever prophecy may be uttered by any would be prophet with a pulpit. Too readily when faced with this problem, Christians attack the latter premise and deny that inspired prophecies can continue. In truth, as we have seen, it is the former premise which is novel in the history of Christendom. The earliest Christians could not have understood Scripture to be authoritative merely by virtue of its origin in the Spirit because they quite clearly believed that they were still being inspired by the Spirit.

In contrast to the modern method of determining scriptural authority, the church from its earliest times until the "completion" of the canon used apostolicity not inspiration as the criterion for authority. In doing this, they were following Paul's own example, who himself declared in the same letter to the Corinthians "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" It is important to recognize that he did not insist "Am I not inspired? Have I not been filled with the Holy Spirit?" How could he, since he admits that the audience to whom he writes are all inspired and full of the Holy Spirit. With this in mind, the early church used apostolicity as the sole rule for canon. This took the form of three general questions: was the text written by an apostle (or "apostolic man"), is the text accepted in the major Christian churches founded by the apostles, and does the text agree with the oral tradition that was transmitted to the church by the apostles (the pre-canonical creeds)?

The tendency among many modern interpreters is going to be to want to reduce those three criteria only to authorship. While I do not share that impulse, it certainly more closely approximates the early church's understanding of authority (both during the process of canon and in the Christian world depicted by the New Testament) and is more easily defensible in the face of criticism from both non-Christians and charismatic Christian groups. In response to the secular critics, the authenticity of the canonical texts can be defended with no more or less uncertainty than the presumptuous theories which abound about their forgery. It certainly should be admitted by all that there are no texts of apostolic authorship yet discovered which are not in the canon. No non-canonical text even comes close to being able to make such a claim. In response to latter day prophets in the various charismatic movements, an appeal to apostolicity allows Scriptures authority to go on unquestioned without making a definitive statement about any particular prophet one way or another. Whatever the prophecy is, it is subordinate to Scripture and lacks any ultimate, a priori authority because it does not and cannot meet the single criteria for original normative teaching: apostolicity.

(None of this is in any way intended to reject the reality of biblical inspiration, only its ground as the sole or even primary criteria for Scripture's authority. What inspiration is and how it relates to the normative nature of Scripture is far enough beyond the scope of this topic that I feel justified in not treating it here.)

This relocation of the locus of scriptural authority, or rather a correction of a dislocation of that locus, does not in any way automatically validate a Pentecostal understanding of spiritual gifts. The fact that the early church accepted the continuation of spiritual gifts but rejected early charismatics (like Montanus) should give pause to anyone who would immediately leap to Pentecostalism. I am of the very firm belief that both Pentecostals and reactionaries who feel the need to deny all ongoing spiritual gifts grossly misunderstand the nature of the gifts being debated.

The relationship between prophecy and Scripture was discussed at length in the refutation of scriptural cessationism, and so a total restatement of that position would be unnecessary here. It is important to remember the nature of biblical prophecy, however, and to recall that the prophets of Israel were not fortunetellers. Shockingly little time is spent in the Prophets making absolute predictions of the distant future. The work of the Prophets was more as inspired interpreters than as soothsayers. They reminded Israel of their forgotten heritage and their obligations to God, interpreting the authoritative text of the Torah and the instructive history of the Israelites for a contemporary audience. I recently visited a megachurch who had a troupe of prophets who divided the congregations into sections and prophesied over them. On the opposite side of the stadium (which is the most appropriate term for the venue), a prophetess announced to one section that their student loans were all soon to be forgiven. In addition to feeling deeply slighted that the usher hadn't sat me in that section, it was appalling to me that people could even imagine a continuity between that sort of Miss Cleo nonsense and the work of Hosea or Amos.

Similarly, the way tongues is presently being practiced is quite contrary to what is seen in Scripture. Most importantly, speaking in tongues throughout the New Testament is exclusively the phenomenon through which someone spoke a human language that he or she did not previously know for the benefit of those in the audience who understood that language. Paul, moreover, insists that any time tongues-speaking occurs in a service that an interpreter be present to explain what is being said to the remainder of the church. Every instance of tongues-speaking I have been present for has been a speaking in "angelic tongues" (a behavior which Paul references rhetorically and somewhat pejoratively in 1 Cor. 13 but that no one is ever reported in Scripture to have actually done) in which the speaker enters a trance-like state, screams some gibberish, and then goes on as if nothing had happened. While amusing, the behavior in no way imitates what is described in Scripture and in truth serves no discernible purpose whatsoever.

The misunderstanding and misappropriation of the spiritual gifts described in Scripture by charismatic churches (throughout history, not merely Pentecostalism) is lamentable. These movements do nevertheless challenge us with another important question: if spiritual gifts do continue and they are not being experienced in charismatic churches, then where are they? There are two options that I can devise for explaining this and both seem to me to be at least helpful in understanding the present state of affairs. For my part, I believe that the answer is likely a synthesis of the two.

The first is an appeal to utility. The purpose of most of the spiritual gifts are no longer pragmatic in modern Western society. In a world with advanced medical care and abundant interpreters for every language commonly spoken, miraculous healings and tongues-speaking are not only out of place but unnecessary. We have an abundance of ministers, teachers, and, in my opinion, prophets if anyone would listen to them. It seems that healers and tongues-speakers flourish elsewhere, particularly in Africa and southeast Asia. Some would like to attribute this to cultural primitiveness (which stinks of ethnic hubris) or the prevalence of charismatic movements there (which displays a profound ignorance of the state even of the Churches of Christ in Africa). I prefer to think that God continues to pour out His Spirit on behalf of the poorest and neediest of His children.

The second explanation is an appeal to spiritual atrophy. It should come as a surprise to no one that the Spirit is not poured out into denominations that want to confine it to the inspiration of Scripture. We do not invite the Spirit to move in our movements and therefore we find ourselves spiritually stagnant. This may sound like a very limited critique of Churches of Christ and other similar movements, but in fact the same accusation is made by other groups about churches which are historically much more in tune to the work of God in the Spirit. Consider these quotes from Seraphim of Sarov, a Russian Orthodox monk and mystic of the not too distant past:

In our time because of the almost universal coldness toward the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and because of our inattentiveness with regard to the acts of His Divine Providence concerning us, as well as to the communion of man with God -- because of all this -- we have reached a state in which we may be said to have withdrawn almost entirely from the true Christian life.

Now some people say: '...Is it possible that men could see God thus clearly?' Yet there is nothing obscure here. The lack of understanding is attributable to the fact that we have strayed from the simple vision of the early Christians and, under the pretext of enlightenment, have entered such a darkness of ignorance that we consider inconceivable what the ancients grasped so clearly; even in their common talk, the idea of God appearing to men had nothing strange in it.

The simple fact is that if we make a war cry of dampening the Spirit we should not be at all shocked when our experience confirms our beliefs. The Spirit will not force an apathetic, sickly church to be gifted. We have become "too good" for the Spirit: too smart, too civilized, too orderly. However the Spirit moves, we should be unsurprised that we do not experience it.

There are undoubtedly more questions to answer as well as more questions raised by the above answers. This is not, however, the place for an exhaustive study of spiritual gifts, if such a thing were even possible. My position is that the Spirit will not be withheld from Christians and neither will the gifts attendant to its presence. What this translates into practically is an openness to the exercise of gifts, even miraculous gifts, which are consistent with their biblical descriptions. I have never seen anyone healed or raised from the dead, never seen anyone speak in tongues, and been convinced that these acts were miracles. I must, however, as a Christian allow myself to be open to the possibility that I serve a God powerful enough to achieve all this and more and Who has promised His church that His Spirit will abide with them in power until Christ returns finally and triumphantly.

Sources consulted in writing this series:

Collins, Raymond F. 1 Corinthians. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1999.

Conzelmann, Hans. 1 Corinthians : A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975.

Fee, Gordon. First Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987.

Grudem, Wayne A. Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians. Washington: University Press of America, 1982.

Oster, Rick. 1 Corinthians. Joplin: College Press, 1995.

Witherington, Ben. Conflict and Community in Corinth : A Socio-rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Ancient Christian Commentary, New Testament, Vol. 7: 1-2 Corinthians.

The Four Gospels: A Blogtome by Request

It was recently requested that I post something here regarding the early development of the canon, specifically a truncated version of a paper I wrote as an undergraduate on the canonization of the Gospels. Impossible as it may be to believe, what follows is just such an abbreviation. I have taken the knife to the paper, in a way not unlike Marcion did with Luke, in an effort to make it e-managable. I apologize for the extent to which I failed in that effort.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FOUR-GOSPEL CANON

The discussion surrounding the origin and closure of the Christian canon is in a perpetual state of flux. Dates for the final formation of the Christian canon have ranged from the end of the first century to well into the fourth. Opinions change as new evidence surfaces and old evidence is reinterpreted until the picture becomes nearly too convoluted to understand. What’s more, the discussion of the development of a complete canon has given way to theories about the development of the sub-canonical groups yielding separate dates for the completion of the Pauline canon, the canon of Catholic epistles, and the four-Gospel canon. It is the last of these which will be treated here.

The four-Gospel canon constitutes the greatest canonical development in Christianity. It was unique in its time: four separate and distinct accounts of a single man which were bound into a solitary, authoritative chronicle of his life. It has enthralled and vexed the minds of the pious laity and academics alike for the better part of two millennia. The question remains: when did the four Gospels become the fourfold Gospel—the inviolable, normative, authoritative account of Christ’s life? It will be the contention of this study that the second century saw the practical completion of the four-Gospel canon, that at the close of the century the Gospels had been compiled into a single sub-canonical unit that was both unalterable and widespread in “orthodox” churches.

THE 2ND CENTURY AS CONTEXT FOR CANON DEVELOPMENT

The argument put forth nearly a century ago by Harnack and more recently advanced by Campenhausen and others that the period of the second century was ripe for the development of canon holds no less true today. The controversies that the church faced in the second century are so intrinsically linked to canon that to posit that the church would not have at the very least been initiating the process of canonizing its sacred literature requires significantly more justification than the more natural assumption that it had. This is all the more true for the Gospel literature which formed the core of the Christian canon. However, when discussing external factors which caused a rise in the canon, the mistake is often made of overestimating the value of any one source of stimulus. Rather than proposing that Marcion or the Montanists were directly responsible for either the creation of the canon or the acceleration of that process, it is better to look instead at a general second century milieu which predisposed Christianity to accept the four-Gospel canon. No one group ought to be afforded overwhelming significance over any other, but rather each should be viewed as contributing to a religious culture which created a more urgent need for the development of canon, including more specifically the four-Gospel canon.

One of the principle figures in any discussion of second century canon is Marcion, whose compilation of a single gospel and truncated collection of Pauline letters into a normative collection was for whatever reason notable even in his own day. The traditional view is that Marcion’s collection of documents constituted the first canon of Christian literature, possibly even created the idea of canon. More recent scholarship tends to reject this interpretation. John Barton, for example, attempts to reframe what Marcion did by suggesting that Marcion was not creating a canon but a “critical reconstruction,” not compiling authoritative documents but excluding heretical documents. He suggests that if Marcion had indeed instigated the creation of an “orthodox” canon of scripture, there would be a marked increase in the citation of those scriptures. This assumes, however, that a transition from non-canonical to canonical status is necessarily accompanied by an increased frequency of citation. The reverse is process is just as plausible, if not more so: that documents which were already in frequent and widespread use, such as the four Gospels, would then make the transition into a canonical status.

Much like Barton, L. M. McDonald and Stanley Porter reject the idea that Marcion had significant import for canon development. In a passage rife with concessions and equivocation, they, like Barton, suggest that Marcion’s canon was in fact merely a loose list of “untainted” Christian literature to which his followers felt free to add to because it was never created with the intention of being a fixed canon. Completely apart from the validity of this claim, it is clear, even in their own work, that the motives of Marcion may or may not have had any relevance with regard to the reaction of the early church. The admissions that Marcion’s “canon,” whatever the nature of the collection was, may have “been an important catalyst” in the church’s process of becoming selective with its scriptures and that he “may have had the effect” of causing the church to evaluate the place of Jewish literature in the canon seem to negate any discussion of Marcion’s motives. Whether he meant to or not is essentially irrelevant to the question of whether or not Marcion and his canon began or significantly sped the development of the canon.

Amidst their discussion, however, McDonald and Porter make a statement which approaches a better understanding, a middle way so to speak between the traditional view of Marcion as a lone innovator (at least with regard to a peculiarly Christian canon) and the emerging view of Marcion as essentially irrelevant: “Marcion may have been an important catalyst in causing the church to come to grips with the question of which literature best conveyed its true identity and possibly which literature could be called Scripture.” Though the development of the four-Gospel canon was already in progress prior to or at least contemporary with and apart from Marcion, the controversy surrounding Marcion should be seen as injecting a sense of urgency into the process.

It is important to note in response to this that when Irenaeus first treats Marcion (Against Heresies, I.27.4) he makes explicit that his primary crime is the mutilation of the Scriptures. The Scripture in reference here is most certainly at least the Gospel of Luke if not the whole canon of Marcion since Irenaeus levels the same accusation of “mutilation” later in connection with Marcion, naming Luke’s Gospel specifically as the violated text. Tertullian as well, in the course of his lengthy treatment of Marcion (Against Heretics, 38), specifically charges Marcion with editing the Scriptures to suit his theological ends. For these reasons, Everett Ferguson’s claim is certainly viable: ‘“At any rate, the four-gospel canon, for whatever difficulties it may give theologians, was seen as a defense against heresy.”

Marcionites were not by any stretch the only heretical group in the second century whose particular view of Christianity likely had an influence on the development of the four-Gospel canon. Just before his famous theological defense of the four canonical Gospels (Against Heresies, III.11.7), Irenaeus indicated that Marcion was not alone in his tendency to cling to a single gospel. The Ebionites, he wrote, used Matthew’s Gospel exclusively; the Docetists used Mark; the Valentinian Gnostics employed John. This importantly demonstrates that Marcion rather than practicing something unique was something of an exemplar among heterodox groups who exalted the one Gospel which best suited their theological tendencies. To a lesser degree, what was true of Marcion’s influence on the development of the four-Gospel canon, is true also of the general trend toward this behavior by other heterodox groups of the second century.

An opposite trend, though no less important, is apparent among the Montanists to whom Campenhausen attributes a critical importance in the development of the canon. The Montanist tendency toward the proliferation of prophecy, recorded in books, which had unassailable authority created a no less vital problem for the church. Rather than showing a limiting of the authoritative literature, it demonstrated an unnerving willingness to expand the basis of normative Scriptures. For this reason, Metzger estimates that the Montanist controversy was primarily important in that it cast a shadow of skepticism over the production of new “sacred” Scripture, while Campenhausen claims that Montanism is the “crisis” which called “a halt to the uncontrolled growth of the New Testament.” This is probably an overstatement, but certainly Montanism should be seen as having a limiting effect in general on what was perceived as authoritative Scripture. Ferguson probably phrases it best: “The Montanist controversy brought to the surface a consciousness that the time of the revelation had ended and that there was a qualitative difference between the era of church’s origins and the present.”

Contrary to claims that the very concept of canon is anachronistic to the second century and that the issue of creating a normative collection of Scripture would not have been on the mind of the early church, the second century does seem to be a fitting time for the church to begin the necessary process of consolidating its normative texts, the core of which were always the words and deeds of Jesus. The rise of the four-Gospel canon in the second century should be seen in part as a balance between the tendency of some heretical groups to conservatively restrict their use to a single gospel and the tendency of others to produce or accept an overwhelming multiplicity of authoritative gospel literature. For Irenaeus, the single Gospel devotions of the Ebionites, Marcionites, Docetists, and Valentinians was both a proof of a distinctly canonical authority of the four Gospels and an inherent insufficiency in the heretics’ system, due to the ability of a single text to be manipulated for a group’s own ends. At the same time, the almost wanton inclination of Montanists and certain Gnostic groups to produce and accept a variety of scriptural literature necessitated a reevaluation of the church’s theology of authoritative prophecy and the place of contemporary literature.

TEXTUAL EVIDENCES FOR AN EARLY GOSPEL CANON

The problem with the above understanding of the nature of canon controversy in the second century is that it is largely open to interpretation. There are as many distinct understandings as there are minds to try to understand the problem. Moreover, rather than simply subtle nuances on basic consensus, the freedom of interpretation has allowed for a growing sense that the second century may not even be the crucial period in canon development. Thankfully, with regard to the Gospels, the above understanding of the second century need not be entirely speculative. There are objective clues which tend toward a second century understanding of the development of the four-Gospel canon. Textual studies have illuminated the issue, particularly recently with a crucial new study of the Gospels undertaken by T. C. Skeat and picked up by Graham Stanton.

An early indication that the Gospels are considered Scriptural literature and thereby authoritative is the utilization by scribes of nomina sacra. The nomen sacrum—the system of abbreviations for sacred words—is a distinctive Christian device which appear in the earliest Gospel manuscripts and, if not fully developed then, is standardized very early. While several theories have been advanced for the peculiar Christian usage of these abbreviations, including connection to the Jewish reference for the divine name and foundation in a mystical “theology of the name,” a more convincing suggestion has been made. Harry Gamble proposes that the nomina sacra are actually indicative of a practical aspect of the documents in question, that is that they were transcribed by Christians for use by Christians in small community settings. The practical use in question can be more specifically narrowed to the reading of the manuscripts in worship. This understanding of the nomina sacra as indicative of liturgical use would seem to indicate an early view of the Gospel literature (which is among some of the earliest preserved) as normative scripture in the church appropriate for public reading in corporate worship.

More critical still are the studies undertaken by Skeat and Stanton with regard to the rise of the codex in early Christianity. Much like nomina sacra, the codex was largely a Christian phenomenon in the second century, and, again like the nomina sacra, no one has conclusively proven why this is. The key to the entire question is to better understand what uniquely Christian task the codex can perform that the scroll, which was preferred by the secular world, could not. Gamble suggests that this task was the collection of the letters of Paul into a single manuscript. Skeat, on the other hand, holds the view that the codex is best suited for containing a four-Gospel canon, the fact which caused its very early rise to prominence in the church. Since all Gospel manuscripts, in fact very nearly all biblical manuscripts, have been found to be from codices, this would make the date for the origin of the use of a four-Gospel canon necessarily concurrent with or antecedent to the rise of the codex, thereby pushing the date back to the turn of the second century. There is still, however, the small hurdle of having any evidence of early four-Gospel codices, a hurdle which Skeat would seem to overcome.

Until recently, it has been assumed that P45 represents the earliest evidence, probably from the first half of third century, for the compilation of the four Gospels into a single codex. Particularly in light of the proposed potential of P53 to be a four-Gospel codex, the textual evidence would seem to keep the date of the birth of four-Gospel codices in the third century. Skeat, however, finds a predecessor to these in P75, a single-quire codex containing Luke and John. He suggests that this is in fact the second half of a four-Gospel codex. A double-quire codex, that is a single quire codex of Matthew and Mark attached to a single-quire codex of Luke and John, would have been the necessary format for a four-Gospel codex of the period, since a single-quire codex of all four would have been extremely awkward to handle, if not impossible. If it is accepted then that P75 was originally a four-Gospel codex—and there is no reasonable explanation for why John and Luke would be circulating together in the absence of Matthew and Mark—then the earliest witness to the four Gospels circulating together could theoretically be as early as 200.

Yet Skeat proposes in a later, more comprehensive study, even earlier textual evidence for the circulation of the four Gospels together in a codex. His examination of P4, P64, and P 67 revealed that the three were actually one: “There can in my opinion be no doubt that all these fragments come from the same codex which was re-used as packing for the binding of the late third century codex of Philo.” P4 is a fragment from the early part of Luke and P64 and P 67 are a collection of small fragments from Matthew, thus making the original manuscript theoretically a Matthew/Luke text. Skeat demonstrates through an examination and explanation of the steady, deliberate reduction of script size throughout the fragments, that these manuscripts likely formed a single-quire codex. From a recognition that this is a single codex like P75, the argument proceeds in much the same manner as it had with P75 concluding with the strong assertion that there is now proof that the four-Gospel codex has ancestors which reach well back into the second century. This fact is further strengthened by the observations of Stanton about the high quality of the P4,64,67 manuscript. He argues that the arrangement of the text, evident planning, and meticulous execution “indicate a most handsome edition of the four gospels which…does not look at all like an experiment by a scribe working out ways to include four gospels in one codex: it certainly had predecessors much earlier in the second century.”

PATRISTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE RISE OF A FOURFOLD GOSPEL

Having shown that the second century most certainly lends itself to the development of a four-Gospel canon and that textual evidence gives strong indication that four-Gospel codices were circulated in the early church for liturgical purposes, it is important now to turn to the evidence presented in the patristic literature. The four-Gospel canon finds stronger evidence in the second century fathers than does any other sub-canonical group. This should be seen in large part as a result of the largely gospel oriented controversies already noted.

The earliest clear evidence of a plurality of gospels being used is in Justin Martyr around the middle of the second century. The precise nature of Justin’s gospel material is often disputed. There have been a multitude of suggestions: that he used a variety of canonical and non-canonical gospel material, that he was in fact utilizing a single harmony, or that he used some smaller selection of canonical literature. It is certain that Justin did know and use other gospel material other than what he calls the “memoirs of the apostles,” however, the use of other such material should not be seen as proof that Justin did not have or had a low view of the canonical Gospels. Quite the contrary, Justin is the first record we have of the Gospels being used liturgically on the same level with, and possibly in place of, the Old Testament Scriptures. Furthermore, he gives us fairly clear indication that he knows all four Gospels. It is broadly accepted that Justin knew at least Matthew and Luke. Justin gives indication that he knows a memoir of Peter, which from the context, is likely Mark (Dialogue, 106). The debate about whether or not Justin knew the fourth Gospel is much more difficult, but Ferguson convincingly argues that the particular terminology used (namely the Word and only-begotten designations) is compelling. Additionally, Brooke Foss Westcott proposed that some of the readings that appear to be taken from other sources are actually variant readings of John synthesized with the period baptismal formula.

Probably the most important statement from Justin comes in his anti-Gnostic exposition of Psalm 22. Here he made what is an important statement, which is often overshadowed in the discussion of the four-Gospel canon by Irenaeus. “For in the memoirs which I say were drawn up by His apostles and those who followed them…” (Dialogue, 103). Stanton and others have noted here something that should be fairly obvious, namely that this two group formula assumes a bare minimum of four distinct written gospels, two of which must be written by apostles and two of which must be written by so-called apostolic men. That this so perfectly fits the four-Gospel canon admittedly may be coincidental, but is not for this any less thought-provoking. This passage, coupled with the indication that Justin knew all four canonical Gospels, that they were used as Scripture in the church, and that four-Gospel codices were likely to have been in circulation at this time, lead Stanton to believe, not unreasonably, that Justin likely had a four-Gospel codex at his catechetical school around 150.

Certainly one of the most important, if not the most important, patristic text with regard to the development of a four-Gospel canon is Irenaeus’ theological defense of canon in Against Heresies III.11. Here, Irenaeus draws a comparison between the four winds, the four zones of the earth, the four creatures from Ezekiel and the Apocalypse of John, four pillars of support for the church, and the fourfold Gospel. This is important because, as Campenhausen points out, Irenaeus “appeals to the New Testament documents authority by name, defends their authenticity, and asserts that they are normative.” It is more recently and widely suggested that the very fact that Irenaeus makes a defense of the four-Gospel canon is proof positive that it was not yet established. This view, for whatever reason, seems to presuppose that Irenaeus is directing this argument against other members of “orthodox” churches who are rejecting the four-Gospel canon. Quite the opposite, Irenaeus’ statements are a reiteration of what is already established as a defense against current and rising heresies. The very purpose of his work was, after all, to be a criticism of second century heresies and a defense of the “orthodox” faith against such heresies. He had a consistent and vested interest in presenting only those views which were uniform in the church, something he was uniquely positioned to do having experienced Christianity in Asian Minor, Rome, and Gaul over the course of his life.

While Irenaeus constitutes the most important second century witness, his testimony would be significantly less useful if it stood alone. Luckily, others flourishing soon after him, both in the West and the East, also seem to testify to the strength of the four-Gospel canon at the end of the second century. Tertullian, in his treatise against Marcion’s heresy, gives us an important indication for the strength of the four-Gospel canon in North Africa, particularly that they are apostolic in contrast to all others. “We lay it down as our first position, that the evangelical Testament has apostles for its authors, to whom was assigned by the Lord Himself this office of publishing the gospel” (Against Marcion, IV.2). He then proceeds to name the four by name: “Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instill faith into us; whilst of apostolic men, Luke and Mark renew it afterwards” an affirmation which will be repeated three chapters later.

While Tertullian testifies for the West, Clement and Serapion of Antioch witness to the canon in the East. Serapion of Antioch, who flourished at the turn of the third century, is recorded by Eusebius to have dealt with a controversy arising over the reading of a “so-called Gospel of Peter” (Church History, VI.12.1). Serapion declared this new gospel to be false because it lacked the antiquity and consistency of doctrine that the four canonical Gospels, against which he judged the new gospel. Clement too, accepts the four-Gospel canon and, while making use of extra-canonical literature, does not consider other gospels to be authoritative or in any way on par with the canonical Gospels.

CONCLUSION

When viewed together, the picture which is painted by the evidence seems clear. The second century was a time of immense turmoil for the church. The rise of various heterodox groups—each making use of its own Gospel or making use of a multiplicity of Gospels indiscriminately—created a milieu fertile for the development of a four-Gospel canon. Evidence of such authoritative four-Gospel collections comes to us textually in the form of four-Gospel codices intended for liturgical use which may reasonably be assumed to have existed as early as the middle of the second century. In addition to this, the church fathers of the late second century seem to give a uniform testimony as to what gospel literature the church accepted as canonical and which it rejected. Beginning some time prior to the middle of the second century, since the process was already underway by the time of Justin, the four canonical Gospels had begun to make the transition from a fluid group of individually authoritative texts to an inviolable collection understood to be a single work, the fourfold Gospel, a point which they had reached by the close of the second century.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SECONDARY LITERATURE

Aland, Kurt and Barbara Aland. The Text of the New Testament. Translated by Errol F. Rhodes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987.

Balla, Peter. “Evidence for an Early Christian Canon (Second and Third Century).” In The Canon Debate. Editors Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 2002, 372-385.

Barton, John. Holy Writings, Sacred Text: The Canon in Early Christianity. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997.

------------- “Marcion Revisited.” In The Canon Debate. Editors Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 2002, 341-354.

Blackman, E. C. Marcion and His Influence. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1948.

Campenhausen, Hans von. The Formation of the Christian Bible. Translated by J. A. Baker. Philidelphia: Fortress Press, 1972.

Epp, Eldon Jay. “Issues in the Interrelation of New Testament Textual Criticism and Canon.” In The Canon Debate. Editors Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 2002, 485-515.

Farkasfalvy, Dennis. The Formation of the New Testament Canon: An Ecumenical Approach. New York: Paulist Press, 1983.

Ferguson, Everett. “Factors Leading to the Selection and Closure of the New Testament Canon: A Survey of Some Recent Studies.” In The Canon Debate. Editors Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 2002, 295-320.

Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

------------- The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985.

------------- “The New Testament Canon: Recent Research and the Status Quaestionis.” In The Canon Debate. Editors Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 2002, 267-294.

Grant, Robert. The Formation of the New Testament. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1965.

Hahneman, Geoffrey Mark. The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1992.

Knox, John. Marcion and the New Testament: An Essay in the Early History of the Canon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942.

McDonald, Lee Martin. The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1988.

McDonald, Lee Martin and Stanley Porter. Early Christianity and its Sacred Literature. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc, 2000.

Metzger, Bruce. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development and Significance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.

Skeat, T. C. “Irenaeus and the Four-Gospel Canon.” Novum Testamentum 34 (1992): 194-199.

-------------- “The Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels?” New Testament Studies 43 (1997): 1-34.

------------- “The Origin of the Christian Codex.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 102 (1994): 263-268.

Stanton, Graham N. “The Four Fold Gospel.” New Testament Studies 43 (1997): 317-346.

Westcott, Brooke Foss. A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament. 6th ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980.

An Evening with Father Christy: History as Propaganda

It will undoubtedly come as a surprise to anyone who knows me to discover that the Orthodox Church is the target, in any sense, of my criticisms here. Nevertheless, I attended an “informational meeting” tonight at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church which has compelled me to react here. Too much time reading adept apologetic theologians (e.g. Lossky) and intellectually honest historians (e.g. Meyendorff) – even my experiences with the kindly Fr. John Maxwell who was always patient and encouraging but most importantly humble – did not prepare me for the very frustrating experience of Fr. Paul Christy’s lecture. Whatever I say here and in future installments should be seen less as an assault on Orthodox beliefs and more as a corrective to the distortion of facts that inevitably occurs when I descend from my ivory tower to see the way information is being distributed on the popular level.

“This isn’t opinion folks; it’s history.”

One needn’t have a degree in history to realize that this statement is deeply flawed, and thus – since I do in fact have a degree in history – I was particularly appalled to find that it functioned more or less as a theme statement for everything that Fr. Christy had to say. The belief that history is somehow an objective reality which can be picked up, scrutinized, cataloged, and then utilized impartially is the same kind of nonsensical worldview that tripped up the reformers about the Bible. Even if everything the Father had said in his imaginative retelling of history had been factually accurate (and it wasn’t, but I’m not going to quibble over most of the little details), that does not therefore make it unbiased. There is no authoritative history, only more or less valid histories, histories which have greater or lesser factual probability. The moment the question of historical causality or continuity come into question the historian leaves the realm of concrete fact and necessarily embarks on speculation.

Early Church Math

Fr. Christy’s failure to grasp this not-so-subtle reality can be best expressed in this assertion of dubious value: “We don’t imitate the early church. We are the early church.” There is no doubt in my mind that the Orthodox Church has at its disposal a profound historical apology, if not the most valid historical apology. The above is not it. Reading that claim, I am left wondering in what sense the simple equation between the Orthodox Church and the early church (whatever precisely that means) is valid, and, having discovered its validity, how that equation is particular to the Orthodox.

Uniformity of Belief or Practice

Coming as I do from the Restorationist Movement, the most obvious way for a church to “be” the early church is through a uniformity of belief or practice. Certainly Fr. Christy beliefs in the substantial agreement between the biblical church and the present Orthodox Church in even the finest points of practice (e.g. liturgy, a question which will be dealt with at another time), but surely he would not suggest that a first century Christian could enter into the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church and feel totally at home. The church, particularly from the second through the fourth centuries, underwent substantial growth and change which makes any claim to uniformity with the earliest church at best a myth.

For example, the practice of infant baptism which is so thoroughly engrained in most Christian groups and no less so in the Orthodox Church was a subject not only of development and variation in the early church, but even of controversy. There is no need to rehash Everett Ferguson’s Baptism in the Early Church to demonstrate that the practice of pedobaptism was by no means standard throughout most of the early church. Even as late as the fourth century, common practice was not only to baptize adults but to delay baptism as long as possible, a fact evidenced by the lives of no less than the saints Constantine and Gregory the Theologian. The Didache continues to speak of strictly adult baptism in the second century. Towards the end of that century we have in Irenaeus and (in the early third) Origen and Hippolytus as the first concrete references to infant baptism. Not coincidentally this is also when Tertullian rages against the practice of baptizing infants.

Another favorite of Restoration historians is the monepiscopate. The biblical text is wholly ambiguous about the nature of congregational authority. The Pastorals could easily correspond either to the Orthodox understanding of ecclesiology or the Stone-Campbell one. More importantly, the earliest historical evidence is contradictory. On the one hand, the tendency towards a monepiscopate is clearly present in the East early in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch. On the other hand, 1 Clement would seem to indicate that Clement is part of a plurality of “elders.” Which ecclesiological structure is consistent with the earliest church?

There are other minor but no less obvious ways in which the beliefs and practices of the “early church” differ from that of the present church. The ecclesiological concept of autocephaly is by no means an early development. The liturgy said presently in the Orthodox Church is of fifth century origin. The presence of cathedrals is at the earliest a fourth century reality. Trinitarian formulations which form the backbone of Christian theology are fourth century and would undoubtedly be foreign if not repugnant to the likes of St. Justin Martyr or the multiplicity of subordinationists in the early church. The list of minor points of belief and practice could go on.

The point is not that Restorationists, chief among those who Fr. Christy might label “imitators,” have an authentic claim to being the early church by virtue of a uniformity of belief and practice. It is that no one does. Certainly the Orthodox Church doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) object to the fact that they are not the early church by virtue of homogeny any more than the Pentecostals. The Orthodox believe in the organic growth of the church. To quote the aforementioned Fr. Maxwell, who is himself alluding to St. Vincent: “Inspite of the claims of lack of change, we must admit that many changes occur within the history of the Orthodox. Fr. Alexander Schmemann once said, that the "Orthodox Church is ever changing to ever remain the same." Change is part of life and growth. It occurs in normal development. A baby becomes a child, becomes a young person, becomes an adult, and then becomes elderly.”

Genetic Association

If not uniformity of practice, than what? Fr. Christy appeals additionally to the genetic association of the Orthodox Church to the early church. He can, he assured us, produce for us the bishops roll which links the present Ecumenical Patriarch to the apostle Andrew. This certainly seems the more compelling proof to me, and one that, utilized properly, might function productively in an Orthodox historical apologetic. It is not, however, an ironclad defense for the simple equation of the early church with the present Orthodox Church.

The simplest objection would be to point out that this is by no means an exclusive claim of the Orthodox Church. The Catholic Church has an equally valid claim, and in their eyes, a more valid claim based on the doctrine that apostolic authority flows out from Peter to whom the bishop of Rome’s scroll establishes lineage. Nor are these two peculiar in this respect. Perhaps underrated is the fact that Anglican bishops have an equal genetic relationship with the apostles. While Henry may have instigated the breach with Rome, he did not because of this appoint a brand new priesthood. The original clergy of the Anglican Church, those who appointed future clergy, were converted from the apostolic clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. Should they be so inclined, an Anglican bishop could trace his roots back to the apostles as well. The same is true for any “schismatic” sect which has a clerical system like that of the early medieval church.

What is more, there is no reason why the genetic association must be restricted to the clergy. The very basis for Reformation was the belief that the hierarchical church had abandoned its spiritual/intellectual genealogy. The effort was not to pioneer non-apostolic churches but to restore the spiritual apostolicity of a self-invalidating church. Even rejecting this position as valid, one cannot thereby reject all genetic relationship of modern Protestants to the apostles. The ELCA is genetically related to the Lutheran Church at large (something that can hardly be denied), and Lutherans are genetically related to the Catholic Church which is of apostolic descent. Or, more dramatically, the one cup Churches of Christ are genetically related to the Churches of Christ which are genetically related to the Stone-Campbell movement at large which is genetically related to the Presbyterian Church which is genetically related to the Reformed Movement which is genetically related to the Catholic Church which is of apostolic descent.

That convoluted presentation of apostolicity in the one cup churches is perhaps enough to prove Fr. Christy’s point in some people’s minds, but it raises the question of the value of genetic relationship. Is the ELCA more apostolic than the one cup churches by virtue of a less complicated genetic relationship? If so, then the complexity of the relationship establishes legitimacy and the Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian Church, and more all have an identical and equal claim to genetic authenticity. If, however, mere genetic relationship is sufficient than all denominations presently in existence have an equally valid claim to apostolicity since no church arose in a void but always in response to and in order to authentically continue the apostolic tradition.

Perhaps there is some other meaning to the simple equation of which I am not aware, but, regardless, the above should suffice to demonstrate the dubious value of the assertion that the Orthodox are the early church. That claim can only have value if it can first be defined and then particularized to the Orthodox. Otherwise it functions less as an apology and more as a speculative exercise in the value of static religion and genetic relationships.

History: Puddy in the Hands of Master

Beyond the unsubstantiated (and fundamentally unsubstantiatable) claim that the Orthodox Church is the early Church, Fr. Christy throughout presented a highly stylized retelling of a history that is not nearly as neat as he would like it to be. I concede that perhaps some blame may fall on the constraints of time and medium. The presentation was relatively short and extemporaneous method denied opportunities for precision or even, I imagine, for much fact checking. Some of the blame, however, must be put on the constraints of purpose. In spite of claims to the contrary, the presentation was obviously an apology for Orthodoxy tinged with notes of evangelism. There is nothing wrong with that (and I don’t think anyone was honestly expecting anything else), but to appropriate history to that end led Fr. Christy to oversimplify when it suited his purposes and, at some points, contort the facts to paint Orthodoxy in the best possible light.

Canon

The grossest oversimplification was his passing commentary on canon, which, of course, was the product of the church, not, as Protestants believe, the other way around. From the start, I should mention that I sympathize with that sentiment. The ignorant belief that the Bible was somehow handed down from God on a silver platter is perhaps the most detrimental fantasy that the mind of man has ever dreamed up. That does not, however, excuse presenting the development of canon as a coherent, deliberate event in the history of the church. The canon was a process that was undertaken by Christians as early as the first century. Certainly the canon was formalized in the fourth century, but Fr. Christy would have us believe that “there was no Bible until the fourth century.” I won’t rehash the entire history of canon here because I assume that most people who are reading this have some grasp of it. It should suffice to say that both the Gospel canon and the Pauline canon were both fixed and totally undisputed by the end of the second century, a fact evidenced by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and p46. The suggestion that the church decided in the fourth century that, according to Fr. Christy, “it needed more than just an oral history,” grossly misrepresents the situation of the earliest church. The church has from its earliest times been a church of the apostolic texts.

More or less trivially, the particular discussion of Revelation in the place of canon disturbed me. Fr. Christy described it as questionable, entering only by the skin of its teeth. Ironically, there was no questioning of the book of Revelation until the third century Dionyius of Alexandria questioned it on the grounds of its millennialism. These objections had weight in the East, but Revelation saw almost no dispute in the West. Suggesting that it be relegated to some lesser status in the canon ignores that the doubts about it arose late and that they arose only in the east.

Finally, with regard to canon, the statement was made, in the course of a dramatic reenactment, that the “church in council” decided which books were valid and which were not. I would prefer that this be how it happened. If the church had held an ecumenical council or even a very large council to determine canon, canon history would be much easier to define. The truth of the matter is, contrary to popular conceptions, there was not great council on canon. Certainly every Christian should reject the prevailing notion that canon was decided under the shadow of Constantine at Nicea. More importantly, our most critical statements in canon history come not from concilliar decrees but from particular Fathers. With Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and Dionysius already mentioned, Athanasius (whose Festal Letter in 367 gave us the first perfect canon list for the New Testament) and Eusebius (who categorized the biblical literature under the headings “undisputed,” “disputed but accepted,” “disputed and spurious,” and “heretical”) deserve to be added. Certainly smaller synods were held regarding canon, the late fourth century Council of Carthage springs to mind, but the church total by no means decided in a council what books would and would not be in Scripture. By the time they got around to meeting in Carthage, the canon had substantially been set.

Schism

Fr. Christy’s greatest sin with canon was merely oversimplification. His discussion of schism bordered on revisionist. He talked at length about the unified church that existed until the eleventh century. He made no small point of discussing how, after the Catholic Church instigated schism that they then began fracturing themselves in a way totally foreign to church history. Fr. Christy’s view of the first millennium of Christendom is idyllic but false. I wonder how the 76 million Assyrian and Miaphysite (Oriental Orthodox) churches would feel having been completely written out of church history. Fr. Christy dogmatically ignored the schisms in 431 and 451, even passing out charts diagramming church history which also omitted those schisms. While it served his vision of a monolithic church well, it was fundamentally dishonest to present those substantial schisms as never occurring. In reality, the church was never monolithic. From the very moment that standardization began there has been constant and substantial schism. The Arian schism which persisted in the West long after its conclusion in the East in 381 hadn’t even healed before the Nestorian schism which persists to this day. Twenty years later, another even more substantial schism occurred which also persists into the present. The church was divided between iconoclasts and iconodules in the eighth century. The East and West ruptured repeatedly, over monothelitism in the seventh century, during the Photian schism in the eighth century before finally breaking of in the eleventh century. The church was not only not a monolithic unity through history, but schisms be they temporary or enduring (and she experienced both at every stage of her development) were the status quo of Christendom.

Even the Great Schism and its effects were distorted to fit Fr. Christy’s paradigm (in spite of almost comical reiteration that he had no agenda). Most glaringly was the inclusion of filioque in a list of five “innovations” that resulted from the Great Schism. Ironically, the handout that the Father gave us concerning the timeline of the church correctly dates the introduction of the filioque into the creed in 589, nearly five centuries before the Great Schism. I know that Fr. Christy knew the actual history of filioque, as he later answered questions regarding its meaning and origin, but that did not stop him from including it in a number of errors resulting from alienation from the concilliar church. Surely Fr. Christy realizes that the filioque cannot have been a development from the schism since it was an integral part of the Photian Schism 150 years prior to the final breach. (Of course, perhaps that schism is among the ones that do not accord with Fr. Christy’s monolithic picture of Christian history.)

I realize of course that my quibbles here may seem nitpicky to the point of tedium, but my purpose is not to correct every historical error (factual or hermeneutical) that I believe Fr. Christy made. It is also not my intention to belittle the practice of historical apology in general or of the apologetic high ground of the Orthodox Church in particular. My objection is to the misappropriation of history - both the concept and the data – for propaganda. Appeals to history are not appeals to fact against opinion. They are rhetorical reworkings of facts in order to elucidate the realities of the present. To suggest that we may juxtapose the objective nature of history to the totally subjective nature of personal opinion is to fundamentally ignore what the telling of history is. It is the speculative reconstruction of a narrative on the basis of historical data. In ignoring this, Fr. Christy misappropriates history conceptually. Perhaps the greater infraction is that his speculative reconstruction did not make exhaustive use of the data. Whatever data did not conform to a preexisting paradigm was either excluded (as in the case of the manifold schisms in the early church) or reworked (as in the discussion of canon) in order to meet an agenda that the Father swore he didn’t have.

The point: a good conclusion supported by a bad argument has no credibility. If we are to make an apology for the Eastern faith, and that is (most will know) a hobby of mine, let it be an intellectually honest one.