Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger (26 page)

A similar appeal is made in Calvin’s
Institutes of the
Christian Religion,
in which the author writes:

To the passage which they produce from the history of
the Maccabees (1 Mc 12:43), I will not deign to reply, lest I should seem to
include that work among the canonical books. But Augustine holds it to be
canonical. First, with what degree of confidence? “The Jews,” says he, “do not
hold the book of the Maccabees as they do the Law, the Prophets, and the
Psalms, to which the Lord bears testimony as to his own witnesses, saying,
‘Ought not all things which are written in the Law, and the Psalms, and the
Prophets, concerning me be fulfilled?’ (Lk 24:44). But it has been received by
the Church not uselessly, if it be read or heard with soberness.” Jerome,
however, unhesitatingly affirms, that it is of no authority in establishing
doctrine; and from the ancient little book, De Expositione Symboli, which bears
the name of Cyprian, it is plain that it was in no estimation in the ancient
Church. And why do I here contend in vain? As if the author himself did not
sufficiently show what degree of deference is to be paid him, when in the end
he asks pardon for any thing less properly expressed (2 Mc 15:38). He who
confesses that his writings stand in need of pardon, certainly proclaims that
they are not oracles of the Holy Spirit. We may add, that the piety of Judas is
commended for no other reason than for having a firm hope of the final
resurrection, in sending his oblation for the dead to Jerusalem. For the writer
of the history does not represent what he did as furnishing the price of
redemption, but merely that they might be partakers of eternal life, with the
other saints who had fallen for their country and religion. The act, indeed,
was not free from superstition and misguided zeal; but it is mere fatuity to
extend the legal sacrifice to us, seeing we are assured that the sacrifices
then in use ceased on the advent of Christ.
[676]

Elsewhere in the same work, Calvin addresses the role of the
Church in promulgating a canon:

Their dogma with regard to the power of approving
Scripture I intentionally omit. For to subject the oracles of God in this way
to the censure of men, and hold that they are sanctioned because they please
men, is a blasphemy which deserves not to be mentioned. Besides, I have already
touched upon it, (Book 1 chap. 7, 8, sec. 9.) I will ask them one question
however. If the authority of Scripture is founded on the approbation of the
church, will they quote the decree of a council to that effect? I believe they
cannot. Why, then, did Arius allow himself to be vanquished at the Council of
Nice by passages adduced from the Gospel of John? According to these, he was at
liberty to repudiate them, as they had not previously been approved by any
general council. They allege an old catalogue, which they call the Canon, and
say that it originated in a decision of the Church. But I again ask, in what
council was that Canon published? Here they must be dumb. Besides, I wish to
know what they believe that Canon to be. For I see that the ancients are little
agreed with regard to it. If effect is to be given to what Jerome says, (Praef.
in Lib. Salom.) the Maccabees, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, and the like, must take
their place in the Apocryphal: but this they will not tolerate on any account.
[677]

It may be true that some careless Catholic apologists have
propounded a Church which
makes
a book scriptural by awarding its
approval; this certainly is not the Church’s own account of itself.
[678]
Scripture became
Scripture
as it was being written
, by virtue of the fact that God was
acting as its primary author by the action of His Holy Spirit.
[679]
It can gain or lose
nothing of this intrinsic quality by being either recognized by men, or
forgotten by them. Yet recognition by men
is
important—not to the books
themselves but to the men! Humanity needs an accurate account of which books
have received God’s inspiration and which books have not—a canon, in other
words—and this is where the witness of the Church comes in. The Church is
Christ’s bride who bears witness to the divine inspiration of a given set of
books, especially through their reading and proclamation in the sacred liturgy.
So Calvin’s attack here is a straw man; if anyone is “subjecting the oracles of
God…to the censure of men” it is those who would allow the opinions of a lone
scholar (and Jerome is the only authority Calvin seems able to name) to expunge
a whole class of venerable books solely on the basis of his superior knowledge
of the Hebrew language.

Surprisingly, Calvin too used the Deuterocanon early in his
career in a manner quite unlike his followers of today. For example, he lists
the angel Raphael (Tb 12:15) with Michael and Gabriel. Calvin also makes
extensive use of the book of Wisdom in his treatment on the body and soul in
his
Psychopannychia
(1542), only occasionally qualifying its authority.
In Calvin’s
Institutes
(1539), the author speaks of Wisdom and Sirach
being works of Solomon, as did the early Fathers; however, he goes on quickly
to discount this ascription because Sirach 15:14-17 teaches the “serious
doctrinal error” of free will.
[680]
  Most surprising of all is Calvin’s use of Baruch and
its subsequent corrections. Neuser writes:

It is significant that Calvin, in the
Institutes
of 1536, refers to Baruch 3.12-14 and James 3.17 for the divine attributes:
sapientia, justitia, bonitas, misericordia, veritas, virtus ac vita. Yet as
early as the
Institutes
of 1539, this statement was no longer made.
Similarly, in the section on prayer in the first
Institutes
, Baruch
2.18-20 and 3.2 were quoted, in order to commend humble submission before God.
In the introduction Calvin writes:
Alter vero propheta (Bar 2) scribit.
Yet as early as the 1539
Institutes
, Calvin corrects this: ‘Very true
and very holy is another word which an unknown author (whoever he was) wrote,
and which is attributed to the prophet Baruch.’ For Calvin, it remains true
that the ‘scribe’ Baruch in the Book of Jeremiah is a ‘prophet,’ but he
questions whether he is also the author of the Book of Baruch. In the
Psychopannychia
(1542), some of the evidence is taken from this apocryphal book. To prove
that God is the source of life, the ‘prophet’ Baruch (3.14) is quoted. When the
‘prophet’ Baruch 2.17 is used to explain Psalm 115.17: ‘the dead will not
praise thee,’ it is in order to prove that ‘the dead’ means the spiritually,
not the physically dead. Yet in the second edition of 1545, the word ‘prophecy’
(prophetia) is omitted: Calvin says simply
in libro Baruch.
However
welcome Calvin may find this proof text, he does not forget that Baruch is of
the Apocrypha.
[681]

Several citations from the books of Tobit, Wisdom, Sirach,
Baruch, and the two books of Maccabees remain even in the later editions of the
Institutes
.

The Protestant Confessions

On February 11, 1546, the Council of Trent solemnly
reaffirmed the traditional canon of the Old Testament. For their part, some
Protestant communions also raised the canon to the level of dogma through
various Confessions of Faith. These Confessions are not universally accepted in
Protestantism. For example, Lutherans have never raised the canon of Scripture
to the level of dogma. Even today’s Lutherans, who followed the more radical
example set by their founder’s German bible, have not produced any binding
declaration on the canon.

The following are excerpts on the subject of the canon from
some of the more influential Protestant Confessions.

The Belgic Confession (1561)

The
Belgic Confession
is perhaps the oldest
Confession in Reformed Protestantism. Composed in the Lowlands (modern day
Belgium) by Guido de Bres, the Belgic Confession raises the canon of Scripture
to the level of dogma. The Fourth Article produces a list of Old and New
Testament books “for which there is no quarrel at all.”
[682]
This list includes the Protestant Old
Testament canon. The following article explains why the authors accepted these
books as canonical and authoritative:

And we believe without a doubt all things contained in
them—not so much because the church receives and approves them as such but
above all because the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts that they are from
God, and also because they prove themselves to be from God. For even the blind
themselves are able to see that the things predicted in them do happen.
[683]

The Sixth Article of the same Confession reads:

We distinguish those sacred books from the apocryphal,
namely: [lists the Deuterocanon]. All of which the Church may read and take
instruction from, so far as they agree with the canonical books; but they are
far from having such power and efficacy, as that we may from their testimony
confirm any point of faith, or of the Christian religion; much less detract
from the authority of the other sacred books.
[684]

The French (Gallican) Confession (1559)

Composed by the first national Protestant synod in Paris,
the synod adopted many of the doctrines proposed by Calvin. In Article 3, the
French Confession addressed the status of the canon:

We know these books [the shorter canon] to be
canonical, and the sure rule of our faith, not so much by the common accord and
consent of the Church, as by the testimony and inward illumination of the Holy
Spirit, which enables us to distinguish them from other ecclesiastical books
upon which, however useful, we can not found any articles of faith.
[685]

Here, the Confession was apparently applying the following
text from Calvin’s
Institutes
to the canon:

But although we may maintain the sacred Word of God
against gainsayers, it does not follow that we shall forthwith implant the
certainty which faith requires in their hearts. Profane men think that religion
rests only on opinion, and, therefore that they may not believe foolishly, or
on slight grounds desire and insists to have it proved by reason that Moses and
the prophets were divinely inspired. But I answer, that the testimony of the
Spirit is superior to reason. For as God alone can properly bear witness to his
own words, so these words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men,
until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit.
[686]

Commenting on the
French Confession
, Neuser contends
that Calvin’s teaching about the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit was a
reference to the Spirit’s work of confirming the believer’s faith in Scripture;
not a test of canonicity. It is the
French Confession
, not Calvin’s
Institutes
which extended the “inner testimony ” to include the discernment
of which books function as the rule of faith and which ones do not.
[687]
 

The Synod of Dort (1618–1619)

The Protestant Reformed
Synod of Dort
also addressed
the problem of the Deuterocanon. Several of its members demanded that the Synod
insist upon the removal of the Apocrypha from the
Geneva Bible
.
[688]
Nevertheless, their
motion failed to carry and the approved version of Scripture endorsed by the
Synod included the so-called Apocrypha. However, the dissenting party did win a
number of concessions. For example,
Dort
adopted the
Sixth Article
of the
Belgic Confession
(1561), which strongly inveighed against the
books in question. It also recommended that these books be printed in smaller
type than the other books in order to make them conspicuous, and that
derogatory notes be added to their margins.
Dort
also recommended that
the appendix containing the Deuteros be moved, from between the two Testaments
where Luther had placed them, to the back of the Bible, creating an even
greater physical distance from their former place within the corpus of the
text. The
Dutch Bible
of 1637 carried out the dictates of the
Synod
of Dort
, complete with a critical preface and notes in the margin
explaining the points where these books were supposed to contradict the
Protocanon. It became
the
standard bible for the Remonstrants as well as
for the Reformed Church of Holland.

Given the historical trajectory outlined, it should not have
been difficult to predict what would happen eventually. At the beginning,
during his early confrontations with Pope, Luther seems perfectly willing to
use the Deuterocanon to confirm doctrine. Later, when cornered in a debate,
they suddenly lack the authority to move him from his position. Recalling his
days at Wittenberg under Reuchlin, he seizes upon the doubts of Jerome, and the
books become Apocrypha from now on. Nevertheless, he hesitates to publish a
bible without them. Instead, he gathers them into an appendix at the end of his
Old Testament—still part of the Bible somehow, but not really. The
Synod of
Dort
takes Luther’s innovation one step further; by segregating the ancient
books even more and making other changes designed to cast doubt. Sadly, a set
of books which were once trumpeted by the Fathers as divine Scripture
containing the words of the Prophets, have been reduced to jockeying for space
in the part of the Bible usually reserved for maps and baptismal records! 
The next step, of course, was their total exclusion from Protestant bibles.

English Protestantism

The English Reformation differed considerably from that
which took place on the European continent. All the different doctrinal and
disciplinarian variations were kept under the one roof of the state-sponsored
Church. King Henry VIII had rejected papal authority and set himself up as the
head of the Church in England; yet Henry, quite unlike the Reformers on the
continent, did not desire a radical break with the Old Faith. He was, on the
contrary, quite conservative in his theology and a persecutor of Lutheranism.
Henry wished only to occupy himself the place in the English Church which had
formerly been occupied by the pope. There were those, however, who wished to
move this new, independent Church of England in a more distinctly Protestant
direction. This meant that the Deuterocanon became, as time went on, a source
of contention between those contending for a more Protestant theology and those
wishing to retain something more like the original Catholic Faith of the
English.