THE PURITY OF THE WORD

Scripture describes itself as pure. The adjective pure is defined as “not mixed with, or not having in or upon it, anything that defiles, corrupts, or impairs.”[1] To describing Scripture as pure is to speak of Scripture’s divine integrity and authority as God-breathed, Holy Spirit originating, infallible words written by chosen penmen. Scripture attests to its own intrinsic purity. In the eternal state the curse will be removed and there will be no impurity, only holiness. Rev. 21:5, “And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.” The purity of Scripture is therefore another characteristic that confirms it as a component part of the eternal state. The following section is comprised of an exegetical examination of four verses that speak to the purity of God’s word.

PSALM 12:6

SCRIPTURE’S INTENSIVE PURITY

“The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”

אִֽמֲר֣וֹת יְהֹוָה֘ אֲמָר֪וֹת טְהֹ֫ר֥וֹת כֶּ֣סֶף צָ֖רוּף בַּֽעֲלִ֣יל

לָאָ֑רֶץ מְ֜זֻקָּ֗ק שִׁבְעָתָֽיִם:

טְהֹ֫ר֥וֹת: (taw-hore’) – adjective, feminine plural; pure, clean (figurative); pure, unalloyed, cf., Leviticus 14:4; Psalm 12:7.

מְ֝זֻקָּ֗ק (mə·zuq·qāq): Verb, Pual, Participle – masculine singular: to strain, extract, clarify.

Richard Allestree (1673) considers the purity of God’s word “able to pass the strictest test right reason can put them to.” But despite Scripture’s veracity, we are more likely to believe some “trusted” man’s notion and use it against God. Allestree writes,

His Words are pure, even as the silver tried seven times in the fire, Psalm 12. 6, able to pass the strictest test that right reason (truly so called) can put them to. Yet it shews a great perverseness in our nature, that we who so easily resign our understanding to fallible men stand thus upon our guard against God; make him dispute for every inch he gains on us; nor will afford him that we daily grant to any credible man; to receive an affirmation upon trust of his veracity.”[2]

Allestree rightly identifies the perennial temptation to compromise theological precision out of deference to esteemed individuals, even at the cost of distorting the pure words of God. While theological and philosophical systems are meant to cohere logically and doctrinally, the undue elevation of human authority often results in the denial, or even reversal, of the plain teaching of Scripture. Proverbs 30:5 testifies to the extensive purity of Scripture across the canon, while Psalm 12:6 highlights the intensive purity of Scripture at the level of “every word.” Not only are all of God’s words described as pure, but their purity is emphasized by the simile of silver refined seven times, a figure denoting a degree of refinement beyond which no further purification is possible. This distributive purity, applying to each word individually, simultaneously affirms the holistic purity of the entire corpus of Scripture.

Although scholarly debate over Psalm 12:7 often centers on the antecedent of the pronoun “them,” verse 6 stands independently as a decisive witness to the nature of God’s Word. The words of the Lord are declared to be free from any corruption, defect, or error. Regardless of one’s position on the grammatical antecedent, the Holy Spirit’s unqualified assertion of Scriptural purity demands a corresponding integrity in the text itself. Nothing may be added, removed, or altered without compromising that purity. Any deviation from the substantia doctrinae—the substantive doctrinal content—of the original autographs would compromise both the distributive (word-by-word) and collective (whole-text) purity of Scripture.

While verse 7 explicitly affirms providential preservation, verse 6 theologically necessitates it: if the words are to remain pure, they must be preserved. Thus, both verses together support the doctrine of preservation, not merely as a historical corollary to inspiration, but as an essential consequence of the very nature of God’s Word.[3]

PSALM 19:8

SCRIPTURE’S ILLUMINATING PURITY

“The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure,

enlightening the eyes.”

פִּקּ֘וּדֵ֚י יְהֹוָ֣ה יְ֖שָׁרִים מְשַׂמְּחֵי־לֵ֑ב מִצְוַ֖ת יְהֹוָ֥ה בָּ֜רָ֗ה

מְאִירַ֥ת עֵינָֽיִם:

בַּר bar — clean, clear, pure.

John Gill makes this observation, writing,

the commandment of the Lord is pure; not only the Scriptures in general may bear this name, because they deliver out the commands of God to men, as those of a moral and ceremonial kind to the Jews under the former dispensation; so the ordinances of Christ, which are his commands under the Gospel dispensation; yea, the Gospel itself may be so called, though, strictly speaking, it has no command in it; because, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, it is made known to all nations for the obedience of faith, Romans 16:25; besides, the commandment is no other than the Word or doctrine, see 1 John 2:7; and as every commandment of the Lord, of what kind soever it is, is pure and holy, so is every Word of God, Proverbs 30:5; being without any mixture of men’s inventions, or the dross of corrupt doctrine, sincere, unadulterated, clear of all chaff and impurity, consistent, uniform, and all of a piece, and which tends to promote purity of heart, life, and conversation;[4]

Lending further support to Gill’s assessment, Keil and Delitzsch comment on this passage making two instructive observations. The first is that the word “pure” refers to “a word that is like to pure gold” referencing Job 28:19, where the word is interpreted “pure gold” and corresponds with Psalm 12:6 “silver…purified seven times.” The metaphor of being free from mixture or dross is clear in these two passages and speaks directly to the absence of anything superfluous or corrupt in Scripture. The second observation is that this purity within the immediate context of Psalm 19:9 is tied with Scripture’s preservation: “therefore עוֹמֶ֪דֶת לָ֫עַ֥ד, enduring for ever in opposition to all false forms of reverencing God, which carry their own condemnation in themselves.”[5] Purity and enduring forever in these two verses contribute further to a clear exegetical case for the eschatological character of Scripture.

PSALM 119:140

SCRIPTURE’S SUPERLATIVE PURITY

“Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.”

צְרוּפָ֖ה אִמְרָֽתְךָ֥ מְאֹ֑ד וְעַבְדְּךָ֥ אֲהֵבָֽהּ:

מְאֹ֑ד, “very”

            Scripture is not only pure, it is very pure, [6] corresponding with the metaphor “as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times,” Psalm 12:6, and, because of Scripture’s purity the psalmist loves it. The purity of Scripture is described in terms of being, unquestionably pure, being pure to the uttermost, and abundantly pure, all descriptions completely in tune with the nature of the eternal state. Keil and Delitzsch comment,

God’s own utterances are indeed without spot, and therefore not to be carped at; it is pure, fire-proved, noblest metal (xviii.31, xii.7), and therefore he loves it.[7]

The purity of Scripture naturally evokes a visceral response of love in the psalmist—a love grounded in the recognition of its flawless integrity. Psalm 119 repeatedly affirms this connection: “Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it” (v. 140). The psalmist’s affection is not arbitrary but arises from the inherent quality of the Word itself. One may argue that a genuine love for Scripture is not only normative for the saint but is a natural and fitting consequence of perceiving its purity—a purity which implies doctrinal integrity, moral clarity, and divine origin. To love the Word is to love what is wholly trustworthy and true.

Moreover, this love for Scripture is rooted in the prior love of Christ: as the Word of the Savior, we love His Word because He first loved us (cf. 1 John 4:19). The purity of Scripture, therefore, is not merely an abstract theological attribute; it speaks to the highest order of veracity and trustworthiness, bearing the self-authenticating witness of God Himself. Such purity compels not only admiration but obedience—obedience not driven by duty alone but impelled by love. To embrace the Word’s purity is to be drawn into deeper fidelity to Christ, whose voice is heard in every preserved and inspired word.

PROVERBS 30:5

SCRIPTURE’S COMPREHENSIVE PURITY

“Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.”

כָּל־אִמְרַ֣ת אֱל֣וֹהַּ צְרוּפָ֑ה מָגֵ֥ן ה֜֗וּא לַֽחֹסִ֥ים בּֽוֹ:

            צְרוּפָ֑ה: (ṣə·rū·p̄āh); Verb, Qal Passive Participle – feminine singular: to smelt, refine, test, and therefore to be pure; to be free of impurity, defect, corruption, or error.

Keil and Delitzsch make a powerful observation in their commentary on this passage, observing,

In the dependent relation of Proverbs 30:5 to Psalm 18:31 (2 Samuel 22:31), and of Proverbs 30:6 to Deuteronomy 4:2, there is no doubt the self-testimony of God given to Israel, and recorded in the book of the Tôra, is here meant. כּל־אמרת is to be judged after πᾶσα γραφή, 2 Timothy 3:16.[8]

That “every word” here corresponds to “all Scripture” in 2 Timothy 3:16 speaks to the verbal, plenary purity of inspired Scripture and the absolute importance of every word. ‘Every” relates to the inspiration and the purity in a distributive sense in reference to the purity of individual words. “All” relates to the inspiration and purity in a collective sense in reference to the purity of the canon. The theological significance of canonical purity identified in this passage is noted by John Trapp in his 1650 comment on Proverbs 30:5 when he writes,

Albeit all the sacred sentences contained in this blessed book are pure, precious and profitable, yet as one star in heaven outshineth another, so doth one Proverb another, and this is among the rest, velut inter stellas luna minore, and eminent sentence often recorded in Scripture, and far better worthy than ever Pindarus his seventh Ode was, to be written in letters of gold. Every Word of God is pure, purer than gold tried in the fire, Rev. 3:17, purer than silver tried in a furnace of earth, and seven times purified, Psalm 12:6, 7.[9] 

Keil and Delitzsch continue,

צרוּף signifies solid, pure, i.e., purified by separating: God’s word is, without exception, like pure, massive gold.[10]

Every word, all Scripture, is pure. Without exception the part, the words, and the whole, the canon is pure, separate from any falsehood, corruption, or error. Purity in this passage deals with comprehensive, extensive, canonical purity.

[1] Note that the Authorized Version is the only English text that translated the Hebrew צְרוּפָ֑ה “pure.” The idea of “refined” is less robust or definitive as the word “pure.” “Refined” standing alone can refer to degrees of refinement. For an even more distant interpretation see Duane A. Garrett, “Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs,” vol. 14 of The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1993), 237. Garrett renders this “stood the test” rather than “flawless,” a functional rather than essential interpretation of צְרוּפָ֑ה. Psalm 12:6 says the words of the Lord are pure “refined seven times” speaking of complete refinement and purity. Here צְרוּפָ֑ה refers to the complete refinement and purity, no longer capable of further refinement. The word of God is absolutely pure.

[2] Richard Allestree, The Lively Oracles Given to us or The Christian’s Birth-right and Duty, in the custody and use of the Holy Scripture. By the Author of the Whole Duty of Man (At the Theater in Oxford, 1678), 9.

[3] James Franklin Lambert, Luther’s Hymns (Philadelphia: General Council Publication House, 1917), 52. Ach Gott bom Himmel sieh barein — “Look down, O Lord, from heaven behold” — Salvum me fac, Domine — “Lord, Save me!” Title: The Word of God, and the Church. “The Silver seven times tried is pure, From all adulteration; So, through God’s Word, shall men endure, Each trial and temptation: Its worth gleams brighter through the cross, And, purified from human dross, It shines through every nation. Thy truth thou wilt preserve, O Lord, From this vile generation, Make us to lean upon thy Word, With calm anticipation. The wicked walk on every side. When, ‘mid thy flock, the vile abide, In power and exaltation.”

[4] https://biblehub.com/commentaries/psalms/19-8.htm

[5] Keil and Delitzsch, Psalms, 287.

[6] Jamesson, Fauset, and Brown, Commentary, 384: very pure – lit., refined, shown pure by trial.

[7] Keil and Delitzsch, Psalms, 260.

[8] C. F. Keil, F. Delitzsch, “Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon,” Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes, vol. VI, translated from the German by James Martin (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1976), 278-79.

[9] John Trapp, Solomonis PANAPETOS: or, A Commentarie Upon the Books of PROVERBS, ECCLESIASTES, and the Song of Songs (London: Printed by T.R. and E.M. John Bellamie, and are to be sold at his shop at the three golden Lyons in Corn-hil near the R. Exchange, 1650), 350. velut inter stellas luna minores, “as if among the stars the moon is smaller.”

[10] Keil, Delitzsch, “Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon,” 279.

A Predestined Scripture Dictated by the Holy Spirit to the penmen assured the Church the Bible was God’s Revelation of Himself

What follows is a brief summary of a section of Abram Kuyper’s (1837-1920) view of Holy Scripture. The precision of this Dutch theologian and statesman should emphasize the gulf between modern scholars and scholarship and the ineptitude of reducing the locus of Scripture to an undefined, prejoritive acronym. So distant is such unhelpful rhetoric from sound research and study, the Evangelical muddle historically called Bibliology is hardly recognizable.

The following deals with the “predestined” Scripture, a theme closely linked to “dictation.” Note that both the content and form, “as had been aimed at and willed by God.”

And dictation:

Straining at robust, historic theology while swallowing which TR, variations in spelling, and Ruckmanism/Riplinger has made the defense of Scripture into a caricature of that which once represented and continues to represent the life or death of the Church.

Blessings!

Self-Attesting Scripture

Herman Ridderbos, Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures, trans. by H. De Jongste, rev. by Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing Co., 1988), 9. 

Has not Ridderbos succinctly and clearly defined the necessary historic, orthodox understanding of the nature of holy Scripture? Can you find any legitimate reason for rejecting Ridderbos’s assessment of the self-attesting Word? Is not “the divine character that eminates from it” (10) as true of Scripture today as it was in the 1st c.? The “which TR” question is answered with “the self-attesting words of Scripture kept pure in all ages.” Calvin’s response to questions about the canonicity of James is helpful here. He writes, “I accept it, however, gladly, without reservation, because I cannot find any legitament reason for rejecting it.” (79) Against the united testimony of the Church since the early 16th c. what are your legitament reasons (against the mountains of pre-critical comment and theology) for criticizing or attacking the King James Bible and its underlying Greek text. To be legitimate the issue must show that the readings in either the Greek or English are not rationally permissible. Trying to make the case that  readings of the TR or King James Bible are not rationally permissiable is to be engaged in what Gaussen says is “wonderfully insignificant,” as if the Word, Spirit, with and though the saint are not infinitely superior Witnesses to the authority of Scripture.

Blessings!

Seven Characteristics of 2nd Century Church Fathers Regarding the Canon of Scripture – Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Irenaeus

L. Gaussen, The Canon of the Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light of History, translated from the French and abridged by Edward N. Kirk (Boston: American Tract Society, 1862), 160-162.

[Note: The canon is one book. The New Testament is the succession of the Old Testament “of the same origin and equal authority.” The canonical books are inspired and to reject this truth is to “abandon the Christian church.” There was no sensed need for apologetics or polemics because of the united confession of the Church regarding the inspiration of the canon. Scripture was complete and the final authority for the Church — self-authenticating. Scripture is self-interpreting.]

1.These fathers do not confine themselves simply to quotations of the twenty books[1] of our first canon; they speak very frequently of the collection itself of these books as forming one entire book, a New Testament, which the church of their day has fully accepted, which she has united to the sacred oracles of the old covenant, and which she calls the Scripture, or the Scriptures, the New Instrument, The New Testament, the Lord’s Scriptures, (tas kuriakaV grafaiV,

Dominicas Scripturas,) the Divine Scriptures, (taV qeoV grafaV,) the Gospel, and the Apostle. For these fathers hold equally all the epistles as forming one single book, which they call the Apostle; and the four evangelists also as forming one single tetramorphous Gospel, (a gospel in four forms,) to which they join the Acts of the Apostles.

2. Another feature of their testimony is that they habitually associate the Old and the New Testaments as a succession of books of the same origin and of equal authority.

3. They invariably declare their faith in the divine and complete inspiration of all these Scriptures; they rank them with those of the other prophets; they distinguish them from every uninspired book, and from all pretended tradition which is not conformed to them; they call them “the oracles of God,” “the pillar and ground of the faith,” “the rule of truth,” “the theopneustic Scriptures,” “the perfect Scriptures,” “the Scriptures pronounced by the word of God and by his Spirit; ” and they declare of the sacred writers, that “they were all pneumataphores, (bearers of the Holy Spirit,) and all speak by one and the same Spirit of God.”

4. Moreover, they profess this perfect faith in the divine inspiration of all these books, in connection with the entire church; they present it as the faith common to every Christian in the world; they declare that to raise one’s self against this ecumenical rule of the truth is, in the view of each of them, no longer to belong to the Christian church; it is to abandon it, (exeuntes,) because there can be found in no cotemporary church the least dissent from it.

5. So calm and sure is their persuasion in this matter, so universally peaceful is this conviction among the Christians of their time, that you will never find them occupied with defending it. Why should they? The point is everywhere firmly settled; it is in every conscience that professes the truth; it is nowhere contested in the church of the second century; and you can nowhere hear against one of the twenty books of the canon a single one of those objections which are started by the biblical critics of our day. They hold them as the universal and uncontested code; when they adduce a passage to establish some disputed truth, it is always as when one puts a lamp in a dark place to reveal something that had been hidden. One may dispute with you about the object, but no one thinks of questioning the light; that is the same for everyone. The Scriptures, — they are the light. This confidence, common to everyone in the second century, is always taken for granted; they never demonstrate it. If I am speaking of the Rhone in Geneva, do I stop to prove that it runs through this city, and that you will find water there? Why, then, should these three doctors demonstrate to the men of their day that the river of Scripture runs through the city of God, and that you may there find abundance of the living waters of grace? They never do it. In all their folios, they discuss the biblical meaning of such and such a word, never its divinity; they profess to be the interpreters of the New Testament, never its defenders. Why should they defend it? No one in the church had attacked it; and if you will meet despisers of the Word, you must go out and search for them in the Roman schools of Cerdo, Marcion, or Valentinus.[2]

6. Still, a sixth feature is, that in religious matters everything is decided for them, and should be for the whole church as soon as it is known that the Scripture has spoken on it. “The Scriptures,” they say, “are a perfect revelation of Christian truth;” “their instruction is abundant,” (scripturarum tractatio plenissima,) “admitting neither of addition nor retrenchment.” “I adore,” they say, “the fullness of the Scriptures.” “Let no one,” they add, “teach anything, unless he can say of it, “It is written.” Let no one allege any tradition; for them there is none which can stand against the declarations of the written Word.[3]

7. Finally, they say, “It is to the Scriptures that every appeal must be made for explaining the Scriptures, (ap autwn peri autwn,) if we would arrive at the truth in a convincing manner (apodeiktikwV).”

[1] Gaussen, Canon, 26, 29. “It was, then, during the sixteen or seventeen years between the production of these first two books (a. d. 48,) and the death of Paul, (a. d. 64 or 65,) that almost all the other writings of the New Testament were produced; at least the twenty books which compose what we shall presently denominate the first canon, that is, the four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the first thirteen epistles of Paul, the first of Peter, and the first of John.”…”We shall call the first canon (or first rule) the collection of the twenty books above enumerated; because, the first distributed during the lifetime of the apostles and by their own direction, they were immediately received by all Christendom, eastern and western, without having, from the beginning, and for eighteen centuries, their divine authority ever called in question by the Christian churches. This first canon of the undisputed books forms by itself eight ninths of the New Testament, if we count by verses, having 7059 out of 7959.”

[2] Leaders of three heretical sects, bearing their respective names, taught in Rome during the second half of the second century.

[3] These various expressions we shall meet again and indicate their places.

Inspiration, Preservation, Self-Attestation, and the Church: The Historic Grounds for Scripture’s Canonicity

L. Gaussen, The Canon of the Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light of History, translated from the French and abridged by Edward N. Kirk (Boston: American Tract Society, 1862), 96-100.

[Note: Inspired Scripture evidences the marks of its Divinity. That Scripture came from God is through the Word and Spirit made historically conspicuous to the Church, the sheep that hear the voice of the Shepherd. Gaussen’s research makes a compelling case that inspired Scripture itself is its own guarantee of canonical authority in the Church and guided the method of early Church canonical collation. At the foundation of any historically accurate description of the collation of the canon of Scripture lies the self-attestation of the Word, the leading of the Holy Spirit and the recognition and reception of the inspired Word by the Church.]

Many, too, speak of the canon as if its definitive form had been fixed by the councils, — the act of the church pronouncing decrees. This, too, is a mistake; nothing indeed is more contrary to the real facts; and this we must show now, although we must resume this point when we come to treat of the veritable foundation of our faith in the canon of the scriptures.

No human authority interfered in this matter. It was the pure and simple product of the conscience, of research, of freedom. The churches of God, enlightened by the mutual testimony of their members, judged in this case only by their own wisdom, under the secret and powerful direction of that Providence which will always watch over the written word. The universal reception of the first canon preceded all the councils; and these when they came together were occupied with every other question but that o& the canon. “We shall yet show with more precision, that the general councils never passed a decree on this subject for fourteen centuries; as we have already shown that even the two provincial councils of Laodicea and Carthage, too often cited, can no more be regarded as authority on the question before us.

Lardner[1] has demonstrated, by long quotations from the fathers, that the canon of the New Testament has in no degree been formed by human authority. Basnage[2] has given three chapters of his church history to this point. John Le Clerc[3] has said, “There has been no need of a council of grammarians to declare magisterially which are the works of Cicero or of Virgil. So, too, the authenticity of the Gospels was established, and has continued without any decree of the rulers of the church. We may say’ the same of the apostolical epistles, which owe all their authority, not to the decision of any ecclesiastical assembly, but to the concordant testimony of all Christians, and to the very character of their contents.” Augustine, too, thirteen centuries before Le Clerc, said, “We know the writings of the apostles as we know those of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Varro, and others; and as we know the writings of different ecclesiastical authors, because they have the testimony of their contemporaries and of the men who lived immediately after them.”

Let us content ourselves with remarking here that the ancient fathers, in their judgments on the canon, appealed only to the free and uninterrupted testimony of the churches, at the same time making an attentive examination of the books proposed for their acceptance. When they give us a catalogue, it is never as the fruit of their discoveries, nor as the decisions of any authority whatever; they report to us only the thoughts of the preceding ages; the free testimony of the primitive churches; that which they have received from their predecessors, by a transmission continued from the days of the apostles.

When Origen, born 142 years before the council of Nice, gives us his catalogue of the canonical Scriptures (twn endiaqhkwn grafwn), he appeals to no decisions of any council, but merely to the ancient men of the church (oi apcaioi andreV) and to tradition (wV en paradosei maqwv). It is Eusebius who has preserved his words to us, and who adds, in reporting his testimony on the four Gospels: “Origen preserves tradition and the ecclesiastical canon;[4] and he attests that there are but four Gospels, alone received without any contradiction by all the church of God which is under the heavens.”

Also Eusebius himself, when giving his opinion on the collection of books in the New Testament and on the distinction between the books universally received and those which are contested, refers neither to any authority nor council, and declares that he receives the canon from ecclesiastical tradition (kata thn ekklhsiastikhn praradosin).[5]

Thus Athanasius, born in 296, in giving his canon completely conformed to ours, attributes it ” to the transmission to the fathers by those who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word from the beginning;”[6] but he refers to no council, and gives us only what he calls books recognized as authoritative, transmitted and received as divine.

None of the authors, even of the centuries which followed, to the fourth, fifth, or sixth, ever appeals on this point to the decisions of any council. Thus, when Cyril, patriarch of Jerusalem, born twenty years after Athanasius, gives. us his catalogue of the theopneustic books (ai qeopneustoi Grafai), he refers to no council, and appeals only “to the apostles and ancient bishops who presided over the churches, and who have transmitted them to us.”[7] Thus, when Augustine, at the end of the same” century, or rather at the beginning of the fifth, wrote his directions to certain persons who had consulted him “on the books really canonical,” he appealed only” to the testimony of the different churches of Christendom, and referred to no council.[8] Thus when Rufinus, priest in Aquileia toward the year A. D. 340, gives us in his turn a catalogue (also exactly conformed to ours), he attributes it “only to the tradition of the ancients, who had transmitted them to the churches of Christ as divinely inspired;” and he declares that he gives it as he found it in the monuments of the fathers.[9]

And when Cassiodorus, Roman consul in the sixth century, gives us three catalogues of the New Testament (one of Jerome, one of Augustine, and one of an ancient version), he likewise makes no reference to any decree or any council.[10] Let us then hear no more about councils fixing authoritatively the canon of the Scriptures. This canon is undoubtedly fixed; but not by any authority of councils. God determined that Christians and churches, enlightened by the testimony of Christian generations, should form their own convictions on this subject, in complete freedom of judgment, in order that the authenticity of the sacred books might thereby be made the more manifest.

We shall hereafter examine this important fact from another point of view; but it should suffice us here to learn from these testimonies how erroneous and contrary to facts is the pretension of seeking the origin or the determination of the canon in any ecclesiastical decree.

[1] Supplement, 50-52; 2d part, torn, i.; edit. 8, torn. vi. pp. 325,381; torn, ii. pp. 325, 496, 529, 576; torn. viii. pp. 102, 225, 268; torn. x. pp. 193, 207, 208.

[2] Lib. viii. chap. v. vi. vii.

[3] In the years 29 and 100 of his Hist. Eccl

[4] Hist. Eccl. vi. 25.

[5] Hist. Eccl. iii. 25.

[6] Festal Epistle, xxxix.

[7] Catech. iv. 33.

[8] De Doct. Christ Lib. ii. vol. iii. part i. p. 47. Paris, 1836. (He began this book in 397, and finished it in 407.) See also Lardner, tom. x. p. 207.

[9] In Symbol. Apost. p. 26. “Quae secundum majorum traditionem per ipsum Spiritum Sanctum inspirata creduntur et ecclesiis Christi tradita, competens videatur in hoc loco evidenti numéro sicut ex Patrum monumentis accepimus designare.”

[10] Lardner, tom. xi. p. 303; Cassiod. De Instit. Divin. Litterar. cap. xi.

THE NOTION OF A CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT TRACED TO THE DAYS OF THE APOSTLES

L. Gaussen, The Canon of the Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light of History, translated from the French and abridged by Edward N. Kirk (Boston: American Tract Society, 1862), 18-23.

[Note: The essential truth of canonical collation was the recognition and reception by the Church as the Word of God. The canon of Scripture was not the result of ecclesiastical mandate, designation, or imposition but rather the canon shaped the Church. What follows is a historical accounting of this recognition and reception. Again, the reader should come to grips with the providential sequence God when giving His Word to the Church: 1. That the Word is self-attesting and self-authenticating because it was inspired. Inspiration grounds the recognition and reception of the canon. 2. Once recognized and received, the Church utilized the canon, didactically, apologetically teaching the Church and defending the Church against the influences of non-canonical, non-inspired documents.]

Before even consulting the ecclesiastical historians on this subject, we may already comprehend, from the nature of things, that the idea of a divine collection of the writings of the New Testament, must have early sprung up in all the communities of those who believed in Christ. Is it not evident that it must have originated as soon as these churches saw the men, “apostles and prophets,”[1] who announced to them the gospel with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven,[2] beginning to write to them apostolical letters, or transmit to them the history of the Savior’s life and teachings?

In fact, they were entirely prepared for it by having in their hands the Old Testament. This collection, already formed for so many ages, and of the divinity of which there was never but one opinion among the Jews, as Josephus informs us;[3] this collection, venerated by the people of God in every age, venerated by the Apostles, who called it the oracles of God;[4] venerated by the Son of God himself, who called it the Law, your Law, the Scripture, the Scriptures; venerated by the Christian churches, who read it in all their assemblies; this collection, we say, must necessarily have led all their company to the notion of an. analogous collection of the sacred books of the New Testament.

Was not the idea of a canon of the scriptures the characteristic trait of the people of God for fifteen hundred years? Had it not always appeared to them from the beginning of their national existence, the very reason of their existence, and the indispensable means of its continuance? Yet, at the same time, this notion born in the desert with the Israelitish church, and always maintained by that church, had never been that of a code completed by one hand, or in one generation, or received in its fullness once for all. On the contrary, it was that of a collection commencing with the five books of Moses, and destined to grow from age to age; continued by the addition of new books, during eleven centuries, as God raised up new prophets, and not ceasing to accumulate its treasures to the days of Malachi, when the spirit of prophecy became silent for four centuries. It was then very natural that the church, at the coming of the Messiah, should look for new additions, since the ancient spirit of prophecy had just been restored to her, and since new men of God, “apostles and prophets,” more miraculously endowed than the ancients, had just been raised up. We may go farther; it was even impossible that she should not expect it. Was not the epoch of Christ’s advent much more important and solemn than that of his annunciation; were not the revelations more striking; the objects more divine; the promises richer; the prophets more powerful; the signs more marvelous?

Nor should we forget that the church has already begun in the synagogue and, for the first fifteen years of Christianity, contains no other than Jewish members. All her preachers and her first converts are Jews. At the last voyage Paul made to meet the converts in Jerusalem, the members of that church, mother of all the others, contained already many thousands, (Acts xxi. 20, posai muriadeV.) In all the cities of the Gentiles the apostles began their labors among the children of Israel. And there they constantly held in their hands the canon of the scriptures, and always repeated the words of Jesus, “Search the Scriptures,” (John V. 39.) Always they “expounded and testified. the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets,” (Acts xxviii. 23.) “Saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come,” (Acts xxvi. 22.) And even although they did not directly quote from the sacred books, when preaching to pagan audiences, yet they were very careful to do it as soon as these had been brought to believe. We may select, as an instance, the salutation of Paul in closing his epistle to the Romans: “Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which is now made manifest by the Scriptures of the Prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations, for the obedience of faith. To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ, for ever. Amen.”

So then if, on the one hand, the notion of a canon of the Scriptures was, as it were, incarnated in the people of God, if it was with them inseparable from the notion of the church; on the other hand, the thought of incorporating the not less sacred books of the New Testament with those of the Old, as they were written successively, was with them equally inseparable from their notion of the scriptures.

The history of primitive Christianity strongly confirms this view of the notion of the sacred canon then prevalent in the church. So far from being introduced at a later period, as has been asserted by some, we find it constantly, from the beginning, both in the church and in its enemies.

The evidence of this we shall produce at length, contenting ourselves here with a few quotations. Peter, in closing his career, in his Second Epistle, speaking of “all the epistles of Paul,” calls them ” the scriptures,” comparing or classing them with “the other scriptures.”[5]

From the beginning, the writings of the apostles were successively gathered into one collection, which was respected by the primitive Christians equally with the Old Testament, which they read in their religious meetings, and which, after Peter’s example, they called the Scriptures ; or after the example of the Fathers the Book, (ta Biblia,) the New Testament[6] the Divine Instrument,[7] the Sacred Digest,[8] the Divine Oracles; or again, the Evangelists and the Apostles;[9] after the example of Jesus Christ, who had called the Old Testament “the Law and the Prophets” They then early adopted the custom of calling it the Canon, or the Rule, and whatever constituted a portion of this infallible code, Canonical Books.

Irenceus, born in Greece A. D. 120 or 140, and martyred in A. D. 202, speaking of the Scriptures as divine, calls them the Rule, or the Canon of Truth (kanona thV alhqeiaV)[10] Tertullian, in the same century, opposing Valentinus to Marcion, both deep in the Gnostic heresy, toward A. D. 138, says of the former, that he at least appears to make use of a Complete Instrument, meaning the collection of the books of the New Testament then accepted by the church.[11] Clement of Alexandria, in the same century, speaking of a quotation taken from an apocryphal book, is indignant that any one should follow anything but “the true evangelical canon;” and Origen, born A. D. 183, careful, as Eusebius[12] remarks, to follow the ecclesiastical canon, ecclesiastical canon, ton ekklhsiastikon fulattwn kanona, “declares that he knows only the four Gospels, which alone, he adds, are admitted without contradiction in the universal church spread abroad under the whole heavens.” The same Origen, when giving us his catalogue of canonical Scriptures, calls them ai endiaqhkai grafai, the intestamented Scriptures,[13] that is, the books inserted in the New Testament. Athanasius in his Festal Epistle,[14] speaks of three kinds of books: the canonical, (which are those of our present Protestant Bible); the ecclesiastical, which were permitted to be read in the Christian meetings; and the apocryphal. And when, at a later period, the Council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, decreed that no other book than “the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments ” should be read in the churches, far from originating the distinction between canonical and uncanonical books, this decree was but a sanctioning of the distinction long before adopted by the universal church.

Jerome also frequently speaks of the canon of Scripture. He says, for instance, “Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, the Pastor,… are not in the canon. The church permits the books of Judith, Tobit, and the Maccabees to be read, but she does not receive them as a part of the canonical Scriptures. The books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus may be read for the edification of the people, but not as authority for establishing doctrine.”[15]

Such is the origin of the notion of the canon, and such is its meaning.

[1] Eph. ii. 20.

[2] 1 Pet i. 12.

[3] Reply to Apion, Book I. chap. 2.

[4] Rom. iii. 2; Heb. v. 12; 1 Pet. iv. 11.

[5] 2 Pet. iii. 16. This testimony, whatever objections any may have to the canonicity of this Epistle, shows indisputably the antiquity of the usage which ranks the books of the New Testament with the Scriptures; for we shall hereafter establish the antiquity of this Epistle, even independently of its canonicity.

[6] See Lardner, vol. viii. p. 197. See, also, vol. ii. p. 529. Paul having given the name of Old Testament to the Book of Moses and the Prophets, it was altogether natural that they should give to the book of the Evangelists and Apostles the name of New Testament, and that they should call intestamented, or endiaqhhkouV, (Euseb. H. E. vi. 25,) the books admitted into the canon.

[7] Tertullian adv. Marcion, Lib. v. cap. 13.

[8] Ibid. Lib. iv. cap. 13.

[9] Clement of Alexandria, Strom, vii. pp. 706, 757. Ignatius, Ep. to the Philad. chap. v. Epis, to Diognet, chap. xi. Justin Martyr, Great Apol. chap. 67. Tertullian, de Graec. Script, chap. 36. Apol. chap. 39. Hippolitus the Martyr, on Antichrist, chap. 58.

[10] Adv. Heresies, Book iii. chap. 11; Book iv. chaps. 35, 69.

[11] Tertullian De Praescript. Hœretic. chaps. 30-38.

[12] Ecc. Hist. Book vi. chap. 25.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Chap, xxxix. vol. ii. p. 961, Benedict, edit, ta kanonizomena kai paradoqenta te Qeia enai

Bilblia.

[15] See, also, Lardner, vol. x. pp. 41, 43, 52.