Catechesis · Inquirer
Scripture within Tradition
Catechesis · Inquirer
Scripture within Tradition
Because the Church existed before the New Testament. The apostles preached the Gospel, founded communities, celebrated the Eucharist, baptised, and ordained -- all before a single…
Question
Why can't each Christian simply read Scripture and decide for themselves?
Because the Church existed before the New Testament. The apostles preached the Gospel, founded communities, celebrated the Eucharist, baptised, and ordained -- all before a single line of the New Testament was written. The books of the New Testament were written within the Church, addressed to the Church, and recognised as authoritative by the Church. To read them as texts that stand above the Church is to misunderstand what they are. Scripture is the Church's book, not the Church's master.
The canon of the New Testament was not settled until the late 4th century. Different communities used different collections; some books now in the canon were disputed; some books now excluded were widely read. The final recognition of the 27-book canon -- by the Council of Carthage in 397, following the usage of the great churches -- was an act of the Church's authority. The person who accepts the canon is already accepting the Church's judgment about which texts are authoritative. The canon is the Church's gift, not its prison.
The teaching
How the canon was formed -- the Church's most consequential act of discernment
The formation of the New Testament canon was not a single event but a centuries-long process of discernment. By the end of the 1st century, Paul's letters were being circulated among the churches (2 Peter 3:15-16). By the mid-2nd century, Justin Martyr describes the reading of "the memoirs of the apostles" alongside the prophets in the Sunday assembly. Irenaeus (c. 180) knows essentially our four gospels. The Muratorian Fragment (c. 170-200) lists 22 of our 27 books. The process was organic, gradual, and driven by liturgical use.
The criteria the Church applied in discerning the canon: apostolicity (connection to an apostle), catholicity (use across the whole Church), and orthodoxy (consistency with the received faith). These criteria show the canon was not arrived at by historical-critical scholarship but by theological discernment within the living tradition. The Church was asking: which texts carry the apostolic faith that we already know? Not: which texts will tell us what to believe?
The Church does not exist because of the Bible. The Bible exists because of the Church. The Church wrote it, gathered it, and knows how to read it -- because the Church is the body of those in whom the same Spirit dwells who inspired it.
This is not a claim that the Church is above Scripture or can contradict it. It is a claim about the order of generation: the apostolic community came first, then the texts that emerged from that community's life and witness. The authority of the texts is inseparable from the authority of the community that produced and recognises them. To accept the Bible is to accept the community whose book it is.
After the patristic tradition
On Scripture and the Church
Holy Scripture
"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."
2 Timothy 3:16
"So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter."
2 Thessalonians 2:15
The Septuagint Question
Why the Orthodox Old Testament is not the same as the Protestant one
The Septuagint (LXX) is the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures made by Jewish scholars in Alexandria between roughly 250 and 100 BC. It was the Bible of the Greek-speaking Jewish diaspora and became the Bible of the apostolic church. When Paul quotes the Old Testament, he quotes the LXX. When Matthew finds Isaiah's prophecy of the virgin birth, he quotes the LXX. The apostolic interpretation of Israel's scriptures was formed by and inseparable from this translation.