Sermons

"Blasts from the Past"

Delivered from the Pulpit of First Congregational Church

of Anchorage by The Reverend Mark E. Long

on August 2, 2009

Lections:  Ex. 32.15-16

                  II Tim. 3.14-17

                  Jn. 5.39-44

We continue to consider topics drawn from the "sermon box" which you, or someone like you, has on her mind.  The question - "Do newly-discovered texts, e.g. The Gospel of Judas belong in the canon?  The follow-up question - "What do we learn by reading them?

The "off the top of my head" answer to the first question is "yeah," "no," "well, maybe," "probably," probably not," and a shrug.  As for the follow-up, you learn not everyone agreed on everything, even then.  This may all sound like I am hedging but folks this is really and truly a messy matter.

But before exploring in any depth these questions there are some preliminary questions which need to be faced.  What is a "canon?"  What qualifies a writing to be in a canon?  Who gets to say and why?  Finally, how did the biblical canons, particularly the New Testament, come down to us?  We will deal with these questions today and next week we will be in a better position (I hope) to answer the prior questions on at least one of your minds.

Let's start with the most elementary of questions - what is a "canon?"  It comes from the Greek word for "rule" or "measure," which itself comes from the Hebrew for the same thing.[1]  It is a rule or measure but of what - quite simply, authority.

The Law Moses brings down the mountain on those tablets is the clearest example of any Bible story.  But not all writing, even in our stories, claims to be the actual "writing of God."  Most writing is a good deal less easy to judge its authority.

On a more realistic scale, what gives any writing its authority or, to put another way, what gets it in the 'canon'?  Why any writing gets in a canon is pretty straight forward.  To illustrate, let's consider the "Christian" canon or what forms our New Testament today.  Let's begin by being clear that the apostles didn't help much.  They didn't leave any sitemap of how to size up gospels, letters, or other writings as canon worthy.  Nevertheless over time shared ideas did arise which seem reasonable criteria.

First, the writing should be of an "apostolic origin."  This means the claim is made that the gospel, letter, or whatever contains the teachings of and likely is attributed to a first-generation apostle.  Whether this is true or not, for example that Matthew actually wrote the Gospel of Matthew, is not the issue; authority hinges on whether the claim is made and has been accepted by the community not whether the claim is valid.

This brings me to a second qualifier for inclusion in the canon.  The writing must be widely acknowledged to be of apostolic origin and so authoritative.  All of the writings in the New Testament were accepted by a wide majority as authoritative at least by the end of the 4^th c.

Third, if the writing has authority for the Church then it should be expected that the writing was used liturgically by the early Christian communities.  Paul's letters to the churches, for example, were read as a part of later worship services much as we read Scriptures today.

Finally, the qualifier which caused the most distress in "closing" the Christian canon, the writing should have a theologically consistent outlook with the other accepted Christian writings.  Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, the 1st, 2nd and 3^rd letters of John, Jude and Revelation were the writings most questioned as to their apostolic origin and so authority.

Given the apostles lack of interest in establishing authority, the Christian Church reached its canon over about 300 years of assertions, debate, and judgment, writing by writing.

Some of the current books of the New Testament were included early and consistently, Paul's letters were circulated in collected form by the end of the 1^st c. and Justin Martyr, early in the 2^nd c., mentions the "memoirs of the apostles," or the "gospels," (as they were coming to be known) to have authority equal to the Torah.[2]  Remember Christianity was a Jewish movement before it was anything else.

As for these "gospels," the "gospel canon" is set at four now and it has been since late in the 2^nd c.  But as the question of the day makes clear there were more and before that even less than four, as different groups of Christians found authority for their beliefs in different writings.  Jewish Christians held to the importance of the Law in Matthew, but other groups had their own favorite for their own reasons.

One such group of Christians in the mid - 2^nd c. was a group of Gnostics led by a man named Marcion.  Marcion was so put off by the God of the Old Testament that he decided the God that Jesus talked about could not possibly be the same one.

Marcion was not big on the Jewish God but he was very taken with Paul.  Marcion came up with his own canon; it consisted of eleven books - the ten letters of Paul that Marcion knew about and one gospel, since Paul mentions a "gospel" at places in his letters.[3]

But this gospel had been corrupted by "false teachers," Marcion believed, and so Luke's gospel was accepted by Marcion and his followers only with references to the Jewish God and the Law edited out.[4]  Yet another group of Gnostic Christians led by Valentinus accepted only the authority of the mystical John.[5]  This gives an idea of only some of the variety of the day.

Ireneaus, the Bishop of Lyons in Gaul (present day France), put an end to all this speculation with a most peculiar assertion.  In Against Heresies, he says all these groups are wrong because "it is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer [than four]."[6]  His logic is, let's just say, interesting.  "For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, and while the Church is scattered throughout the world, and the pillar and ground of the Church is the Gospel . . . it is fitting that she should have four pillars."[7]  There you have it; the authority of Irenaeus (he was a very influential and popular spokesperson for Christianity against the Jews and pagans) was never challenged seriously and the canon closed with four gospels.

Paul's letters and the gospels aside, other writings were looked at more suspiciously.  Origen of Alexandria, recognized as the first theologian of the Christian Church, leaves off his list (canon) the epistles of James, 2^nd Peter, 2^nd and 3^rd John, but then includes the Shepherd of Hermas[8] - but in time it didn't make the cut either.

The debates continued thereafter over the more suspicious writings which in addition to Origen's list included for many Hebrews, Jude and Revelations.  It was, in fact, nearly three hundred years after they were written that we have our first record of the 27 books that make up the New Testament as it is today.  The year was 367 c.e.; the occasion was Athanasius' "Easter" letter to the Egyptian churches where he gave advice as to what writings should be read as scriptures in the churches.[9]

So the New Testament canon was all but "closed" in the practice of the Church by the 4^th c.  Still it was the mid-16^th c. at the Council of Trent before the Roman Catholic Church officially "closed" ranks around the New Testament.  The Church of England followed suit in the Thirty-Nine Articles 20 years later, and Protestant Calvinism finally did so in the Westminster Confession nearly a 100 years after that.

What took so long to make the canon official?  Low literacy of the people simply made it unnecessary.  The Church as early as the 5^th c. had settled the matter for all practical purposes.  As one scholar said of the canon list given by Pope Innocent I to the churches in the early 5^th c., they were not defining something new but "ratifying what had already become the mind of the Church."[10]

But the modern mind, mine anyway, is troubled by an all too obvious question:  What do we make of the authoritative claims of ancient people that accepted four "gospels," no more and no less, because of the reasons Irenaeus gives?  Four zones, four winds - the gospel is the pillar of the Church.  The church has four pillars - must be four gospels.  Next week we consider whether the Christian canon is really closed as the witness to Christ's arrival in God's name or if "there is yet more light and truth to break forth" in perhaps unexpected places and ways? 

This is how I see it one week before I have to take a side.   Amen.