The Making of the New TestamentBacon, Benjamin Wisner
Religion
The Making of the New Testament
Bacon, Benjamin Wisner
Bible. New Testament -- Introductions
of the Holy Ghost." Similarly the author of the Pastoral Epistles
(90-100?) holds the "pattern of sound words" heard from Paul as a
"sacred deposit," which is "guarded," rather than revealed, "by the Holy
Spirit." The "sound words" in question are defined to be "the words of
our Lord Jesus Christ." These, taken together with "the doctrine which
is according to godliness," fix the standard of orthodoxy. To "Jude"
(100-110?) the faith is something "once for all delivered to the
saints." His message is: "Remember, beloved, the words spoken before by
the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." Authority increases, the sense
of the revealing Spirit decreases.
It is long before the sense of present inspiration, both in word and
work is lost; still longer before the recorded precepts of Jesus, the
exhortations and directions of apostles, the visions of "prophets," come
to take their place alongside the Bible of the synagogue as "writings of
the new covenant." Melito of Sardis (_c._ 170) is the first to use this
expression, and even in his case it does not bear the sense of a canon
with definite limits. Tertullian (200-210) is the first to place a
definite "New Testament" over against the Old. We must glance at some of
the intermediate steps to appreciate this gradual process of
canonization.
At first there is no other 'Scripture' than the synagogue's. Clement of
Rome (95) still uses only the Law and the Prophets (including certain
apocrypha now lost) as his Bible. He refers to the precepts of Jesus
(quoted as in Acts XX. 35 from oral tradition), with the same sense as
Paul of their paramount authority, and bids the Corinthians whom he
addresses give heed to what the blessed Apostle Paul had written to them
"in the beginning of the gospel service," to warn them against
factiousness. Nor has Clement yet lost the sense of direct inspiration;
for he attaches to his own epistle, written in behalf of the church at
Rome, the same superhuman authority claimed in Acts XV. 28 for the
letter sent by the church at Jerusalem. If the Corinthians disregard the
"words spoken by God through us" they will "incur no slight
transgression and danger," for these warnings of a sister church are
uttered in the name and by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Still, Clement
does not dream of comparing his authority, even when he writes as agent
of the church, with that of "the oracles of the teaching of God," the
"sacred Scriptures," the "Scriptures which are true, which were given
through the Holy Ghost, wherein is written nothing unrighteous or
counterfeit." He does not even rank his own authority with that of "the
good apostles, Peter and Paul."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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