www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Communion With Peter Thru Rome Alone

Dear LT,

Did you mean "trite?"

Certainly, the books of the OT/NT Canon canonized by Trent are contained in the local Scriptural Canons of the Eastern Churches.

But others are added from Local Usage from ancient times, much like the deuterocanonical scriptures used by both East and West, especially with respect to feasts etc.

For example, what we know of St Andrew's martyrdom comes from a deuterocanonical book on his life etc.

The RC Church has never condemned these or their use.

In fact, without them the RC Church wouldn't have several feasts it celebrates.

Alex

Thanks for the replies, Fr. Thomas and Alex.

It's just kind of difficult to get my head around this. As you know, we Protestant types really love (read: worship-bordering-on-blasphemy!) our Scriptures.

Logos Teen

Dear Teen Logo,

In fact, during the 19th century, there was a movement among Anglicans to petition Canterbury to officially include the deuterocanonical "Letter of Christ" into the King James New Testament!

These are letters, one of them the Letter from Christ that the Armenian Church especially honours.

King Abgar was losing his sight and wrote to Christ to come to Edessa to cure him - and to stay with him as his Guest, since, as the king wrote, he heard they weren't treating Him well in Jerusalem and vicinity . . .

Christ wrote back and told him that was impossible but that He would later send His disciple to cure him (St Jude Thaddeus, as it turned out).

Anglicans developed a great devotion to this letter and to the Holy Mandylion with the Face of Christ - since this is what St Jude brought with him to Edessa to cure the king with.

They would often have a framed picture of the Face of Christ in their homes with a framed picture of the English translation of the correspondence (and the text can be found on the noncanonical homepage).

They wrote petitions to their Archbishop to declare it canonical scripture.

In addition, Martin Luther himself accepted a diminished canon of the New Testament, especially rejecting as inspired the Letter of James with its mention of "justified by works, and not by faith alone."

In fact, Luther's "faith alone" is only mentioned once in the NT books - and that only by way of refutation (James 2:24).

So even Protestants, at various times, wished to either take away, or add to the New Testament Canon.

Alex

Thank you, I would appreciate it. A net search turned up very little.



Interesting, I hadn't thought of this. Yet did the Copts have the same Canon prior to this failed reunion or was their canon brought into line with Rome's?



Yes, and he continued to quote the deuteros as Scripture. However, there is no evidence that he changed his views on the canonicity of the deuteros as can be seen from later OT commentaries of his.

Yep. This is the enigma. It would seem that some of the Fathers had a different canon in theory than they did in practice. Just about every Father I know of who can be cited as having rejected or questioned the canonicity of the deuteros did this. None of them to my knowledge ever denied the inpiration of the deuteros.

This sounds like one of the so-called Infancy Gospels. It has been awhile since I last read them. Which one is this from? Thomas? There may be truth in these pseudographical works, but there is much fiction as well. Dividing to two has proven to be impossible, particularly since most were written quite late. Entertaining and in parts eddifying they certainly are. I myself particularly like the scene from the end of Pseudo-Matthew where the Holy Family gathers together:

And Joseph having come to a feast with his sons, James, Joseph, and Judah, and Simeon and his two daughters, Jesus met them, with Mary His mother, along with her sister Mary of Cleophas, whom the Lord God had given to her father Cleophas and her mother Anna, because they had offered Mary the mother of Jesus to the Lord. And she was called by the same name, Mary, for the consolation of her parents. And when they had come together, Jesus sanctified and blessed them, and He was the first to begin to eat and drink; for none of them dared to eat or drink, or to sit at table, or to break bread, until He had sanctified them, and first done so. And if He happened to be absent, they used to wait until He should do this. And when He did not wish to come for refreshment, neither Joseph nor Mary, nor the sons of Joseph, His brothers, came. And, indeed, these brothers, keeping His life as a lamp before their eyes, observed Him, and feared Him. And when Jesus slept, whether by day or by night, the brightness of God shone upon Him. To whom be all praise and glory for ever and ever. Amen, amen.

No doubt the Holy Family did gather together as depicted here, but this doesn't mean that Pseudo-Matthew or any of the other Infancy Gospels are inspired and canonical. They can witness to Tradition, but can also spin quite the yarn...



Agreed. As far as the pseudographical ones go, they too can be enriching although the Gnostic ones are weird.

"Petition"? Hmm...I won't say more. At any rate, this is one of my favorite of these works! It's short and sweet and touching. Besides, wouldn't it be great to have any of the letters Christ may have written? I mean this not only from the perspective of faith, but also of history.