These things write I unto you, hoping to come unto you shortly: But if I tarry long, that you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
(1Tim 3:14-15)
Introduction
There is a well-known quote by St Augustine: ab aversario mota quaestio discendendi existit occasio (A question moved by an adversary brings an occasion for learning).[1]It applies somewhat to the history of Sacred Scripture. This may not seem obvious, but evidence for the formation of the Christian Canon of Scripture is persecution. To give you but one example.[2] On February 24, 303, the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued his Edict against the Christians.[3] Among other persecutions against Christians, Diocletian ordered the destruction of their scriptures and liturgical books across the entire Empire.[4] There are two things to note here. The first, is that the Christian Scriptures were known to Roman authorities, and were sufficient evidence of guilt for the crime of Christianity. Whatever texts may have been considered Christan Scripture, the authorities were aware that Christians had their scriptures. The second, and one that is more noteworthy for us, is that those Christians, when the imperial police came knocking at the door, had to have a clear idea about which of their books they could surrender; and which, in conscience, they could not. Whether handing over the Gospel of John would incur the sin of sacrilege whilst surrendering a copy of the Gospel of Thomas[5] would be a minor inconvenience. It is probable, based on this example, that a Christian canon did exist and that it was widely known even to the pagan Roman authorities.
It is easy to imagine a more streamlined way for us to arrive at the writing and formation of the NT than the one we have. It would have been much simpler if the Lord had left us with explicit instructions about what the NT should be, who should write it and what it should contain. None of these instructions appear anywhere. Leaving aside some of the issues raised by having an official list of instructions, we are still left wondering: why is the formation of Sacred Scripture so seemingly lacking in explicit directions? The Lord was categorical in many things- e.g., the deliberate choice of the Twelve Apostles, the handing of the keys to Peter, the institution of the Eucharist- but Sacred Scripture, without the eyes of faith, seems like something left up to chance and ecclesiastical second guessing. However, before we despair too much, there is a question about the formation of Scripture that we must at least attempt to answer: why did it take so long to form the Christian Scriptures? In order to answer this question, I am going to argue that not only is there much wisdom in Scripture, there is also much wisdom in the way it was formed. We will dedicate this month’s essay to understanding how this wisdom informs the Church and what lessons it teaches us. It will serve as the basis for our answer to our last question: how did the Church come to recognise and distinguish Her scriptures from other Christian literature?
Scripture and Time
There is one feature of the formation of the canon that cannot be denied: it required a certain amount of time. It took some time before the first books of the NT were written. It took more time before they were recognised as Scripture. And it took a good deal more time before the Christian Canon was finally settled. There are some critics who argue that these time intervals make it more likely for errors to creep in. Their criticisms raise some interesting questions, that when addressed, shed light on the truths of our faith[6]. The question I will address now, is why it took some time before the canon of the Bible was settled in the Christian Church.
From the evidence contained within Scripture itself, some NT writings were already forming the basis of a NT canon while the books themselves were being written (Col 4:16; 1 Thess 5:27). It is certainly possible that Paul considered Luke’s writings to have an authority equal to that of the OT (1 Tim 5:18; cf Deut 25:4, Luke 10:7). It can also be argued that Peter recognized Paul’s writings as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). There is early evidence in the Apostolic Fathers[7] about the emergence of a certain kind of canon. Clement of Rome[8] mentioned at least 8 NT books as being scriptural (A.D. 95). Polycarp[9], a disciple of John the Apostle, acknowledged 15 books (A.D. 108). Ignatius of Antioch[10] acknowledged about 7 books (A.D. 115). Later, Irenaeus[11] mentioned 21 books (A.D. 185). Hippolytus[12] recognized 22 books (A.D. 170-235).
The first time an official canon is ever mentioned is the Muratorian Canon.[13] Compiled in AD 170, the Muratorian Canon included all of the NT books except Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John. It was at the Council of Laodicea (AD 363) that only the OT and 26 books of the NT (excluding Revelation) were declared canonical and could be liturgically read in the Church. The canon of Scripture was affirmed by the Council of Rome (AD 382), the Synod of Hippo (AD 393), two of the Councils of Carthage (AD 397 and 419), the Council of Florence (AD 1431–1449) and finally, as a dogmatic article of faith, by the Council of Trent (AD 1545–1563). Those councils established the Catholic biblical canon consisting of 46 books in the OT and 27 books in the NT for a total of 73 books.[14] All these dates are after the persecution of Diocletian. What is clear is that even at the time of the Council of Rome in 382, Christians were already forming the idea of a canon of Scripture as distinct form other Christian literature of the time. This was not something that was invented in AD 382. Clearly Christians had a biblical tradition well before they had a dogmatic declaration about the bible. The next question we need to ask is: what is this tradition and what does it teach us?
Scripture and Tradition
Scripture is a work of Tradition. And Tradition, in so far as it is a thing, is both doctrinal content and doctrinal process- tradition is both the content which has been handed on and the process which hands on that content. Generally, when Catholics refer to Sacred Tradition, they are referencing those teachings that are not contained directly in Scripture- Our Blessed Mother’s Perpetual Virginity, the Assumption etc. As these doctrines are not revealed in Scripture and therefore stand outside Scripture it is possible to imagine that they are in some way in conflict or at least in competition with Scripture. This is false. The idea that there is some conflict between written revelation and oral teaching is an error invented by Protestantism. This falsehood was clearly refuted by St. Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians long before the errors of Luther: Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle (2 Thess 2:15). The reason why there is no conflict, is that St Paul is clearly teaching that Scripture itself is a work of the Tradition. Scripture is not a rival to Tradition- it is its fruit. And as I am about to argue, it is a first fruit of the Tradition.
As Catholics, we know that Tradition is an essential element of our faith. Without Tradition, Christianity makes no sense. The risen Lord only spent forty days with his apostles and disciples. That is not enough time to teach them everything they would need to know and that we would need to believe. He also left us before all that they needed to teach was actually historical. And everything that the Lord handed to the Apostles in those forty days would have been oral teachings- the Lord left no written instructions. The Lord had to hand on not only the fullness of truth, but some means to ensure that this fullness unfailingly reached not only His first disciples, but each subsequent generation that followed. There needed to be some mechanism that allowed for the Church to decide, declare and teach those things that needed clarification. And that mechanism had to be an extension of the Lords own authority: He that hears you hears me; and he that despises you despises me; and he that despises me despises him that sent me (Luke 10:16). Our exploration of Sacred Tradition is an attempt at understanding what our faith proposes: Fides quaerens intellectum[15]. Sacred Tradition is not an accidental or temporary quirk of what happened in first-century Jerusalem; rather Tradition is a pillar of the Faith that is directly willed by God that we must embrace.
Scripture as a work of Tradition is not simply a record of Christian teaching. Scripture, although catechetical, is not a catechism. Scripture is the presence of God in written word. In this sense, Scripture is analogous to the incarnation of the Lord; both embody the Logos in physical form. And similarly, both are processes that took time. The Lord was conceived (Lk 1:31), born of a Virgin (Lk 1:27), grew up in the wisdom and favour of men (Lk 2:52), and then began to preach, teach and heal the people of Israel (Mt 4:23). There are several passages of time in the Lord’s life. It could be argued that His hidden years, those years He spent living and working in Nazareth before His public life, was time poorly spent. Why spend so much time hidden away from the world you came to save? One can also make the same criticism of the thousands of years between the fall of Adam and the coming of the Lord: why wait so long to redeem a people that you love? We can make the same criticism about Scripture and the time it took before it was settled across the Christian Church: why wait so long to form one of the pillars of the Faith? However, our Lord’s hidden years were a process, so too were the years of his public life, and so too is the time period for the formation of the Christian Canon. This process, this coming into being, is the foundation for how we are to understand the Church’s Sacred Tradition as process. The question that still remains to be answered is: why is a process necessary and what purpose does it serve?
Scripture and the Face of God
Most Christians are familiar with the story of the Golden Calf (Ex 32: 1-7). Moses had been instructed by the Lord to go up to the summit of Mt Sinai in order to receive the content of the covenant. Moses left the people for forty days and nights. During his absence, they rebelled against God and made for themselves an idol in the likeness of a bull that they believed to be an image of the God they worshipped. When Moses came down the mountain, seeing their infidelity, destroyed the two stone tablets with the law and set about punishing the people for their idolatry. However, most Christians are not familiar with what happens next.
After these events, Moses engages in a prolonged conversation with the Lord in the tabernacle. During this conversation Moses askes to see the face of God. The Lord God replies:
And he said, you cannot see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and will cover you with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back: but my face shall not be seen. (Ex 33: 20-23)
I think it is clear from the text that Moses’s request to see God’s face is in some way connected to the people’s infidelity- the people wanted to have some physical manifestation of God. And then Moses asks God to see what He really looks like. But God refuses. This refusal, given the sinful context from which the request arises, is understandable. But why does God allow Moses to see His back and not His face? The answer is not immediately clear from the text. Some scholars argue that to see God’s face would be misleading, for any ‘face’ would anthropomorphise God and thus distort who He is. It would give to Moses a ‘false picture’ of who God was. That is certainly an interesting idea. However, God did not withhold His ‘voice’ from Moses- and surely God’s voice could be misleading too. God thought it appropriate enough that Moses should hear certain truths in a human voice- why not experience a certain kind of intimacy with God through a face-to-face meeting? And surely, seeing God’s back is no less misleading. If God’s person could not be captured in seeing His face, how is seeing His back any better or less misleading, if this were the only reason.
The Exodus story leads us to consider some of the post-Resurrection stories found in the NT. The first of which is the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24: 13-31). In that story, two of the Lord’s disciples on the day of the Resurrection are on the road travelling from Jerusalem to Emmaus when they encounter the Lord. However, even though they see the Lord’s face, they do not recognise Him (Lk 24:16). Now, these two disciples clearly know who Jesus is and all the events concerning him (Lk 24: 19-20). And the fact that they are disciples means that they should recognise Him immediately (Lk 24:21). But they do not. The text in Luke’s Gospel does not explain why they do not recognise Him. A similar scenario is the Lord’s appearance to Mary Magdalene at the tomb (Jn 24:14-17). She too, of all people, should have been able to recognise the Lord. But she cannot. The Scriptures do not explain why these followers of the Lord are unable to recognise Him, even though they see His face. A further aspect that deepens this mystery, is the question of why the Scribes and Pharisees- the religious authority of the time- were not able to recognise Jesus as the Messiah. Of all those who should recognise the Lord as the Holy One of God, it should be the legitimate authorities of the religion that the Lord God Himself had established to foretell of His coming. But they too cannot. Why are they not able to see and recognise the face of God? Why is the face of God kept from all of them? And what has this got to do with the idea that Tradition and the formation of the Christian canon was a process that necessitated so much time.
Scripture and Faith
The virtue of faith is generally thought of as the intellectual assent we give to those doctrines the Church teaches in the Nicene Creed: the Incarnation, the Resurrection, our final judgement etc. We tend to think of faith in terms of belief. And we think of belief in terms of an intellectual understanding of those truths. However, there is an aspect of our faith that is oftentimes neglected: the theological virtue of faith is an act of the intellect that is moved by an act of the will. Theological faith is a free gift of God’s grace that requires the cooperation of the entire person. Or as Scripture itself describes it: with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength (Mark12:30). The origins of this virtue lie in God Himself; and not in any unaided efforts on our part. God is both the origin of faith and its object. The theological virtue of faith is not just about the truth we understand, it is also about the good we desire. Let me explain.
St. Thomas, when he asks the question about whether faith is a virtue[16], makes an interesting observation: if faith is a virtue, then for it to be virtuous, it must involve both the intellect and the will[17]. For any act to be virtuous, it must tend to some good. For example, if I want to practice the virtue of courage, then I must do the right thing despite the danger. Now, when it comes to faith, if I want to be faithful, then I must clearly hold those doctrines that Christianity teaches as true. But if I only do that, then as Paul says: and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor 13:2). If faith is to be a virtue, then it must contribute to the perfecting of both the intellect and the will: it cannot simply enlighten my understanding; it must also quicken my desire. As a Christian, not only must I accept the truth of things revealed, I must also will their good as well. My faith must be a living faith. Or as Aquinas calls it: formed faith. Aquinas is teaching the same thing that St Paul teaches: that in order for me to be justified by faith (redeemed), then my intellect must accept the truth as it has been revealed and my will must be directed to the good, which is revealed to me as beatitude (the proper end of human life). Now, this teaching about the virtue of faith, informs our understanding of both Tradition as process and why it took some time for the canon of Scripture to be settled.
In order to will the good, to truly desire it, is a process that takes time. Before I can love something, I must know what it is. And before I can know what it is I must have some experience of it. I cannot truly love what I do not know. And I cannot know what I have not experienced. When I say that I love speaking French, what I am saying is that I have had an experience of the French language that I then came to know (learn); and as I learned to speak French, I then came to love speaking French. This process, the learning to love something, takes time: experience, knowledge, and desire. This is a very simple example, but one which sheds some light on why Sacred Tradition in the Church is also a process. And why this process takes time. Before we can will the good, there must be knowledge, and before there can be knowledge there must be experience. This process is part of human nature that the Grace of Almighty God elevates into a means of our redemption. Let us now return to our stories of Moses, the two disciples, and Mary Magdalene to see how this all comes together.
When the two disciples on the road to Emmaus do not recognise Jesus, when Mary Magdalene cannot recognise his face at the tomb, the religious authorities are unable to recognise the Messiah and Moses’s request to see God’s face is refused- all of these moments speak to the idea that faith is not only about what you know- what you might recognise, see or understand to be true or to be the case; it is also about the good that you must will- that which you love, what you desire and that to which you must cling.
When we are talking about Moses or Mary Magdalene or the two disciples, we are in the realm of story. I do not mean that they are made up- that they are untrue- rather these are stories that are expressing truths that cannot be captured in mere propositions. In order for me to understand that faith is not the mere intellectual decision as to whether or not I believe something proposed to me is true, rather my will must be engaged and I must truly desire the good of the thing that has been revealed as well. I can express that as a series of propositions, or I can tell the story of Mary at the tomb. In John’s account, when Mary recognises the Lord at the saying of her name, something is not only revealed to her intellect- that she recognises the Lord’s face and she now understands that the Lord is truly risen- rather her will is quickened and that she is required to cling to Him in supernatural charity. In the story of Mary, this idea is underscored by the words of Jesus: noli me tangere (touch me not) (Jn 20:17). These are not the words of the Lord turning her away, as though He were offended by her touch, rather they are a teaching that she must not cling to the figure (face) she sees and now recognises in front of her, rather she must will her proper end- the good of her final beatitude: for I am not yet ascended to my Father (Jn 20:17). The thing that she is called to love.[18] The same idea is apropos of the two disciples. Not only must they have explained to them how all the Scriptures foretell of the coming, death and resurrection of the Lord (Luke 24:27); their hearts must burn within them as they walked once more with God along the way (Luke 24:32). All of these stories are a revelation of the fact that faith, true faith, is not just understanding in the intellect, it is also supernatural charity of the will. And charity, as well as genuine understanding, is not the work of a mere moment, it is the work of a lifetime. It is in fact, the work of several lifetimes. It is a process that requires time.
Question 3: How did the Church recognise the canonical writings of Scripture from other Christian literature
This very process is what guides the formation of the Christian canon. Tradition is what allows the Church to distinguish Her Scripture from other Christian literature. If the Church were to have a set of instructions about the books of Scripture dictated by the Lord or the Apostles- to see the face of God– it indeed would be a simpler system. But the Church would not have had the same opportunity to desire and act out the good that was contained within them. To have merely been instructed would mean that the intellect would have its truth, but the will would not have its good. The Church had to learn and perfect Her First Virtue (Habit): to have the mind of Christ (Philip 2:5); which means to love as He loved and to know as He knows. This is the Tradition of the Church as we understand it as process.
In the material history of the Church, this process of Tradition- this coming to both know and love the books of Scripture- took place with the context of Her liturgy: Scripture is formed by the practice of its use as readings in the sacrifice of the Mass. The oldest account that we have of this practice during the Roman Mass is given to us by St Justin the Martyr (died c. 165), in chapter 67 of his First Apology[19]:
On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.
The origins of this practice, scholars tell us, lie in the liturgy of contemporary Jewish synagogues and the influence of Near-Eastern Suzerainty.[20] But the Christian practice is also grounded in the actions of the Lord. When the Lord began his public life, as recorded in Luke 4:16–21, Jesus read from Isaiah 61:1–2. In terms that are familiar to us, this was the proclamation of the beginning of a new treaty between God, who is speaking, and the people of God who are listening. Our Lord’s public life begin with a proclamation of a new kingdom and a new covenant with his people. But in order for that covenant to take effect, we not only had to know its terms, we had to act them out as well.
Tradition, as the First Virtue of the Church, must imitate the Faith She is required to possess: Consequently, if the act of faith is to be perfect, there needs to be a habit in the will as well as in the intellect, as St. Thomas teaches[21]. And the way we come to perfecting the will, is to act out those things that the Lord has taught. And that is a process that takes time. We must live out the truths of the faith, we cannot simply reason our way to its conclusions. This is why the Lord says: Do this in memory of me. It is why the Lord tells us to go and sell everything we have and give it to the poor (Mt 19:21), even though the poor you will always have with you (Mt 26:11). It is why some things are revealed in a moment (Lk 4:21) and others are revealed as we come and follow Him (Mt 4:19). The truths of the faith must not only be known, they must be loved. And we learn to love them as the will acts them out. And in the formation of the Christian canon, this was acted out when the readings were proclaimed during the sacrifice of Holy Mass.
Conclusion
Christianity, although extremely rational is not exclusively rational. We are not required to reason our way through its truths to reach our own conclusions. It is not a religion of the elect. Rather we are to live into those truths and act them out so that the will may be perfected and the intellect enlightened. This is why the First Habit of the Church- to have the mind of Christ– must imitate precisely the faith She is called to possess. And this is why the Tradition of the Church is both content to enlighten Her intellect, but it is also process that must perfect Her will. In terms of our discussion about Sacred Scripture, in order of the Church to both write and recognise Her scriptures She had to live into those truths by acting them out in Her liturgy, in Her teaching and in Her works of charity. This is why the celebration of Holy Mass- Do this in memory of me– became that privileged place where that truth was lived and Sacred Scripture was loved. There is a unique relationship between the Word of God in written form and the Word of God in sacramental form- both must act out the Divine content of the truth they contain.
In the articles that follow, we will delve a little more deeply into the idea that the Tradition of the Church, if it is to be fully embraced by us, must engage the will as much as it must engage the intellect. This is why, despite efforts over the last several decades of reforming our schools, universities and catechetical instruction they have not brought about the renewal we so desperately need. Our efforts of ‘orthodoxy alone’ as reform of the intellect has led us down a path that cannot take us all the way, without us also reforming our will and acting out the truths we hold so dear.
[1] De civ Dei 2, I
[2] Another example that is often cited is Marcion of Sinope. He was, in circa 140, the first Christian leader of whom we have a record, to define a uniquely Christian canon (Metzger, Bruce M. (13 March 1997). The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance. Oxford University Press.) It included 10 epistles from Paul, as well as an edited version of the Gospel of Luke, which today is known as the Gospel of Marcion. Marcion was later declared to be a heretic. It is argued that after Marcion, the Christian Church began to divide texts into those that aligned well with established orthodoxy and those that were heretical. However, this would not explain the formation of the canon alone, as many of the texts that were excluded were not heretical, such as the writings of the Apostolic Father etc. The canon of the Bible, although a rule of faith and a pilar of right doctrine, was not decided along the simple lines of division between heresy and orthodoxy alone.
[3] Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 22; Clarke, 650; Potter, 337; de Ste Croix, “Aspects”, 75; Williams, 176.
[4] Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 8.2.4; De Martyribus Palestinae praef. 1; and Optatus, Appendix 2; Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 22; Clarke, 650; Liebeschuetz, 249–50; Potter, 337; de Ste Croix, “Aspects”, 75.
[5] The Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas) is a non-canonical sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars place the composition during the second century.
[6] One of the most obvious criticisms is that time would corrupt the integrity of the NT text. Parts of the NT have been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work, having over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian. The dates of these manuscripts range from c. 125 (the John Rylands manuscript, P52; oldest copy of John fragments) to the introduction of printing in Germany in the 15th century. When comparing one manuscript to another, with the exception of the smallest fragments, no two copies agree completely throughout. There has been an estimate of 400,000 variations among all these manuscripts (from the 2nd to 15th century) which is more than there are words in the New Testament. This is less significant than may appear since it is a comparison across linguistic boundaries. More important estimates focus on comparing texts within languages. Those variations are considerably fewer. The vast majority of these are accidental errors made by scribes, and are easily identified as such: an omitted word, a duplicate line, a misspelling, a rearrangement of words. None of the estimated 400,000 differences between texts actually impact the meaning of Christian Revelation in any way shape or form. Nothing moral or dogmatic depends on these differences.
[7] The Apostolic Fathers, also known as the Ante-Nicene Fathers, were foundational theologians among the Church Fathers who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD who are believed to have personally known some of the Twelve Apostles or to have been significantly influenced by them. Their writings, though widely circulated in early Christianity, were not included in the canon of the New Testament. Many of the writings derive from the same time period and geographical location as other works of early Christian literature which came to be part of the New Testament.
[8] Clement of Rome (Ancient Greek: Κλήμης Ῥώμης), died c. 100 AD. Also known as Pope Clement I, was the Bishop of Rome in the late first century AD. He is considered to be the first of the Apostolic Fathers of the Church.
[9] Polycarp (AD 69 – 155) was a Christian bishop of Smyrna. According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire failed to consume his body. Both Irenaeus and Tertullian say that Polycarp had been a disciple of John the Apostle, one of Jesus’s disciples. In On Illustrious Men, Jerome similarly writes that Polycarp was a disciple of John the Apostle, who had ordained him as a bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp is regarded as one of three chief Apostolic Fathers, along with Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch.
[10] Ignatius of Antioch (died c. 108/140, also known as Ἰγνάτιος ὁ Θεοφόρος: ‘the God-bearing’), was an early Christian writer and Patriarch of Antioch. While en route to Rome, where he met his martyrdom, Ignatius wrote a series of letters. This correspondence forms a central part of a later collection of works by the Apostolic Fathers.
[11] Irenaeus (c. 130 – c. 202 AD) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by opposing Gnostic interpretations of Christian Scripture and defining the true faith. Originating from Smyrna, he had seen and heard the preaching of Polycarp, who in turn was said to have heard John the Evangelist.
[12] Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170 – c. 235 AD) was a Bishop of Rome and one of the most important second–third centuries Christian theologians, whose provenance, identity and corpus remain elusive to scholars and historians. Suggested communities include Rome, Palestine, Egypt, Anatolia and other regions of the Middle East.
[13] The Muratorian fragment, also known as the Muratorian Canon, is a copy of perhaps the oldest known list of most of the books of the New Testament. The fragment, consisting of 85 lines, is a Latin manuscript bound in a roughly 8th-century codex from the library of Columbanus’s monastery at Bobbio Abbey; it contains features suggesting it is a translation from a Greek original written in the late 2nd century (c. 170–200).
[14] Rüger, Hans Peter (July 1989). “The Extent of the Old Testament Canon”. The Bible Translator. 40(3): 301–308
[15] Faith seeking intelligence. St Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion.
[16] ST II-II, q. 4, art 5
[17] In ST II-II, q. 4, art 8, St Thomas makes a comment about the epistemological warrant for belief: are we justified in calling faith knowledge? In his answer, Thomas argues that faith falls somewhere between knowledge and opinion. On one hand, because God Himself vouchsafes for the truth of the content of faith, no knowledge can be more certain. Conversely, as it is known by us, since God is beyond the human intellect and therefore cannot be contained perfectly within the human intellect, we cannot strictly call faith, knowledge. And so, the will must move the intellect to assent to the truth, because the will desires the good that has been revealed. When we say that we believe we are saying that the will moves the intellect to assent to the propositions of the faith because of the will’s love of and desire for God’s goodness. There is a very good discussion of this idea in Aquinas Stump, Eleonore (2003). Aquinas. New York: Routledge, pgs. 361-388.
[18] Noli me tangere is a famous line from the Latin Vulgate translation that has been captured in art around the world. There is one representation of this biblical image that I can highly recommend. In the Angelicum University in Rome, there is a statue in the main chapel Santi Domenico e Sisto of this scene. Many times, the scene is depicted with the Lord moving away or even recoiling from the Magdalene. In this statue, sculpted by the Italian genius Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the Lord is actually moving forward with his feet pointed towards Mary. This marvellous work captures, I think, the meaning of John’s story: that the Lord is not reviled by her presence, but is in in fact moving towards her, so that He might lift her up to a higher level of supernatural charity. That she must learn to cling to Him in beatitude, for that is her proper end and the one she must learn to desire; and not to cling humanly to the face (figure) she can see in front of her.
[19] Justin Martyr, First Apology §LXVII
[20] Duschesne, L. Christian Worship: its Origin and Evolution (1912 ed.). London.
[21] ST II-II, q. 4, art 2