I have given them your word… (Jn 17:14)
Introduction
The fact that Christianity has a Bible, is to the modern mind, a most unremarkable fact. The two seem to go hand in glove. So much so, that we could not imagine Christianity without it. Yet, none of our feelings about the appropriateness of Christianity and its scriptures sheds any light on why there should be such a thing as the Christian Scriptures. I might think it right; indeed, it might even be right, but this does explain why it is right. Christians take the reality of Scripture as a given. In fact, it seems completely obvious to us that a religion- any religion- should have its holy book. A religion without a religious text would seem incomplete. Religion and the written word are synonymous. However, despite our association of the two realities, it is far from obvious why they should be. For most of human history, most people were illiterate. To what end would a religious text serve a religious purpose amongst a population that could not read? Historically, the idea that a religion should have a holy text seems most improbable. Even at the height of the Roman Empire, it was thought that literacy rates were around 10-15%.[1] This would have varied by time and place; but the average remained low. Specifically, even literacy rates in first-century Roman Palestine are also estimated as being low.[2]
However, for a people to know the contents of a written text did not require that everyone be literate. It required that at least one member of the community be so in order to read the text to the others. This state of affairs would have influenced the nature of the religious community that emerged from it. Firstly, it would require a community of trust. Those members who could not read, had to rely on the one who could that he was not misleading them. It also meant that the person who could read occupied a place of trust and responsibility and therefore would occupy a place of authority. It would also necessitate certain community practices. For example, someone had to be selected from the community to read, and thus a certain kind of tradition would be passed down from literate member to literate member. Trust and authority would play a foundational role in a religious society of largely illiterate people that possessed a written text. This would have given a natural and hierarchical structure to the religion- whatever its doctrines were. However, this fact alone does not explain why Christians would bother to write down the deeds and sayings of Jesus.
The question as to why the Christians began to write down the words and sayings of Jesus is answered from within the context of the tradition which they had inherited form the Jews- God’s covenant must be recorded in writing (Ex 34:27). The next question to ask is: what made them stop writing things down? Or, in terms of where our discission has brought us- how did they know that revelation was complete and had been sufficiently captured in the scriptures that had been written? The answer is not obvious. But it is important, as it lays the foundation for many other vexing questions that the Church will have to answer throughout her history, including our present day. Where is the line between “new revelation” and the development of doctrine? How do we distinguish between truth and heresy? How do we distinguish between the “traditions of men” (cf Matt 15:3,6-9; Col 2:8) and the Tradition of God (cf 2 Thes 2:15)? The one philosophical question that seems to plague all religions, including Catholicism, is how do we know that the doctrines we profess are the doctrines that have been revealed? And this question must be answered, even before we decide that what is revealed is actually true.
The above questions, in some form or another, belong to the philosophy of religion. But they are far from mere academic curiosities. We want to know whether our religion- which is an attempt at explaining the world- actually makes sense. Not just of the world- but of itself.
Question 2: Did the authors of the NT consider their writings to be Scripture?
Last month, we gave an answer to the question as to where the idea for a New Testament came. This month we want to ask the next logical question: did the writers of the New Testament understand that they were adding to the OT Scriptures? At the heart of this question lies the problem of authority. The idea of writing down the new covenant emerged from within the context of the Jewish tradition from which Christianity emerged. However, this does not explain who should write things down, as no one person was charged with the responsibility for doing so. Unlike the OT, where Moses and the prophets were commanded by God to write down His words, there is no evidence of the Lord ever doing so.
When we ask whether the writers of the NT knew they were adding to the Scriptures, we are asking what they understood about their own authority. This question would be much more easily answered if only the Apostles were NT authors. However, we have Mark who was a disciple of Peter; and Luke who was most likely a Hellenised Jew and covert to the Christian faith.[3] I won’t have the time or space to go through each NT author in order to determine what sense of his authority he had. What we will do, is concentrate on Paul. Not only because he is author of almost one quarter of the NT, but also because he was not one of the original Twelve even though he is one of the Apostles. These facts will help to shed much light on the Church’s understanding of authority and how it plays out in the formation of the NT.
The question of authority
There is a current in modern biblical scholarship that asserts that the NT authors were not aware of their own authority.[4] Or if they were, only in a very limited kind of way.[5] This position is problematic, because it reduces the NT Scriptures to an afterthought. The Christian Bible would be a good idea that occurred to someone to compose. This idea seriously undermines the NT’s claim to authority and leaves an important question unanswered: where does the authority of Scripture lie? If the Apostles and those who wrote the Scriptures were unaware of their own authority, who was able to decide that these writings were scripture and using what criteria?[6] If the NT authors were unaware of their authority and the purpose of their writings, we would end up with a Bible by accident.
However, it would seem from the existent evidence, that the authors unlikely had the idea of a NT canon with 27 books. But this does not mean they did not understand their writings to be Scripture. The idea that the NT authors had no or even a very limited understanding of their own authority, must account for the evidence that lies within the NT writings themselves.
The Authority of Paul
Paul was very clear in his writings that he understood that he was preaching the Word of God: “You received the word of God, which you heard from us, and accepted it not as the words of men but as what it really is, the word of God” (1 Thes 2:13). In the phrase “word of God” (λόγον θεοῦ) Paul is referencing the origins of what he is teaching. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul makes the specific claim that what he teaches comes directly from the Lord: “For I would have you know that the gospel which was preached by me, is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:11-12). Paul is emphatic that what he preaches is not something made up in the minds of men, rather it is an express instruction from God Himself: “The things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Cor 14:37). He also makes no distinction between what he writes and what he taught orally: “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 Thes 2:15).
Paul was clearly aware of his own authority. And he was clearly aware that his letters were written with authority. But that claim does not make him autorotative. Many people in the Church, both in the apostolic age and in our present one, believe themselves to be authorities because of what they think. This does not make it so. So, why are Paul’s claims considered legitimate and how did the other Apostles come to accept his authority?
Peter acknowledges Paul’s authority and considers his letters to be part of Scripture: “even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable twist, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Pet 3:15-16). The question of course is, why? How did Peter and the other Apostles come to accept the authority of Paul (Gal 2:9)- the authority of a man who had spent much of his adult life persecuting the nascent Christian religion (1 Cor 15:9)?
The Acts of the Apostles recounts the story of Paul’s conversion:
And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come near unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ And I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said unto me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.’ And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spoke to me. And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said unto me, ‘Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told you all things which are appointed for you to do.’ (Acts 10: 3-6)
There are several things to note about this story. The first, is that Paul has some kind of direct experience of the risen Lord. At his conversion, Paul becomes a witness to the person of Jesus Christ. This fact will come to play an important role in the formation of the early Church and its subsequent development. Secondly, Paul’s eye witness experience is different to that of the Eleven. The Apostles, during Our Lord’s public life, experienced His deeds and sayings directly. They heard Him preach the Sermon on the Mount and they saw Him heal the man born blind. They lived with Jesus, ate with Him, travelled with Him. Their witness- for want of a better description- is that they experienced all the externals of Jesus’ life that pointed to Him being the Messiah that are then confirmed at His resurrection. When they witness the risen Lord, they have what they have already experienced- His preaching and teaching- verified. However, Paul’s witness is of a very different kind, as he had no direct experience of these realities.[7]
The third thing to note about Paul’s conversion story, if Paul had no experience of the Lord’s preaching or His life, how would he know what the Gospel was? How was Paul to be an apostle of something he does not know? We do not know exactly what Paul saw on the road to Damascus. It is quite possible that not even Paul could adequately describe what he saw, given the miraculous nature of the encounter. Rather, what is clear from the account in Acts, is that Paul saw something that changed His life. But not just changed his life in that he became a convert to the Christian faith, like so many others (Acts 2:42); what he saw made him an apostle- one of the Twelve. Paul did not come to Christianity in any conventional kind of way. But we still have to account for how he knew what the Christian faith actually was. And how he came to know enough about it so that he could then immediately begin to preach it. How are we to understand Paul’s conversion?
In the story of Acts, the Lord does not tell Paul what to believe. He does not teach Him anything about the Gospel. He just tells Him to go into the city then you (Paul) will be told what to do (Acts 10:3:6). On the surface, this does not seem to be enough to ensure Paul’s conversion and his elevation to the rank of apostle. It is certainly not enough information for him to teach the doctrines that are contained in his epistles. In fact, there is nothing in his conversion story that accounts for the level of knowledge Paul clearly has about the Christian faith. The last thing to note, is that after his baptism, Paul spends a few days with the disciples in Damascus (Acts 9:19): And immediately he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he (Jesus) is the Son of God (Acts 9:20). Paul’s conversion is not only remarkable for its speed, as it all happens in just a few days; but also, for its effectiveness. For Paul then begins to preach successfully, and confounded the Jews who dwelt at Damascus, proving that this one is the very Christ (Acts 9:22). Nowhere in Paul’s conversion story is there any explanation given that would account for his supreme level of understanding of the Christian faith.
The ‘gaps’ in Paul’s conversion experience are analogous to the problem that we introduced right at the start of this series: how do we have a fully formed Church at Pentecost if not all of the doctrines of Christian revelation were actual historical realities?[8] The question as it pertains to Paul’s conversion is parallel: how does Paul become a fully formed apostle at the moment of his conversion if he has a very limited experience of the preaching and teachings of Christ? It is clear from the NT accounts, that there is a parallel between Paul’s conversion experience and Pentecost. The dramatic and miraculous nature of the experience, the profound change brought about in their behaviour and the immediacy with which they begin to preach the Gospel and their success in preaching it, all point to the fact that both the Eleven and Paul were made witnesses to something particular that not only changed their lives, but also enlightened their understanding. They received something at that moment that they would then have to pass on to us: For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received (1 Cor 15:3). To what were Paul and the Eleven made witnesses? And what did they receive and hand on to the Church?
The fact of being a witness
The question of being a witness to Christ is fundamental to the Christian faith and the writings of its Scriptures. It appears repeatedly and all throughout the NT (cf Lk 1: 1-4; Jn 21: 24; Acts 1:8; Acts 2: 32; Heb 2:1,3; Titus 1:3; 1 Jn 1:1-3; Jude 1:17; Rev 1:2-5.) But this should not be taken merely as a mere legal device by which the veracity of something should be tested and measured. Although it does speak to the trustworthiness of the Gospel, it is not its main reason for being. Rather, being an eye witness to Christ is also a testimony to the nature of the New Covenant that has just been revealed. As we said last month, one of the principal differences between the Old Covenant and the New, was that what the law prescribed externally in the OT would come to be written internally on the hearts of men (Heb 10:16). That what the Lord desired for our redemption- that men learn to walk with God in friendship- would come to pass as men learned to walk in the person of Christ (Jn 15:15). That the re-establishment of our friendship with God required a re-recreation of our nature in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). When the Lord came to reveal this covenant, He did so by referring to Himself as the fulfilment of the Old Law and the revelation of the New (Mt 5:17; Jn 13:34; Gal 5:14). In order for men to walk in friendship with God, according to the New Law, required them to become like Christ (Rm 13:14). And the only way to become like Christ was to be a witness to who He was (Jn 17:18; 2 Cor 3: 3-6; 2 Cor 5:20; 1 Pet 2:21). If grace were to elevate us in sanctity, we had to learn to be like Christ in our daily activity (Gal 2:20). Otherwise, what was accomplished at our redemption would have been immediate salvation, as opposed to a call to live a holy life- the heart of the Christian experience (Rom 6:22; 2 Pet 1:3; Heb 12:10).
The requirement of being a witness to Christ did not end with the death of the last Apostle, as it was not a mere external reality that would cease when the last person who had seen the Lord had died. Our conformation to Christ is not merely in the externals of His life. Although we are called to live a simple life, we are not called to wear the same clothes as the Lord. Although we are called to walk in His ways, we are not called to speak Aramaic or live in Jerusalem. However, this leaves us with a very real problem: no other Christian has ever had the same experience of Paul on the road to Damascus or the Apostles in the upper room. Are we lesser Christians or do we have a lesser form of Christianity due to the tyranny of time and distance from the original events? It would seem that we are at a disadvantage. How then are we to be witnesses and how must we follow the Lord? The answer is not found in the accidental details of Paul’s conversion or the Apostles at Pentecost. Rather it is found in what they received- not in the externals of how they received it. What has been handed on to us is what was given to them: the witness that lies at the heart of the Christian experience is to live, move and have our being (Acts 17:28) all according to the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16).
The First Habit of the Church: To think with the mind of Christ
The First Habit of the Church is the first habit of the Christian: to think with the mind of Christ (Philip 2:5). St Paul gives us a very clear explanation of what this means. In St. Paul’s letters, he makes the reference on several occasions that what he is teaching is a direct revelation from God and not the work of men (Gal 1: 9-11; Rom 1:1; 1 Cor 11:23). It is clear from Pauls’ story, that what he received on the road to Damascus was a particular work of grace and a specific kind of revelation. Now, there are two possible ways of understanding this. The first, is that all of the truths of the Catholic faith were poured into Pauls’ mind. That he would have known from that moment all of the truths that he was called upon to reveal, and that it was only a matter of time until he revealed them. This is perhaps the most unlikely of all possible explanations, given what we know of Paul’s life (Rom 7:18-24; 1 Cor 13:9) and the Christian vocation (Ep 4:15). At Baptism, our souls are filled with sanctifying grace and infused with the gift of faith, much like Paul and the Eleven- but we still have to read the catechism and receive instruction. Now, Paul’s conversion and our baptism are two different experiences of the risen Lord, but those experiences are not of two different natures. Otherwise, there would be two kinds of Christianity and two kinds of Christians. And as we mentioned earlier, everyone else who was not a direct witness to the Lord would be at a major disadvantage. However, as Paul teaches repeatedly- we are all one body, just made up of different members (Rm 12:5; 1 Cor 10:17; Gal 3:28). Paul is stressing the unity of the Church not as a simple practical solution, but rather as a unity of belief that would endure from its very first moment until its consummation. That which the first Christians believed must be identical to what the last Christians believe- otherwise there is no such thing as Christianity.
A better way of understanding his conversion, and our Christian vocation, is to realise that the gift of sanctifying grace that we receive- that which is handed to us- is a certain habit of mind- that is, to think with the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16)[9]. By grace our understanding is elevated so that we come to know the truth as Christ himself knew it- according to his mind (Rom 12:2). This, however, requires us to still learn those truths that have been revealed to us. At baptism, we do not know there are seven sacraments or the doctrine of the Real Presence, but we are predisposed by grace and the habit of mind it confers to knowing them as true once they are taught to us. Because of this habit of grace- to think with the mind of Christ- we come to know them as true as Christ Himself knows them to be true (2 Tim 2:15; Ep 4:21). This is a most remarkable gift that allows us to put on the person of Christ (Gal 3:27; Rom 13:14).
This is the basis of Paul’s claim to authority: that He recived from God a direct revelation of the Gospel (Gal 1:11-12) – a habit of mind- that allowed Paul to understand the truths of the Christian religion as Christ himself knew them (Ep 3:3-4).[10] And this is the very thing that Paul hands on to us- his knowledge of the truths of Christ so that we may know them as He (Christ) knows them (1 Cor 11:23). It is this habit of mind that Peter and the other apostles recognised in Paul- that he shared the same habit that they themselves had received at Pentecost. It will also be the very same faculty that the Church herself will use to distinguished between the authentic Christian scriptural canon and other Christian apocrypha. This unity of habit is the basis for our unity of belief- a foundation for unity in the Church (Jn 17: 20-21).
Conclusion
The question of authority lies at the heart of every religion. It is even more fundamental than the question of what doctrines a religion professes. The question of authority also lies at the heart of the writing of the Christian Bible. Without any explicit instruction form the Lord about who should write down His words- the question had to be decided by some authority. And since the Apostles left no instructions about which books should be included in a Christian canon, there had to be some way of recognising a true account from a false one. But before the Church could recognise Her Scriptures, those who wrote them must have had conferred on them both an authority and an awareness of that authority when they wrote. They had to receive the very thing they were handing on- no matter in what capacity they were aware of it. Otherwise, the Christian Bible would not be a source of authority. It would be merely pious reading material.
Next month, we will answer the final question: how did the Chruch recognise her scriptures? In that essay, we will argue that the Bible is itself a fruit and a work of Catholic Tradition. We will also answer the question that has vexed us from the start: how do we have a fully formed Church at Pentecost if neither all of our dogmas were historical realities and we did not even have a Bible?
[1] William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Harvard University Press, 1989); cf. A talk by Hella Eckardt, University of Reading, given to BAS on 20th January 2018. (https://www.berksarch.co.uk/index.php/the-archaeology-of-roman-literature/)
[2] It has been estimated that at least 90 percent of the Jewish population of Roman Palestine in the first centuries CE could merely write their own name or not write and read at all (Hezser, Catherine “Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine”, 2001, Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism; 81. Tuebingen: Mohr-Siebeck, p. 503.) The literacy rate was either about 3 percent (Bar-Ilan, M. “Illiteracy in the Land of Israel in the First Centuries C.E.” in S. Fishbane, S. Schoenfeld and A. Goldschlaeger (eds.), “Essays in the Social Scientific Study of Judaism and Jewish Society”, II, New York: Ktav, 1992, pp. 46-61) or 7.7 percent. The exact literacy rate among male Jews in Roman Palestine was probably between 5 and 10 percent (Wise, Michael Owen (2015). Language and Literacy in Roman Judaea: A Study of the Bar Kokhba Documents. Anchor Yale Reference Library. Yale University Press. p. 349).
[3] I will not be addressing the academic question of NT authorship in this article. This is a very interesting and specialised question. There are some modern scholars who maintain that most of the books of the NT were written by anonymous authors. They argue that since literacy rates in first-century Palestine were extremely low, therefore the apostles being fisherman and peasants, were unlikely able to write such sophisticated texts in a foreign language (Koine Greek). Although this is beyond the scope of our discussion, a low literacy rate is not zero. The arguments for anonymity are at best probabilistic. This author does not generally subscribe to the argument of anonymity. However, it is a complex question that merits its own specialised study.
[4] “The authors of our New Testament books did not know that they were writing scripture.” Mark Allan Powell, Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 50.
[5]“None of the writings which belong to the NT was composed as scripture…[they] were written for immediate and practical purposes within the early churches, and only gradually did they come to be valued and to be spoken of as ‘scripture’.” H.Y. Gamble, The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 18. See also McDonald, The Biblical Canon, 249.
[6] We will return to this question when we examine how the Church came to recognise Scripture from other Christian apocrypha.
[7] There does not seem to be any evidence that Paul ever met or knew the Lord during his earthly life. However, there is a very interesting historical question as to whether Paul ever met the Lord during his earthly life of which we have no evidence. Paul was a student of Gamaliel in the city of Jerusalem at the time Jesus would have been there. Paul would have been in his teens at that time. It is a curious question, although nothing of any doctrinal or historical importance depends on it.
[8] If you recall, we began this series with a question about how the Church could be fully formed, if not everything that we hold to be revelation had actually happened. The example we gave was that the Assumption of Our Blessed Mother could not have happened at Pentecost, as she was in the room with the Eleven. We must be careful about how we answer this question, as it could lead to the false conclusion that the apostles had what was essential at Pentecost, and everything that comes afterwards are mere extraneous details. The idea of a kind of ‘Christian essentialism’ is a false notion.
[9] This habit is the grace of faith, hope and charity. The gift of faith enlightens our knowledge of the truth- to know as Christ knew. The habit of hope is to strive for the good as Christ did. And the virtue of charity is to love as Christ loved.
[10] Although a little beyond our topic, there is still contained within this explanation the real possibility that Paul received further and direct revelation from the Holy Ghost about those truths of the faith as he needed to know them. The most obvious of which was the revelation of the Eucharist. In Paul’s account in Corinthians (1 Cor 11: 22-29), he makes it clear from the start that he received this knowledge from the Lord. It is open for us to speculate whether this was poured into his mind at his conversion, or something that was later revealed to him.