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brian
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Posted: Tue Mar 13th, 2007 04:43 pm |
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Here is a question someone asked me that I do not know how to answer. Augustine seems to be a confusing fellow. How do I understand him best and th efact that he clearly argued for the authority of the church? I am pretty sure he was a very obedient bishop. Anyway, I know I have been told not to use the term apocrypha, but this person keeps calling it that, and saying Jerome is the first person to mention the term saying that many works he translated were never in a hebrew version or something. Anyway, any help with this.
I think Augustine argued against the inclusion of the apocrypha books in the Vulgate and is therefore a champion of the Lutheran Church. I'm guessing this in that Augustana is a Lutheran College, and there was a mention of a conflict of opinion between Augustine and Jerome in a Wikipedia article I read.
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CajunRick
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Posted: Tue Mar 13th, 2007 04:59 pm |
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brian wrote: I think Augustine argued against the inclusion of the apocrypha books in the Vulgate and is therefore a champion of the Lutheran Church. I'm guessing this in that Augustana is a Lutheran College, and there was a mention of a conflict of opinion between Augustine and Jerome in a Wikipedia article I read.
First of all, Wikipedia is not an expert resource. It is useful, but it should not be considered definitive.
Second, there were lots of disagreements among the early Fathers over which books should be included in Scripture and which should not. It wasn't until the Church decided definitively just what books should be part of Scripture that the matter was settled and everyone fell into line behind the Magisterium. Until that point, Augustine, Jerome, and anyone else was free to establish his own canon of Scripture, and many of the particular churches did exactly that.
Here is a list of some of the books that were considered for inclusion in the New Testament.
For the Old Testament there were basically two schools of thought. The first considered the Septuagint as inspired; the second rejected those books that were not originally written in Hebrew. The Church adopted the Septuagint as the books originally included in the Scripture read by Jesus and the apostles. Protestants, looking for a canon of scripture that did not depend on the authority of the Catholic Church, chose the other option. This also rejected certain late-period beliefs of the Jews such as life after death, Purgatory, etc. It also removed some of the most beautiful writings in Scripture, the Wisdom literature.
I'm sure David will be able to give you a more factual response. I'm on dial-up at the moment, so my research capabilities are severely limited.
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Tue Mar 13th, 2007 06:03 pm |
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Catholics do not refer to “the rest of the Old Testament” as “apocrypha,” because the books are in fact canonical, not spurious or contested. The word we use is “deuterocanonical.” This refers to the fact that at one time, back in the early centuries, they were in fact contested. However, since the series of Church councils beginning in the fourth century which laid out which books were accepted as Sacred Scripture, they have all been canonical. It was only with the advent of Protestantism, and specifically with Martin Luther’s rejection of these books (and parts of a couple others), that the question has arisen. But within the Catholic Church, there has been no question since the fourth century. Just to make sure, the Council of Trent, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, solemnly defined against the Protestants that the bible does indeed contain all the books listed in the canons of the earlier centuries.
I think Augustine argued against the inclusion of the apocrypha books in the Vulgate and is therefore a champion of the Lutheran Church.
Actually, it was St. Jerome who argued against the inclusion of the deuterocanonical books. He had studied Hebrew with some Palestinian rabbis and had been influenced by their viewpoint. Palestinian Jews rejected the larger canon on the ground that the additional works were not originally written in Hebrew, while Jews in the rest of the world used the larger canon. In the end, St. Jerome accepted the ruling of pope Damasus and the Synod of Rome (AD 382) in favor of the larger canon and proceeded to translate them when he was doing the Old Testament series from the Septuagint (Greek) text. (He later did another series from the Hebrew text, which adhered to the shorter canon. But this is because the Greek works were not included in the Hebrew texts he worked with, not because he rejected them.)
Meanwhile, St. Augustine was the champion of the larger canon and heartily endorsed the Septuagint as the basis for translation into other languages, including Latin. Also, it was largely because of Augustine’s arguments in their favor that the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Second Epistle of Peter and the book of Revelation were accepted into the New Testament canon at the Councils of Hippo (AD 393) and Carthage (397). In this he was following the lead of the Synod of Rome.
Yes, Augustine “clearly argued for the authority of the church.” This can be seen in many of his writings. He is famous for two statements in particular: “I should not believe the bible except by the authority of the Church,” and “Rome has spoken; the matter is settled.” (I’m quoting from memory, so the words will be inexact.) On the other hand (and this is why Protestants sometimes appeal to him), he also speaks of scripture as having authority. What the Protestants fail to see is that Augustine’s appeal to scripture is based on the authority of the Church, which wrote it, assembled it, declared it divinely inspired, used in its liturgy, and demonstrated many of its doctrines from it. A careful reading of Augustine’s works should be sufficient to prove this.
Finally, yes, there was a conflict of sorts between Jerome and Augustine. It would be better described as a misunderstanding based on uncertain and irregular correspondence between the two. Regular mail service is a modern invention. In ancient times, people entrusted their letters to travelers who agreed to act as couriers, but who sometimes took years to get from one place to another and finally deliver the correspondence. As a result, messages between the two saints were jumbled, often with later letters arriving months or even years before earlier ones. I have read this correspondence, and from what I recall (it’s been about 10 years now), St. Jerome was most upset at the lack of orderliness in the arrival of the letters, which scrambled the messages, not so much at St. Augustine. They did disagree on a few scholarly points, but this was not pressed by either side. Augustine, for his part, was patient and accepting. He tried to explain, he tried to apologize, and eventually (about a decade after the first letter) the two made up.
David
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gmichuta
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Posted: Sun Mar 18th, 2007 10:20 pm |
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Good question and good answers. I've been doing a lot of research on this topic. In fact, I wrote a book on this subject called Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger: The Untold Story Of The Lost Books of the Protestant Bible. It just went to the printer so I"m very excited.
The above response is a very good one although there are a few things that need changing. First, Jerome did deny the inspiration of the Deutero's. In fact, he was the first father to call the Apocrypha (mere human writings). However, he did not come to this conclusion entirely because he trusted the rabbis. Rather, when he was commissioned to translate the Latin Vulgate, he grew tired of trying to determine the original Hebrew text through the various versions of the Greek Septuagint. Instead, he found a single Hebrew text used by the Jews that he considered a single authentic manuscript of the OT. So, after translating the Psalms, Jerome switched to the Hebrew Text that didn't have the Deuterocanon (called the Masoretic Text) because he believed it to be identical to the original. For Jerome, if it wasn't in the MT, it wasn't Scripture. The Church rejected his view, as did Augustine, because it broke from the constant and consistant Tradition of the Church, but no one was able to prove him wrong in regards to the MT. It wasn't until the 1940's, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that Jerome was finally proved wrong since in Qumran showed us that the MT had itself gone through a revision and that the LXX (which Jerome rejected) is in some places a more ancient and authentic than the MT. To my knowledge, Jerome never changed his opinion. In regards to Augustine, he gives his rationale for the acceptance of the Deuteros in his work On Christian Doctrine, book 2, 12.
In regards to Augustine's position being the champion of the Lutheran Church, they need to look at Luther's arguments in the Second Liepzig Disputation because the Catholic Johann Eck cited Augustine against Luther's rejection of Second Maccabees. Luther stood somewhat firmly behind the opinion of Jerome and Luther's own unusual understanding of canonicity. Augustine is affirmed the full inspired and canonical status of the Deuteros and was a leader among the first North African councils that re-affirmed the Church's acceptance of the Deuteros.
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sun Mar 18th, 2007 11:29 pm |
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Gary, I’ll have to bow to your scholarship on the points about St. Jerome. Your point about his dissatisfaction with translating from a translation is true. If I recall correctly, he complained about it in his letters.
My understanding concerning the Masoretic Text is that this is what the Palestinian rabbis adhered to in Jerome’s time. From what I’ve read, it wasn’t finalized until about the seventh or eighth century, but it did have its beginnings about the end of the first century and so was fairly well developed by the fourth century. However, since Jerome would not have believed this was the definitive text apart from the testimony of the rabbis, it seems that this was the major influence in his acceptance of the MT. The fact that he was able to procure only a single Hebrew manuscript should not have influenced a consummate scholar such as Jerome.
Even if Jerome did deny the inspiration of the deuterocanonical books, this was during the period when their canonicity was being determined. So it would not have been heresy for him to have this opinion.
David
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shawnbm
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Posted: Fri May 25th, 2007 12:50 pm |
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| It sounds as though a post I left on the thread concerning "Why use the term deuterocanonical?" might have been better posted here. It would appear this is the place for same. If it can be transported here, I would be grateful. Otherwise, this thread has been an enlightening read. Shalom!
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CajunRick
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Posted: Fri May 25th, 2007 01:40 pm |
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shawnbm wrote: It sounds as though a post I left on the thread concerning "Why use the term deuterocanonical?" might have been better posted here. It would appear this is the place for same. If it can be transported here, I would be grateful. Otherwise, this thread has been an enlightening read. Shalom!
Sorry, we can move entire threads but not single posts. The software doesn't give us that capability.
If you start a new topic, we can merge it into an existing topic if necessary, but we can't remove a post from a thread and start a new topic. That's why it's always better to start a new topic if the post doesn't fit the existing topic exactly.
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gmichuta
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Posted: Sat May 26th, 2007 12:18 am |
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David W. Emery wrote: Gary, I’ll have to bow to your scholarship on the points about St. Jerome. Your point about his dissatisfaction with translating from a translation is true. If I recall correctly, he complained about it in his letters.
My understanding concerning the Masoretic Text is that this is what the Palestinian rabbis adhered to in Jerome’s time. From what I’ve read, it wasn’t finalized until about the seventh or eighth century, but it did have its beginnings about the end of the first century and so was fairly well developed by the fourth century. However, since Jerome would not have believed this was the definitive text apart from the testimony of the rabbis, it seems that this was the major influence in his acceptance of the MT. The fact that he was able to procure only a single Hebrew manuscript should not have influenced a consummate scholar such as Jerome.
Even if Jerome did deny the inspiration of the deuterocanonical books, this was during the period when their canonicity was being determined. So it would not have been heresy for him to have this opinion.
David
You flatter me, Dave. I believe that Jerome used Origen's Hexapla to translate his Vulgate, which included the MT, the MT in Greek Letters, the LXX, Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion (and perhaps the lost Quinta). Of the known Greek texts the Aquila and Symmachus are direct translations of the MT. Jerome may have assumed that the LXX and Theodotion were loose translations of the MT as well. I've see it argued that he was persuaded by his rabbi friends as well. But the more I read, the more I'm persuaded that their influence was minimal. St. Jerome was a kind of "spit and vinegar" type saint. When he thought he was right, he dug his heals in and didn't shy from a fight. Since he was one of a few Christians of his day that knew Hebrew, I'm sure they was convinced his theory was correct. The funny thing is that it wouldn't be until the 1940's, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that anyone was able to demonstrate he was wrong.
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