James, Wisdom, and the New Testament Canon

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him.” – James 1:5

Wisdom, the God-given ability to properly act upon knowledge – that is what Christians seek. I would suggest that wisdom has a great deal to do with Christian unity. Once we gain the knowledge God affords us, it will be processing and acting upon that knowledge in the correct way – exercising wisdom – that will restore Christian unity. A better knowledge of the formation of the New Testament canon affords us just such an opportunity. In this article we’ll chart the Church’s reception of the Epistle of James as a case study in the canon and the life changing wisdom to which such knowledge leads us.

The twenty-seven texts that make up the New Testament were inspired the instant they issued from their authors’ quills, but it took approximately three hundred years for them to be recognized as the closed collection we know today. Initially, a local church would have only possessed the New Testament document composed for them or their immediate neighbors. The printing press was fourteen hundred years away. Copies had to be made by hand and walked to their destination. As works began to circulate, it was natural for communities receiving new texts to question the tradition standing behind them. In some places, the testimony to certain works suffered. 

Our first witnesses to the authority of the Epistle of James are indirect. Clement, the third bishop of Rome, after the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, borrowed heavily from James in chapter 30 of his Epistle to the Corinthians (c. AD 95). Scholarship is also able to say that Hermas (the brother of Pius, the ninth Bishop of Rome) also made use of James in the first and third sections of his work The Shepherd (c. 140).  Christianity’s first stab at a NT canon, however, the Muratorian Fragment (c. 155), failed to include James. (Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John are also missing, with the Apocalypse of Peter substituted in.)

We have to wait until the third century for evidence of James being explicitly referred to as Scripture. Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandria included James, along with the Apocalypse of Peter, Epistle of Barnabas, and the twenty-six other books making up today’s NT, in his attempt at a biblical canon.  Approximately forty years later, Origen, Christianity’s first great biblical scholar, referred to James as “divine scripture” and identified its author as an “apostle” and “brother” of the Lord.  

James place in the NT was still far from solidified. At the beginning of the fourth century, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, the father of Church history, identified texts as falling into one of three categories: accepted, disputed, and spurious; James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John belonged to the second group. Pope Marcellus quoted James 3:1-8 as the words of the “Apostle James” in his Letter to the Bishops in the Province of Antioch (AD 308). St. Cyril of Jerusalem and the local Council of Laodicea (c. 363) included James in their canons of Scripture (excluding only the Book of Revelation); and yet, the Cheltenham Canon, written in Africa c. 360, omitted James, as well as Hebrews, 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John.

The great watershed moment in the history of the New Testament was St. Athanasisus’ Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter. The Easter letter penned by this bishop and champion of orthodoxy in 367 A.D. was the first time that all twenty-seven books of the New Testament – and only those twenty-seven books – were listed together. This same canon was affirmed by the local Council of Hippo (393), St. Augustine in his On Christian Doctrine (397), and the local Council of Carthage (419).  The latter, attended by St. Augustine and over two hundred bishops, ruled that, “besides the Canonical Scriptures nothing be read under the name of divine Scripture.” They then listed the forty-six books of the Old Testament and twenty-seven of the New, ending with, “For the confirmation of this canon, the church across the sea [i.e., Rome] is to be consulted.”  Pope Boniface’s subsequent approval of their directives effectively settled the question of the canon until it was reopened by Luther.

This brief history of James’ acceptance among Christians serves as a case study in the formation of the New Testament. James, originally written to Jewish-Christians, was recopied and carried by hand to distant communities (composed of Jews and Gentiles) such as Rome and Alexandria. Over the next two hundred years, some who received the epistle questioned its provenance. Those bishops in whose churches James had been handed down as an apostolic work and proclaimed in the liturgy gave authoritative witness to the tradition they had received. That witness was accepted by their brother bishops and a consensus was reached. In union with their head, the Bishop of Rome, they delineated which books were to be regarded as Scripture in the Church. The bishops’ apostolic authority was the Holy Spirit’s instrument for giving the canon of Scripture to the Christian faithful.

That has serious repercussions for anyone who looks to the Bible as a source of God’s Revelation, because whenever a Christian recognizes the New Testament as a closed, fixed body of literature, he implicitly acknowledges the Catholic bishops’ authority to speak for Christ. And if the bishops spoke on Christ’s behalf to authoritatively settle the canon of Scripture, then on what grounds do we deny their authority to interpret it? You see, all of the key figures in the formation of the canon were unabashedly Catholic. They clearly taught that:

• Bishops are the successors of the apostles (Clement of Rome, Hermas, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Augustine)
• the bread and wine of the Eucharist are transformed into Jesus’ body and blood, making present His sacrifice (Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyril, Athanasius, Augustine)
• serious sin must be confessed to God through the ministry of the presbyters (Origen, Athanasius, Augustine);
• final salvation is not just a matter of faith, but works (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Augustine)
• the souls of the dead often require further purification and benefit from our prayers (Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine)

None of these great lights saw any opposition between such beliefs and the teaching of Scripture. In fact, these beliefs were integral to Christianity long before congregations were equipped with a twenty-seven book New Testament! Such knowledge is life-changing, and acting upon it can heal centuries of division within Christianity. Such knowledge can be difficult to act upon, though. Often times, it requires great humility and sacrifice. I will give James the final word, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord” (Js 1:5-8).

Mary - the Mother of EVERY Christian, Intercedes for Us in Heaven

In my last post on the Blessed Mother I shared the Catholic conviction that Mary has been empowered by the Spirit to act as mother, not just to Jesus, but to every member of His Mystical Body.  We saw how in the Book of Revelation (12:1,17) the Woman, the Mother of the Messiah, was the Mother of all believers.  We saw it in John's Gospel when Jesus looked down at Mary and John from the Cross, “Woman, there behold your son! ... Behold, your mother!” (John 19:26-27).  


Of course, Revelation's mention of "the Woman," and Jesus addressing Mary as such, takes us back to the first pages of the Bible, to the prophecy of the Woman whose seed would crush the head of the serpent, Satan (Gen 3:15).  We are taken back to Eve, the "mother of all the living" (Gen 3:20), and led to recognize Mary as the New Eve, the Mother of all those raised to life in the New Adam, her Son (Rom 5:12-21). The early Church understood this clearly. When we look at the writings they left behind, the contrast between Mary and Eve immediately comes to the fore:

Eve, a virgin and undefiled, conceived the word of the serpent, and bore disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced to her the glad tidings that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 155 A.D.)  

The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith. (Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, Against Heresies Book III, 180-199 A.D.) 

Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel. That which the one destroyed by believing, the other, by believing, set straight. (Tertullian, The Flesh of Jesus Christ, 210 A.D.). 

The main way Mary exercises her maternal care for us is to intercede, to pray for us and with us, to her Son.  I know this sets off alarms for my Protestant brothers and sisters - and I was right there with them a couple of decades ago - so let me take some time to explain how this belief comes to us from Scripture:

Each of us, at some point, has asked someone else for their prayers. Prayers, offered for the ones we love here on earth, are acts of love. This does not interfere with Jesus’ sole mediation (1 Timothy 2:5) between the Father and humanity in the least; we intercede as members of Jesus. If that is true for us still being formed in His image, then how much more so for our brothers and sisters in heaven? This was the belief of God’s people even under the Old Covenant. We are told of the vision granted to the Jewish freedom fighter, Judas Maccabeus (although tragically, this text is no longer found in Protestant editions of the Bible):

He cheered [his soldiers] by relating a dream, a sort of vision, which was worthy of belief. What he saw was this: Onias, [the deceased] high priest, a noble and good man, of modest bearing and gentle manner, one who spoke fittingly and had been trained from childhood in all that belongs to excellence, was praying with outstretched hands for the whole body of the Jews. Then likewise a man appeared, distinguished by his grey hair and dignity, and of marvelous majesty and authority. And Onias spoke, saying, “This is a man who loves the brethren and prays much for the people and the holy city, Jeremiah, the prophet of God” (2 Maccabees 15:11-14). 

It is my conviction that Scripture gives us many additional reasons to believe that those around God’s throne have our prayers “in hand.”

At once I was in the Spirit, and lo, there a throne stood in heaven with one seated on the throne!...Round the throne were twenty-four thrones and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders (Revelation 4:2,4)… each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the [earthly] saints (Rev 5:8).

So who are the twenty-four elders around the throne? “Elder” is used in the Bible only in reference to human beings. In the passage of Scripture just quoted John related his vision of heaven: members of the Body of Christ surrounding the throne of God, offering up the prayers of the earthly saints.

Since our departed brothers and sisters are even closer to the Lord, they have a perfected capacity to love us. What better way would there be for them to love us then to intercede on our behalf? The saints in heaven do have the earthly Church in mind; in the Book of Revelation John also said:

I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?” Then they were… told to rest a little longer, until their brethren should be complete, who were killed as they themselves had been (Rev 6:9-11).

We find the martyrs crying out to God to bring judgment, to intervene on behalf of the Church and vindicate those who had already given their lives. God revealed to them that more brothers and sisters would be martyred before judgment came. Did you catch that? God allowed the heavenly saints to have information about the earthly saints, that more were to be killed. It is a precedent, a biblical example of those in heaven having information about us on earth.

I think it is reasonable to assume the heavenly saints are often interceding before we even ask. But isn’t that the case with Christians we know on earth as well? Surely you have asked someone, maybe your mother, to pray for you - knowing full well that you are always in her prayers. So why do you ask? Because it brings you relief, as well as calls her prayers to focus on a particular matter. Catholics and Eastern Orthodox asking their heavenly brothers and sisters to pray has a variety of benefits: it assures us of powerful intercession; it gives us the security flowing from agreement in prayer (Matt.18:20), and it fosters our love for siblings we will spend eternity with. Against such things there is no law, no Scriptural mandate to the contrary. Instead we find St. Paul teaching about the interrelation of all Christians:

I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family, in heaven and on earth derives its name (Eph 3:14, NIV). 

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit… there [should] be no discord in the body…the members [should] have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together (1 Cor 12:12-13; 25-26).

Think about the image of the Body. When your hand is injured and in need of care, doesn’t it send the message to your brain via a series of neurons? When in need I want as many neurons in the Body of Christ firing as possible. Consider these two passages in light of each other:

You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem…to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect (Heb 12:22-23). 

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5:16; NIV). 

They don't come any more righteous than our Blessed Mother!

When some people talk about Mary and the other saints' intercession, they make it sound as if they somehow change God's mind.  "God might be saying 'no' to your prayers, but if Mary asks him, then He'll say 'yes' to her."  That is horrible theology, and not the position of the Church! No one twists God's arm.  Why does God sometimes delay in answering a prayer until we invite Mary and the saints to pray with us?  My own belief is that God leads us to these prayer partners, and responds to our combined intercession, to build bonds within His family - bonds we will live out for the rest of eternity. One of the reasons praying with Mary is so widespread is because God wants each of us to know our mother!

How can you start praying with Mary?  I can't think of a better, more Scriptural place to begin than the Hail Mary:

Hail Mary, Full of Grace,

The Lord is with thee [Luke 1:28].

Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus [Luke 1:42].

Holy Mary, Mother of God [Luke 1:42]

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

The Bible - Why Do Christians Have Different Old Testaments?

Every great once in awhile you will see me quote from books that are excluded from non-Catholic (and non-Eastern Orthodox) editions of the Bible. Non-Catholic brothers and sisters refer to these writings (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Baruch, 1 & 2 Maccabees, an additional 107 verses to the Book of Esther and two chapters to the Book of Daniel) as the Apocrypha, while we Catholics refer to them as the “Deutero-canonicals.” Initially I came to accept their inspiration because of the resonance I found between them, as a group, and the rest of Scripture. Most convincing was a passage I had “happened upon” in Wisdom –the most explicit prophecy of Christ I had seen.  I couldn’t ignore such prophetic precision. I was grateful to the Holy Spirit for letting me find this and wanted to understand why Christians disagreed over the Old Testament.

Through reading and talking with others I learned several interesting facts. First, that the Protestant Old Testament matches that of today’s Jewish community; the Protestant Reformers considered it to be more authentic. Second, that St. Jerome, probably the greatest biblical scholar of the first three centuries, chose to distinguish these books from the rest of the Old Testament in his Latin translation, labeling them “ecclesiastical” as opposed to “canonical.” These things would seem to argue against the deutero-canonicals acceptance, but there’s another side to consider.

So far as the Jewish canon of Scripture goes, it was not decided until close to 200 A.D. (See Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders, The Canon Debate, p. 146-162.) All of this took place after the fall of Jerusalem and the expulsion of Christians from the Synagogue. Prior to the that time the Old Testament canon was not “set in stone” and was larger than today’s; this was the Old Testament used by the Apostles and the early Church. The Anglican scholar, J.N.D. Kelly writes,

 … the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the ... books of the Hebrew Bible of Palestinian Judaism ... It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha, or deutero-canonical books. The reason for this is that the Old Testament which passed in the first instance into the hands of Christians was not the original Hebrew version, but the Greek translation known as the Septuagint.

The Greek translation, begun about 250 B.C., and which included the deutero-canonicals, was what the Church used in her worship and study; after all, Christians were predominately Greek-speaking. When the Apostles quoted from the Old Testament in their epistles the Septuagint was generally what they used, “Of the 350 quotations of the Old Testament found in the New Testament, 300 are taken directly from the Greek Septuagint Bible” as opposed to the Hebrew.[2] Thus, the Christian Church had been making use of an Old Testament containing these books for some sixty years before the Jewish rabbis officially excluded them. 

It must be recalled that at the time the rabbis set their canon they were no longer the world’s teachers; that role had been passed to the Apostles and their successors. When Jerome expressed doubts about the canonicity of the deutero-canonicals a few centuries later, he did so as a scholar living in Bethlehem and performing his translation of the Old Testament alongside rabbis; as such he was susceptible to their opinions. Jerome was free to ask these questions; for although the books had come down to the Church from apostolic times, a formal Church statement (from Peter’s successor or an Ecumenical Council) had never been made regarding the Old Testament canon. The local councils of Hippo (393 A.D.) and Carthage (419 A.D.), the latter presided over by St. Augustine, declared the deutero-canonicals to be part of the Old Testament. The decrees of the Council of Carthage received a “semi-binding” status in the minds of most Christians when Pope Boniface gave them his approval.[3] 

Now one last objection which I have heard from Protestant brothers and sisters to the Apocrypha is that Jesus did not quote from it as He did the rest of the Old Testament. This objection has two large holes in it, however. First, if quotation from Jesus, or the Apostles after him, as recorded in the New Testament, were our criteria for including books in the Old Testament then all Christians would have to slim their Bibles. They would no longer contain Ecclesiastes, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Judges, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Lamentations, or Nahum.[4] Second, I maintain that Jesus and the Apostles did draw from the deutero-canonicals and have included many of the parallels in Appendix IV of The God Who is Love: Explaining Christianity From Its Center. In addition, fragments of Sirach in Hebrew and Tobit in both Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as Baruch in Greek, were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls - evidencing their use in the Palestine of Jesus' day.

UPDATED:  Did you know that there was a danger of Christians having a different New Testament as well?  To read more, scroll to the second half of this post.

---

[2]Rumble, Leslie and Charles M. Carty, Bible Quizzes To A Street Preacher,(Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers Inc., 1976), p.4

[3] Graham, Henry G., Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church ( Rockford, Illinois: Tan Publishers), p.37.

[4] Shea, Mark P., By What Authority? : An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition, (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 1996), p.62.