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In this episode, Trent shows how the earliest Church fathers show the Apostles did not instruct the Church to follow sola scriptura.
Narrator:
Welcome to the Council of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey everyone, welcome to the Council of Trent Podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers apologist and speaker, Trent Horn. And today I want to walk you through the historical data behind one of the arguments that I shared in my debate with Gavin Ortlund last week on the subject of sola scriptura. If you haven’t seen the debate yet, go and check it out on Pints With Aquinas. I haven’t seen the debate yet as of the recording of this video, because I’m recording it before the debate happened, because I know I won’t be able to share all of this data in the debate. And even if you didn’t see the debate, this is a really interesting argument, and the data behind it is something I think a lot of Catholic apologists haven’t looked at or shared. So I think it’s a really helpful way to show that Christ and the Apostles did not leave the New Testament scripture with an emphasis on the New Testament as the sole infallible rule of faith.
So the reason I’m sharing this with you is that, one of the arguments I gave in the debate was a paradigm shift argument; saying that the church began at Pentecost, one rule of faith, the oral teaching of the Apostles, then there was a paradigm shift. We start having written rules of faith from the Apostles, starting probably with 1 Thessalonians. And we know that there’s been a shift here because Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, “Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions we have given to you by word of mouth or by letter.” But then Protestants will say there was a third paradigm shift, that it was oral, then oral and written, and then back to written alone. And all of divine revelation, apostolic authority, has been confined to the written word in scripture, in particular, in the New Testament canon.
But that’s not what we see from the historical data. The New Testament never says that that did happen or will happen, and the earliest Christian writers don’t say that. The earliest Christian writer enlisted to defend sola scriptura is usually St. Irenaeus. But if Christ and the Apostles gave the church a paradigm of sola scriptura to be the church’s authority until Christ’s second coming, the earliest Christians should have reflected that. So as we continue with this video, we’ll keep asking the question, what was the authority for the earliest Christians? And you’ll see, it definitely was not sola scriptura. In fact, it was barely the New Testament itself as divinely inspired scripture. So there is Christian writers who never teach sola scriptura, and here’s the point that I don’t think a lot of people have brought up.
Modern New Testament scholarship, modern biblical scholarship, they claim that the first Christians did not believe that the New Testament was scripture at all. They’ll say that the first Christians to believe the New Testament was scripture was at the time of St. Irenaeus, or the ecclesial writer Origen, at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century.
Now, I’m not endorsing this view. I’m not endorsing this view, I understand it’s controversial. But what I am saying is that, if the evidence for scholars, when they’re looking at this, if the evidence that the first Christians believed the New Testament was scripture is so weak that modern scholars think that they didn’t even believe the New Testament was inspired in the same way the Old Testament was, if that evidence, if it’s that weak, then the evidence that the first Christians believed the New Testament was their sole infallible rule of faith, is going to be ridiculously weak. It’s going to be non-existent. So the idea that the Christ and the Apostles left the church a sola scriptura authority paradigm, it doesn’t comport with what we know from history, and what we know that these first Christians, what was their authority?
Modern scholars even doubt that they consider the New Testament a divinely inspired authority at all, much less a part of the only infallible rule of faith. Here’s some of those quotes, you might recognize them, I’ll share them in the debate. Michael Krueger, who shares a lot of views with Gavin, he tries to defend a model of the canon that will affirm sola scriptura. But he admits, for many modern scholars the key time is the end of the second century. Only then, largely due to the influence of Irenaeus, were these books first regarded as scripture. The New Testament scholar, Gordon Fee, says the term scripture meant only the Old Testament for Christians until the end of the second century.
Now, I do think there are some early sources of Christians who the word scripture, graphé, they did apply to the New Testament, so I’m not making a universal argument. I think a good case can be made that’s what’s happening in 2 Peter 3:16, for example, the author of 2 Peter is referring to Paul’s letters as graphé or scripture, though there may be a debate with the author of 2 Peter that they had the same status as the Old Testament, even though they’re called graphé. But regardless, you can find a few sources, but it’s only a handful. So I’m not making a universal argument. But Fee and other scholars often speak in this way, and it really attests to the paucity, the lack of early Christian writers who affirm the New Testament as scripture when they easily affirm the Old Testament as scripture.
Dearing, in his work Words Shall Not Return Void, he says the New Testament documents were in circulation at the beginning of the second century, but there existed no universal consensus on which apostolic writings should be equal in weight to the Old Testament scriptures. Finally, Lee McDonald, Protestant scholar, canon scholar as well, says in the first one and a half centuries of church history, no prominence was given to a gospel writer, or to a gospel as a written document.
So once again, to summarize the argument I’m making here, I’m not endorsing the view that the very first Christians didn’t believe the New Testament was inspired scripture. But I’m saying, that if sola scriptura were true, and that’s the model Christ and the Apostles left the church for everyone to follow, we would expect the first Christians to cite the New Testament as divine scripture far, far more than they do to treat it as that primary authority. And they don’t treat it as the sole and fallible rule of faith, they don’t even treat it as the primary rule of faith. When we go through the sources here, and you’ll see that.
Now, let me head off though an objection, a rebuttal, I think. Some people might try to make this. They’ll say, “Okay, Trent, let’s go through the first author’s first 150 years of the church’s history. Oh, look, they don’t say anything about the bodily assumption of Mary, for example. They don’t say anything about this particular Catholic doctrine. So by your own logic, it must be false.” No, that is not the argument I’m making. I am not claiming every doctrine we believe must be found in the earliest church fathers.
Every doctrine has equal weight. Some are primary, some are secondary, some are tertiary. Gavin admits sis, he wrote a whole book on the subject called, Finding the Right Hill to Die On. There are things that can be taught and revealed that are not the primary elements of the faith. But what I am saying is that scripture, the idea of the New Testament being divinely inspired, and it being part of the sole infallible rule of faith, and when we say scripture is a sole infallible rule of faith, we’re really focusing on the New Testament, because Jews will say the scriptures are inspired, but they re reject Christian teaching.
It’s the New Testament we’re talking about here. So we want to ask the first Christians, what did they think of the New Testament? And if they hardly treat it as divinely inspired scripture at all, then it could not be the authority that Christ left the church. It could not be the soul or even the primary authority. Rather, what Christ and the Apostles left is that they left scripture, they left written revelation, scripture, unwritten revelation, sacred tradition, and the teaching office of the magisterium through the successors of the Apostles, through the bishops. So I’m not trying to prove that Catholic paradigm today, but what I am saying is, when we look at the first writers first 150 years, they see scripture and church authority and tradition, as particular church authority and scripture. But the scripture is mostly the Old Testament, not the New Testament.
Here’s the sources we’re going to go through. 1 Clement, the Epistle of Barnabas, and I’ll explain what each of these are as I go through them. The Didache, Ignatius of Antioch, Aristides, Polycarp of Smyrna, 2 Clement, not written by first Clement, but still a source. Shepherd of Hermas, Justin Martyr, the martyrdom of Polycarp, the Epistle of Diognetus, Melito of Sardis, Hegesippus, Athenagoras of Athens, and Theophilus of Antioch. We’ll end just right before Irenaeus, first 150 years. This is not exhaustive. There are others, Quadratus. There’s other fragments, there’s other proto-Gnostic works, there’s other narratives like the protoevangelium of James. It’s more of like a infancy gospel. These are the major ones that I want to focus on, that I think will be helpful for us to see, what was the authority for these early Christians?
I also want to add that I’ve put a note here, citations are approximate. I’ve gone through. It can be hard to see when someone is alluding to scripture, or when they’re quoting it, but even if an author quotes scripture, it doesn’t mean he thought it was inspired. These authors will quote First Enoch, Greek philosophers. They’ll quote other works that are not inspired, the Shepherd of Hermas, for example. So when we go through them, what I’m looking for is, if they considered the New Testament scripture, how many times do they call it scripture? How many times do they use a formal introductory formula, like it is written? That’s usually a pretty standard introduction if you’re talking about sacred scripture, you say, it is written. Not always, but often. Or something similar. I’ve looked for sacred writings inspired the holy writings, and so we see that.
And in going through all these, I’ve gone through them multiple times, but I’m only human. I might have gotten a few citation, a few, maybe they didn’t inc cite the New Testament 15. Sorry, maybe they didn’t cite the Old Testament 15 times. They cited it 14 times. The citations are approximate. But even if I’m off one or two in either direction, the main argument I’m making still stands.
So the first one is Clement of Rome. If you take a late date, 96, end of the first century, that is when Clement was the fourth Bishop of Rome or the fourth Pope. If you take an earlier date, like around 67, 68, that was when Clement was a corresponding secretary, a priest who wrote on behalf of the Roman church as a whole. That would explain the plural use, the plural language in First Clement.
So Clement references the Old Testament a lot, and he cites the Old Testament as scripture. I counted about 14 times. In some of those cases, the word scripture is in brackets. It may not be in the original text, but it looks like all the editors put it there that that’s what Clement meant. There are many cases though, where the word scripture very clearly is in the text, and it applies to the Old Testament, uses the formula, it is written. So I’d say over 20 times, Clement cites the Old Testament as scripture.
Bruce Metzger, who’s a well-known Protestant scholar, he says that Clement of Rome’s Bible was the Old Testament, not the New Testament. Because when you go to the New Testament, Clement never calls it scripture, not once. He does say things like it is written, and appears to cite the New Testament like James 4:6, God resists the proud, but James himself is citing the Old Testament. This will happen often. You’ll have an early church father cite the New Testament, call it scripture, but the only part of the New Testament they cite is where the New Testament is quoting or paraphrasing the Old Testament.
You have to remember by the way, that these ancient authors were pretty loose with their quotations. In the gospels you’ll see things like, as the prophet Jeremiah says, but it’ll actually be a pastiche, it’ll be amalgamation. Sorry, I’m using $64,000 words here. It will be a combining of different minor prophets with Jeremiah, but they’ll say, as Jeremiah says. So many of the quotations, they’re loose, sometimes even just paraphrases. Though we do not see here, when I say cite the New Testament as divine scripture. I mean something unique to the New Testament, not just when it quotes the Old Testament. Because James is really paraphrasing Proverbs 3:34 here. Also, we see Clement citing 1 Corinthians 29 saying, for the scripture says, but what Paul says here, eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, nor is entered into the heart of man, the things which he, God, has prepared for them. That is, Paul is quoting Isaiah 64:4 where Isaiah says, “From of old, no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee who works for those who wait for Him.”
So once again, even if Clement is citing what he read in 1 Corinthians 2:9, what he’s citing is coming from the Old Testament. Now it’s just being restated again in the New Testament, to say yes, as the scripture says, and he likes how Paul quotes it. He does say that Paul, Clement says that Paul wrote under the inspiration of the spirit in 1 Clement 47, but that doesn’t mean that the author of 1 Clement thought that Paul wrote divinely inspired scripture, or that Paul’s writings were graphe, were scripture, just because he wrote under the inspiration of the spirit. Because Clement describes his own writing in this way in 1 Clement 63, he urges the Corinthians who Clement is writing to, he tells them to become obedient to the words written by us and through the Holy Spirit. So he uses that language of his own works.
And in the early church, I’m sure I’ll mention this in the debate, John Poirier in a 2021 study, showed that the word inspired, inspiration, the honestas, it’s used in the early church of all kinds of writings. The only writings that aren’t called inspired are heretical writings. But if you have a sound, doctrinally sound piece, Gregory of Nyssa says that St Basil’s writings were the honestas. Some of the canons, some of the things coming from the councils are called the the honestas, or even epitaphs. The early church said that, wrote of non-biblical works being inspired. So that doesn’t mean Clement thought that Paul was writing scripture. And this is something that when you read scholars like Metzger and others, they agree that Clement cites the Old Testament of scripture, not the New Testament.
So for authority, who’s Clement’s authority? The Old Testament and the church, particular the successors of the Apostles, he’s very, very clear on that. In 1 Clement 42, Clement says this, “For thus says the scripture in a certain place, I will appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith.” Now, I have not seen a scripture with this wording. It might be a really wide paraphrase of something in the New Testament, but I haven’t found a scripture that says this. But Clement apparently thought the truth, I will appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith, was so important, he thought at least, it was in scripture, how important the authority structure of the bishops and the deacons were. He also says in 1 Clement 44, he talks about the authority of the presbyters, and how they have that authority through apostolic succession. He talks about how the Apostles knew through Jesus Christ there will be strife for the office of the Bishop. And so, they had planned for other approved men to succeed them in their ministry. That they’ll appoint people, and when those fall asleep, they will appoint others.
So to summarize, who, what was the authority for Clement of Rome? He cites the Old Testament as scripture over 20 times. Never cites the New Testament in this way, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t know about the New Testament, because Clement cites the words of Jesus as being authoritative. He cites the words of Jesus, but he never says that Jesus’s words come from sacred scripture, like he does for the words of the patriarchs or the prophets of the Old Testament. But he does command for his listeners to follow divinely established ecclesial authorities. So starting with our earliest non-biblical church witness, what did they believe was the authority in the church? For Clement, it’s the Old Testament, does not cite the New Testament as divinely inspired scripture. But he does talk about the church being divinely established, and having apostolic succession, and the need to obey people who are a part of that.
All right, next is the Didache. This is an early catechism, the teaching of the 12, between 50 and 120, though I’m going to date it earlier, and you’ll see why. In Didache 14 it says that what was spoken by the prophet Malachi, related to they will all offer sacrifices to me in the Old Testament, that this is a prophecy that’s said to be spoken by the Lord. So I’m going to call this a citation of the Old Testament as divinely inspired, and the author of the Didache connects this prophecy about future sacrifices to the sacrifice of the Eucharist that is offered up among Christians. And other church fathers do this, Justin Martyr does this. So we see a connection here between the prophecy of Malachi, about universal sacrifice in the people of God being fulfilled in the Eucharist.
So we have one formal citation of the Old Testament, but once again, the New Testament is not called scripture. It does reference the New Testament, but doesn’t call it scripture, or use any identifiers of it being scripture, like it is written. We see references to Matthew 7:6, where Jesus says, “Do not give that which is holy to dogs.” And the author of the Didache makes it clear because of what Jesus said here, don’t give the Eucharist to people who are unbaptized.
William Varner, in an article he wrote about the Didache, he says, the author of the Didache quote, “looked to the inspired scriptures of the Old Testament, and to the words of Jesus for his authority in transmitting that teaching.” So the author of the Didache, his authority was the Old Testament, but in particular, the words of Jesus.
But he also recognizes another authority for Christians, and that would be bishops and deacons. So in Didache 15, he says, “Therefore appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek and not lovers of money.” He goes on to talk about their important qualities. Some people have said that this refers to the laity appointing the bishops and deacons themselves. That’s a possibility. But I also think that if this letter was written to the elders, to the presbyters, because notice it doesn’t say appoint for yourselves, bishops, elders and deacons, it says bishops and deacons. You might think, well, why are they appointing the bishops, aren’t bishops higher up? In the first century, the offices of Bishop, Presbyter, and Deacon, Bishop, Priest, Deacon, were fluid. So you could have Paul calling himself a deacon. Peter. Who’s an Apostle, calling himself a presbyter, an elder. We get the word priest as a contraction from the Greek word presbyter.
So if the Didache was written early, there’s going to be some fluidity here between these offices. When we get to the time of Ignatius, they’re very clearly separated, where a bishop oversees many churches that have their own presbyters or elders. So it’s very clear here at the very least, there that the author of the Didache recognizes the authority structure of the church for Christians to look to. He does not cite the New Testament as divine scripture as being an authority. He cites the Old Testament once, but once again, gives… Look, people are going to say to me, “Well Trent, you can’t prove a divinely established church through all of these citations either.” Well, I actually think I can make a pretty good argument when I look at all of them. But that’s not what I’m doing here.
I’m not making an argument for the authority of the Catholic Church with these citations. I am testing sola scriptura. I am saying, did Christ and the Apostles leave scripture as the soul infallible rule of faith for the church? If they did, we would expect these first Christians, in the first 150 years of church history, to cite the New Testament in that way, because that’s what makes them different from Jews who also believe in divine scripture. But they don’t cite the New Testament as the sole infallible rule of faith. They don’t even cite it as the primary rule of faith. They barely cite it at all. Because where they found authority was in the words of Jesus, the teachings of the gospel. And you found that within the authority structure of the church that Christ established. And we see that especially in Ignatius of Antioch.
So what does Ignatius say? Well, he cites the Old Testament formally as scripture twice. Once, quoting the book of Proverbs, the other citing God resists the proud, James 4:6. So as I noted earlier, that’s a rephrasing of Proverbs 3:34. So we don’t have a citation of unique New Testament content. Ignatius never describes the New Testament books by name, but he does quote them. He quotes the New Testament a dozen times. He doesn’t cite them by name, but he quotes them, but he never calls them scripture. In his letter to the Philadelphians, Ignatius talks about how critics will tell him they don’t find Christ or the Gospels, they don’t find the teachings of Christianity in the ancient scriptures. And Ignatius’s reply to them is on my, “I said to them, it is written.”, they answered me, “That remains to be proved.” It doesn’t seem that Ignatius is, he does not say that it is written in the New Testament. Well, look, the New Testament are our scriptures now. Because he goes on to say, “To me, Jesus Christ is in the place of all that is ancient.”, His cross, and death, and resurrection.
Instead, they’re arguing about whether the Old Testament prophesied Christ as the Messiah, that He’ll die, that He’ll rise from the dead. And Ignatius debates others about that, what’s in the scriptures. But he never says the New Testament are scriptures where you can find that. But he does say that there is authority in the church, and he’s very emphatic about this, probably the most emphatic church father on this point. Because he says in the letter to the Trallians, “Without the bishop, you should do nothing, but should also be subject to the elders, the presbytery, as to the apostle of Jesus Christ.”
He says in the letter to the Smyrnaeans, he says, “See that you all follow the bishop even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the Apostles, and reverence the deacons as being the institution of God.” So once again, did the Apostles leave the church a sola scriptura authority structure? No, because still, we don’t have a citation of the New Testament as scripture at all, let alone as part of sola scriptura. But we do have several citations of Christians looking to the church for authority, and that provides a lot more evidence for the Catholic paradigm of scripture tradition and magisterium, rather than for scripture alone.
Next up is Aristides, one of the early apologists and philosophers, writing some, I’d say around like 125 AD. Aristides does not quote the Old Testament as divine scripture, doesn’t quote the New Testament as divine scripture. He appears to be writing an apology to a pagan king. So we might understand that, but it’s curious that he says of Christian preaching, whatever is spoken in the mouth of the Christians is of God. So he recognizes their oral proclamations, and a binding nature of them. I mean maybe not universally so, but he recognizes that.
He does refer to Christian writings. He’ll say, “Oh, king, go and search their writings. They have come nearer to the truth and genuine knowledge.” He talks about Christian writings, but he never calls them scripture. He never calls them the Christian scriptures. So it looks like a wash here. Aristides doesn’t really give us a lot on what the authority structure is for Christians in general in this writing.
Next up we have Polycarp of Smyrna. Polycarp was a disciple of St. John. Irenaeus was one of the disciples of Polycarp. This was someone who knew the Apostles. We have one letter from Polycarp, the letter to the Philadelphians. There are no formal citations of the Old Testament in Polycarp’s letter. There are quotes from the New Testament. It’s quoted over a dozen times. This may be the first formal citation of the New Testament. I’m a little skeptical, but this may be the first one. We’ll get to that here shortly.
But Bruce Metzger, a Protestant author, he says, “Polycarp feels no need to guarantee the words he cites by the authority of the evangelists who report them.” So very common, we see in the earliest church fathers their ultimate authority is Christ and his words, his teaching, the teaching he gave, not the fact that those words were recorded in this sacred scripture or that sacred scripture. It is the teaching of Christ and the Apostles, that is where the authority lies, not in how it’s recorded, particular. Not in sola scriptura or the scriptures, but the fact that the church has received this teaching, the teaching is authoritative, so whoever received the teaching is authoritative, the church is going to be authoritative in that regard, and Polycarp does say that.
So where does Polycarp cite the New Testament of scripture? In section 12, he says, “For I trust that you are well versed in the sacred scriptures, and that nothing is hid from you. But to me, this privilege is not yet granted. It is declared then in these scriptures, be angry and sin not, and let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” So this is odd, because Polycarp talks about the sacred scriptures here, and he cites, it appears that he cites Ephesians 4:26, or a part of Ephesians. I love this passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians as a…
It’s interesting. I always say, don’t go to bed angry. And sometimes you just have to go to bed angry. If you’re married, go to bed. You’ll sort it out the next day. So maybe Paul, maybe it wasn’t marital advice, but he says, “Be angry.” You can be angry, but don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. Now, this advice basically, don’t let your anger stew. I love that. It’s okay to be angry, but don’t let it fester and become hateful malice.
But the first part, Paul appears to be requoting what is already in the Psalm. Psalm 4:5 says, “Be angry and sin not.” And then Paul adds something later here, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, which other scholars say, Paul just may be paraphrasing other aspects of the Old Testament that have similar teaching. So let me bring up here, this citation is disputed. So there are people who say, “Well, Polycarp, he’s citing Psalm 4:5 and Ephesians 4:26, is scripture, or just Ephesians is scripture.” So maybe he’s citing it as scripture, or maybe he’s citing the Psalm, and he mistakenly thought Ephesians 4:26 was a part of the Psalm, or he cited Ephesians 4:26, but only because he thought that it was a paraphrase of the Old Testament, and that’s what he meant to cite.
What I think is odd about this citation is that all throughout the letter of the Philadelphians, Polycarp quotes the New Testament over, and over, and over again, and never calls it scripture, but only in this part he calls this scripture, and it’s the only one that seems to be derived, at least in part, from the Old Testament. So it’s not an unambiguous endorsement of the New Testament of scripture, but I’m willing to put that as a question mark here, since a lot of people do consider it that way. But still, it’s not a lot. He doesn’t call any of the other citation scripture, it’s odd. But he does recognize the authority of the church.
So in his letter to the Philippians, section five, Polycarp says, “Wherefore it is needful to abstain from all these lustful things.” He had earlier talked about adultery, homosexual conduct, it seems to be, abstain from these things. And then he says, “Being subject to the presbyters and deacons as unto God and Christ.” Very strong language in the early church, like no reading the New Testament as if God and Christ were speaking to you. We don’t see any of that language. We don’t see anything for sola scriptura. But we do see, well look, do all of this and be subject to the priests and the deacons as you’re subject to God in Christ. Very strongly. And he also talks about how virgins, so we have consecrated virgins, or the virgins here, must walk in a blameless and pure conscience. All right, so going through here, we’re going into the early second century. So far, all we have is we have, Old Testament is divine scripture, recognize the authority of the church, and connecting it with divine language, divine apostolic succession; but we have only one ambiguous citation for the New Testament being divinely inspired scripture.
Next up, we have the Epistle of Barnabas. This is some sometimes 70 to year 130. It is a study of the Old Testament talking about how it prophesied and contains allegorical descriptions of the New Testament and of Jesus Christ. So the Old Testament is quoted frequently. It’s quoted dozens of times all throughout the document. There are nine references to the Old Testament of scripture. Well, 13, if you include the, it is written, introductions. So over a dozen formal references to the Old Testament of scripture, one reference to the book of Enoch as scripture. But the New Testament is never called scripture, and it’s rarely ever quoted at all in the Epistle of Barnabas.
Acts 14:22, the saying there, it seems to be attributed to Jesus, it’s not called sacred scripture. It may formally cite Matthew 22:14. Once again, this is another ambiguous one, the only case. And we’ll see this, by the way, I’ve read, it might be in Metzger, I’m not sure, but I’ve read Protestants who say, “Oh, well the earliest church fathers believe that the New Testament was divine scripture.” And they give four citations like from Polycarp, Barnabas, and 2 Clement, and then they’ll move on in their discussion. And I’ll say, “Wait a minute. But those are the only four ambiguous citations, everywhere else, they don’t cite the New Testament as divine scripture. So it’s misleading to paint it that way.
But Barnabas says here, “So great signs and wonders are wrought in Israel. They were thus at length abandoned. Lest us beware lest we be found fulfilling the saying as it is written, many are called, but few are chosen.” The only place you find that is in Matthew 22:14, where Jesus is telling a parable about the person invited to the banquet. He doesn’t have his garment. It’s an allegory, a parable about how if you’re not in united to Christ, you will be thrown out, you’ll be thrown, you’ll be damned, you’ll be in hell, cast out into the outer darkness. Men gnash their teeth, for many are called, but few are chosen. So this is what the character in the parable says that Jesus is telling.
And so, Barnabas may be quoting it here, but once again, this is a little bit odd. Barnabas quotes Jesus. The Epistle of Barnabas quotes Jesus and says, as the Lord said, or as the Lord spoke. But here, he doesn’t do that. He just says, “For it is written.” And this may be, all of this, including what Jesus is saying here, for many are called but few are chosen, they all just might be referencing an older Jewish proverb related to the Old Testament. There’s something similar in 4 Ezra A3, “There be many created, but few shall be delivered.”
That’s why Jonathan Lucado, in his major commentary on Barnabas, probably one of the most recent major commentaries on the Epistle of Barnabas, he says, “It is difficult to adduce clear examples of New Testament quotations within the Epistle of Barnabas, given the small amount of possible Matthean or synoptic materials elsewhere in the letter, it is difficult to argue with a high degree of certainty for a literary relationship between Barnabas and the canonical gospels.” So I’m going to add a question mark there, but I could see how many people would see that Barnabas is quoting Matthew 22:14 as scripture, but it still seems ambiguous to me, and other scholars do recognize that. And because Barnabas is reflecting on Old Testament and New Testament scriptural issues, he doesn’t mention anything about church authority.
When we get to 2 Clement, this is written in the middle of the second century. It is attributed to Clement of Rome, but it was not written by him, so it’s a spurious letter. 2 Clement cites the Old Testament as scripture about five times. And it does seem clear to me here, that he does cite the New Testament as scripture, though once again it is a little bit odd. 2 Clement cites Jesus and what he says, but it says here, “Another scripture says, I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” And so, that’s Luke 5:32. But in other places in 2 Clement, he says, “The Lord says in the gospel, the Lord says, you are lambs in the midst of wolves.” But here, instead of saying the Lord says, I came not to call the righteous but sinners, which was what I was quoting from, what Jesus says, it just says, “Another scripture says.” But it does match up with Luke 5:32, so I’ll call that a citation of the New Testament as scripture.
What Clement thinks of church authority is odd. I put three question marks here, because he talks about the church in really lofty terms, like super lofty terms. He says, “Brethren, if we do the will of our Father God, we shall be members of the first church, the spiritual, that which was created before Sun and Moon.” The church being spiritual, was made manifest in the flesh of Christ. So he almost seems to talk about the church as existing even before creation itself. So I’m not sure what he’s getting on at quite about here. So I’m adding question marks here, that I might even change this now. I’d probably take that away. I’ll call that a citation of the New Testament. But once again, not very many. And many citations of Jesus’ words, but not calling them, not calling them scripture.
Next is the Shepherd of Hermas. This is around year AD 150. This was very popular. Other authors, I think Irenaeus cites the Shepherd as scripture. And this is a long, very long dialogue between a shepherd and an angel giving him a lot of allegorical instructions and teachings. There are no, I don’t think there’s any, there’s no quotations in the document from the Old Testament or the New Testament there. And also, it doesn’t mention Jesus or Christ, it just talks about the Son of God. Bruce Metzger says The following about the shepherd, “Despite reminisces from Matthew, Ephesians, and James, Hermas makes no comment that would lead us to think that he regarded them as canonical scripture. From the testimony contained in the Shepherd, it can in any case be observed, how uneven during the course of the second century was the development of the idea of the canon.”
But we do have many references to an authoritative church in the Shepherd of Hermas, even without quotations to scripture, or even quoting them at all, as just writings, we see references to church authority. “You will tell therefore, those who preside over the church to direct their ways in righteousness. You will read the words in this city, along with the presbyters who preside over the church. I now say to you who preside over the church and love the first seats.” So recognizing that there are those who preside over the church, have authority over it, they have you in first seats among those who preside, differences of authority. So continuing our discussion, still very, very little citations of the New Testament as divine scripture, no citations of it as being elements of sola scriptura.
And we still have though, a lot of references to the church’s authority, as I said earlier, the authority for these earliest Christians were the words that Jesus spoke, then the words the Apostles spoke. It was the message they spoke, the teaching, the gospel was their authority. And then they went, where do you find this teaching in gospel? You find it in the church. You follow the presbyters, the bishops and the deacons, as you would God the Father and the Son.
Next up, we have a description of the martyrdom of Polycarp written sometime in the second half of the second century. This is no citations of the Old Testament as scripture, no citations of the New Testament as scripture, though it does quote 1 Corinthians 2:9. But as I said earlier, 1 Corinthians 2:9 itself quotes Isaiah 64.
We have some references that could be at a church authority, at least recognizing an authoritative church to the church of God in Philemenium, to all the congregations of the Holy and Catholic Church in every place. And then it says the admirable Polycarp was one, having in our own time, has been an apostolic and prophetic teacher, and Bishop of the Catholic Church, which is in Smyrna.
So it seems to be a recognition of the importance, once again, of bishops, of authoritative teachers and leaders of Christ’s church. It’s not as explicit. I put a question mark here, but there aren’t any scripture references to balance it out.
Next up, we have Justin Martyr. So he easily cites the Old Testament the most among the Apostolic Fathers, at least before the time of Irenaeus. He cites over a 100 cases where he calls the Old Testament scripture, and I think nearly all of them are in his dialogue with the rabbi Trypho, or Trypho. So in that dialogue with that rabbi, we see citations of the Old Testament of scripture over, and over, and over again. We don’t have as many references to the New Testament as scripture. We do have a few, I counted three. He does say that John prophesied the Book of Revelation. This might be the earliest reference to, I don’t know if he calls it the Book of Revelation or not, but a very early reference to an actual named book of the New Testament, saying that it’s scripture.
So he talks about revelation. He says in the gospel it is written that he said, “All things are delivered unto me by my Father.” And at another point he says, “It is written then the disciples understood that he spake to them about John the Baptist.” This may be Justin citing the New Testament using the introductory formula, it is written. Or he could just be saying it is written, or it is recorded, without implying that it’s scripture, because Justin also uses this for non-biblical works. He says, “It is written that Perseus was begotten of Danaë who was a virgin.” So he talks about Greek and Roman mythology. At least, this would be Greek mythology. And he cites that. He says, it is written, but he obviously doesn’t think that it’s scripture. So it’s ambiguous once again, but I’m willing to give it, I’ll just give you three there.
But he also, he quotes Jesus many times, but he doesn’t call it, does not call it scripture. When it comes to church authority, I haven’t cited Justin as citing church authority, though maybe I should have, because he does mention in his first apology, he just talks about the president or the one who presides over the Eucharistic service. Now someone can say, “Oh, that could be a lay person.”, this or that. So I’m not including that here. But he does talk about, in his description of the mass, the structure is very similar to the mass that is still celebrated today in its major elements. But even still, we see the Old Testament cited over, and over, and over again. The New Testament is not cited as scripture in that way.
We’re getting close to the end of the second century here, and we are not seeing the New Testament treated in a way we would expect if sola scriptura were true. Not even the sole infallible rule of faith, but just as the primary rule of faith. Think about how often Protestants cite the New Testament to justify what they teach, what they do, what they believe, to seek guidance, and cite it as scripture. But we just don’t see that here. That’s not where the first Christians went for their authority. They saw the New Testament was authoritative. They saw it was a reliable record of Christ and the Apostles, but it was not their sole or even their primary authority when it came to matters of faith and doctrine.
Next we have the Epistle to Diognetus written by Mathetes. So that means like disciples, it’s basically anonymous. Probably some put it at 130. It’s probably more later, second century. No formal citations of the Old Testament or of the New Testament as inspired scripture. Does quote 1 Corinthians 8:1. It alludes to other New Testament scriptures, but it doesn’t call them scripture or say it is written.
Maybe some references here to church authority. I’ll put a question mark on that. That Mathetes defends his own authority in writing this saying, “I do not speak of things strange to me, nor do I aim at anything inconsistent with right reason. That having been a disciple of the Apostles, I become a teacher of the Gentiles. I minister the things delivered to me to those that are disciples worthy of the truth. And the tradition of the Apostles is preserved in the grace of the church exalts.”
So it may be here what he’s saying, that when he talks about, well, where’s our authority? It comes from the Apostles. Who did they teach? Well, they taught me. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. And I teach others, that seems to lean more towards Mathetes believed in a church authority structure. No idea here, no reference here that he believes in a sola scriptura structure. He doesn’t even cite the Old or New Testament as inspired scripture.
Next, we have Melito of Sardis, a bishop in the late second century. He cites the Old Testament a lot, but never calls it scripture. The New Testament he references, there’s a final oration at the end. We only have fragments, by the way, of Melito. We have fragments recorded in Eusebius, and in those fragments, he has an oration where he quotes different things. And he appears to quote, he may be quoting the New Testament of scripture, because he also quotes the Old Testament, but he doesn’t ever formally cite it as scripture. He lumps them together. He only says they come from the gospel and the apostle, he doesn’t name the books of the New Testament. He doesn’t really say anything about the church. He says the church is the bridegroom. So all in all with Melito, it’s kind of a wash as to what was his authority, though he does cite scripture a lot in his works.
Hegesippus the chronicler, once again, we only have a few passages that are preserved in Eusebius. So he is an early historian of the church. He tells us about the martyrdom of James, for example. He cites the Old Testament as scripture once, he calls Isaiah scripture. And he uses the phrase, the scripture of the gospel. So it appears to be one citation of the New Testament. He also though, references the authority structure in the church. So he talks about an authoritative church. He says, “The church of the Corinthians continued in the Orthodox faith up to the time when Primus was bishop in Corinth. On my arrival at Rome, I drew up a list of the succession of bishops down to Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus to Anicetus succeeded Soter, after him came Eleutherus, which matches the list from Irenaeus in the second century.
He also talks about heretics with private opinions who divide, who were dividing the church at that time. So if you were to read Hegesippus, what he discusses is where Christians, where it seems, and of course this is fragmentary, but what it seems that he recognizes as authoritative would be scripture, and the teaching office of the church, given in those who are successors of those that held offices before them that go back to the Apostles.
Athenagoras, I think we’re down to our last two here. Athenagoras written, did I put that early? He should be. I think I wrote that incorrect here. He’s later in the second century, whoopsy, as you would say in immortal combat. That should be far later in the second century. My bad on that.
But Athenagoras, he cites the Old Testament five or six times. He doesn’t talk about scripture or it is written, but he does say that, he talks about the authors of the Old Testament as being flutes that the prophetic spirit would play. That seems pretty strong that he’s talking about scripture, the Old Testament, as being divine scripture. When it comes to the New Testament, he quotes a handful of Jesus’s sayings, like love your enemy. But oddly enough, he never mentions Jesus or Christ. He only talks about the Logos. So call back to my interaction with Gavin Ortlund on icon veneration, like Athenagoras is very anti icons. Our God is not visible. Our God is invisible. There’s no visible, he’s not visible. He’s not material.
It’s weird though, because if you read Athenagoras, you would never think he believed in the incarnation. He never talks about Jesus. He talks about these sayings of Jesus, but they come from the Logos, not from a man Jesus of Nazareth, or the man Jesus Christ. I thought this was funny. Apparently by the second century, the kiss of peace was getting a little out of hand. So he says that Jesus, that the Logos, tells us, “If anyone kiss a second time because it is given him pleasure, he sins. Therefore, the kiss should be given with the greatest care. If it is mixed with the least defilement, it excludes us from eternal life.” So Athenagoras says, “Hey look, if you start getting out of hand of the kiss of peace, if you’re getting all hot and bothered at the kiss of peace, you’re going to be hot and bothered for all eternity.” And he says, Jesus said this. He attributes that to him.
So when we go down then to Athenagoras, it seems here, we don’t really have any formal citations of scripture in the New Testament, or the church itself as being authoritative. He’s writing an apology for the faith, and he doesn’t even reveal a lot about the faith being incarnational.
Our last source before we get to, that’s before Irenaeus, the year 180, Theophilus of Antioch. He called the Old Testament scripture about eight times, and he cited it often. The New Testament not as much. Irenaeus is where we get more New Testament than Old Testament. He called it scripture or inspired two times. He says the holy writings, the Spirit inspired men, one of whom was John. Says in the beginning was the word. So he quotes John’s gospel, and he says that John was a spirit bearing man.
Though what’s interesting here is, like Athenagoras, he doesn’t mention Jesus or Christ. You wouldn’t get a lot out of him that he believes even in the incarnation itself. Like for example, in book one, he says, “We are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God.” Now, this could be a reference to the Sacrament of Confirmation. It could be a spiritual anointing. It could be a reference to Confirmation, because we receive the oil of God in the Sacrament of Confirmation. But you would see if he’s explained to a non-Christian why he’s called a Christian, you would think he would say it’s because of Jesus Christ, the anointed one, which is interesting there. So if I was looked in at Theophilus, I put eight here, two for the New Testament, and I don’t see a citation for church authority.
So let’s just pause here. I covered a lot of ground, but I don’t know anybody else who has gone through and done this study of the earliest church fathers and what they considered to be authoritative. Once again, not trying to prove Catholic authority structure with these citations. I am just saying, if sola scriptura were true, if Christ and the Apostles left the church scripture as the sole infallible rule of faith, if scholars like Michael Krueger are right, that scripture self authenticates, that when you read scripture, you recognize it is the divinely inspired word of God, and the first Christians then said, “This is our sole infallible rule of faith.”, is that what the Apostles gave the church? When I look at this here, the answer is clearly no. Is clearly no that that is not the authority structure the first Christians recognized. What they recognized that, to be honest, their authority were the words of Jesus and first the words of Jesus, then the words of the Apostles. The truth of the gospel, That was their authority.
So we need to find that authority. Where is it? Well, it’s found in the Church. It’s found in the Church who is preserved by the succession of the Apostles, through bishops, priests, and deacons, who you are to obey just as you would obey the Father and the Son. So this, what we see in these first Christians, the thesis that I’ll say is just, this here makes more sense if the Apostles gave us scripture tradition and a magisterium. This makes more sense under that view than if the plan from the Apostles was to give the Church sola scriptura. That doesn’t make sense, given not only that sola scriptura is not cited in these authors, but they barely even cite the New Testament as divinely inspired scripture at all. Because it was the message that mattered, not necessarily the medium through which the message was given.
So to go back to that quote here from Lee Martin McDonald, that’s why McDonald says, as a Protestant author, in the first one and a half centuries of church history, no prominence was given to a gospel writer or to a gospel as a written document. It was the message. It was the truth that mattered, and the guardians and custodians of that truth was the church that had the succession from the Apostles. At the very least, when we see this scripture, tradition, and magisterium, make more sense of this data than sola scriptura.
So I hope that that is helpful for you guys. Thank you all very much. And yeah, I just hope that you have a very blessed day.
Narrator:
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