God's Word or Human Words - Part 12

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 11 with the following:

 

(p.109) Justin met with a group of these people, and eventually received baptism

in the name of the " holy spirit, who through the prophets foretold everything

about Jesus, " and who, he later wrote, illuminated his mind. Then, having become

a " Christian philosopher, " he offered to prove to a Jewish philosopher named

Trypho that " we have not believed empty fables, or words without any foundation,

but words filled with the spirit of God, and great with power, and flourishing

with grace. " [92] Although he says that Trypho's companions " laughed and shouted

rudely " when they heard this, Justin offered what he believed was

incontrovertible proof. He explained to Trypho, for example, that the prophet

Isaiah had foretold that " a virgin shall conceive and bear a son " [93]--a

miracle that Matthew says occurred nearly five hundred years later, when Mary

gave birth to Jesus. Justin adds that other prophets, including David, Isaiah,

and Zechariah, had predicted in detail Jesus' birth, his final entry into

Jerusalem, the betrayal by Judas, and his crucifixion. Justin says that when he

engaged Trypho in public debate, he carefully set forth correlations between

specific prophecies and the events that he believed fulfilled them--correlations

impossible to explain, he argued, apart from divinely inspired prophecy, and

God's intervention in human history.

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas), Chapter 3, p. 109.

 

Notes:

 

[92] Ibid., 9.

 

[93] Isaiah 7:14.

 

 

Here now, is the conclusion, Part 12.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

 

God's Word or Human Words - Part 12

 

(p.110) But those who criticize such " proof from prophecy " suggest that

Christians like Justin argue fallaciously--for example, by mistaking a

misleading translation for a miracle. The author of the Gospel of Matthew, for

example, apparently reading Isaiah's prophecy in Greek translation, took it to

mean that " a 'virgin' ['parthenos' in Greek] shall conceive. " Justin himself

acknowledges that Jewish interpreters, arguing with Jesus' followers, pointed

out that what the prophet had actually written in the original Hebrew was simply

that " a 'young woman' ['almah'] shall conceive and bear a son " --apparently

predicting immediate events expected in the royal succession. [94]

 

Yet Justin and Irenaeus, like many Christians to this day, remained unconvinced

by such arguments, and believed instead that ancient prophecies predicted Jesus'

birth, death, and resurrection, and that their divine inspiration has been

proven by actual events. Unbelievers often find these proofs far-fetched, but

for believers they demonstrate God's " history of salvation. " Justin staked his

life on this conviction, and believed that he had given up philosophical

speculation for truth as empirically verifiable as that of the scientist whose

experiments turn out as predicted.

 

Since Irenaeus saw the proof from prophecy as one way to resolve the problem of

how to tell which prophecies--and which revelations--come from God, he added

certain writings of " the apostles " to those of " the prophets, " since he, like

Justin, believed that together these constitute indispensable witnesses to

truth. Like other Christians of their time, Justin and Irenaeus, when they spoke

of " the Scriptures, " had in mind primarily the Hebrew Bible: what we call the

New Testament had not yet been assembled. (p.111) Their conviction that God's

truth is revealed in the events of salvation history provides the essential link

between the Hebrew Bible and what Justin called " the apostles' memoirs, " which

we know as the gospels of the New Testament.

 

It was Irenaeus, so far as we can tell, who became the principal architect of

what we call the four gospel canon, the framework that includes in the New

Testament collection the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. First

Irenaeus denounces various Christian groups that settle on only one gospel, like

the Ebionite Christians, who, he says, use only Matthew, or followers of

Marcion, who use only Luke. Equally mistaken, Irenaeus continues, are those who

invoke many gospels. Certain Christians, he says, declared that certain

Christians " boast that they have more gospels than there really are...but

really, they have no gospel which is not full of blasphemy. " [95] Irenaeus

resolved to hack down the forest of " apocryphal and illegitimate "

writings--writings like the Secret Book of James and the Gospel of Mary--and

leave only four " pillars " standing.[96] He boldly declared that " the gospel, "

which contains all truth, can be supported by only these four " pillars " --namely,

the gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. To defend his choice,

he declared that " it is not possible that there can be either more or fewer than

four, " for " just as there are four regions of the universe, and four principal

winds, " the church itself requires " only four pillars. " [97] Furthermore, just

as the prophet Ezekiel envisioned God's throne borne up by four living

creatures, so the divine Word of God is supported by this " four formed gospel. "

(Following his lead, Christians in later generations took the faces of these

four " living creatures " --the lion, the bull, the eagle, and the man--as symbols

of the four evangelists.) (p.112) What makes these gospels trustworthy, he

claimed, is that their authors, who he believed included Jesus' disciples

Matthew and John, actually 'witnessed' the events they related; similarly, he

added, Mark and Luke, being followers of Peter and Paul, wrote down only what

they had heard from the apostles themselves.

 

Few New Testament scholars today would agree with Irenaeus; we do not know who

actually wrote these gospels, any more than we know who wrote the gospels of

Thomas or Mary; all we know is that all of these " gospels " are attributed to

disciples of Jesus. Nevertheless, as the next chapters will show, Irenaeus not

only welded the Gospel of John to the far more widely quoted gospels of Matthew

and Luke but praised John as the greatest gospel. For Irenaeus, John was not the

'fourth' gospel, as Christians call it today, but the 'first' and 'foremost' of

the gospels, because he believed that John alone understood who Jesus really

is--God in human form. What God revealed in that extraordinary moment when he

" became flesh " trumped any revelations received by mere human beings--even

prophets and apostles, let alone the rest of us.

 

Irenaeus could not, of course, stop people from seeking revelation of divine

truth--nor, as we have seen, did he intend to do so. After all, religious

traditions survive through time only as their adherents relive and reimagine

them and, in the process, continually transform them. But, from his own time to

the present, Irenaeus and his successors among church leaders did strive to

compel all believers to subject themselves to the " fourfold gospel " and to what

he called apostolic tradition. Henceforth all " revelations " endorsed by

Christian leaders would have to agree with the gospels set forth in what would

become the New Testament. Throughout the centuries, of course, these gospels

have given rise to an extraordinary range of Christian art, music, poetry,

theology, and legend. But even the church's most gifted saints, like Teresa of

Avila and John of the Cross, would be careful not to transgress--much less

transcend--these boundaries. To this day, many traditionally minded Christians

continue to believe that whatever trespasses canonical guidelines must be " lies

and wickedness " that come either from the evil of the human heart or from the

devil.

 

Yet Irenaeus recognized that even banishing all " secret writings " and creating a

canon of four gospel accounts could not, by itself, safeguard the Christian

movement. What if some who read the " right " gospels read them in the wrong

way--or in 'many' wrong ways? What if Christians interpreted these same gospels

to inspire--or, as the bishop might say, to spawn--new " heresies " ? This is what

happened in Irenaeus's congregation--and, as we shall see, he responded by

working to construct what he called orthodox (literally, " straight-thinking " )

Christianity.

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas), Chapter 3, p. 110-113

Elaine Pagels

Vintage Books, New York, U.S.A

ISBN: 0-375-70316-0

 

 

Notes:

 

[94] Justin, 'Dialogue with Trypho' 43.

 

[95] Irenaeus, AH 1.11.9.

 

[96] Ibid., 1.10.1.

 

[97] Ibid., 1.11.8.