Author’s Note: This is part 2 of a 4-part series on tradition. Part 1 here.
As much as orthodoxy is defined by scriptures, so are scriptures defined by orthodoxy. It appears that during the time that Christianity separated from Judaism around the middle of the first century, Jewish scriptures were divided into three sets: the Torah, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa. While the first two had been closed sets of scriptures for approximately 2 centuries, the third set was open for discussion.
The earliest estimate for closing this part is believed to be the meeting at Jamnia in 90 CE [James A Sanders, From Sacred Story to Sacred Text (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987): 12-13]. Sanders mentions that the whole issue was not completely settled until the second century, but that the areas of debate were very minimal:
And the fact that some scattered debate continued into the second century about the canonicity of Esther, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and even Proverbs and Ezekiel, should, in that perspective, properly viewed as minimal in the extreme [Sanders, 13].
Other scholars do not see this meeting as being as conclusive; they suggest a later date some time during the second or third century CE. Regardless of when the Jewish canon was settled, it is certain that Christianity does not begin with a definitive canon of scriptures. While the two religions appeal to the same set of texts, their interpretations of these texts as sacred scriptures can differ radically from each other. In both instances, it is orthodoxy that informs the decision-making process.
Early Christian theology focused on Jesus as the central point of faith and belief. Throughout the writings of the church fathers, it is clear that this is the litmus by which they read Jewish scriptures as their own Christian scriptures. It is important to perceive this difference between Jewish and Christian uses of the same text. An average Jew does not read, for example, the book of Jeremiah the same way a Christian does—and vice versa. For this reason, it will be better to think of the two as completely separate instead of one being a subset of the other.
By the Council of Carthage in 397, church fathers had accepted the Greek Septuagint as the text of their Old Testament; and it differed from the Jewish canon of scriptures. There was little dispute in the church prior to the Reformation on this. During the Reformation, protestants began to reject this difference and reduced the set of texts for their Old Testament to match the Jewish canon [Henri Blocher, “Helpful or Harmful?”, European Journal of Theology 13.2: 82].Throughout all of these decisions, it was the concept of orthodoxy that played the greatest role in determining which texts are truly sacred.
Scriptures have been defined primarily for the justification and creation of orthodoxy, but it has also been defined for the exclusion of other beliefs. As Henderson wrote,
André Suarès has argued that ‘Heresy is the lifeblood of religion. It is faith that made heretics.’ But it might be equally true to say that heretics have made faith, or at least the faith [John B. Henderson, The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1998): 2].
Marcion, for instance, believed that the God of love Paul describes is so radically different from the Jewish God of creation that anything related to this Jewish God was completely worthless. His idea of orthodoxy led him to reject all forms of Jewish scripture and to suggest a canon consisting of Paul’s letters and a single gospel. While his canon most likely did not reflect what most Christians at this time read, church fathers began to react against Marcion’s canon and formulate a more accepted canon. Scholars agree that Marcion’s forming of a canon was the catalyst for Christianity to define a single canon.
The example of Shepherd of Hermas is more to the point. It was well accepted by the earliest fathers, much as Epistle of Barnabas, but it was rejected and then treated as heretical in the matter of three hundred years. It is clear that Shepherd could have been interpreted as presenting an adoptionist [Robert J. Hauck, “The great fast: Christology in the Shepherd of Hermas,” Anglican Theological Review 75.2 (Spring 1993): 197] Christology; this is probably the primary reason it was excluded from the canon and branded heretical: it did not fall in line explicitly enough with the emerging orthodoxy. It is through the debates in the first 400 years of Christianity that settle the issue of what texts are sacred and what beliefs are proper. It is here, through the question of what beliefs are acceptable that texts become scriptures.
Interesting. I have never bothered to read the sort of books where this kind of information can be found; I guess they lack the ability to retain my attention for very long. However, I really like to read short articles like this on the matter.