00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Hello and welcome to Word Magazine.
This is Jeff Riddle, Pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church
in Louisa, Virginia. In this episode of Word Magazine,
I'm going to be doing a reading of part of a paper that I presented
back on August the 27th of 2018. at the 2018 International Congress
on Calvin Research that was held at Westminster Theological Seminary
in Philadelphia. I gave this breakout session
paper on the topic of Calvin and Canon. I actually brought
my recorder in to record the presentation and the Q&A, and
I put it on the podium and forgot to turn it on. So to make up
for that, I'm going to do this reading here. Really sorry I
didn't record it because there was some good Q&A that took place
after the paper was presented, and I'm thankful that the paper
seemed to be well received by those who were there. I had a,
again for this breakout session, just about 20-25 minutes to present
the paper and then 5-10 minutes for questions, and it was in
the Rust Auditorium there in the Van Til building at Westminster. The paper in itself is over 10,000
words in length, so it's a long paper. I'm hoping to do some
editing, revising, and have it published somewhere. It's kind
of a follow-up to, in part, to the paper that I did earlier
that was turned into an article on Calvin and text criticism.
So I've just kind of been interested in how John Calvin approached
the issue of text and canon and his influence in shaping the
reformed Protestant view of the canon of scripture. So, anyway,
obviously I'm not going to present the entire paper. Again, it's
sort of a work in progress, and I hope it will be published somewhere
in the future. But I'm going to give just an abbreviated reading
of it. Again, I chopped it down to just
20, 25 minutes. When I originally presented it,
I might go a little bit longer than that. in this reading. So let me go ahead and get to
the paper again, which is Calvin and Canon. In his biography of
John Calvin, William J. Bousma observed, against the
claim of the Roman church to have settled the matter, Calvin
denied with no distress the existence of a fixed New Testament canon. This paper will examine Calvin's
understanding of the canon of the Christian scriptures, both
Old and New Testaments, as reflected in his various writings. And
we will assess whether we believe Baalsma's opinion on Calvin's
use of canon, whether or not he saw the New Testament as fixed
or not, hopefully by the end of the paper. In order to grasp
Calvin's understanding of canon, we must address at least four
key issues. Number one, Calvin's view of
the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. Number two, Calvin's view of
the so-called Anti-Legomena of the New Testament, that is the
works that were often spoken against, especially 2nd and 3rd
John and Revelation, but also Hebrews, James, 2nd Peter, and
Jude. Third, we need to address Calvin's
understanding of the criterion of canonicity. And fourth, we
need to look at Calvin's definition not only of the proper books,
which should be included in the canon of the Christian scriptures,
but also the texts of those books. Before we look at those four
key issues, we need to say something about the canon in the Christian
tradition. And so I'm going to give a brief
overview of canon within the Christian tradition. So we begin
with the period of early Christianity. It has been suggested often that
the definition of the Orthodox Christian canon at the earliest
levels came in response to refutations of the teaching of the arch-heretic
Marcion, who not only rejected the Old Testament, but promoted
only a mutilated version of the Gospel of Luke and the Pauline
Epistles as Scripture, although some of the views on Marcion's
role in shaping the canon of Scripture have recently been
challenged. Among the earliest extant efforts to list the canonical
books is the so-called Muratorian Fragment, dating to the 2nd century,
as well as the list composed by Origen in his Commentary on
the Gospel of Matthew. Eusebius of Caesarea, in the
Ecclesiastical History, offered his own review of the New Testament
books, famously dividing them into three categories. The recognized
books, the disputed books, which included James, Jude, 2nd Peter,
and 2nd and 3rd John, and what he called the rejected books.
That would be things like the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of
Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, Epistle of Barnabas, etc. Also
in the Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius reports on the Old Testament
canon as it was received by Melito of Sardis, which is significant
among other things for the fact that it contained only the books
of the Hebrew Bible, without explicitly mentioning Esther,
Lamentations, and Nehemiah, and did not include the Apocrypha,
except perhaps for the wisdom of Solomon. In his work on Christian
doctrine, completed in 427, Augustine provided his own canon list,
which reflected his preference for the Greek Septuagint and
its inclusion of works from the Apocrypha and the Old Testament.
This, by the way, would pose special difficulty for Calvin,
given his respect for and dependence upon the great North African
theologian. The watershed for Western Christianity
in this early period of canonical recognition came with Jerome's
Latin Vulgate. It was significant, among other
things, for the fact that Jerome not only translated the Old Testament
from Hebrew rather than the Greek Septuagint, but also for his
disparagement of the books of the Apocrypha and his prefaces
to the Old Testament books. In the canon of the New Testament,
Bruce Metzger observes during the Middle Ages, the church in
the West received the Latin New Testament in the form that Jerome
had given to it, and the subject of canon was seldom discussed. At the same time, however, Metzger
continues, we find a certain elasticity in the boundaries
of the New Testament. In the immediate pre-Reformation
period, Erasmus' Greek New Testament of 1516 included comments at
the beginning of each New Testament book which, among other things,
challenged Pauline authorship of Hebrews, expressed doubt as
to whether James was written by James the Apostle, and freely
questioned traditional attributions of authorship of 2 Peter, 2 and
3 John, and Jude. Among the early reformers, Andreas
Bodenstein of Karlstad, in both a scholarly Latin work of 1520
and a popular German work of 1521, not only asserted the independent
authority of Holy Scripture, apart from ecclesiastical pronouncements,
but also divided the New Testament into three ranks. First, the
Gospels and Acts. Second, the undoubted epistles
of Paul, along with 1 Peter and 1 John. Third, the seven disputed
books. James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John,
Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation. So began the German tradition
of the canon within the canon. Martin Luther's German New Testament
of 1522 indicated uncertainty about four of the New Testament
books as evidenced by the table of content and layout. In the
table of content, the first 23 books from Matthew to 3 John
are each assigned a number. Then a blank space was given
and four books were listed unnumbered, Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. In his prefaces to the New Testament,
as well as to individual books, Luther placed the books in three
ranks. First, those that most clearly
showed Christ in salvation, namely the Gospel of John, 1 John, and
Paul's letters, especially Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians. and
the book of 1st Peter. Second rank was the Synoptic
Gospels, which included the other Pauline epistles, Acts, 2nd Peter,
2nd and 3rd John. And then in the third category,
he listed the four books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation as
standing in a last rank or last place. In his preface to James
in the 1522 German New Testament, Luther made his famous statement
that James was a right-strawy epistle compared with the others,
although this comment was removed from later editions. It should
be noted that Tyndale's English New Testament of 1525 followed
Luther's orderings of the New Testament books and also included
his prefaces. In 1534, Luther published the
first complete edition of the German Bible, which included
prefaces for the books of the Apocrypha, undermining their
canonicity. In response to the Reformation,
Rome met in the Council of Trent, which held its first session
in 1545. In 1546, it issued its fourth decree, on the canon of the scriptures,
which affirmed in the Old Testament alongside the 39 books of the
Hebrew Bible, seven books of the Apocrypha,
as well as the additions to Esther and Daniel. It also declared
that the Latin Vulgate provided the definitive text of Scripture.
Metzger describes this as the first time in the history of
the Church that the question of the contents of the Bible
was made an absolute article of faith and confirmed by an
anathema. Calvin's views on canon must
be understood against the backdrop of both of his fellow reformers'
reconsiderations of canon and Rome's declarations on canon
in the Council of Trent. So with this brief overview of
canon in the Christian tradition, completed through the early Reformation
and Trent era, we can return to look at the four key issues
that I previously noted. So we begin, first of all, with
a brief examination of Calvin and the Apocrypha. In 1547, Calvin issued the tract
titled Acts of the Council of Trent with the Antidote in response
to the pronouncements made in the opening sessions at Trent.
In the tract, he excoriates those degenerate, illegitimate sons
of the Roman sea for forming a catalog of scripture in which
they mark all the books with the same chalk and insist on
placing the Apocrypha in the same rank with the others. He
charges Rome with doing so in order to provide new supports
for unscriptural teaching. He writes, quote, out of the
second of the Maccabees, they will prove purgatory. and the
worship of the saints. Out of Tobit, satisfactions,
exorcisms, and whatnot, from Ecclesiasticus they will borrow
not a little, for from whence could they better draw their
dregs? Despite this harsh denunciation, however, Calvin adds, quote,
I am not one of those, however, who would entirely disapprove
of reading those books. But in giving them an authority
which they have never possessed, What end was sought but just
to have the use of spurious paint in coloring their errors?" In
adding these books, Calvin charges Rome with making scripture a
nose of wax because he says it can be formed into all shapes. Calvin makes various references
to at least six books from the Apocrypha within his institutes. On one hand, he can sometimes
appeal to these books or clarify the interpretation of them in
order to support or expand his arguments. On the other hand,
however, he frequently makes clear that these works are to
be distinguished in their authority from the received books of the
Hebrew Bible. Here is a review of some of the
references to the Apocrypha within the Institutes. We begin, first
of all, with a discussion of angelology, the Institute's Book
1.14.8. Calvin notes that two names exist
in the scriptures for the angels, namely Michael and Gabriel. He
then suggests that a third, namely Raphael, might be added, if he
says you wish to add the one from the history of Tobit, citing
Tobit 12.15. Secondly, in a discussion of
the origin of images, In Institutes 1, 11, 8, Calvin begins by citing
the wisdom of Solomon, saying, Next, what is held in the Book
of Wisdom concerning the origin of idols is received virtually
by public consent, that the originators of idols were those who conferred
this honor on the dead, and thus superstitiously worship their
memory. The reference here is to Wisdom of Solomon 14 verses
15 and 16, which traces the vanity of the origins of idol-making
to a father consumed with grief at an untimely bereavement who
made an image of his child so that he now honored as a god,
Calvin says, what was once a dead human being. The most frequently
cited book from the Apocrypha within the Institutes is Ecclesiasticus
or the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach. And so the third text we could
look at would be Calvin's citation of Ecclesiasticus or reference
to it in Institutes book 2, 5, 18. where Calvin examines Ecclesiasticus
15 verses 14 through 17. This passage had been cited by
Erasmus, along with a jab against those who would exclude it from
the canon. Calvin begins, they bring forth
Ecclesiasticus, a writer whose authority is known to be in doubt. Fourthly, in a discussion of
the merits of human works before God in Institutes Book 3, 15,
4, Calvin responds to appeals by his opponents to Ecclesiasticus
16, verse 14 or Ecclesiasticus 16, 15 in the Vulgate, which
reads, Mercy will make room for every man according to the merit
of his works. and he goes forward in his exposition
to describe how this passage had been misused by Roman Catholics. Though he rejects Ecclesiasticus
as part of Scripture, he is willing to give it hypothetical consideration,
but under exegetical analysis, he argues that even this passage
does not support the point as his opponents approve. Most importantly,
their views on good works do not fit with what Calvin calls
the measure of Scripture. Fifth, in a discussion of the
necessity of humility in prayer, in Institutes Book 3, 28, Calvin
draws on several Old Testament examples, including Isaiah's
declaration, We are the clay, thou art the potter, and we are
the work of thy hands, in Isaiah 64, 5-9. After citing the petition
of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 14.7, Calvin concludes his teaching
on prayer by fusing two passages from the Apocrypha's Baruch,
whose authorial tradition associates it with Jeremiah, the weeping
prophet. Calvin can approvingly cite the
work while also questioning the veracity of its purported authorship. Though Calvin does not see this
work as authentic or canonical, he does see devotional value
in it. Six, in a discussion of the providential
preservation of scripture in Institutes Book 1, 8, 10, Calvin
makes reference to an apologetic dispute regarding a historical
incident described in First Maccabees 1, 56 and 57, in which the tyrant
Antiochus IV Epiphanes ordered the destruction of the Hebrew
scriptures. Calvin begins, quote, indeed,
the passage and the history of the Maccabees that they put forth
order to detract from the authenticity of Scripture, is such that nothing
more appropriate could be thought of to establish it, since Antiochus,
they say, ordered all books to be burned. Where did the copies
that we now have come from?" He asks, in what workshop could
copies have been fabricated so quickly? For it is well known
that directly after the persecution had ceased, the books were extant.
Calvin's point, Antiochus was clearly unable to destroy all
the copies of God's word. For Calvin, the true lesson to
ponder is how much care the Lord had taken to preserve his word
when, he says, contrary to everybody's expectation, he snatched it away
from a most cruel and savage tyrant as from a raging fire. Seventh, and finally, in his
rejection of purgatory as a deadly fiction of Satan in Institutes
Book 3, 5, 6, Calvin surveys various texts cited by his opponents
in Institutes Book 3, 5, 8, including Philippians, Revelation, and
2 Maccabees, in the book of 2 Maccabees. The contested passage from the
Maccabean history is 2 Maccabees 12, verses 43-45, and it's referenced
to prayer and atonement made for the dead. Calvin begins his
response, quote, What they bring forward from the history of the
Maccabees, I deem unworthy of reply, lest I seem to include
that work in the canon of the sacred books. He then points
out that the book of 2 Maccabees ends with the author imploring,
pardon if he has said anything amiss. The reference is to 2
Maccabees 15 verses 37 and 38, wherein the author tells his
readers, So I too will herein my story,
if it is well told and to the point. That is what I myself
desired. If it is poorly done and mediocre,
that was the best I could do." Calvin observes, surely he who
admits that his writings are in need of pardon does not claim
to be the oracle of the Holy Spirit. Calvin thus rejects any
appeal to 2 Maccabees as an authority alongside canonical scripture.
Aside from his analysis of particular passages from the Apocrypha,
Calvin also offers well-known general comments in the Institutes
on Scripture, noting that its authority does not come merely
from Church recognition, by which appeal was made for the canonicity
of the Apocrypha, but from its self-authenticating authority.
So, in Institutes Book 1-7-1, Calvin observes, Now daily oracles
are not sent from heaven, for it pleased the Lord to hallow
his truth to everlasting remembrance in the Scriptures alone. Hence,
the Scriptures obtain full authority among believers only when men
regard them as having sprung from heaven as if the living
words of God were heard. For Calvin, obviously, the Apocrypha
lacks the inherent authority of having sprung from heaven,
a deficit that cannot be overcome by church recognition. In Institutes
Book 1, 7, 4, Calvin likewise contends that Scripture's authority
does not come from external proof. There follows, in Institutes
Book 175, Calvin's distinctive argument for the self-authenticating
authority of Scripture. He begins, quote, let this point
therefore stand, that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly
taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture indeed is
self-authenticated, alta piston. Hence, it is not right to subject
it to proof and reasoning, and the certainty it deserves with
us it attains by the testimony of the Spirit. For Calvin, this
self-authenticating authority cannot be proven by scripture
for Scripture by proof of reason or external evidence, and it
is absent in the Apocrypha. So, the evidence from the Institutes
makes clear that Calvin rejected the books of the Apocrypha as
being part of the canonical Scripture, whatever ecclesiastical declarations
might be made about them. In his introduction to the Apocrypha,
Bruce Metzger observes, quote, in his celebrated treatise of
theology, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin makes
more than 4,000 references to the canonical scriptures in support
of his system of doctrine. It is instructed to note that
he refers only 10 times to the book of the Apocrypha. They are
Tobit, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Baruch, and 1st and 2nd Maccabees.
And in these cases, he never uses the Apocrypha to substantiate
any doctrine," end quote. Calvin often questions, in the
Institutes, the authenticity of the purported authorship of
the Apocryphal books, as evidenced by comments like, whoever he
may be, he clearly despises the use of the Apocrypha to support
doctrines that he finds to be unscriptural, like the appeal
to 2 Maccabees in support of purgatory. On the other hand,
he is willing, on occasion, for the sake of argument, to give
hypothetical consideration to what these books might contribute
to Christian theology. He clearly does not suggest that
the books of the Apocrypha are inherently nefarious, and can
even make appeal to them as edifying, if uninspired, as in his appeal
to Baruch when teaching about humility in prayer. Let's move
on to the second key point, which is Calvin and the anti-legomena
of the New Testament. With regard to Calvin's views
on the canon of the New Testament, it is essential to review his
New Testament commentaries on the so-called anti-legomena,
the works that were spoken against, Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, and
Jude, as well as to consider the fact that he apparently did
not author commentaries on 2 and 3 John and Revelation, which
are also among the anti-legomena. Let's start with a few words
about Hebrews. In the introduction to its commentary on Hebrews,
Calvin acknowledges not only historical questions about the
authorship of Hebrews, but also recognizes challenges as to its
place within the New Testament canon. He begins, quote, not
only various opinions were formally entertained as to the author
of this epistle, but it was also at a late period that it was
received by the Latin churches, end quote. For Calvin, precise
knowledge of the authorship of Hebrews is an indifferent matter
as regards its canonical standing. Calvin expresses skepticism in
particular as to the Pauline authorship of the work. He also
rejects the conjecture that this work was first written in Hebrew
and only later translated into Greek, a proposal meant to explain
its variance from typical Pauline style. Calvin also provides an
extensive, oops, I gotta go on now to the book of James. Calvin
begins his commentary on James by acknowledging its uneven reception
both in the ancient past and among some of his unnamed contemporaries. Quote, it appears from the writings
of Jerome and Eusebius that this epistle was not formally received
by many churches without opposition. There are also, at this day,
some who do not think it is entitled to authority." He, however, affirms
its canonicity. Calvin says, I, however, am inclined
to receive it without controversy because I see no just cause for
rejecting it. The key problem is the book's
notorious teaching on faith and works in chapter two and its
perceived inconsistency with the doctrine of justification
by faith. Calvin also provides an extensive
harmonization between Paul and James in Institutes Book 3, 17,
11, in which he states, quote, What then? Will they drag Paul
into conflict with James? If they consider James a minister
of Christ, his statement must be so understood as not to disagree
with Christ speaking through Paul's lips. Calvin's forthright
discussion of the authorship of James, his willingness to
challenge traditional views of its authorship, and his conclusion
that a precise determination of authorship is not possible
or even essential, anticipates the approaches that will be taken
by later, modern historical critical scholars, and the positing of
technical anonymity for many of the New Testament books. It
is Calvin's convictions on the self-authenticating nature of
scripture that no doubt influence his position here. Scripture
is not canonical scripture merely because it was written by an
apostle or an apostolic associate, even though this well may be
the case, and it is worthy of historical consideration. Scripture
is canonical scripture, according to Calvin, because it is, quote,
sprung from heaven, end quote. Let's look at the book of 2 Peter.
In his introductory remarks on 2 Peter, Calvin acknowledges
historical challenges to the book's authenticity and reception.
He begins, quote, the doubts respecting this epistle mentioned
by Eusebius ought not to keep us from reading it. For if the
doubts rests on the authority of men whose names he does not
give, we ought to pay no more regard to it than to that of
unknown men. And he afterwards adds, that
it was everywhere received without any dispute." As with Hebrews
and James, Calvin demonstrates a nuanced understanding of authorship
with regard to 2 Peter. Though 2 Peter may not have been
written by Peter, Calvin can still affirm, quote, at the same
time, according to the consent of all, it has nothing unworthy
of Peter, as it shows everywhere the power and the grace of an
apostolic spirit, end quote. Nevertheless, Calvin weighs seriously
the fact that the book's traditional title does, in fact, attribute
it to Peter. Thus, Calvin suggests, quote,
if it be received as canonical, we must allow Peter to be the
author, since it has his name inscribed, and he also testifies
that he had lived with Christ, and it would have been a fiction
unworthy of minister of Christ to have personated another individual,
end quote. This leads to Calvin's ingenious
conclusion in the commentaries that it was both written by Peter
and yet not written by Peter. Calvin says, quote, So then I
conclude that if the epistle be deemed worthy of credit, it
must have proceeded from Peter, not that he himself wrote it,
but that some of his disciples set forth in writing by his command
those things which the necessity of the times required. Let's
move on to the book of Jude. In his introduction to Jude,
Calvin notes the brevity of the work and the fact that almost
the whole of it is nearly the same as 2 Peter 2. And yet, he
confidently affirms the book's canonicity while acknowledging
historical opposition to it. Now we move on to Calvin's views
on the books of 2 and 3 John and Revelation. The question
remains as to the significance of the fact that Calvin did not
write commentaries on the books of 2 and 3 John and Revelation. Does this mean that Calvin rejected
these as canonical books? Clearly, this cannot be the case,
since Calvin not only included these works among the 27 New
Testament books in his 1540 publication of Olivetan's French Bible, but
he also listed them among the canonical works in the third
chapter of the Gaelic Confession of 1559. As we have seen with
the anti-legomena, however, Calvin did not insist that apostolic
authorship or association was necessary for canonicity. What
matters is whether or not a book possesses what he called an apostolic
spirit, which is indeed the Spirit of Christ. Did Calvin then doubt
the inspiration of these works, 2 and 3 John and Revelation?
In a chapter devoted to the New Testament canon, the respected
Calvin scholar T.H.L. Parker adds an appendix in his
book on Calvin's New Testament commentaries on these omitted
works. And that appendix begins with
Parker saying the following, What, however, of the books that
he omitted, why did he not write on 2 and 3 John and Revelation?
He starkly ends that appendix with a one-sentence paragraph.
This is Parker, quote, Calvin nowhere, according to the Corpus
Reformatorum, refers to 2 and 3 John. Not only are there no
commentaries on 2 and 3 John, but Parker found no extant citations
of these works in all of Calvin's works. One might think, for example,
that Calvin could not have resisted some reference to diatrophies
in 3 John, verses 9 and 10, and some sly comparison to popes
and prelates who love, quote, to have the preeminence among
them, end quote. and who unjustly casts out unfaithful
brethren from the church. But from Calvin's pen, there
is only silence with regard to 2 and 3 John. Another possibility
is that Calvin simply did not think it was proper stewardship
of his time and attention to devote a commentary to works
consisting of a mere 13 verses in the case of 2 John and 14
verses in the case of 3 John. With regard to the Book of Revelation,
although we do not have an exposition from Calvin's pen solely devoted
to this work, he did make frequent reference to it. particularly
in the Institutes. In Battle's index of biblical
references in the Institutes, he notes at least 26 citations
of or references to Revelation in Calvin's Institutes. Parker
notes at least 40 references to it in the index of the Corpus
Reformatorum. That would include all of Calvin's
writings, not just the Institutes. Parker notes that Revelation
is a surprising omission from Calvin's extant writings. Parker
takes it only as very probable, though not completely certain,
that Calvin, in fact, did not expound this book. Parker mentioned
several early authors, including John Bale in his book, The Image
of Both Churches, written in 1547, itself a commentary on
Revelation, who make intriguing but wholly unsubstantiated references
to a commentary on the apocalypse by Calvin. More likely, according
to Parker, Calvin may have been deterred from writing on Revelation
for a theological reason. So Parker says, quote, for him,
the Old Testament proclaimed Christ in an obscure manner.
But in the New Testament, Christ had appeared in complete clearness.
It was like the difference between twilight and noontide. Hence,
apocalyptic, involving the use of allegory, was part of the
Old Testament method of teaching, and he was not afraid of treating
apocalyptic in Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, as witnessed his
commentaries on those books. But, just as allegory was out
of place in interpreting the Gospels, so apocalyptic is foreign
to the New Testament's complete revelation of Christ." In the
end, we can only conclude that though Calvin accepted 2nd and
3rd John and Revelation as part of the canon of Christian scripture,
he did not, as far as we know, devote extended attention to
their exposition. We move on next and look at Calvin
and the criterion of canonicity. And I'll just summarize briefly
some of the things that I said here. In fact, when I did the
paper presentation, I just skipped over this portion entirely. Calvin
does, as we noted earlier, put the emphasis on in canonicity
on the self-authenticating nature of scripture, the fact that it
is inspired, the fact that it gives evidence that it is sprung
from heaven, And so he puts the major emphasis on the criterion
of canonicity being the self-authenticating nature of scripture. So I'm going
to skip over that portion entirely. And I'm going to go to the fourth
key issue, which is Calvin's treatment of the selection of
the books of the Bible and also the texts of the Bible. This
final key issue again relates to Calvin's views on the canonical
text of the Bible. For Calvin, canon was not merely
a matter of which books should be recognized as part of the
canon of scripture. But it was also about defining
the authoritative texts of those books. Calvin's linkage of canon
and text is clearly seen in his response to session four of Trent
in his tract, Acts of the Council of Trent with the Antidote. He
takes Rome to task for repudiating all other versions while retaining
the Latin Vulgate alone as authentic. For Calvin, doctrine must be
checked by the Hebrew or Greek original. He argues, quote, in
condemning all translations except the Vulgate, as the error is
more gross, so the edict is more barbarous. The sacred oracles
of God were delivered by Moses and the prophets in Hebrew and
by the apostles in Greek, end quote. He then adds, quote, the
ancients, though unacquainted with the languages, especially
with Hebrew, always candidly acknowledge that nothing is better
than to consult the original in order to obtain the true and
genuine meaning." The Romanists are not only content with, as
Calvin puts it, a defective translation, but, he says, they insist on
worshipping it, just as if it had come down from heaven. I
have argued elsewhere that with regard to the text of the New
Testament, the mature Calvin demonstrated a marked preference
for the Textus Receptus as the canonical text of the New Testament.
And you can see my article, Calvin and Text Criticism, which appeared
in Puritan Reform Journal in July of 2017. We can safely assume
that Calvin also preferred the Masoretic Text as the canonical
text of the Old Testament. So having surveyed those various
key issues, let me now draw some conclusions on Calvin's consensus. on canon and his ongoing legacy. Calvin's ultimate consensus on
canon can perhaps best be observed in two works. First, in his republication
of the Olivetan French Bible in 1540. This edition represents
Calvin's consensus on a Protestant canon with 39 books from the
Hebrew Bible in the Old Testament and 27 books from the Greek in
the New Testament. with no rank or distinction among
them as in Luther's Bible, while the Apocrypha is included but
set apart from the canonical books. The second work that we
can look to to see Calvin's mature consensus on the canon would
be the Gaelic Confession of 1559. which was prepared by Calvin
and one of his pupils, and then revised and approved at a Senate
of Paris in 1559. This confession reflects the
views of the mature Calvin with respect to canon. Chapter 3 of
the Gaelic Confession begins. These holy scriptures are comprised
in the canonical books of the Old and New Testament as follows.
There then appears the listing of the 66 books of the Protestant
canon, with no rankings or distinctions among them. Chapter 4 of the
Gaelic Confession adds, quote, We know these books to be canonical
and the sure rule of our faith, not so much by the common accord
and consent of the Church as by the testimony and inward illumination
of the Holy Spirit which enables us to distinguish them from other
ecclesiastical books, upon which, however useful, we cannot found
any articles of faith. Calvin's distinct influence on
the Protestant Orthodox view of canon is reflected especially
in chapter 1 of the Holy Scripture in the Westminster Confession,
as well as in parallel and nearly synonymous statements in corresponding
chapters of the Savoy Declaration of 1658 and the Second London
Baptist Confession of 1689. This influence includes the definition
of the canonical books of the Bible and a rather ironic but
clear description of the Apocrypha in Chapter 1, Paragraph 3 of
the Westminster Confession, which says, the books commonly called
Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the
canon of the Scripture and therefore are of no authority in the Church
of God nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of than
other human writings. Of course, The Westminster Confession
of Faith in Chapter 1 and Paragraph 8 also stresses the immediate
inspiration of the scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek,
and notes that the Word of God has been maintained by the singular
care and providence kept pure of God and kept pure in all ages. and they are, therefore, authentical.
Calvin's influence can also be seen in the writings of the Protestant
Orthodox, from William Whitaker's Disputation on Holy Scripture
of 1588, to John Owen's Of the Divine Original, and A Vindication
of the Purity and Integrity of the Hebrew and Greek Texts of
the Old and New Testaments, both written in the year 1659 or published
in the year 1659. The trajectory extends to modern
attempts to re-articulate Calvin's concept of the self-articulating
canon as found, for example, in Michael J. Kruger's book,
Canon Revisited, published in 2012. Calvin was profoundly influential
in shaping and defining a distinctive Protestant and Reformed conception
of canon. Over against Eastern Orthodoxy
and Roman Catholicism, he rejected the notion that canon was defined
by the ecclesiastical pronouncements of the Church, but affirmed that
these books claim their canonical status by virtue of ontology,
that is, by virtue of their being. In harmony with Judaism, he affirmed
the 39 books of the Hebrew Bible as constituting the canon of
the Old Testament. Though he rejected the canonicity
of the Apocrypha, he could affirm that these works, though uninspired,
could serve an edifying role in Christian piety. Such a perspective
has been largely lost among most modern Protestants and might
well be reclaimed in the contemporary church. Over against some of
his fellow Reformers, Luther included, Calvin did not, in
the end, affirm a so-called canon within the canon understanding
of the New Testament books. He did not divide the New Testament
books into ranks, and thus gave an equal authority and status
to all. Calvin affirmed that canon was
not just a matter of which books are in the Bible, but also of
which texts make up those books. By affirming the Hebrew text
of the Old Testament, As normative, this meant he departed from Eastern
Orthodoxy's preference for the Greek or the Septuagint texts
of the Old Testament, and also Roman Catholicism's preference
for the Latin Vulgate for the entire Bible. What is more, he
affirmed a stress on the importance of the immediate inspiration
of the Bible in its original languages and I believe affirmed
that the proper text was the traditional one, that is, the
Masoretic Text of the Old Testament and the Textus Receptus Received
Text of the New Testament. I close then by returning to
Balsamus' statement with which I began this paper, that Calvin,
quote, denied with no distress the existence of a fixed New
Testament canon. end quote, and conclude that
this statement is inaccurate. Calvin did not deny, but affirmed
a well-formed view of the canon of the Christian scripture. both
the Old and the New Testaments. And this ends the paper. I hope this is of some profit
to those who listen. And again, I hope that I will
do some revision and some expansion and some editing of the paper. Again, I just shared bits and
pieces of it. I hope it didn't sound too disjointed
as I removed quite a bit of it from the reading. But anyways,
I hope that this was helpful and will be edifying to those
who hear it. I hope you'll enjoy this Word magazine, and I will
look forward to speaking to you in the next edition. Until then,
take care and God bless.
WM 103: Calvin and Canon
Series Word Magazine
| Sermon ID | 913182240569 |
| Duration | 42:53 |
| Date | |
| Category | Podcast |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.