No Innovation
In the Roman Catholic / Protestant dialog, the RC's often cite the Church Fathers for support of their concept of Apostolic Tradition. There's more, they say, than just the Bible, Prots. From the earliest days of the church, the Fathers were fighting schism and heresy with 1) Scripture (it is written), 2) Reason (how fallacious this heresy is), and 3) Tradition (it has always been thus in the churches that follow the Apostles).
As I read the Fathers, however, the modern appeal to tradition seems quite different from what the Fathers were doing. In Patristic practice, the appeal to tradition is always against innovation: "These crazy Gnostic ideas are all new, and there was never anything like it in the Apostolic Tradition." So, we don't follow the innovators in the things they add.
And actually, with such an argument, Protestants are happy to agree, saying, "these doctrines of Mary, and reserving the Host, and venerating Saints are all new, and there was never anything like it in the Apostolic Tradition." So, we don't follow the innovators in the things they add. Peter did not bow to the Host. Paul did not pray to Saint Stephen the first martyr. No innovation.
As I read the Fathers, however, the modern appeal to tradition seems quite different from what the Fathers were doing. In Patristic practice, the appeal to tradition is always against innovation: "These crazy Gnostic ideas are all new, and there was never anything like it in the Apostolic Tradition." So, we don't follow the innovators in the things they add.
And actually, with such an argument, Protestants are happy to agree, saying, "these doctrines of Mary, and reserving the Host, and venerating Saints are all new, and there was never anything like it in the Apostolic Tradition." So, we don't follow the innovators in the things they add. Peter did not bow to the Host. Paul did not pray to Saint Stephen the first martyr. No innovation.
Labels: early church fathers
posted by Keith | Monday, September 12, 2011
16 Comments:
I don't think that will get you very far. First, there is the claim that the early church(es) reflected an unwritten tradition of practice and/or theology. (Church buildings? Musical instruments? I can raise you non-instrumental Presbyterians if you want to take bible silence as definitively implying you can't do something.)
Secondly, although relatedly, I don't think that you endorse a sort of "No creed but Christ" sort of thing. In which case theological development is a necessary and appropriate thing for the church.
So the question is what is appropriate development and what is inappropriate development - i.e., what is truly in "seed" form in the Scriptures and what isn't.
After all, Peter didn't confess the WCF either, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong for you to do so.
Okay, but my point is narrower. I'm just observing that the early fathers appealed to tradition only conservatively, against innovation. So, if we are going to talk about development, tradition is not the card to play. Rather, unpack Scripture.
I believe both EO and RC consider the process by which the Canon was defined as Tradition as well. Certainly that would be development, wouldn't it?
Yes, but my point is, when the Early Fathers cited tradition, it was in a much more restricted sense. The word can change use and meaning, sure. But we ought to see that this use of "tradition" is different than that use of "tradition".
I think we should settle this by watching Fiddler on the Roof.
If you move on, say to Basil of Caesarea, "apostolic tradition" is generally used to refer to liturgical practice. Like your average person today, most of them believed that whatever had been done for at least two generations was of ancient origin, as you can find Fathers attesting in different centuries that quite different liturgical practices were "apostolic."
In short, the Fathers were very poor historians, notwithstanding the fact that they lived a "mere" few centuries after Jesus.
Jewish prayers to Angels, Enoch, and Elijah date from pre-Christian times:
faculty.biu.ac.il/~testsm/Angels_Intermed.html
If you still have doubts, think about Matthew 27:47 and Mark 15:35.
@Lvka: 1) By the same argument you could say that Jewish idolatry also dates from pre-Christian times and so commend idolatry. 2) Nor do the mockers at the foot of the cross who misunderstand Christ's words commend prayer to created beings.
Let's just say that there was a very good reason for their mis-understanding of Christ's words, and that the mockery did not consist in the misunderstanding itself.
Let's also say that Christ's words against the Sadducees in Matthew 22:31-34; Mark 12:26-28; and Luke 20:37-40 would've only helped fuel such a practice, as opposed to hindering it, especially given the countless encouragements to intercessory prayer that we find in Scripture.
Let's also take into account the universality of this practice in the ancient Christian Churches, especially since it is practiced by those that broke off from it whole centuries before Nicaea II (Monophysites and Nestorians).
Then let us connect the dots.
So the Sadducees prayed for the dead.
And the Monophysites prayed for the dead.
And the Nestorians prayed for the dead.
...
I guess that settles it.
Oh wait. What about some actual Biblical teaching that amounts to "Pray for the dead."
So the Sadducees prayed for the dead.
Actually, they were the only ones that didn't.. (I assume you mean the Pharisees..)
What about some actual Biblical teaching that amounts to "Pray for the dead."
It's the direct implication of the teaching about the resurrection of the dead. Everyone who believed in this teaching, be they Maccabees, or Pharisees, or early Christians, or the ancient Christian Churches, all have this practice.. and it stands to reason why [2 Maccabees 12:44].
The ONLY ones who did NOT have it were those who outright DENIED the resurrection itself: the Sadducees you've just mentioned earlier..
Not only did Christ not criticize the Jews for praying for the dead, but NO Christian in the first 1500 years of Christian history did.. (Does this not mean anything to you?)
Here is my basic presupposition, which I expect, you do not share, and that means we will be talking past one another again and again. My position is: everything is reviewable and everything must be brought back to the scripture and re-examined. So if there is a case for prayers to the dead in scripture, okay. We invite our fathers in the faith to the discussion and are glad to hear the testimony of Tradition. But it is an article of faith among Presbyterians (and all other Protestants for that matter) that "councils can and do err." So even the testimony of Tradition and the decrees of the councils are subject to review and correction if necessary.
So yes, the early practice of the church counts, and the continuing practice of some of the churches is of interest. But our charge is that these practices must be brought back to the scriptures, and if they cannot be established from the scriptures there, then they cannot be considered a required part of Christian practice. (And we do not recognize 2 Maccabees as scripture.)
I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting. But I do not believe in prayers to the dead. There is an unwarrented leap from one belief to the other that has no scriptural example or warrant.
This article wasn't about "basic presuppositions"...
This post was about the supposed lateness or innovation of prayers to and for the dead: which is demonstrably false... (Prayers for the departed, and intercessory prayers to Angels, date back to pre-Christian times).
(And the reason I offered you the apocryphal passage in question was so that you might understand the logic and antiquity of this common Judeo-Christian practice... not because I thought that Protestants accept the apocrypha...)
Christianity didn't appear "from the Bible", Christianity appeared from Judaism.
Christ and His Holy Apostles were pious Jews, who practiced Judaism.
Pious Jews prayed for their dead.
I think you'd agree that Christianity appeared because God the Son took on human flesh and has made the Father known. So when you say that Christianity appeared from Judaism, I think I know what you mean, but I object because that lets you sneak in Jewish practices (in this case, prayers for the dead) which are not part of God's revelation to Israel in the Hebrew scriptures. I will argue that we want to base our practice and belief on what God has said, not on what some Jews started doing.
To say that Jesus "practiced Judaism" needs some qualification. Obviously, for example, he did not practice the Sabbath laws to the Jews' satisfaction. He did much *correcting* and criticism of the form Judaism had at the time.
Of course we wouldn't be having this discussion if we had a verse where Jesus had said "woe to you Pharisees, for you pray for the dead &c". But we don't have a complete record of everything he ever said; the gospel writers were pretty selective about what they included.
Anyway, without being too solipsistic, it seems like a leap to say that since there is evidence that at least some Jews at the time prayed for the dead, therefore Jesus must have been doing so, also.
I believe that if God wanted us to include certain practices in our worship, he would have put them in the Bible. God's word has the authority. Other sources are not infallible and therefore problematic.
Not just "some" Jews, but rather almost all Jews...
[ All except the small but select `club` of the Sadducees...
...which were usually members of the rich Jewish nobility, who didn't need to believe in an after-life because -for them- this life was good enough anyway...) Which is why their sect also disappeared together with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, when life wasn't so rosy anymore... But I digress... ]
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So -as I was saying- Jesus and His Holy Apostles were praying for the dead...
Our prayers and services were not invented of the top of the hat by us or the Holy Apostles, but were rather transmitted (and sometimes modified accordingly) by those Church-founding Apostles from Judaism.
Couple this with the fact that we're not called "Orthodox" for nothing: I mean, we're not exactly `known` for our ever-new and ever-surprising way of re-thinking, re-shaping, and re-interpreting "the faith once and for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3).
Couple both with the fact that Gentile Churches [Greece, Rome, Lyons] also have prayers for the dead, not just the Semitic ones [Syria, Assyria, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Jerusalem]. -- I only listed those whose roots are Apostolic.
Couple all three with the fact that these Semitic Churches fell away relatively-early under the heresies of Nestorianism and Monophysism, so --if such prayers would've been *unique* to these Churches due to their distinctly-Jewish heritage-- this would NOT have helped the spread & reception of such practices.
Couple all four with the fact that the Jews themsleves were also particularly disliked for either persecuting Christians directly, and/or betraying them to pagan authorities who would then subject them to all sorts of penalties and tortures.
So the only possible link, by the method of elimination, is if these Jewish practices came from none other than the Apostles themselves.
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