The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments

by E. E. Holmes

(1) THE BIBLE.

And notice: first, the Church; then, the Bible—first the Society, then its Publications; first the Writers; then the Writings; first the Messenger, then the Message; first the Agent, then the Agencies.

This is the Divine Order. Preaching, not writing, was the Apostolic method. Oral teaching preceded the written word. Then, later on, lest this oral teaching should be lost, forgotten, or misquoted, it was gradually committed to manuscript, and its "good tidings" published in writing for the Church's children.

It is very important to remember this order ("first the Church, and then the Bible"), because thousands of souls lived and died long before the New Testament was written. The earliest books of the New Testament (the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians) were not written for twenty years after the Day of Pentecost; the earliest Gospel (St. Mark) was not committed to writing before A.D. 65. And, even if the Bible had been written earlier, few could have read it; and even then few could have possessed it. It was a rare book, wholly out of reach of "the people". The first Bible was not printed until 1445.

But, thank God, the Church, which wrote the book, could teach without the book; and we may be sure that no single soul was lost for the want of what it could not possess. "Without a Bible," says St. Irenaeus, writing in the second century, "they received, from the Church, teaching sufficient for the salvation of their souls."

Then, again, the Church alone could decide which books were, and which books were not, "the Scriptures". How else could we know? The society authorizes its publications. It affixes its seal only to the books it has issued. So with the Divine Society, the Church. It affixes its seal to the books we now know as the Bible. How do we know, for instance, that St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians are part of the Bible, and that St. Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians is not part of the Bible? Because, and only because, the Church has so decided. If we had lived in the days of persecution it would have made a considerable difference to us whether this or that sacred book was included in the Christian Scriptures. Thus, when the early Christians were ordered by Diocletian to "bring out their books," and either burn them or die for them, it became a matter of vital importance to know which these books were. Who could tell them this? Only the society which published them, only the Church.

Again, the Church, and only the Church, is the final interpreter of the Bible—it is the "witness and keeper of holy writ".[[1]] The society which publishes a statement must be the final interpreter of that statement. Probably no book ever published needed authoritative interpretation more than the Bible. We call it "the book of peace"; it is in reality a book of war. No book has spread more discord than the Bible. Every sect in the world quotes the Bible as the source and justification of its existence. Men, equally learned, devout, prayerful, deduce the most opposite conclusions from the very same words. Two men, we will say, honestly and earnestly seek to know what the Bible teaches about Baptismal Regeneration, or the Blessed Sacrament. They have exactly the same data to go upon, precisely the same statements before them; yet, from the same premises, they will deduce a diametrically opposite conclusion. Hence, party wrangling, and sectarian bitterness; hence, the confusion of tongues, which has changed our Zion into Babel. Indeed, as we all know, so sharp was the contention in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, that translations of the Bible were actually forbidden by two local Church Councils.[[2]]

An interpreter is as much needed now, as in the days of the Ethiopian Eunuch. "How readest thou?"[[3]] is a question second only in importance (if, indeed, it is second) to "What is written?" Upon "how" we read, will very largely depend the value of "what" we read. We go, then, to the Church to interpret the book which it gave us.

And notice—to say this, is not to disparage the Scriptures because we exalt the Church. It is to put both Church and Scriptures in their true, historical place. We do not disparage a publication because we exalt the society which issues that publication; rather, we honour the one by exalting the other. Thus, when we say that the creeds interpret the Bible, we do not disparage the Bible because we exalt the creeds, any more than we disparage the Church when we say that the Bible proves the creeds. Take the "Virgin Birth," as a single illustration. Are we to believe that our Blessed Lord was "born of the Virgin Mary"? Church and Bible give the same reply. The Church taught it before the Bible recorded it; the Bible recorded it because the Church taught it. For us, as Churchmen, the matter is settled once and for all by the Apostles' Creed. Here we have the official and authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church, as proved by the New Testament; "born of the Virgin Mary".