Chris D. (a Protestant Christian) and Bryan C. (a Catholic Christian) have been having a discussion in the comments of this post.  The question at hand is which Church Councils were Ecumenical ones and which ones were not.

I made a blog post with some higher-level points based on one of Chris’ comments, and I want to pose some further food for thought on this comment of his:

The first 7 ecumenical councils didn’t decree anything about a canon, and if we as the church were waiting for Rome’s decree regarding the canon, we wouldn’t have had it until Trent!

Chris is referring to the Council of Trent which convened in 1545 and is deemed an Ecumenical one by the Catholic Church.  His comment makes it sound as if it was not until 1546 AD before the Catholic Church said what the canon was.  (To give him his due, I am sure Chris was implying this for effect only and actually knows most of what I am about to relate here.)

The Council of Trent

It is true that the canon was not dogmatically said to be the 73 books of the Catholic Bible (which includes the 7 deuterocanonicals) until the 4th session of the Council of Trent in 1546 AD.  But the key word there is “dogmatically”; the Council of Trent was only reaffirming (with the force of a dogmatic declaration) the long-held teaching of the Church over the past 1200 years.

100 years prior–decades before Martin Luther was even born–the Ecumenical Council of Florence reaffirmed the 73-book canon.  Even if you are a Protestant and deny that this Council was Ecumenical, the strange fact exists that, long before Luther was even a twinkle in his parents’ eyes, the canon was specified as 73 books.

The Council of Florence

And 1,000 years before Florence, the canon was given by “Pope Damasus at the Council of Rome in 382, affirmed again by the Council of Hippo in 393, and by the Third Council of Carthage in 397, and by the Fourth Council of Carthage in 419″ and though these Councils were not Ecumenical but rather regional ones:

The decrees of the local or regional church councils (Synods) of Hippo, 393 A.D., and Carthage, around 400 A.D., were submitted to the “transmarine church” (Rome) and approved by the Popes and are considered official church teachings by official church councils. Although these councils were merely local, and they in themselves did not have universal binding authority, their decrees were submitted to various Popes and approved.

But let’s assume all of these facts are not true.  What would it mean?

It would mean that Christ’s Church for 1500 years didn’t know what the canon was and made errors in discerning it and that the Protestants, 1500 years after Christ, swooped in and finally gave us the correct books of the Bible.  Imagine all the Christians for 1500 years being led astray by writings which were read as “God’s inspired word” which were not His inspired word!  For some strange reason God worked through men to inspire these uniquely divine books, but then didn’t tell His Church which books those were!  And so Christ’s own Church chose wrongly and did so for 1500 years until Luther and the others finally listened to God correctly.

Come Back, One Year!

And if Christ’s Church got the Old Testament canon wrong, what else did she get wrong?  There’s no telling.  What about the New Testament canon?  Very possibly Wrong.  Baptismal regeneration?  Wrong.  Water baptism?  Wrong.  The Real Presence in the Eucharist?  Wrong.  Original sin? Wrong. Marriage as a Sacrament? Wrong.  Confession to a priest?  Totally Wrong.

Once we believe God let His Church fall into error in her teachings, it’s open season.  No soup for you.  This is the fundamental principle binding Protestantism together, namely, that Christ’s Church prior to the 1500s became corrupted in her teachings and fell into error, and therefore any of her teachings, no matter how long taught, can be challenged and tossed out the window like an old Pez dispenser.  And because of that you can find some Protestant community that rejects almost any given teaching of the Catholic Church and in turn contradict each other in what they claim to be true.

These Belong in the Trash