Council of Trent’s Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures
13
solemnly
canonized the lists of sacred books promulgated by all the above-mentioned
councils and Popes going back to Rome 382 AD.
This Decree is fully justified, for neither the Jews before Christ, or any
Church Father, Saint, Pope or Council placed the deuterocanonicals on the
same level as profane or simply human literature. At the very least they
were hanging, as it were, between heaven and earth for that “prophet”
Josephus spoke about who would elevate them to the level of the canon.
That prophet was Christ and the Apostles and their successors in the
Council of Trent.
Protestants may have their own reasons for rejecting the extra seven books
of the Septuagint. These additional books contain certain doctrines contrary
to their teachings. For example, the second Book of Maccabees speaks of
prayers for the dead in chapter 12 and the communion and intercession of
saints in chapter 15. No longer constrained by the authority of the Catholic
Church, Martin Luther rejected the Epistle of St. James as an “epistle full
of straw…for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it”, simply
because it contradicted his own theory of justification by faith alone. He
said of Revelation, “I find many things defective in this book, which make
me consider it neither Apostolic nor Prophetic.” He also placed Hebrews
and Jude in the back of his Bible as “suspected books.” These judgments
proceeded from his general arrogance, which he also exhibited in his reply
when challenged for changing the text of Romans 3:28: “Thus I will have
it, thus I order it, my will is reason enough … Dr. Luther will have it so,
and he is a Doctor above all Doctors in the whole of Popery.”
14
Nevertheless, Luther had to admit that “We concede––as we must––that so
much of what they (the Catholic Church) say is true: that the papacy has
God’s word and the office of the apostles, and that we have received Holy
Scriptures, Baptism, the Sacrament, and the pulpit from them. What would
we know of these if it were not for them?”
15
13
Session IV, April 8, 1546.
14
Letter to Wenceslaus Link, 1530
15
Luther’s Works: Sermons on the Gospel of John, 1537, Vol. 24, chaps. 14-16, p.
304.
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