to adopt Sola Scriptura because the Bible in the context of history, the
Fathers and Tradition is not Protestantism. Effectively, therefore, the
period from the death of St. John the Apostle (98-99 AD) to Martin Luther
(1517 AD) is irrelevant to Protestant Christianity, hence their insistence on
“the Book of Acts and nothing else.” The reality is that without history one
cannot have the Bible for it is history itself that tells us that the canon of the
Bible was determined by the Decrees of Popes St. Damasus (382 AD) and
St. Innocent I (405 AD) and the decisions of the Councils of Hippo (393
AD) and Carthage (397 AD) which accepted as canonical the Greek
Septuagint and all the books of the New Testament.
“The Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there was a
safe truth it is this, and Protestantism has ever felt it so. To be deep in
history is to cease to be a Protestant”
(Cardinal Newman – An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine).
“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to
advice” (Prov. 12, 15). A large part of the chaos in Christianity today is due
to the Protestant notion of self-interpretation of the Bible. Those infected
with this mentality cut themselves off from the accumulated wisdom of the
past and become a theological law unto themselves. Western Christendom
has ended up with as many divisions as private opinions. There is a
wisdom, a wealth and a truth in the early Fathers which serves as a
corrective leading to balanced and orientated Christianity.
Let us seek out the wisdom of the ancients through a study
of the Fathers.
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