From: Steve.Hayes@p5.f22.n7101.z5.fidonet.org (Steve Hayes)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Councils and canons (was Innerancy (sic))
Date: 28 Sep 92 01:32:13 GMT

On <22 Sep 1992 21:13> Jeff Carroll said to All :

 JC>Unless my memory fails me, the epistles were declared 
 JC>Scriptural at the Council
 JC>of Nicaea some centuries later; and since Nicaea was produced 
 JC>under the auspices
 JC>of the Roman Catholic Church, Protestantism tossed out a 
 JC>healthy chunk of the
 JC>Nicene canon at the time of the Reformation (by whose fiat? 
 JC>Someone please help me out here...) 

I think your memory may have failed you <grin>. I'm sure others will be able 
to give details on the formation of the caon of holy scripture. I believe it 
was the British and Foreign Bible Society that decided (in the nineteenth 
century) to print Bibles with some of the books left out. 

The Council of Nicaea was not held under the auspices of the Roman Catholic 
Church, but under the auspices of the emperor Constantine. His motoives were 
probably mainly political - he saw a major fight developing among the 
Christians and thought this would be source of social disruption that he would 
rather avoid, so he sponsored a meeting in a similar way to the United 
Nations, or groups of countries, sponsor meetings between warring factions and 
countries today. In my own country (South Africa) nowadays it is the other way 
round. Church leaders are trying to get political leaders to hold "talks". 

The Roman Catholic Church did not exist in A.D. 325. The Church of Rome 
certainly existed, and was the most influential church in the West. But the 
churches of Alexandria (whose bishop was the first to use the title "pope", 
and still does today) and Antioch were at least as influential. The Council 
of Nicaea also recognized the Churches of Jerusalem and Constantinople as 
influential - Jerusalem because it was where the Church started and was the 
scene of Christ's death and resurrection, and Constantinople because it was 
the new capital of the empire. I don't remember offhand, but I don't think 
there were any bishops from the Church of Rome at the Council of Nicaea, 
though the Roman Church accepted its decisions.

the unworthy servant of God

Steve
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[You seem to imply that omission of the D-C books is a 19th Cent.
innovation.  This may possibly be true among Anglicans -- I don't know
the details there.  But it certainly isn't true in general.  Here's an
extract from the FAQ on the canon.  As you'll see, there was
controversy in the 4th and 5th Cent, and generally Protestants have
omitted the D-C books from their Bibles.  The situation with Anglicans
is complicated by the fact that they aren't exactly either
Protestant or Catholic.

Christians initially seem to have used the Septuagint as their Bible
(not surprising, since most of them would have spoken Greek rather
than Hebrew, and came from areas where the Septuagint was used by
Jews).  In the 4th and 5th Cent. there was some debate among
Christians about the status of those books (and portions of books)
present in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew canon.  Gregory of
Nazianzus and St.  Epiphanius opposed them, as did Jerome.  Ambrose
and Augustine favored them.  By and large the larger set continued
being used.  The council of Trent (16th Cent.)  made a final
authoritative decision to accept the larger list. 

Protestants generally used the Hebrew canon.  Part of this is that
Protestantism was based on a renewal in Biblical scholarship, and this
naturally used the Hebrew Scriptures, since Hebrew was the original
language.  Jewish scholars were involved in this renaissance of Hebrew
scholarship, and of course they only accepted the Hebrew Scriptures.
There were also concerns that some doctrines that the Reformers
disapproved of were justified primarily by references from the
additional books (e.g. purgatory).

--clh]