JUST FOR my fellow CATHOLICS-Early Christians and Scripture

Just for Catholics is a website where Dr. Mizzi seeks to convince Catholics to leave the Catholic Church. I am reviewing his teachings and comparing them to the Word of God in Tradition, Scripture and Magisterium. We are currently on this article. His words in blue.

Did the Early Christians Possess the Scriptures?

Let us begin by unraveling this ambiguous question.  First of all, what does it mean to "possess the Scriptures"?


It could mean "personal" possession.  Such as we are accustomed to having today.  We, at least most of us, have several Bibles in our homes.  Did the Early Christians of the first century have this type of "possession" of Scripture?


The answer is, "No.  They didn't."



Or it could mean "public" possession.  Such as we have in "public telephone booths" where we find the telephone book chained to the public telephone so that all may be able to use it.  Or the Library, where we find rare and expensive books safeguarded so that they may be borrowed by people who can't afford to buy the books.  


The answer is, "Yes.  The Old Testament Scriptures were kept in the Synagogues in the form of scrolls, which could be read by the populace by permission."


So, the Early Church did not possess the Scriptures privately or personally but did possess them communally.  One set for an entire community.


But we haven't yet unraveled the entire problem in this question. What does the question mean by "Scriptures"?  Does it mean, the Old Testament?  Does it mean the New?  Does it mean the Bible?


If the question is in reference to the Old Testament, then the answer is "Yes.  The Early Church possessed the Old Testament communally."


If the question is in reference to the New Testament, then the answer is "No.  Or, to be more precise, maybe, maybe not.  Some communities had one set of New Testament writings.  Others had other sets.  Some of those writings included books which are not considered Sacred Scripture today.  It is therefore conceivable that some Christian Communities did not have any of the New Testament whatsoever."


I'd like to ask what I believe is a more pertinent question here.  Did the Early Christians possess the Word of God?  The answer is an unqualified, "Yes!"  First, as stated, they possessed the Old Testament.  Which is the Word of God.  But also, they possessed the Sacred Traditions which were taught by the Church.  Sacred Tradition is also the Word of God.


Let us proceed with Dr. Mizzi's article.


Question: You need the guidance of Sacred Tradition to help you figure out the truth. In the early church the people could not have listened to the apostles speak and then gone home to check what they said in their Bibles. People had to accept what the apostles told them by word of mouth because it had not been written down or put into a text for anyone to read.

That's not really a question.  And as has been noted, people had access to the Scriptures in the Synagogue or the Church.  


I'm not really sure what the "question" is which Dr. Mizzi is applying to the make believe Catholic in this article.  All I can do is keep on reading and showing the errors which he teaches in regards to Christian Doctrine.


Answer: Over the past couple of years I have encountered every kind of argument seeking to undermine the centrality and the ultimate authority of the Holy Bible. A popular argument notes that the early Christians did not have the complete Bible and that it took almost four centuries before the canon of Scripture was finally and officially recognized. Hence, the implication that the Bible could not be that important.

There is a false assumption here implied.  That is the assumption that recognizing the scarcity of copies of Scripture is somehow implying that we don't consider Scripture important.


That's like saying that because our parents are scarce, after all, we only have one set, they are not important to us.


On the contrary, from the time that Sacred Scripture was first written, it was considered of the highest importance.  That's why it is the Word of God.  Its scarcity detracts not a whit of its importance.


However, the existence of Sacred Scripture does not detract from the importance of the Church and of Sacred Tradition either.


This argument is flawed because it fails to recognize that the church was going through a maturation phase, and it is rather silly to belittle the perfection of the mature state on the grounds that it was not always that way. It is like arguing that we don’t really need our lungs because there was a time when we lived well without them in our mothers' womb! Or that it was not really necessary that Christ should come to this world because before him, God still spoke to His people by the prophets!

These are straw man arguments which Dr. Mizzi is putting in the mouths of Catholics.  No one in the world makes these arguments.  Dr. Mizzi has imagined them and then defeated them.  Hurray for Dr. Mizzi, he has overcome his own imagination.


We are living in an age when we have the complete written Word of God in our hands. 


True.  But in the Early Church, not everyone had the complete written Word of God in their hands.  In the very early Church, they didn't have possession of the New Testament.  But they did have Sacred Tradition.  And, none of that is belittlement.  It is simply a recognition of the facts.


What, or who can replace the Bible in the heart of the church? 


Again, recognizing true history, the Early Church had Sacred Tradition and did not have the New Testament.  So, Sacred Tradition, from which the New Testament was written by the way, was the alternative for the Early Church.


Or who can claim to have equal or higher authority to the Word of God?

Again, Sacred Tradition and the Teaching of the Magisterium.  Because at that time, there was no New Testament.


You seem to be preoccupied that Evangelicals do not blindly accept the Church’s teachings but insist on verifying everything by the Bible. 


No.  We are concerned that you disobey the Bible where it says, "hear the Church" (Matt 18:17).


The Berean episode follows.  I'm going to let it run uninterrupted until the end.  Then, I will point out how the Bereans are acting as True Catholics.


Well, we have biblical precedent for doing so. Once an apostle of Jesus Christ and his associate preached the Gospel in a certain city. They proclaimed the Gospel and the people listened attentively. But the people of that city did something more. Every day they studied the holy scriptures to check whether the things they heard were true or not.

What do you think? Isn't it a little bit arrogant and presumptuous to question the teaching of an apostle? Isn't the teaching magisterium of the apostle the highest authority on earth? Is it not the prerogative of the apostle to interpret the Bible infallibly, rather than for common, ordinary people to check his teaching by the Bible? And how can they understand the Scripture since they didn’t have the guidance of 'Sacred Tradition'?

As you may have realized, I am referring to the Bereans mentioned in Acts 17:10-12. Luke says (v 11): 'These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.'

Let's think about this a bit.  First, did the Bereans find out about Christ on their own?  The answer, "No.  Sts. Paul and Silas told the Bereans about Christ."


Why is that significant?  Because Jesus did not write any Scripture.  Jesus passed down Tradition and told the Church to continue passing down Tradition.  Sts. Paul and Silas were representing the Church and passing down the Traditions of Jesus Christ.


So, what do we have here then?  We have Sts. Paul and Silas, the Teaching Church which we call the "Magisterium".  And they are teaching the Traditions of Jesus Christ, which we call "Sacred Tradition".  And they are teaching the Bereans how to find them in the Old Testament, which we call "Sacred Scripture."


Remember that even the Apostles could not find Christ in the Old Testament until Jesus Christ opened the Scriptures to them (Luke 24:32).


Two important points can be deduced from this passage:

1. For the Bereans the ultimate and highest authority was the holy Scriptures.
   
   
   Whether it was or not is not revealed in Scripture.  What is revealed is that they accepted the authority of the Church, represented by Sts. Paul and Silas.  And also that they accepted the authority of the Traditions which Sts. Paul and Silas taught.  
   
   
   They did well to receive the words of the apostle for he is the messenger of Christ; but they did better to check out his doctrine by the standard of the written Word of God. As a Protestant, I believe that every Christian must submit to the teaching authority of the teachers that Christ gave to His church as far as their teaching is consistent with the Holy Scriptures.
   
   
   That is Catholic Teaching.  Let me give you an example.  The idea of "Faith alone".  Scripture says:
   
   

   James 2:24

   King James Version (KJV)

   
    ²⁴Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

   
   

   Since this tradition of men contradicts Scripture, the Catholic Church does not accept it.  But Protestants do.

   
   
2. The Berean believers already had the Scriptures (evidently not the whole of our Bible) to which they could refer. 
   
   
   It could not have been the New Testament yet.  It had to be the Old Testament.  The evidence is that Sts. Paul and Silas were teaching within the Jewish Synagogues.  And no one has yet claimed that the Jews were keeping Christian Scriptures amongst their own.
   
   
   And they knew that they were the Word of God even before any pope or council declared them to be so. 
   
   
   Sure it was.  The SYNAGOGUE had taught them this.  Before the Church hierarchy, the Jews already had one of their own:
   
   
   
   

   Matthew 23:2

   King James Version (KJV)

   
    ²Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:

   
   
   
   Many are deceived by the Catholic propaganda which insists that a person could not know what is authoritative Scripture if it was not for the authority of the church.
   
   
   It remains true and even Dr. Mizzi was taught by the Catholic Church what is true Scripture.  He admitted himself in this article, saying:
   
   
   There are several reasons why I believe that the Bible is inspired. First of all, I was influenced by the testimony and teaching of the church (the Roman Catholic Church in my childhood, 
   
   
   The Catholic Church canonized the Old Testament and WROTE the New Testament.  So, yes, it is because of the Catholic Church that we have authentic Scripture today.
   
   
   Sincerely,
   
   
   De Maria