Someone at work (a Protestant no doubt) is trying to tell me that Martin Luther ordered the books of the bible as we read them today. For example the order of the New Testament, beginning with the Gospels, and their order, etc.

Please tell me this is not true.

Thats what I thought! :wink: Thanks LP-

Do you know if there's somewhere online which would give me the order which St. Jerome ordered the Latin Vulgate? Wikipedia didn't, and everywhere else only sells them, but no evidence of the order.

Thank you my good friend. :smile:

Quote from: LordPhan

St. Jerome created the Bible in the order and form we know them.

This is inaccurate. It was Holy Mother Church who defined the Canon of the Books of the Bible:

1) The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393, confirmed in the Council of Carthage, A.D. 397) gave a the list of the Canonical Books of the Bible which was identical to that which was formally defined by the Council of Trent. There is considerate substantiation that before this Council, the Council of Nice formally published the same list of the Canonical Books of the Sacred Scriptures.

2) In A.D. 401, in answer to Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, Pope Innocent I gave the exactly the same list as that given by the Council of Carthage. It has been claimed that a similar Canon was given by Pope Damasus (366-384), Pope Gelasius (492-496), or Pope Hormisdas (514-523)

3) St. Augustine in De Doctrina Christiana, II., viii., 13, gives the same list of Canonical Book (wherein lumps the Books of Baruch and Lamentations with the Prophecy of Jeremias).

4) The Council of Florence (A.D. 1438) gives the same exact Canon in the Bull of Pope Eugenius IV Cantate Domino.

5) The Council of Trent definitively defined the Canon of Sacred Scripture against the Protestant heretics in its fourth session, and declared the Vulgate of St. Jerome to be the authentic version of the Holy Bible for the Church.

The above information was taken from The Catholic Student's "Aids" to the Bible by Rev. Fr. Hugh Pope, O.P., (Vol. I, ch. ii.; London: R. & T. Washbourne, Ltd., 1918)

Everything you said was true, but how was what I wrote inaccurate? St. Jerome was ordered to translate the Bible for Pope Damasus no? I never claimed the church didn't do so, St. Jerome worked for the Church in this regard, though whether or not the order was the same before him or not I don't know.

Anyway, the Church dogmatised the order, not the Heretic Luther.

Quote from: LordPhan

Anyway, the Church dogmatised the order, not the Heretic Luther.

Thanks again LP- do you know if there's somewhere I can refer to on this point?

Hobble just gave you a source for the Dogmatising of the order, The Council of Trent declared that the Vulgate was free of error.

I can look for sources on St. Jerome, Which bible should you read makes reference to it and that PDF is on this site somewhere hosted by Matthew after TAN Became neo-trad and stopped selling it.

There is a book called How we got the Bible, I don't have it, but from what I understand that would be good. I'll look around and ask around. There is a young men's group starting at our SSPX chapel this Saturday, my friend Louis is hosting everyone afterward and he holds a Masters in Medieval History and after his disertation(sp) is complete he'll have a PhD in it. I'll see what he has for apologetics. I could call him now but I'm a tad busy only popping in for a check in between housework... I need a wife, I detest this stuff :P

This is from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The period of fixation (A.D. 367-405)
 
St. Athanasius

While the influence of Athanasius on the Canon of the Old Testament was negative and exclusive (see supra), in that of the New Testament it was trenchantly constructive. In his "Epistola Festalis" (A.D. 367) the illustrious Bishop of Alexandria ranks all of Origen's New Testament Antilegomena, which are identical with the deuteros, boldly inside the Canon, without noticing any of the scruples about them. Thenceforward they were formally and firmly fixed in the Alexandrian Canon. And it is significant of the general trend of ecclesiastical authority that not only were works which formerly enjoyed high standing at broad-minded Alexandria--the Apocalypse of Peter and the Acts of Paul--involved by Athanasius with the apocrypha, but even some that Origen had regarded as inspired--Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache--were ruthlessly shut out under the same damnatory title.
 
The Roman Church, the synod under Damasus, and St. Jerome

The Muratorian Canon or Fragment, composed in the Roman Church in the last quarter of the second century, is silent about Hebrews, James, II Peter; I Peter, indeed, is not mentioned, but must have been omitted by an oversight, since it was universally received at the time. There is evidence that this restricted Canon obtained not only in the African Church, with slight modifications, as we have seen, but also at Rome and in the West generally until the close of the fourth century. The same ancient authority witnesses to the very favourable and perhaps canonical standing enjoyed at Rome by the Apocalypse of Peter and the Shepherd of Hermas. In the middle decades of the fourth century the increased intercourse and exchange of views between the Orient and the Occident led to a better mutual acquaintance regarding Biblical canons and the correction of the catalogue of the Latin Church. It is a singular fact that while the East, mainly through St. Jerome's pen, exerted a disturbing and negative influence on Western opinion regarding the Old Testament, the same influence, through probably the same chief intermediary, made for the completeness and integrity of the New Testament canon. The West began to realize that the ancient Apostolic Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch, indeed the whole Orient, for more than two centuries had acknowledged Hebrews and James as inspired writings of Apostles, while the venerable Alexandrian Church, supported by the prestige of Athanasius, and the powerful Patriarchate of Constantinople, with the scholarship of Eusebius behind its judgment, had canonized all the disputed Epistles. St. Jerome, a rising light in the Church, though but a simple priest, was summoned by Pope Damasus from the East, where he was pursuing sacred lore, to assist at an eclectic, but not ecuмenical, synod at Rome in the year 382. Neither the general council at Constantinople of the preceding year nor that of Nice (365) had considered the question of the Canon. This Roman synod must have devoted itself specially to the matter. The result of its deliberations, presided over, no doubt, by the energetic Damasus himself, has been preserved in the docuмent called "Decretum Gelasii de recipiendis et non recipiendis libris", a compilation partly of the sixth century, but containing much material dating from the two preceding ones. The Damasan catalogue presents the complete and perfect Canon which has been that of the Church Universal ever since. The New Testament portion bears the marks of Jerome's views. St. Jerome, always prepossessed in favour of Oriental positions in matters Biblical, exerted then a happy influence in regard to the New Testament; if he attempted to place any Eastern restriction upon the Canon of the Old Testament his effort failed of any effect. The title of the decree--"Nunc vero de scripturis divinis agendum est quid universalis Catholica recipiat ecclesia, et quid vitare debeat"--proves that the council drew up a list of apocryphal as well as authentic Scriptures. The Shepherd and the false Apocalypse of Peter now received their final blow. "Rome had spoken, and the nations of the West had heard" (Zahn). The works of the Latin Fathers of the period--Jerome, Hilary of Poitiers, Lucifer of Sardina, Philaster of Brescia--manifest the changed attitude toward Hebrews, James, Jude, II Peter, and III John.
 

The New Testament canon outside the Church

The Orthodox Russian and other branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church have a New Testament identical with the Catholic. In Syria the Nestorians possess a Canon almost identical with the final one of the ancient East Syrians; they exclude the four smaller Catholic Epistles and Apocalypse. The Monophysites receive all the book. The Armenians have one apocryphal letter to the Corinthians and two from the same. The Coptic-Arabic Church include with the canonical Scriptures the Apostolic Constitutions and the Clementine Epistles. The Ethiopic New Testament also contains the so-called "Apostolic Constitutions".

As for Protestantism, the Anglicans and Calvinists always kept the entire New Testament. But for over a century the followers of Luther excluded Hebrews, James, Jude, and Apocalypse, and even went further than their master by rejecting the three remaining deuterocanonicals, II Peter, II and III John. The trend of the seventeenth century Lutheran theologians was to class all these writings as of doubtful, or at least inferior, authority. But gradually the German Protestants familiarized themselves with the idea that the difference between the contested books of the New Testament and the rest was one of degree of certainty as to origin rather than of instrinsic character. The full recognition of these books by the Calvinists and Anglicans made it much more difficult for the Lutherans to exclude the New Testament deuteros than those of the Old. One of their writers of the seventeenth century allowed only a theoretic difference between the two classes, and in 1700 Bossuet could say that all Catholics and Protestants agreed on the New Testament canon. The only trace of opposition now remaining in German Protestant Bibles is in the order, Hebrews, coming with James, Jude, and Apocalypse at the end; the first not being included with the Pauline writings, while James and Jude are not ranked with the Catholic Epistles.
 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm

Everything you said was true, but how was what I wrote inaccurate? St. Jerome was ordered to translate the Bible for Pope Damasus no?

I knew what you had meant, but the way you phrased it,

St. Jerome created the Bible in the order and form we know them.

reminded me of a Protestant who claimed that the Church's version of the Sacred Scriptures came from Saint Jerome as its ultimate compiler and creator. It is incorrect to say such a thing because the Sacred Scriptures come from God by the divine inspiration whereby the Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists, &c., wrote the various Books of Holy Writ, and the Roman Church alone determines by infallible magisterium which Books were divinely inspired and therefore to be included in the Canon of Sacred Scripture, and which ones were not divinely inspired and therefore apocryphal.

The error of the Protestant heretics lies essentially in their denial of the dogma that Christ established One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in order to preach the Gospel, and continue His work upon the earth of glorifying our Heavenly Father and saving souls. Preach as in speaking not writing. For St. Paul wrote to the Romans, "Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ" (Rom. ch. x., 17).

If the Sacred Scriptures alone were to be the sole authority for the faithful, then it seem as if the heretics would believe Our Lord to have committed a gross act of negligence in failing to write the Gospel Himself. The fact that He wrote nothing during His public ministry but taught by word should make it obvious that Our Lord had other intentions: i.e., to have His Apostles and their successors write the Books of the New Testament and sanction the Canon of the Old Testament by the authority which He Himself gave them.

Also, Our Lord lived 33 years upon the earth, and only three of those years did he devote to preaching and teaching publicly. Shouldn't that indicate to the Protestants that Our Lord became Incarnate not for the sole sake of having some written words become the norm of our lives? Shouldn't that indicate to everyone that Our Lord's primary purposes in the redemptive Incarnation were to satisfy the justice of the Heavenly Father outraged by sin and to satisfy His love for mankind by redeeming them and bestowing upon them sanctifying grace? His prayer was the chief means by which He did so, outside His sacrifice during the Passion, because since the first moment of the Hypostatic Union, Christ already was offering to the Heavenly Father the oblation and sacrifice of His divine Person which He was to consummate upon Mount Calvary. The years He spent unknown and hidden at house of St. Joseph gave more glory to God than the years of Christ's public ministry, for each movement of charity by the Sacred Heart was infinitely meritorious and would of itself sufficed to have fully satisfied the divine ire of God and to have redeemed humanity: but that would not have satisfied the infinite love of Christ for each one of us.

The Protestants cannot see this because they have given themselves over to the practical consequences of nominalism, which denied the supernaturally intrinsic and extraordinary value of grace. If you belittle the concept of grace as taught by St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and before them by the Evangelists (especially St. John) and by St. Paul, then Protestantism happens.

The consequences of Protestantism were naturalism, materialism, class warfare, a dehumanized economic system, &c. It was the greatest ruin of Europe.

Oh, my, I got into a tangent there! Carry on...  :detective:

The Protestants cannot see this because they have given themselves over to the practical consequences of nominalism, which denied the supernaturally intrinsic and extraordinary value of grace. If you belittle the concept of grace as taught by St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and before them by the Evangelists (especially St. John) and by St. Paul, then Protestantism happens.

What would you say, then, to the charge of the Protestants that Roman Catholicism is not based on grace AT ALL, or at the VERY MOST, a co-operation of 'grace and works', which the Protestants reject as heretical?

The Protestants say that salvation is by FAITH ALONE and that no manner of life, no behavior, no matter how abominable, can separate a person from that state of grace in which they stand, provided they have accepted the tenets of Protestantism and prayed a prayer or made some kind of 'personal commitment' to Jesus as 'Lord and Savior'.

How are people to understand the relationship between grace and works in the Christian life? I know for a fact that there are plenty of Protestants engaged in proselytism of Roman Catholics, especially in this confusing time of the Novus Ordo.

How, then, to summarize, do Protestants 'belittle the concept of grace'?

St. Anthony, hammer of heretics, terror of Hell, pray for us.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.