Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology This page intentionally left blank Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology From the Fathers to Feminism William J. Abraham Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok BuenosAiresCape Town Chennai Dar esSalaam Delhi Hong Kong IstanbulKarachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © William J. Abraham 1998 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 1998 First published in paperback 2002 All rightsreserved. No part of thispublication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographicsrightsorganization. Enquiriesconcerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Canon and criterion in Christian theology: from the Fathersto feminism/WilliamJ. Abraham. Includesbibliographical referencesand index. 1. Bible—Canon. 2. Authority—Religiousaspects —Christianity. 3. Knowledge, Theory of (Religion). 4. Theology—Methodology. I. Title. BS465.A25 1998 230’.01—dc21 97–47465 ISBN 0–19–826939–0 (Hbk) ISBN 0–19–925003–0 (Pbk) To James Barr Acknowledgements The argument developed in these pages has been germinating in my mind for well over ten years. During that time I have shared varied expressions of it with many people and benefited enormously from their response. It would be impossible to record the debt I owe to all those who have contributed to my reflection. I want in particular to thank William Babcock, Eric Barnes, James Barr, David Beck, Michael Beggs, Clifton Black, Ellen Charry, Keefe Cropper, Cornelia DeLee, Pavel Gavrilyuk, Frank Gourley, Chuck Gutenson, Julie Halstead, Harriet Harris, Jean Ann Karm, Sandy Menssen, Basil Mitchell, Elizabeth Moreau, Russell Pannier, Paddy Roche, Thomas Sullivan, Andrew Walker, and Jerry Walls. A very special word of thanks goes to the Evangelical Scholarship Initiative for electing me to be a Pew Evangelical Scholar. As a recipient of a fellowship I have been able to garner the time and resources essential to a project of this magnitude. I am grateful beyond wordsfor thisinvaluable help. I want also to thank Timothy and Shaun for essential help with the computer. Thanks to Siobhan for welcome relief in Frederick. Asever I thank my wife, Muriel, for unfailing support through it all. W. J. A . Preface to the Paperback Edition Revisiting the central thesis of this book can be as unsettling as when I first formulated it. Thus it remains no small task to ask theologians to rework two longstanding convictions. The first conviction is that the term ‘canon’ means essentially a criterion; and the second is that the term ‘canon’ applies only to the Bible. On my revisionist analysis ‘canon’ isa much more modestnotion, meaning essentially a ‘list’; and ‘canon’ appliesnot justto the biblical canon, but to the canon of saints, the canon of doctrine, the canon of Fathers, and the like, adopted over time in the Church of the first millennium. Beyond these two crucial suggestions, I have proposed that we redescribe and reidentify canon in such a way that we think in terms of a canonical heritage; and that we envision that heritage as a network of means of grace intended for use in spiritual direction in the Church. In making these moves, while I have in no way given up on the challenges of epistemology for theology, I insist that the place of epistemology be radically relativized in the life of the Church. We need the very best epistemological work we can develop, but such labour should never be allowed to displace the crucial functions that the canonical heritage of the Church is designed to fulfil. For the most part reviewers have understood the central claims advanced. The most persistent worry is whether I have properly understood the various historical figures I discussed in some detail across the centuries. Here I want to make a disclaimer and mount a defence. The disclaimer is that in no way did I propose a comprehensive history of canon and its intersection with epistemological proposals. Hence I welcome unreservedly further work in this domain. I expect that such investigation will lead to appropriate qualifications, confirmations, and reversals of some of my claims. The defence isthat it isinsuf ficient to plead that proposals in the wider corpus of the thinkers discussed will viii PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION somehow undo what is presented in those materials that are more avowedly epistemological in character. It is perfectly possible to hold to a thoroughly epistemological conception of canon and continue to use the canon as a means of grace. Naturally such usage surfaces most tellingly in exegesis, in sermons, and in reflection on the great theological themes of redemption and salvation. On my analysis this is to be expected. For one thing, it takes time for the older view to be supplanted by the later developments; hence the two can lie side by side in the same author. Moreover, given the nature of the canonical heritage, and given itscontinued usage in liturgy, it workseffectively asa meansof grace despite our constant tendency to recast it in epistemological categories. This applies, for instance, in the case of Aquinas. Nothing I say about Aquinas is undermined by the additional claim that he had a resolute grasp of the spiritual content of the gospel, or that he was an extremely insightful commentator on scripture, using it to great effect soteriologically in exegesis and homiletics. My claim is that he also has the epistemological position I attribute to him here, and that this position is integral to his conception of canon. A more interesting counter-claim is that we should see Aquinas's epistemological work as essentially a form of apologetics. While I may be right in what I say about his views of canon, his epistemology was really a secondary affair that operated as an anti-epistemology in the service of removing epistemological pretensions. I do not find thisview at all convincing. While I am delighted to receive Aquinas's labours in this spirit and indicate as much quite clearly in the text, thisisnot a compelling reading of Aquinashimself. The crucial point isthis:Aquinas'sdoctrine of revelation isat the core of his doctrine of scripture. Once we relocate the canon of scripture within this framework, then the shift to canon asa criterion isassecure asit can be. For better or worse, I have become even more convinced that Aquinas is an absolutely pivotal figure in the narrative I relate. Moreover, I have come across a remarkable interpretation of Aquinas that confirmsmy initial conclusions.This interpretation also shows how I can restate my thesis about canon in terms of scripture. Happily we can rely on an unsullied witness to articulate these claims; they are more than amply stated by the great French theologian Yves Congar. PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION ix Congar insists that Aquinas inherited two crucial assumptions from the Middle Ages. First, the attributing of all true (and holy) determinations of the life of the Church, to a revelatio, inspiratio, suggestio, of the Holy Spirit. These three words are very closely linked in meaning: inspiratio signifiesthe action of the Spiritus; suggestio introducesthe nuance of the interiority of action; revelare, revelatio has a fairly wide sense: to discover, make known or understood. The expression can be applied to an activity of the intellect which we should call natural, all the more easily because the Augustinian theory of illumination was held fairly widely. Second, the practice of including the Fathers, the conciliar canons and even the pontificial decreesand (more rarely) the more outstanding treatises of the theologians, in the Scriptura sacra, or again, without distinguishing, in the divina pagina. This is a practice of long standing; there seems no doubt but that it arises from the Decretum Gelasianum, which, slightly modified by Formosus, had passed into canonical collections, and into those chapters which deal with sources and rules (as, for example, in Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didasc., IV, 12). Scriptura signified a ‘text’; sacra, the value it derived from the activity of the Spirit. The canonical scriptures, the Bible, were the Scriptura sacra and divina pagina par excellence; but the influence of the Holy Spirit had been felt in the patristic texts, and those of the councils, popes, and theologians, which, in any case, were only produced as an explanation of Scripture. In the simplicity and force of its Catholic faith, the Middle Ages never thought of them as anything else. Even if we make allowances for Congar's glosses here, the second observation is staggering. ‘Scripture’ wasnot originally confined to the Bible; it had a much wider range of reference. Moreover, initially, ‘scripture’ simply meant a text or writing; and the exact value wasleft unspeci fied beyond acknowledging the role of the Holy Spirit in its production. What we see emerging in what follows with respect to scripture is a quite different range of sense and reference.