The Sacred Scriptures - The Bible #

Reading the Sacred Scriptures according to the Orthodox Tewahedo Understanding #

In the not too distant past the Monastery received several questions about Scripture, in particular (to start with) the Orthodox use of the title “Father” when Christ said, “Call no man on earth your father.” Actually I thought the response posted earlier demonstrated how this verse should be understood. But there is a larger question - that of the use of Scripture and how it may be interpreted. The questioners claimed only be guided by God and the “clear sense” of Scripture. There was no recognition of any tradition (though they clearly interpreted things in a particular Protestant tradition). There was also a denigration of all organized Churches as having somehow diminished the Gospel, which could only be corrected by “true believers.” We here at the Monastery have chosen not to use our Website as a place to debate the various questions. There are too many and not enough common ground for a genuine conversation. Debate has ultimately not been the purpose of this Website.

We reprint here an earlier article on the Orthodox reading of Scripture and hope it is useful reading. For us Monastics it explains why no individual alone can interpret the Scripture and why the Tewahedo Orthodox ultimately do not need to defend what has been received by the Church. There are some brave souls out there who truly have a ministry of apologetics (defense of the faith). We may do a little of it, but it is not our primary ministry. We pray for all who read here. May God save us all!

The above quote is from the Christian history website maintained by Christianity Today (an Evangelical – Protestant source). It describes the crucial teaching role of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, an early Orthodox Tewahedo Bishop of the Church and later a Martyr, and perhaps the most articulate spokesman of Orthodox theology in the 2nd century. The article discusses St. Irenaeus’ refutation of the Gnostic heretics, particularly their misuse of Sacred Scripture. It sheds light on how the Holy Orthodox Tewahedo Church rightly divides the Word of Truth.

As he wrote these words, St. Irenaeus had in mind Jesus’ warning in St. Matthew 7:15 about false prophets who come in sheep’s clothing but are inwardly ravenous wolves. The Gnostics sounded, and frequently acted, just like Orthodox Christians. They read the Bible, used the Bible, and cited the Bible. But the way they understood the Bible, the way they put its pieces together, differed dramatically from the perspectives of Sts. Irenaeus, Pothinus, Polycarp, and John.

St. Irenaeus believed there was an unbroken line of tradition from the Holy Apostles, to those they mentored, and eventually down to himself and other Orthodox Christian leaders. The Gnostics interpreted the Sacred Scriptures according to their own tradition. “In doing so, however,” St. Irenaeus warned, “they disregard the order and connection of the Scriptures and … dismember and destroy the truth.” So while their biblical theology may at first appear to be the precious jewel of Tewahedo Orthodoxy, it was actually an imitation in glass. Put together properly, St. Irenaeus said, the parts of Scripture were like a mosaic in which the gems or tiles form the portrait of a king. But the Gnostics rearranged the tiles into the form of a dog or fox.

As a Bishop, then, St. Irenaeus wrote a book per say titled: “Against Heresies” in order to describe the heresies that were threatening his Diocese – the Faithful and to present the TRUE Apostolic Orthodox interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures. He revealed the cloaked deception for what it was and displayed the Apostolic Tradition as a saving reminder to the faithful.

What is clear in St. Irenaeus’ teaching is that there was what he called the “Apostolic Hypothesis,” a framework of basic doctrine by which Scripture (first the Old Testament, later the New) should be interpreted. This consensus fidelium, or rule of faith, guided the Orthodox Church century after century into its life, continually enlivened by the Holy Spirit. Though expressed in different ways at different times, the central goal was always the same: that the Church would teach the same Christ as it had received, and proclaim the same salvation it had always known.

Now St. Irenaeus’ description of the process of interpretation is deeply insightful. He recognizes that Sacred Scripture can easily be broken into pieces (we do it all the time when we pull verses here and there). By itself this is not a problem. It’s how you put them back together that matters. Do you reassemble the portrait of a king? or do you make it look like a fox or a dog?

The answer goes to the heart of the matter. What is the matrix by which you seek to interpret Scripture and by what authority do you use it? Anyone who says he just reads the Scripture and that there is no matrix by which he interprets is deceiving himself and his listeners and not admitting that he has already accepted a matrix and on its basis he selects Scripture to fit his point. There really is no other way to read.

Orthodoxy has never denied this. Instead, like St. Irenaeus, it points to that which it has received. St. Irenaeus called it the “Apostolic Hypothesis.” It has also been called the “rule of faith,” and various other names. But if you have not accepted this “matrix” you cannot interpret Scripture in the form of the Apostles or their successors or the Church that Christ founded.

Others accept as their matrix a statement of faith written 1500 years later, constructed on a matrix invented by Western Medieval Scholastics who sought to reform the Church. They had no command from Almighty God, no conversation with the Holy Apostles, nothing but their own ideas and rationality from which to construct new matrixes. From Germany Martin Luther gave us his “salvation by grace through faith,” and read the Scriptures accordingly. John Calvin gave us his matrix of the sovereignty of God. Neither could speak with authority or true assurance and neither would have succeeded in their reform had the State Government not conveniently enforced it with the sword (read the history). The Reformation never succeeded without the Secular State’s cooperation and frequently suceeded by drastically destroying property and torturing its opposition. Not that this was not followed by a war from Roman Catholic authorities. All of these things happened apart from Holy Orthodoxy. But the myth of a popular uprising cleansing the Church of false doctrine, fostered for years by Protestant historians is simply a fabrication.

More to the point of this post - the matrix of Protestant interpretation, though frequently seeking for something like the Apostolic Hyposthesis, in many places failed to adhere to that primitive standard.

The Protestant doctrine of “predestination to damnation,” is an excellent example of a modern (i.e. Reformation) doctrine that had never been accepted by the Orthodox Tewahedo Church as a proper reading of Sacred Scripture. Verses assembled to support this teaching are like the verses of Gnostics, gathered from a shattered mosaic. Instead of a king, they assemble the picture of a wolf.

God has not created any man and preordained him to damnation - hell. To say that He has is heretical. This is not the faith of the Orthodox Tewahedo Church. It is contrary to the Apostolic Hypothesis and how we have received the understanding of salvation. If a man is lost he has resisted the will of God, “For God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance…” (2 Peter 3:9). At the end of almost every Liturgy and Liturgical worship, the words of dismissal affirm, “For He is a good God and loves mankind.”

This is fundamental to the Orthodox Christian faith. Any other presentation of Almighty God, whether under the cloak of sovereignty or the like, is a distortion and falsification of the Christian religion. There is no God who wills the damnation of human beings. To proclaim otherwise is to proclaim another gospel.

The difficulty in proclaiming this, of course, is the number of well-meaning Christians of various sorts who will want to quote Scriptures affirming otherwise. The heritic Arius quoted Scripture as did the Gnostics. Either you stand with the Holy Apostles or you do not. If you use the Scriptures in a manner that the Holy Orthodox Tewahedo Church has not used them, then you stand against the Holy Apostles and the Apostolic Faith.

Christian doctrine is not a battle over the Scriptures. Sola Scriptura has not worked and never did. Such an approach simply leads to endless argument and confusion. Either we embrace the faith of the Holy Apostles, “once and for all delivered to the saints,” or else we exile ourselves to confusion or, worse yet, to the false guidance of those who never sat in the seat of the Holy Apostles.