Transcript — “There Seems To Have CANON PROBLEM In Orthodoxy” w/ Fr. SDY, Alex Sorin And Cleave to Antiquity

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00:02 remember Cleve was making Protestant Cleve was making like a cannon argument about Protestant Cleve. Evil Cleve. Kind of talking about like just because like since Orthodox and Catholics typically make like the canon argument about Protestants not being able to have any epistemic basis or like servitude for their canon. But he mentioned that like even within Orthodoxy about canon disputes like different numbers of books and like not actually having an infallible 76 book canon. So how does that happen with like I know Catholics have a infallibly set canon list through their councils.

00:53 I guess it’s one of them. I just think it’s a bad argument. So if you it depends on how you frame the argument. If you’re framing it as like an epistemology question then that’s a little better. If you’re framing it about like a question of what authority do you do you submit to? That’s better as well. Or maybe historic continuity that would be a better way to frame it. But the way that people frame this argument is so bad it shoots themselves in the foot. They say you must have an infallible list of books to hold the books themselves to be infallible. You just turn that back on a Roman Catholic’s head and say okay well your books weren’t infallible until Trent. Right? So you you mean to say you didn’t the scripture wasn’t infallible in your view until the Council of Trent? That would be absurd. Or if they were to say well you know we’re going to go historical continuity.

01:42 We’re going to go back to Rome. Right? We’re going to go back to the Council of Rome or something. Right? Well then look at the people who were at the Council of Rome and their view on the scripture. It’s not the Roman Catholic view. They held to a tiered distinction just like the Orthodox do. So this is a bad Roman Catholic argument. And the reason that I people get mad at me for for saying this but I’ll say it anyway. The reason I say it’s not a good argument for the Orthodox to make in that particular way. If you were to say cuz I’ve heard it articulated this way. You must have an infallible list of infallible books. Otherwise then the books themselves aren’t infallible. You shoot yourself in the foot because show me the ecumenical council that affirms ecumenical council that affirms the Orthodox canon verbatim. Cuz you can point to Trullo which affirms three separate canon lists that some people try to make the argument somehow affirms the 76 canon all together if you add them up but that’s not quite right.

02:41 Right? It doesn’t quite get there if you were to add up all of those books. Or they’ll point to the confession of Dositheus and then Maccabees doesn’t have a number of Maccabees to it. So what are you talking about? Three or four? So I just don’t think this is a good argument to make. The point that I would make on that is it’s not required. It’s this is a this is a terrible argument to make. Why do you need an infallible list to hold the books to be infallible? If you make this argument it’s defeated on premise one because okay so before there was some kind of definitive list they weren’t Like this is a this is a self-defeating argument. You open yourself up for all sorts of kill shot rebuttals if you make this argument. I would love to hear what Father Stephen has to say on this. >> Well I mean the problem for me for an Orthodox person using it. I mean I agree with the problem with Roman Catholicism.

03:31 They didn’t have such a list until Trent. But the problem from an Orthodox perspective is that you’re basically using a Roman Catholic view of the church’s authority. When you say the church defined the canon at some point. Right? That’s not how we understand holy tradition to And the nice thing about being Orthodox in this case as in many others is that the way we understand the Holy Spirit to work in tradition is actually how the canon came together in historical So that’s a great benefit to our view. It actually happened that way. >> That over time and this I did this with with Orland. Right?

04:18 This is what I was trying to talk about tradition. Right? Cuz you can really see this with the spirit. Right? The Holy Spirit inspires the texts that make up the scriptures and then the Holy Spirit guides the church as community to recognize the texts that he inspired over time. Yeah that makes sense. The same thing happens with Right? There are robber councils and there are ecumenical councils and there are local councils that are held to have authority and what other ones that don’t. Well you might not know that if you’re one of the people at the council. But the Holy Spirit speaks at some of those councils and not others and then he guides the church to recognize the places where he was speaking.

05:06 Right? In the same kind of way. And in the same way with what what elements and what church fathers do we hold to have The Holy Spirit is speaking through them guides us to recognize that. Right? So that holistic view and again as I said that matches how the scriptures came together. That matches what you see over the early centuries of the church. Right. I understand like the Holy Spirit guiding the church collectively like primarily I guess through like the divine liturgy since scripture is primarily a liturgical book. I understand like the tiered view as well that you mentioned. However I’m just curious since different jurisdictions have different numbers of books then doesn’t that kind of indicate disunity and it doesn’t really show like a sort of like unified since it doesn’t since there’s no unified number of >> you think because the Georgian Patriarchate has four Maccabees and the rest of us don’t that that’s like some system level defeater?

06:06 Like I don’t I just remember I think I I don’t remember what it is but there’s >> to me that’s like saying well in the Russian practice they do this that in the Antiochian practice they So see look the liturgies are different. There’s no unity. >> The problem the problem with trying to use that as a defeater quote is then you would have to say then that the early church was false because they had set they had different canon lists. But also even in the modern Orthodox context we wouldn’t affirm that it’s actually a different canon list because the Georgian Orthodox Church actually includes that fourth Maccabees in a list called non-canonical. So they don’t affirm it to be a part of the canon. They just they say it can be read. They don’t read it during the liturgy though.

06:51 So it’s a little bit of a separate category. But yeah if you were going to if you were going to argue that that’s a defeater it defeats the early church. Yeah I know there was like a lot of disagreement between like church fathers and even like certain New Testament books that were disputed. I think that’s a good point that Cleve made though. Like this is something Roman Catholics will use this too as like oh you have schisms all the time. Like look at you Orthodox. And it’s like so did the early church. So like [laughter] if we have the same problem that the early church had then it’s kind of proves our identity. Like oh the Georgian Patriarchates have one more book than you do. It’s like every there are a bunch of early lists of different lists of books in the early church as well. And we’re not sola That’s right. The church is not formed by a set of of authoritative books.

07:42 Yeah. We’re not even talking about authoritative books. Texts can’t have Yeah. They can’t exercise authority. It’s a text. It can’t do anything. It’s incapable of performing any verbs. >> Right? Your Bible sits on your shelf. Sits I guess is a verb but that’s about it. Right? right? What what we’re mainly talking about with canonical is what what texts do you read in scripture or in in liturgically? Do you read in the church? That’s what we mean by canonical Right? And so the books we disagree about in the Old Testament and what tier they are and da da da da da all those it’s an appendix it’s not an appendix da da da da da. All of that disagreement none of those books are read by any of us in our >> If you go to Russian Orthodox Church you can go to a monastery live there for 50 years you’re not going to hear a reading in liturgy from four Ezra.

08:43 Okay and the ones that are the back of your Slavonic Bible but you’re not going to hear a reading from it. >> Right? And so that’s why it doesn’t really matter. Right? That’s why it’s not considered inspired? Wait what was your question? I just asked that so is it not considered inspired if it’s not read in liturgy? Well I mean what do you even mean by see we’re taking we’re taking ultimately this Protestant terminology. Yeah I guess just like >> it’s not true? Is that are you asking if it’s true? Are you asking >> Like protected from error infallible as like the rest of the books of scripture. See if you can fallible and errant thing these are all this is all stuff that comes out of the the fundamentalist modernist debates in early 20th century United States.

09:30 These are concepts. Right? So if you ask me does the Bible have errors in it? No. by that I don’t mean the same thing that an independent fundamentalist Baptist means when he says the word of God is an errant. Okay? Cuz when he says that he means things like these are the exact dimensions of Noah’s Ark. And this is you know he has a whole set of presuppositions in there in what an error means, right? I’ll affirm there’s no errors in the Bible, right? inerrancy is a foreign Right? So, for Ezra, regardless of whether it’s an appendix in the back of your Bible or in a separate book, right?

10:18 Is a book that the church has held this is profitable to read for various reasons that we don’t go and read publicly. >> We all agree on that. So, in practice, we all agree. And our faith and our religion as Orthodox Christians is based on Okay. Let me Well, there’s also like, for example, a lot of Protestants will go to Athanasius for their canon list and say like, “Look, it’s almost identical.” Well, he left out Esther. I mean, does that mean Esther is not inspired then by that standard? It’s if Yeah, there are competing canon lists. They’re always have been, always. Yeah, that I think that would be the better way to frame the objection to show me show me in the first millennium where the church accepted a 66-book That would be a better way to frame it, I think.

11:07 I think the church was always led by a tradition. And like what Father Stephen DeYoung was saying is that we’re not sola scriptura, so we don’t have the same problem that a sola scriptura Protestant would have. Right. Yeah, I understand the need to have integrate tradition and I understand that scripture is kind of a product of uh tradition like because the church operated without a Bible like even when uh Paul was in like Ephesus, right? For 3 years preaching day and night and then like with Timothy and stuff after it. >> Well, and I mean, it’s important, I think, to make a distinction between like there’s this Protestant idea that church is for Bible study. That’s not really the Orthodox idea. The Orthodox idea is that church is for worship.

11:53 You’re there to worship God. You’re there to pray and to, you know, offer incense, the offering of the Eucharist. Bible study is separate from what you do in church, right? So, it’s like really, how do we please God? By, you know, going to the divine liturgy. And then if you want to do Bible study on the side, then that’s kind of a different thing. And then that’s where, you know, Father Stephen was saying, well, we have uh these books that are profitable for reading. You should read these. And at the end of the day, you should listen to your spiritual father and your bishop. What you should and shouldn’t read, right? So, they’re all going to tell you to read your Bible, by the way. Yeah, no, it makes sense. I guess if I was just to like summarize so I don’t I’m not like misrepresenting you guys, but basically, you’re mentioning that kind of in the Orthodox perspective that the liturgy is the epistemic basis for determining the canon because what’s read in the liturgy is what is canonical.

12:48 Um I guess or is that kind of is that sort of correct or not really? I don’t know who wants to go first. >> Liturgy is the epistemic basis? Sort of. >> of like how you know uh which books are >> Sort of. Because there’s another factor in here, too, which we haven’t touched on, which is uh canon is not a binary thing. This is part of the thing with the inspired, inerrant, infallible language, right? Is that in the in in the Protestant world, that’s a binary thing, meaning it’s a one or a zero. It is or it isn’t. Right? Whereas in the Orthodox church, there’s tiers. There’s levels. Right? And part of where you see that is in liturgy.

13:37 We do a gospel reading. Only clergy read the gospel. When the gospel reading is done, everyone stands. Right? Right. There is a procession with the gospel reading the way in the synagogue there was a procession with the Torah scroll. Right? So, the gospels are like top tier, right? And you see that then tier two, right? We have an epistle Right? In in church. The epistle reading can be done by laypeople. Right? Is Okay. typically done by laypeople. People sit during the epistle >> That is when Old Testament readings are done at traditionally, the doors to the iconostasis are closed for that reading.

14:33 People sit during the Old Testament readings, right? So, we have these tiers where you can’t you can’t just take the one-zero thing into Mhm. Right? [clears throat] It’s more it’s more complex than that. But you do see it liturgically in terms of your Right? Our understanding of how we should interact with the text is largely formed by our liturgical participation. I mean, it is such a messy question. Like the Shepherd of Hermas was seen by many uh early church fathers like I think St. Irenaeus cited to it as scripture. It’s included in Codex Sinaiticus, which is like, I think, one of the earliest, if not the earliest like codex of, you know, the Bible that we have. I mean Well, okay.

15:21 Yeah, I mean, I’m sure there’s more nuance to it. >> Just cuz something’s in Codex Sinaiticus doesn’t mean they necessarily thought it was scripture. >> to say, right? Just like if you pick up an Orthodox study Bible, right? There’s a whole bunch of maps, >> right? And all kinds of things in the right? The notes, the study notes, right? Like that we don’t consider scripture. So, you have to be a little in assuming that because it’s in an ancient Bible that they thought it was the same thing, right? >> Clement cited it as well, right? I’m pretty sure. No, not to say that like that is I think Shepherd of Hermas came after Clement, but uh Oh, okay. Let me Let me respond to what you’re talking about epistemology, though. I don’t think that we would affirm that the liturgy is the epistemological basis for the canon, right?

16:12 This would be expressed within the regional councils, right? So, the councils would ultimately be the basis of epistemology. The reason that we would state that >> um I mean Well, you know, I don’t even know if I would I don’t even know if I would go that far because there would still be canon lists prior to that. So, it would really just be the normative authority of the church in general would be the epistemological basis uh because prior to the regional councils, there would still be lists of canon used in various jurisdictions, so on and so forth. But the reason that I wouldn’t I wouldn’t go as far as to say the liturgy is the epistemological basis is because what about books like Revelation, things like this? It wouldn’t mean that that’s outside of the canon. So. >> Yeah, it depends on what you mean by epistemological basis, [laughter] too. Right. You know what I mean? as a layperson, that might be how you find out what’s canonical.

17:02 Yeah, I I just kind of like the liturgy is what tells uh like the faithful and binds them to the decisions the church has to what books are part of the Bible. Um but like that’s kind of >> Orthodox Christian, Quirt? Or are you are are you a Protestant? Yeah, no, I’m I was I was baptized Orthodox uh Eastern Orthodox and then I uh left to Pentecostal church and then to the Baptist church, but I’m I would return back to the uh like Orthodox church uh so. Uh just This is like part of the questions I ask like coming back, you know. Sure. Uh cuz like I understood Protestantism was pretty uh kind of self-defeating in the sense of like it really can’t answer many of these questions and it’s divorced from all of church history, so.

17:51 Yeah, I guess each of us have our list of books because of the authority of the church, right? So, somebody told you that this is the list of books. It’s the the way to frame it against Protestants would be like, “Where do you get your list of books?” And why why did you take my book? That’s my book. That’s not your book. The list of books, again, the language, It’s not here’s this list of books. It is now binding on your conscience to acknowledge that these are the books of the Bible. That That’s not what we’re talking about. Like the lists lists given by the councils are the bishops getting together to say, “Hey, presbyters, >> these are the books that are allowed to be read in your churches. These other ones do not, right?” Um these are the ones we’re authorizing.

18:37 These are the ones that are Right? So, it’s like meant to address a very practical layperson you know, sides off on. This is like what are the texts that are going to be read to you? Okay. Cuz people weren’t literate. People didn’t have Bibles at home that they went and read. You know. Right. >> Right. Yeah, no, for sure. You wanted to say something? I was just going to say I think an easy thing as you’re navigating these questions, Quirt, would be uh can I can I can I levy this charge against the first-century church? Can I levy this charge against the first-century church? So, uh if you’re going to say, well, since the, you know, the Orthodox today may have an additional Maccabees in one jurisdiction or the other, right?

19:25 Well, what about, you know, the differences of canon within the first-century church? If we’re going to say that an infallible ecumenical council is required to hold the canon as uh you know, or to hold the hold the books as infallible, well, then does can I levy that charge against the first-century church and then falsify it that way as well? Cuz the the claim back to your epistemology question, I I believe the best way to articulate it would be the epistemic basis would be the normative authority of the church because that’s what we see in the first century, that’s what we see in the second century, that’s what we see in the third century. And the regional councils are really an expression of that normative authority in action. Right? So, um as far as the as far as the canon, if if you’re if you’re holding on to like Western presuppositions, which is what it sounds like because you’re using categories like infallible, you’re using uh categories like um you know, so on and so forth.

20:20 Is this divinely inspired as like some kind of binary yes or no? Um I think those will be hurdles to overcome, but compare those doubts or questions to the first-century church and see if you can’t levy the same charge there. And if you can, then maybe there’s an issue with the question itself or the doubt itself. Yeah, that makes sense. That’s logical cuz like yeah, of course like you mentioned that what I was bringing up is not is not found in like the first in the early church, right? Because like we mentioned, so many church fathers had so many conflicting lists. Uh I wasn’t really bringing it up as like something to uh like kind of refute anything. I was just kind of out of curiosity to see how like the number 76 was uh cuz I I think like Catholics have three less than us and of course Protestants removed uh the entire Deuterocanon and stuff.

21:15 So, cuz like I just remember when I was Protestant and just realizing like hey, there are so many New Testament uh citations of the like Deuterocanon and then kind of just delving a little into the church history and seeing like hey, uh Martin Luther just removing it and then the entire like Protestant churches going with like a Jewish Old Testament. Uh I just want to go I just want to know how the Orthodox came to like 76 uh books. So, Yeah, I mean >> Just cuz I had seen a Even if you were to just go I’ll say this and then we can uh we can probably move on, Alex, but um even if you were to just go off of the process of elimination, look at the Roman Catholic canon, the 73 lists that they have today. They have no primary secondary distinction. They don’t have any distinction between the canon at all. Because in Trent, they’ve made that view anathema.

22:02 If you were to hold these are any less authoritative than these other books, that’s an anathema position to hold according to the Council of Trent. So, they’ve elevated them all to the same level. They use the word Deuterocanon, but Deuterocanon doesn’t mean the same thing it did in the early church. When they say Deuterocanon, they mean second in acceptance. That’s what they mean by Deuterocanon. They don’t mean it’s any less authoritative or so on and so forth. So, they’re completely alien to the to the early church and their views on the canon. If you were to look at the Protestants, now let’s look at them. They have a 66-book canon. Show me one jurisdiction. And I’m not talking about individual church fathers. I’m talking about jurisdictions. Show me one jurisdiction that accepts a 66-book canon or even a regional council that accepts a 66-book canon. You’re not going to be able to find one. It doesn’t exist. So, uh the only thing that you’re left with is the Orthodox view, right?

22:50 Which is that various jurisdictions had different canon lists and there were distinctions amongst the canon. So, we’re the only ones that are consistent with the first millennium church. Yeah, that makes that makes sense cuz like yeah, it sounds like the Orthodox church is still kind of uh continuing in the faith and practice of the early church, whereas Catholics and Protestants have deviated a lot. I was just wondering also if this is uh related for the liturgy uh just because it seemed that it is like an essential part of of course the Orthodox faith uh in the sense of I know that in the New Testament we don’t see explicitly a liturgy that’s laid out. Uh however, uh and I know like there’s like the famous line, right? The the faith once delivered to all the saints.

23:37 But uh was the liturgy developed in the life of the church from principles that the apostles kind of left uh by tradition to their like students and stuff? I’ll let Father Stephen answer that one cuz I know [laughter] he’s the most knowledgeable on. But I guess uh the general understanding would be that like like they went to on Shabbat, they went to the temple, they worshipped in the temple. They went to the synagogue. Well, they went to the synagogue. Yeah, they went to the synagogue. >> in Jerusalem. If you’re in Jerusalem, you went to the temple. And Sunday, they would meet and they would have the uh the the Thanksgiving meal, the Eucharistic meal, the love feast. And that over time ended up just being like church on the Lord’s Day and the Eucharist. And each component of the is transferred over from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity.

24:28 Uh of course, Father Stephen Young, there’s a lot of details in there that I’m sure Yeah. Well, yeah, if you want super nerd deep dive. So, there’s a there’s a couple of in terms of the Orthodox church, right? Cuz there’s other liturgies like the Oriental Orthodox, right? There’s other whole structures, right? Um but in the Orthodox church, there’s only two basic structures. And one of them only has one liturgy, that’s the liturgy of St. James. The liturgy of St. James is sort of its own Right? And that structure is called the liturgy of St. James cuz it’s used in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and always has been. Now, by always has been, we don’t mean it’s absolutely identical because for example, they recite the Nicene Creed, which obviously did not exist before the Council of Nicaea and not in its current form before Constantinople.

25:17 But the I’m talking about the basic right? Of of things. Um the main basic structure, the one that our other liturgies, liturgy what we call the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, liturgy of St. Basil the Great, uh that is based on what is called the Ephesian liturgy because it comes out of what St. Paul established at Ephesus. Um which was the actual because Constantinople didn’t exist yet. So, if you want the actual hub in Asia Minor of Christianity, it was Ephesus. Uh until Ephesus was destroyed, that’s where St. John was, St. Paul, uh St. Mary Magdalene, the Theotokos for a That Ephesian liturgy structure is the basic structure in terms of litanies, antiphons, right?

26:10 That kind of structure followed by the right? [snorts] Followed by the dismissal, right? That’s layout. What makes the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom that or liturgy of St. Basil the Great that is the anaphora prayers, which are the prayers surrounding the And what we see in like you read St. Justin uh Martyr and St. Ignatius, they say that at that point in the liturgy, each bishop would say his own anaphora prayers as he was able. So, each bishop wrote his own in at the very beginning. Right? So, the apostles would have had their own. Right? And each of the early bishops had their own. Uh but of course, as the church progresses, different bishops have radically different levels of education, right?

26:56 You see this in the apostles themselves. St. Paul versus like St. Peter were radically different levels of some of them were more eloquent than others. Some of them were more gifted speakers than others. And so, over time, certain great saints, great bishops who are very eloquent like St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great, their anaphora prayers were just adopted by other churches, first in their region and then more broadly. Uh sort of in the same way that on Pascha, we all us priests give the homily of St. John Chrysostom. We don’t try and write our own Paschal homily and one-up him cuz we’re not going to. So, >> but it’s so that kind of idea. Like I can’t do better better than St.

27:42 Basil the Great, I will use his prayers, But so that’s so the basic structure goes back to the apostles. Okay. That that makes sense. >> they established in the churches they established. It taught us of the what Protestants call the order of worship, right? Like the structure of the Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Uh thanks guys for uh like answering all my questions and stuff. I know they’re probably like pretty trivial for you, but it’s been Oh, this seems like so much ever since I’ve been coming back. Now, it’s been like over a year, but I just realized there’s so much to like learn and understand, but thanks for answering my questions. Uh thank you for calling in,