Church of the East position on non-canonical Books

[Christina]

Hey,

Yiasou,

Thanks for your replies.

Parakalume.

Ahhhhhhhhh, still a little confused.

I answered your post just when I was about to go to bed, so it was a bit rushed, signomi. I'll try explain a little better, an prolaveno!

BTW I posted a question on the Assyrian Church forum regarding their OT canon and I'm still waiting for an answer (Shamasha can help me out here?).

From what I am reading the CoE has really no opinion of these books one way or another (W-5, Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, Ireneaus, maybe handful of others outside the New Testament canon) ??

(1) Am I correct on this??

Further, the CoE has not come to a clear conclusion of these EXTRA CANONICAL books and, (not trying to be rude here) does not seem to really care one way or the other about these. In other words , from what you are telling me -

(2)they are nuetral about this??

I say this because from this discussion I have not come to a clear conclusion from your answers.

Well the CoE is a "sacramental" church, like the Copts, Catholics & Greek Orthodox so they would consider these extra canonical books on par with say - the writings of the Church Fathers. Remember that these kind of churches view canonicity differently to the Protestants. The Protestants believe in the doctrine of Solas Scripture (Scripture Only), they don't view "Church Tradition" as authorative. But for the "liturgical" churches Tradition is as important as Scripture.

The CoE does make use of the W5 and other extra Biblical writings (like the homilies & commentaries of Mar Ephraim & Mar Aphrahat), just like the other Traditional churches. The CoE do study these writings and but they never read them during the Qurbana Qadisha. I don't know what their exact position is on the Didache or the Epistle of Barnabas, but I do know that they consider the W5 free from doctrinal errors and fit for study, so they do study them and teach from them. But because their Apostolic authorship cannot be verified for certain like the other 22, they can never use them in the Eucharist. (It is also noteworthy that Revelation is not part of the Greek Orthodox lectionary, it's never read during the Divine Liturgy).

So I wouldn't say that the CoE is neutral on these other writings, just because they don't consider them canonical it doesn't mean they don't consider them authorative - They just don't use them in the church services but they do have other uses for them.

I hope this was a bit more helpful? Consider getting a copy of akhan Andrew's book Ruach Qadim: The Path to Life, which goes into quite a lot of detail about the W5, I found it very helpful.

What the CoE does assert for sure is that the 22 book NT Aramaic Peshiita is for sure of Aramaic origins. There is no dispute about this within the CoE. Yes, on this??

Apparently there are a few CoE members who are Greek primacists but this is due to recent western influence. Aramaic primacy is the CoE's historical & official position:

"With reference to....the originality of the Peshitta text, as the Patriarch and Head of the Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church of the East, we wish to state, that the Church of the East received the scriptures from the hands of the blessed Apostles themselves in the Aramaic original, the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and that the Peshitta is the text of the Church of the East which has come down from the Biblical times without any change or revision."

Mar Eshai Shimun

by Grace, Catholicos Patriarch of the East

April 5, 1957

(3)And, as for the rest, they seem indifferent as to what the original language these were written in?? Am I close??

I just thought that there was some clear and solid consensus within the CoE as to the original language of the books outside of the 22 book Peshitta.

This is something only Shamasha Paul can answer where the CoE specifically is concerned. But from an Aramaic primacy position, the W5 is a much greater challenge than the 22. The reason is because we still haven't uncovered Aramaic originals for them. The Greek texts are written in Semitic grammar just like the Greek texts of 22 and the LXX, so they are translations of Aramaic originals whether they're Apostolic or not. While we can see that there are mistranslations, we can't actually show how they were derived because we don't know what the original Aramaic words were. There are variants in the Greek texts of the W5, just like there are variants in the Greek texts of 22 - those variants had to come from somewhere, but right now we can't point to the source because we don't have the source.

The Aramaic primacy school (in the west at least) is still pretty young, and we're are still discovering new things everyday just with the 22. A great deal of development in Aramaic scholarship needs to happen before we can really tackle the W5, this is why we're not really concentrating on them too much yet. Once we are confident we can refute anything the Zorbans can throw at us about the 22 (whether the choose to accept their defeat or not) then we can move onto the W5, then stuff like Didache, ect. This is round 1: establishing that Aramaic is the original language of the 22, from there we go onto round 2, and hopefully by that time we may have found Aramaic originals for them or at least stronger evidence to that they did indeed exist.

BTW, there seems to me a contradiction. Paul, if I am understanding you correctly there was never an official council or "meeting" as to the final list of the 22 book Peshitta. IOW, you can't point to a specific date and time (like the Western tradition does - you know, the council of Carthage in 397 closed the NT canon in the West) that the CoE made an announcement that proclaimed the decision that the 22 book New Testament is decided and closed. Yet, Christiana said that the CoE closed its canon out right before the turn of the 2nd century (before 200 A.D ??). You are saying that this decision of the CoE's canon was gradual and eventually clearly accepted w/o any council or meeting of important bishops??

The CoE never held an official Council or Synod to seal their canon simply because they never needed to. The western churches had to do this because there was dispute over which books were authored by the Apostles and which ones were not. And even after the Council of Carthage, some of the books (especially Revelation) were still debated whether or not they were really Apostolic, and so there were a few minor Councils to confirm their place in the canon, which was decided at in 397, whenever such disputes arose.

The CoE's story is different. The Apostles' immediate associates hand-delivered to them signed copies of their Aramaic originals, the last of these was Hebrews which was written shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and it remains the last book in their NT canon to this day. In his book, akhan Andrew explains in great detail how Jerusalem's destruction in AD 70 was a significant turning point, not only in Jewish history but also in Church history, which is something most Christian historians overlook:

The See of Jerusalem was the "Mother Church" for the 1st century believers, Jerusalem was where the Church was born because Yeshua was crucified there. It was also about the same time (AD 70) that the Qasha (Bishop) of the "Mother Church", Mar Ya'aqub (St. James) was martyred. It's almost certain that the See of Jerusalem was the place where all the Apostles' writings were sent to from wherever they were written - It was there where copies were made and signed, then dispatched to be delivered to all the churches in both the Roman and Persian empires. The W5 (save perhaps Revelation) were written at around this time too.

Can you now see why the Aramaic originals would've had trouble getting to the See of Babylon (CoE)? The See of Babylon was in the rival Persian empire, and the Apostles wrote in the square "Hebrew" script. When the Romans destroyed the Temple, they also destroyed as many Jewish writings they could get their hands on - Which included anything that looked like Jewish writing - But Greek translations that were made in Antioch, Ephesus or Rome before the originals were sent to Jerusalem survived.

When news reached Persia that "Mother of Church" and her Qasha were no more, the See of Babylon must've reasoned: "I guess we won't be receiving anymore Apostolic writings". And don't forget that Mar Keepa (St. Peter), the Qasha of the entire Church as well as many of the other Shlikhaya (Apostles) were also martyred at around this time. And so the CoE canon was closed.

Thank you for your time.

Trying not to get too complicated.

Kindly,

Mike

Things are a little less complicated now elpizo?

Cheretismata,
Christina.