... in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen. Through the prayers of our
holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen. Glory
to You, our God, Glory to You.
O Heavenly King,
the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, You are everywhere and fill all things,
Treasury of blessings, and Giver of life: come and abide in us, and cleanse us
from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy
Immortal, have mercy on us (three times).
Glory be to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it is now, was in the
beginning, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Sola Scriptura
The well-known Latin quotation, “Lex
orandi, lex est credendi,”[1] “the law of prayer or
worship, is the law of faith,” provides some interesting insights into our
concept of Sola Scriptura.[2] It is interesting because the oral[3] law of prayer or worship
preexisted the New Testament writings, and may even have preexisted all or part
the Old Testament, especially the Old Testament canonization.
Certainly, Adam and Eve, together
with Cain and Abel (prior to 4000 BC), practiced an oral lex orandi thousands
of years before the first appearance of the writing of canonical Scripture by
Moses between 1446 and 1406 BC. Indeed,
the very murder of Abel by Cain, was about jealousy over their different
practices of lex orandi. We could also
adduce extra Biblical sources to show that lex orandi was built into the νους (the mind) of man, and into the ἦθος (ethos) of human culture, but this would be tedious. At the very least the ethos of the oral lex
orandi would require that mankind had a duty to pray and worship.
However, the dispute between Cain
and Abel was over how they worshipped; Cain’s sacrifice pleased God, while
Abel’s sacrifice did not please God. The
two sacrifices were different in form and therefore followed distinct lex
orandi. While God’s displeasure may not
have related to the difference of form; but possibly, rather to a difference of
attitude, faith, or sincerity; nevertheless, the difference of form did
exist. Even though we may not speak with
certainty about the details of the worship of Cain and Abel today; we speak
with absolute confidence that the lex orandi of over 6000 years ago contained
more than the idea that mankind had a duty to pray and worship, precisely
because of the differences between the worship of Cain and the worship of
Abel. The lex orandi from before 4000 BC
already contained an idea of form or rule, an Ordo.
We must be very careful here: for,
even though the lex orandi of both Cain and Able may have been good; the
outcome of one was evil and the other was not.
We have already observed that the source of the fault may be one of
attitude, of the heart. Nevertheless,
Ordo, that is a tradition of order as found in an oral lex orandi, in and of
itself, does not guarantee orthodoxy.
We could continue to follow the
development of this oral lex orandi, this Ordo, through the rest of the book of
Genesis: for it was in existence for over 2,500 years; we won’t do this. We have already sufficiently proved the
existence of oral lex orandi centuries before the existence of canonical
Scripture. Hence, the Bible itself
requires the existence of an oral lex orandi prior to a law of Scripture; and
it is erroneous, even heretical to proclaim the idea of Sola Scriptura, if by this
we mean that lex orandi, salvation history, tradition does not exist, is not
important, or does not have parallel authority and significance with the Bible.
As
the codification of lex orandi bursts upon the pages of history between 1446
and 1406 BC, we are enabled to make several pointed observations from Torah
itself.
†
The codified lex orandi, the Bible, the Scripture, in its Autographa is
built on and rests on an unwritten lex orandi, an ethos accepted among the
lovers of God, a tradition, a traditional Ordo.
As such the codified lex orandi can neither stand nor be understood
apart from this contextual foundation.
Which is precisely why God gave Genesis to Moses, before He gave Exodus,
and the rest of Torah.
†
If the codified lex orandi is superior to the oral lex orandi, and it is in
many ways: for the codified lex orandi explains details of heaven’s nature that
would not otherwise be known. From Torah
we learn about the shape and furnishing of the heavenly Temple, the
prototypical nature of the Eucharist, and the behavior of the people of God in
all their civil, moral and ceremonial activities. We learn the first formal lessons of prayer
and sacrifice, the first Psalm (the Psalm of Moses and Miriam, and the
establishment the liturgy of time: of hours in the required morning and evening
sacrifices, of the Sabbath of days, the Sabbath of years, and of the mandatory
annual festal cycle. Which is to say
that the nation Israel has imbedded in its constitution a lex orandi having
both a liturgy of time and an inseparable liturgy of the Eucharist (especially
Leviticus): the two are interwoven in a seamless garment.
†
Clearly, we learn from this codification of the lex orandi through Moses that
Sola Scriptura has a point, but it is not an absolute point, it is not a point
that is separable from its foundational history, or makes sense without that historical
oral lex orandi.
†
We also learn that any disputes that arise, even civil disputes must be
settled from this codified lex orandi: for as Moses give the Law he received
from God, civil, moral, and ceremonial matters are inseparable; they are
interwoven elements of the same single garment, and may not be divided. Simply put, a civil offense is an offense of
worship against a Holy God.
†
Yet, if the codified lex orandi is superior to the oral lex orandi in one
aspect, it is inferior in another: for Abraham, without either Law or Bible,
had faith, which was accounted to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:4-6; Romans
4:1-4, 9-22; Galatians 3:5-9; James 2:20-24).
So the Bible itself looks up to the example and faith of a Patriarch,
who never even knew what a Bible was, who nevertheless had a superior
relationship, a friendship with God.
Before we allow this idea to open the door to every wild and spurious heresy,
we hasten to point out that this superiority rested on the strength of the Person
in Whom Abraham believed, not on the glories of Abraham’s oral lex orandi. What Abraham in fact proves is that there is
no lex orandi without an attendant lex credendi. The Bible without faith is just another
worthless printed document, of which millions of such examples exist in this
world, all of which possess a rapidly fading glory. The value of the Bible is that it came from
God, and is inseparable from faith; its chiefest virtue resides in its being
engraved on the human heart, not in its printing in a book.
†
Moreover, a great deal has been written about Old Testament
canonicity. Some men claim that the Old
Testament was canonized by the Jews at a supposed council of Jamnia; yet the
evidence for such a council is sparse, while the evidence that canonicity of
Scripture was discussed at Jamnia is nil.
Jamnia remains an unproved and irrelevant hypothesis. A little thought reveals to us that the
canonization of the books of the Bible took place over a process of time
shortly after they were inspired. There
can be little doubt that Torah was already canonized around 1406 BC because
Moses gave commandment that the Autographs be “laid up” beside the Ark in the
presence of the Shekinah. At
the ceremony of “laying up” the books were made fully canonical by the Shekinah
Himself, while all the people affirmed that they would be obedient. From this point on, any human declaration
that any book is canonical is simply irrelevant and moot: the issue is already
decided by God; man has no voice other than to agree. It is also painfully obvious that the exilic
books, and post-exilic books, were never canonized in this way; so apart from
the authority of Jesus Christ, with the Holy Ghost, these books can have no
canonical status. We conclude that the
Bible is canonized by God, and not in any way by man.
We
have certainly proved that the oral lex orandi both preceded the Bible, and
provided its foundation. We also showed
that the written lex orandi is only partly superior to the lex credendi, provided
that it is “mixed with faith:” for after millennia Abraham is still the
pinnacle of human faith, and the foundation stone of several Biblical
discussions. As we approach the New
Testament, we see that both an oral and a canonical, codified lex orandi are
already in place, and are operative only where a vibrant lex credendi
accompanies them with faith.
The
declaration and gift of the Day of Pentecost in 33 AD certifies to The Church
its oral lex orandi, and empowers The Church to codify that lex orandi. This oral lex orandi is obviously taken from
the lex orandi of the Synagogue, about which we know virtually nothing from
Scripture, and very little is known from extra-biblical Jewish commentary. Indeed the Israelite-Judean religious ethos
brings with it a great deal of traditional material which is assumed by both
Jesus and the New Testament. Jesus
rejects some of this oral lex orandi[4] as being contrary to that
which He gave to Moses at Mount Sinai; while other parts of this lex orandi are
embraced and approved by Him. He quotes
freely from books like Daniel (Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14) without which we would
not really know that Daniel is canonical; and freely from the Septuagint,
without which we could not really know that the Greek Old Testament preserves
the best extant record of the Hebrew Scripture.
Even if other, older documents are found, there would be no evidence
that Jesus, God ever endorsed them or made them canonical.
What
should be clear is that The Church and the New Testament grew together
side-by-side in the first century. A
rich tradition of worship continued and grew, with only brief notations of its
existence in the New Testament. The Bible
of The Church in the first century was the Old Testament, and from the largely
oral lex orandi the New Testament was written by the lex credendi, as the Holy
Ghost led The Church into all truth.
This worship was both ancient, as the legitimate heir of the Old
Testament lex orandi; but it was at the same time new and fresh because of the
sudden arrival of God Who had given the Old Testament lex orandi and had now
corrected its abuse.
Still,
unless we are prepared to construct a service of worship based on the book of
Revelation alone, we are hard put to explain how our form, our Ordo of worship
came to us: because the New Testament is largely silent on the matter; the New
Testament assumes a common knowledge, an ethos of liturgical behavior.
Nevertheless,
the, albeit overstated, claim of Sola Scriptura, serves warning that the
oral lex orandi, the traditions of The Church have been the subject of much
abuse. There are many who can quote
canon law at length and verbatim to justify any and every foul heresy known to
man; thereby perpetuating evil on earth within The Church Herself.[5] Such quote the canon, without either
understanding the Fathers who gave it, or considering the Bible that the
Fathers loved, quoted, and by which they lived.
Since we are necessarily firmly tethered to the Bible our oral lex
orandi may not violate its claims. The
Bible itself affirms the legitimacy of an oral lex orandi; but not an oral lex
orandi in contradiction to it.
If we are tethered, and we are, at
one and the same time to Jesus (Hebrews 6:13-20), to The Church (Hebrews
12:18-29), and to the Bible (Hebrews 1:1-4).
It is this tether, made effective by the power of the Holy Ghost, which
prevents our being hopelessly adrift.
That being said, we continue to live
and worship by a largely oral lex orandi, even to this very day; although we may
frequently pretend and openly deny that this oral lex orandi exists. As a pointed example, styles of preaching are
widely varied throughout Christendom; yet, where in the Bible would one find
justification for any one of them. For
instance, illustrations are often sought from secular life to make the
Scripture “relevant.” What is the
Biblical warrant for that?
The Bible itself affirms the
legitimacy of an oral lex orandi. We
must be constantly on guard that this lex orandi remain the lex credendi, that
it neither be trampled underfoot to be destroyed by the will of man, or used to
justify every deviant behavior found among us.
We may say that councils and popes may err, yet they do not err very
often.
Moreover, we must also note that
none of the glorious claims made about the Bible[6] are made about the oral
lex orandi. We may continue to say Sola
Scriptura, but we will say it softly, because it brings with it an assumption
of a wealth of historical tradition, necessary to the life of The Church. We will certainly not use Sola Scriptura as a
war cry with which to attack other Christians, thus inviting war rather than
peace.[7]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_orandi,_lex_credendi
[2]
The seminal idea for this meditation came from Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Introduction
to Liturgical Theology, (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Yonkers, NY,
1966: 220 pages).
[3] That
which was handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another, and had
no separate existence in any written form: that which is a not-codified lex orandi.
[4] We
believe that the Jewish Haggadah (commentaries on Scripture), and Halakah
(rules for life, an Oral Torah, equal in authority to Torah) were primarily
oral; which in and of itself reveals that Sola Scriptura was an unknown concept
in the first century. Not until after
the destruction of Herod’s Temple in 70 AD (Herod’s Temple is not the Second
Temple, which was built by Zerubbabel around 516
BC. See Ezra Chapters 1-6. Herod’s Temple is the third, fourth, fifth … temple:
for the second temple was razed by the Greeks at least once.); not until after
the destruction of Herod’s Temple in 70 AD, did Haggadah and Halakah come to be
written down. Two primary documents
exist: the Mishnah (circa 220 AD) and the Talmud (circa 360 AD). This contains the false teaching with which
both Jesus and Paul (especially in Romans) took issue. Neither, Jesus who gave the Torah, nor Paul
who gave his life to its study can possibly be disputing with Moses; rather the
issue under dispute is the false interpretation of Torah. Also pertinent is the fact that Jesus
fulfills all the requirements of Torah, as well as being its primary
interpreter, and its best example of obedience.
See: http://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hbd/view.cgi?number=T2449,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishnah, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud
[5] The
tares will be sown continually in the wheat field (Matthew 13:24-30).
[6] All
of Isaiah, Chapter 11, especially verse 9; Jeremiah, Chapter 23, especially
verses 28-29; Habakkuk, Chapter 2, especially verse 14. However, consider this, that neither Isaiah
nor Habakkuk deny the possibility of the message spread by tradition, by word
of mouth. Even so Jeremiah has a harsh
warning for false prophets who hide behind a misleading lex orandi. See also: Psalm 19, all; 68:11; 119, all, especially
verses 12, 89, 136, and 176.
[7] If you have been blessed or helped by any of these meditations,
please repost, share, or use any of them as you wish. No rights are reserved. They are designed and intended for your free
participation. They were freely
received, and are freely given. No other
permission is required for their use.
