The Bible Is Catholic

[Jake Huether]

WE have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.(

Okay, so let's analyze this...

Note closely where the comma's (,) are. If we take out the explicatory statements (enclosed in commas), so that we have the dry meaning of what Irenaeus intended.

Here we go...

We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation,...

So, Irenaeus starts out the statement kinda in a reverse manner. Who is it that we learned the plan of our salvation from? It is none other than who? Okay - so in order to grasp this first fragment we MUST continue past the first comma.

... than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us,...

Okay, now we know who he is talking about. Irenaeus is talking about the Apostles. He is talking about the Church. He says we've learned the plan of our salvation, the good news, the Gospel from the Church, the Apostles passed it down. Now, we don't know now whether or not the following phrase is explicatory, or necessary in order to understand what Irenaeus is trying to convey. Let's look. (and this particular phrase has a series of commas, but the phrase is only complete when they are there - so I won't divide it up).

...which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures,...

So, we see that this is merely an explicatory statement. It describes how the Gospel was at one time proclaimed in public and later placed in Scripture. But it doesn't really have a huge impact on the previouse meat of the statement: That they had recieved the Gospel from the Church.

... to be the ground and pillar of our faith.

So, what is he saying is the ground and pillar of our faith? Not Scripture! He is saying the Gospel is the ground and pillar of our faith. And it doesn't matter that it was at on time proclaimed in public or now placed in scripture. Ireneaus wasn't making a statement about HOW the Gospel came to us. He was pointing out that the Gospel itself (not the medium), which was passed down by the Apostles (in the Church), is the ground and pillar of our faith.

This is more than clearly expressed by reading the actual doc. by Ireneaus (and noting the Bold that Iron highlighted).

"Scripture, the ground and pillar of faith"... Interesting how that happened, eh.

[Jake Huether]

, the removal of the Old Testament Apocrypha,

Oooooo! Apocrypha is a nono. It wasn't Apocrypha that was removed. It was Deuterocanonical. A totally different meaning.

Apocrypha denotes "hidden" or "second rate". It implies that they weren't Scripture, which they were.

I don't know if you knew that... Just wanted to clarify.

http://www.kensmen.com/catholic/septuagint.html