Who REALLY Created the New Testament?

I can't count the number of times that I have praised David Trobisch over the last few days. I know he is my superior. I respect him immensely. But I have to say that he and I are heading in opposite directions on the issue of who the final editor of the New Testament canon was.

As I mentioned at my last post on the subject, it was Robert Price who told me about Trobisch. I had written the first version of my Against Polycarp in which I 'accused' Polycarp of being the 'final editor' of the canon. Price loved the book and told me that it would be published by the Journal of Higher Criticism. The Journal went through a series of transformations. Against Polycarp is always said to be high on the list of titles that they want to publish. In the meantime however, I discovered that more research I did on Polycarp, the more I realize he couldn't possibly have been the 'final editor' type.

Polycarp was a lunatic, plain and simple. He was a delusional para-suicidal crusader. A final editor needs to feel comfortable sitting behind a desk.

I don't even know if Polycarp had a real name, let alone a fixed address.

In any event, the more I studied matters it became clear that most people couldn't distinguish between Irenaeus' claims about the 'beloved disciple of the beloved disciple' and the real Polycarp. This shouldn't be at all surprising as Irenaeus is our only real source for any information about a person of this name. Yet even with this situation there are still enough scraps of information about 'the real Polycarp' from the existing writings of Irenaeus which allow us to see that Irenaeus rather than Polycarp is the final editor of the canon.

Whenever I approach Trobisch on the subject he can never provide me with a reason not to identify Irenaeus as this figure. I presume that the problem is that 'real scholars' assume that whatever Irenaeus believed must have come from Polycarp.

This is what Irenaeus claims I admit but it is not hard to see that Irenaeus and Polycarp did not use the same Gospel, that Irenaeus and Polycarp did not employ the same canon, that Irenaeus and Polycarp had two different histories of the formation of the Church.

The most obvious clue which points to this conclusion is that there was another person in Rome named Florinus who openly challenged Irenaeus' claims about the teacher whose teaching both men claimed to witness.

Florinus was a Valentinian. Need I say more?

It would be too much for me to overturn almost two thousand years of ASSUMPTIONS about Irenaeus' 'faithfulness' to his master. I am prepared to do this in the coming days but for the moment let me just say that even without the distraction of figuring out who Polycarp is, it should have been obvious to Trobisch how absolutely perfectly Irenaeus of Rome embodies EVERYTHING he writes about the 'final editor' of the canon.

I think David was afraid of the implications of this identification so he avoids the topic (especially because people like Tommy Wassermann and Larry Hurtado wouldn't talk to him any more if he admitted this).

Indeed where Polycarp represents a striking comet full of kinetic energy Irenaeus and his writings represent an almost unimaginable level of tedium. Irenaeus's writings are so boring that they would even prevent Viagra from being effective.

I want the readers to keep all that I have cited from Trobisch's understanding of the function and purpose of the orthodox New Testament canon (i.e. to identify and define the central players in the early Church) when we see what appears in the first few chapters of Book Three of Irenaeus' work. I know I had started to go through Irenaeus to demonstrate Trobisch's understanding of the 'gospel of four was witnessed and shared by Irenaeus. Now I want to go one step further and demonstrate that Trobisch's claims about the function of the New Testament canon is also shared by Irenaeus.

I will bold important sections of the text and add a numeral to comment on the most important sections in subsequent posts. Irenaeus begins by noting to his readers that:

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. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed "perfect knowledge," as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles (1). For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God. Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter (2), did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia(3).

These have all declared to us that there is one God, Creator of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophets; and one Christ the Son of God. If any one do not agree to these truths, he despises the companions of the Lord; nay more, he despises Christ Himself the Lord; yea, he despises the Father also, and stands self-condemned, resisting and opposing his own salvation, as is the case with all heretics(4).

When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but viva voce (5): wherefore also Paul declared, "But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world." And this wisdom each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to their idea, the truth properly resides at one time in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or has even been indifferently in any other opponent, who could speak nothing pertaining to salvation. For every one of these men, being altogether of a perverse disposition, depraving the system of truth (6), is not ashamed to preach himself.

But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles (7), [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour (8); and that not the apostles alone, but even the Lord Himself, spoke as at one time from the Demiurge, at another from the intermediate place, and yet again from the Pleroma, but that they themselves, indubitably, unsulliedly, and purely, have knowledge of the hidden mystery: this is, indeed, to blaspheme their Creator after a most impudent manner! It comes to this, therefore, that these men do now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition (9).

Such are the adversaries with whom we have to deal, my very dear friend, endeavouring like slippery serpents to escape at all points. Wherefore they must be opposed at all points, if per- chance, by cutting off their retreat, we may succeed in turning them back to the truth. For, though it is not an easy thing for a soul under the influence of error to repent, yet, on the other hand, it is not altogether impossible to escape from error when the truth is brought alongside it (10).

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world (11); and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to "the perfect" apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves (11). For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.

Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul (13); as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority (14), that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.

The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy (15). To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone [in this], for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome despatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians (16), exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles, proclaiming the one God, omnipotent, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge, and called Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt, spake with Moses, set forth the law, sent the prophets, and who has prepared fire for the devil and his angels. From this document, whosoever chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also understand the apostolical tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older date than these men who are now propagating falsehood (17), and who conjure into existence another god beyond the Creator and the Maker of all existing things. To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Sorer having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.

But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth (18), for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time,--a man who was of much greater weight, and a more stedfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles,--that, namely, which is handed down by the Church (19). There are also those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, "Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within." And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Dost thou know me?" "I do know thee, the first-born of Satan." Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth (20); as Paul also says, "A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself." There is also a very powerful Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who choose to do so, and are anxious about their salvation, can learn the character of his faith, and the preaching of the truth. Then, again, the Church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles (21).

I think the reader gets a general idea how all this not only confirms but even PROVES Trobisch's theory about the origins of the current canon, but makes Irenaeus a prime suspect for the role of 'final editor' of the canon. More to follow ...