De Moor II:12: The Instrumental Cause of Scripture: The Amanuenses (Part 1)

From the Genus of the Definition of Scripture, which was the Word of God, we proceed now to a consideration of the Difference of Species, which in the first place is sought from the Efficient Instrumental Cause, or the Amanuenses, the Prophets and Apostles.

              God in the writing of Scripture made use of Amanuenses, who might perform the act of writing with their own hand and produce the Scripture as an effect, and to such an extent cooperate with the Holy Spirit in producing that joint finished product; whence the Gospel of God[1] is called the Gospel of Paul himself, Romans 2:16, and the writings of the Hebrew Canon are attributed to Moses and the Prophets, Luke 16:29.  Nevertheless, adding nothing beyond the external ministry of writing and also the internal ministry of meditating, which very thing was also at the same time subject to singular and intimate divine direction, they were in any event Amanuenses of the Holy Spirit and ministerial causes; neither were they adding anything to the θεοπνευστίαν/inspiration of the Scripture, but in any event were writing letters and words, which were animated by the θεοπνεύστῳ/ inspired Word of God:  whence what things Moses wrote, God Himself testifies that He wrote, Hosea 8:12:  compare § 5 of this Chapter above.  Hence there was no difference, although these, with respect to natural Gifts (for example, temper mild or more fervid, ability in doctrine developed or not), and with respect to State, both Common and Ecclesiastical, were diverse, since with respect to Infallible Inspiration they were equal.

              But these Amanuenses of the Holy Spirit did not always write with their own hand, but sometimes they in turn made use of Amanuenses, to whom they would dictate the words of the Holy Spirit, Jeremiah 36:4; Romans 16:22; hence it is right to distinguish between the man θεόπνευστον/inspired, and the man writing θεοπνεύστως, under inspiration, that is, with an θεοπνεύστῳ/inspired man dictating, assisting, and directing:  these Amanuenses were indeed fallible and without inspiration; but on the other hand, their writing, received either from the mouth or from the archetype of their Masters, was infallible and truly divine, and was not at all inferior to the other monuments of the Canonical Writers.  Nevertheless, the account of these Amanuenses, and of the following copyists in turn, is dissimilar.  The writing of the former is free from blemish and error, but the copies of the latter are not devoid of all fault:  the writing of the former was directed by the θεοπνεύστοις/inspired Men dictating during the writing, and was recognized and approved by the same after the writing; but the writing of the latter was left to human fragility, and was not free from all errors.

              These Amanuenses of the Holy Spirit are commonly called Prophets and Apostles, out of Ephesians 2:20, where, 1.  by Apostles understand, a.  the primary Ministers of the New Testament properly so called; b.  under the same comprehend their first extraordinary co-laborers, whom under the name of Evangelists Paul conjoins with them, Ephesians 4:11, and who propagated the Gospel with them throughout the world, not only by mouth, but also by pen:  whether the denomination be now taken from the superior part, seeing that Paul, indicating the first Ministers and Writers of the New Testament, names Apostles, comprehending the others synecdochically under these; or the term Apostle be extended more broadly, as in Acts 14:14, in which Barnabas is also called an Apostle.  2.  Now, by Prophets, out of Ephesians 2:20, and also in Ephesians 3:5 and 4:11, Ministers of the New Testament equipped with the gift of explaining the old Prophecies, indeed also of predicting future things in consequence of the beginnings of it, are understood by those that have only scarcely admitted that the Old Scriptures and the New Testament teach the same doctrine, so that this text might be less of a hindrance to this their hypothesis:  thus Socinus, Smalcius,[2] Slichtingius,[3] Crellius,[4] whom some of the Remonstrants also follow; but also, at a distance from every perverse hypothesis, COCCEIUS thus explains this text.  Nevertheless, it is far more common that the name of Prophets refers to extraordinary Ministers of God under the Old Testament, who at that time prophesied by mouth and pen even of Christ’s advent and grace, among other things:  just as the Papists, following the Greek Fathers, commonly expound this text; and there is in this matter among Our Men nearly a universal consensus, which, following our Most Illustrious AUTHOR, Exercitationibus Textualibus XLIII, Part III, § 2-5, we think is not easily to be abandoned:

              α.  Because by Prophets it is the most common and proper use of this word in the New Testament to understand those Ministers of the Old Testament:  a just reason for receding from which occurs in Ephesians 3:5 and 4:11, but not in Ephesians 2:20.

              β.  Because the Old Prophets, more than the New, are and were celebrated in the Church, even on account of the divine Writings, which they left behind for the perpetual use of the Church, and on account of their absolute infallibility in teaching, which they had in common with the Apostles, who entered into the labor of the Prophets, and confirmed their own sayings from their prophecies:  whence the Foundation of the Church is more rightly and gloriously denominated from those Old Prophets, than from the new.

              γ.  In the progress of the text, Jesus Christ is called the λίθος ἀκρογωνιαῖος, cornerstone, of the Foundation of Apostles and Prophets; which is viewed as having two sides divided between the Apostles and the Prophets and coming together into one Christ:  whence these seem to be referred to altogether distinct times and distinct proclamations of Christ future and Christ present.  It is no hindrance that:

                             a.  The Prophets are placed after the Apostles:  for,

                                           a.  The Apostle was equally able to ascend from the present time to the past, as to descend from the past to the present.

                                           b.  With the order of time disregarded, the Apostles are able to be set before the ancient Prophets with respect to their nearer relation to us, or to their dignity or renown:  compare Matthew 11:9, 11.

                             b.  But, that it is falsely said that the Prophets of the Old Testament are unable to be the Foundation of the Christian Church, shall be opened in § 18.

              But, as it is fitting to comprehend under the Apostles their Apostolic co-laborers; so also one may include under the Prophets men of the Prophetic Spirit, or moved by Him formerly under the Old Testament, in setting forth to the Church matters other than the prophetic strictly so called.

Indeed, God Himself desired first to sanctify Writing by His own example in Legislation, and to obtain authority for this mode of revelation by so noble an example, of which you read in Exodus 32:16, upon which place see Chapter 11, § 25 below.  But our AUTHOR makes mention of a threefold reason on account of which God thereafter committed all the Writing to Men:  namely, α.  so that He might treat more familiarly with us, inasmuch as He sees to it that, through men, who were ὁμοιοπαθεῖς ἡμῖν, of like passions with us,[5] the doctrine of salvation is committed to writing for us.  β.  So that He might impede superstition:  for, if any αὐτόγραφον/autograph of the Sacred Volumes, written by the Lord Himself, had existed, with how great superstition would that have been received by men?  At the same time, what would the advantage have been, if in the passage of time the divine αὐτόγραφον/autograph, no less than that of the Law, had perished (concerning which consult JOHANN FRIEDRICH MICHAELIS’ Dissertationem de Tabulis Fœderis prioribus, § 22, and Dissertation de Tabulis Fœderis posterioribus, § 23, in HASE’S[6] and IKEN’S[7] Thesaurum Novum Dissertationum in Veterem Instrumentum, pages 361, 362, 377), and nothing other than the human ἀπόγραφα/copies had remained?  γ.  Thus the Lord willed to signify His greater Dignity and Efficacy in the writing of His Word in the heart by omnipotent power, while it belongs to His ministers only to commit the divine words to paper.  On account of which, and similar reasons also, the Son of God is thought to have abstained from the external administration of Baptism, by a comparison of John 4:2 with Matthew 3:11.  That the Head dictated what the members wrote, Augustine observes concerning Christ, book I de Consensu Euangelistarum, chapter XXXV, opera, tome 3, part 2, columns 18, 19:  “Moreover, through the man which He assumed, He stands to all His disciples as a head to its members. Therefore, when those wrote things that He showed and spoke to them, it ought not by any means to be said that He did not write; since His members have wrought that which they became acquainted by the dictation of the Head.  For whatever He willed that we should read concerning His own doings and sayings, this He commanded to be written by them, as if they were His own hands.  Whoever apprehends this partnership in unity and this ministry of united members under one head in diverse offices, will no otherwise receive what he reads in the Gospel through the narratives of the disciples, than if he were witnessing the very hand of the Lord, which He bore in His own body, writing.”

And so our AUTHOR discredits what things have been set forth as if written by Christ, of which sort are:

1.  CHRIST’S EPISTLE TO ABGARUS or Agbarus, King or Phylarch of Edessa, a nation on the other side of the Euphrates, in which Epistle, namely, He answers the letter of that King, who was oppressed with disease and was soliciting by letter the help of the Lord; and He gives hope to him that after His departure to the Father He was going to send one of His disciples to Edessa to heal the King.  Both Epistles, together with those that followed for the execution of this dominical promise, EUSEBIUS exhibits from the records of the Church of Edessa, translated from Syriac into Greek, Historia Ecclesiastica, book I, chapter XIII.  But those Epistles of Agbarus and of Christ, together with the rest of the history related by Eusebius, by the many instances of νοθείας/ spuriousness and falsehood, are manifestly convicted by SPANHEMIUS the Younger, Historia Ecclesiastica, Century I, chapter XV, § I, columns 578, 579, who believes that these things were boasted of by the Edessenes in order to lift up their Church, but that these were fabricated according to the bent of the Syrians, who are inclined to fictions; and that these are to be reckoned in a similar category with the θεοτεύκτῳ, divinely made, Image of Christ sent by the Lord to Agbarus, concerning which EVAGRIUS SCHOLASTICUS:[8]  see also JOHANN ALBERT FABRICIUS’ Codicem apocryphum Novi Testamenti, part I, pages 316*-320*, and part III, pages 513-516; likewise PRITIUS’[9] Introductionem in Lectionem Novi Testamenti, chapter II, pages 7-11; RUMPÆUS’[10] Commentationem criticam ad Novi Testamenti Libros, § XIX, pages 40-43.

2.  Of similar chaff are the BOOKS WRITTEN BY CHRIST TO PETER AND PAUL, as they are indicated in the epistolary title, and which books purport to contain the magical arts by which the Lord was wont to accomplish His miracles.  AUGUSTINE mentions books of this sort read by some according to narration of those; but at the same time he ridicules and cries them down, de Consensu Euangelistarum, book I, chapters IX-XI, opera, tome 3, part 2, column 6.  Concerning these and similar books and writings ascribed to Christ, see also FABRICIUS’ Codicem apocryphum Novi Testamenti, part I, page 303 and following.

[1] See Romans 1:1.

[2] Valentinus Smalcius (1572-1622) was a German Socinian theologian.  He translated the Racovian Catechism into German (probably having had a hand in the Catechism’s original composition), and the Racovian New Testament into Polish.

[3] Jonas Schlichting (1592-1661) was a theologian of the Socinian Polish Brethren.  He wrote commentaries on most of the books of the New Testament.

[4] Johannes Crellius (1590-1633) was a one of the Polish Brethren and an influential Socinian theologian.  His son and grandson were also proponents of Socinian views.

[5] See Acts 14:15; James 5:17.

[6] Theodor Hase (1682-1731) was a Reformed theologian and philologist.  He served as Professor of Theology at Bremen from 1708 to 1731.

[7] Conrad Iken (1689-1753) was a Reformed theologian and philologist.  He served as Professor of Theology at Bremen from 1723 to 1753.

[8] Evagrius Scholasticus (sixth century) was a Syrian scholar and lawyer.  He wrote a six-volume Ecclesiastical History, treating the period from the First Council of Ephesus (431) to the author’s time (593) under the reign of Maurice.

[9] Johann Georg Pritius (1662-1732) was a German Lutheran Theologian and Minister.

[10] Justus Wesselius Rumpæus (1676-1730) was a Lutheran Theologian and Schoolman.