J.H. Heidegger's Corpus of Christian Theology: Sacred Scripture: The Necessity of Scripture, Part 2

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3.  The commencement of Scripture.

After the descent of the Israelites into Egypt, both began the terminus of life to be diminished to the eightieth year ‎בִּגְבוּרֹת, in its strength, that is, to the utmost; and the people, oppressed with harsh servitude in Egypt, began to forget their God; and to worship the abominations and idols of the Egyptians (Ezekiel 20:8).  But God, ever mindful of His covenant, graciously embracing the people now vigorously multiplied, led the same out of Egypt, solemnly renewed His covenant with the people led out, inscribed the tables of the covenant with His own hand, and delivered to the people multifarious precepts and judgments, whereby they should not live (Ezekiel 20:11, 25).  And, that those very things, the whole complex of that covenant, were written in a book by Moses, Exodus 24:4-7; Deuteronomy 31:19-22, 24, and then were repeated, declared, and further confirmed, God willed, both so that the great multitude of precepts and instructions might not wear out the faulty and frail memory of man, whose days had already begun פָּנֹה, to decline (Psalm 90:9[1]), nor be delivered to oblivion from the mouth of their seed (Deuteronomy 31:10-13); and so that the doctrine of the covenant might be propagated whole and entire to their posterity, indeed, to the very Nations also, that were at some point going to come to the communion of the same covenant; especially since the Jews were ultimately going to prove to be unfaithful in the proclamation of God’s covenant and righteousness:  and so that the faith of men might persist more powerfully fortified against the superstitions already inveterate, and the heresies and idolatry that are going to advance by fraud and violence for many ages afterwards:  and, finally, so that to the Jews themselves, who at some point were going to defect from the covenant, it might be ‎לְעֵד, for a witness, Deuteronomy 31:19, 21, 26.  For I know, saith God Himself, ‎אֶת־יִצְרוֹ, the imagination, the character,[2] of it (namely, Israel), and what they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware, verse 21.

4.  The necessity of consigning the same to writing is asserted.

God was able thereafter to preserve the Church even without Scripture; for with God all things are possible, Matthew 19:26.  And man is able to live by every word that hath proceeded out of the mouth of God, Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4.  But He willed to publish a proof of His inestimable goodness and ineffable wisdom, by communicating Divine truth, comprehended in that public instrument, to the nation of Israel, and through them to the world.  For, in general, that the benefit of letters is Divine and marvelous, inasmuch as they preserve words, and store them as a deposit, as it were, for those absent, Quintilian has also wisely stated.[3]  And, after God once published this proof of His grace, and did not will to set forth another norm of His revelation in the world; Scripture is now so necessary to the Church, that it is no more able to be without it than the world is able to be without the sun, indeed, without God Himself.  For, although faith, the confession of the truth, catechesis, the interpretation of those things that are written, oral preaching, are never absent from the world, and all these are necessary; yet Scripture was no less necessary, as the norm, pattern, and exemplar of them all, to the pre-eminent authority of which those are to be referred.  For, nowhere and never has God promised, that oral tradition, catechesis, and interpretation would remain whole and intact either among the people of Israel, or in the Christian Church, whether the whole of it, or some college, see, or conspicuous place of it.  Indeed, contrariwise, He foretold, that saving doctrine would be corrupted by the fraud and deceit of Satan and men, Deuteronomy 31:26, 27, 29; Matthew 24:24, 25; Acts 20:29; 2 Peter 2:1.  Without Scripture, therefore, as a Lydian stone,[4] there in no way had been, nor could have been, a basis either for true faith, or for sincere catechesis and tradition, or for sound interpretation.  Hence the Prophets after Moses were not able to say anything contrary to, or even beside, the Law of Moses:  neither was Christ Himself able to abdicate the testimony of Moses and the Prophets, nor to teach anything outside of Moses and the Prophets.  This is the reason for consigning revelation to writing; this is the necessity of what has been thus consigned.

5.  The necessity of consigning the same to writing is defended against the blasphemies of the Papists.

Therefore, the Papists betray nothing other than blind hatred, if not madness, against Scripture, not so much aspersing, as making open war on, the necessity of Scripture; with Cardinal Hosius breaking[5] out in such a pitch of blasphemy, that he said, it would have been better for the Church, if no Scripture had even existed; and Valentia,[6] it would have been more advantageous had it not been written:  and finally Faber, the Vicar of Constance, thus contradicting Zwingli to his face at the Zurich Disputation:[7]  We could live happily and peacefully, if no Scripture or Gospel existed at all.  The words of brute beasts, not men!  As if with the Israelites they would thus openly murmur against God:  ‎לֹ֥א יִתָּכֵ֖ן דֶּ֣רֶךְ אֲדֹנָ֑י, the way of the Lord is not equal, Ezekiel 18:25.  For, the Scripture is not unnecessary today, because for quite some time the Church was able to do without the same; just as the Sun is not unnecessary today in order to distinguish the day from the night, because God for a little while distinguished the day from the night by the primeval light without the sun.  For, although God has not bound Himself to Scripture or to the Sun, so that, without the former, spiritual light might no longer have any place at all, nor, without the latter, physical light:  nevertheless, He has so bound the Church to Scripture, and the world to the Sun, that without the former, spiritual light might no longer have any place at all, nor, without the latter, physical light.  But this dogma was coined in hell, so that it might carry men away, fleeing from Divine revelation to human dictatorship, from the true rule to a sham, from the obedience of God to the obedience of the Devil, from the zeal for the searching of Scripture to the neglect of the same, from the belief of the truth to ignorance, superstition, idolatry, and blasphemies.  Yet to those very men, who thus oppose the necessity of Scripture, it appears necessary, that the Church be guided by the Holy Spirit in such a way that it might depend upon the sentence and oracle of one man.  But, with these things dismissed, we come to the matter.

[1] Psalm 90:9:  “For all our days are passed away (‎פָּנוּ) in thy wrath:  we spend our years as a tale that is told.”

[2] יֵצָר/form/purpose is related to the verbal root יָצַר , to form or fasion, to devise.

[3] Institutio Oratoria, book 1, chapter 7.  Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (c. 35-c. 96 AD) was a Roman rhetorician and teacher.

[4] The Lydian Stone, found in Lydia of Asia Minor, is a hard, usually black, siliceous stone, used to test the purity of gold and silver.  The metal to be tested was rubbed across its surface, and the color of the metallic streak left showed the purity of the metal.

[5] Stanislaus Hosius (1504-1579) was a Roman Catholic Cardinal, a Papal legate, and active opponent of the Reformation.

[6] Gregorius de Valentia (1549-1603) was a Jesuit scholar, originally from Spain.  He served as Professor of Theology at Dillingen (1573-1575) and at Ingolstadt (1575-1592).

[7] Johann Faber (1478-1541) was a German Catholic theologian, canon lawyer, and later Bishop of Vienna.  At the First Zurich Disputation (1523), he served as the Vicar of the Bishop of Constance, and was the spokesman for the delegation opposing Zwingli.