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T h e F a t h e r s K n o w B e s t
THE POLITICALLY CORRECT BIBLE
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This Rock
Volume 4, Number 5
 May 1993 
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PERHAPS you've chafed under politically
correct changes in the readings at Mass. Some lectors have taken
it upon themselves to improve the sacred text by inserting inclusive
language in place of the Word as it was written.
It may be a consolation to you to know there is little new in the
desire to adjust Scripture to contemporary biases. In ancient times
such foolery occurred often, and it always was used to expand or defend
a heresy. Just read on to see how early Christians reacted to these
subterfuges.
Irenaeus
"Such then is their system, which neither the
prophets announced or the Lord taught, but of which they boast that
above all others they have perfect knowledge. They gather their views
from other sources than the Scriptures, and they strive to weave ropes
of sand while they try to adapt with an air of probability to their
own peculiar assertions to the parables of the Lord, the sayings of
the prophets, and the words of the apostles in order that their scheme
may not seem without support.
In doing so they disregard the order and connection of the Scriptures,
and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By transferring
passages and dressing them up anew and making one thing out of another,
they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting
the oracles of the Lord to their opinions" (Against Heresies
1:8,1 [A.D. 180-199]).
Tertullian
"Heretics have tampered with the Scriptures and
mutilated and altered them. Catholics never change the Scriptures,
which always testify for them. Where diversity of doctrine is found,
there, then, must the corruption both of the Scriptures and the expositions
thereof be regarded as existing.
On those whose purpose it was to teach differently lay the necessity
of differently arranging the instruments of doctrine. They could not
possibly have effected their diversity of teaching in any other way
than by having a difference in the means whereby they taught. As in
their case, corruption in doctrine could not possibly have succeeded
without a corruption also of its instruments, so to ourselves also
integrity of doctrine could not have accrued without integrity in
those means by which doctrine is managed.
Now, what is there in our Scriptures which is contrary to us? What
of our own have we introduced, that we should have to take it away
again, or else add to it, or alter it in order to restore to its natural
soundness anything which is contrary to it, and contained in the Scriptures?
What we are ourselves, that also the Scriptures are (and have been)
from the beginning. One man perverts the Scriptures with his hand,
another their meaning by his exposition.
Although Valentinus seems to use the entire volume, he has none the
less laid violent hands on the truth only with a more cunning mind
and skill then Marcion. Marcion expressly and openly used the knife,
not the pen, since he made such an excision of the Scriptures as suited
his own subject-matter.
Valentinus, however, abstained from such excision, because he did
not invent Scriptures to square with his own subject-matter, but adapted
his matter to the Scriptures, and yet he took away more, and added
more, by removing the proper meaning of every particular word and
adding then fantastic arrangements of things which have no real existence"
(On Prescription Against Heretics 1:38 [A.D.200]).
Tertullian
"These were the ingenious arts of spiritual wickednesses,
wherewith we also, my brethren, may fairly expect to have to wrestle,
as necessary for faith, that the elect may be made manifest, and that
the reprobate may be discovered. And therefore they possess influence,
and a facility in thinking out and fabricating errors, which ought
not to be wondered at as if it were a difficult and inexplicable process,
seeing that in profane writings also an example comes ready to hand
of a similar facility" (Ibid. 1:39 [A.D.200]).
Lactantius
"But some, not sufficiently instructed in heavenly
learning, when they were unable to reply to the accusers of the truth,
objected that it was either impossible or inconsistent that God should
be shut up in the womb of a woman and that the Majesty of heaven could
not be reduced to such weakness as to become an object of contempt
and derision, a reproach and mockery to men, that he should even endure
tortures and be affixed to the accursed cross.
When they could defend and refute all these things neither by talent
nor learning, for they did not thoroughly perceive their force and
meaning, they were perverted from the right path and corrupted the
sacred writings, so that they composed for themselves a new doctrine
without any root and stability. But some, enticed by the prediction
of false prophets, fell away from the knowledge of God and left the
true tradition. But all of these, ensnared by frauds of demons, which
they ought to have foreseen and guarded against, by their carelessness
lost the name and worship of God.
When they come to be called Phrygians, or Novatians, or Valentinians,
or Marcionites, or Anthropians, or Arians, or by any other name, they
have ceased to be Christians, who have lost the name of Christ and
assumed human and external names. Therefore it is the Catholic Church
alone which retains true worship" (The Divine Institutes
4:30 [A.D. 304-310]).
Caius
"The sacred Scriptures they have boldly falsified,
and the canons of the ancient faith they have rejected, and Christ
they have ignored, not inquiring what the sacred Scriptures say, but
laboriously striving to discover what form of syllogism might be contrived
to establish their impiety" (Disputation with Proclus 3:1
[A.D. 198-214]).
Athanasius
"If then the use of certain passages of Scripture
changes, in their opinion, the blasphemy of Thalia into reverent language,
of course they ought also to deny Christ with the present Jews, when
they see how they study the Law and the prophets; perhaps too they
will deny the Law and the prophets like Manichees, because the latter
read some portions of the Gospels.
If such bewilderment and empty speaking be from ignorance, Scripture
will teach them that the devil, the author of all heresies because
of the ill savor which attaches to evil, borrows Scriptural language
as a cloak to sow the ground with his own poison and seduce the simple.
Thus he deceived Eve; thus he framed former heresies; thus he persuaded
Arius to speak against those former ones that he might introduce his
own without observation. Yet the man of craft did not escape. Being
irreligious toward the Word of God, he lost his all at once and betrayed
to all men his ignorance of other heresies too; and, having not a
particle of the truth in his belief, he still pretends to it"
(Four Discourses Against the Arians 1:3, 8 [A.D. 358-362]).
Athanasius
"Vainly then, the Arians have made this conjecture
and vainly alleged the words of Scripture, for God's Word is unalterable
and is ever in one state, not as it may happen, but as the Father
is; how is he like the Father unless he be such? How is all that is
the Father's also the Son's if he has not the unalterableness and
unchangeableness of the Father?" (Ibid. 1:12, 52 [A.D. 358-362]).
Cyril
"Let the Marcionists be abhorred; they tear
away from the New Testament the sayings of the Old. Marcion asserted
three gods; knowing that in the New Testament are contained testimonies
of the prophets concerning Christ, he cut out the testimonies taken
from the Old Testament so that the King might be left without witness"
(Catechetical Lectures 1:7 [A.D. 350]).
Cyril
"Of these things the Church admonishes and teaches
you and touches the mire, that you may not be mired: She tells of
the wounds, that you may not be wounded. But for you it is enough
to know them. . . . These things are written in the books of the Manichees.
These things we ourselves have read, because we ourselves could not
believe those who told of them. For the sake of your salvation we
have closely inquired into their perdition" (Ibid. 6:34 [A.D.
350]).
John Cassian
"Occasions and opportunities for destroying
themselves cannot possibly be wanting to those who are on the road
to ruin or, rather, to those who are anxious to destroy themselves;
nor are the passages of Scripture to be rejected or altogether torn
out of the volume because then the perversities of the heretics is
encouraged, the unbelief of the Jews increased, and the pride of heathen
wisdom is offended; but surely they are to be piously believed, firmly
held, and preached according to the rule of truth.
Therefore we should not, because of another's unbelief, reject the
economy of the prophets and saints which Scripture relates, for while
we think that we ought to condescend to their infirmities, we stain
ourselves with the sin of not only lying but of sacrilege. But for
those who are wrongly disposed the opening for lies will not be blocked
up by this means, if we are trying either altogether to deny or to
explain away by allegorical interpretations the truth of those things
which we are going to bring forward or have already brought forward.
How will the authority of these passages injure them if their corrupt
will is alone sufficient to lead them to sin?" (Second Conference
of Abbot Joseph 16 [A.D. 420-428]).
Augustine
"Whatever they had censured in your Scriptures
I thought impossible to be defended, and yet sometimes I desired to
confer on those several points with someone well learned in those
books and to try what he thought of them. At this time the words of
one Helpidius, disputing against the Manichaeans, had begun to move
me even at Carthage, in that he brought forth things from the Scriptures
not easily withstood, to which their answer seemed feeble.
This answer they did not give forth publicly, but only in private.
Then they said that the writings of the New Testament had been tampered
with by I know not whom, those desirous of ingrafting the Jewish law
upon the Christian faith, but they themselves did not bring forth
any uncorrupted copies" (Confessions ch. 21 [A.D. 400]).
Augustine
"It is one thing to reject the books themselves,
and it is another thing to say that this holy man wrote only the truth,
and this is his epistle, but some verses are his and some are not. And
then when you are asked for proof, instead of producing more correct
and ancient manuscripts, or to a greater number, or to the original
text, your reply is, 'This verse is his, because it makes for me;
and this is not, because it is against me'" (Reply to
Faustus the Manichaean 11:2 [A.D. 400]).
Augustine
"Your design clearly is to deprive Scripture
of all authority and to make every man's mind the authority of what
he is to approve or disapprove of. This is not to be subject to Scripture
in matters of faith, but to make Scripture subject to you. Instead
of making the high authority of Scripture the reason of approval,
every man makes his approval the reason for thinking a passage correct. If
then you discard authority, to what, poor feeble soul, darkened by
the mists of carnality, to what, I beseech you, will you betake yourself?"
(Ibid. 32:19 [A.D. 400]).
John Chrystostom
"For if it had been spoken plainly, they would
have acted here as they have in other places, they would have blotted
out the words, they would have denied the Scripture, when they were
unable at all to look it in the face" (Homily on Philippians
11 [A.D. 398-404]).
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