84 Η ORIENTATION.
ing away the traditional belief or undermining the authority of the Word of God. On the contrary, from the fulness of their faith in the inspired Word, as contained in the Scriptures, they questioned the canonicity of a few books which seem to be lacking in sufficient evidence to entitle them to a place in the Bible. They simply revived, in a new shape and on doctrinal rather than historical grounds, the distinction made by the Hebrews and the ancient fathers between the canonical and apocryphal books of the Old Testament, and the Eusebian distinction between the Homologumena and Antilegomena of the New Testament, and claimed in both respects the freedom of the ante-Nicene church.
They added, moreover, to the external evidence, the more important internal evidence on the intrinsic excellency of the Scripture, as the true ground on which its authority and claim to obedience rests; and they established a firm criterion of canonicity, namely, the purity and force of teaching Christ and his’ gospel of salvation. They did not reject the testimonies of the fathers, but they placed over them what Paul calls the ‘“demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor. 2: 4).
Luther was the bold pioneer of a higher criticism, which was indeed subjective and arbitrary, but, after all, a criticism of faith. He made his central doctrine of justification by faith the criterion of canonicity.1_ He thus placed the material or subjective principle of Protestantism above the formal or objective principle, the truth above the witness of: the truth, the doctrine of the gospel above the written Gospel, Christ above the Bible. Romanism, on the contrary, places the church above the Bible. But we must remember that Luther first learnt Christ from the Bible, and
1“T his,” he says in the Preface to the Epistle of James, “is the true touchstone (der rechte Priifstein) of all books, whether they make. Christ.their sole topic and aim” [literally “drive Christ,” Christum treiben], “or not; since all Scripture shows Christ (Rom. 3), and St. Paul wishes to know nothing but Christ (1 Cor. 2). That which does not teach Christ is not apostolic, though St. Peter and Paul should teach it; again, that which preaches Christ is apostolic, though Judas, Annas, Pilate and Herod should say it.’ The devil τ himself can quote Scripture.
§ 9. THE REFORMATION AND RATIONALISM. 98
especially from the Epistles of Paul, which furnished him the key for the understanding of the scheme of salvation.
He made a distinction, moreover, between the more important and the less important books of the New Testament, according to the extent of their evangelic purity and force, and put Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation at the end of the German Bible.
He states his reason in the Preface to the Hebrews as follows: “Hitherto we have had the right and genuine books of the New Testament. The four that follow have been differently esteemed _in olden times.” THe therefore appeals to the ante- Nicene tradition, but his chief objection was to the contents.
He disliked, most of all, the Epistle of James because he could not harmonize it with Paul’s teaching on justification by faith without works,” and he called it an epistle of straw as compared with the genuine apostolic writings.®
1Tn this distinction Carlstadt had preceded him in his book, De Canon. Scripturis (Wittenb. 1520, reprinted in Credner’s Zur Gesch. des Kanons, 1847, p. 291- 412). Carlstadt divided the books of the canon into three ordines: (1) libri summae dignitatis (the Pentateuch, though not written by Moses, and the Gospels ); (2) secwndae dignitatis (the Prophets and 15 Epistles); (8) tertiae dignitatis (the Jewish Hagiographa and the seven Antilegomena of the New Testament),
? He rejects the epistle first of all, “because it gives righteousness to works in flat contradiction to Paul and all other Scriptures ;” secondly, “because, while undertaking to teach Christian people, it does not once mention the passion, the resurrection, the Spirit of Christ ; it names Christ twice, but teaches nothing about him; it calls the law a law of liberty, while Paul calls it a law of bondage, of wrath, of death and of sin”’ He offered his doctor’s cap to any who could harmonize James and Paul on the subject of justification, and jests about the trouble Melanchthon took to do it. He made the contradiction unnecessarily stronger by inserting his allein (sola) before durch den Gilauben in Rom. 3: 28. He first attacked the Epistle of James in his book De Captivitate Babylonica, in 1520, where he calls it an epistle unworthy of the apostolical spirit. Carlstadt seems to have fallen out with Luther in the same year on this question; for he defended the Epistle against the frivola argumenta of a bonus sacerdos amicitie nostree (who can be no other than Luther), in his book De canonicis Scripturis, Wittenberge, 1520.
’ The comparison must not be overlooked. He says: gegen sie, 7. e. as compared with the Epistles of Paul, Peter and John, previously mentioned. See the passage in full below. He could not be blind to the merits of James as a fresh, vigorous teacher of practical Christianity.