. . . there are examples of noncanonical authors who
claimed, or were acknowledged by others, to have been filled or inspired by the
Spirit when they spoke or wrote. The point is that the church’s Scriptures were
not only the ancient messages or words believed to be inspired by God. Generally
speaking in the early churches the common word for “inspiration” (θεοπνευστος; or “God-breathed”;
see 2 Tim 3:16) was used not only in reference to the Scriptures (OT or NT),
but also of individuals who spoke or wrote the truth of God. For example,
Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 330-95) describes Basil’s (330-79) commentary on the
creation story and claims that Basil’s work was inspired and that his words
even surpassed those of Moses in terms of beauty, complexity, and form: it was
an “exposition given by inspiration of God . . . [admired] no less than the
word composed by Moses himself.” (Gregory of Nyssa, Apologia hexameron)
This is quite remarkable since the text in question is compared to the church’s
OT Scriptures (words of Moses) and believed to be superior to them. This reference
does not suggest that there was a qualitative difference in the notion of
inspiration in either the biblical or ecclesiastical texts. Similarly, the
famous epitaph of Abercius (ca. fourth century) was called an “inspired
inscription [θεοπνευστον επιγραμμα]” and a
synodical letter of the Council of Ephesus (ca. 433) describing the council’s
condemnation of Nestorius was termed “his [or its] inspired judgment [or
decision] [της αυτον θεοπνεθστου κρισεως].” (Vita
Abercii 76. Abercius Marcellus himself, who was bishop of Hieropolis of Phrygia
of Asia Minor in the late second century, apparently penned the writing. He
died ca. 200 CE)
From these and many other examples, we see that the
ancient church did not limit inspiration to the Scriptures or even to
literature alone. In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr suggests that:
“the prophetical gifts remain with us even to the present time. And hence you
ought to understand that [the gifts] formerly among your nation [Israel] have
been transferred to us” (Dial. 82, ANF; see also Dial. 87-88). He
was speaking of the present and not of the past writing of NT Scriptures. Kalin
finds no evidence that the early church confined inspiration to an already past
apostolic age or to a collection of sacred writings, even in writings that
dealt with the Montanist controversy (see Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.14-19)
in the latter third of the third century. The traditional assumption that the
early Christians believed that only the canonical writings were inspired is not
demonstrable from the available evidence.
The rabbinic notion that “when the latter prophets
died, that is, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, then the Holy Spirit came to an
end in Israel” (t. Sotah 13:2) was simply not shared by the church. From
his investigation of the church fathers up to 400, Kalin failed to turn up one
example where an orthodox, but noncanonical, writing was ever called “uninspired”;
such a designation appears to have been reserved for heretical authors. He concludes: “If the Scriptures were the only writings the church fathers
considered inspired, one would expect them to say so, at least once in a while.”
(Kalin, “Inspired Community,” 544-45) He adds that in the church inspiration applied
not only to all Scripture, but also to the Christian community as a whole, as it
bore “living witness of Jesus Christ.” Only heresy was considered to be uninspired,
because it was contrary to this witness. (Ibid., 547) Von Campenhausen agrees
but adds that the presence of prophetic literature among the Montanists—literature
believed by the Montanists to be born of or prompted by the Holy Spirit but by
others to be misguided—shows that at the end of the second century belief in inspiration
was beginning to be confined to first-century literature. (Formation
of the Christian Bible, 234-35) But if this were the case, we would see
more examples of it in the second and later centuries. It would be more
accurate to say that inspiration was not limited to the first century, but by
the end of the second century the church was beginning to assume that inspired Scripture
ceased after the apostolic era. (Lee Martin McDonald, The
Formation of the Biblical Canon, 2 vols. [London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark,
2017], 2:343-45)
Further Reading:
Everett R. Kalin, "The
Inspired Community: A Glance at Canon History," Concordia
Theological Monthly 42 (1971): 541-59
