Classic Conundrums

Solving the riddle of Bible versus Church

12/05/2023

Lk 10:21-24 Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him." Turning to the disciples in private he said, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it."

Today’s homily will not focus on one of the specific Scripture readings we heard today from Isaiah or Luke. Rather I would like to say a word about the use of Scripture in the Mass, and the importance of the Scripture in the liturgy cannot be exaggerated. You have heard of the classic conundrum of, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” My vote has always been for the chicken, since in Gn 1:25, it says: “God made every kind of wild animal, [and] every kind of tame animal.”

But there is another classic conundrum that is equally vexing: which came first, the Bible or the Church? Have you heard of this internecine debate? In many ways this conundrum is the cause of the deepest divides between Catholics and Protestants. We are constantly arguing over which came first, and which is most important.

On the one hand, most Catholics would argue the Church came first, citing Mt 16:18, where Jesus declares to Simon Peter: “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church.” That is, first Jesus establishes Peter and the apostolic foundations of his Church, which then later determines the canon, or official list of book of the Bible. Therefore, the Church clearly comes before the Bible.

Protestants, on the other hand, would insist on the primacy of faith before you can have anything resembling a Church. They might point to Rm 10:17, where Paul proclaims: “Faith comes from what is heard.” In other words, first you have the Bible and someone to proclaim and preach it, and thereby planting the seeds of faith in a believer’s heart. Once the seed of faith blossoms in believers, they gather together as a church community. The Bible, therefore, clearly comes before the Church. So, which is really first?

Perhaps one way to bridge this yawning divide is to recognize a third actor on the stage of history, namely, the liturgy, or the Mass, or the Eucharist. And I would suggest to you that even before there was an organized Church, or a complete Bible, there was the liturgy. At the Last Supper, for example in Lk 22:19, Jesus says: “This is my body, which will be given for you, do this in memory of me.”

Jesus did not say, “Write this in memory of me,” nor did he say, “Call a church council in memory of me,” he said, “Do this in memory of me." And that is exactly what they did in Lk 24, and in Acts 2:42, and later in Acts 20:7, in the “Breaking of the Bread.” In other words, that phrase, “the breaking of the bread” is a pregnant phrase because it not only refers to the liturgy or the Lord’s Supper, but also means the Mass gave birth to both the Church and the Bible. How so?

On April 17, 2003, Pope St. John Paul II wrote an encyclical called Ecclesia de Eucharistia (the Church from the Eucharist), in which he stated forcefully: “The Church was born of the paschal mystery. For this very reason the Eucharist, which is in an outstanding way the sacrament of the paschal mystery, stands at the center of the Church’s life” (no. 3). That is, the Mass gives birth to the Church and constantly nourishes her. So, to answer the question, which came first, the Bible or the Church?, the pope (and I) would answer: neither came first. The liturgy came first and gave birth to both.

We also see the indispensable role of the liturgy in the formation and eventually canonization of the Bible. That is, how the liturgy gave birth to the Bible. In the year 393 at the Council of Hippo in northern Africa, under the towering leadership of St. Augustine, the Church first codified the 73 books of the Bible. But how did St. Augustine and his brother bishops know to pick these particular 73, and not other holy and wise books floating around in the first few centuries?

After all, there was the Gospel of Thomas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the book of Jubilees, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas that didn't make the cut. How did Augustine and the other bishops in 393 know to select Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and the rest of the New Testament rather than these other holy writings? Because these 27 book of the New Testament, as well as the 46 books of the Old Testament, were faithfully and consistently read whenever the Christians gathered for “the breaking of the bread.”

In other words, it was the uninterrupted use of these books in the Eucharistic liturgy that was the litmus test of which books were truly inspired by the Holy Spirit. That answers which books should be in the Bible. Which came first, the Bible or the Church? Neither did, but rather the liturgy came first. Why? Because Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me,” and everything else came later.

Praised be Jesus Christ!