2 Maccabees 12:39-45: A Catholic and Evangelical Response to Doug Chaplin’s Apparent Indifference to Solus Christus

Biblical blogdom has become snory (unless you hang out at compegalitarian, in which case, things have gotten so hot and heavy that Wayne Leman has shut down comments and hidden previous ones for the second time in less than a month). Time to get the juices flowing.

Doug Chaplin takes aim at the Reformation’s decision, in line with the judgment of Jerome, according to which 2 Maccabees does not belong in the church’s canon. He claims the decision was made on grounds of doctrinal convenience. La pierre de scandale for the Reformers in his estimation: 2 Maccabees 12:39-45, according to which Judas atoned for the sin of idolatry of fellow Jews fallen in battle by means of a sin offering consisting of a significant sum of money.  

Doug’s suspicion is plausible enough. But it is also possible, indeed it is certain, that the Reformers were persuaded by Jerome’s independent arguments on behalf of the hebraica veritas. In short, the Reformers had many valid reasons as they saw it, not just one, to concur with Jerome in respect to the canon.

That being the case, Doug’s suspicion is not sufficient grounds for rejecting the Reformers’ decision to remove the deuterocanonicals from the canon. The decision has to be examined in terms of its entire set of ramifications. I would suggest that, from a truly metacatholic point of view, Jerome’s canon adopted by the churches of the Reformation, the canon of Trent, and the various Eastern canons, including the Ethiopic canon, stand on a par. Each canon has its own particular raison d’être. Each makes sense precisely in terms of the doctrine of the community that holds to it.

I would also argue that it is possible to be Catholic in the sense of including the deuterocanonicals within one’s canon and evangelical in the sense of denying that offerings on behalf of the living or the dead in atonement for their sins make sense in the wake of Christ’s sacrifice. Hebrews 7:27, after all, is clear:

ὃς οὐκ ἔχει καθ' ἡμέραν ἀνάγκην ὥσπερ οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς πρότερον ὑπὲρ τῶν ἰδίων ἁμαρτιῶν θυσίας ἀναφέρειν ἔπειτα τῶν τοῦ λαοῦ τοῦτο γὰρ ἐποίησεν ἐφάπαξ ἑαυτὸν ἀνενέγκας

[Jesus] who has no need on a daily basis, as the high priests formerly, to offer sacrifices on behalf of his own sins and then on behalf of those of the people, for he did so once and for all when he offered himself.

What was proper and valid at a certain time in the Old Covenant is one thing. What is proper and valid in the New Covenant is another. At the very least, the sacrifice of Judas recounted in 2 Maccabees is rightly understood, in the terms of the Christian narrative, as a prefiguration of the sacrifice of Christ, whereas the sacrifice of the Mass is rightly understood as a postfiguration thereof.

It’s just that reformed Christians will reply, with considerable support from the New Testament, that a more fitting postfiguration of Christ’s sacrifice is the sacrifice spoken of in Romans 12:1:

παρακαλῶ οὖν ὑμᾶς ἀδελφοί διὰ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν τοῦ θεοῦ παραστῆσαι τὰ σώματα ὑμῶν θυσίαν ζῶσαν ἁγίαν εὐάρεστον τῷ θεῷ τὴν λογικὴν λατρείαν ὑμῶν

In light of the above, I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, your fitting worship.

Along the same lines: Col 1:24, a quintessentially Catholic passage if there ever was one. In short, I stand foursquare with ElShaddai in this post, though I suspect he will be uneasy, as Protestants generally are, with the synthesis I feel is necessary of Rom 12:1 with Col 1:24 and Hebrews 7:27.

A further note: N. T. Wrong’s comment on Doug’s thread is pathetic. The Reformation was not a power grab. On the contrary, it enfranchised entire European peoples after centuries of spiritual disenfranchisement, by the mere fact of translating and distributing the Bible and the Mass in the vernacular. Put another way, if the Reformation was a power grab, then so is the movement that has led to constitutional one-man one-vote democracies around the world.

Comments

[Jim Getz]

John,
I'd have to second NT Wrong on the Reformation being a power grab. Leaving aside the obvious example of England, there's the whole problem of Luther's response to the Peasants' Revolt, the theocracy of Calvin in Geneva, Zwingli's ties to the state and (of course) the way everyone treated the Anabaptists.

[John Hobbins]

Jim,

To think of the Reformation as a power grab misunderstands its nature completely. To be sure, the Reformers got mixed up in power struggles, and the religious movement was used by some as a means to a political end. Where victorious, those responsible were of course viewed by the former powers as usurpers. What the people thought is a separate question. Please remember that Calvin went to Geneva against his will and at the invitation of Geneva's civil authorities.

It is true that in some parts of Germany, the Reformation was imposed on an unwilling populace by a Protestant prince, just as in other parts of Germany, Catholicism was imposed on an unwilling populace by a Catholic prince. To this day in Germany, Protestantism is more vital in the Landeskirchen which were established in the face of oppression by a Catholic prince. How on earth can such a thing be understood as a power grab?

I see the matter differently in part because the Reformation with which I am most intimate is the defeated, oppressed, and massacred parts, in Italy (I am Waldensian), France (the Huguenots), Mitteleuropa, Spain, and so on.

The Reformation was a vast movement with ramifications across most of Europe (even into the Orthodox East). It was often suppressed, sometimes in blood. Once again, remember that I am Waldensian. Our blood soaks the pages of the Martyr's Mirror dear to Anabaptists even though we are Calvinists.

[Weekend Fisher]

Hi all

A couple of points.

First, I've never quite understood how / why the church changed its opinion on the Deuteros. After all, Jerome was not recording his personal opinion but the church's practice when he said those books were suitable reading but not considered suitable for establishing dogma.

Second, I've never quite understood how / why the text mentioning an offering for the dead is supposed to imply purgatory. It could just as easily mean that an offering after someone's death is still efficacious in view of the future resurrection (which seems to me what the text says). The more obvious implication for a Christian would be that *Christ's sacrifice* could be regarded as retroactively efficacious, if people were inclined to take that book as a sound basis for dogma.

And finally it's strange to me how anyone could read Luther and see a power grab; he didn't even have any intentions of breaking with Rome. He started out trying to stir up a debate about abuses of certain innovative doctrines, i.e. to reform the corruptions in the existing church, not to start a new church.

Take care & God bless
WF

[John Hobbins]

Weekend,

Thanks for your reasoned observations.

A close look at the data from the time of the ancient church reveals a considerable amount of diversity along with a basic unity when it comes to the limits of the canon, and distinctions of the kind you mention, with the deuteros used for catechesis but not in polemics (of course) with Jews, and components of the core canon the texts of first choice for establishing doctrine.

I think the reasonable Roman Catholic view of the passage in 2 Maccabees is
that it is compatible with the doctrine of purgatory, but does not teach it. I don't think it's impossible to develop a doctrine of purgatory a la C. S. Lewis, but scriptural support for it is better sought in Paul and the Apocalypse of John.