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John Behr
THE TRADITION AND CANON OF THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES.

Chapter 1 of John Behr, The Way to Nicea, The Formation of Christian Theology, Vol. 1 (SVS Press, 2001).

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Irenaeus demonstrates how all the things which have come to pass in Jesus Christ, were spoken of by the prophets, both so that we might believe in God, as what he previously proclaimed has come to pass, and also to demonstrate that Scripture throughout does in fact speak of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, as preached by the apostles.

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This coherence of Scripture, the scriptural texture of the apostolic preaching of the Gospel in its interpretative engagement with Scripture, is the basis for Irenaeus' appeal to canon and tradition, and the full use of the apostolic writings as themselves Scripture, in his work Against the Heresies.[34] This text is the earliest extant work to employ all the elements of apostolic Scripture, tradition, succession and canon, and it does so in confrontation with those who "speak the same, but think otherwise" (AH 1.Pref.2).

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• "As we have seen, the apostolic tradition is nothing other than the Gospel proclaimed by the apostles as the foundation for the Church. Insofar as the Gospel, proclaimed in public, has been preserved intact, it is possible to appeal, as a point of reference for what has been taught from the beginning, to the succession of presbyter/bishops who have taught and preached the same Gospel. In this way, apostolic succession becomes an element, alongside Scripture, canon and tradition, in the self-identification of orthodox or normative Christianity. "



• "As we have seen, the apostles certainly delivered a new manner of reading the Scriptures, proclaiming Christ "according to the Scriptures," but, according to Irenaeus, what they handed down, both in public preaching and in writing, remained tied to the Scripture. . . .this tradition of the apostolic engagement with Scripture, in which Christ is revealed, the Word which is not man's but God's.



• "It is the apostles alone who have brought the revelation of Christ to the world, though what they preach is already announced by Scripture--the Law and the Prophets. The Gospels composed by those who were not apostles, Irenaeus claims, are interpretations of the preaching of those who were apostles. Irenaeus further emphasizes the foundational role of the apostles by asserting, in the passage elided from the above quotation, that the apostles did not begin to preach until they were invested with the fullness of knowledge by the risen Lord. That the apostles preached the Gospel and then subsequently wrote it down is important for Irenaeus, as it will later enable him to appeal to the continuous preaching of the Gospel in the Church, the tradition of the apostles. It is also important to Irenaeus to specify that what they wrote has been handed down ("traditioned") in the Scriptures, as the ground and pillar of our faith. While Paul had spoken of the Church as being the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim 3:15), in the need to define more clearly the identity of the Church Irenaeus modifies Paul's words so that it is the Scripture which is the "ground and pillar" of the faith, or, he states later, it is the Gospel, found in four forms, and the Spirit of life that is "the pillar and foundation of the Church" (AH 3.11.8). It is by their preaching the Gospel that Peter and Paul lay the foundations for the Church, and so the Church, constituted by the Gospel, must preserve this deposit intact. "

It is by this canon that the “canonical” books of the New Testa-ment are marked out. It needs to be pointed out that “canon” does not and cannot refer to a “list,” “catalogue,” or “collection,” and was never used that way until 1768; to speak of “the canon of Scripture” is a confusion of terms and categories.