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| The Holy Bible is proclaimed everyday in the Holy Mass |
One must consider the fact that the early church was established under a different time period of kings and kingdoms. Living in a different kind of civilization that is way way backward in today's modern time. Aside from the crude environment that they lived, there was hardly any education as there was hardly any educational institution to which people may learn to read and write. A hebrew would understand Greek by learning the language through assimilation with Greek speaking communities. Romans would hardly understand Greek and so they depended entirely on their teachers. Meaning the church was founded at the time when hardly anyone can read or write not just their own spoken language but more also other languages of other people. So then how did they learn the word of God in the scripture. They learn them from the oral teachings of the Apostles and their successors.
Consider this, the early church from Jews to the Gentiles were mostly poor. In those time, only the rich has the resources to send their children to get education from known educators. They are personally taught to read and write. But the poor had no access to such. They depended on the oral teachings and put it in their memory. They learn from the oral tradition of their elders that were lived and put into action as a living example. These oral teachings, the traditions, were handed down by the Apostles in the church, for the church, and by the church so that it is not forgotten until the time by divine providence that they were written down.
The Torah itself or the Old Testament was not written until the Kingdom of Israel was settled under King David who hired Scribes to put the Torah in writing. The Jews were originally Hebrew people who were poor and nomadic tribe. They move from place to place and they have long history as the People of God which they learned from oral traditions handed to them by their ancestors, the Patriarch who learned them from the Prophets who were sent by God to reveal himself and his commandments. To make them remember, they made the oral teachings and traditions by singing them. The Psalms for example are hymns. They are made into songs since it is easy for people to remember songs and hymns than narratives or plain stories. Other stories were made by repeating the same stories over and over again. Such way of teaching the next generations only became more organized as the Jews became a settled nation developing their own letters and alphabets that allowed them to read and write. This shows that before any writings can be made, they must first be preached, taught, and practiced. Otherwise writing from own imagination is nothing more than a myth and fairy tale without any semblance of truth. For the scriptures to be true they must be factual and to be factual they must be historical and were experienced by those who originally taught them like Moses who experienced talking and meeting God. There must be witnesses to the wonders and miracles that were shown by God beyond the physical explanation.
Theological scholars to what is known as typology, that the Old Testament or the Old Covenant pre- figures the New Testament or the New Covenant. Likewise Judaism prefigures Christianity. So then how the Jews developed their religion in the Old Testament is how the Christians developed their religion under One Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ.
Just as the Torah came about from the action of the Jews under the authority of their former King David, the Priests and the Scribes likewise the Bible came about from the action of the Christians as a community of believers under the authority of their King, Jesus Christ, the Apostles, Bishops and Priests, the leaders of the Church.
The 4 Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John was written sometime between 75 AD-90 AD or some 40 years after the Catholic church of Christians was inaugurated on Pentecost Sunday sometime in the year 33 AD. That makes about 40 years of Christianity when there were no Gospels. So how did they learn the teachings and commandments of the Lord?
We learn from the Acts that the church was already active establishing churches and Christian communities. Paul who was known at first as Saul, was persecuting the church even allowing the stoning of Stephen and approving of his death. He ran after the members of the church wherever they go even outside the Holy Land and into Syria. But on the way to Damascus he was converted by no less than Jesus Christ who appeared and spoke to him in the clouds. St. Paul not only converted but he was appointed by the Lord himself to the office of the Apostles. His Epistles to the churches and to Christians started sometime in 55 AD or at least 22 years of church existence. His epistles and letters including those of other Apostles came ahead of the 4 Gospels at least by 20 years.
So then there were 22 years before the first epistle was written by Paul and became the template for other Apostles to do the same. The Christians did not have the letters and epistles for 22 years and no Gospels for 40 years. The Septuagint was a Greek translation of the Old Testament that was meant for the Greek Speaking Jews not for the Christians. We have seen in the Acts that the Apostles preached not by the bible but orally and successfully converted many to Faith in Jesus Christ. St. Peter converted some 3,000 by his oral preaching.
While the Apostles were alive, the church did not see it important to write but was teaching, preaching, and building up the church in many places based purely on the witnessing of the Apostles and their Disciples. However as the church grew in numbers in many places, the need for written gospels, letters, and epistles became apparent and important for the guidance of the succeeding generations of the Church. Also as the church became more organized with Bishops and presbyters already appointed to serve in the churches in many places, the written instructions, letters and epistles, and the Gospels were read in the assembly during the first part of the weekly meeting of the church. The meeting place was done in what is known as the house churches where the celebration of the Lord's Day, Sunday assembly, worship, and the breaking of bread or the Eucharist. It was at the time when the early church started to develop formal meetings in house churches. Houses that were converted into churches.
The church has started to make copies of the gospels, letters, epistles and other church materials in scrolls which will then be compiled into a Bible and preserved them. St. Paul in his letter to Timothy asked him to bring the "scrolls" he left with ___. Proof that the Apostles kept scrolls which then read in the Churches by the Bishop or presbyter during the weekly meeting on Sunday the Lord's day which later called the Holy Mass.
The first completed bible was the Hebrew Bible composed only of 24 Books then followed by the Koine Greek Bible composed of 76 Books. The Greek Bible was translated to Latin called the Latin Vulgate and completed sometime in the 4th century AD. We can therefore safely say that for the good part of the first 300 years of Christianity there was no single Bible to read and copies were hard to find since there was no printing press yet and all copies are written by scribes.
If then we follow the doctrine of Bible Alone invented by the Protestants, can we say that the early Christians were wrong in their faith? Absolutely not. In fact the modern day Christians should take it as matter of finding the truth to know what the early Christians believed and followed and how did the Church practice the Christians religion at that time. We know however that as early as the late 1st century when the last Apostle was still alive, his disciple, St. Ignatius who was then Bishop of Antioch in the province of Syria of the Roman Empire was already calling the church of the Living God founded by Jesus Christ as the Catholic Church. We also know that the Apostles organized the church into sacerdotal hierarchy led by Bishops as overseers assisted by presbyters for the ministerial services of the members. The Apostles preached and taught to all the churches within the places where they went in fulfillment of the commission given to them by the Lord to go to all the nations and proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Make disciples and to baptize those who will believe.
Just as the bible has its origin from the action of the church that is the Catholic Church, the church has its origin in Jesus Christ, with his words "on this rock I will build my church" and gave the church powers and invincibility that even the gates of hell shall not prevail over it. It is therefore inconceivable to believe the teachings of pseudo-Christian churches pretending to be Christians but are not to claim as being the true church or being part of the church of Christ without any connection to the true church. Said bible churches are false churches teaching false doctrines. They are not part of succession of the Apostles handed down to Bishops and priests given authority to oversee the true church, to preach, teach, and bring to the church converts of believers of Jesus Christ. The authority is given by Jesus to the church not to the bible. The bible which is the word of God is proclaimed by the church not the church proclaimed the bible since the bible came from the action of the Church. The bible is a book there is no life in the book per se unless it is put into action; but the church is Jesus Christ, its the church that gives life to written words of God for unless it is lived by the faithful it remains confined in the ink and paper. The church is the word of God comes alive. It makes possible those who seek Jesus come to him and have life.
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