§ 11. Holy Scripture

The Christian Church is founded on the will of her divine Founder. This will of His has worked in the Church from the Church’s founding, and will work through all the days until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). This same will, just as it animates the Church in respect of faith, so likewise animates her in respect of law. The right (law) of the Church rests upon it and through it receives its validity. Having founded His Church on earth, Jesus Christ did not leave and hand down to her a ready-made code of laws by which she was to order her external life; but He showed and precisely marked out the goal of the Church, empowered her to employ definite means for the attainment of that goal, and showed her the direction of her work, promising her His constant help. The commandments of Christ constitute those principles on which the Church was constituted and on which she developed her life in the world; on these rests, and from these proceeds, as from its own primary source, the law of the Church.

These commandments are contained in the Holy Scripture of the New Testament (ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη, novum testamentum) and, as an expression of the divine will, are unchangeable and universally binding for the whole Church, and constitute the fundamental laws of the Christian Church. Such are, among others, the commandments concerning the ministry of the apostles (Matt. 18:18; John 20:23), concerning the relation of the apostles among themselves (Mark 9:34 and following), concerning baptism and the eucharist (Mark 16:16; Matt. 28:19; John 3:5; Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:23-25), concerning marriage (Matt. 5:32; 19:3), concerning the oath (Matt. 5:33), concerning church judgment (Matt. 18:15-17), concerning the reward for priestly service (Luke 10:7-12; Matt. 10:10-15; John 12:5, 6; 13:29), concerning the relation to the state authority (Matt. 22:17-22; Luke 20:22-26).[1]

Besides these commandments of the Founder of the Church Himself, the New Testament Holy Scripture contains yet many other precepts touching the law of the Church, which were issued by the apostles by the authority they had received from Christ. Such precepts are: concerning the appointment of priests in every place (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5), concerning obedience to priests (Heb. 13:7, 17; 1 Pet. 5:5), concerning the qualities and duties of the elders of the churches (1 Pet. 5:1 and following), concerning deacons (1 Tim. 3:8 and following), concerning the support of the clergy (1 Cor. 9:6 and following; 1 Tim. 5:3, 16, 17), concerning charges against the clergy (1 Tim. 5:19), concerning priestly ministry (1 Cor. 11:3, 20; 14:27 and following; 16:2; James 5:14), concerning dealings with transgressors (1 Cor. 5:9 and following; 2 Thess. 3:6; 1 Tim. 5:20; James 5:16), concerning marriage (Rom. 7:1 and following; 1 Cor. 5:1; 7:2, 10, 39; 9:5; Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18; 1 Pet. 3:1), concerning the relation to the state authority (Rom. 13:1 and following; 1 Cor. 6:1; 1 Pet. 2:13; 1 Tim. 2:1 and following; Titus 3:1), concerning the relation to those who do not confess the Christian faith (1 Cor. 5:9 and following).[2]

Between the precepts of the Founder of the Church Himself and those which the apostles issued there existed a certain distinction. The Apostle Paul, in his epistles, points to that distinction. In one place, speaking of an established ordinance, he says: “I command, yet not I, but the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:10), and in another place again he says: “this I say, not the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:12). The former held as the Lord’s own tradition,[3] while the apostolic precepts held as counsel, in the words of the same Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 7:25, 40), even though the Church received these apostolic counsels as commandments.[4]

In regard to deriving principles for church legislation from Holy Scripture, the Church has her own definite rules by which she has proceeded and proceeds in this matter. The precepts of Holy Scripture which touch the fundamental truths of the faith and the constitution of the Church, the Church has always received and kept as irrefutable and unconditionally binding laws. But there are in Holy Scripture also other precepts which do not contain in themselves such fundamental truths, but concern only particular questions of the constitution and administration of the Church. The significance and binding force of these precepts the Church herself has determined according to the circumstances of her further existence, and according to those circumstances has applied them in practice.[5] There are in Holy Scripture, besides the dogmatic institutions, also many such precepts which have only historical significance and which concern the then-existing position of the Church in the world, and which therefore cannot as such have universally binding significance, nor be unconditionally valid for all times and amid all the various changes in the Church’s position in the world. These various particular precepts in Holy Scripture must always be distinguished from the fundamental truths, and must always be taken in connection with these latter, for otherwise false conclusions may be reached; one might, on the basis of some particular precept in Holy Scripture, taken independently of the rest, which had significance for the then state of the Church but cannot be applied to her present state, put forward a wholly erroneous teaching, even on fundamental questions of the Church’s constitution. The Church has her own precisely determined laws for this, and these laws have found expression in her ecumenical legislation, and as such have had, and will always have, unconditionally binding force; and they consist in this: that in deriving legal precepts from Holy Scripture, and in explaining them, one must always proceed in accordance with the guidance and teaching of the Church herself, contained in her unbroken Tradition, in the decrees of the ecumenical councils, and in the general voice of the pastors and teachers of the Church. “When a dispute arises concerning Holy Scripture, let [the presidents of the churches] by no means interpret it otherwise than as the lights of the Church and her teachers have set it forth in their writings,” commands the 19th canon of the Council in Trullo, “for otherwise we shall willfully do harm to the Gospel in its principal matters, or simply reduce to bare words what is preached there,” says the 91st canon of Basil the Great. At the Council of Jerusalem in the year 1672, it was established on this matter as follows: “We believe that the divine and holy Scripture was taught by God, and for this reason we must believe it without any objection, but not as it may seem to anyone, but as the catholic Church has interpreted and delivered it.”[6]

The Holy Scripture of the Old Testament also serves as a source for church law (ἡ παλαιὰ διαθήκη, Vetus Testamentum). The Christian Church is a New Testament institution, but she is closely bound to the old law, to the Old Testament church. The Old Testament is παιδαγωγὸς εἰς Χριστόν, and Jesus Christ says plainly and expressly to His disciples that He did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17), that is, to explain and clarify it. Naturally, not all the precepts of the Mosaic legislation can be in force in the Christian Church, for she has replaced the Old Testament church. When some among the first Christians of the apostolic age began to insist on the necessity that Christians too must keep the whole law of Moses, it was resolved, by the common voice of the whole Church of that time, at one of the well-known apostolic councils, that this must by no means be so, and it was established that of that law only the precepts touching morals were to be observed (Acts 15:6-29). The moral precepts of the Mosaic legislation, purified of what had been introduced into them from the life of the Jewish people, acquired a universal human significance and became a law for the Christian Church as well. Among others, the well-known Ten Commandments of God have served as the foundation of the penal law of the Church; certain precepts of the Mosaic legislation concerning marriage have significance even today in church law. In general, the precepts of this legislation are in force in the Christian Church to the extent that the Church has given these precepts force, being guided by the principle which found its legal expression in the decision of the aforementioned apostolic council. In the canons one meets frequent appeals not only to the didactic and historical, but also to the prophetic books of the Old Testament.