Quotes About the Scriptures

Quotes about the Scriptures from throughout Christian History.

Pseudo-Barnabas, A.D. 80 - 130

For the prophet speaks against Israel, "Woe to their soul, because they have counseled an evil counsel against themselves" [Isaiah 3:9], saying, "Let us bind the just one, because he is displeasing to us" [Wisdom of Solomon 2:12]. And Moses also says to them … (Letter of Barnabas 5)

Justin Martyr, c. A.D. 150

By the agency of the devils death has been decreed against those who read the books of Hystaspes [Book of prophecies no longer extant, supposed to be from a former king of the Medes, but likely rewritten from Jewish and Christian sources], or of the Sibyl [a collection of prophecies from Romean prophetesses], or of the prophets [i.e., Israelite prophets]. Through fear they wish to prevent men who read them from receiving the knowledge of the good in order to retain them in slavery. They have not, however, always been able to do this. For not only do we fearlessly read them, but, as you see, bring them for your inspection, knowing that their contents will be pleasing to all. And if we persuade even a few, our gain will be very great; for, as good husbandmen, we shall receive the reward from the Master. (First Apology 44)

There existed, long before this time, certain men more ancient than all those who are esteemed philosophers, both righteous and beloved by God, who spoke by the Divine Spirit. They foretold events which would take place and which are now taking place. They are called prophets. These alone both saw and announced the truth to men, neither reverencing nor fearing any man nor influenced by a desire for glory. They spoke only those things which they saw and heard, being filled with the Holy Spirit. Their writings are still extant, and he who has read them is very much helped in his knowledge of the beginning and end of things, and of those matters which a philosopher ought to know [Justin thought that anyone who studied divine things could be called a philosopher, so all Christians should be philosophers], provided he has believed them. (Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew 7)

I could wish that everyone, making a resolution like mine, would not keep themselves away from the words of the Savior. For they possess a terrible power in themeslves and are sufficient to inspire those who turn aside from the path of righteousness with awe [or fear]; while the sweetest rest is given to those who make a diligent practice of [the Savior's words]. (Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew 8)

Melito of Sardis, c. A.D. 170

Melito to his brother Onesimus, greeting: Since you have often, in your zeal for the word, expressed a wish to have extracts made from the Law and the Prophets concerning the Savior and concerning our entire faith, and have also wanted to have an accurate statement of the ancient book, as regards their number and their order, I have endeavored to perform the task … knowing that you, in your yearning after God, esteem these things above all else, struggling to attain eternal salvation.
   Accordingly when I went East … I learned the books of the Old Testament accurately and send them to you as written below:
   Of Moses, five books: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy [This order is either Eusebius' mistake, who quotes this passage in his church history, or it was in Miletus' original manuscript that Eusebius used]; Jesus Nave [i.e., Joshua of Nun], Judges, Ruth; of Kings, four books; of Chronicles, two; the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon, Wisdom also [Apocryphal book], Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job; of Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah; of the twelve prophets, one book; Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras [i.e., Ezra, which likely included Nehemiah in Melito's list; thus, only Esther is missing from our Old Testament]. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV:26)

Irenaeus, A.D. 183 - 186

But Jeremiah also says, "In the last days they shall understand these things." [This is] because every prophecy, before its fulfilment, is to men [full of] enigmas and ambiguities. But when the time has arrived, and the prediction has come to pass, then the prophecies have a clear and certain exposition. (Against Heresies IV:26:1)

And for this reason, indeed, when at this present time the law is read to the Jews, it is like a fable; for they do not possess the explanation of all things pertaining to the advent of the Son of God, which took place in human nature; but when it is read by the Christians, it is a treasure, hid indeed in a field, but brought to light by the cross of Christ. (Against Heresies IV:26:1)

Flee to the Church, and be brought up in her bosom, and be nourished with the Lord's Scriptures. For the Church has been planted as a garden in this world; therefore says the Spirit of God, "You may freely eat from every tree of the garden," that is, Eat ye from every Scripture of the Lord; but ye shall not eat with an uplifted mind, nor touch any heretical discord. (Against Heresies V:20:2)

Tertullian, A.D. 200 - 220

There is a letter to the Hebrews extant under the name of Barnabas, a man who is sufficiently accredited by God. He is someone whom Paul stationed next to himself in the uninterrupted observance of abstinence … And of course the letter of Barnabas is more generally received among the churches than the apocryphas Shepherd of Adulterers. It warns the disciples, therefore, to omit the beginning principles and to strive for perfection instead … It says, "For it is impossible that those who have been once illuminated … " [Heb. 6:1-8 is quoted here] (On Modesty 20)

Origen, c. A.D. 240

It should be stated that the canonical books, as the Hebrews have handed them down, are twenty-two, corresponding with the number of their letters [my note: in the Hebrew alphabet] …The twenty-two books of the Hebrews are the following: That which is called by us Genesis, but by the Hebrews, from the beginning of the book, Bresith, which means, "In the beginning"; Exodus, Welesmoth, that is, "These are the names"; Leviticus, Wikra, "And he called"; Numbers, Ammesphekodeim; Deuteronomy, Eleaddebareim, "These are the words"; Jesus [my note: Joshua], the son of Nave, Josoue ben Noun; Judges and Ruth, among them in one book, Saphateim; the First and Second of Kings, among them one, Samouel, that is, "The called of God"; the Third and Fourth of Kings in one, Wammelch David, that is, "The kingdom of David"; of the Chronicles, the First and Second in one, Dabreiamein, that is, "Records of days"; Esdras, First and Second in one [my note: this includes what we call Nehemiah], Ezra, that is, "An assistant"; the book of Psalms, Spharthelleim; the Proverbs of Solomon, Meloth; Ecclesiastes, Koelth; the Song of Songs (not, as some suppose, Songs of Songs), Sir Hassirim; Isaiah, Jessia; Jeremiah, with Lamentations and the epistle in one, Jeremia; Daniel, Daniel; Ezekiel, Jezekiel; Job, Job; Esther, Esther. And besides these there are the Maccabees, which are entitled Sarbeth Sabanaiel. (Commentary on Psalms, fragment preserved in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VI:25:1-2)

Among the four Gospels, which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew language. The second is by Mark, who composed it according to the instructions of Peter, who in his general epistle acknowledges him as a son, saying, "The church that is at Babylon elected together with you, saluteth you, and so doth Marcus, my son." And the third by Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul, and composed for Gentile converts. Last of all that by John. (Commentary on Matthew, fragment preserved in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VI:25:4-6)

Paul, who "fully preached the Gospel from Jerusalem and round about even unto Illyricum," did not write to all the churches which he had instructed and to those to which he wrote he sent but few lines. And Peter, on whom the Church of Christ is built, "against which the gates of hell shall not prevail," has left one acknowledged epistle; perhaps also a second, but this is doubtful.
   Why need we speak of him who reclined upon the bosom of Jesus, John, who has left us one Gospel, though he confessed that he might write so many that the world could not contain them? And he wrote also the Apocalypse, but was commanded to keep silence and not to write the words of the seven thunders. He has left also an epistle of very few lines; perhaps also a second and third; but not all consider them genuine, and together they do not contain hundred lines. (Commentary on the Gospel of John, fragment preserved in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VI:25:7-10)

Anyone who has the power to discern differences of phraseology will acknowledge that the verbal style of the epistle entitled "To the Hebrews" is not rude like the language of the apostle, who acknowledged himself "rude in speech" … but that its diction is purer Greek. anyone who carefully examines the apostolic text will also admit that the thoughts of the epistle are admirable and not inferior to the acknowledged apostolic writings.
    … If I gave my opinion, I should say that the thoughts are those of the apostle, but the diction and phraseology are those of someone who remembered the apostolic teachings, and wrote down at his leisure what had been said by his teacher. Therefore if any church holds that this epistle is by Paul, let it be commended for this. For not without reason have the ancients handed it down as Paul’s.
   But who wrote the epistle, in truth, God knows. The statement of some who have gone before us is that Clement, bishop of the Romans, wrote the epistle, and of others that Luke, the author of the Gospel and the Acts, wrote it. (Homilies on Hebrews, fragment preserved in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VI:25:11-14)

Cyprian, c. A.D. 250

Let nothing be innovated, says [Stephen, bishop of Rome], nothing maintained, except what has been handed down. From where is [his] tradition? Does it descend from the authority of the Lord and the Gospel or does it come from the commands and letters of the apostles? For that those things which are written must be done, God witnesses and admonishes, saying to Joshua … "The book of this Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do all that is written in it" [Josh. 1:8]. Also, the Lord, when he sent his apostles, commands that the nations should be baptized and taught to observe all that he commanded. If, therefore, it is either prescribed in the Gospel or contained in the letters or Acts of the apostles,that those who came from any heresy should not be baptized, but only hands laid on them to repentance, let this divine and holy tradition be observed. But if everywhere heretics are called nothing other than adversaries and antichrists, if they are pronounced as people to be avoided, twisted and condemned by themselves, why is it that they should not be found worthy to be condemned by us, since it is obvious by the apostolic testimony that they are condemned by themselves? So no one ought to defame the apostles as though they had approved of the baptism of heretics, or had taken communion with them without the Church's baptism, when they, the apostles, wrote such things about the heretics.
   … If in time past it was never at all prescribed nor written that only hands should be laid upon a heretic for repentance, and that with only this we may take communion with him; and if there is only one baptism, which … is granted of the divine condescension to the Church alone, then what obstinacy is it, or what presumption, to prefer human tradition to divine ordinance, and not to observe that God is indignant and angry as often as human tradition relaxes and passes by the divine precepts? As he cries out and says by Isaiah the prophet, "This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrines and commandments of men." (Letter to Pompeius, Letter 73:2-3 in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. V)

Eusebius of Caesarea, A.D. 323

Since we are dealing with this subject it is proper to sum up the writings of the New Testament which have been already mentioned. First then must be put the holy quaternion [set of 4] of the Gospels; following them the Acts of the Apostles. After this must be reckoned the epistles of Paul; next in order the extant former epistle of John, and likewise the epistle of Peter, must be maintained. After them is to be placed, if it really seem proper, the Apocalypse of John [i.e., the Book of the Revelation which is in our modern Bible], concerning which we shall give the different opinions at the proper time. These then belong among the accepted writings.
   Among the disputed writings, which are nevertheless recognized by many, are extant the so-called epistle of James and that of Jude, also the second epistle of Peter, and those that are called the second and third of John, whether they belong to the evangelist or to another person of the same name.
   Among the rejected writings must be reckoned also the Acts of Paul, and the so-called Shepherd, and the Apocalypse of Peter, and in addition to these the extant epistle of Barnabas and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles; and besides, as I said, the Apocalypse of John, if it seem proper, which some, as I said, reject, but which others class with the accepted books.(Church History III:25:1-4)

Augustine of Hippo, c. A.D. 390

Now, in regard to the canonical Scriptures, [the skillful interpreter] must follow the judgment of the greater number of catholic churches. Among these, of course, a high place must be given to such as have been thought worthy to be the seat of an apostle and to receive epistles.
   Accordingly, among the canonical Scriptures he will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority.
   If, however, he shall find that some books are held by the greater number of churches, and others by the churches of greater authority (though this is not a very likely thing to happen), I think that in such a case the authority on the two sides is to be looked upon as equal. (On Christian Doctrine II.8.12)

Philip Schaff, c. 1890

[The Reformers] added, moreover, to the external evidence, the more important internal evidence on the intrinsic excellency of the Scripture, as the true ground on which its authority and claim to obedience rests; and they established a firm criterion of canonicity, namely, the purity and force of teaching Christ and his gospel of salvation. They did not reject the testimonies of the fathers, but they placed over them what Paul calls the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Cor. 2:4). (History of the Christian Church, vol. VII, ch. I, sec. 9)

E.R. Kalin, 1971

My investigation of the writings of Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, and several other fathers up to the year AD 400 has failed to turn up a single instance in which any of these writers referred to an orthodox writing outside the New Testament as noninspired. If the Scriptures were the only writings the fathers considered to be inspired, one would expect them to say so, at least once in a while. ("The Inspired Community: A Glance at Canon History," Concordia Theological Monthly 42 (1971):543; as cited in A High View of Scripture?, from the Evangelical Ressourcement series. Baker Academic, 2007, p. 60, emphasis in original)

A.C. Sundberg, Jr., 1972

It is also clear that the Jewish literature received by Christianity was not a closed collection; it was not a canon. Since it was cited as authoritative, it is proper to call it "Scripture." But since it was not a closed collection, it is not proper to call it "canon." ("Towards a Revised History of the New Testament Canon," Studia evangelica 4, no. 1 (1968): p. 453; as cited in A High View of Scripture?, from the Evangelical Ressourcement series. Baker Academic, 2007, p. 45)

J. Barton, 1997

The picture that emerges is surprisingly clear. From the Apostolic Fathers onwards, the Synoptic Gospels (especially Matthew), the Fourth Gospel, and the major Pauline Epistles are cited very much more often than one would predice, if one supposed that the whole of the New Testament we now have was equally "canonical" or important. Correspondingly, the rest of the New Testament (including Acts) is manifestly less important. The third category, books scarcely cited at all, contains most of those which later decisions and decrees affirm to be non-canonical; even in the earliest period none of them is cited even so often as the books of the second class. (Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, and Criticism. Philadelphia:Westminster John Knok, 1997, p. 17, as cited in A High View of Scripture?, from the Evangelical Ressourcement series. Baker Academic, 2007, p. 50)

Craig D. Allert, 2007

Some of the following quotes address Evangelical views because that is my background and the Christians with whom I have the most interaction (both positively and negatively ).

Most evangelicals, particularly at the popular level, have what I call a "dropped out of the sky" understanding of the Bible. (A High View of Scripture?, from the Evangelical Ressourcement series, p. 10)

We evangelicals have come close to deifying this collection of texts with little to no understanding of how they came to be collected into the Bible. (ibid., p. 12)

The content of the biblical canon, as we know it today, is not a particularly early feature of ancient Christianity: the Bible was not always "there" in early Christianity. Yet, the church still continued to function in its absence. This fact warrants an examination of how this was so. (ibid., p. 12)

It is one thing to say that the early church possessed all the documents that went, eventually, to make up what we call the New Testament. It is quite another thing to say that the early church leaders consciously collected a select few (twenty-seven) documents for the direct purpose of including them, and only them, in the New Testament. (A High View of Scripture?, from the Evangelical Ressourcement series, pp. 39-40)

The conclusion Sundberg [A.C. Sundberg, Jr., author of "Towards a Revised History of the New Testament Canon" in the Studia evangelica 4, no. 1] comes to is that the Christian church did not receive an Old Testament canon of Scripture. It is better to say that the church received Scripture on the way to a definite canon in Judaism.
    … the church received from Judaism … the religious literature that circulated freely in Judaism before 70 CE—a closed collection of Law, a closed collection of Prophets, and a third, open body of undefined literature that included the later defined Writings, the books Protestants have come to call the Apocrypha and Pseudipigrapha, and other books known only by name or no longer extant. Only in the third century did the church come to the issue of defining the Old Testament for itself. (ibid., pp. 44-45, emphasis mine)

In this understanding we can conceive of an authoritative body of Christian Scripture in the first century, but even into the fifth century, we cannot claim that this body of literature was closed. This has direct implications for the argument that the early church appealed to the Bible and the Bible alone for its doctrine: one cannot properly speak of a Bible in the first several centuries of the church's existence. This is why it is so important to be precise in distinguishing between "Scripture" and "canon." (ibid., p. 51)

The variety of canonical lists in the fourth and fifth centuries testifies to the fact that even then the church had not settled the matter for all. (ibid., p. 57)

All documents considered orthodox by the early church were, by implication, believed to be inspired. (ibid., p. 59)

The question at issue here is not, Is the Bible inspired? but rather, Is inspiration seen by the fathers to be the unique possession of the canonical books alone? Perhaps we can better state the question thus: Did the early church view only the documents that went into the New Testament canon as inspired and those alone? The short answer to this question is No. The early church considered not only other documents as inspired, but also many aspects of the church's life including bishops, monks, interpreters of Scripture, martyrs, councils, and a wide array of prophetic gifts. (ibid., p. 59)

All documents considered orthodox by the early church were, by implication, believed to be inspired. (A High View of Scripture?, from the Evangelical Ressourcement series, p. 59)