Original Christians didn't have a New Testament.

January 1, 2024

Original Christians didn't have a New Testament. They relied solely on the Logos, the Word of God, for at least two generations before anything like a New Testament existed.

Both spring from that hope stored up for you in heaven of which you learned when the message of the true gospel first came to you. That same gospel bearing fruit and making new growth the whole world over, as it does among you and has done since the day when you heard of God's grace and learned what it truly is. It was Epaphras, our dear fellow-servant and a trusted worker for Christ on our behalf, who taught you this…. – Col 1:5-7 (REB)

I grew up in a Christianity that looked only to the Bible for God's revelation. One of the most freeing parts of becoming Catholic was that it put the horse back in front of the cart. God reveals himself first through his Incarnate Word, the Christ. Scripture is one essential component of the Deposit of Faith, but it's not the only one. Equally important is Sacred Tradition, the authoritative oral teaching handed on by the Christ to us through his apostles and their successors, the bishops. The earliest Christians became Christian not because they had a canon of Scripture, but because they had people like Epaphras revealing the mystery of Christ in word and deed.

This frees my soul because it means the Christ continues to speak. From the realm of Spirit, the Word Incarnate sounds in Scripture and Tradition, yes, but also through reality when the mind stills what the senses convey. That happened for me an hour ago in mass when, in a quiet moment, I pondered the figures in the parish nativity scene.

Among the usual suspects present at the birth, a young, innocent looking shepherd held up a lamb toward the infant Christ. Symbolism of the sacrificial lamb, certainly, but it took on new prominence when I noticed his companion, an older, more rustic shepherd positioned behind Mary. Seemingly lurking behind the Virgin Mother, his careworn, frankly creepy pose revealed something interesting. Instead of a lamb, he was holding a basket of fresh fruit: apples and a cluster of grapes.

Suddenly, I saw not two shepherds but echoes of Cain (the farmer) and Abel (the herdsman). In silence and in symbol, this simple nativity scene preached a secret homily: the Incarnate Logos is restoring our reality fractured by the original murder, reconciling violence and victim in the presence of his mother. If these shepherds paying homage suggest Cain and Abel, then the Blessed Virgin Mary between them becomes their new Mother, a new Eve, giving birth to them in the new creation of her divine son in the manger.

This wasn't in the homily. It's certainly not in the Scripture. And though consistent with Tradition, it is no explicit human teaching. It is simply attentiveness to what the Christ is saying, this first day of the New Year, the feast of Mary, the Mother of God. So like Epaphras, I offer it to you.

He rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son…

He exists before all things, and all things hold together in him… and through him to reconcile all things to himself, making peace through the shedding of his blood on the cross — all things, whether on earth or in heaven. – Col. 1:13, 17, 20 (REB)