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This is Part 5 of a series examining the relationship of evangelicals and Roman Catholics. Thus far I have given a brief history and covered several areas in which there is general agreement between evangelical teaching and Roman Catholic doctrines. At this point, I will spend several posts discussing important differences in the two groups of believers. These differences are not insignificant.

Evangelicals reject the immaculate conception of Mary, her bodily assumption, her role as co-redemptrix, the veneration of Mary and other saints, prayers to Mary and the saints, the infallibility of the pope, purgatory, the inspiration and canonicity of the Apocrypha, the doctrine of transubstantiation, the worship of the transformed Host, the sacerdotal powers of the Catholic priesthood, and the necessity of works to obtain eternal life. These beliefs are all held by the Roman Catholic Church and stand in the way of any kind of unity between evangelicals and Catholics. I will not be able, due to time restraints, to provide the Catholic defense for each of these, but I will provide the reasons for the evangelical rejection of each.

Today - a quick look at the canon of Scripture. Seven books and four parts of books were pronounced as part of the canon in 1546 at the Council of Trent. These books are otherwise known as the Apocrypha by evangelicals. That same council pronounced excommunication on anyone who rejects them and fails to accept their canonical status. The acceptance of the Apocrypha has significant doctrinal implications since support for prayers for the dead, and hence, purgatory is derived from these books.

There are several reasons why these books should be rejected.
1. These should be rejected since they fail to meet the criteria of “propheticity,” meaning written by a prophet. No apocryphal books even claim to be written by a prophet.
2. These books were never considered to be canonical by the Jewish Bible.
3. No apocryphal book is ever cited in an authoritative sense by another canonical book.
4. Additionally, there is a long line of historical support for the non-canonical status of the Apocrypha.
a. Early Jewish teachers such as Philo and Josephus give no evidence that they should be considered canonical.
b. Jesus and the New Testament writers never quoted the Apocrypha as Scripture.
c. The Jewish scholars at Jamnia (A.D. 90) did not accept the Apocrypha as part of the divinely inspired Jewish canon.
d. No canonical list or general council of the first four centuries of Christian history accepted the Apocrypha as inspired.
e. Many early church fathers spoke out against these books.
f. Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, explicitly rejected them as part of the canon.
g. Certain Reformation period Catholic scholars as well as reformers such as Luther and Calvin rejected them as canonical.

Next post, more important disagreements.