Muratorian Fragment and Catholics

The Muratorian fragment reminds me of a lot of things, including how the Catholics have been in the faith for a long time, so I want to talk through a lot of things here.

It wasn’t until like 367AD and then after 367AD, when formally the New Testament was known to be 27 books-called the Canon.

Muratorian fragment is a list of new testament book from about 170AD. See how accurate. All was pretty clear throughout the empire 100 plus years after these books were written and sent by currier to one place.

The Muratorian fragment is understood to be originally written in Greek, but the fragment that exists was the translation to Latin about 800AD. So then, what do we think about the Catholic church in 800AD?

I mean, most of us think, ah, they’re pretty lost. They’re just proving themselves and trying to gain power. Um, you know, we think it’s like faith and the Bible was kind of out the window.

Here the Muratorian Fragment and Catholics

And yet, someone found this document in the archives in the Vatican and thought, hey, this is really important.  They went through the work to translate this into Latin and then to preserve it so that, twelve hundred years later we can have contact with this nearly 2000 year old thought, which gives us insight and development of the canon of the New Testament or, you know, what we accept as God’s Word from the New Testament.

As Protestants, we put a lot of emphasis on, you know, the apostolic period and the apostles who wrote down the New Testament because they are the closest to Jesus. They knew him directly. That’s first firsthand witnesses. That’s, you know, the very best we have in terms of knowing really what was Jesus saying. It so precious to us.

So Christians, we like and respect the Apostolic period. We also like everything that happened after 1517 because that’s when the Protestants existed. I’m not saying that only protestants read this, but okay, so you know, I’m in the Protestant space. Here we are. Can we just discount everything that happened before? 1517 AD when Martin Luther said that we’re gonna think of things different and think by faith.

Muratorian Shows Catholics Were Never All Lost

However,  there were people of faith within the Catholic church all through this period. It wasn’t just the Apostolic period and then everything was lost. Even in time periods when we think, ah, things weren’t too well, like 800 AD. How well was the Catholic church then? You know, we think they’ve lost so much of their strength. But there’s a guy wandering around in the Vatican who who knew this was important. This had to do with our faith and of the real truth of the gospel. That guy saved that fragment. Furthermore, countless things that the Catholics have reserved over millennia show that they cared about faith. They cared about the truth. Even in that period, they cared.

So I’m glad to pitch you a little thought on a Muratorian fragment. You can go look up what they say about it in Wikipedia, but I just want to pause and just, yeah, think together about who are these Catholics and how should we view that.

Catholics Were At Bottom in 1517 and Still Had Faith Like Martin

I mean, when Martin Luther and friends left the Catholic church, the Catholic church was extremely corrupt and our leaving did cause the Catholic church to reform and to not be as corrupt. And it was never as bad as it was in 1517 when Martin Luther went and protested. There were Christians in fifteen hundred, and there were Christians all through history.

The faith wasn’t just lost for thousands of years and then Martin Luther rediscovered it. He made it broadly known.  He took it out of the shadows. But there were always people of faith, always people right with God. Martin helped to rid some of the junk around faith and make it a little more clear and much less superstition.

The Canon Has Been Clear For a Long Time For Us

So really, we’re in the new testament period, the time after Jesus rises from the dead, is when really we have the whole revelation of God coming to us through the New Testament.  It was completed in the first century AD. We have a lot of proof, a lot of evidence, that really this Testament was written in the first century. You know, historians won’t verify everything, but they verify a ton. Actually, they know that something happened, that this faith didn’t show up 300 years later. And the Muratorian fragment is part of that. Here are these Catholics just doing these things in 800 ad.

We’re on the same team with them.  Further, we can appreciate a Catholic person in the archives there in the Vatican had that much faith to say in 800 AD, “Hey, this is something valuable.”