Scribal Authority (The End of the Empire 7)

so that, just as it is written: “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”  1 Corinthians 1:31 NASB

As it is written – What happens to a civilization when the foundations of common expectation are crumbling?  What shifts in public consciousness occur when the rule of law is shattered, when no one trusts the government, when civil unrest permeates the society?  You don’t have to look further than the fourth century to find the answer.  When the civilization falters, people cry out for safety and stability, and they usually give away their freedoms to obtain these important human needs.  Despotic authority rises.  But this doesn’t always mean a dictator takes control.  Sometimes an institution or a political party or an oligarchy fills the void.  In the fourth century, the Roman Catholic Church stepped into the gap, giving the collapsing Empire an anchor resting on the eternal God—and the Church became the final authority in all human matters.  For one thousand years, “it is written” was the justification for the hierarchical power of the clergy.

But the written record of God’s instruction to men wasn’t the original means of divine communication.  “It is written” occurred after oral transmission.  “It is written” codified the message.  “It is written” replaced the prophetic voice, the oral connection, with a text; an inscribed sequence of words that removed any miscommunication. Interpretation of the text became the heart of the matter, not the text itself.  “As I recall” was no longer a legitimate declaration because now the message was fixed in writing.  Authority transferred from the prophet to the document.

This shift wasn’t simply a religious one.  Notice Lim’s analysis:

“As the source of philosophical authority shifted away from rational discourse to divine revelation, social competition between philosophers assumed a less verbal, more indirect form.”[1]

“When the philosopher, who cultivated an ascetic way of life and practiced philosophical discourse, came to be regarded as a holy person and a fount of wisdom, philosophical authority left dialectic and alighted on the person of the philosopher-teacher himself.”[2]

At the end of the Empire, when rational discourse declined, authority moved toward charismatic personalities.  This created even more risk for the society because it fractured the society along the lines of prophetic figures.  Each group followed a “holy” man.  Cultural uniformity disappeared.  In order to recover cultural homogeneity, the prophetic personality needed to be replaced with another authority, an authority that did not depend on charisma.  The written text emerged as the new foundation of the culture.  But something was lost in the process—the intimacy of voice.  In order to maintain its authoritarian grip on society, the Church announced the end of prophecy and the canonization of the written text.  Once the Church dominated the culture with the claim of a divine text, we no longer heard God speak.  We read about Him.

Topical Index: writing, oral, text canon, prophet, authority, 1 Corinthians 1:31

[1] Richard Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1995), p. 46.

[2] Richard Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1995), p. 46.