Roman Catholics, why don't you use the Apocalyspe of Peter anymore like you did in the early centuries?

Question

And don't say that the RCC didn't, because they did. But my thing is, is that why did the Roman Catholic Church stop using it if Clement thought it to be part of the Holy Scriptures?

wiki

"The Muratorian fragment, the earliest existing list of canonic sacred writings of the New Testament, which is assigned on internal evidence to the last quarter of the second century (i.e. ca 175-200), gives a list of works read in the Christian churches that is similar to the modern accepted canon; however, it also includes the Apocalypse of Peter."

Answer 1

For the same reason protestants don't use all these books we're finding. It scares people

Answer 2

The Apocalypse of peter, along with many other Gospels and Epistles were never considered Scripture.

You can still read it if you want to...we won't stop you.  

Answer 3

I do not know why people think the RRC was there at the beginning of Christianity when it came into existence more then 300 years later. RRC has no idea what the apocalypse or revelation means.So it comes under the common heading in the RRC as "a mystery". Then they have no obligation to explain it.

Answer 4

Because the Church doesn't use Wikipedia as a basis for faith.

This was judged not to have been written by Peter.

Answer 5

Well, of course Clement considered it holy scripture, since it looks an awful lot like he was the author.  And since it was not accepted as canonical by the early Church - not exactly the RCC, since it included the Western and the Eastern bodies, but for all intents and purposes the entire Christian church (as defined as the body of believers) does not accept the Apocalypse of Peter, let alone the Gnostic AOP.  Research a little deeper and you should find your own answers.

Answer 6

The final canon was decided at the Council of Nicea, but was not essentially different from the canon in use nearly 100 prior to the council.  

Even today, other "works are read" in churches - and other information is given during the homily (sermon) , like news stories or anecdotal information...would you believe we now hold them too as "scripture?"

We don't know why the Apocalypse of Peter was not included in the final canon...only that it didn't meet the criteria the council had set forth.  Since we don't own a full copy of the text, and only a fragment, scholars can only guess.  The most prevalent opinion is that AofP had gnostic influences, something the council was very wary of...

Also, remember, transportation was not what it is today.  There could be churches then that used scriptures that the forming orthodoxy would not have embraced, but because there was little way of checking up on them in that society (where it was most common to be born, live and die all within a five mile radius), and for those churches to know exactly what scriptures were being called proto-orthodox (orthodox = right-thinking), it was a slow process to correct errors.  Simply see the works of Paul, and see how much trouble he had correcting errors...can you imagine what it was like as it spread even wider over an even longer amount of time.

Hence the need for a council, and for a final word to be rendered by the Emperor Constantine's council of Nicea

Hope this helps...

EDIT:  Whoa!  Hold on, Lion!  Just the other day you said you wouldn't go to Wikipedia when somebody gave you a link!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Now it's information is infallible to you?  A little skepticism - especially concerning internet sources - is a good thing, but don't swing from one end of the spectrum clear to the other!  Come on, guy, you're a lot smarter than these inconsistant people on here, aren't you?

Answer 7

Wikipedia is not all documentary correct. In fact there is a lawsuit due to inconsistencies and false documentation on their website.

Lets take for an example abortion and the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has always condemned abortion as a grave evil. Christian writers from the first-century author of the Didache to Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae ("The Gospel of Life") have maintained that the Bible forbids abortion, just as it forbids murder.

The Apocalypse of Peter

"And near that place I saw another strait place . . . and there sat women. . . . And over against them many children who were born to them out of due time sat crying. And there came forth from them rays of fire and smote the women in the eyes. And these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion" (The Apocalypse of Peter 25 [A.D. 137]).

The Didache

"The second commandment of the teaching: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not seduce boys. You shall not commit fornication. You shall not steal. You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions. You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child" (Didache 2:1–2 [A.D. 70]).

The Letter of Barnabas

"The way of light, then, is as follows. If anyone desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following. . . . Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born" (Letter of Barnabas 19 [A.D. 74]).

Athenagoras

"What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers?

. . . [W]hen we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it" (A Plea for the Christians 35 [A.D. 177]).

Tertullian

"In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed" (Apology 9:8 [A.D. 197]).

"Among surgeons’ tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs [of the child] within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery.

"There is also [another instrument in the shape of] a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: They give it, from its infanticide function, the name of embruosphaktes, [meaning] "the slayer of the infant," which of course was alive. . . .

"[The doctors who performed abortions] all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and [they] pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive" (The Soul 25 [A.D. 210]).

"Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does" (ibid., 27).

"The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion [Ex. 21:22–24]" (ibid., 37).

Minucius Felix

"There are some [pagan] women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth. And these things assuredly come down from the teaching of your [false] gods. . . . To us [Christians] it is not lawful either to see or hear of homicide" (Octavius 30 [A.D. 226]).

Hippolytus

"Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!" (Refutation of All Heresies [A.D. 228]).

Answer 8

It was decided that it was not to be part of scripture. The Catholic Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, chose the books that together would become known as the Holy Bible.

The New Testament books receiving the most controversy were Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John. The first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in A.D. 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and 3 John. In A.D. 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with the Apocrypha) and the 27 books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) and the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative. (This comes from a Protestant website).

AD 200:

The periphery of the canon is not yet determined. According to one list, compiled at Rome c. AD 200 (the Muratorian Canon), the NT consists of the 4 gospels; Acts; 13 letters of Paul (Hebrews is not included); 3 of the 7 General Epistles (1-2 John and Jude); and also the Apocalypse of Peter. (this comes from a Catholic website).

Clement never wrote a decree declaring that the Apocolypse of Peter was divinely inspired.

Answer 9

Different teachers used different books in their teaching.  To straighten out the differences, synods of many bishops were called by the Pope to discuss which books would be considered to be Scripture.  

The Apocalypse of peter, along with many other Gospels and Epistles were never considered Scripture.

In the year 200, the periphery of the canon is not yet determined. According to one list, compiled at Rome c. AD 200 (the Muratorian Canon), the NT consists of the 4 gospels; Acts; 13 letters of Paul (Hebrews is not included); 3 of the 7 General Epistles (1-2 John and Jude); and also the Apocalypse of Peter.  

In the year 367 -  The earliest extant list of the books of the NT, in exactly the number and order in which we presently have them, is written by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in his Festal letter # 39 of 367 A.D..  

In the year 382  - Council of Rome (whereby Pope Damasus started the ball rolling for the defining of a universal canon for all city-churches). Listed the New Testament books in their present number and order.  

In the year 393,  the Council of Hippo,  which began "arguing it out." Canon proposed by Bishop Athanasius.

In the year 397  - The Council of Carthage, which refined the canon for the Western Church, sending it back to Pope Innocent for ratification. In the East, the canonical process was hampered by a number of schisms (esp. within the Church of Antioch). However, this changed by ...

AD787 The Ecumenical Council of Nicaea II, which adopted the canon of Carthage. At this point, both the Latin West and the Greek / Byzantine East had the same canon. However, ... The non-Greek, Monophysite and Nestorian Churches of the East (the Copts, the Ethiopians, the Syrians, the Armenians, the Syro-Malankars, the Chaldeans, and the Malabars) were still left out. But these Churches came together in agreement, in 1442A.D., in Florence.

1442 AD : At the Council of Florence, the entire Church recognized the 27 books. This council confirmed the Roman Catholic Canon of the Bible which Pope Damasus I had published a thousand years earlier. So, by 1439, all orthodox branches of the Church were legally bound to the same canon.  This is 100 years before the Reformation.

In 1536,  In his translation of the Bible from Greek into German, Luther removed 4 N.T. books (Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation) and placed them in an appendix saying they were less than canonical.  

1546 At the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church reaffirmed once and for all the full list of 27 books. The council also confirmed the inclusion of the Deuterocanonical books which had been a part of the Bible canon since the early Church and was confirmed at the councils of 393 AD, 373, 787 and 1442 AD. At Trent Rome actually dogmatized the canon, making it more than a matter of canon law, which had been the case up to that point, closing it for good.

Answer 10

It could be that God not Wiki is all knowing although that would not be your belief apparently.