Writing over two millennia ago, in his Defence of Socrates, Plato warned against the unqualified opinions of celebrities. “Because of their excellence at their own trade,” writes Plato, “each claimed to be a great expert also on matters of the utmost importance; and this arrogance of theirs seemed to eclipse wisdom”—a similar point is made by Blaise Pascal in his Pensées. This blurring of qualifications and fame—expertise with success—has reached fever pitch in the digital age. In fact, you don’t even need to be famous in the more traditional senses of the word anymore, as a blue-tick brings credibility. Coupled with that, social media trades in aesthetics above argumentation. All of this was well illustrated in a recent and quite popular Instagram video by a Roman Catholic influencer, Marie Elisa.

While Marie’s video is full of wit and humour, she also makes some seriously porous claims, which I will consider in this doodle.

Firstly, Marie says that the Apocrypha was canonical from the late 4th century CE until the Reformation, when Martin Luther deemed it irreconcilable with his “personal theology” of salvation by faith alone. Secondly, she highlights Luther’s rejection of James, because the Reformer found verses like James 2:17 and 2:24 incompatible with his “personal theology.” Thirdly, Marie suggests that Luther added to the Bible in his German translation of Romans 3:28 (cf. Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Deuteronomy 22:18). Again, this was to promote his “personal theology.” In sum, spanning countries and even centuries we can and should dismiss the Reformation as little more than Martin Luther’s obsession with sola fidei—that is, if we believe Marie Elisa’s hackneyed albeit humorous video.

Reformation: More Than Luther’s “Personal Theology”

My main interest for this doodle is Marie’s third point, so I won’t spend much time on her other two, apart from a few brief comments.

Marie claims that the Apocrypha was considered canonical alongside the Old and New Testaments since the late 4th century CE. This is wrong on a few levels. For starters, the Apocrypha was a sub-collection of books belonging to the Septuagint Old Testament (LXX), but not the Hebrew Bible—a distinction that has existed since the 2nd century BCE. Awkward. Furthermore, the Apocrypha never enjoyed uncontested or universal canonical status. Luther’s rejection of it was substantiated, rather than subjective or arbitrary. In his debates with the Roman Catholic Church he appealed to church tradition, something the Reformers routinely did.

When it comes to Luther’s comments about James, few Protestants concur with the Reformer. Pick up at random any of the Reformed confessions and you’ll see them endorsing the canonical status of James (see the Westminster Confession of Faith 1.2 or Belgic Confession 4; even the Heidelberg Catechism cites it). As I wrote earlier this year, the Reformation was not the sum total of a few radical individualists, such as Martin Luther or Ulrich Zwingli. It was a movement. Yes, it was a counter-movement. But the Reformers endeavoured to work together in their refutation of Roman Catholic doctrine. To be plain, Martin Luther got things wrong—you need only read his abhorrent comments about Jewish people to know that. But Martin Luther wasn’t the Reformation.

Admittedly, these first two matters are better suited to textual critics and church historians—and I’m neither. It’s Marie’s third point that really got me thinking, because it’s a an old chestnut among Roman Catholics.

The Greek of Romans 3:28 and James 2:14-26

In advancing his “personal theology,” claims Marie, Martin Luther added to the Bible. How? He inserted the word “alone” into Romans 3:28. Shock. Horror.

Sarcasm aside, Marie has half a point here. In Luther’s translation he modifies the prepositional phrase ‘through faith’ with the word allein (allein durch den Glauben; literally ‘through faith alone’). Looking at the original Greek text one can quickly see that the adjective (μόνος) isn’t present. But here’s the thing: Luther’s translation is, well, a translation. And as my Greek lecturer loved reminding us: traduttore, traditore (‘translator, traitor’). In other words, translations are fundamentally flawed. Sure, Luther’s German is doubly flawed in that he added an emphasis that the Greek might lack. But that needs to be proven.

As woodenly and literal as possible, the Greek of Romans 3:28 says ‘we’re declared/counted righteous apart from works of law’ (δικαιοῦσθαι πίστει ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου). Most English translations render it along these lines (ESV, NIV, NASB and NKJV). And while Roman Catholics love to point out that the only time ‘faith’ and ‘alone’ are found together is in James 2:24, I’d love to know what they think Paul’s meaning is in Romans 3:28. When Paul says that we’re justified by faith without or apart from works, does he mean that we’re justified by faith and works? Asking for a friend. Sure, Luther’s addition of the word ‘alone’ was unwarranted, linguistically or literally. But that doesn’t change much theologically, at least not within the logic of Romans.

In fact, I can prove this using the book Luther wrongly loathed and Roman Catholics enshrine because it supports their own personal theology. Four times James uses the preposition χωρὶς (James 2:18, 20, 26; see it in Romans 3:28 above) .Three of those times he uses it to relate faith and works. Hopefully without being too presumptuous here, my two Roman Catholic readers would agree that James is describing faith without works—or faith alone. Such a faith is barren (James 2:20) and dead (James 2:24). The problem is, none of those verses contain the Greek adjective alone, even though we understand that to be James’ meaning. Coming back to Romans 3:28, Paul uses a very similar combination of words, noticeably faith without (χωρὶς) works. Faith alone.

Sola Fidei

My doodles are written quickly and with little to no revisions. When I sat down to write this after watching Marie’s video I intended to say something about each of her three points owing to their popularity, despite their significant weaknesses. But in the writing I—evidently—ended up saying a lot more about the Greek of Romans 3 and James 2. Please forgive me the technicalities, if you made it this far. My observations in the original are something I’ll very likely come back to in future posts. But we need to conclude.

Commenting on James 2:17, Marie says that we receive grace as a gift through faith, but this must be expressed through works. This actually comes really close to the Reformed insistence that we’re justified by faith alone, but such a faith is never alone. That seems to be a reasonable reading of both Paul and James in a way that doesn’t leave you having to abandon the former. After all, he did say that we’re “justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Romans 3:28). Sola fidei.