+ 27.225 MHz: The Evangelist Saint Onesimus At Gaza [Expansion Upon A Historical Theory]

Today they told me---the Apostle John

has reposed.  Of all the twelve, he was the last

to be taken to where our Lord prepares

a place for all faithful who have believed.

They say he just stopped breathing.  With him gone---

and this world always ready to cast doubt---

no one remains who actually had heard

Jesus speak.  Precious, handed down tradition

does not, for very long, retain precision.

We must gather each scroll, or page, that bears

the apostolic words that form the Word

of God to which Jesus gave Revelation,

and which we, saved by Him, gladly received.

Once gathered it can---easily---be passed,

as living Truth, to every generation,

putting all worldly vagaries to rout

This is the work that we must be about.


Starward

Author's Notes/Comments: 

They tell me that Onesimus, of whom the Apostle Saint Paul wrote in his Epistle to Philemon, served the Church as Bishop of Gaza.


During the autumn term of my senior undergrad year (September through November of 1979, I read a biography about Saint Paul (which I cannot now properly cite):  it suggested that the Apostle's Epistles were collected by Onesimus.  In this poem, I should like to extend that theory by including all of the writings of tbe New Testament.


I realize that the New Testatment Canon was fixed by the Synod of Hippo and the Councils of Carthage.  But they based their decision on collections of documents used by various congregations since the First Century A.D.  I suggest here that Onesimus made a definitive collection, perhaps intended by him only for personal and devotional use, which then became normative before the Synod and Councils mentioned above.

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