Ordo Divinus

As an unique legal system, canon law is a set of legal norms which take effect in the church exclusively. Compared with the secular law, the sources of the canon law are more diverse which consisted of the Bible, the documents of the Ecumenical Councils, Papal decretals and some rules in the civil law. As the most vital source of the canon law, the status of the Bible which always rise and fall in the history of the church is not steady: in the early ages, much attention was being paid to the Bible in order to set up and spread the faith widely while canonize the Scripture by the church. With the consolidation and expansion of the church, especially the centralization of Papal power, the authority of the Pope and church tradition was substituted gradually for the authority of the Bible. In the period of the Reformation, reformers carried the Bible as the most powerful weapon to fight with the corrupt church. Since the Enlightenment, the Bible was studied more rationally and critically, meanwhile, it became the sustainer of some Christian groups which established in the modern world.History is not simple cumulation of many historical materials, the vitality of history is to explore the historical rules concealed behind the phenomena then probe into the essential cause. The reason why the status of the Bible is not changeless in the history of the canon law is sophisticated, this paper analysed from three viewpoints: 1st, the viewpoint of the Bible itself, 2nd, the viewpoint of the history of the church, 3rd, the viewpoint of the laws. There are triple tensions in the Bible: the tension between Old and New Testaments, the tension between the Christ of faith and the historical Jesus, as well as the tension between forgiveness and punishment. These tensions created the internal contradiction of the Bible so that led people to learn it from various standpoints. And the historical rules propelled the church from the original "Christianity" to the medieval "Christendom" and finally turned into the modern "Christianness". While three dimensions composed of faith, society and charity made laws distinctive in the social system of the church framework. The Bible and the canon law impact on each other in the vast contradictions comprised of all three aspects above.It seemed that the concepts of faith and laws became totally incorrelate, but as a matter of fact, they interacted profoundly. Canon law is such a typical example: the Bible represents the faith of the church, it is the way to the promise land, the laws represents the order of the church, it is necessary to found a community. These two elements are required for the church, furthermore, they are two essential aspects of the human society. Although they may possess different form in different culture, if there were no faith, people would get lost in the life, if no laws, society would disintegrate eventually. Laws and faith are the embodiment of earth and heaven, by means of understanding and reconciling them sufficiently, we would bridge the world and the Paradise, at the same time, eliminate the chasm between city of God and lay.