Canon Of The New Testament

Canon of the New Testament

The Catholic New Testament, as defined by the Council of Trent, does not differ, as regards the books contained, from that of all Christian bodies at present. Like the Old Testament, the New has its deuterocanonical books and portions of books, their canonicity having formerly been a subject of some controversy in the Church. These are for the entire books: the Epistle to the Hebrews, that of James, the Second of St. Peter, the Second and Third of John, Jude, and Apocalypse; giving seven in all as the number of the New Testament contested books. The formerly disputed passages are three: the closing section of St. Mark’s Gospel, xvi, 9-20 about the apparitions of Christ after the Resurrection; the verses in Luke about the bloody sweat of Jesus, xxii, 43, 44; the Pericope Adulteræ, or narrative of the woman taken in adultery, St. John, vii, 53 to viii, 11. Since the Council of Trent it is not permitted for a Catholic to question the inspiration of these passages.

A. THE FORMATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON (A.D. 100-220)

The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council.

1. The witness of the New Testament to itself: The first collections

Those writings which possessed the unmistakable stamp and guarantee of Apostolic origin must from the very first have been specially prized and venerated, and their copies eagerly sought by local Churches and individual Christians of means, in preference to the narratives and Logia, or Sayings of Christ, coming from less authorized sources. Already in the New Testament itself there is some evidence of a certain diffusion of canonical books: II Peter, iii, 15, 16, supposes its readers to be acquainted with some of St. Paul’s Epistles; St. John’s Gospel implicitly presupposes the existence of the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). There are no indications in the New Testament of a systematic plan for the distribution of the Apostolic compositions, any more than there is of a definite new Canon bequeathed by the Apostles to the Church, or of a strong self-witness to Divine inspiration. Nearly all the New Testament writings were evoked by particular occasions, or addressed to particular destinations. But we may well presume that each of the leading Churches–Antioch, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Corinth, Rome–sought by exchanging with other Christian communities to add to its special treasure, and have publicly read in its religious assemblies all Apostolic writings which came under its knowledge. It was doubtless in this way that the collections grew, and reached completeness within certain limits, but a considerable number of years must have elapsed (and that counting from the composition of the latest book) before all the widely separated Churches of early Christendom possessed the new sacred literature in full. And this want of an organized distribution, secondarily to the absence of an early fixation of the Canon, left room for variations and doubts which lasted far into the centuries. But evidence will presently be given that from days touching on those of the last Apostles there were two well defined bodies of sacred writings of the New Testament, which constituted the firm, irreducible, universal minimum, and the nucleus of its complete Canon: these were the Four Gospels, as the Church now has them, and thirteen Epistles of St. Paul–the Evangelium and the Apostolicum.

2. The principle of canonicity

Before entering into the historical proof for this primitive emergence of a compact, nucleative Canon, it is pertinent to briefly examine this problem: During the formative period what principle operated in the selection of the New Testament writings and their recognition as Divine?–Theologians are divided on this point. This view that Apostolicity was the test of the inspiration during the building up of the New Testament Canon, is favoured by the many instances where the early Fathers base the authority of a book on its Apostolic origin, and by the truth that the definitive placing of the contested books on the New Testament catalogue coincided with their general acceptance as of Apostolic authorship. Moreover, the advocates of this hypothesis point out that the Apostles’ office corresponded with that of the Prophets of the Old Law, inferring that as inspiration was attached to the munus propheticum so the Apostles were aided by Divine inspiration whenever in the exercise of their calling they either spoke or wrote. Positive arguments are deduced from the New Testament to establish that a permanent prophetical charisma (see CHARISMATA) was enjoyed by the Apostles through a special indwelling of the Holy Ghost, beginning with Pentecost: Matth., x, 19, 20; Acts, xv, 28; I Cor., ii, 13; II Cor., xiii, 3; I Thess., ii, 13, are cited. The opponents of this theory allege against it that the Gospels of Mark and of Luke and Acts were not the work of Apostles (however, tradition connects the Second Gospel with St. Peter’s preaching and St. Luke’s with St. Paul’s); that books current under an Apostle’s name in the Early Church, such as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Apocalypse of St. Peter, were nevertheless excluded from canonical rank, while on the other hand Origen and St. Dionysius of Alexandria in the case of Apocalypse, and St. Jerome in the case of II and III John, although questioning the Apostolic authorship of these works, unhesitatingly received them as Sacred Scriptures. An objection of a speculative kind is derived from the very nature of inspiration ad scribendum, which seems to demand a specific impulse from the Holy Ghost in each case, and preclude the theory that it could be possessed as a permanent gift, or charisma. The weight of Catholic theological opinion is deservedly against mere Apostolicity as a sufficient criterion of inspiration. The adverse view has been taken by Franzelin (De Divinâ Traditione et Scripturâ, 1882), Schmid (De Inspirationis Bibliorum Vi et Ratione, 1885), Crets (De Divinâ Bibliorum Inspiratione, 1886), Leitner (Die prophetische Inspiration, 1895–a monograph), Pesch (De Inspiratione Sacræ, 1906). These authors (some of whom treat the matter more speculatively than historically) admit that Apostolicity is a positive and partial touchstone of inspiration, but emphatically deny that it was exclusive, in the sense that all non-Apostolic works were by that very fact barred from the sacred Canon of the New Testament They hold to doctrinal tradition as the true criterion.

Catholic champions of Apostolicity as a criterion are: Ubaldi (Introductio in Sacram Scripturam, II, 1876); Schanz (in Theologische Quartalschrift, 1885, pp. 666 sqq., and A Christian Apology, II, tr. 1891); Székely (Hermeneutica Biblica, 1902). Recently Professor Batiffol, while rejecting the claims of these latter advocates, has enunciated a theory regarding the principle that presided over the formation of the New Testament Canon which challenges attention and perhaps marks a new stage in the controversy. According to Monsignor Batiffol, the Gospel (i.e. the words and commandments of Jesus Christ) bore with it its own sacredness and authority from the very beginning. This Gospel was announced to the world at large, by the Apostles and Apostolic disciples of Christ, and this message, whether spoken or written, whether taking the form of an evangelic narrative or epistle, was holy and supreme by the fact of containing the Word of Our Lord. Accordingly, for the primitive Church, evangelical character was the test of Scriptural sacredness. But to guarantee this character it was necessary that a book should be known as composed by the official witnesses and organs of the Evangel; hence the need to certify the Apostolic authorship, or at least sanction, of a work purporting to contain the Gospel of Christ. In Batiffol’s view the Judaic notion of inspiration did not at first enter into the selection of the Christian Scriptures. In fact, for the earliest Christians the Gospel of Christ, in the wide sense above noted, was not to be classified with, because transcending, the Old Testament. It was not until about the middle of the second century that under the rubric of Scripture the New Testament writings were assimilated to the Old; the authority of the New Testament as the Word preceded and produced its authority as a New Scripture. (Revue Biblique, 1903, 226 sqq.) Monsignor Batiffol’s hypothesis has this in common with the views of other recent students of the New Testament Canon, that the idea of a new body of sacred writings became clearer in the Early Church as the faithful advanced in a knowledge of the Faith. But it should be remembered that the inspired character of the New Testament is a Catholic dogma, and must therefore in some way have been revealed to, and taught by, Apostles.–Assuming that Apostolic authorship is a positive criterion of inspiration, two inspired Epistles of St. Paul have been lost. This appears from I Cor., v, 9, sqq.; II Cor., ii, 4, 5.

3. The formation of the Tetramorph, or Fourfold Gospel

Irenæus, in his work “Against Heresies” (A.D. 182-88), testifies to the existence of a Tetramorph, or Quadriform Gospel, given by the Word and unified by one Spirit; to repudiate this Gospel or any part of it, as did the Alogi and Marcionites, was to sin against revelation and the Spirit of God. The saintly Doctor of Lyons explicitly states the names of the four Elements of this Gospel, and repeatedly cites all the Evangelists in a manner parallel to his citations from the Old Testament. From the testimony of St. Irenæus alone there can be no reasonable doubt that the Canon of the Gospel was inalterably fixed in the Catholic Church by the last quarter of the second century. Proofs might be multiplied that our canonical Gospels were then universally recognized in the Church, to the exclusion of any pretended Evangels. The magisterial statement of Irenæus may be corroborated by the very ancient catalogue known as the Muratorian Canon, and St. Hippolytus, representing Roman tradition; by Tertullian in Africa, by Clement in Alexandria; the works of the Gnostic Valentinus, and the Syrian Tatian’s Diatessaron, a blending together of the Evangelists’ writings, presuppose the authority enjoyed by the fourfold Gospel towards the middle of the second century. To this period or a little earlier belongs the pseduo-Clementine epistle in which we find, for the first time after II Peter, iii, 16, the word Scripture applied to a New Testament book. But it is needless in the present article to array the full force of these and other witnesses, since even rationalistic scholars like Harnack admit the canonicity of the quadriform Gospel between the years 140-175.

But against Harnack we are able to trace the Tetramorph as a sacred collection back to a more remote period. The apocryphal Gospel of St. Peter, dating from about 150, is based on our canonical Evangelists. So with the very ancient Gospel of the Hebrews and Egyptians (see APOCRYPHA). St. Justin Martyr (130-63) in his Apology refers to certain “memoirs of the Apostles, which are called gospels”, and which “are read in Christian assemblies together with the writings of the Prophets”. The identity of these “memoirs” with our Gospels is established by the certain traces of three, if not all, of them scattered through St. Justin’s works; it was not yet the age of explicit quotations. Marcion, the heretic refuted by Justin in a lost polemic, as we know from Tertullian, instituted a criticism of Gospels bearing the names of the Apostles and disciples of the Apostles, and a little earlier (c. 120) Basilides, the Alexandrian leader of a Gnostic sect, wrote a commentary on “the Gospel” which is known by the allusions to it in the Fathers to have comprised the writings of the Four Evangelists.

In our backward search we have come to the sub-Apostolic age, and its important witnesses are divided into Asian, Alexandrian, and Roman: St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, and St. Polycarp, of Smyrna, had been disciples of Apostles; they wrote their epistles in the first decade of the second century (100-110). They employ Matthew, Luke, and John. In St. Ignatius we find the first instance of the consecrated term “it is written” applied to a Gospel (Ad Philad., viii, 2). Both these Fathers show not only a personal acquaintance with “the Gospel” and the thirteen Pauline Epistles, but they suppose that their readers are so familiar with them that it would be superfluous to name them. Papias, Bishop of Phrygian Hierapolis, according to Irenæus a disciple of St. John, wrote about A.D. 125. Describing the origin of St. Mark’s Gospel, he speaks of Hebrew (Aramaic) Logia, or Sayings of Christ, composed by St. Matthew, which there is reason to believe formed the basis of the canonical Gospel of that name, though the greater part of Catholic writers identify them with the Gospel. As we have only a few fragments of Papias, preserved by Eusebius, it cannot be alleged that he is silent about other parts of the New Testament. The so-called Epistle of Barnabas, of uncertain origin, but of highest antiquity, cites a passage from the First Gospel under the formula “it is written”. The Didache, or Teaching of the Apostles, an uncanonical work dating from c. 110, implies that “the Gospel” was already a well-known and definite collection. St. Clement, Bishop of Rome, and disciple of St. Paul, addressed his Letter to the Corinthian Church c. A.D. 97, and, although it cites no Evangelist explicitly, this epistle contains combinations of texts taken from the three synoptic Gospels, especially from St. Matthew. That Clement does not allude to the Fourth Gospel is quite natural, as it was not composed till about that time.

Thus the patristic testimonies have brought us step by step to a Divine inviolable fourfold Gospel existing in the closing years of the Apostolic Era. Just how the Tetramorph was welded into unity and given to the Church, is a matter of conjecture. But, as Zahn observes, there is good reason to believe that the tradition handed down by Papias, of the approval of St. Mark’s Gospel by St. John the Evangelist, reveals that either the latter himself of a college of his disciples added the Fourth Gospel to the Synoptics, and made the group into the compact and unalterable “Gospel”, the one in four, whose existence and authority left their clear impress upon all subsequent ecclesiastical literature, and find their conscious formulation in the language of Irenæus.

4. The Pauline Epistles

Parallel to the chain of evidence we have traced for the canonical standing of the Gospels extends one for the thirteen Epistles of St. Paul, forming the other half of the irreducible kernel of the complete New Testament canon. All the authorities cited for the Gospel Canon show acquaintance with, and recognize, the sacred quality of these letters. St. Irenæus, as acknowledged by the Harnackian critics, employs all the Pauline writings, except the short Philemon, as sacred and canonical. The Muratorian Canon, contemporary with Irenæus, gives the complete list of the thirteen, which, it should be remembered, does not include Hebrews. The heretical Basilides and his disciples quote from this Pauline group in general. The copious extracts from Marcion’s works scattered through Irenæus and Tertullian show that he was acquainted with the thirteen as in ecclesiastical use, and selected his Apostolikon of six from them. The testimony of Polycarp and Ignatius is again capital in this case. Eight of St. Paul’s writings are cited by Polycarp; St. Ignatius of Antioch ranked the Apostles above the Prophets, and must therefore have allowed the written compositions of the former at least an equal rank with those of the latter (“Ad Philadelphios”, v). St. Clement of Rome refers to Corinthians as at the head “of the Evangel”; the Muratorian Canon gives the same honour to I Corinthians, so that we may rightfully draw the inference, with Dr. Zahn, that as early as Clement’s day St. Paul’s Epistles had been collected and formed into a group with a fixed order. Zahn has pointed out confirmatory signs of this in the manner in which Sts. Ignatius and Polycarp employ these Epistles. The tendency of the evidence is to establish the hypothesis that the important Church of Corinth was the first to form a complete collection of St. Paul’s writings.

5. The remaining Books

In this formative period the Epistle to the Hebrews did not obtain a firm footing in the Canon of the Universal Church. At Rome it was not yet recognized as canonical, as shown by the Muratorian catalogue of Roman origin; Irenæus probably cites it, but makes no reference to a Pauline origin. Yet it was known at Rome as early as St. Clement, as the latter’s epistle attests. The Alexandrian Church admitted it as the work of St. Paul, and canonical. The Montanists favoured it, and the aptness with which vi, 4-8, lent itself to the Montanist and Novatianist rigour was doubtless one reason why it was suspect in the West. Also during this period the excess over the minimal Canon composed of the Gospels and thirteen epistles varied. The seven “Catholic” Epistles (James, Jude, I and II Peter, and the three of John) had not yet been brought into a special group, and, with the possible exception of the three of St. John, remained isolated units, depending for their canonical strength on variable circumstances. But towards the end of the second century the canonical minimum was enlarged and, besides the Gospels and Pauline Epistles, unalterably embraced Acts, I Peter, I John (to which II and III John were probably attached), and Apocalypse. Thus Hebrews, James, Jude, and II Peter remained hovering outside the precincts of universal canonicity, and the controversy about them and the subsequently disputed Apocalypse form the larger part of the remaining history of the Canon of the New Testament However, at the beginning of the third century the New Testament was formed in the sense that the content of its main divisions, what may be called its essence, was sharply defined and universally received, while all the secondary books were recognized in some Churches. A singular exception to the universality of the above-described substance of the New Testament was the Canon of the primitive East Syrian Church, which did not contain any of the Catholic Epistles or Apocalypse.

6. The idea of a New Testament

The question of the principle that dominated the practical canonization of the New Testament Scriptures has already been discussed under (b). The faithful must have had from the beginning some realization that in the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists they had acquired a new body of Divine Scriptures, a New written Testament destined to stand side by side with the Old. That the Gospel and Epistles were the written Word of God, was fully realized as soon as the fixed collections were formed; but to seize the relation of this new treasure to the old was possible only when the faithful acquired a better knowledge of the faith. In this connection Zahn observes with much truth that the rise of Montanism, with its false prophets, who claimed for their written productions–the self-styled Testament of the Paraclete–the authority of revelation, around the Christian Church to a fuller sense that the age of revelation had expired with the last of the Apostles, and that the circle of sacred Scripture is not extensible beyond the legacy of the Apostolic Era. Montanism began in 156; a generation later, in the works of Irenæus, we discover the firmly-rooted idea of two Testaments, with the same Spirit operating in both. For Tertullian (c. 200) the body of the New Scripture is an instrumentum on at least an equal footing and in the same specific class as the instrumentum formed by the Law and the Prophets. Clement of Alexandria was the first to apply the word “Testament” to the sacred library of the New Dispensation. A kindred external influence is to be added to Montanism: the need of setting up a barrier, between the genuine inspired literature and the flood of pseudo-Apostolic apocrypha, gave an additional impulse to the idea of a New Testament Canon, and later contributed not a little to the demarcation of its fixed limits.

B. THE PERIOD OF DISCUSSION (A.D. 220-367)

In this stage of the historical development of the Canon of the New Testament we encounter for the first time a consciousness reflected in certain ecclesiastical writers, of the differences between the sacred collections in divers sections of Christendom. This variation is witnessed to, and the discussion stimulated by, two of the most learned men of Christian antiquity, Origen, and Eusebius of Cæsarea, the ecclesiastical historian. A glance at the Canon as exhibited in the authorities of the African, or Carthaginian, Church, will complete our brief survey of this period of diversity and discussion:-

1. Origen and his school

Origen’s travels gave him exception opportunities to know the traditions of widely separated portions of the Church and made him very conversant with the discrepant attitudes toward certain parts of the New Testament He divided books with Biblical claims into three classes: those universally received; those whose Apostolicity was questions; apocryphal works. In the first class, the Homologoumena, stood the Gospels, the thirteen Pauline Epistles, Acts, Apocalypse, I Peter, and I John. The contested writings were Hebrews, II Peter, II and III John, James, Jude, Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and probably the Gospel of the Hebrews. Personally, Origen accepted all of these as Divinely inspired, though viewing contrary opinions with toleration. Origen’s authority seems to have given to Hebrews and the disputed Catholic Epistles a firm place in the Alexandrian Canon, their tenure there having been previously insecure, judging from the exegetical work of Clement, and the list in the Codex Claromontanus, which is assigned by competent scholars to an early Alexandrian origin.

2. Eusebius

Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine, was one of Origen’s most eminent disciples, a man of wide erudition. In imitation of his master he divided religious literature into three classes:Homologoumena, or compositions universally received as sacred, the Four Gospels, thirteen Epistles of St. Paul, Hebrews, Acts, I Peter, I John, and Apocalypse. There is some inconsistency in his classification; for instance, though ranking Hebrews with the books of universal reception, he elsewhere admits it is disputed. The second category is composed of the Antilegomena, or contested writings; these in turn are of the superior and inferior sort. The better ones are the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude, II Peter, II and III John; these, like Origen, Eusebius wished to be admitted to the Canon, but was forced to record their uncertain status; the Antilegomena of the inferior sort were Barnabas, the Didache, Gospel of the Hebrews, the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd, the Apocalypse of Peter. All the rest are spurious (notha).

Eusebius diverged from his Alexandrian master in personally rejecting Apocalypse as an un-Biblical, though compelled to acknowledge its almost universal acceptance. Whence came this unfavourable view of the closing volume of the Christian Testament?–Zahn attributes it to the influence of Lucian of Samosata, one of the founders of the Antioch school of exegesis, and with whose disciples Eusebius had been associated. Lucian himself had acquired his education at Edessa, the metropolis of Eastern Syria, which had, as already remarked, a singularly curtailed Canon. Luician is known to have edited the Scriptures at Antioch, and is supposed to have introduced there the shorter New Testament which later St. John Chrysostom and his followers employed–one in which Apocalypse, II Peter, II and III John, and Jude had no place. It is known that Theodore of Mopsuestia rejected all the Catholic Epistles. In St. John Chrysostom’s ample expositions of the Scriptures there is not a single clear trace of the Apocalypse, which he seems to implicitly exclude the four smaller Epistles–II Peter, II and III John, and Jude–from the number of the canonical books. Lucian, then, according to Zahn, would have compromised between the Syriac Canon and the Canon of Origen by admitting the three longer Catholic Epistles and keeping out Apocalypse. But after allowing fully for the prestige of the founder of the Antioch school, it is difficult to grant that his personal authority could have sufficed to strike such an important work as Apocalypse from the Canon of a notable Church, where it had previously been received. It is more probable that a reaction against the abuse of the Johannine Apocalypse by the Montanists and Chiliasts–Asia Minor being the nursery of both these errors–led to the elimination of a book whose authority had perhaps been previously suspected. Indeed it is quite reasonable to suppose that its early exclusion from the East Syrian Church was an outer wave of the extreme reactionist movement of the Aloges–also of Asia Minor–who branded Apocalypse and all the Johannine writings as the work of the heretic Cerinthus. Whatever may have been all the influences ruling the personal Canon of Eusebius, he chose Lucian’s text for the fifty copies of the Bible which he furnished to the Church of Constantinople at the order of his imperial patron Constantine; and he incorporated all the Catholic Epistles, but excluded Apocalypse. The latter remained for more than a century banished from the sacred collections as current in Antioch and Constantinople. However, this book kept a minority of Asiatic suffrages, and, as both Lucian and Eusebius had been tainted with Arianism, the approbation of Apocalypse, opposed by them, finally came to be looked upon as a sign of orthodoxy. Eusebius was the first to call attention to important variations in the text of the Gospels, viz., the presence in some copies and the absence in others of the final paragraph of Mark, the passage of the Adulterous Woman, and the Bloody Sweat.

3. The African Church

St. Cyprian, whose Scriptural Canon certainly reflects the contents of the first Latin Bible, received all the books of the New Testament except Hebrews, II Peter, James, and Jude; however, there was already a strong inclination in his environment to admit II Peter as authentic. Jude had been recognized by Tertullian, but, strangely, it had lost its position in the African Church, probably owing to its citation of the apocryphal Henoch. Cyprian’s testimony to the non-canonicity of Hebrews and James is confirmed by Commodian, another African writer of the period. A very important witness is the document known as Mommsen’s Canon, a manuscript of the tenth century, but whose original has been ascertained to date from West Africa about the year 360. It is a formal catalogue of the sacred books, unmutilated in the New Testament portion, and proves that at its time the books universally acknowledged in the influential Church of Carthage were almost identical with those received by Cyprian a century before. Hebrews, James, and Jude are entirely wanting. The three Epistles of St. John and II Peter appear, but after each stands the note una sola, added by an almost contemporary hand, and evidently in protest against the reception of these Antilegomena, which, presumably, had found a place in the official list recently, but whose right to be there was seriously questioned.

C. THE PERIOD OF FIXATION (A.D. 367-405)

1. St. Athanasius

While the influence of Athanasius on the Canon of the Old Testament was negative and exclusive (see supra), in that of the New Testament it was trenchantly constructive. In his “Epistola Festalis” (A.D. 367) the illustrious Bishop of Alexandria ranks all of Origen’s New Testament Antilegomena, which are identical with the deuteros, boldly inside the Canon, without noticing any of the scruples about them. Thenceforward they were formally and firmly fixed in the Alexandrian Canon. And it is significant of the general trend of ecclesiastical authority that not only were works which formerly enjoyed high standing at broad-minded Alexandria–the Apocalypse of Peter and the Acts of Paul–involved by Athanasius with the apocrypha, but even some that Origen had regarded as inspired–Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache–were ruthlessly shut out under the same damnatory title.

2. The Roman Church, the Synod under Damasus, and St. Jerome

The Muratorian Canon or Fragment, composed in the Roman Church in the last quarter of the second century, is silent about Hebrews, James, II Peter; I Peter, indeed, is not mentioned, but must have been omitted by an oversight, since it was universally received at the time. There is evidence that this restricted Canon obtained not only in the African Church, with slight modifications, as we have seen, but also at Rome and in the West generally until the close of the fourth century. The same ancient authority witnesses to the very favourable and perhaps canonical standing enjoyed at Rome by the Apocalypse of Peter and the Shepherd of Hermas. In the middle decades of the fourth century the increased intercourse and exchange of views between the Orient and the Occident led to a better mutual acquaintance regarding Biblical canons and the correction of the catalogue of the Latin Church. It is a singular fact that while the East, mainly through St. Jerome’s pen, exerted a disturbing and negative influence on Western opinion regarding the Old Testament, the same influence, through probably the same chief intermediary, made for the completeness and integrity of the New Testament Canon. The West began to realize that the ancient Apostolic Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch, indeed the whole Orient, for more than two centuries had acknowledged Hebrews and James as inspired writings of Apostles, while the venerable Alexandrian Church, supported by the prestige of Athanasius, and the powerful Patriarchate of Constantinople, with the scholarship of Eusebius behind its judgment, had canonized all the disputed Epistles. St. Jerome, a rising light in the Church, though but a simple priest, was summoned by Pope Damasus from the East, where he was pursuing sacred lore, to assist at an eclectic, but not ecumenical, synod at Rome in the year 382. Neither the general council at Constantinople of the preceding year nor that of Nice (365) had considered the question of the Canon. This Roman synod must have devoted itself specially to the matter. The result of its deliberations, presided over, no doubt, by the energetic Damasus himself, has been preserved in the document called “Decretum Gelasii de recipiendis et non recipiendis libris”, a compilation partly of the sixth century, but containing much material dating from the two preceding ones. The Damasan catalogue presents the complete and perfect Canon which has been that of the Church Universal ever since. The New Testament portion bears the marks of Jerome’s views. St. Jerome, always prepossessed in favour of Oriental positions in matters Biblical, exerted then a happy influence in regard to the New Testament; if he attempted to place any Eastern restriction upon the Canon of the Old Testament his effort failed of any effect. The title of the decree–“Nunc vero de scripturis divinis agendum est quid universalis Catholica recipiat ecclesia, et quid vitare debeat”–proves that the council drew up a list of apocryphal as well as authentic Scriptures. The Shepherd and the false Apocalypse of Peter now received their final blow. “Rome had spoken, and the nations of the West had heard” (Zahn). The works of the Latin Fathers of the period–Jerome, Hilary of Poitiers, Lucifer of Sardina, Philaster of Brescia–manifest the changed attitude toward Hebrews, James, Jude, II Peter, and III John.

3. Fixation in the African and Gallican Churches

It was some little time before the African Church perfectly adjusted its New Testament to the Damasan Canon. Optatus of Mileve (370-85) does not used Hebrews. St. Augustine, while himself receiving the integral Canon, acknowledged that many contested this Epistle. But in the Synod of Hippo (393) the great Doctor’s view prevailed, and the correct Canon was adopted. However, it is evident that it found many opponents in Africa, since three councils there at brief intervals–Hippo, Carthage, in 393; Third of Carthage in 397; Carthage in 419–found it necessary to formulate catalogues. The introduction of Hebrews was an especial crux, and a reflection of this is found in the first Carthage list, where the much vexed Epistle, though styled of St. Paul, is still numbered separately from the time-consecrated group of thirteen. The catalogues of Hippo and Carthage are identical with the Catholic Canon of the present. In Gaul some doubts lingered for a time, as we find Pope Innocent I, in 405, sending a list of the Sacred Books to one of its bishops, Exsuperius of Toulouse.

So at the close of the first decade of the fifth century the entire Western Church was in possession of the full Canon of the New Testament In the East, where, with the exception of the Edessene Syrian Church, approximate completeness had long obtained without the aid of formal enactments, opinions were still somewhat divided on the Apocalypse. But for the Catholic Church as a whole the content of the New Testament was definitely fixed, and the discussion closed.

The final process of this Canon’s development had been twofold: positive, in the permanent consecration of several writings which had long hovered on the line between canonical and apocryphal; and negative, by the definite elimination of certain privileged apocrypha that had enjoyed here and there a canonical or quasi-canonical standing. In the reception of the disputed books a growing conviction of Apostolic authorship had much to do, but the ultimate criterion had been their recognition as inspired by a great and ancient division of the Catholic Church. Thus, like Origen, St. Jerome adduces the testimony of the ancients and ecclesiastical usage in pleading the cause of the Epistle to the Hebrews (De Viris Illustribus, lix). There is no sign that the Western Church ever positively repudiated any of the New Testament deuteros; not admitted from the beginning, these had slowly advanced towards a complete acceptance there. On the other hand, the apparently formal exclusion of Apocalypse from the sacred catalogue of certain Greek Churches was a transient phase, and supposes its primitive reception. Greek Christianity everywhere, from about the beginning of the sixth century, practically had a complete and pure New Testament Canon. (See EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS; EPISTLES OF ST. PETER; EPISTLE OF JAMES; EPISTLE OF JUDE; EPISTLES OF JOHN; APOCALYPSE.)

D. SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON

1. To the Protestant Reformation

The New Testament in its canonical aspect has little history between the first years of the fifth and the early part of the sixteenth century. As was natural in ages when ecclesiastical authority had not reached its modern centralization, there were sporadic divergences from the common teaching and tradition. There was no diffused contestation of any book, but here and there attempts by individuals to add something to the received collection. In several ancient Latin manuscripts the spurious Epistle to the Laodiceans is found among the canonical letters, and, in a few instances, the apocryphal III Corinthians. The last trace of any Western contradiction within the Church to the Canon of the New Testament reveals a curious transplantation of Oriental doubts concerning the Apocalypse. An act of the Synod of Toledo, held in 633, states that many contest the authority of that book, and orders it to be read in the churches under pain of excommunication. The opposition in all probability came from the Visigoths, who had recently been converted from Arianism. The Gothic Bible had been made under Oriental auspices at a time when there was still much hostility to Apocalypse in the East.

2. The New Testament and the Council of Trent (1546)

This ecumenical synod had to defend the integrity of the New Testament as well as the Old against the attacks of the pseudo-Reformers, Luther, basing his action on dogmatic reasons and the judgment of antiquity, had discarded Hebrews, James, Jude, and Apocalypse as altogether uncanonical. Zwingli could not see in Apocalypse a Biblical book. (OEcolampadius placed James, Jude, II Peter, II and III John in an inferior rank. Even a few Catholic scholars of the Renaissance type, notably Erasmus and Cajetan, had thrown some doubts on the canonicity of the above-mentioned Antilegomena. As to whole books, the Protestant doubts were the only ones the Fathers of Trent took cognizance of; there was not the slightest hesitation regarding the authority of any entire document. But the deuterocanonical parts gave the council some concern, viz., the last twelve verses of Mark, the passage about the Bloody Sweat in Luke, and the Pericope Adulteræ in John. Cardinal Cajetan had approvingly quoted an unfavourable comment of St. Jerome regarding Mark, xvi, 9-20; Erasmus had rejected the section on the Adulterous Woman as unauthentic. Still, even concerning these no doubt of authenticity was expressed at Trent; the only question was as to the manner of their reception. In the end these portions were received, like the deuterocanonical books, without the slightest distinction. And the clause “cum omnibus suis partibus” regards especially these portions.–For an account of the action of Trent on the Canon, the reader is referred back to the respective section of the article: II. The Canon of the Old Testament in the Catholic Church.

The Tridentine decree defining the Canon affirms the authenticity of the books to which proper names are attached, without however including this in the definition. The order of books follows that of the Bull of Eugenius IV (Council of Florence), except that Acts was moved from a place before Apocalypse to its present position, and Hebrews put at the end of St. Paul’s Epistles. The Tridentine order has been retained in the official Vulgate and vernacular Catholic Bibles. The same is to be said of the titles, which as a rule are traditional ones, taken from the Canons of Florence and Carthage. (For the bearing of the Vatican Council on the New Testament, see Part II above.)

3. The New Testament Canon outside the Church

The Orthodox Russian and other branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church have a New Testament identical with the Catholic. In Syria the Nestorians possess a Canon almost identical with the final one of the ancient East Syrians; they exclude the four smaller Catholic Epistles and Apocalypse. The Monophysites receive all the book. The Armenians have one apocryphal letter to the Corinthians and two from the same. The Coptic-Arabic Church include with the canonical Scriptures the Apostolic Constitutions and the Clementine Epistles. The Ethiopic New Testament also contains the so-called “Apostolic Constitutions”.

As for Protestantism, the Anglicans and Calvinists always kept the entire New Testament But for over a century the followers of Luther excluded Hebrews, James, Jude, and Apocalypse, and even went further than their master by rejecting the three remaining deuterocanonicals, II Peter, II and III John. The trend of the seventeenth century Lutheran theologians was to class all these writings as of doubtful, or at least inferior, authority. But gradually the German Protestants familiarized themselves with the idea that the difference between the contested books of the New Testament and the rest was one of degree of certainty as to origin rather than of instrinsic character. The full recognition of these books by the Calvinists and Anglicans made it much more difficult for the Lutherans to exclude the New Testament deuteros than those of the Old. One of their writers of the seventeenth century allowed only a theoretic difference between the two classes, and in 1700 Bossuet could say that all Catholics and Protestants agreed on the New Testament Canon. The only trace of opposition now remaining in German Protestant Bibles is in the order, Hebrews, coming with James, Jude, and Apocalypse at the end; the first not being included with the Pauline writings, while James and Jude are not ranked with the Catholic Epistles.

4. The criterion of inspiration (less correctly known as the criterion of canonicity)

Even those Catholic theologians who defend Apostolicity as a test for the inspiration of the New Testament (see above) admit that it is not exclusive of another criterion, viz., Catholic tradition as manifested in the universal reception of compositions as Divinely inspired, or the ordinary teaching of the Church, or the infallible pronouncements of ecumenical councils. This external guarantee is the sufficient, universal, and ordinary proof of inspiration. The unique quality of the Sacred Books is a revealed dogma. Moreover, by its very nature inspiration eludes human observation and is not self-evident, being essentially superphysical and supernatural. Its sole absolute criterion, therefore, is the Holy inspiring Spirit, witnessing decisively to Itself, not in the subjective experience of individual souls, as Calvin maintained, neither in the doctrinal and spiritual tenor of Holy Writ itself, according to Luther, but through the constituted organ and custodian of Its revelations, the Church. All other evidences fall short of the certainty and finality necessary to compel the absolute assent of faith. (See Franzelin, “De Divinâ Traditione et Scripturâ”; Wiseman, “Lectures on Christian Doctrine”, Lecture ii; also INSPIRATION.)

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GEORGE J. REID Transcribed by Ernie Stefanik

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IIICopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Canon of the New Testament

“The prophets” in the Christian church, speaking themselves under inspiration, and those having the Spirit’s gift,” the discerning of spirits,” acted as checks on the transmission of error orally before the completion of the written word. Secondly it was under their inspired superintendence that. the New Testament Scriptures were put forth as they were successively written. 1Co 14:37; “if any man … be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write … are the commandments of the Lord.” Thus by the twofold sanction of inspiration, that of the authors and that of the judges, the canonicity of each book is established. By God’s gracious providence most of the books of the New Testament were in the church’s possession years before the death of leading apostles, all of them before the death of John. If spurious books had crept into the cycle of professedly inspired books, they would have been at once removed by apostolic authority.

The history of the New Testament canon in its collected form is not so clear as the evidence for the inspiration of its separate books. Probably each leading church made for itself a collection of those books which were proved on good testimony to have been written by inspired men, and sanctioned as such originally by men having the “discerning of spirits,” as well as by uninspired men in the several churches. See 1Co 12:10; 1Jo 4:1. Thus, many collections would be made. Their mutual accordance in the main, as that of independent witnesses, is the strongest proof of the correctness of our canon, especially when we consider the jealous care with which the early churches discriminated between spurious and authentic compositions. This view is confirmed by the doubts of some, churches at first concerning certain New Testament books, proving that each church claimed the right to judge for itself; while their mutual love led to the freest communication of the inspired writings to one another.

At last, when the evidence for the inspiration of the few doubted ones was fully sifted, all agreed. And the third council of Carthage (A.D. 397) declared that agreement by ratifying the canon of the New Testament as it is now universally accepted. The earliest notice of a collection is in 2Pe 3:16, which speaks of “all the epistles” of Paul as if some collection of them then existed and was received in the churches as on a par with “the other Scriptures.” The earliest uninspired notice is that of the anonymous fragment of “the canon of the New Testament” attributed to Caius, a Roman presbyter, published by Muratori (Ant. Ital., 3:854). It recognizes all the books except Epp. Hebrew, James, the 2 Epp. Peter, and perhaps 3 John. It condemns as spurious “the Shepherd, written very recently in our own times at Rome by Hermes, while his brother Plus was bishop of the see of Rome,” i.e. between A.D. 140 and 150.

Thus the canon in far the greater part is proved as received in the first half of the 2nd century, while some of John’s contemporaries were still living. In the same age the Peshito or Syriac version remarkably complements the Muratorian fragment’s canon, by including also Hebrew and James. In the latter part of the 2nd century Clement of Alexandria refers to “the gospel” collection and that of all the epistles of “the apostles.” The anonymous epistle to Diognetus still earlier speaks of “the law, the prophets, the gospels, and the apostles.” Ignatius of Antioch, a hearer of John (Ep. ad Philad., section 5), terms the written gospel “the flesh of Jesus,” and the apostles, i.e. their epistles, “the presbytery of the church.” Theophilus of Antioch (Ad Autolycum, 3:11) and Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., 2:27) term the New Testament writings “the Holy Scriptures.” Tertullian (Adv. Marc, 4:2) uses for the first time the term” New Testament,” and calls the whole Bible “the whole instrument of both Testaments.”

Thus, there is a continuous chain of evidence from the apostles down to the 3rd century. The quotations by the fathers (of whom Origen quotes at least two thirds of New Testament), and the oldest versions, the Syriac, Latin, and Egyptian, prove that their Scriptures were the same as ours. Eusebius the ecclesiastical historian (A.D. 330) mentions (3:25) all the 27 books of the New Testament, dividing them into the universally acknowledged and the debated; the latter the epistles of James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John, and Apocalypse, “received by the majority,” and at last received by all the churches when the evidence had been more fully tested. A third class he calls “the spurious,” as “the Shepherd of Hermas,” “the Epistle of Barnabas,” “the Acts of Paul,” which all rejected. Moreover all our oldest Greek manuscripts of the epistles contain those epistles once doubted by some; so do all the versions except the Syriac; see above.

The church of Rome was certainly not infallible when it once rejected the Epistle to the Hebrew. Afterward it acknowledged its error and accepted it. Rome says we received the canon from the church (meaning herself), and that therefore we are bound to receive her authority as infallible in interpreting it. But we did not receive her original view of the spuriousness of the Epistle to the Hebrew. Nor have we received most of our manuscripts, testimonies of fathers and versions, from Rome, but, from the Greek, Syrian, and African churches. Further, even if the premises were true the conclusion is false. Because a body of men witness to and transmit a work deriving all its authority from God, it does not follow they are its infallible interpreters. If the argument were true the Jews could use it with tenfold power against all Christians, for the Jews unquestionably are the witnesses and transmitters of the Old Testament to us (Rom 3:2); and on Rome’s principle we should be bound to accept the Jews’ interpretation of it, renounce Christianity and become Jews.

Nothing but almighty Providence could have constrained both the Jews (in the case of the Old Testament) and the Roman and Greek apostate churches (in the case of the New Testament) to witness for the very Scriptures which condemn them. It utterly disproves the infidel allegation of collusion and corruption of the Scriptures. Again Rome argues, since the rule of faith must be known, and since some books of Scripture were not universally received until the 4th century, Scripture cannot be the rule of faith. The answer is: those portions of Scripture are not the rule of faith to those to whom they are not given with full means of knowing them as such. But all Scripture is the rule of faith to all to whom it is given, and who may, if they will, know it. That could not become a portion of inspired Scripture in the 4th century which was not so before. Man can never make that inspired which God has not; nor can the doubts of some divest of inspiration that which God has inspired.

The council of Carthage did not make aught part of Scripture which was not so before. It merely sealed by declaration the decision which the churches previously came to by carefully sifting the testimony for each book’s inspiration. Even at the council of Nicea (A.D. 325) Constantine appeals to “the books of the evangelists, apostles; and prophets” as “the divinely inspired books for deciding their controversies.” Accordingly in the Nicene Creed, “according to the Scriptures,” quoted from 1Co 15:4, implies their being recognized as the standard. The Diocletian persecution (A.D. 303) was directed against the Christian Scriptures; whoever delivered them were stigmatized as “traitors” (tradilores), so that they must have then existed as a definite collection. They were publicly read in the churches (Col 4:16) as an essential part of worship, just as the law and the prophets were in the synagogue (Justin Martyr, Apol., 1:66).

Practically, as soon as they were severally thus read and accepted in the apostolic age by men in the churches having the discernment of spirits, they were canonized, i.e. immediately after having been written. The transition from oral to written teaching was gradual. Catechizing, i.e. instructing by word of mouth, was the mode at first, and “faith” then “came by hearing” (Luk 1:4; Rom 10:17), in which however there was always an appeal to Old Testament Scripture (Act 17:11). But that the orally taught might know more fully “the (unerring) certainty ten asphaleian of those things wherein they had been instructed,” and to guard against the dangers of oral tradition (illustrated in Joh 21:23-24), the word was committed to writing by apostles and evangelists, and was accredited publicly by the churches in the lifetime of the writers.

The approach of their death, their departure to foreign lands, their imprisonment, and the need of a touchstone to test heretical writings and teachings in their absence, all made a written record needful. The cessation of miracles and personal inspiration was about the same time as the written inspired word was completed. Bishop Kaye (Ecclesiastes Hist., 98-100) observes that Justin Martyr, Theophilus, etc., only make general assertions of miracles still continuing, being loath to see what seemingly weakened their cause, the cessation of miracles; but they give no specific instance. The cessation was so gradual as hardly to be perceived at first. The power probably did not extend beyond those younger disciples on whom the apostles conferred it by laying on hands (Act 8:17; Act 8:19). Thus miracles would cease early in the 2nd century, shortly after John’s death and the completion of the canon.

The scantiness of direct quotations from Scripture in the apostolic fathers arises from their being so full of all they had seen and heard, and so dwelling less on the written word. But they take it for granted, and imitate the tone and salutations of the apostolic epistles. All four make some express references to New Testament Scripture. With much that is good in the apostolic fathers, their works “remind us what the apostles would have been, had they not been inspired, and what we ourselves should be, if we had not the written word” (Wordsworth, Canon Scr., p. 137). So far from there being a gradual waning of inspiration from the writings of the apostles and evangelists to those of succeeding Christian writers, there is so wide a chasm (the more remarkable as the early fathers had the apostolic writings to guide them) that this alone is a strong proof that the Scripture writers were guided by an extraordinary divine power.

Their previous habits (as being some of them illiterate, and all bigoted Jew) prove that nothing but divine power could have so changed them from their former selves as to be the founders of a spiritual and worldwide dispensation (see Luk 24:25; Luk 24:49), utterly alien to their Jewish prejudices. Their style accords with their supposed position, simple and unlearned (except Paul’s), yet free from aught offensive to the polished. If it be asked why we do not receive the epistles of Barnabas and of Clement, the Acts of Paul and Thecla (one of the earliest apocryphal writings), etc., we answer not because (as Rome would have us say) the churches could not err in judgment in rejecting them, but because as a matter of evidence we believe they did not err. These works were not received by contemporary Christians who had the best opportunity of knowing evidences of authenticity and inspiration. If one or two cite them it is the exception, not invalidating the otherwise uniform testimony against them.

The internal evidence of their style is fatal to their pretensions. So “The Acts of Paul”; Tertullian (De Bapt., 17) testifies its author was excluded by John from the office of presbyter for having written it. The New Testament is a complete organic whole, so that even one book could not be omitted without loss to the completeness of the Christian cycle of truth. As the Old Testament is made up of the law, and the doctrinal, historical, and prophetical books; so in the New Testament the four Gospels are the fundamental law, based, as in the Pentateuch, on the included history; the Acts unfold the continued history; the Epistles are the doctrinal, the Apocalyptic revelations the prophetical, elements. Canonical is sometimes used in the Christian fathers, not in the sense divinely authoritative, but proper for public reading in church. Thus Gregory of Nazianzum calls the Apocalypse the last work of grace, and yet apocryphal, i.e. fit for private not public reading in church.

Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary

Canon Of The New Testament

CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

1. Title.The Greek word canon, meaning originally a rod and so a rule for measuring, is used in a variety of senses by the Patristic writers, among the most familiar instances being the expressions rule of truth and rule of faith for the doctrinal teaching officially recognized by the bishops. Hence, since we meet with the phrase canonical books in Origen, as rendered by Rufinus translation, before we see the substantive canon applied to the list of NT books, it has been argued that the adjective was first used in the sense of regulative, so that the phrase means the books that regulate faith or morals. But the substantive must mean the list of books, and in Athanasius we have a passive participle in the phrase canonized books, i.e. books belonging to the Canon; soon after which the actual word canon is applied to the books of the NT by Amphilochius, the bishop of Iconium (end of 4th cent. a.d.). The NT Canon, then, is the list of NT books, and this simple meaning, rather than the regulative books, is the more likely Interpretation of the expression to have occurred to people who were in the habit of using the term for lists of officials, lists of festivals, etc. The question of the Canon differs from questions of the authenticity, genuineness, historicity, inspiration, value, and authority of the several NT books in concerning itself simply with their acceptance in the Church. Primarily the question was as to what books were read in the churches at public worship. Those so used became in course of time the Christian Scriptures. Then, having the value of Scripture gradually associated with them, they came to be treated as authoritative. The first stage is that of use in the form of Church lessons; the second that of a standard of authority to be employed as the basis of instruction, and to be appealed to in disputed cases of doctrine or discipline.

2. The Formation of the Canon in the 2nd Century.The very earliest reading of NT books in the churches must have occurred in the case of epistles addressed to particular churches, which of course were read in those churches; next come the circular letters (e.g. Eph 1:1-23 Petereter), which were passed round a group of churches. Still this involved no repeated liturgical use of these writings as in a church lectionary. During the obscure period of the sub-Apostolic age we have no indication of the use of epistles in church worship. Clement of Rome assumed that the church at Corinth was acquainted with 1 Corinthians, although he was writing nearly 40 years after St. Paul had sent that Epistle to the church, and a new generation had arisen in the interval; but there is no proof or probability that it was regularly read at the services. The earliest references to any such reading point to the Synoptic Gospels as alone having this place of honour, together with the OT prophets. This was the case in the worship described by Justin Martyr (1 Apol. lxvii.). A little later Justins disciple Tatian prepared his Harmony (Diatessaron) for use in the church at Edessa. This was constructed out of all four Gospels; i.e. it included John, a Gospel probably known to Justin, though not included in his Memoirs of the Apostles. As yet no epistles are seen in the place of honour of church reading side by side with OT Scriptures. But long before this a collection had been made by Marcion (c [Note: circa, about.] . a.d. 140) in his effort to reform the Church by recalling attention to the Pauline teaching which had fallen into neglect. Marcions Canon consisted of a mutilated Gospel of St. Luk 10:1-42 Epistles of St. Paul (the 3 Pastoral Epistles being omitted). Although other early Church writers evidently allude to several of the Epistles (e.g. Clemens Rom., Ignatius, Polycarp, Barnabas), that is only by way of individual citation, without any hint that they are used in a collection or treated as authoritative Scripture. Marcion is the earliest who is known to have honoured any of the Epistles in this way. But when we come to Irenus (180) we seem to be in another world. Irenus cites as authoritative most of the books of the Christian Scriptures, though he does not appear to have known Hebrews. We now have a NT side by side with the OT; or at all events we have Christian books appealed to as authoritative Scripture, just as in the previous generation the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] was appealed to as authoritative Scripture. Here is evidence of a double advance: (1) in the addition of the Epistles to the Gospels as a collection, (2) in the enhancement of the value of all these books for the settlement of questions of doctrine.

This is one of the most important developments in the thought and practice of the Church. And yet history is absolutely silent as to how, when, where, and by whom it was brought about. Nothing is more amazing in the history of the Christian Church than the absence of all extant contemporary references to so great a movement. The 30 years from Justin Martyr, who knew only a collection of 3 Gospels as specially authoritative, and that simply as records of the life and teaching of Christ, to Irenus, with his frequent appeals to the Epistles as well as the Gospels, saw the birth of a NT Canon, but left no record of so great an event. Irenus, though bishop of Lyons and Vienne in Gaul, was in close communication with Asia Minor where he had been brought up, and Prof. Harnack conjectures that bishops of Asia Minor in agreement with the Church at Rome deliberately drew up and settled the Canon, although we have no historical record of so significant an event. It may be, however, that Irenus was himself a pioneer in a movement the necessity of which was recognized as by common consent. Some authoritative standard of appeal was wanted to save the essence of Christian teaching from being engulfed in the speculations of Gnosticism. The Gospels were not sufficient for this purpose, because they were accepted by the Gnostics, who, however, interpreted them allegorically. What was needed was a standard of doctrinal truth, and that was found in the Epistles.

Near this time we have the earliest known Canon after that of Marcion, the most ancient extant list of NT books in the Catholic Church. This is named the Muratorian Fragment, after its discoverer Muratori, who found it in a 7th or 8th cent. monks commonplace book in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and published it in 1740. The fragment is a mutilated extract of a list of NT books made at Rome probably before the end of the 2nd cent., since the author refers to the episcopate of Pius as recent (nuperrime temporibus nostris), and Pius I., who died in a.d. 157, is the only bishop of Rome of that name in the early age to which unquestionably, as internal evidence indicates, the original composition must be assigned. The fragment begins in the middle of a sentence which appears to allude to St. Peters connexion with our Second Gospel, and goes on to mention Luke as the Third Gospel and John as the Fourth. Therefore it evidently acknowledged the 4 Gospels. Then it has Acts, which it ascribes to Luke, and it acknowledges 13 Epistles of Pauladmitting the Pastorals, but excluding Hebrews, though it subsequently refers to an Epistle to the Laodiceans, and another to the Alexandrians forged under the name of Paul, as well as many others which are not received in the Catholic Church because gall ought not to be mixed with honey. Further, this Canon includes Jud 1:2 Epistles of John, and the Apocalypse, which it ascribes to John. It also has the Book of Wisdom, which it says was written by the friends of Solomon in his honour, and the Apocalypse of Peter, although acknowledging that there is a minority which rejects the latter work, for we read we receive moreover the Apocalypses of John and Peter only, which [latter] some of our body will not have read in the church. This indicates that the authors church as a whole acknowledges the Apocalypse of Peter, and that he associates himself with the majority of his brethren in so doing, while he candidly admits that there are some dissentients. Lastly, the Canon admits Hermas for private reading, but not for use in the church services. We have here, then, most of our NT books; but, on the one hand, Heb 1:1-14; Heb 2:1-18 Petereter, James, and one of the 3 Epistles of John are not mentioned. They are not named to be excluded, like the forged works referred to above; possibly the author did not know of their existence. At all events he did not find them used in his church. On the other hand, Wisdom, without question, and the Apocalypse of Peter, though rejected by some, are included in this canon, and Hermas is added for private reading.

Passing on to the commencement of the 3rd cent., we come upon another anonymous writing, an anti-gambling tract entitled Concerning dice-players (de Aleatoribus), which Prof. Harnack attributes to Victor of Rome (a.d. 200230). In this tract the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache are both quoted as Scripture. The author refers to three divisions of Scripture: (1) Prophetic writingsthe OT Prophets, the Apocalypse, Hermas; (2) the Gospels; (3) the Apostolic WritingsPaul, 1 John, Hebrews.

Neither of these Canons can be regarded as authoritative either ecclesiastically or scientifically, since we are ignorant of their sources. But they both indicate a crystallizing process, in the Church at Rome about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd centuries, that was tending towards our NT, though with some curious variations. The writings of the Fathers of this period agree in the main with Irenus in their citations from most of the NT books as authoritativea condition very different from that of Justin Martyr half a century earlier. Two influences may be recognized as bringing this result about: (1) use in churches at public worship, (2) authoritative appeals against heresyespecially Gnosticism. It was necessary to settle what books should be read in church and what books should be appealed to in discussion. The former was the primary question. The books used at their services by the churches, and therefore admitted by them as having a right to be so employed, were the books to be appealed to in controversy. The testing fact was church usage. Canonical books were the books read at public worship. How it came about that certain books were so used and others not is by no means clear. Prof. Harnacks theory would solve the problem if we could be sure it was valid. Apart from this, (1) traditional usage and (2) assurance of Apostolic authorship appear to have been two grounds relied upon.

Turning to the East, we find Clement of Alexandria (a.d. 165220) acknowledging the 4 Gospels and Act 14:1-28 Epistles of Paul (Hebrews being included), and quoting 1 and 2Jn 1:1 Petereter, Jude, and the Apocalypse. He makes no reference to Jam 2:1-26 Petereter, or 3 John, any of which he may perhaps have known, as we have no list of NT books from his hand, for he does not name these books to reject them. Still, the probability as regards some, if not all, of them is that he did not know them. In the true Alexandrian spirit, Clement has a wide and comprehensive idea of inspiration, and therefore no very definite conception of Scriptural exclusiveness or fixed boundaries to the Canon. Thus he quotes Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, the Preaching of Peter, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Sibylline Writings as in some way authoritative. He was a literary eclectic who delighted to welcome Christian truth in unexpected places. Still he had a NT in two volumes which he knew respectively as The Gospel and The Apostle (see Euseb. HE vi. 14). Origen (a.d. 184253), who was a more critical scholar, treated questions of canonicity more scientifically. He acknowledged our books of the OT and some parts of the Apocrypha, such as 1 Mac.; and in the NT the 4 Gospels, Act 13:1-52 Epistles of Paul, Hebrews (though the latter as of doubtful authorship; nevertheless in his homily on Joshua he seems to include it among St. Pauls works, since he makes them 14, when he writes that God, thundering on the 14 trumpets of his [i.e. Pauls] Epistles, threw down even the walls of Jericho, that is all the instruments of idolatry and the doctrines of the philosophers), 1Peter , 1 John, Revelation. He does not directly mention the Epistles of James or Jude, although he seems to refer to them once in a rhetorical way, classing Peter, James, and Jude with the 4 Evangelists as represented by Isaacs servantsif we are to trust Rufinus version. He mentions 2Pe 2:1-22 and 3 John as of disputed genuineness, and refers to the Gospel of the Hebrews in an apologetic tone, the Gospels of Peter and James, and the Acts of Paul, and quotes Hermas and Barnabas as Scripture, while he admits that, though widely circulated, Hermas was not accepted by all. It is a significant fact, however, that he wrote no commentaries on any of those books that are not included in our NT.

3. The Settlement of the Canon in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries.An important step towards the settlement of the Canon on historical and scientific lines was taken by Eusebius, who, with his wide reading and the great library of Pamphilus to resort to, also brought a fair and judicious mind to face the problems involved. Eusebius saw clearly that it is not always possible to give a definite affirmative or negative answer to the question whether a certain book should be in the Canon. Therefore he drew up three lists of books(1) The books that are admitted by all, (2) the books which he is disposed to admit although there are some who reject them, (3) the books that he regards as spurious. A fourth class, which really does not come into the competition for a place in the Canon, consists of heretical works which are to be rejected as altogether absurd and impious (HE iii. 25). The first class, consisting of the books universally acknowledged, contains the 4 Gospels; Acts; the Epistles of Paulwhich in one place (iii. 3) are reckoned to be 14, and therefore to include Hebrews, although in another place (vi. 14) Hebrews is placed in the second class, among the disputed books; 1Peter ; 1 John; and Revelation (doubtfully). The second class, consisting of books widely accepted, though disputed by some (but apparently all admitted by Eusebius himself), contains James; Jud 1:2 Petereterregarded in another place (iii. 3) as spurious; 2 and 3 John. The third class, consisting of spurious works, contains the Acts of Paul; the Shepherd of Hermas; the Apocalypse of Peter; the Didache; and perhaps, according to some, the Revelation. Under the orders of Constantine, Eusebius had 50 copies of the Scriptures sumptuously produced on vellum for use in the churches of Constantinople. Of course these would correspond to his own Canon and so help to fix it and spread its influence. After this the fluctuations that we meet with are very slight. Athanasius in one of his Festal Letters (a.d. 365) undertakes to set forth in order the books that are canonical and handed down and believed to be Divine. His NT exactly agrees with our Canon, as does the NT of Epiphanius (c [Note: circa, about.] . a.d. 403). Cyril of Jerusalem (who died a.d. 386) gives a list of Divine Scriptures which contains all the NT except the Revelation; and Amphilochius of Iconium (a.d. 395) has a versified catalogue of the Biblical books, in which also all our NT books appear except the Revelation, which he regards as spurious; Amphilochius refers to doubts concerning Hebrews and to a question as to whether the number of Catholic Epistles is 7 or 3. Even Chrysostom (who died a.d. 405) never alludes to the Revelation or the last 4 Catholic Epistles. But then he gives no list of the Canon. One of the Apostolical Canons (No. 85), which stand as an appendix to the 8th book of the Apostolical Constitutions (85), and cannot be dated earlier than the 4th cent. in their present form, gives a list of the books of Scripture. Sirach is here placed between the OT and the NT with a special recommendation to take care that your young persons learn the wisdom of the very learned Sirach. Then follow the NT booksthe 4 Gospels, 14 Epistles of Paul (Hebrews therefore included in this category), 2 Epistles of Peter, 3 of John, James, Jud 1:2 Epistles of Clement, the 8 books of the Constitutions, Acts. Thus, while Clement and even the Apostolical Constitutions are included, the Revelation is left out, after a common custom in the East. Manifestly this is an erratic Canon.

Returning to the West, at this later period we have an elaborate discussion on the Canon by Augustine (a.d. 430), who lays down rules by which the canonicity of the several books claimed for the NT may be determined. (1) There are the books received and acknowledged by all the churches, which should therefore be treated as canonical. (2) There are some books not yet universally accepted. With regard to these, two tests are to be applied: (a) such as are received by the majority of the churches are to be acknowledged, and (b) such as are received by the Apostolic churches are to be preferred to those received only by a smaller number of churches and these of less authority, i.e. not having been founded by Apostles. In case (a) and (b) conflict, Augustine considers that the authority on the two sides is to be looked upon as equal (Christian Doctrine, II. viii. 12). Thus the tests are simply Church reception, though with discrimination as to the respective authority of the several churches. The application of these tests gives Augustine just our NT.

Jerome (a.d. 420) also accepts our NT, saying concerning Hebrews and the Revelation that he adopts both on the authority of ancient writers, not on that of present custom. He is aware that James has been questioned; but he states that little by little in course of time it has obtained authority. Jude was even rejected by most people because it contained quotations from Apocryphal writings. Nevertheless he himself accepts it. He notes that 2 and 3 John have been attributed to a presbyter whose tomb at Ephesus is still pointed out. The immense personal influence of Augustine and the acceptance of Jeromes Vulgate as the standard Bible of the Christian Church gave fixity to the Canon, which was not disturbed for a thousand years. No General Council had pronounced on the subject. The first Council claiming to be (Ecumenical which committed itself to a decision on the subject was as late as the 16th cent. (the Council of Trent). We may be thankful that the delicate and yet vital question of determining the Canon was not flung into the arena of ecclesiastical debate to be settled by the triumph of partisan churchmanship, but was allowed to mature slowly and come to its final settlement under the twofold influences of honest scholarship and Christian experience. There were indeed local councils that dealt with the question; but their decisions were binding only on the provinces they represented, although, in so far as they were not disputed, they would be regarded as more or less normative by those other churches to which they were sent. As representing the East we have a Canon attributed to the Council of Laodicea (c [Note: circa, about.] . a.d. 360). There is a dispute as to whether this is genuine. It is given in the MSS variously as a 60th canon and as part of the 59th appended in red ink. Half the Latin versions are without it; so are the Syriac versions, which are much older than our oldest MSS of the canons. It closely resembles the Canon of Cyril of Jerusalem, from which Westcott supposed that it was inserted into the canons of Laodicea by a Latin hand. Its genuineness was defended by Hefele and Davidson. Jlicher regards it as probably genuine. This Canon contains the OT with Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremy, and all our NT except the Revelation. Then in the West we have the 3rd Council of Carthage (a.d. 397), which orders that besides the Canonical Scriptures nothing be read in the Church under the title of Divine Scriptures, and appends a list of the books thus authorized in which we have the OT, the Apocrypha, and just our NT books. Here we have a whole province speaking for those books; when we add the great authority of Augustine, who belongs to this very province, and the influence of the Vulgate, we can well understand how the Canon should now be considered fixed and inviolable. Thus the matter rested for ten centuries.

4. Treatment of the Canon at the Renaissance and the Reformation.The question of the Canon was revived by the Renaissance and the Reformation, the one movement directing critical, scholarly attention to what was essentially a literary question, the other facing it in the interest of religious controversy. Erasmus writes: The arguments of criticism, estimated by the rules of logic, lead me to disbelieve that the Epistle to the Hebrews is by Paul or Luke, or that the Second of Peter is the work of that Apostle, or that the Apocalypse was written by the Evangelist John. All the same, I have nothing to say against the contents of these books, which seem to me to be in perfect conformity with the truth. If, however, the Church were to declare the titles they bear to be canonical, then I would condemn my doubt, for the opinion formulated by the Church has more value in my eyes than human reasons, whatever they may bea most characteristic statement, revealing the scholar, the critic, the timid souland the satirist (?). Within the Church of Rome even Cardinal CajetanLuthers opponent at Augsburgfreely discusses the Canon, doubting whether Hebrews is St. Pauls work, and whether, if it is not, it can be canonical. He also mentions doubts concerning the five General Epistles, and gives less authority to 2 and 3 John and Jude than to those books which he regards as certainly in the Holy Scriptures. The Reformation forced the question of the authority of the Bible to the front, because it set that authority in the place of the old authority of the Church. While this chiefly concerned the book as a whole, it could not preclude inquiries as to its contents and the rights of the several parts to hold their places there. The general answer as to the authority of Scripture is an appeal to the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Calvin especially works out this conception very distinctly. The difficulty was to apply it to particular books of the Bible so as to determine in each case whether they should be allowed in the Canon. Clearly a further test was requisite here. This was found in the analogy of faith (Analogia fidei), which was more especially Luthers principle, while the testimony of the Holy Spirit was Calvins. With Luther the Reformation was based on justification by faith. This truth Luther held to be confirmed (a) by its necessity, nothing else availing, and (b) by its effects, since in practice it brought peace, assurance, and the new life. Then those Scriptures which manifestly supported the fundamental principle were held to be ipso facto inspired, and the measure of their support of it determined the degree of their authority. Thus the doctrine of justification by faith is not accepted because it is found in the Bible; but the Bible is accepted because it contains this doctrine. Moreover, the Bible is sorted and arranged in grades according as it does so more or less clearly, and to Luther there is a NT within the NT, a kernel of all Scripture, consisting of those books which he sees most clearly set forth the gospel. Thus he wrote: Johns Gospel, the Epistles of Paul, especially Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and 1Peterthese are the books which show thee Christ, and teach all that it is needful and blessed for thee to know even if you never see or hear any other book, or any other doctrine. Therefore is the Epistle of James a mere epistle of straw (eine rechte stroherne Epistel) since it has no character of the gospel is it (Preface to NT, 1522; the passage was omitted from later editions). Luther places Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Apocalypse at the end of his translation, after the other NT books, which he designates the true and certain capital books of the NT, for these have been regarded in former times in a different light. He regards Jude as indisputably an extract or copy from 2Peter. Nevertheless, while thus discriminating between the values of the several books of the NT, he includes them all in his translation. Luthers friend Carlstadt has a curious arrangement of Scripture in three classes, viz. (1) The Pentateuch and the 4 Gospels, as being the clearest luminaries of the whole Divine truth; (2) The Prophets of Hebrew reckoning and the acknowledged Epistles of the NT, viz. 13 of Paul, 1Peter , 1 John; (3) the Hagiographa of the Hebrew Canon, and the 7 disputed books of the NT. Dr. Westcott suggested that the omission of Acts was due to its being included with Luke. Calvin is more conservative with regard to Scripture than the Lutherans. Still in his Commentaries he passes over 2 and 3 John and the Revelation without notice, and he refers to 1 John as the Epistle of John, and expresses doubts as to 2Peter; but he adds, with regard to the latter, Since the majesty of the Spirit of Christ exhibits itself in every part of the Epistle, I feel a scruple in rejecting it wholly, however much I fail to recognize in it the genuine language of Peter (Com. on 2Peter, Argument). Further, Calvin acknowledges the existence of doubts with respect both to James and to Jude; but he accepts them both. He allows full liberty of opinion concerning the authorship of Hebrews; but he states that he has no hesitation in classing it among Apostolical writings. In spite of these varieties of opinion, the NT Canon remained unaltered. At the Council of Trent (1546) for the first time the Roman Catholic Church made an authoritative statement on the Canon, uttering an anathema (anathema sit) on anybody who did not accept in their integrity all the books contained in the Vulgate. Thus the Apocrypha is treated as equally canonical with the OT books; but the NT Canon is the same in Roman Catholic and Protestant Canons. Translations of the Bible into the vernacular of various languages laid the question of the Canon to rest again, by familiarizing readers with the same series of books in all versions and editions.

5. The Canon in Modern Criticism.In the 18th cent. the very idea of a Canon was attacked by the Deists and Rationalists (Toland, Diderot, etc.); but the critical study of the subject began with Semler (17715), who pointed out the early variations in the Canon and attacked the very idea of a Canon as an authoritative standard, while he criticised the usefulness and theological value of the several books of the NT. Subsequent controversy has dealt less with the Canon as such than with the authenticity and genuineness of the books that it contains. In the views of extreme negative criticism canonicity as such has no meaning except as a historical record of Church opinion. On the other hand, those who accept a doctrine of inspiration in relation to the NT do not connect this very closely with critical questions in such a way as to affect the Canon. Thus doubts as to the authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, 2Peter, James, etc., have not given rise to any serious proposal to remove these books from the NT. The Canon rests mainly on tradition and usage. But the justification for it when this is sought is usually found (1) in the Apostolic authorship of most of the NT books; (2) in the Apostolic atmosphere and association of the remaining books; (3) in the general acceptance and continuous use of them in the churches for centuries as a test of their value; (4) in their inherent worth to-day as realized in Christian experience. It cannot be said that these four tests would give an indefeasible right to every book to claim a place in the Canon if it were not already theree.g. the small Epistle of Jude; but they throw the burden of proof on those who would disturb the Canon by a serious proposal to eject any of its contents; and in fact no such proposalas distinct from critical questions of the dates, authorship, historicity, etc., of the several booksis now engaging the attention of scholars or churches.

W. F. Adeney.

Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible