How the Books of the New Testament Were Chosen

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How did the Church decide which books to include in the New Testament? When was the decision made? By whom? The surviving evidence unfortunately does not provide answers in the detail we would like, but it does document a number of the developments that eventually produced the New Testament as we know it.

At a very early stage (by the end of the first century) several churches had collected some of Paul’s letters. Clement, traditionally regarded as the third bishop of Rome, although this is uncertain, wrote a letter from Rome to the church in Corinth in which he exhorts them to read part of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Clement 47:1–3).^a It thus appears that the church at Rome possessed a copy of Paul’s letter less than half a century after he wrote it. The author of 2 Peter also seems to know of a collection of Paul’s letters (2 Peter 3:15–16).

The second-century bishop of Antioch, Ignatius, wrote letters to seven churches while he was en route to Rome, where he suffered martyrdom. Ignatius frequently attempts his own elaboration of Paul’s ideas in these letters, and when he tells the Ephesians that Paul mentions them “in every letter” (Letter to the Ephesians 12:2), Ignatius shows that he knows at least several of Paul’s letters.

But of course a collection of Paul’s letters is not a canon. And that is the technical term for the question we are examining: When and how was the canon determined? “Canon” is the Greek term for “norm” or “rule.” It is a standard by which things can be measured. A canon of scriptures is a collection of the books that are accepted as authoritative. The New Testament canon accepted by most Christians today consists of 27 books.^b

Within a century of Jesus’ death, Christians had produced a small but quite diverse library of writings in addition to Paul’s letters. We know of two collections of Jesus’ sayings. The full text of one, the Gospel of Thomas, was recently found at Nag Hammadi^c; the other, known as Q, is a hypothetical sayings source that accounts for the nearly identical sayings found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke for which there are no parallels in Mark (the primary source for both). There was also a so-called Signs Gospel, a collection of wondrous deeds ascribed to Jesus which scholars believe underlies the Gospel of John. In addition, there were dialogues and revelations attributed to Jesus, various accounts of his birth, several accounts of the acts of the apostles, homilies and more.

But all these were at most candidates for what was to become the New Testament. At this early date, none could be said to be canonical.

The first specific proposal for a new canon for the Christian movement was made in the mid-second century by Marcion, the owner of a successful shipping business and the son of a bishop of the Church in Asia Minor. Marcion proposed that the Church reject the Jewish Scriptures and embrace a new canon of its own. That canon was to be composed of only one gospel, Luke and the letters of 045one apostle, Paul. Marcion argued that the Church, for the sake of its unity and for the truth of its gospel, ought to identify its own normative writings and cease its use of Jewish Scriptures. He contended that references to the God worshiped by the Jews in Luke and Paul were corruptions of what Luke and Paul originally wrote. Marcion therefore expunged these references from the versions of Luke and Paul that he included in his proposed New Testament.

Marcion’s radical ideas ignited a controversy that led to his excommunication, but his heretical proposal forced the Church to make a case for the value and status of the Jewish Scriptures that it had adopted as its own, and, more relevant here, it prompted the Church to consider which of its own writings ought to be regarded as canonical—as normative—and why.

The Church’s attempts to resolve this now-unavoidable question can most readily be seen in the lists of books it drew up, identifying those approved to be read in the churches and often identifying those to be rejected.

The oldest extant list of New Testament writings, at least in the opinion of some scholars, is known as the Muratorian Canon. It is named for the 18th-century scholar Lodovico Antonio Muratori (1672–1750), who discovered the list in Milan library. The Muratori fragment contains 85 lines in Latin and dates to the eighth century. But scholars believe it is a translation from the Greek, the original of which may have been written as, early as the late second or third century.^d The Muratorian Canon is an annotated list of writings that—according to its anonymous author—were accepted by the Catholic Church. It also rejects, by name, writings that reflect the views of several, heretical individuals and groups, including Marcion.

Although the specific situation addressed by the Muratorian Canon is not identified, it is clearly polemical in tone. If it was written in the late second century, as some scholars think, it would be the earliest known response to Marcion’s challenge to the Church to define its canon of scriptures.

The Muratorian Canon lists as authoritative the four gospels,^e Acts, 12 letters of Paul (neither Philemon nor Hebrews is mentioned), Jude, 1 and 2 John, and the Wisdom of Solomon (part of the Old Testament Apocrypha for Protestants and considered deutero-canonical—one of a second group of authoritative writings added later to the canon by Catholics). It also lists the Apocalypse of John—Revelation—and the Apocalypse of Peter, but notes that these two books are not accepted by everyone in the Church. The Apocalypse of Peter is not in our canon; Revelation is. The Muratorian Canon does not mention the following books which are also in our canon: James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John. The document known as the Shepherd of Hermas, an apocalypse in form but in content concerned with repentance and moral instruction, is mentioned, but rejected because it is late.

Two other sources close to the time of the Muratorian Canon, if we assume a late second century date for it, throw further light on the status of the canon question in the aftermath of Marcion’s bold initiative. One is Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul (France). In works written about 185, Irenaeus quotes extensively from 22 books as authoritative: the four gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters (excluding Hebrews), 1 John and 1 Peter, Revelation and the Shepherd of Hermas.¹ The other source is the scholar and theologian Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–254); Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, compiled a list of authoritative books cited by Origen which was very similar to those mentioned by Irenaeus.²

The most illuminating of these early lists was drawn up by Eusebius himself in his multivolume history of the Church published in 325. As in earlier lists, Eusebius divided books into three categories: “accepted,” “disputed,” and “rejected.” In Eusebius’ accepted category are all 20 of the books endorsed by Irenaeus. Hebrews, otherwise unmentioned in any of Eusebius’ three categories, may be included among the (unspecified) letters of Paul. Eusebius was uncertain about the appropriate status of Revelation, so he tentatively placed it among both the accepted and the rejected writings. Five general letters constitute his list of disputed works, and seven are named in the rejected category, including, tentatively, Revelation.

When Eusebius’ list of authoritative books (see sidebar to this article) is compared with those of Irenaeus and Origen, it becomes apparent that within 25 or 30 years after Marcion proposed his limited canon of one gospel and probably ten letters of Paul, Irenaeus had taken a position on the canonical status of 20 books that was later augumented but never altered: the four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, 13 letters of Paul (including 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, omitted by Marcion), 1 John and 1 Peter. All of the later lists included these writings. About the other seven writings included in the New Testament as we know it (Hebrews, 046James, 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude and Revelation) opinions differed: As late as 325 C.E., when Eusebius drafted his own list, no known list had included them all as canonical.

Irenaeus, in an earnest argument, insisted that the church’s gospels could not be other than four. He noted a perfect correspondence between the four points of the world’s compass and four principal winds and the fourfold gospel intended for all the world. Further, in Revelation 4:7 John records four living creatures that surround the throne of God. To Irenaeus, they directly relate to attributes of the four gospels. The first is like a lion, corresponding to Mark (royal power); the second, a calf, to Luke (sacrificial and sacerdotal order); the third, with a human face, to Matthew (advent as a human being); and the fourth, an eagle, to John (gift of the Spirit).)³ On the basis of this symbolic cosmological argument, Iranaeus regarded the gospel canon as complete, authentic and unalterable. Fanciful though they may appear to modern readers, for Irenaeus these considerations make the fourness of the gospels a sacred certainty.

Before lrenaeus’ spirited affirmation of the canonicity of the four gospels, their number appeared to some to compromise the unity of the church’s message. Marcion’s proposal of a single gospel at least had the advantage of avoiding any discrepancies or inconsistencies. Around 165 Tatian in Syria had produced the Diatessaron (literally, “one through four”) in which he created a single composite gospel by combining and harmonizing the texts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The complete text of this innovative work has not survived, but it does reveal another impulse, apart from Marcion’s, to make unity a fact. The Church rejected such impulses, however, and elected rather to understand the four gospels as four testimonies to one gospel story, one saving message.

When Eusebius drew up his list in 325, he used less fanciful criteria than Irenaeus had employed more than a century earlier. Eusebius asks whether writings had been mentioned by earlier generations of Church leaders (a historical criterion), whether a book’s style comports well with those known to have been written early in the history of the church (a literary criterion) and whether their content is 047consistent with established orthodoxy (a doctrinal or theological criterion).

Interestingly, none of the canonical lists mentions inspiration as a criterion for determining which writings were to be included in the canon. The reason, apparently, is that since all Christians were filled with the Spirit, a claim of inspiration would not have been useful as a way of distinguishing canonical from extracanonical Christian writings. It is often noted that the one writing in the New Testament claiming to be inspired is the Revelation of John, and it is precisely this book that was most often among the disputed nominees for inclusion in the canon.

After Eusebius, the next list that survives from antiquity is the list of Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, published in 367. His list names the same 27 books that constitute today’s New Testament. In the years intervening between Eusebius and Athanasius, the New Testament canon had assumed its now-traditional form.

What happened between the time of Eusebius and the time of Athanasius to account for the last step in the direction of a consensus? How did the Church decide finally on what to include and what to exclude? Unfortunately, our sources are mute on this issue. The Council of Nicea in 325 did not address the question, and neither Eusebius nor Athanasius nor any other writer from the period tells us how this came about.

One development suggests an intriguingly plausible explanation. In 331 the Roman emperor Constantine sent a letter, the text of which has survived,⁴ to Bishop Eusebius in Caesarea asking him to arrange for the production of 50 Bibles. These books were to be skillfully executed copies or “the divine scriptures” on fine parchment for use in the churches of the new capital of the empire, Constantinople. Constantine not only promised to pay all of the expenses incurred in this project, he also provided two carriages to assure the swift shipment of the completed copies for his personal inspection.

Eusebius was an advisor to and confidant of the emperor. He is widely regarded as the principal architect of the political philosophy of Constantine’s reconstituted empire. A trusted ally of the emperor in advocating and implementing the policies of the newly Christianized state, he knew that Constantine was concerned about the unity of the Church and the unity of the state. Eusebius also knew that these new Bibles prepared for the capital city would play an important role in the unity of the Church. The inclusiveness of Athanasius’ canonical list in 367 has the look of political accommodation. It resolves the disagreement between the churches in the East and those in the West about the canonical status of Hebrews and Revelation by including both. It therefore seems plausible to conjecture that the addition of the last seven books (Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation) to the list was not the result of historical or theological argument, but was prompted by the needs of the state. In other words, the New Testament canon was settled for all practical purposes when Constantine gave the order to create 50 Bibles. Palpable evidence of the unity of the church, their publication also symbolized the unity of the empire.

This fourth-century canon has been durable, but it has never been universal. Among Eastern Orthodox churches, the diversity in evidence before Constantine continued. The Syrian church’s canon, for example, is the Peshitta, a Syriac version of the New Testament dating from the fifth century which lacks 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation.

Martin Luther, in the 16th century, thought James, Jude and Revelation unfit to be included among the canonical books. He placed Hebrews plus these three books last in his translation of the New Testament because of his doubts about their claim to canonical status. The Gustavus Adolphus Bible (Stockholm, 1618), apparently a Swedish translation published during the reign of Gustavus Adolphus (1611–1632), and the Tyndale Bible, compiled by William Tyndale, “the father of the English Bible,” also placed these four books at the end, presumably for similar reasons.

The Roman Catholic Church did not issue an authoritative statement about the contents of the Bible until 1546, when the Council of Trent, by a vote of 24 to 15 with 16 abstentions, declared the writings in Jerome’s fourth century Latin Vulgate version to be the church’s official canon. While the New Testament canon is the same as that used in Protestant churches, the Old Testament includes what Protestants refer to as the Old Testament Apocrypha, a series of intertestamental books omitted from the Protestant canon (and also omitted from the Hebrew Bible).

In short, no single canon has ever been accepted by all Christians. In fact, the status of the New Testament canon today resembles what it was in Eusebius’ day: a question that attracts both a considerable consensus and continuing differences.

How did the Church decide which books to include in the New Testament? When was the decision made? By whom? The surviving evidence unfortunately does not provide answers in the detail we would like, but it does document a number of the developments that eventually produced the New Testament as we know it.