In the fourth century the Church came to use the word “canon” to refer to the authoritative body of Holy Writings that defined the rule of faith and practice among Christians. Originally, “canon” referred to a straight rod or bar that could be used for various purposes such as a carpenter’s rule or the beam of a balance. In most instances the idea of rule or norm or model was involved. Athanasius (about 296–373), bishop of Alexandria, appears to be the first to apply the word “canon” to the books accepted into the New Testament, in contrast to apocryphal books that were rejected.
By the end of the first or the beginning of the second century, a collection of Paul’s letters apparently existed; it is referred to by the author of 2 Peter 3:16. Clement of Rome (about 95) refers to Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians and makes allusion to several others. Ignatius of Antioch (died about 110) alludes to several of Paul’s letters.
The Gospels, or at least the gospel tradition, were held in great respect by the first or second centuries. Clement of Rome quotes or refers to the Gospels in his writings. Ignatius of Antioch apparently knew and used the Gospel of Matthew or a document closely akin to it. He may also have known and used the Gospels of Luke and John. Papias (died about 140), bishop of Hierapolis, mentioned by name the writings of Matthew and Mark. Whether his references were to the First and Second canonical Gospels or to some other writings is unclear. Justin Martyr (mid-second century) referred to the “memoirs of the apostles” (the Gospels?) and said that Christians met and read them along with the writings of the prophets. Melito of Sardis (about 180) made a list of books that belong to the “Old Testament.” The implication of speaking of the “Old Testament” is that the concept of a “New Testament” must have existed by this time. Finally, an anti-Montanista writer about 192 made a clear reference to the “New Testament.”
By the end of the second century, three notable theologians, Irenaeus of Gaul, Tertullian of Carthage and Clement of Alexandria, quoted freely from the new canon of Scripture, although they were not in total agreement about its extent. By the third century it is clear that the Church accepted the Four Gospels, 13 Letters of Paul, Acts, 1 Peter and 1 John as canonical. The remaining seven documents that later came to be canonized were more or less on the verge of acceptance. Hebrews, for example, was generally accepted in the East but not in the West; Revelation was generally accepted in the West but not in the East. In addition, other documents were sporadically accepted as canonical only to be rejected later when the limits of the New Testament Scriptures were more carefully defined. These included the Didache, Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter and the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Generally, churches in the west and in Syria tended to set the limits of the canon more conservatively—they accepted fewer books—than did the churches in Egypt and in Ethiopia.
The earliest list of New Testament writings is the Muratorian Fragment (preserved in a Latin translation of the original Greek), dating to about 200. Although it is mutilated at the beginning, it apparently included Matthew and Mark, along with Luke, John, Acts, 13 letters of Paul, 1 and 2 (or 3) John, Jude, Revelation, Wisdom and the Apocalypse of Peter. Missing from this list are Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter and either 2 or 3 John. In addition, the Muratorian Fragment mentions two forged Pauline letters, one to the Laodiceans and one to the Alexandrians, and several other unnamed writings that it says “cannot be received into the catholic church.”
The theologian Origen (about 185–254), inquired of various localities to determine what books were being received, and in his report he made three categories. First, books generally accepted by the Church included the Four Gospels, 13 Letters of Paul, Acts, 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation. Second, doubtful writings included Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John and Jude. Third, spurious writings included the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Basilides and the Gospel of Matthias.
In the first half of the fourth century, Eusebius (about 260–340), bishop of Caesarea, made a similar classification. He too divided the books into three categories. Books generally accepted by the Church included the Four Gospels, Acts, 14 Letters of Paul (13 plus Hebrews), 1 Peter, 1 John and, “if one will,” Revelation. His statement about Revelation was made to accommodate those in the Church who accepted it, as opposed to those who did not. Disputed books included James, 1 Peter, 2 and 3 John and Jude. Books that were to be rejected as spurious included the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache and the Gospel according to the Hebrews. At this point Eusebius again wrote “if one will” regarding Revelation, this time to accommodate those in the Church who rejected Revelation as opposed to those who accepted it.
In the second half of the fourth century Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, set forth a firmly circumscribed canon of the Old Testament and the New Testament. In his famous 39th Easter festival letter of 367, he listed the present 27 books of the New Testament and used the word “canon” to describe them. This listing of canonical books inevitably became the dominant one, although doubts about the Revelation of John and some of the general letters lingered for several centuries. By the tenth century the Athanasian canon prevailed generally in the Church.
The criteria used for determining canonicity in the early Church are not fully known. Some principles involved, however, are fairly clear. Whether a document was written by an apostle or a close companion of an apostle was of primary importance for its inclusion into the canon. Thus letters written by Paul, or supposedly written by Paul, were readily accepted. Luke and Acts, written by a close companion of Paul, were also readily accepted. Documents that were clearly non-apostolic in the above senses were rejected. The Muratorian Fragment, for example, rejects the Shepherd of Hermas as non-canonical since it was a recent writing that should not “be read publicly in the Church…among the apostles.”
Another Principle involved was whether the document conformed to orthodox Christian teaching. Irenaeus called this “the canon of the truth”; Tertullian called it “the rule of faith.” They were both referring, in summary form, to the orthodox Christian understanding of the gospel. Books that came to be canonized conformed to this summary. Those that did not were rejected. A third principle involved was whether a document was actually used by the Church. Although both Hebrews and Revelation came to be rejected by some in the Church, both eventually came to be accepted since they had been quoted as Scripture by some from earliest times.
The formation of the canon may also have been influenced by certain negative factors. Primary among these were the heresies of Marcion and Montanus that flourished in the second century. Marcion (about 160) was excommunicated from the Church at Rome about 144 and traveled around the Empire establishing his own Marcionite churches. In a document entitled the “Antitheses,” he made a distinction between Judaism and Christianity suggesting that the God of the Old Testament was inferior to the God of Jesus Christ. He also argued that Paul was the only apostle who understood the Gospel of Christ. Among other things, he drew up, perhaps for the first time, a list of the new Scriptures, which he called the “Instrumentum.” It was composed of the “Evangelion,” traditionally perceived, as a mutilated copy of Luke, and the “Apostolicon,” a collection of Paul’s letters minus 1and 2 Timothy and Titus. Some believe that the Church acquired the idea of a New Testament canon from Marcion, but in reaction to his heretical views expanded its list of books to include other apostolic writings.
Montanus (latter half of second century) began a prophetic movement that predicted an apocalyptic descent of the heavenly Jerusalem to the Phrygian city of Pepuza. He and two prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla, delivered oracles that came to be written down and collected into books. It is thought by some that the Church reacted to these new Montanist Scriptures by conceiving the idea of a closed canon that did not include them. The heretical movement continued to exercise influence, however, by casting doubts on some writings that later became canonical. Among these were Hebrews and Revelation, which to some appeared supportive of the Montanist heresy.
From the 10th to the 16th centuries, the canon of Athanasius reigned supreme in most of Christendom. Several Protestant reformers of the 16th century, however, questioned the suitability of some of the accepted 27 books. Andreas Karlstadt (1480–1541) doubted that Revelation should be in the canon. Martin Luther (1483–1546) believed that James was a “right strawy epistle” and relegated it, along with Hebrews, Jude and Revelation, to the end of his German New Testament translation. He showed his suspicion of these books by numbering all but them in his table of contents. Ulrich Zwingly (1484–1531) rejected Revelation outright as a book of the Bible. John Calvin (1509–1564) never mentioned in writing 2 and 3 John and Revelation. The Catholic reaction to the Protestant Reformation came in the Council of Trent (1545–1563). There the Athanasian canon was reaffirmed with an anathema pronounced on anyone who refused to accept the 27 books as contained in the Latin Vulgate.