Many Christian readers would be surprised to discover that the word “canon” originally had nothing to do with the books that were considered authoritative and therefore included in the Bible. Rather, the idea of canon originally had to do with the agreed-upon doctrinal and liturgical decrees issued by the church fathers and councils. The church decided what it believed and how it should worship long before any official biblical canon was ever authorized. Now to be sure, many of those beliefs that were debated and decided upon by the early church fathers were rooted in specific writings of those early Christian authors they believed to have been eyewitnesses of Jesus and his ministry. But the church decided much of what it believed before there was a biblical canon. This means we can say that the early church first decided what it believed and then selected Christian writings that largely supported those beliefs.
All of the evidence we have from the early Christian authors and councils supports these facts. We know of several lists of biblical books that were made throughout the first centuries of Christianity. Surprisingly, the lists vary, often dramatically, regarding the books that are to be considered canonical. And these differences of opinion do not reach a general consensus until the end of the fourth century!
Marcion of Sinope (85–160), the bishop of Asia Minor, compiled a canon list between 130 and 140. His list included ten of the Pauline letters, excluded the Pastoral Letters and the book of Hebrews, and possessed a modified version of what was later known to be the Gospel of Luke. However, Marcion excised from his version of Luke the passages pertaining to Jesus’s birth and childhood as well as some of the passages that linked Jesus with the Old Testament, because Marcion believed that many of Jesus’s teachings were incompatible with the deeds of the God described in the Old Testament. He developed a system of beliefs that argued that there were actually two distinct deities—a heavenly father who created the earth, the God of the Old Testament; and Jesus, the Lord of the New Testament. His belief in two deities and in the incompatibility of the Old Testament and the Jewish faith with Christianity were later condemned as heresy, and he was excommunicated from the church.
The Muratorian Fragment is a copy of what might be the oldest known list of the books of the New Testament. It was discovered bound with a seventh-century Latin manuscript discovered at the Columban monastery library in Bobbio, Italy. Scholars date the fragment to somewhere between the late second and the early fourth centuries. The Muratorian Fragment’s New Testament includes four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Acts, thirteen letters of Paul (not including Hebrews), Jude, 1 Peter (but not 2 Peter), 1 and 2 John (but not 3 John), and the book of Revelation as well as the Wisdom of Solomon and the Apocalypse of Peter, adding that “some of us will not allow the latter to be read in church.” The Muratorian Fragment also mentions the Shepherd of Hermas, stating that “it ought indeed to be read,” but warned that “it cannot be read publicly to the people in church either among the Prophets, whose number is complete, or among the apostles, for it is after their time,”21 meaning that there appeared to be a time limit to inclusion in the canon and that books written after the time of the apostles could not be included.
Around 180, Irenaeus (130–202), the bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul (present-day Lyon, France) developed a canon containing the four Gospels. In his work Against Heresies, he also made over a thousand citations from books that would become the canonical New Testament, including citations of every canonical book except Philemon, 3 John, and Jude.22
Sometime in the early fourth century, Eusebius (260–340), the bishop of Caesarea, gave a detailed breakdown in Ecclesiastical History regarding the books he believed should be included in the canon as well as the books that Origen (185–254) and others accepted as authoritative.23 Origen’s list includes the Old Testament plus the books of Maccabees as well as the four Gospels, but then betrays some of the debate surrounding the other books that should be understood as authoritative for Christians. Eusebius recounts the books considered universally accepted by all Christians (the homologoumenoi), the ones universally rejected (heretical), and the ones in between (the antilegoumenoi)—those books that are in dispute due to their content, a question over who actually wrote them (i.e., whether they were actually written by the author claimed in the text), or their date of composition.
Universally accepted (homologoumenoi): In Ecclesiastical History 3.25, Eusebius states that the canon should definitely include the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), Acts of the Apostles, the Letters of Paul, the Letter of John (1 John), the Letter of Peter (1 Peter), and the Apocalypse of John (Revelation), but notes that Revelation’s inclusion is disputed by others. In Ecclesiastical History 6.25, Eusebius states that Origen called for the twenty-two books of the Hebrews,24 the books of Maccabees, the four Gospels, Acts, fourteen letters of Paul (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews; Eusebius includes a lengthy discussion on whether Paul actually wrote Hebrews), 1 John, and 1 Peter. Origen elsewhere refers to the story of Susanna, among other canonical works,25 and refers to Sirach as “Scripture.”26
Disputed genuineness and/or authority (antilegoumenoi): In Ecclesiastical History Eusebius says that the letters of James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John are all disputed (3.25; in 3.3 he states explicitly, “[Peter’s] extant second Letter does not belong to the canon”). Elsewhere in Ecclesiastical History (6.14), Eusebius refers to the Epistle of Barnabas and the Apocalypse of Peter as disputed. Eusebius states that Clement of Alexandria (150–215) makes use of “disputed” books including the so-called Wisdom of Solomon, the Book of Sirach, the Letter to the Hebrews, the Epistle of Barnabas, the First Letter of Clement of Rome, and Jude (6.13). Eusebius also lists the Gospel of Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter as disputed, but only because “no ecclesiastical writer, ancient or modern, has made use of testimonies drawn from them” (3.3). He also states that the Shepherd of Hermas is considered disputed by some, but “quite indispensable” by others.
Heretical (firmly rejected): In Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius rejects by name the Acts of Paul, the so-called Shepherd (of Hermas), the Apocalypse of Peter (which he lists as “disputed” in 3.3), the Epistle of Barnabas, and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles (the Didache), followed by a note that many place the Apocalypse of John (i.e., book of Revelation) in this category (3.25). Eusebius also rejects the Gospel of the Hebrews (which should not be confused with the Letter to the Hebrews) and by name the Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Matthias, “or of any others besides them,” as well as the Acts of Andrew and the Acts of John.
I know it’s confusing, but that’s the point. As late as the middle of the third century—over two hundred years after Jesus was crucified—the church was still debating which books were actually considered authoritative. And many of the church fathers gave different opinions about the same books in different writings of their own!
We should note that a number of the books, like the four Gospels and some undisputed letters of Paul, were never really in dispute. But others were. This is important because it shows that early Christian doctrines came from men—the early church fathers—not from any biblical canon. The canon of the Bible came after the church fathers had debated and decided what Christians were supposed to believe. Thus, the notion that the “Word of God” (i.e., the Bible) instructs Christians regarding what they are to believe and do is not consistent with history and reality. In fact, the reverse is true; prominent men of the early church decided what the “Word of God” would consist of. They determined the rules of the church for Christians based on some of the writings from the first and early second centuries and then filled out the canonical books of the Bible by selecting those books that were consistent with what they had already decreed.
So not only were the books that became the Bible still in question two hundred years after Jesus came and went, but the literary evidence we have from the early c
hurch shows us that the biblical canon did not become fixed for at least another century. One important artifact that illustrates the volatility of the Bible during this time is the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates to about 350 and was discovered in 1844 by Constantin von Tischendorf in St. Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula in modern Egypt (hence the name “Sinaiticus”). It is one of the earliest complete copies of the Bible (Old and New Testaments) we have. Sinaiticus is important to our discussion for two reasons. First, the New Testament books in Sinaiticus do not possess many parts of the Bible that scholars have argued were late additions to the NT text, lending support to these claims.27 But what is truly fascinating about Codex Sinaiticus is that it contains two books that are not in our Bibles today: the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. Think about that: the oldest complete manuscript of the Bible that we have today contains books that are no longer in the Bible! This fact alone reveals just how much human interpretation and debate shaped the Bible in the first four centuries of the church’s existence.
And just think, had a few influential church fathers chosen differently, you might be quoting Scripture from the Epistle of Barnabas and asking, “What are the Letter of Jude and the Apocalypse of John? I’ve never heard of them.”
And yet that is how we got the New Testament canon: different influential men over four centuries made different lists of books and argued about them. Yet today many see the Bible as the complete and holy “Word of God” written by “inspired men.”
So by now you’re probably asking where Rome comes into the process of the canonization of the Bible? I’m glad you asked.
ROME’S ROLE IN CREATING THE BIBLE
Rome’s role comes into play beginning with Constantine the Great (272–337). Constantine had already legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan in 313, and as Constantine came to embrace Christianity, he took an interest in Christianity’s inner political workings. Specifically, Constantine wanted a politically stable empire, and his empire could be made all the more tranquil by ridding it of religious bickering. Thus, Constantine promoted a religious orthodoxy among Christians. This meant sponsoring ecumenical church councils, like the Council of Nicea in 325, for the purpose of producing orthodox creeds, like the Nicene Creed, that would streamline what Christians “officially” believed.
Constantine also ordered fifty copies of the Bible in Greek in 331 for use by Alexander, the bishop of Constantinople, about a year after moving the capital of his empire from Rome to his newly founded eastern capital of Constantinople (modern Istanbul). The task of creating the Bibles was given to Eusebius of Caesarea.28 Then around 340, the Archbishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, claimed he created additional “volumes containing the holy Scriptures” in Rome for Constantine’s son, the emperor Constans (323–50).29 The increasingly frequent request for Bibles required that translators actually know (or decide) exactly which books they would translate for their Bibles.
The lack of an official canon list was also an issue for church leaders, who were debating theological issues and issuing decrees announcing what Christians should believe. In attempting to root theological arguments in the teachings of Jesus and the apostles so that Christians would find them authoritative, church leaders cited different Christian writings, some of which other church leaders did not accept as authoritative. The church needed a canon.
In his 39th Festal Letter on Easter of 367 CE, Athanasius authorized a list of twenty-seven canonical New Testament books, including Revelation, making it the earliest list to include what would later become the canonical New Testament books. Interestingly, he authorized all of the books of the Hebrew Bible except the book of Esther, which he left out, authorizing instead the book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah (which was treated in the Latin Vulgate as the sixth and final chapter of Baruch).30
At the end of the fourth century, the bishop of Rome (“the pope”), Damasus I (305–84), sought to reform the church’s liturgy. Because the reading of Holy Scripture was a part of the weekly liturgy and because in the third and fourth centuries Latin was slowly replacing Greek as the common language of the eastern Roman Empire, in 382 Pope Damasus I commissioned Jerome (347–420), whom he’d later appoint as his personal secretary, to provide the church with an official Latin translation of the Bible, which has come to be known as the Vulgate.
Of course, producing a Latin translation of the Bible meant translating the books of the Bible from their original languages as well as selecting which books would be included in the church’s official Latin Bible. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate included the twenty-seven books of the New Testament that we now have, solidifying their status as canonical.
But there was still a fight over which version of the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew text or the Greek Septuagint, should be used for the official Latin version of the Old Testament. The Septuagint included several additional books and its versions of some books differed at times significantly from the Hebrew versions. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) argued that the Septuagint should be used, as it was the version that was most often used by the authors of the New Testament. However, Jerome wanted to use the Hebrew version of the Old Testament because, as he explained to Augustine in a letter,31 he considered the Septuagint to be an inferior version largely (and ironically) because he felt it had become the “Hebrew Bible of the Christians.” Jerome considered many of the differences between the Septuagint and the Hebrew text to be additions made by Christians, and therefore he felt it was the Hebrew text, which had not been translated into Greek and did not include all of the extra books present in the Septuagint, that was the superior version of the Bible.
This answers the question of how the biblical Apocrypha came to be a separate collection of books within the Old Testament; Jerome argued in the preface of the Vulgate that the Apocryphal books of the Hebrew Bible contained in the Septuagint should be set aside as a separate collection.32 But, as Michael Barber points out, Jerome later changed his mind concerning the Apocrypha!33 Jerome claimed that the book of Judith was considered among the sacred Scriptures at the Council of Nicea34 and quotes Judith 13 in his Letter to Eustochium.35 Thus even among those making the translations themselves, there was ambiguity about which books were to be considered part of the holy canon.
Meanwhile, the church councils were having their say. A summary of the canons issued by the Synod of Laodicea, which met sometime between 343 and 381, contains a final canon (Canon 60) that states that it is a list of books of the Old and New Testaments that are “appointed to be read.” Interestingly, the list of Old Testament books includes all of the canonical books in our modern Bibles today as well as 1–2 Esdras, Baruch, and the Letter of Jeremiah. Although this might be expected, as there was much debate over whether or not the Apocryphal books were considered canonical, the far more interesting detail is that the New Testament list contains every canonical New Testament book except Revelation!36
The exclusion of the book of Revelation was apparently quite common in the late fourth century. In his letter to Letoïus, St. Gregory, who was bishop of Nyssa from 372 to 376, issued a canon (Canon 7) that lists the books of the Bible that ought to be read, lest “other books seduce [the] mind: for many malignant writings have been disseminated.”37 Gregory’s list omits “one Esdras and all the Deutero-Canonical books” as well as the book of Esther from its Old Testament and once again omits the book of Revelation from the list, despite making an allusion to it by referencing the author of the Gospel of John as the “enterer of heaven.”
However, according to a written compilation of decrees issued by various church councils during the fourth and fifth centuries,38 the Council of Carthage (397) issued Canon 24, which addresses which books are to be definitively considered “Scripture.” A portion of it reads:
It was also determined that besides the Canonical Scriptures nothing be read in the Church under the title of divine Scriptures. The Canonical Scriptures are these: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Josh
ua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings [i.e., 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings], two books of Paraleipomena [i.e., 1–2 Chronicles], Job, the Psalter [i.e., Psalms], five books of Solomon [i.e., Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus], the books of the twelve prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, Daniel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras, two books of the Maccabees. Of the New Testament: four books of the Gospels, one book of the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul, one epistle of the same [writer] to the Hebrews, two Epistles of the Apostle Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude, one book of the Apocalypse of John.39
Note that although the above list includes the twenty-seven books of today’s canonical New Testament, it also includes many of the Apocryphal books, including the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Esdras, and 1–2 Maccabees. Thus, although the Third Council of Carthage is said to have confirmed the twenty-seven books of the New Testament in the very late fourth century, a number of the books of the Apocrypha were considered fully canonical and not separate from the other Old Testament Books, while others were excluded.
And this, this is how we got the Bible that we have. The emperor Constantine the Great wanted fifty Bibles, so Eusebius had to decide what books went into these Bibles. The emperor Constans needed Bibles, so Athanasius created more Bibles. And this is also how the Apocrypha came to be separate from the Old and New Testaments. Pope Damasus I wanted an official Latin translation, and Jerome, who favored the Hebrew version over the Septuagint, set the Apocrypha aside in a separate section, which became the deuterocanon accepted by Catholics and dismissed by Protestants. Meanwhile, the church councils continued to debate which books were authoritative well into the late fourth century. Thus, the Roman emperor, the bishop of Rome, and the early church councils contributed to the canonization and proliferation of the Bible that we have today.
The Cities That Built the Bible Page 25
