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| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
TheCatholicNew Testament, as defined by theCouncil of Trent, does not differ, as regards the books contained, from that of allChristian bodies at present. Like theOld Testament, the New has itsdeuterocanonical books and portions of books, their canonicity having formerly been a subject of some controversy in theChurch. 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 theNew 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 theResurrection; the verses in Luke about the bloody sweat ofJesus (22:43-44); thePericope Adulteræ, or narrative of thewoman taken inadultery (John 7:53-8:11). Since theCouncil of Trent it is not permitted for aCatholic to question the inspiration of these passages.
Theidea of a complete and clear-cut canon of theNew 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 theChurch, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until thedogmatic definition of theTridentine Council.
Those writings which possessed the unmistakable stamp and guarantee of Apostolic origin must from the very first have been specially prized andvenerated, and their copies eagerly sought by local Churches and individualChristians of means, in preference to the narratives andLogia, or Sayings ofChrist, coming from less authorized sources. Already in theNew Testament itself there is some evidence of a certain diffusion of canonical books:2 Peter 3:15-16 supposes its readers to be acquainted with some ofSt. Paul'sEpistles; St. John's Gospel implicitly presupposes the existence of theSynoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). There are no indications in theNew Testament of a systematic plan for the distribution of the Apostolic compositions, any more than there is of a definite new Canon bequeathed by theApostles to theChurch, or of a strong self-witness toDivine inspiration. Nearly all theNew Testament writings were evoked by particular occasions, or addressed to particular destinations. But we may well presume that each of the leadingChurches--Antioch,Thessalonica, Alexandria,Corinth,Rome--sought by exchanging with otherChristian communities to add to its special treasure, and have publicly read in its religious assemblies all Apostolic writings which came under itsknowledge. 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 earlyChristendom 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 anddoubts 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 theNew Testament, which constituted the firm, irreducible, universal minimum, and the nucleus of its complete Canon: these were theFour Gospels, as theChurch now has them, and thirteenEpistles ofSt. Paul--theEvangelium and theApostolicum.
Before entering into the historicalproof 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 theNew 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 earlyFathers base the authority of a book on its Apostolic origin, and by thetruth that the definitive placing of the contested books on theNew 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 theOld Law, inferring that as inspiration was attached to themunus propheticum so the Apostles were aided byDivine inspiration whenever in the exercise of their calling they either spoke or wrote. Positive arguments arededuced from theNew Testament to establish that a permanent propheticalcharisma (seeCHARISMATA) was enjoyed by theApostles through a special indwelling of the Holy Ghost, beginning with Pentecost:Matthew 10:19-20;Acts 15:28;1 Corinthians 2:13;2 Corinthians 13:3;1 Thessalonians 2:13, 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 withSt. 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 handOrigen andSt. Dionysius of Alexandria in the case of Apocalypse, andSt. Jerome in the case of II and III John, although questioning the Apostolic authorship of these works, unhesitatingly received them asSacred Scriptures. An objection of a speculative kind is derived from the very nature of inspirationad 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 ofCatholictheological opinion is deservedly against mere Apostolicity as a sufficient criterion of inspiration. The adverse view has been taken byFranzelin (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 todoctrinal tradition as thetrue 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, theGospel (i.e. the words and commandments ofJesus Christ) bore with it its own sacredness and authority from the very beginning. This Gospel was announced to the world at large, by theApostles and Apostolic disciples ofChrist, 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 ofOur Lord. Accordingly, for the primitive Church,evangelical character was the test of Scriptural sacredness. But to guarantee this character it wasnecessary 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 theChristian Scriptures. In fact, for the earliestChristians the Gospel ofChrist, in the wide sense above noted, was not to be classified with, because transcending, theOld Testament. It was not until about the middle of the second century that under therubric ofScripture theNew Testament writings were assimilated to the Old; the authority of theNew 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 theidea of a new body of sacred writings became clearer in the Early Church as the faithful advanced in aknowledge of the Faith. But it should be remembered that the inspired character of theNew Testament is aCatholicdogma, 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 inspiredEpistles ofSt. Paul have been lost. This appears from1 Corinthians 5:9, sqq.;2 Corinthians 2:4-5.
Irenæus, in his work "Against Heresies" (A.D. 182-88), testifies to the existence of aTetramorph, or Quadriform Gospel, given by the Word and unified by one Spirit; to repudiate this Gospel or any part of it, as did theAlogi andMarcionites, was tosin against revelation and theSpirit of God. The saintly Doctor ofLyons explicitly states the names of the four Elements of this Gospel, and repeatedly cites all theEvangelists in a manner parallel to his citations from theOld Testament. From the testimony ofSt. Irenæus alone there can be no reasonabledoubt that the Canon of the Gospel was inalterably fixed in theCatholicChurch by the last quarter of the second century. Proofs might be multiplied that our canonicalGospels were then universally recognized in theChurch, to the exclusion of any pretended Evangels. The magisterial statement ofIrenæus may be corroborated by the very ancient catalogue known as the Muratorian Canon, andSt. Hippolytus, representing Roman tradition; byTertullian inAfrica, by Clement in Alexandria; the works of theGnostic Valentinus, and the SyrianTatian's Diatessaron, a blending together of theEvangelists' 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 after2 Peter 3:16, the wordScripture applied to aNew Testament book. But it is needless in the present article to array the full force of these and other witnesses, since evenrationalistic 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. Theapocryphal Gospel of St. Peter, dating from about 150, is based on our canonicalEvangelists. So with the very ancient Gospel of the Hebrews and Egyptians (seeAPOCRYPHA).St. Justin Martyr (130-63) in his Apology refers to certain "memoirs of the Apostles, which are called gospels", and which "are read inChristian 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 throughSt. Justin's works; it was not yet the age of explicit quotations.Marcion, theheretic refuted byJustin in a lost polemic, as weknow fromTertullian, 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 aGnosticsect, wrote a commentary on "the Gospel" which is known by the allusions to it in theFathers to have comprised the writings of the FourEvangelists.
In our backward search we have come to the sub-Apostolic age, and its important witnesses are divided intoAsian, Alexandrian, and Roman:
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 theChurch, 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 bySt. John the Evangelist, reveals that either the latter himself of acollege of his disciples added theFourth Gospel to theSynoptics, and made the group into the compact and unalterable "Gospel", the one in four, whose existence and authority left their clear impress upon all subsequentecclesiastical literature, and find their conscious formulation in the language ofIrenæus.
Parallel to the chain of evidence we have traced for the canonical standing of the Gospels extends one for the thirteenEpistles ofSt. 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 withIrenæus, gives the complete list of the thirteen, which, it should be remembered, does not include Hebrews. ThehereticalBasilides and his disciples quote from this Pauline group in general. The copious extracts fromMarcion's works scattered throughIrenæus andTertullian show that he was acquainted with the thirteen as inecclesiastical use, and selected hisApostolikon of six from them. The testimony ofPolycarp and Ignatius is again capital in this case. Eight ofSt. Paul's writings are cited byPolycarp;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 samehonour to I Corinthians, so that we may rightfully draw the inference, with Dr. Zahn, that as early as Clement's daySt. Paul'sEpistles 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 andPolycarp employ these Epistles. The tendency of the evidence is to establish the hypothesis that the important Church ofCorinth was the first to form a complete collection ofSt. Paul's writings.
In this formative period the Epistle to the Hebrews did not obtain a firm footing in the Canon of the Universal Church. AtRome 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 atRome as early as St. Clement, as the latter's epistle attests. The Alexandrian Church admitted it as the work ofSt. Paul, and canonical. TheMontanists favoured it, and the aptness with which vi, 4-8, lent itself to theMontanist andNovatianist 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 theNew 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, whileall the secondary books were recognized in some Churches. A singular exception to the universality of the above-described substance of theNew Testament was the Canon of the primitive East Syrian Church, which did not contain any of theCatholic Epistles or Apocalypse.
The question of the principle that dominated the practical canonization of theNew 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 andEvangelists 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 ofGod, 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 betterknowledge of thefaith. In this connection Zahn observes with muchtruth that the rise ofMontanism, with itsfalseprophets, who claimed for their written productions--the self-styled Testament of theParaclete--the authority of revelation, around theChristian 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 ofIrenæus, we discover the firmly-rootedidea of two Testaments, with the same Spirit operating in both. ForTertullian (c. 200) the body of the New Scripture is aninstrumentum on at least an equal footing and in the same specific class as theinstrumentum formed by the Law and the Prophets.Clement of Alexandria was the first to apply the word "Testament" to the sacredlibrary of the New Dispensation. A kindred external influence is to be added toMontanism: the need of setting up a barrier, between the genuine inspired literature and the flood of pseudo-Apostolic apocrypha, gave an additional impulse to theidea of a New Testament canon, and later contributed not a little to the demarcation of its fixed limits.
In this stage of the historical development of the Canon of the New Testament we encounter for the first time a consciousness reflected in certainecclesiastical writers, of the differences between the sacred collections in divers sections ofChristendom. This variation is witnessed to, and the discussion stimulated by, two of the most learned men ofChristian antiquity,Origen, andEusebius of Cæsarea, theecclesiastical 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:-
Origen's travels gave him exception opportunities toknow the traditions of widely separated portions of theChurch and made him very conversant with the discrepant attitudes toward certain parts of theNew Testament. He divided books with Biblical claims into three classes:
In the first class, theHomologoumena, 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, theDidache, 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 disputedCatholic Epistles a firm place in the Alexandrian Canon, their tenure there having been previously insecure, judging from theexegetical work of Clement, and the list in the Codex Claromontanus, which is assigned by competent scholars to an early Alexandrian origin.
Eusebius,Bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine, was one ofOrigen's most eminent disciples, a man of wide erudition. In imitation of his master he divided religious literature into three classes:
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 theChristian Testament?--Zahn attributes it to the influence of Lucian ofSamosata, one of the founders of the Antiochschool ofexegesis, and with whose disciplesEusebius had been associated. Lucian himself had acquired hiseducation atEdessa, themetropolis of EasternSyria, which had, as already remarked, a singularly curtailed Canon.Lucian is known to have edited the Scriptures atAntioch, and is supposed to have introduced there the shorterNew Testament which laterSt. John Chrysostom and his followers employed--one in which Apocalypse, II Peter, II and III John, and Jude had no place. It is known thatTheodore of Mopsuestia rejected all theCatholic Epistles. InSt. 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 smallerEpistles--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 ofOrigen by admitting the three longerCatholic Epistles and keeping out Apocalypse. But after allowing fully for the prestige of the founder of the Antiochschool, 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 theMontanists andChiliasts--Asia Minor being the nursery of both theseerrors--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 theAloges--also ofAsia Minor--who branded Apocalypse and all the Johannine writings as the work of thehereticCerinthus. Whatever may have been all the influences ruling the personal Canon ofEusebius, he chose Lucian's text for the fifty copies of theBible which he furnished to theChurch of Constantinople at the order of his imperial patron Constantine; and he incorporated all theCatholic Epistles, but excluded Apocalypse. The latter remained for more than a century banished from the sacred collections as current inAntioch and Constantinople. However, this book kept a minority ofAsiatic suffrages, and, as both Lucian andEusebius had been tainted withArianism, theapprobation of Apocalypse, opposed by them, finally came to be looked upon as a sign oforthodoxy.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.
St. Cyprian, whose Scriptural Canon certainly reflects the contents of the first Latin Bible, received all the books of theNew 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 byTertullian, but, strangely, it had lost its position in the African Church, probably owing to its citation of theapocryphal 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, amanuscript 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 theNew Testament portion, and proves that at its time the books universally acknowledged in the influential Church of Carthage were almost identical with those received byCyprian 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 noteuna 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.
While the influence ofAthanasius on theCanon of the Old Testament was negative and exclusive (seesupra), in that of theNew Testament it was trenchantly constructive. In his "Epistola Festalis" (A.D. 367) the illustriousBishop of Alexandria ranks all ofOrigen'sNew 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 ofecclesiastical authority that not only were works which formerly enjoyed high standing at broad-minded Alexandria--theApocalypse of Peter and theActs of Paul--involved byAthanasius with the apocrypha, but even some thatOrigen had regarded asinspired--Barnabas, theShepherd of Hermas, theDidache--were ruthlessly shut out under the same damnatory title.
The Muratorian Canon or Fragment, composed in theRoman 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 atRome 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 atRome 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 theLatin Church. It is a singular fact that while the East, mainly throughSt. Jerome's pen, exerted a disturbing and negative influence on Western opinion regarding theOld 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 ofJerusalem 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 ofAthanasius, and the powerful Patriarchate of Constantinople, with the scholarship ofEusebius behind its judgment, had canonized all the disputed Epistles.St. Jerome, a rising light in theChurch, though but a simplepriest, was summoned byPope Damasus from the East, where he was pursuing sacred lore, to assist at an eclectic, but not ecumenical, synod atRome in the year 382. Neither the general council at Constantinople of the preceding year nor that ofNice (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 materialdating from the two preceding ones. The Damasan catalogue presents the complete and perfect Canon which has been that of theChurch Universal ever since. TheNew Testament portion bears the marks of Jerome's views.St. Jerome, always prepossessed in favour of Oriental positions in matters Biblical, exerted then ahappy influence in regard to theNew Testament; if he attempted to place any Eastern restriction upon theCanon of the Old Testament his effort failed of any effect. The title of thedecree--"Nunc vero de scripturis divinis agendum est quid universalis Catholica recipiat ecclesia, et quid vitare debeat"--proves that the council drew up a list ofapocryphal as well as authentic Scriptures. The Shepherd and thefalse Apocalypse of Peter now received their final blow. "Rome had spoken, and the nations of the West had heard" (Zahn). The works of the LatinFathers 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.
It was some little time before the African Church perfectly adjusted itsNew 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 ofHippo (393) the great Doctor's view prevailed, and the correct Canon was adopted. However, it is evident that it found many opponents inAfrica, since three councils there at brief intervals--Hippo,Carthage, in 393; Third of Carthage in 397; Carthage in 419--found itnecessary 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 ofSt. Paul, is still numbered separately from the time-consecrated group of thirteen. The catalogues ofHippo and Carthage are identical with theCatholic Canon of the present. In Gaul somedoubts lingered for a time, as we findPope Innocent I, in 405, sending a list of the Sacred Books to one of itsbishops,Exsuperius of Toulouse.
So at the close of the first decade of the fifth century the entireWestern 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 theCatholicChurch as a whole the content of theNew Testament was definitely fixed, and the discussion closed.
The final process of this Canon's development had been twofold: positive, in the permanentconsecration of several writings which had long hovered on the line between canonical andapocryphal; 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 theCatholicChurch. Thus, likeOrigen,St. Jerome adduces thetestimony of the ancients andecclesiastical usage in pleading the cause of the Epistle to the Hebrews (De Viris Illustribus, lix). There is no sign that theWestern Church ever positively repudiated any of theNew 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. (SeeEPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS;EPISTLES OF ST. PETER; EPISTLE OF JAMES; EPISTLE OF JUDE; EPISTLES OF JOHN;APOCALYPSE.)
TheNew 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 whenecclesiastical 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 byindividuals toadd something to the received collection. In several ancient Latinmanuscripts the spurious Epistle to the Laodiceans is found among the canonical letters, and, in a few instances, theapocryphal III Corinthians. The last trace of any Western contradiction within theChurch to the Canon of the New Testament reveals a curious transplantation of Orientaldoubts 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 ofexcommunication. The opposition in all probability came from theVisigoths, who had recently been converted fromArianism. The Gothic Bible had been made under Oriental auspices at a time when there was still much hostility to Apocalypse in the East.
This ecumenical synod had to defend the integrity of theNew Testament as well as the Old against the attacks of thepseudo-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. (Œcolampadius placedJames,Jude,II Peter,II andIII John in an inferior rank. Even a fewCatholic scholars of theRenaissance type, notablyErasmus and Cajetan, had thrown somedoubts on the canonicity of the above-mentioned Antilegomena. As to whole books, theProtestantdoubts were the only ones the Fathers ofTrent 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 thePericope Adulteræ in John.Cardinal Cajetan had approvingly quoted an unfavourable comment ofSt. Jerome regardingMark 16:9-20;Erasmus had rejected the section on the Adulterous Woman as unauthentic. Still, even concerning these nodoubt of authenticity was expressed atTrent; 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 ofTrent on the Canon, the reader is referred back to the respective section of the article: II.The Canon of theOld Testament in theCatholicChurch.
TheTridentinedecree 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 theBull ofEugenius IV (Council of Florence), except that Acts was moved from a place before Apocalypse to its present position, and Hebrews put at the end ofSt. Paul'sEpistles. TheTridentine order has been retained in the officialVulgate and vernacularCatholic 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 theVatican Council on theNew Testament, seePart II above.)
The Orthodox Russian and other branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church have aNew Testament identical with theCatholic. InSyria theNestorians possess a Canon almost identical with the final one of the ancient East Syrians; they exclude the four smallerCatholic Epistles and Apocalypse. TheMonophysites receive all the book. TheArmenians have oneapocryphal letterto the Corinthians and twofrom the same. TheCoptic-Arabic Church include with the canonical Scriptures the Apostolic Constitutions and the Clementine Epistles. TheEthiopicNew Testament also contains the so-called "Apostolic Constitutions".
As forProtestantism, theAnglicans andCalvinists always kept the entireNew Testament. But for over a century the followers ofLuther 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 centuryLutherantheologians was to class all these writings as ofdoubtful, or at least inferior, authority. But gradually the GermanProtestants familiarized themselves with theidea that the difference between the contested books of theNew Testament and the rest was one of degree ofcertainty as to origin rather than of instrinsic character. The full recognition of these books by theCalvinists andAnglicans made it much more difficult for theLutherans to exclude theNew 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 1700Bossuet could say that allCatholics andProtestants agreed on the New Testament canon. The only trace of opposition now remaining in GermanProtestant 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 theCatholic Epistles.
Even thoseCatholictheologians who defend Apostolicity as a test for the inspiration of theNew 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 theChurch, or theinfallible pronouncements of ecumenical councils. This external guarantee is the sufficient, universal, and ordinaryproof of inspiration. The unique quality of the Sacred Books is arevealeddogma. Moreover, by its very nature inspiration eludes human observation and is not self-evident, being essentially superphysical andsupernatural. Its sole absolute criterion, therefore, is the Holy inspiring Spirit, witnessing decisively to Itself, not in the subjective experience of individualsouls, asCalvin maintained, neither in thedoctrinal and spiritual tenor ofHoly Writ itself, according toLuther, but through the constituted organ and custodian of Its revelations, theChurch. All other evidences fall short of thecertainty and finalitynecessary to compel the absolute assent offaith. (SeeFranzelin, "De Divinâ Traditione et Scripturâ";Wiseman, "Lectures on Christian Doctrine", Lecture ii; alsoINSPIRATION.)
APA citation.Reid, G.(1908).Canon of the New Testament. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm
MLA citation.Reid, George."Canon of the New Testament."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 3.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1908.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Ernie Stefanik.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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