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). The 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 (see BARNABAS, EPISTLE), 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

HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO; ST. PETER, JAMES, JUDE, JOHN, EPISTLES OF;

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.)

GEORGE J. REID

Transcribed by Ernie Stefanik

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III

Nihil Obstat, November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org