Editorial Keynotes

1. Objectives Defined.—As is well known, the twenty-seven books comprising our New Testament are not arranged in the chronolog­ical order of their writing. Their imposing unity is not based upon this element. Our English Bibles simply follow the order first given in Jerome's Latin Vulgate (completed 405 A. D.) , depending, therefore, largely upon the judgment of one man. In fact, the original Greek manuscript collections do not agree among themselves as to a particular order of the separate books, some of them having re­markable differences.

There were, however, five well-defined groups —though not chronological either as to group or their component books—that were clearly recognized by the close of the second century: (1) The Four Gospels; (2) The Acts of the Apostles; (3) The General Epistles; (4) The Pauline Epistles; and (5) The Apocalypse. But without concern, in this section, as to the chronological order of the writing of the indi­vidual books, we address ourselves to historical and chronological aspects of various collections, and to noting acceptance of individual books or groups of books into a slowly but steadily forming New Testament canon in the early centuries of the Christian era.

2. Original Autographs.—In the dispensa­tion of God's providence, the lives of a number of the apostles were prolonged for many years. For more than half a century after the cross, the Christian churches were formed and fos­tered under the watchcare of these men of God; and their writings, as read in the churches, were received by common consent as the oracles of God. 2 Peter 3:15, 16. These writings were known to be genuine in the same way that any writings are determined genuine. For example, take the first letters Paul wrote to any of the churches, namely, Thessalonians. He had been preaching to them only a short time previously, and he already had sent them his first epistle. He then dispatched a second letter full of allusions to their affairs, telling them how to conduct the work of the church. explaining part of his former letter, and for­mally giving them his signature for the purpose of identification, and for comparison with any document purporting to come from him. With his autograph, he says: "The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write." 2 Thess. 3:17. It is unthinkable that such a church could not tell the handwriting of its minister who had labored among them. Verily, the primitive churches had conclusive evidence of the genuineness of the apostolic Epistles and Gospels. The internal evidence of the writings themselves, and the testimony of the bearers of the documents, were, of course, the consum­mating proof.

Some of these writings, however, were not generally known in this way beyond the churches where the originals were deposited. These were retained as separate books, and copies of a few were gathered together into small collections, as actual attempts to assem­ble the apostolic writings began to be made. The change from the apostolic to the subapos­tolic age is abrupt and striking. Nonapostolic books soon struggled for inclusion in these groups. So learned men, appointed leaders in the church, investigated the evidence upon which any book was attributed to an apostle; and finding satisfactory evidence, or failing to find such, expressed their conclusions for the in­formation of the Christian church. In order to guard against spurious Gospels and Epistles, they began to publish lists of those known to have been written by the apostles. Thus the standard was fixed as the church was rent with internal divisions.

I. The Second Century

1. Initial Collections.—There is evidence that the four Gospels had been 'brought to­gether by Christian leaders in Asia Minor as early as 115 A. D., though clear distinction should be made between these earliest local collections, and their later general acceptance as part of a formal or official canon. Even as early as 95 A. D., Clement of Rome alludes to passages in Matthew, Luke, Hebrews, Romans, Corinthians, 1 Timothy, Titus, 1 Peter, and Ephesians—nine books. This list is amplified by Ignatius about 115 A. n., and by Polycarp. Much the same witness is borne by other church lead­ers, listing various groupings, till we come to the period of the more voluminous writers. In fact, an uninterrupted series of such writings from this early period onward contains allu­sions to, or quotations from, each of the twenty-seven New Testament books. So, in the first half of the second century, there is general recognition of the importance and acknowl­edged status of the apostolic writings, crys­tallizing the idea that the Gospels and the Epistles parallel the law and the prophets.

2. Early Apologists.—The severely repres­sive attitude of the civil government, because of the rapid growth of the Christian church, together with the development of heresies within the church, brought into prominence at this time such apologists as Justin Martyr, with his "Apology" and his "Dialogue With Trypho." Justin Martyr, it should be observed, was the first ecclesiastic of whom we have rec­ord, in this early period, to place the apostolic writings definitely on a level with the Old Testament, which was foundational in the forma­tion of an authoritative New Testament canon.

Aristides, Melito, and Theophilus were like-wise active. These early champions, in setting forth their teachings, thrust forward the apostolic writings stanchly, presenting them as the recognized authority of the church, on a level with the Old Testament, and introduced them by "it is written," or "as the Scriptures say."

But, alas, at the same time there developed an increasingly heavy draft upon other than apostolic writings, in defense of the Christian faith, some of which were of very questionable char­acter. Thus the apocryphal writings of New

Testament times, written, many of them, dur­ing the lifetime of the apostles, differ from the Old Testament Apocrypha, which was written subsequent to the death of the prophets and after the close of the canon.

On the other hand, Celsus, agnostic Epicu­rean philosopher of this period, who wrote a work against Christianity entitled, "The True Word," quoted so many passages from the Gospels that, should the New Testament be blotted out of existence, all the principal facts of the birth, teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection of Christ could be reconstructed from the fragments recorded in this Celsian tirade. Such is the testimony of an enemy.

3. Gnostic Conflict.—While the apologists were vigorously defending Christianity against attacks from without, the Gnostic and other heresies, boring from within, compelled a re­newed study of the writings of the apostles.

It came about in this way: The Gnostics claimed that Jesus had committed certain eso­teric truths to a favored few, which so-called truths had been handed down to them by secret tradition, and which transcended the written teachings. This was denied by the body of the church, and an intense conflict ensued. The two principal groups among the heretics were the Marcionites, who arbitrarily mutilated the canon of the time, and the Valentinians, who were the more numerous. One investigator states, "What Marcion accomplished with knife and eraser, the Valentinians sought to do by means of exposition."—Zahn, in Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, Vol. II, p. 395. The resultant controversy raged for years, the question of what constituted the authoritative Sacred Writ­ings becoming more and more acute.

4. Marcion's Relationship. — Marcion of Pontus, in Asia Minor, noted founder of this Marcion sect, broke with the church about 140 A. D., becoming a militant heretic. He rejected the incarnation and sufferings of the Son of God. In support of his views he formed a dis­tinctly arbitrary and partisan canon of his own, consisting of a modification of Luke's Gospel, together with ten of Paul's Epistles (Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 and 2 Thessa­lonians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon), but leaving out the letters to Tim­othy and Titus. He also rejected Hebrews, Matthew, Mark, John, Acts, the general Epis­tles, and Revelation. He excluded the Old Tes­tament as well. His list is of value, and is mentioned here because it gives evidence of Paul's writings being in collected form, and the acceptance of a majority of them by even a heretic at that early day.

Marcion, living when he had full opportunity for discovering any forgery or fraud, if such existed,—having traveled from Sinope, on the Black Sea, to Rome, and through Galatia, Bithynia, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, the sections where the apostles preached, and em­bracing the churches to whom they wrote,—simply affirmed that the Gospel of Matthew, the Epistle to the Hebrews, those of James and Peter, as well as the whole of the Old Tes­tament, were for the Jews only, and published his emasculated collection for the use of his sect. (Lardner: "Credibility of the Gospel History," Vol IX, p. 358.) But the very sit­uation created brought the issue of the canon to the forefront. So it has been said, with significance, "In the struggle with Gnosticism the canon was made."

5. Opposition Accelerates.—Thus we come to the middle of the second century, with in­creasing recognition of the authority of the body of apostolic writings by the church at large, together with vigorous opposition to per­verted teachings, and agitation concerning apocryphal books. Summarizing specifically as to the canon, the characteristic up to this point was that of separate circulation, and of grad­ual and circumscribed collections of the apos­tolic writings. It was not until about 185 A. D. that any individual collection approximating our full New Testament was made. But before the end of the second century these still incom­plete collections of apostolic writings were quite firmly established in different sections.

The lesser Epistles (of John, Peter, and James) were variously treated as the third century was reached, some accepting and some refusing them. The Syrian church declined to accept them, but in Alexandria and the West they became established parts of the New Tes­tament. In fact, the Peshito Syrian New Testa­ment was far more incomplete and interspersed with apocryphal writings than those of either East or West. The Syrian, incidentally, was the collection adopted by the Nestorians. Though complete unanimity was not yet at­tained, the principle of a New Testament along­side the Old Testament was now clearly estab­lished and generally adopted. So in the third century there is little change. Notable leaders like Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, and CYP^­rian accept practically all of the twenty-seven books, though there is some reservation con­cerning three or four of the minor ones, these general * Epistles gaining recognition in the West more slowly than in the East. It is in­teresting to note that in Origen's writings we find the earliest reference by name to the Epis­tle of James. He also quotes from Jude, as if personally accepting both, but alludes to doubts existing in regard to them. The Donatists, however, exercise a strict integrity toward both.

III. The Fourth Century

1. Crystallized Concepts.—During the latter part of the third century and the larger por­tion of the fourth, a voluminous theological literature was produced, replete with discus­sion of the canon. Irenmus, Clement of Alex­andria, and Tertullian are typical, representing Asia Minor, Egypt, and North Africa, voicing sentiments that by this time are clearly crys­tallized. The concept of a New Testament canon is now sharp and clear, and the author­ity of the apostolic Scriptures fully acknowl­edged. Yet while there is general agreement on the body of writings, there is still no little diversity as to certain specific items in the canon. Different groups still hold to different combinations, their differences all centering over a few of its inclusions or exclusions.

The three prominent church leaders named above stress the four Gospels, the Acts, the thirteen Epistles of Paul, most of the general Epistles, and the Apocalypse, which they re­gard as Scripture as fully as the Old Testa­ment. But for a century or so the apocryphal books (Epistle of Clement, Epistles of Ignatius, Epistle of Polycarp, Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, Shepherd of Hernias, Epistle of Barnabas, etc.) had struggled for in­clusion in the canon, in certain localities, and the disputes concerning them had been heated.

2. Eusebian Canon.—In the fourth century Eusebius gives most valuable testimony, though substantially that of Origen. He catalogues the fully acknowledged books, and alludes to the still disputed ones; namely, James, Jude, 2 Peter, and 2 John. The catalogue of Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 340) is essentially the same,—like ours, save Revelation. Approximately the same is true of Lucian of Antioch, who ex­cluded Revelation, while receiving James, 1 Peter, and 1 John. It will thus be seen that the Eusebian canon is identical with ours, with the exception of Revelation, about which he could not quite come to a conclusion, placing it in the doubtful class. He unconsciously gives the process by which books were then admitted to or excluded from the canon. All claimants were divided by him into three classes: (1) Those universally admitted as apostolic and authoritative; (2) Those con­tested by some; and (3) Those whose spuriousness was generally admitted. Thus the prac­tice of the fourth century is seen to coincide in the main with Origen's position in the third.

3. West's Decision.—Finally Athanasius, noted bishop of Alexandria, decreed in an Easter letter dated 367 A. D., that the canon consists of the twenty-seven books that we now recognize, and wrote, "Let none add to these. Let nothing be taken away." His list of twenty-seven seemed as firmly settled as Euse­bius's twenty-six had been. Just thirty years later this question of the disputed books was finally settled for the West by the Third Coun­cil of Carthage, 397 A. n., accepting the list of the twenty-seven as canonical. Thus the usage in Rome, Carthage, and Alexandria became uni­form. And with this Third Council of Car­thage, the canon assumed permanently the form and content we now have.

This council, in giving the full list of the twenty-seven books, decreed: "Aside from the canonical Scriptures nothing is to be read in church under the name of Divine Scriptures." It might be remarked that Ambrose and Rufi­nus had previously witnessed to the same ef­fect. While differences of private judgment and practice still persisted, this council de­cree was the formal ratification for the West, and virtually settled the matter in the Latin church.

*Acknowledgment of indebtedness is hereby made to F. M. Wilcox, W. 11, French, W. E. Howell, W. M. Landeen. F. A. Schilling, F. 1). Nichol, H. C. Lacey, M. E. Kern, and N. I. Waldorf, for reading these presentations in manuscript form, and for helpful suggestions offered.—L. E. F.

*An alternate term, namely, "catholic Epistles." appears constantly in the writings of authorities in this field, and simply means general, or universal. Nor should the parallel expression, "Ancient Catholic Church," used of the first two or three centuries, be confused with the later Roman Catholic Church. As used by church historians, it simply means the an­cient, undivided, universal—and hence catholic—Christian church that existed from the apostolic days until the time of Constantine.