He was probably the first Christian to do so, apart from Justin. Although such action is necessary for there to be any hope of control over a reliable textual tradition in a milieu of wanton invention and combative propaganda, the fact that it only begins at such a late date is another blow against those who set their hopes on having complete confidence in the present canon. It means that a century of prolific writing went largely unchecked before the church took any concerted action to stop it. This first case is reported by Tertullian On Baptism, He was brought before a church council, convicted of falsification, and removed from office.
But disturbingly, Tertullian attacks the book primarily because it depicts a woman Thecla, a disci- ple of Paul preaching and administering baptism. Indeed, Tertullian, as a hostile witness set on abolishing the text, 56 Ibid. This is all too likely, since there are indications that Tertullian was not an honest man see XV.
It must also be noted that our evidence for church reactions to texts is incredibly scarce. For there were books that were extant in the second century yet never mentioned and thus entirely unknown until recovered in more recent times. How many other Christian writings are there that we are completely ignorant of? For instance, traces of a forged Epistle survive in the Coptic Egyp- tian and Ethiopian manuscript traditions: This text has been plausibly dated to ca. AD it does fit the mystical orthodoxy of Irenaeus , and even earlier than AD by some scholars. It is too derivative and fan- tastic in my opinion to come so early, but redaction evidence points strongly to a middle date: He is also a window into the thinking of converts: While touring churches in Asia he came upon a dispute in a village in Cilicia about whether the Gospel of Peter could be read in church.
Thus, doctrine more than objective evidence of historicity was driving the selection of canonical texts. This despite the fact that this Gospel may have been written as early as AD ,64 again if not earlier, although a later date is still possible, especially if the four canonical Gospels are likewise given later dates than usual, since Peter may have drawn on them. There really is no way to resolve this question.
At best or at worst, depending on your point of view , it remains only a faint possibility. Sometimes simpler redactions follow, rather than precede, the originals. In this same period we know these books were being doctored and battles were being fought over authenticity along ideological lines. In the letter from Dionysius cited earlier, where he informs his readers that even his own letters are being cut up and added to, he quotes the curse for such people in Revelation, which reveals that this sort of license was being exercised widely enough even when the Revelation was written that a curse had to be reserved for it.
Dionysius is also notable for having tried to resolve doubts about the authen- ticity of the Apocalypse of John by ascribing it to a John other than the Apostle. In AD , Athenagoras of Athens composed a lengthy philosophical essay, Defense of the Christians, addressed to the emperor Marcus Aurelius in which the first articulation of a theory of the Trinity appears. The quotes or paraphrases that he uses happen to come from a few Epistles of Paul, and from all the Gospels in a mishmash,68 suggesting a harmonic source like the Diatessaron. But the respect that this defense, and others like it, earned among orthodox Christians contributed to forming decisions on canonicity based on whether they accorded with works like it.
Shortly after AD , Irenaeus was asked to compose an account of the persecutions in Lyons for the churches in Asia, and this letter is preserved by Eusebius Hist. This text quotes or paraphrases various New Testament books without naming them. Some years after this he com- posed a mighty treatise Against All Heresies and a Demonstration of the Apostolic Teaching.
In these he quotes exactly almost every book of the New Testament, numerous times, demonstrating that the orthodox canon, though not established officially, was by this time generally accepted in practice. A similar text, the Acts of Peter, may date from around the same time ibid. Metzger reasons this as proof that Latin translations of the letters and Gos- pels existed by then, though this is a shaky argument at best.
It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are, since there are four directions of the world in which we are, and four principal winds Against All Heresies, 3. Pantaenus is also the first to defend the Epistle to the Hebrews as authentic this had long been in dispute even by his time , on the argument that Paul wanted to compose it anonymously for that particular audience,74 and this opinion is generally carried as authoritative. The Apocalypse of Peter is especially worth mentioning here. It was probably written between AD and AD and remained in various church lists as a canonical text for centuries.
This text was not only popular and often treated as the genuine work of Peter even by the very scholarly Clement , but its influence on the Christian religion as a whole is pro- found: In addition, thanks to Clement, we know of a Gospel written some time in the first half of the second century if not earlier that did not make it into the final canon despite having been held as canonical by Clement, and many others including Jerome: Though it only survives in a few quotations, we know it was only slightly shorter than the present Gospel of Matthew.
In fact, James is depicted as having expected and anticipated the resurrection, even fasting until it should occur. If true, this is an excellent starting point for possible hallucinations of a risen Christ: The loss of this text, and thus our inability to assess its merit, is another fact that greatly obscures any attempt to get at the historical truth behind the origins of Christian- ity.
Finally, Morton Smith discovered a very late copy of a certain letter by Clement which has something unusual to say about the Gospel of Mark. Whether the letter is authentic or not, this betrays a problem for cur- rent scholars: To what extent were these lost, or incorporated in orthodox or heret- ical writings? Since secret traditions are the easiest to lose or corrupt, there may be a lot to the Christian creed in the first century that is lost to us today and that would, if found, radically change what we think about Jesus or the first evangelists and their beliefs.
There may also be doc- trines or sayings among the Gnostics which are authentic, but indistinguishable from others that are not. The earlier date is more likely, hence I am placing it here in my chronological account, although the manuscript tradition is clearly too poor to exclude alterations made over time. We don't know who wrote it, when, why, or whether it has been compromised over time, nor is it complete, and it is so badly written its meaning is unclear, as is the competence of its author and copyists.
Most importantly, this text is never referred to by anyone, and would have remained thoroughly unknown if it had not been recovered in fairly recent times. Even Eusebius below shows no awareness of it. Thus, its influence, if any, on later decisions cannot be known.
The list at relatively great length attacks Marcionism a heresy of the mid-to-late second cen- tury , and a few other early heresies Montanism and the Valentinians , and may in fact represent an early attempt to counter the first Christian canon that of Marcion by declaring one opposed to it. Of particular note, it rejects a now-lost letter of Paul to the Alexandrians as a Marcionite forgery.
If this document genuinely preserves orthodox sentiments late in the second century, this confirms my general impression that the traditional canon was more or less established by then perhaps under the influence of Justin and his pupil Tatian , that it was driven primarily by the need to oppose the heresy of Marcion and others, and it was brought about haphazardly, without any offi- cial vote or decision, and before any serious scholars such as Clement or Origen examined the case.
Once such scholars finally faced the question, they were already bound by faith to a received 86 Ibid. In AD Origen became head of the Christian seminary at the age of 18, a true prodigy. Due to a dispute with the bishop of Alexandria, Origen was expelled from that church and his post around AD , and he went and founded a second seminary at Caesarea which stole the spotlight from Alexandria. Origen is crucial in the tradition because he is known to have traveled widely, West and East, and was a voracious scholar and prodigious writer and commentator on the Old Tes- tament, New Testament and other texts.
He is also exceptional in being a relatively skeptical scholar. Even though only a fraction of his works have survived, even those fill volumes. There is no sign that Origen was employing here any objective historical or textual criteria. AD , Commentary on Romans, Like his tutor, Clement, he also includes the Didakhe and the Epistle of Barnabas as scripture. Origen writes at length on the brother of Jesus but he never mentions the Epistles of James as being by him Commentary on Matthew, 2. Tertullian generally accepts the traditional canon, including Her- mas, until his conversion to Montanism, at which point he declares it false,94 and tells a story, somehow never mentioned before, that its author was kicked out of the church for composing a lie.
Unfortunately, Tertullian is notoriously prone to reporting fabulous lies in support of his views, very much in the fashion of a slimy lawyer, and the most notorious case is when he claims that Tiberius asked the Senate at Rome to recognize Christianity as an official religion Apology, 1. Cyprian follows, and as a convert in AD , then bishop and martyr in AD , he repeats the superstitious rationale for the four-Gospel tradition: Even more than combating heresy, this became an important factor in compelling decisions of canonicity by forcing Christians to decide which books could be surrendered to authorities and burned without committing a sin, in contrast with those that were worth dying for.
See the Best Books of Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for the best books of the year in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries. Aircraft Carriers: 2 and millions of other books are available for Amazon Kindle. . Book Box, a subscription that delivers hand-picked children's books every 1, 2, . I have no doubt that his 'new testament' will be received as enthusiastically as .
But the persecutions did not prevent even more spurious works from being generated. The Epis- tle of Paul to the Laodiceans, a poor forgery written perhaps near the end of the third century inspired by Col 4: It was apparently admired by many monks in the early Middle Ages, yet never had a chance at the canon, and it is best classified with the third century Christian novels and other works of Christian fiction that proliferated in this period. The first Christian scholar to engage in researching and writing a complete history of the Chris- tian church, Eusebius of Caesarea, reveals the embarrassing complexity of the development of the Christian canon, despite his concerted attempt to cover this with a pro-orthodox account.
Two things must be known: Eusebius was an Arian until that day, and, not desiring to lose his position in the church, he abandoned his Arian- ism. This may reveal once again how doctrine more than objective scholarship affected Christian choices concerning canoni- cal texts. Even in AD , when Eusebius published the final draft of his Church History, two years after the great Council of Nicea, which set out to establish a decisive orthodox creed that would be enforced by law throughout the world, there was no official Bible.
Of these there is not a trace in the long series of literary notices, so conscientiously amassed by the historian. But, when all is done, the most that Eusebius can register is uncer- tainty so great that he seems to get confused when making a statement about it. This standard is obviously multiply flawed: There is no reference to standards of historical research or textual criticism, for example.
And against general sentiment, Eusebius only voices one opinion of his own, in defense of the Revelation of John, which was already in the second category and thus half-way to being canonical. Most astonishing is the fact that, after leaving us with this confusing state of affairs, Eusebius reports that the Emperor Constantine commissioned Eusebius personally to produce fifty excellent copies of the sacred scriptures which would be the basis, no doubt, of the official imperial Bible Life of Constantine, 4.
Two nearly-complete Bibles survive from the fourth century which some believe may be copies of this imperial standard text: We may wonder what books, if any, were appended after Hermas. Finally, we have another anonymous list in Latin of the books included in the Bible, found in a sixth century manuscript, which cannot be dated securely, though ca. AD is most likely, and it confirms the state of confusion met by Eusebius, as well as the esteem still reserved for certain books no longer in the Bible today. Metzger suggests likely scribal errors here, but clearly, before the late fourth century, the contents of the Bible were neither entirely settled, nor quite like what they are today.
Around AD , for his churches in Jerusalem, Bishop Cyril composed a set of lectures with the explicit purpose of indoctrinating new members of the Church, which explained every aspect of the orthodox faith, including the texts to be regarded as holy scripture Catechetical Lectures, 4. Moreover, Cyril declares that no other books are to be read, not even privately. His canon consists of the four Gospels, Acts, and the now-standard 21 Epistles, in short the present Bible, minus the Revelation.
The first synod ever held to decide the official contents of the Bible was the Synod of Laodicea Asia Minor in AD , consisting of twenty to thirty bishops. The influence of Cyril is almost certain. Since the canon list does not even appear in some versions of the synodic decree, it has also been suggested that the synod did not in fact name the books that were canonical but merely assumed the Cyrilian canon, and that someone later decided the decree had to be clarified by add- ing the list of books accepted by the church.
In such a case, the decision behind the list was even less reflective or objective. The next step was taken by the rabid anti-Arian conservative Athanasius, Bishop of Alexan- dria. It was consequently read and employed by the Syrian churches via Anti- och and the Western churches via Rome. In AD Athanasius took the chance afforded him and included in his Festal Epistle of that year what he declared to be the canonical texts: It was not until AD when this decision became anything official. That year the Trullan Synod was comprised of several Eastern bishops convened by Emperor Justinian to settle and orga- nize the authorities for Christian law just as Justinian had commanded for secular law.
This decreed that, for instance, both the Synod of Laodicea and the Epistles of Athanasius were to be considered authoritative, even though they contradicted each other on whether Revelation was to be included. Moreover, after the pro- nouncements of the fourth century on the proper content of the Bible, Tatian was declared a heretic and in the early fourth century Bishop Theodoretus of Cyrrhus and Bishop Rabbula of Edessa both in Syria rooted out all copies they could find of the Diatessaron and replaced them with the four canonical Gospels.
By the fifth century the Syrian Bible, called the Peshitta, became formalized somehow into its present form: Philemon was accepted, along with James, 1 Peter and 1 John, but the remaining books are still expelled 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Revelation, and Jude. After the Council of Ephesus in AD , the Eastern Syrian church, in turn divided between the Nestorian and the Syrian Ortho- dox Churches, broke away, and retained this canon of only 22 books the Peshitta until the present day.
However, to confuse matters, a monument erected by a Nestorian in China in AD states that there were 27 holy books the number in the standard Western Bible of today , although they are not named and there is debate over what books are meant. Meanwhile, the Western Monophys- ite Syrian church, at the urging of Bishop Philoxenus in AD , abandoned the Peshitta altogether and adopted a new Syriac translation of the Catholic Bible, yet the Harcleans still insisted on including 1 and 2 Clement in their Bible, the last surviving copy of which dates to AD The Armenian Bible is essentially the same as ours, with one addition: Revelation, however, was not accepted into the Armenian Bible until ca.
Still, there were unsuccessful attempts even as late as AD to include in the Armenian canon several apocryphal books: Bishop Hilary gained respect and authority among the Western orthodoxy for his clever and impassioned attack on Arianism at the Council of Seleucia in AD Since he had an affinity for some of the books accepted in the East but rejected in the West, this had the effect of turning the tide of opinion in the Western Church.
Once it won the endorsement of the pervasively-influential August- ine of Hippo in the early fifth century, its authority would never be questioned. On several occasions he makes statements that entail the belief that those books were to be accepted which had gained authority merely by having been long held in respect by the churches. Yet this manner of thinking has resulted in a certain con- tradiction in thinking about Biblical canonicity that remains to this day: Jude was accepted as canonical simply because it was long held in respect.
But Jude quotes the book of Enoch as an authority vv. Curiously, Jude is the only book in the New Testament that actually cites any other book outside of the Old Testament, and such a citation by its force and uniqueness should have won Enoch a place in the New Testament. Similarly, Jerome fully believed that the Epistle of Barnabas was authentically written by the companion of Paul, a fact that surely should have won it a place in the New Testament Luke and Acts, even in tradition, have no better authority than Ibid. In direct contrast, though he declared that no one really knew who wrote Hebrews, he still accepted it as an authority.
This is a method that contradicts all objective sense. Yet thus came the Bible. This is not an objective methodology by any stretch, and is entirely driven by blind tradi- tion and the demands of authoritarian dogma. Augustine effectively forced his opinion on the Church by commanding three synods on can- onicity: Incidentally, these decrees also declared by fiat that Hebrews was written by Paul, ending all debate on the subject.
That may have been convenient for the Church, but it was hardly honest. Nevertheless, Hebrews continued to be excluded from many Bibles in the West, while the bogus Epistle to the Laodiceans see XV continued to be found in hundreds of Bibles in vari- ous languages until relatively recent times. Strangely, this is essentially where the story ends. This pronouncement excluded Laodiceans and included Hebrews, thus effectively ratifying the 27 books that had been the staple of orthodox opinion since the fourth cen- tury AD.
No one can trust the opinions of such a man. Nevertheless, the canon of Florence was still not enforced by threat of excommunication until the canon was made an absolute article of faith at the Council of Trent in AD Almost all the Protestant churches followed suit within the next century with essentially identical conclusions, dissenting only by excluding the Old Testament apocrypha held as canon- ical by the Catholics. But it is worth adding an interesting irony: Luther wrote prefaces on the books of his Bible, and ordered the books Ibid.
And he repeats the argument from fatigue: The irony is that Luther is almost a twin of the heretic Marcion, who was, if you recall, the first man in Christian history to propose a canon. Though the two men differed on many key points, in a small sense the Reformation effec- tively re-launched the old Marcionite heresy, at the very end of the process of canonization that Marcion had begun. This is a question that the Church never addressed, and still has not, in any offi- cial capacity whatsoever.
This has resulted in an almost complete loss of history regarding which manuscript traditions are more or less authentic, or were even regarded as authentic. Scribal errors are also a problem little dealt-with by any church authority, an issue I discuss briefly in an example elsewhere. The Latin Vulgate Bible, translated late in the fourth century, copied from a correct edition and thus has also preserved the original meaning, which is now correctly reconstructed in more recent Bible translations: All from a single mistake of one letter.
There are three examples that we cite here of questionable methodology of Eusebius. Eusebius is the only author to quote certain imperial letters which he claims were attached to the Apologies of Justin Martyr, but they are obvious forgeries ibid. Eusebius is also infamous for saying that it was necessary to lie for the cause of Christianity.
In his Praeparatio Evangelica, That it is necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a medicine for those who need such an approach. For false- hood is something even more useful than the above, and sometimes even more able to bring it about that everyone willingly keeps to all justice. But to persuade people of it is not easy. Be it so; yet it proved easy to persuade men of the Sidonian fairy-tale, incredible though it was, and of numberless others. The tale of the teeth that were sown, and how armed men sprang out of them.
Here, indeed, the lawgiver has a notable example of how one can, if he tries, persuade the souls of the young of anything, so that the only question he has to consider in his inventing is what would do most good to the State, if it were believed; and then he must devise all possible means to ensure that the whole of the community con- stantly, so long as they live, use exactly the same language, so far as possible, about these mat- ters, alike in their songs, their tales, and their discourses.
If you, however, think otherwise, I have no objection to your arguing in the opposite sense.
Neither of us, I think, could possibly argue against your view. Plato had already had the Athenian argue that justice is the only real road to happiness, and therefore by this argument people can be persuaded to be good. But he then addresses the possibility that the truth will not suffice, or that justice is not in fact the only real road to happiness, by arguing that lying is acceptable, and even more effective in bringing about what is desired, that the people will be good, and thus the government's teachers should employ lies for the benefit of the state.
Eusebius then notes quite casually how the Hebrews did this, telling lies about their God, and he even com- pares such lies with medicine, a healthy and even necessary thing. The Old Testament in Early Christianity: Canon and Interpretation in the Light of Modern Research. Bible Carrier, Pink Color Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser. Have one to sell? Image Unavailable Image not available for Color: Amazon's Choice recommends highly rated, well-priced products available to ship immediately. Sold by Good Ruby and Fulfilled by Amazon.
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