01.03 - The New Testament Canon

(3) New Testament Canon

Bishop Westcott, speaking of the esteem in which the Old Testament Scriptures wcre held in the clays of our Lord and His Apostles, and the formation of the New Testament Canon, says that the latter “ was a moral miracle of overwhelming dignity.” Vet it does seem to us that the recognition given to the Old Testament Scriptures, the importance ascribed to them, and the close relation in which they stood to Christ and Christianity, constituted the very ground for the formation of the New Testament Canon, while those ancient writings formed a nucleus around which to gather other writings of a similar character and tendency. The Old Testament Canon accordingly supplied the stamp and pattern for the New. But neither Jesus Christ nor His Apostles seem to have formed any deliberate purpose or set intention to create a body of New Testament writings. The Lord Jesus Himself wrote nothing, while the Evangelists and Apostles were primarily preachers of the gospel, and gave themselves chiefly to the oral proclamation of the great facts and truths of the gospel, and never committed any gospel or epistle to writing until the truths of the same had assumed a fixed form, and were publicly taught and known. The formation of the New Testament Canon was gradual and not a sudden creation, a growth and not a work. Harnack has spoken of it as being the creation of the Christian Churches of Asia Minor and Rome, about the middle of the second century, for the purpose of checking the inroads of Gnosticism and Montanism. This could not be, since the greater portion of the New Testament was written before the close of the first century, and the whole of it before the time referred to; and the writings of the New Testament were called into existence gradually and for the purpose of meeting existing religious and spiritual needs. So long as the Apostles and their helpers were able to gather their adherents in Christian assemblies and minister to them, and so long as they had the weekly or daily reading and exposition of the Old Testament Scriptures, they felt no special need for written gospels and epistles. But when adherents increased and assemblies multiplied, and heresies and false teachings crept in among them unawares, and the oral preaching of the gospel and the public reading of the Old Testament Scriptures failed to meet the needs of the assemblies, the custom of providing written records of the facts and lessons of Christ’s life and teaching, and of sending written gospels and epistles to be read in the assemblies along with the law and the prophets, became general. The preparation and circulation of these apostolic writings led to the writing of apocryphal gospels and epistles by unauthorised writers, whence arose the necessity for collecting and authorising a Canon of New Testament Scriptures.

This, however, was a work of time. The process was gradual, being after the fashion of the formation of the Old Testament Canon, and according to the method by which literature generally was accepted and authorised. Professor Sanday says, “The process was similar to that by which opinion has ripened on many another subject before and since. There entered into it a number of varied elements, reasonings partly conscious and partly unconscious, authority, usage, the sense of affinity to things spiritual, and of harmony between spiritual things already realised and appropriated, and others lying beyond, where the realisation and appropriation were still to come.” 1 Among the guiding, determining principles in the selection of the books of the New Testament Canon was “ Apostolicity.” It was to be expected that churches founded on the teachings of Christ and His Apostles would have special regard for writings of apostolic origin and. sanction, and which specially interpreted their mind and teachings. Apostolic authorship was not the sole criterion, because writings are included in the Canon the apostolic authorship of which is matter of dispute. And while some writings, which are the work of companions and fellowhelpers of the Apostles, have been admitted, other writings by fellow-helpers like the Epistles of Clement and Barnabas have been rejected. “ Apostolicity “ meant not merely apostolic authorship and sanction, but the further test of apostolic doctrine and teaching. The writings were judged by their contents, and were required to be according to the analogy of the faith,” or were already accepted and used by the Churches. The standard of the faith was that fixed by oral tradition and apostolic preaching, which, says Dr. Sanday, “ worked in two directions. On the one hand it excluded any Scripture which did not satisfy it in regard to doctrine; and on the other hand it excluded, or had a tendency to exclude, any 1 Bampton Lectures on “ Inspiration, “ Lee. I, pp. 57> 5^- writing which clashed with those already received in matters of history “ (p. 55). In addition to apostolicity, to reception and use by the Church, conformity to standard doctrine and recognised history, there was the further test of divine inspiration, assured by the invested authority of Christ Himself on the one hand, and by the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit on the other. As we shall have to speak both of the inspiration of the writers and of the writings hereafter, we will not dwell on this here and now. Suffice it to say, it is only as apostolic authority became inspired authority that it became the test of canonicity. Apostolic and Church fathers, apologists, heretics and historians, from the time of the Apostles on to the settlement of the Canon in the fourth century, accepted, used and quoted the books of the New Testament Canon as inspired Scriptures. When we consider the way in which the gospels and epistles originated, how they were written, addressed and sent by particular messengers to distant churches or to particular persons in those churches; when we consider, further, the circumstances under which they were received and used, as contemporary with the oral teaching of the Apostles, and supplementary thereto; when we have regard also to the fragile character of the material on which they were written, to the fact that only one single copy was made, and consider the disturbed times that existed, the imperfect organisations of the churches, and the careless conduct of individuals, and that some of the epistles were circular epistles and had to be sent from church to church, and that this went on for some two hundred years or more; it is scarcely less than a miracle that these writings should have been preserved, and have gained the currency and authority they did, until the time arrived for their complete collection and canonisation. So that though we may not claim divine inspiration and miraculous interposition in collecting and forming the New Testament Canon, yet it must be confessed that a special Providence and oversight has been with them, which has secured their preservation and acceptance into the Canon. Westcott says, “ The usage which fixed the Canon is only another name for the divine instinct, a providential inspiration, a function of the Christian body. That history teaches by the plainest examples that no one portion of the Bible could be set aside without great and permanent injury to the Church which refused a portion of the apostolic heritage” 1 Professor Given, Hoffman, and others, have contended that the agency of the Holy Spirit was as much needed in the selection of the books as in their composition, and operated in the formation of the Canon as much as in the writing of the books only differently. Much as we may sympathise with the sentiment, we cannot accept it, in the face of the discussions of Councils for the acceptance and rejection of particular books. The rather do we say with Professor Stewart, “that if inspiration cannot be claimed for the process of canonicity, canonicity cannot fix the bounds of inspiration.” Hence writings may have found their way into the Canon of Scripture of the inspiration of which men are in doubt, and some writings not less 1 “ New Testament Canon.” inspired than some that have been admitted have been rejected. This, however, does not affect the completeness of Scripture as a rule of faith and practice; for great as the loss would be in certain particulars, yet the exclusion of all disputed books would not exclude one essential truth or doctrine of Scripture, nor would the admission of others, once included but now rejected, add one essential doctrine to the Christian faith.