016. Chapter 14 - The Canon of the Gospels

Chapter 14 - The Canon of the Gospels The Problem

One of the most important questions concerning the life of Christ is that of the canon of the Gospels. It is also one of the most controversial, as might be expected in the light of the sharply divergent views prevalent as to the truth or falsity of the claims of Jesus as presented in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Are these books entirely authentic? Are they the only books which are authoritative? How does it happen that we have four books in our Bible that tell of the life of Christ and just four? “Canon” means rule or standard of measurement. Hence the term means, when applied to the Bible, “The collection or list of books which are received as genuine and inspired holy Scriptures, called the sacred canon, that is, the general rule of moral and religious duty; the canonical books.” We are accustomed to quote the books of the Bible as final authority on pertinent questions, but by what authority did the books come to be in the Bible — this one sacred collection of works which is known as “The Book”? It is not the purpose of this chapter to consider the entire canon of sacred Scripture, but only the four books which furnish the almost exclusive basis for our knowledge of the life of Christ. It is not purposed to quote the voluminous evidence from early catalogues, early Christian writers, and councils upon the canon of the Gospels. This material is already available in many textbooks. McGarvey’s excellent summary of this evidence covers 119 pages of his Evidences of Christianity (pp. 59-177), and is entirely satisfactory as a statement of the basis of discussion. It is rather the purpose of this chapter to weigh the arguments and conclusions which are based upon these quotations from the early Christian centuries, with especial attention to the lines of discussion which have arisen in recent decades. The New Battlefield The general difference which is apparent in the focus of the controversy during the nineteenth century and that which obtains today is that the attack formerly was concentrated upon certain books to prove that they were not originally in the canon. This was the direction in which Schleiermacher led off, and he was followed in it by Baur and the whole Tubingen school. A student of McGarvey’s very able defense of the canon in his Evidences of Christianity (the title of the first edition was The Text and Canon of the New Testament) will immediately see that his whole discussion is built to meet this line of attack. A change has come over the battlefield, for instead of a continued effort to break through certain salients which were considered vulnerable, the effort to throw specific books (like 2 Peter) out of the canon has about been abandoned by the critics, and instead of this plan of campaign, they have evolved a theory of the origin of the canon which constitutes an attack on the whole battle line at once — an effort to prove that in the beginning none of the books were considered inspired and that no canon existed until late in the second century.

Importance of the Date of the Gospels

It is apparent at a glance that the question of the date of writing of the Gospels is an exceedingly important one in regard to the canon. This has already been discussed at some length in chapters on the Two-source Theory and the inspiration of the Gospel narratives. There is a curious conflict in the desire of radicals to place the date of the Gospels as late as possible in order to weaken the historical value of the testimony to the miracles and the claims of Jesus to deity, for the later they try to date the Gospels, the less time they have in which to place their theory of development of the canon. Thus they must sail between Scylla and Charybdis with destruction awaiting one theory or the other. As a matter of fact, the gap of time is too narrow to allow either theory to pass. A careful consideration of both theories — (1) a long development of the Gospels from sources until they were finally written as we have them; (2) a long development of the attitude of the church toward the Gospels after they were written as we have them, until the church finally concluded they were inspired and canonized them — will show that the lack of time is fatal to both theories. A period of only sixty-six years separates the death of Christ from the writing of the last of the Gospel narratives. The testimony of the early Christian writers to the New Testament canon begins immediately, and, hence, the same brief space of time is all that can be allotted to the second theory. More than this, when radicals place the writing of the Synoptics at about a.d. 70, they reduce the time for the development from sources to forty years, and the time for development of the canon is correspondingly reduced. What need of “sources” when eyewitnesses still abound? What possibility of long development of canonization. when the testimony of early Christian writers begins immediately? The accompanying sketch is offered to illustrate the assurance of the Christian that the canon of the Gospels is correct and that the text of the Gospels is accurate — in other words, to sum up the evidence for the text and to introduce the question of the canon. The original autograph copies are represented at the left and our present line of manuscripts, at the right. The intervening two and a half centuries are bridged by evidence which forms a multiple chain of unbreakable character. McGarvey remarks: “It is an axiomatic proposition that every book is as old as its oldest existing copy.” Thus we conclude that Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and the other early manuscripts place us solidly at a.d. 350, and we have but to trace the books back to the first century from 350. The discovery of the Oxyrhynchus papyri and especially the more recent finding of the fragment of John by Dr. C. H. Roberts bring us evidence which reaches back to the opening of the second century, but inasmuch as 350 is the accepted date from which our present line of uncials begins, the sketch argues from this date. It is most remarkable that the discovery of the fragment should establish so clearly the date of writing at the close of the first century of the one Gospel which the modernists have most desperately assailed and attempted to place late. The effect of these discoveries upon their attacks with reference to the canon and the genuineness of the Gospels is devastating.

An Unbreakable Chain of Evidence The chart suggests the fact that the main assurance of the text and canon of the Gospels is to be found in the copies of the Bible in our hands which run in an unbroken line back to the year 350. The manuscripts offer the most powerful evidence that the line of connection runs back unbroken to the original copies. Added to this are the quotations of early Christian writers from the Gospels, and the declarations which they make as to their authorship, date and place of writing, and their divine inspiration. All these facts and testimony join together in an unbreakable chain reaching across the 250 years from the close of the first century when John wrote the Gospel which bears his name to the actual copies of the Bible which we have from the middle of the fourth century. The question is then: At what time and by what process were these books collected into a New Testament? The question is far simpler than it was in the last century, for the evidence has become so overwhelming as to the early date of the Gospels that even the modernists find themselves compelled to admit the four Gospels were regarded by the church in a.d. 125 as relatively ancient documents, and as the only Gospels treasured as authentic. This is tantamount to the admission that they were universally held to be in the New Testament canon by this date. This leaves only twenty-five years for the Gospel of John and, at most, not more than seventy-five years for the Synoptics from the date of writing to the date when the evidence is absolutely overwhelming that they were accepted in the church and set apart from all other books. This shortening of the available time is absolutely fatal to a theory of the gradual evolution of books that were at first considered quite ordinary documents into books that were regarded as inspired and a part of the sacred canon. Professor Ropes frankly admits the early date of the Gospels and offers the following important declarations concerning the canon and the procedure by which these books, and these alone, came to be in this sacred collection of Scripture and came to be regarded as inspired.

Crucial Admissions

“This collection of four Gospels contains all the Gospel books in the Greek language that had any wide or long-continued use in the ancient church. Many of the current representations about this matter, even in very good and learned (not at all radical or destructive) books, which some of you have read or heard quoted, are thoroughly misleading. Our New Testament group of Gospels was not created by any process to be designated as ‘selection,’ as if these four had been picked out, for reasons good or bad, from a large number of candidates for this dignity. Rather, the process was one of accumulation; the framers of the canon took all the suitable Greek books there were; and it does not appear that at that time or at any subsequent time any other Greek books ever existed that could be thought of for such use….Probably as early in the second century as the year 125, some one, in some place, or some group of persons, assembled for the use and convenience of the churches the only four Greek books describing the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, which were then believed to be of great antiquity and worthy of a place in such a collection….That to these books (of the whole New Testament), however many there were, the attribute of divine inspiration was at that time ascribed, we need not suppose. However, such inspiration, with the corresponding attribute of infallibility, as containing a revelation from God, became ascribed to the whole collection within about fifty years more, partly perhaps under the stimulus of controversy with the Gnostic heretics, and the books composing it came to be regarded as the New Testament, standing on a level of full equality with the Old Testament, which, as it was the Bible of the Jews, so had from the first been that of the Christians” (Ropes, The Synoptic Gospels, pp. 102-4). This analysis of Professor Ropes admits that much of what was formerly considered “assured results” by a great body of modernists must now be abandoned. Of course, his statement does not go far enough. Having admitted so much, how is it possible to deny any longer that the acceptance of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as inspired was immediate and not the result of a process of development? The Church and the Bible The Second World Conference on Faith and Order held in Edinburgh, Scotland, August, 1937, spent much time discussing the problem of the relation of the church to the Bible. The discussion centered rather in the question as to whether the church had authority to complete the teaching of the Bible by “tradition,” but the question of the canon was at the heart of this problem. The Official Report of the Conference declares: “We are at one in recognizing that the church, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, has been instrumental in the formation of the Bible. But some of us hold that this implies that the church, under the guidance of the Spirit, is entrusted with the authority to explain, interpret and complete (sumpleroun) the teaching of the Bible, and consider the witness of the church as given in tradition as equally authoritative with the Bible itself. Others, however, believe that the church, having recognized the Bible as the indispensable record of the revealed Word of God, is bound exclusively by the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice, and, while accepting the relative authority of tradition, would consider it authoritative only in so far as it is founded upon the Bible itself” (p. 9). This declaration concerns the canon: How did these books come to be in the Bible? Should any others be regarded as also authoritative and binding? It reflects the lengthy discussions of the Conference as to which came first: the Bible or the church. Which came first? Professor H. W. Nash of the Episcopal Theological School of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has some interesting observations on this subject in his book, The History of the Higher Criticism of the New Testament, published in 1900. “It is, indeed, a common saying that the church came before the Bible. If rightly taken, the saying contains a helpful truth; wrongly taken, an imposing fallacy. The church did not create the Scriptures. She appreciated them and recognized their incomparable value. And her recognition resulted in what we call the ‘Canon of Holy Scriptures’” (p. 17). He adds in a footnote to the first sentence: “This was first said in High Church circles, and was meant to be an arraignment of Protestantism. Of late it has been widely used, in order to lessen the strain of criticism.” He says further: “So it would be an absurdity to say that, in the pioneer work of building the canon of Holy Scripture, the church came before the Bible….The church set the books of Scripture apart from all other books, making them a class by themselves, because she perceived their eternal value as witnesses to the Christ. She appreciated the New Testament Scriptures, and through her appreciation they canonized themselves….The saying that the church came before the Bible, as it is commonly used, can lead only to mental confusion. So far as clear thought is concerned, it either says nothing at all, or it says something that is worse than an out-and-out error by reason of its specious confusion of error and truth. We can not affirm that the church came before the Scriptures, if thereby it is meant that the action of the church gave them their value and authority. Their authority is theirs by divine right, because they are the record of God’s self-revelation” (pp. 18, 19). These are strong statements, especially in the light of the radical character of the book as a whole. (It is one of the University of Chicago Handbook Series, edited by Shailer Matthews.) Date of Canonization

Professor Nash’s statement falls far short of being adequate. There is no statement of time appended to his repeated declarations about the church’s building the canon of Holy Scriptures, and this leaves room for the radical theory of a long process of canonization through church councils. As a matter of fact, we know that the church councils did discuss which books should or should not be in the New Testament, but the councils did not put the books in the canon. They were already in before any council assembled. The early councils discussed the validity of the choice, but did not revoke the choice. The Third Council of Carthage (a.d. 397) so definitely approved the canon of the New Testament that it ceased to be a subject of discussion for many centuries, but neither this council nor any other council made the canon of the New Testament. The whole subject was up for furious discussion in the time of the Reformation, and the Council of Trent (a.d. 1546) definitely fixed the Roman Catholic canon of the Old and New Testaments so that it included the books of the Apocrypha. It would be as bad a misstatement of fact to declare that the Council of Carthage or any preceding council made the New Testament canon, because they discussed vigorously the question, as it would be to say that Martin Luther and his colleagues made the New Testament canon. Martin Luther strongly questioned the validity of the canon and objected strenuously to the Book of James, because its teaching on faith and works seemed to him to contradict the teaching of Paul. But Melanchthon and other reformers refused to follow Luther’s lead, and the canon remained unchanged. They did not make the canon. They vigorously discussed its validity. So with the early councils.

Basic Authority of Church and Bible

God established the church and revealed the Scripture which was to be its guide. God spoke through the inspired apostles in the establishment of the church and through these same apostles and their inspired associates He spoke in the recording of the New Testament. The authority of the Scripture is not subsidiary to the church, for both the New Testament and the church alike arose at the direction of the Holy Spirit. The church is divine in origin and constitution, but human and fallible in its membership, and its character has been changed and corrupted through the years. Our absolute assurance of the nature of the church of Christ as it was originally established is to be found in the records of the New Testament and not apart from it; even as our guide for the conduct of the church is to be found therein. A study of the New Testament will show that the books claim to have been written to form and correct the faith of the church, and instead of there being the slightest suggestion that the church is to correct the New Testament, exactly the opposite is true.

Reasons for Canonization The statement of Professor Nash is also inadequate in that he affirms that the church canonized the Scriptures because “She appreciated them and recognized their incomparable value...; she perceived their eternal value as witnesses to the Christ.” This is quite true, but it is not even half the truth. The books of the New Testament were accepted as the miraculously inspired Word of God immediately when they were received from the hands of apostles and leaders whom the early Christians knew to be inspired. The proof of this declaration is written large across the pages of the New Testament itself. Just here is the crux of the discussion between the modernistic and the Christian views. The one denies the unique inspiration of the Scriptures and affirms the books of the New Testament were canonized by the church through a long process in which their intrinsic merit prevailed. The other affirms the divine inspiration of these books and that this inspiration was recognized by the first Christians, and hence led to the immediate acceptance of these books by the Christians to whom they were originally written and sent. All later discussions by church and council were of the validity of an acceptance already made. The Facts and the Process When the apostles preached they worked miracles which gave immediate and incontestable proof that they spoke the very revelation of God in the same way that the Old Testament prophets had done. Their hearers, who believed and accepted their message, declared their acceptance of the fact that the apostles were directly inspired of God. The poor heathen of Lystra, when they beheld Paul and Barnabas heal the cripple and heard them preach, started to worship them as gods: Jupiter and Mercury. Paul and Barnabas rent their clothes and protested; Paul suffered stoning as a result of his effort to correct this false conclusion. But when the early Christians believed that the apostles were divinely inspired and accepted their preaching as the very word of God, the apostles did not try to correct them. This faith was rather the direct result of the repeated teaching and claims of the apostles. The modernists hold that the solemn proclamation of the gospel in writing from these apostles was received by the early Christians as mere ordinary books, and that no one at first had any idea of placing them apart as inspired or considered them in the same class with the Old Testament books. They, therefore, must deny absolutely the truth of the continuous record in the New Testament as to miracles worked by the apostles, or affirm that the early Christians differentiated between the spoken and the written word of these inspired leaders; accepting the spoken word as from God; regarding the written word as merely the ordinary work of men! Moreover, when Paul wrote, he flatly declared his divine inspiration and insisted that his letters should be received as carrying the credentials with which God had sealed his ministry. The same is true of the writing of other books in the New Testament that carry direct claims to inspiration. Furthermore, the miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit was conferred by the laying of the apostles’ hands upon selected leaders of the second generation so that their preaching and writing also carried the seal of the miracles which they performed. The Church and the Canon The part which the church played in the formation of the canon was twofold: (1) the immediate acceptance by the church or churches or individual Christians of a book as the authentic work of an inspired writer; (2) the gradual transmission through the testimony of this fact to the other churches and individuals which as yet knew nothing concerning this inspired book since it had been received by one section of the church. The first step was instant; the second took time. When Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, he declared his apostleship and reminded them of his inspiration and the proof of his claims. The church at Corinth must have received this written word in the same reverent way they had accepted the spoken word from Paul. When the churches at Berea, Thessalonica, Philippi, and others learned that Paul had written these letters to the church at Corinth, they would seek copies for the correction and consolation of the Christians in these other churches. They knew Paul as well as the Christians at Corinth did; they would revere his written word as inspired of God just as the Corinthians. Any letters they had from Paul would be shared the same way. Thus the canon grew by immediate acceptance and gradual transmission. The letters written by the other apostles and inspired leaders would be accepted and disseminated in the churches in the same fashion. This likewise is true of the Gospels. The prologue to Luke’s Gospel gives a definite destination: “Theophilus.” Each of the inspired writers sent his document to a definite destination. This individual or church became the first active agent in the work of canonization. Paul insisted that the miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit by different members of the churches gave them an absolute means of testing the validity of the teaching and claims that came to them. Thus an inspired leadership in the church was endowed of God with the power to recognize the inspiration of the books of the New Testament as they were written. Discussions would naturally arise among the churches, as they did arise, as to whether a book which had not originally been sent to a certain church or section of the church should be accepted in that church as part of the New Testament Scriptures. The churches in Asia Minor would want definite and indisputable testimony from the church at Rome as to this document which claimed to be written by Paul to the church at Rome. Did he actually write it? Could the church at Rome give authentication to its claims? Such testimony the churches and individuals could give. Such questions the churches and individuals would have a right to ask. The internal evidence of the books, their message and character, united with external testimony of the original recipients. Much discussion resulted from this, but it was a discussion that sought, not to canonize, but to learn beyond a shadow of doubt what books had been definitely accepted as inspired by the churches which received them. A reading of the declarations of the early Christian writers will bear this out. Even when different sections of the church became uncertain and were at variance as to who had written a book, as was the case in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the discussion was an evident effort to learn and verify an earlier decision as to its place in the canon. The uncertainty as to the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the latter part of the second century and following is a favorite angle of attack upon the proposition of the early formation of the canon. It is therefore very vital to notice that Clement of Rome in the Epistle to the church at Corinth, written in the year a.d. 96, quotes the Epistle to the Hebrews (cf. Westcott’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 42 of the Introduction). The church at Rome, at the last of the second century, had come into confusion as to the Epistle to the Hebrews, but Clement’s quotations show clearly that the church at Rome during the close of the first century suffered no such confusion. Martin Luther and some of the reformers suffered doubt as to the canonicity of the Epistle of James, but this is no proof that the church of the first century had any such trouble.

Tertullian on the Canon A characteristic quotation from one of the early Christian writers will suffice to establish this fundamental proposition. Tertullian (a.d. 160-240), writing in North Africa to combat the heretic Marcion, who rejected Matthew, Mark, and John, and freely changed Luke, replied to the vagaries of Marcion by pointing out that the Gospels had come down “from the very beginning,” “from the apostles,” and that they had been kept as sacred Scripture in the churches which had been planted in the beginning by the apostles, as well as in the other churches. “On the whole, then, if that is evidently more true which is earlier, if that is earlier which is from the beginning, if that is from the beginning which has the apostles for its authors, then it will certainly be quite as evident that that comes down from the apostles which has been kept as a deposit in the churches of the apostles.” Tertullian, then, makes definite reference by name to the writings of Paul, Peter, and John, and affirms, while referring to the Gospel of Luke, that “The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to the other Gospels also” (Against Marcion, v. 186, 187). Tertullian refers anyone who desires the information, to the various churches which originally received the autograph copies from the hands of the inspired writers as the proof of their canonicity: “Come now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, run over the apostolic churches, in which the very thrones of the apostles are pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authentic writings are read, uttering the voice and representing the face of each of them severally. Achaia is very near you, you find Corinth. Since you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi, you have the Thessalonians. Since you are able to cross to Asia, you get Ephesus. Since, moreover, you are close upon Italy, you have Rome.” So speaks Tertullian out of the last half of the second century. He is seeking to combat heresies and their attempts to dismember and corrupt the New Testament Scriptures. But he does not seek to form a sacred canon in order to combat these heresies. He calmly points out that the canon has already been in existence from the very days of the apostles and their inspired companions who had first given the sacred documents, and that in the case of each of the New Testament writings their canonicity may be confirmed by conferring with the churches which originally were established or taught by the apostles and received these sacred documents from their hands. The Heretics and the Canon

“The Influence of Heretics in the Formation of the Canon” is a favorite topic for theorizing by the radical critics. The above quotations from Tertullian can be abundantly duplicated from other early Christian writer, but these quoted are quite sufficient to show that when meeting the menacing wave of heresies at the close of the second century, the Christian scholars did not form the canon; they did not just then discover that the Scriptures were inspired. The only conceivable way for the modernists to make out their theory in the face of the entirely contrary assertions of the writers of the period is to claim that writers like Tertullian were perpetrating a fraud upon the church and upon the heretics with whom they argued, when they claimed that the canon and the absolute assurance of the inspiration of the New Testament books had come down from the apostolic churches which had been taught by the apostles and had received the autograph copies of the books at their hands. Tertullian destroyed the central position of the modernists when he issued his flat challenge of investigation to anyone who doubted that the autograph copies were actually in the hands of the apostolic churches which had originally received them and that they had been treasured from the beginning as a sacred deposit. We are too far removed from the apostolic age to accept his challenge now, but the fact that he issued the challenge and that the investigation could have been easily made then by any doubter, shows beyond all cavil what the position of the church was in regard to the canon in the last quarter of the second century, and what it had been at the close of the first century. The Modernistic Theory

Professor Hill gives the following description of the process by which the canon was formed, which is a typical presentation of the modernistic theory: “By the middle of the second century or a little later, practically all Christians in orthodox circles were accepting the four Gospels now in the New Testament as the only authoritative ones. The others were either quietly discarded, or else were cherished by those only who held views that the church pronounced heretical. As a matter of fact, the church now had a canon of the Gospels, though it did not yet realize this because it had not begun to call these books sacred writings. In the last quarter of the second century a great change came over the church. Circumstances forced the rapid development of creed and church government and the idea of the Christian Scriptures. Enemies appeared in the bosom of the church itself, and their heretical teachings had to be combated. On the one hand were teachers who broke with the past entirely, and claimed that they themselves were the recipients of new and wonderful revelations: these were the Montanists. On the other hand were sects who professed to have esoteric knowledge and mysterious books, handed down from the first century, in which new meanings were given to the teachings of Christ: these were the Gnostics. The church thus confronted and put on its defense, seems to have felt that its present inspiration was not enough. These enemies also claimed to be inspired, and must be met by something stronger than mere counterclaims; so the church emphasized the inspiration that was in the apostles. And because the heretics had their own sacred books, or claimed the right to reject any Christian books which did not agree with their own teachings, the church was compelled to emphasize the sacredness and consequent authority of the writings it had accepted. Almost unconsciously and before they were aware of it, these Christians of a.d. 180-200 had put their treasured volumes on the same level with the Old Testament, and were quoting from them as inspired and authoritative. The canon of the New Testament, which includes the canon of the Gospels, was set forth” (Hill, Introductiion to the Life of Christ pp. 41, 42). The Declarations of the New Testament

It does not need more than a casual reading of the New Testament and of early Christian literature to see that this theory is in direct violation of the facts. Was the presence of heretical teachers in and out of the church a new experience at the close of the second century? Read 1 and 2 Timothy 1:1-18 and 2 Peter, Jude, 1 John, and the first three chapters of Revelation with this in mind. Both Paul and John had to combat the Gnostics in Asia Minor. Instead of the church suddenly realizing in the last quarter of the second century that they had in the sacred books of the New Testament a bulwark against false teaching, this purpose was specifically achieved when the books were first written and delivered to the churches. A number of the books of the New Testament so declare. What sort of intelligence does this modernistic theory of the formation of the canon attribute to the early Christians? We know that they accepted the spoken word of the apostles and the inspired leaders of the church as the very Word of God. Are we asked to believe that they were so stupid as to receive without thought of reverence the pro-found and tremendous documents which these same leaders wrote for the future guidance of the church? Did the church wait till the New Testament had been in its hands a hundred years — to the close of the second century — to realize the divine inspiration and authority of the New Testament as of the Old Testament? Did they have to be spurred on to canonize the books of the New Testament at the close of the second century by the course pursued by the heretics in bringing forth heretical works which they argued were sacred? Exactly the opposite is true.

Clement of Rome

Let us test the correctness of these declarations from Professor Hill and Professor Ropes by a quotation from the earliest of the Christian writers: Clement of Rome, who was contemporary with the period when the New Testament books were written, and who, as leader of the church at Rome, wrote his Epistle to the church in Corinth in a.d. 96. He says: “Take up the Epistle of the blessed apostle Paul. What did he write to you in the beginning of the Gospel? Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit he wrote to you concerning himself and Cephas and Apollos, because even then parties had been formed among you.” Notice (1) Paul’s Epistles were treasured in the church at Corinth at the close of the first century; (2) they were read in the public service, even as they had been when first written and delivered, for so Clement implies in this Epistle he has written to the whole church; (3) they were held both by the church at Rome (whence Clement writes), and the church at Corinth as written under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit. This is indubitable proof that the books of the New Testament were accepted as the Word of God in the very time in which they were written. It is most significant that Clement does not quote from the Gospel of John, Revelation, or the Epistles of John. This fits completely with the testimony of early Christian writers that they were written at about the same time that Clement wrote. Evidently they had not yet been published or had not yet come into the hands of Clement. Thus the testimony of Clement overlaps the New Testament itself. Before the last books of the New Testament were published, the first books are quoted by Clement as the inspired Word of God, and their general acceptance by the churches affirmed. What stronger proof could be required that the canonization of the New Testament books was immediate? In a more profound sense than Professor Nash is willing to admit, he spoke the truth when he said of the books of the New Testament, “they canonized themselves.”

Barnabas, Polycarp, Papias, Justin Martyr

It is possible, but it is not necessary, to quote at great length from other writers of the period in question. The Epistle of Barnabas, written in the first quarter of the second century, quotes the Gospel of Matthew with the significant introduction: “It is written.” In this same fashion, Jesus had quoted the Old Testament. Polycarp (50?-155) quotes from various New Testament books in exactly the same way as he quotes from the Old Testament with such added injunctions as: “Let us therefore so serve Him with fear and all reverence, as He Himself gave commandment and the apostles who preached the gospel to us and the prophets who proclaimed beforehand the coming of our Lord” (To the Philippians, v. 6). Notice how the apostles and the prophets — the Old Testament and the New Testament — are joined. Again, after a further quotation from the New Testament, he says: “And whosoever shall pervert the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts and say that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, that man is the first-born of Satan. Wherefore let us forsake the vain doing of the many and their false teachings, and turn unto the word which was delivered unto us from the beginning” (To the Philippians, v. 7). Again, he joins together a quotation from Psalms 4:4 and Ephesians 4:26 with this introductory statement: “Only as it is said in these Scriptures, Be ye angry and sin not, and Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” In the preceding line, he uses the term “the sacred writings” in introducing this paragraph: “For I am persuaded that ye are well trained in the sacred writings.” Papias also refers to the Gospels as the “Oracles of the Lord.” He wrote an exposition or commentary on them in five volumes. Justin Martyr, who wrote about a.d. 140 and whose life reached back into the first century, refers to the Gospels 16 times in his First Apology and in his Dialogue with Trypho. He calls them “The Gospel,” “The Memoirs of the Apostles,” “The Memoirs of the Apostles, which are called Gospels,” “The Memoirs which were drawn up by His Apostles and those that followed them.” He also declares that in the regular meetings of the Christians: “On the day called Sunday...the memoirs of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are read so long as time permits.” This places the Gospels as in the New Testament canon and as regularly read in the public services and revered in the same manner as the Old Testament books. The Testimony of Papias The main dependence of the radical theory concerning the formation of the canon is a quotation from Papias in which they claim that he shows the Gospel narratives were not considered inspired and authoritative, this in spite of the fact that the quotation comes from the work in five volumes which he wrote as a commentary upon the Gospels! “But I shall not regret to subjoin to my interpretation also for your benefit, whatsoever I have at any time accurately ascertained and treasured up in my memory as I have received it from the elders, I have received it in order to give additional confirmation to the truth of my testimony. For I have never, like many, delighted to hear those that tell many things, but those that teach the truth; neither those that record foreign precepts, but those that are given from the Lord to our faith, and that come from the truth itself. But if I meet with one who had been a follower of the elders anywhere, I made it a point to inquire what were the declarations of the elders. What was said by Andrew, Peter or Philip. What by Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of the disciples of the Lord; for I do not think I derive so much benefit from books as from the living voice of those that are still surviving” (Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. III. 39). Professor Hill argues on the basis of this last sentence: “Unless we suppose that these oral accounts were deemed inspired and sacred, which is evidently absurd, the books which were acceptable simply as a substitute for them, could not have been esteemed more highly” (Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. III, p. 40). This twists the statement of Papias entirely out of its setting. He was writing a commentary on the Gospels; he was seeking to record in this lengthy work of five volumes, side lights and elucidation of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. His reference, “I do not think I derive so much benefit from books” can not refer to these Gospels, for he is expounding them; he evidently refers to the beginnings of the Apocryphal Gospels, with their endless imaginary tales, which attempt to fill in the gaps in the account of the life of Christ. That this is the correct interpretation is confirmed from his preceding declaration that he was never one of those who “delighted to hear those that tell many things,” “that record foreign precepts (apocryphal romancers) in explaining and interpreting the Gospels, but one who insisted on questioning those who had actually seen and heard the apostles. Moreover, Professor Hill is in great haste to declare that it is “evidently absurd” to hold that these companions of apostles with whom Papias conferred were inspired. Just what is so “absurd” about this? When Papias specifies some of these with whom he conferred in person, he mentions people who are specifically declared to be inspired: “That the apostle Philip continued at Hierapolis with his daughters has already been stated above. But we must show how Papias, coming to them, received a wonderful account from the daughters of Philip” (Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. 111. 39). Acts 21:8, Acts 21:9 tells that the four virgin daughters of Philip the evangelist prophesied. Papias may have applied the title “apostle” to Philip the evangelist in the same sense in which the New Testament applies it to Barnabas. If he means daughters of Philip, the apostle, then we have the authority of Polycrates that they were inspired. The proof that Papias was writing an Exposition of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that he uses the term “Oracles” to mean the Gospels is to be found in his explicit reference to the Gospel of Matthew under this title: “Matthew composed the Oracles in the Hebrew dialect, and every one translated it as he was able.” Papias uses exactly the same Greek word (logia) in both declarations. A manuscript of the Gospel of John in the Vatican library also carries an appendix which states that Papias, in the last of his five books, describes how John wrote his Gospel and gave it to the churches. This also shows that the five books were an exposition of our four Gospels. It is impossible, then, that Papias can be referring to the very sacred books on which he was writing this work of a lifetime, his Exposition, when he says that he has not derived so much benefit from books as from the living voice. He evidently refers to popular efforts to supply from imagination new details in the life of Christ such as are seen in the Apocryphal Gospels.

Conclusions

It is not surprising, in the light of such overwhelming evidence, that the radical scholars have been compelled to retreat from the last quarter to the first quarter of the second century. But it is certainly surprising that they should still seek to maintain that the Gospels were not immediately received as inspired and thus canonized when they were first published, since they have to admit that within twenty-five years after the publication of the Gospel of John, all four Gospels were alone accepted in the churches. Of course, to yield this would mean to substantiate from the original generation of Christians the whole miraculous account of the life of Jesus, the Son of God. Mere prejudice compels the desperate clinging to the dwindling gap of a few years. The crucial question is this: If the Christians even in the year 175 accepted the Gospels as inspired and held them as a part of the sacred canon, what sort of intelligence did the earlier generation of Christians possess if they did not consider them in exactly the same way, when they saw with their own eyes the miracles wrought by the authors of these books? How could the Christians of the first century have possibly held the New Testament books to be just ordinary books with no thought of their canonization when they read such statements as the following from the hand of the apostle John: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show unto his servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass: and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John; who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written therein: for the time is at hand” (Revelation 1:1-3). The verb “readeth” is anagignosko, which means “read aloud.” The Book of Revelation declares its sacred character and origin in its opening verses and pronounces a blessing on those who read it aloud (in the churches). This implies immediate canonization. It closes with a warning which seals the Book of Revelation from human tampering because it is the Word of God, and, by the same logic, every other book of the New Testament is so sealed. It is most significant that in the assembling of the books, Revelation was placed last: “I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book” (Revelation 22:18, Revelation 22:19).