06.21. The New Testament Canon

Chapter 20 The New Testament Canon Its importance justifies an introductory chapter on the general subject of the canon of the New Testament before we take up the consideration of the separate books. And let us begin by saying that those books and none others are regarded as canonical which were known either to have been written by an apostle or received as of divine authority in the apostolic age. The way to reach an understanding upon this subject is very simple. The canon doubtless was formed quite gradually. The books (we speak now of the epistles more particularly), appeared separately, in different localities and at different periods, each bearing the evidence of its own origin with it to the church to which it was addressed. Copies were made, and as they were distributed to other churches the evidence of their genuineness was distributed with them. Exchanges were made in the same way. The church at Rome would in time send a copy of its epistle to the church at Corinth, which in turn, would send a copy of that which it had received to Rome, and so on. By and by lists or catalogs of these books would begin to be made and handed down to succeeding generations and centuries, by which the genuineness of the genuine and the falsity of the false might easily be kept in mind. Dr. Flournoy, the author of a comparatively recent work on this subject, shows from newly recovered documents of the ancients that the canon of the New Testament just as we have it, especially as it applies to the Gospels, was the original and only canon, it being freely quoted by men living in the latter part of the first and the first part of the second century, who recognized the books as standing on a plane of authority not shared by any other books. And Dr. Harnack, the great German critic and theologian of modern times, not prejudiced in favor of evangelical Christianity, to say the least, testifies, that “as regards the text of the Gospels we may conclude that about the year 160 it ran just as it runs now.” But to return to the matter of the catalogs, there were no less than 15 or 16 of them published between the second and the fourth centuries, and these by different authors and in different lands, the greatest pains being taken to secure accurate information. There were “Lower” and “Higher” critics in those days just as there are now, only that they had access to original sources which their modern successors are denied. Sometimes these critics journeyed to Palestine and resided there while sifting evidence, and if they came across a forgery it was treated with the greatest strictness. One such was discovered in the second century, for instance, an Asiatic presbyter published a book called “The Acts of Paul and Thecla,” and tried to palm it off as authentic, but when he was discovered he was deposed, and all the churches duly notified.

Let us remember another thing, that the appeal of these inspired writings was to the Christian consciousness, the church consciousness, not to the consciousness of one Christian or one hundred, not to the consciousness of one church or one hundred, but to all, the universal Christian, the universal church consciousness. It is remarkable in this connection, as others have pointed out, that no church council from the earliest times ever undertook to define the canon. It was unnecessary. “The Scriptures of the New Testament were their own attestation. Certain books claiming apostolic authority were for a time accepted in some places, but gradually disappeared from the list and fell in among the apocryphal,” for there are apocryphal books of the New Testament as of the Old.

We can readily see how this took place, and why it took place, if we ourselves take the pains to compare these apocryphal books with the genuine. Between the best of the first-named and those of the New Testament “there is a great gulf fixed.” Dr. Samuel G. Green aptly illustrates it by the contrast between modern and ancient cities. The modern has wide suburbs reaching out into the open country so that the exact boundaries are indiscernible, but the ancient were confined within walls and separated from all the waste beyond. The New Testament books are represented by the latter, surrounded by high bulwarks which make them easily defined. As the same writer adds, the Holy Spirit, given to the church, quickened holy instincts, aided discernment between the genuine and spurious, and thus led to gradual, harmonious, and in the end unanimous conclusions. There was in the church, he says, what a modern writer has happily termed an “inspiration of selection.” And this same inspiration, it may be remarked, is in the church still. No one can palm off a spurious book on the church today any more than in the earliest day of her existence.

Perhaps the reader would like to know a little more in detail about the catalogs The earliest is now known as the Muratorian Fragment. It is called a “Fragment” because the whole of it is not there, and it is called the “Muratorian” Fragment because of its discovery by an Italian named Muratori in the Ambrosian Library, at Milan, somewhere about 1740. The date of this fragment is that of the second century of the Christian era, but beginning with Luke, which it calls the third Gospel, implying the two preceding ones, it names all the books as we now have them excepting Hebrews, James, I and II Peter, and II and III John. Of about the same date as the Muratorian Fragment may be named once more, the Syriac and Latin Versions which are catalogs of the highest order for they contain the very books themselves as we have seen. The Latin omitted only Hebrews, James and II Peter, and the Syriac, II Peter, II and III John, Jude and Revelation.

Moreover of about this same date or a little later, it may be about the first quarter of the third century, we have the testimony of Clement of Alexandria, named in the history of Eusebius, who quotes or refers to all the books except, I believe, James, II Peter, and III John. Tertullian and Justin Martyn of this period may be quoted to the same purport. While Clement was of Alexandria, however, Tertullian was of Carthage and Justin Martyn of Palestine. Then comes Origen, also of Alexandria, and the most illustrious Christian scholar of his age who mentions all and records doubts only of II Peter and II and III John. A strong testimony to the canonicity of the New Testament at this period, the third century, is the fact that certain heretics as well as the faithful admitted it, and on the basis, thereof, sought to defend their heresies. Then follows Eusebius himself, the father of church history, as he has been called, who about 300 A.D., or a little later, published a catalog in which he mentions all, recording doubts, however, as to James, II Peter, II and III John, Jude, and Revelation. These doubts are not his own but those of others whom he records.

We need not pursue this farther. Some of the later enemies of the faith have tried to prove that we Christians did not get our Bible till the fourth century. They have said there was a church council about that time in the city of Nice, France, one of whose purposes was to make a Bible. There had been many books floating around, claiming to be inspired, and nobody knew which were and which were not inspired. Copies of all these books were collected at the time of this council and placed under the communion table in the church. Then the bishops gathered around the table and prayed that in some way the inspired books might be indicated from the uninspired, and as they prayed, a number of the books were supernaturally raised from underneath the table and placed on top of it. These were accepted as the inspired books, they say, and this is the way the Christians got their Bible! The grain of wheat in that bushel of chaff is this: That there was such a council at Nice at that time, A.D. 325, and one of the things it did was to set forth a catalog of all the inspired books of the New Testament, which had been so accepted as inspired by the whole church since the first. That catalog is the same as we have today.