1.B 11. The Church's Decision

The Church’s Decision The Church had to act; the Church had to say which books it did regard as holy Scripture. And what was to happen to Paul? Was he to be abandoned to the heretics, or was he to be legitimized? It could be argued that Paul was no apostle because he was not one of the original twelve; it could be argued that his letters contained statements which could be used as a basis for heresy; and it was true that the heretics had wellnigh made him their patron saint. P^l^^^^^aj^sw^gng in the balance. But two things resoiedTPSiLIfast, his letters were react in all the Churches, and were mightily effective in the spread and defence of the gospel. Second, there was the b,ook of Acts. In it Paul was set forth in all th^glory of his apostleship, and it was proved in it that "CBnstliad called him and that the Twelve had accepted him. That is why Acts comes where it does in the order of the New Testament books. Logically Acts should come after Luke, of which it is the second volume, but in point of fact it comes between the Gospels and the letters of Paul, because it is the bridge between them, and it is the document which guarantees that the letters which follow are the letters of an apostle, and of the greatest of the apostles. Acts provides Paul’s title to apostolicity, and, therefore, immediately precedes his letters. So the Church finally legitimized Paul. It further sought out such additional apostolic materials as it possessed and it finally arrived at a list. Tl^jftst r JLt^ dQffimejQL^ which takes its name. The Muratorian Canon is damaged at the beginning, and actually begins with Luke, but its list of books is as follows Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, I and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, I and 2 Thessalonians, Romans, Philemon, Titus, i and 2 Timothy, Jude, I and 2 John, the Apocalypse of John (that is, the Revelation), the Apocalypse of Peter. To this list is added The Wisdom of Solomon.

Here, then, is the first list of the New Testament Canon. The ^^L<rfjil^J^ and these are the books which at that time the Church accepted as sacred Scripture. The only startling omission is the omission of I Peter, and, although it is absent from this list, it may be regarded as certain that the Church even then did accept it.

Already the Canon is taking shape. The omitted books James, 2 Peter, 3 John, Hebrews are precisely the books which took longest and had the hardest struggle to enter the canon, and to their history we shall later return. The New Testament is well on the way to being finalized and the strange tiling is that the stimulus to this first step was the work and influence of Marcion the heretic, and the enemy of true Christianity.