The Canon of the Bible Part 4

Rufinus(329) enumerates the books of the Old and New Testaments which "are believed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit itself, according to the tradition of our ancestors, and have been handed down by the Churches of Christ." All the books of the Hebrew canon and of the New Testament are specified. After the list he says, "these are they which the fathers included in the canon, by which they wished to establish the a.s.sertion of our faith." He adds that there are other books not _canonical_, but _ecclesiastical_-the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Tobit, Judith, and the books of the Maccabees. Besides the usual New Testament works, he speaks of the Shepherd of Hermas, and the "Judgment of Peter" as read in the churches, but not as authoritative in matters of faith.(330)

Philastrius(331) of Brescia gives some account of the Scriptures and their contents in his time. The canonical Scriptures, which alone should be read in the Catholic Church, are said to be the law and the prophets, the gospels, Acts, thirteen epistles of Paul, and seven others, _i.e._, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and one of James. Of the Old Testament apocrypha he a.s.serts that they ought to be read for the sake of morals by the perfect, but not by all. He speaks of _heretics_ who reject John's gospel and the Apocalypse. Respecting the Epistle to the Hebrews which is omitted in his canon, he speaks at large, but not very decidedly, affirming that some attributed its authorship to Barnabas, or Clement of Rome, or Luke. "They wish to read the writings of the blessed apostle, and not rightly perceiving some things in the epistle, it is not therefore read by them in the church. Though read by some, it is not read to the people in the church; nothing but Paul's thirteen epistles, and that to the Hebrews sometimes."(332) The influence of the East upon the West appears in the statements of this father upon the subject. He had several canonical lists before him; one at least from an Oriental-Arian source, which explains some a.s.sertions, particularly his omission of the Apocalypse.

Innocent I. of Rome wrote to Exsuperius (405 A.D.), bishop of Toulouse, giving a list of the canonical books. Besides the Hebrew canon, he has Wisdom and Sirach; Tobit, Judith, the two Maccabees. The New Testament list is identical with the present. He also refers to pseudepigraphical writings which ought not only to be rejected but condemned.(333)

A canonical list appears in three different forms bearing the names of Damasus (366-384), Gelasius I. (492-496), and Hormisdas (514-523).

According to the first, the books of the Old Testament are arranged in three orders. In the first are the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four Kings, two Chronicles, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus; in the second, all the prophets, including Baruch; in the third, Job, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Esdras, two Maccabees. The New Testament books are the four gospels, fourteen epistles of Paul, the Apocalypse, and Acts, with seven Catholic epistles.

That which is called the Decree of Gelasius is almost identical with the preceding. It wants Baruch and Lamentations. It has also two Esdrases instead of one. In the New Testament the epistle to the Hebrews is absent.

The Hormisdas-form has the Lamentations of Jeremiah: and in the New Testament the Epistle to the Hebrews.

The MSS. of these lists present some diversity; and Credner supposes the Damasus-list a fiction. But Thiel has vindicated its authenticity. It is possible that some interpolations may exist in the last two; the first, which is the shortest, may well belong to the time of Damasus.(334)

In 419 A.D. another council at Carthage, at which Augustine was present, repeated the former list of books with a single alteration, viz., fourteen epistles of Paul (instead of thirteen).(335)

The preceding notices and catalogues show a general desire in the Western Church to settle the canon. The two most influential men of the period were Augustine and Jerome, who did not entirely agree. Both were unfitted for a critical examination of the topic. The former was a gifted spiritual man, lacking learning and independence. Tradition dominated all his ideas about the difficult or disputed books. He did not enter upon the question scientifically, on the basis of certain principles; but was content to take refuge in authority-the prevailing authority of leading churches. His judgment was weak, his sagacity moderate, and his want of many-sidedness hindered a critical result. Jerome, again, was learned but timid, lacking the courage to face the question fairly or fundamentally; and the independence necessary to its right investigation. Belonging as he did to both churches, he recommended the practice of the one to the other. He, too, was chiefly influenced by tradition; by Jewish teachers in respect to the Old Testament, and by general custom as to the New. The question was not susceptible of advancement under such manipulation; nor could it be settled on a legitimate basis. Compared with the eastern Church, the western accepted a wider canon of the Old Testament, taking some books into the cla.s.s of the _canonical_ which the former put among those _to be read_. In regard to the New Testament, _all_ the Catholic epistles and even the Apocalypse were received. The African churches and councils generally adopted this larger canon, because the old Latin version or versions of the Bible current in Africa were daughters of the Septuagint.

If the Latins apparently looked upon the Greek as the original itself, the apocryphal books would soon get rank with the canonical. Yet the more learned fathers, Jerome, Rufinus and others, favored the Hebrew canon in distinguishing between _canonical_ and _ecclesiastical_ books. The influence of the Eastern upon the Western Church is still visible, though it could not extinguish the prevailing desire to include the disputed books. The Greek view was to receive nothing which had not apparently a good attestation of divine origin and apostolic authority; the Latin was to exclude nothing hallowed by descent and proved by custom. The former Church looked more to the sources of doctrine; the latter to those of edification. The one desired to contract those sources, so as not to be too rich; the other to enlarge the springs of edification, not to be too poor. Neither had the proper resources for the work, nor a right perception of the way in which it should be set about; and therefore they were not fortunate in their conclusions, differing as they did in regard to points which affect the foundation of a satisfactory solution.

Notwithstanding the numerous endeavors both in the East and West to settle the canon during the 4th and 5th centuries, it was not finally closed. The doubts of individuals were still expressed; and succeeding ages testified to the want of universal agreement respecting several books. The question, however, was _practically_ determined. No material change occurred again in the absolute rejection or admission of books. With some fluctuations, the canon remained very much as it was in the 4th and 5th centuries.

Tradition shaped and established its character. General usage gave it a permanency which it was not easy to disturb. No definite principles guided the course of its formation, or fixed its present state. It was dominated first and last by circ.u.mstances and ideas which philosophy did not actuate. Its history is mainly objective. Uncritical at its commencement, it was equally so in the two centuries which have just been considered.

The history of the canon in the Syrian church cannot be traced with much exactness. The Pes.h.i.to version had only the Hebrew canonical books at first; most of the apocryphal were rendered from the Greek and added in the Nestorian recension. In the New Testament it wanted four of the catholic epistles and the Apocalypse. Ephrem (A.D. 378) uses all the books in our canon, the apocryphal as well as the canonical. The former are cited by him in the same way as the latter. Sirach ii. 1 is quoted with _as the Scripture says_;(336) and Wisdom iv. 7 with _it is written_.(337) Daniel xiii. 9, belonging to the Greek additions, is also cited with _as it is written_.(338) It should be observed that the quotations given are all from Ephrem's Greek, not Syriac, works; and that suspicions have been raised about the former being tampered with. The Syrian version of the New Testament made by Polycarp at the request of Philoxenus of Mabug, had the four catholic epistles wanting in the Pes.h.i.to. It had also the two epistles of Clement to the Corinthians, if we may judge by the Harclean recension, A.D. 616; for a MS. in the Cambridge University Library contains those epistles immediately after the Catholic ones, and before those of St. Paul; so that they are put on an equality with the canonical writings. The Apocalypse is wanting. Junilius, (though an African bishop about 550 A.D.), says that he got his knowledge from a Persian of the name of Paulus who received his education in the school of Nisibis. He may, therefore, be considered a witness of the opinions of the Syrian church at the beginning of the 6th century. Dividing the biblical books into those of _perfect_, those of _intermediate_, and those of _no authority_, he makes the first the canonical; the second, those added to them by many (plures); the third, all the rest. In the first list he puts Ecclesiasticus. Among the second he puts 1 and 2 Chronicles, Job, Ezra and Nehemiah, Judith, Esther, 1 and 2 Maccabees; and in the New Testament, James, 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John. He also says that the Apocalypse of John is much doubted by the Orientals. In the third list _i.e._, books of no authority added by some (quidam) to the canonical, are put Wisdom and Canticles.(339) The catalogue is confused, and erroneous at least in one respect, that Jerome is referred to, as sanctioning the division given of the Old Testament books; for neither he nor the Jews agree with it.

The canon of the Abyssinian church seems to have had at first all the books in the Septuagint, canonical and apocryphal together, little distinction being made between them. Along with the contents of the Greek Bible there were Enoch, 4 Esdras, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Jubilees, a.s.seneth, &c. That of the New Testament agrees with the present Greek one.

At a later period in the Arabic age a list was made and const.i.tuted the legal one for the use of the church, having been derived from the Jacobite canons of the apostles. This gives, in the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Judith, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Esther, Tobit, two books of Maccabees, Job, Psalms, five books of Solomon, minor and greater prophets. The Wisdom of Sirach (for teaching children) and the book of Joseph ben Gorion, _i.e._, that of the Maccabees, are external. The New Testament has four gospels, Acts, seven apostolic epistles, fourteen of Paul, and the Revelation of John. Later catalogues vary much, and are often enlarged with the book of Enoch, 4 Esdras, the Apocalypse of Isaiah, &c. The canon of the Ethiopic church was fluctuating.(340)

The canon of the Armenians had at first the Palestinian books of the Old Testament, twenty-two in number, and the usual New Testament ones, except the Apocalypse. It was made from the Syriac in the fifth century by Sahak and Mesrob. The deutero-canonical books and additions were appended, after the disciples of those two men who had been sent by them into different places, brought back authentic copies of the Greek Bible from the patriarch Maximian, by which the version already made was interpolated and corrected; as it was subsequently corrected by others despatched to Alexandria and Athens, who, however, did not return till their teachers were dead. The MSS. of this version were afterwards interpolated from the Vulgate; Oskan himself translating for his edition (which was the first printed one, A.D. 1666), Sirach, 4 Esdras and the Epistle of Jeremiah from the Latin. The book of Revelation does not seem to have been translated till the eighth century. Zohrab's critical edition (1805) has Judith, Tobit, the three books of Maccabees, Wisdom, and the Epistle of Baruch among the canonical books; and in an appendix, the fourth book of Esdras, the prayer of Mana.s.seh, the Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul and his answer, the Rest (end) of the apostle and evangelist John, the prayer of Euthalius. Like the edition of Oskan, this has all the deutero-canonical books, which were derived from the Septuagint, and incorporated by the first translators with their original version. Another edition published at St. Petersburgh (1817), for the use of the Jacobite Church, has the prayer of Mana.s.ses and 4 Esdras after the Apocalypse.

The Georgian version consisted of the books and additions in the Greek translation from which it was made. The New Testament has the canonical books in the usual order. Jesus Sirach and two books of the Maccabees (2d and 3d) were not in the Georgian MS. used by Prince Arcil for the edition of 1743, but were rendered out of the Russian. The Moscow Bible printed under the direction and at the cost of Arcil, Bacchar and Wakuset, is the authorized edition of the Georgian Christians.

The Bible canon of the Eastern church in the middle ages shows no real advance. Endeavors were made to remove the uncertainty arising from the existence of numerous lists; but former decisions and decrees of councils were repeated instead of a new, independent canon. Here belongs the catalogue in the Alexandrian MS., of the fifth century, which is peculiar.

After the prophets come Esther, Tobit, Judith, Ezra and Nehemiah, 4 Maccabees, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, the all-virtuous Wisdom, the Wisdom of Jesus of Sirach. In the New Testament, the Apocalypse is followed by two epistles of Clement. The list was probably made in Egypt. That of Anastasius Sinaita,(341) patriarch of Antioch, is similar to Nicephorus's Stichometry, which we shall mention afterwards. Baruch is among the canonical books; Esther among the antilegomena. The Apocalypse is unnoticed. The 85th of the Apostolic canons gives a list of the Old and New Testament books, in which the usual canonical ones of the former are supplemented by Judith and 3 Maccabees; those of the latter by the two epistles of Clement, with the Apostolic const.i.tutions. This catalogue cannot be put earlier than the fifth or sixth century, and is subject to the suspicion of having been interpolated. We have also Nicephorus's _Stichometry_ (806-815;)(342) of which we may remark that Baruch is among the canonical books of the Old Testament; while the Revelation is put with the Apocalypse of Peter, the epistle of Barnabas and the Gospel according to the Hebrews, among the antilegomena of the New Testament. It is also surprising that the Apocalypse of Peter and the Gospel according to the Hebrews are not among the Apocrypha, where Clement's epistles with the productions of Ignatius, Polycarp, and Hermas appear. The list is probably older than that of the Antioch patriarch Anastasius Sinaita. Cosmas Indicopleustes (535) never mentions the seven Catholic epistles of the New Testament or the Apocalypse. The Trullan council (A.D. 692) adopts the eighty-five Apostolic canons, rejecting, however, the Apostolic Const.i.tutions.

Photius, patriarch of Constantinople,(343) follows the eighty-fifth Apostolical canon of the Trullan Council.(344) But in his Bibliotheca(345) he speaks differently regarding the epistles of Clement, and does not treat them as canonical. Though the first was thought worthy to be read in public, the second was rejected as spurious; and his own opinion was not altogether favorable to them. John of Damascus;(346) the second Nicene council (787); the Synopsis divinae Scripturae Vet. et Novi Test. (about 1000); Zonaras (about 1120); Alexius Aristenus (about 1160); and Nicephorus Callistus (1330), call for no remark.

In the Western church of the Middle Ages, diversity of opinion respecting certain books continued. Though the views of Augustine were generally followed, the stricter ones of Jerome found many adherents. The canon was fluctuating, and the practice of the churches in regard to it somewhat lax. Here belong Ca.s.siodorus (about 550); the list in the Codex Amiatinus (about 550); Isidore of Seville(347) who, after enumerating three cla.s.ses of Old Testament books gives a fourth not in the Hebrew canon. Here he specifies Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, saying that the church of Christ puts them among the divine books, honors and highly esteems them.(348) There are also the fourth council of Toledo (632); Gregory the Great(349) Notker Labeo;(350) Ivo (about 1092); Bede;(351) Alcuin;(352) Raba.n.u.s Maurus;(353) Hugo de St Victor;(354) Peter of Clugny;(355) John of Salisbury;(356) Thomas Aquinas;(357) Hugo de St Cher;(358) Wycliffe;(359) Nicolaus of Lyra,(360) &c., &c. Several of these, as Hugo de St Victor, John of Salisbury, Hugo de St Cher, and Nicolaus of Lyra, followed Jerome in separating the canonical and apocryphal books of the Old Testament.(361)

The Reformers generally returned to the Hebrew canon, dividing off the additional books of the Septuagint or those attached to the Vulgate. These they called _apocryphal_, after Jerome's example. Though considered of no authority in matters of doctrine, they were p.r.o.nounced useful and edifying. The princ.i.p.al reason that weighed with the Reformers was, that Christ and the apostles testified to none of the Septuagint additions.

Besides the canonical books of the Old Testament, Luther translated Judith, Wisdom, Tobit, Sirach, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel, with the Prayer of Mana.s.seh. His judgment respecting several of these is expressed in the prefaces to them. With regard to 1 Maccabees, he thinks it almost equal to the other books of Holy Scripture, and not unworthy to be reckoned among them. Of Wisdom, he says, he was long in doubt whether it should be numbered among the canonical books; and of Sirach that it is a right good book proceeding from a wise man. But he speaks unfavorably of several other apocryphal productions, as of Baruch and 2 Maccabees. It is evident, however, that he considered all he translated of _some_ use to the Christian Church. He thought that the book of Esther should not belong to the canon.

Luther's judgment respecting some of the New Testament books was freer than most Protestants now are disposed to approve. He thought the epistle to the Hebrews was neither Paul's nor an apostle's, but proceeded from an excellent and learned man who may have been the disciple of apostles. He did not put it on an equality with the epistles written by apostles themselves. The Apocalypse he considered neither apostolic nor prophetic, but put it almost on the same level with the 4th book of Esdras, which he spoke elsewhere of tossing into the Elbe. This judgment was afterwards modified, not retracted. James's epistle he p.r.o.nounced unapostolic, "a right strawy epistle." In like manner, he did not believe that Jude's epistle proceeded from an apostle. Considering it to have been taken from 2 Peter, and not well extracted either, he put it lower than the supposed original. The Reformer, as also his successors, made a distinction between the books of the New Testament similar to that of the Old; the _generally received_ (h.o.m.ologoumena) and _controverted_ books (antilegomena); but the Calvinists afterwards obliterated it, as the Roman Catholics at the Council of Trent did with the old Testament.(362) The epistle to the Hebrews, those of Jude and James, with the Apocalypse, belong to the latter cla.s.s. The distinction in question proceeded from genuine critical tact on the part of the early Lutheran Church which had canonical and deutero-canonical writings even in the New Testament collection. Nor did the Reformers consider it a dangerous thing to bring the fact before the people. To make it palpable, Luther attached continuous numbers to the first twenty-three books of his version, bringing the four antilegomena after these, without numbers; and this mode of marking the difference continued till the middle of the 17th century.(363) Luther was right in a.s.signing a greater or less value to the separate writings of the New Testament, and in leaving every one to do the same. He relied on their internal value more than tradition; taking the _word of G.o.d_ in a deeper and wider sense than its coincidence with the Bible.

Bodenstein of Carlstad examined the question of canonicity more thoroughly than any of his contemporaries, and followed out the principle of private judgment in regard to it. He divides the biblical books into three cla.s.ses-1. Books of the highest dignity, viz., the Pentateuch and the Gospels; 2. Books of the second dignity, _i.e._, the works termed prophetic by the Jews, and the fifteen epistles universally received; 3.

Books of the third and lowest authority, _i.e._, the Jewish Hagiographa and the seven Antilegomena epistles of the New Testament. Among the Apocrypha he makes two cla.s.ses-such as are out of the canon to the Hebrews yet hagiographical (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, the two Maccabees), and those that are clearly apocryphal and to be rejected (third and fourth Esdras, Baruch, Prayer of Mana.s.seh, a good part of the third chapter of Daniel, and the last two chapters of Daniel.)(364)

Zwingli a.s.serts that the Apocalypse is not a biblical book.(365)

Oecolampadius says-"We do not despise Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the last two Esdras, the three Maccabees, the last two chapters of Daniel, but we do not attribute to them divine authority with those others."(366) As to the books of the New Testament he would not compare the Apocalypse, James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John with the rest.(367)

Calvin did not think that Paul was the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, or that 2 Peter was written by the apostle himself; but both in his opinion are canonical.

CHAPTER VIII. ORDER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS.

I. The arrangement of the various parts comprising the New Testament was fluctuating in the second century; less so in the third. In the fourth century the order which the books had commonly a.s.sumed in Greek MSS. and writers was; the Gospels, the Acts, the Catholic Epistles, the Pauline, and the Apocalypse. This sequence appears in the Vatican, Sinaitic, Alexandrian and Ephrem (C) MSS.; Cyril of Jerusalem, in the 60th Canon of the Laodicean Council, Athanasius, Leontius of Byzantium, &c.

II. Another order prevailed in the Latin Church, viz., the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles of Paul, the Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse.

This appears in Melito, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Augustine, Jerome, the Vulgate, the Councils of Carthage, held in A.D. 397 and 419; and is now the usual arrangement.

Within the limits of the two general arrangements just mentioned, there were many variations. Thus we find in relation to _the gospels_.

III. (_a_) Matthew, John, Luke, Mark; in the MSS. of the old Italic marked _a_, _b_, _d_, _e_, _ff_, and in the cod. argenteus of Ulfila's Gothic version.

(_b_) Matthew, John, Mark, Luke; in the council of Ephesus A.D. 431, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, the stichometry of the Clermont MS. Such was the usual order in the Greek Church of the fifth century.

(_c_) Mark is put first, followed by Matthew; in the fragment of a Bobbian MS. of the Itala at Turin marked _k_.

(_d_) Matthew, Mark, John, Luke; in the Curetonian Syriac gospels. They are mentioned in the same order in Origen's I. Homily on Luke.

The reason of the order in, (_a_) and (_b_) lies in apostleship. The works of apostles precede those of evangelists. The established sequence, which is already sanctioned by Irenaeus and Origen, has respect to the supposed dates of the gospels. Clement of Alexandria says that ancient tradition supposed those gospels having the genealogies to have been written before the others.

IV. As to the _Acts of the Apostles_, not only is this work put immediately after the gospels, which is the order in the Muratorian canon, but we find it in other positions.

(_a_) Gospels, Pauline Epistles, Acts; in the Sinaitic MS., the Pes.h.i.to,(368) Jerome,(369) and Epiphanius.

(_b_) Gospels, Pauline Epistles, Catholic Epistles, Acts; in Augustine, the third council of Toledo, Isidore, Innocent I., Eugenius IV., and the Spanish Church generally.

(_c_) Gospels, Pauline, Catholic Epistles, Apocalypse, Acts; in the stichometry of the Clermont MS.

V. As to _the Epistles of Paul_, besides the place they now occupy in our Bibles, they sometimes follow the gospels immediately.

(_a_) Gospels, Pauline Epistles; the Sinaitic MS., Jerome, Epiphanius, Augustine, the third council of Toledo, Isidore, Innocent I., Eugenius IV., the stichometry of the Clermont MS.

(_b_) The usual order of the Greek Church is, Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline, &c., as in Cyril of Jerusalem, the Laodicean Council (60), Athanasius, Leontius of Byzantium, the MSS. A. B., but not ?. The critical Greek Testaments of Lachmann and Tischendorf adopt this order.

(_c_) They are placed last of all in a homily attributed to Origen, but this does not necessarily show that father's opinion.(370)

(_d_) They stand first of all in a Gallican _Sacramentarium_ cited by Hody.(371)

VI. With respect to the order of the individual epistles, the current one has been thought as old as Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. But the proof of this is precarious. It appears in the fourth century, and may have been prior to that. It is in Epiphanius, who supposes that the arrangement was the apostle's own. Not only was it the prevalent one in the Greek Church, but also in the Latin as we see from the codex Amiatinus, and the Vulgate MSS. generally. It rests upon the extent of the epistles and the relative importance of the localities in which the believers addressed resided.

(_a_) Marcion had but ten Pauline epistles in the following order: Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, the Laodiceans, (Ephesians), Colossians, Philemon, Philippians.