Elementary Notes on The Canon

 "The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it"-Psalms:68:11



The body of works called the Bible, that is  Scriptures,   speak to us about Who the great God is and as He reveals  Himself to us in the person of His Son Jesus Christ, where did we get the New Testament, how was it assembled  ?

The Need for Scripture

In the early church, there were many writings that abounded, some were 

legitimate and inspired by the Holy Spirit, they were the result of  what Greek calls "inspirata" which means breathed into. That Is God through His Spirit  into the heart of the Biblical writers to  convey to humanity what God has to say. There arose a need to have a body of writings that were agreed upon as being inspired  and recognized as being from God so that there would be constant from which to teach.   We are told by Luke that many had produced accounts of Jesus' life, words, death and resurrection.

 "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us" Luke:1:1

Most Early churches had maybe one copy of a Gospel or an epistle to utilize, which would sent to other churches, few had a complete or multiple copies to read and preach from.   

 So, of the many accounts, especially of the Gospel's , not to mention the epistles, how did the early church arrive at the collection of works we call the Bible ?  There abounded many writings that began to espouse ideas that stretched the orthodox Christianity teaching;  often theses writing were unknown until a person or group began to proclaim them, leading many to suspect that they were not authentic. 

  

 As Christianity began to grow and time past the Post-Apostolic church gathered to considered and in some cases debate  the question(s). This was a lengthily process which took time, not all were in full agreement , some believed that 2 & 3 John were too short  along with Jude, to be included, others questioned as to who wrote Revelation , some some thought  that it may have John the Presbyter rather then Apostle John,  others considered it to be the nonsensical  ramblings of an old man. Some thought Hebrews should not be included due the lack of a name affixed to it. Some questioned 2 Peter due to the   different style in writing in some respects to   1 Peter . 

Other writings that did not meet the standard and  discarded were the Acts of Paul and Thekla, Gospel of Thomas ,  Acts of Andrew,   Gospel of Peter , Revelation of Peter, Revelation of the Twelve and others which were "gnostic" writings . Some of these writings were as 2Peter:1:16 says  "cunningly devised fables" . Others may have been penned by Biblical personalities, yet lacked the intrinsic evidence of being the "Word of God" speaking perfectly to us about the Great God.
 It took time, prayer, discussion  and above all the leading of the Holy Spirit to arrive at agreement about what should and should not be included.

Sorting It Out

By the time of the "Patristic Writers";  this is the period roughly from  the close of the Apostolic period around 100  AD to 400s AD.


These Early church fathers are basically divided into the Ante-Nicene Fathers, that is those who lived and wrote  prior to the Council of Nicene(325) and the Post-Nicene Fathers, those who wrote after 325.  The " Fathers"   were also divided into Greek and Latin writers as well. Some of the prominent Greek Fathers are Justin Martyr , John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria .   The Latin Fathers are Tertullian , Cyprian, Jerome, Ambrose of Milan, Gregory the Great and Augustine of Hippo.

The church poured through the manuscripts and their content and  grouped these writings in to  basic categories: These categories were formulated by the Church Historian Eusebius,(270-340 AD) which helped end the controversies over what should be included and what should be dismissed. He applied the same approach that was used to canonize the Old Testament.

 

Homoloumena:-Writings which were accepted, all agreed upon them.

Antilegomena- Writings that there were some questions about their acceptance.

Pseudepigrapha- Writings coincided forgeries or heretical.

The Apocrypha-Books written after the Canon of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament)  was completed and never written in Hebrew and never referenced to by Jesus or the Apostles with one possible exception, Jude may have  quoted the Book of Enoch  in Jude 1:14

Early Mention 

Starting just about the time of the sacking of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, the New Testament was in pieces and passed from congregation to congregation and slowly was  being assembled by some who  had multiple copies of some of the writings. Prior to this word of mouth was the main conveyance and transmission of the Gospel, along with an occasional epistle.

Clement of Rome  an early church leader quoted from and coincided  authoritative many of the Canonical writing which are in the Bible. 

The Author of the Barnabas Epistle who some scholars think may be Barnabas himself, uses  again both Old Testament and New Testament references.

A early collection of writings called the Didache, also referred to as the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" quotes from Matthew's and Luke's Gospels and asserts their inspired authorship.

Many other early church leaders, such as Polycarp, Papius,Justin  & Ignation  quoted  again Matthew  and John along with Paul's works giving the Apostolic writing as much recognition  as they did the Old Testament.

Many others church leaders that followed did likewise , Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus and Tertullian.

Canonical Councils

 Four basic  Councils that were called to discus the question of Canon

Council of Laodecia-336 -AD
Council of Damascus-382-AD
Council of Carthage-397-AD
Council of Hippo-419-AD

At Loadecia Council  all that  we have of the New Testament was accepted but not Revelation, which was later accept at the other councils. 
Time nor space permits a long recounting of theses proceedings but they produced results that have blessed many for generations and resulted in the word of God being available to peoples down through the ages and many lands.

                                                                   How Chosen?

What was the means  by which the leaders of the church compiled the New Testament?

Apostolicity- All the writings had to have as its author an Apostle or another minister of that time.

Universal Acceptance- All Churches had to accept a given Gospel account or Epistle.

Uniformity- Consistent With all other accepted writings and historic teaching of the Church.

Inspiration- The Holy Spirit's inspiration must be  evidently  discerned.

Early Acceptance- Referred to, used and listed as Scripture by the early Church "Fathers".

Exhortation of Proclamation- Within the text there needed to be  direction to preach and proclaim the message of Jesus and the reading of the word.

When the  manuscripts were discussed, the above method was employed and what we have is the  result.  The Canon or body of writings, the Bible,  that speak to us about Jesus, it is a living document and has transformed the lives of many for time and eternity. Amen

Rev.Todd Crouch, Pastor

Fountain of Life Church

Washington, Pa 

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