books are recognized books. Recognition involves decision. Somebody at a particular place and time recognized such books. Somebody eventually drew up a list and, in so doing, expressed a judgment about the books on it and those not on it. To produce such a selection required a principle of selection. It takes time, a considerable amount of time, several centuries, for such a selection to be completed.
5 THE NEW TESTAMENT
We can trace the stages in this process. First the books are written and that process, in regard to the New Testament, takes us to the second century. Then the books circulate in the churches. This involves somebody copying them by hand, and taking them from one place to another, storing them carefully, at a time when Christianity was not a recognized religion and its meetings for worship were illegal. The next stage is that some people in different places, say Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, make a collection of the books and arrange them in an order which other churches throughout the Empire recognize. So a general recognition began to grow that there was a collection of books, some of them written by apostles, or by people associated with apostles and others of them thought to have been written by such people. These books helped the growing church to become stable in its beliefs in face of challenges. Gradually and with good reason it dawned on the leaders of the churches that it would be helpful to have the collection clearly defined. Lists of accepted books were produced and the different churches largely agreed. That list of books corresponds to the books which now appear in our Bibles. The compilation of a list of books which corresponds to our New Testament takes us into the fourth century.
The process is called canonization. To produce such a canon involves that those who make the selection know many books other than the books they finally recognize. Most contemporary Christians do not know of, let alone have read, other books than the books which came to be canonical. So they are not in a position to make a judgment about them and about the propriety of the selection. If one is not acquainted with the books not included how does one know that they were wisely excluded?
The alternative is simply to accept the decision of the church in the long ago past on these matters. Whether one realizes it or not that is what one is doing if one simply takes the Bible for granted.
Consider the following most interesting statement by Eusebius who wrote about AD 325.
Now the writings which bear the name of Peter, of which I recognize only one epistle as genuine and acknowledged by the elders of olden time, are so many; while the fourteen epistles of Paul are manifest and clear (as regards their genuineness). Nevertheless it is not right to be ignorant that some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it is disputed by the church of the Romans as not being Paul’s.19
Eusebius knew many writings that bore the name of Peter. But, drawing on the judgment of the elders, that is to say, sources from the second and third centuries, he recognized only one writing as genuine which bore the name of Peter. It was not sufficient that the book be attributed to an apostle. But, it counted against it, if it could not be, as in the case of the book of Hebrews. Eusebius knew a lot of other books and made his judgment about the worthiness of what we call the first epistle of Peter on the basis of that knowledge, and on the basis of the attitude of former church teachers. It is clear that he has rejected II Peter, a book which appears in our New Testament. There were other writers who also found II Peter not to be genuine.
To put some books in means to leave others out. Why were the twenty-seven put in and the other dozens left out? Who decided that? Was it a good choice? Do we want to endorse that decision? If we do not, what difference does it make? There was no shortage of books. Many were left aside. Others did not survive. By the middle of the second century there were many writings. As well as the twenty-seven books which Christians are familiar with from their New Testament there were such books as the two Epistles of Clement, the Didache, or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, the Shepherd of Hermas, Letters of Ignatius, the Epistle of Barnabas, Polycarp, various Gospels and Apocalypses, the Wisdom of Solomon.
Already there were different assessments of all these books. Not all churches agreed as to what were and were not acceptable books, as to which ones were written and which ones were not written by apostles or by someone closely associated with an apostle. From early lists we know that there were several disputed books, books whose standing as Scripture was questioned. These were Hebrews, James, II Peter, II and III John, Jude and Revelation.20 These books were included in later lists, but in assessing their position, we should not overlook the fact of earlier judgments about them. From the beginning the church was aware that some of the books it would later endorse were less important, and less widely accepted than were others, less important in particular than the Gospels and the letters of Paul.
It was not until judgments and lists began to appear that it could not agree with, that the church made an effort to secure uniformity. The heretic Marcion produced a list of books which led the church to give attention to the matter. By the end of the fourth century the church came to agree, almost unanimously, on the twenty-seven books which form our New Testament.21 That decision and that list was handed down and was accepted thereafter as right. The limits of the Christian Bible had (it seemed) been finally decided upon. After the list had appeared in the Festal Letter of Athanasius in A.D. 376 there is no serious question as to which books constituted the New Testament.
It is important to observe that while councils made such pronouncements, it was not the pronouncements that established the authority of the books. The books were not authoritative because they were included on a list, because a council or two, or an archbishop or two, or a pope or two, pronounced them so. They were included on the list because they had already won recognition. The fact that a list is made does not confer status on the books. It constitutes a formal recognition that the books have performed and are performing a most important function in the church. It gives formal recognition to a state of affairs in the church. These books were the books the communities were reading and were finding helpful in promoting their life and mission, worship and proclamation. The church in her practice had already settled the question. The pronouncements of the synods and the lists drawn up endorsed and expressed the implications of that practice.
Christians pronounced on the limits of the Canon for three particular reasons:
1 to exclude heretical books, such as those of the Gnostics, whose teachings ran counter to the teachings of Christianity.
2 because an unsatisfactory list of writings had appeared. This was Marcion’s canon. Marcion separated the God of the Old Testament (whom he rejected) from the God of Jesus. He ‘mutilated’ Luke and dismembered the letters of Paul,22 so as to make them agree with his teaching. These two reasons are historical ones.
3 Underlying them is the theological conviction that for a collection of books to have authority, you have to be quite clear which books are to be included. The limits of that collection must be clearly fixed.
When the books are taken as doctrinal sources, as providing the resources for true teaching, it is obviously necessary to know precisely which books are to be taken in this way, and which other writings are not. If we are going to get authoritative guidance for both practice and teaching, we have to know which are reliable books to give such guidance, and which are not. A decision is appropriate, provided such guidance is sought for. Agreement in the Christian community that certain teachings, for example about faith, about Jesus, about the resurrection of believers, are true, goes along with an agreement about those books that teach correctly. So the ideas of heresy and of unacceptable writings develop together in the formative period of the church’s growth. So do the ideas of orthodoxy and of canon.
But what do we mean when we say that the church used, endorsed and then formally recognized particular writings?
We should not take for granted the idea that Scripture is holy. Christopher Evans raises the question sharply. He asks, ‘Is Holy Scripture Christian?’23 The fact is that the books
