Codifying the New Testament Canon

Photo courtesy of The Dublin Library

by Professor JEANNIE CONSTANTINOU

It is hard to imagine a time when “the New Testament” as we know it did not exist. We are accustomed to turning to the Apostolic writings whenever we wish. But imagine a time when those books had not been written, or when they had not been gathered into a collection, or when easy access to them was not possible because books were rare and expensive.

The earliest followers of Jesus, like most other firstcentury Jews, lived outside of Palestine in other parts of the Roman Empire. They did not see themselves as part of a separate religion; they were widely considered a Jewish sect, one of many different varieties of Judaism that flourished during the first century. The only thing that distinguished them was their belief that the Messiah had already come, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and had fulfilled the Scriptures. He was both the long-awaited Messiah and the Lord.

Nor did these early Christians see any need for a separate body of Scripture. Their Scriptures were the Hebrew Bible (what we now call the Old Testament), whether rendered in the Hebrew language or in a Greek translation known as the Septuagint. As we know, some Apostles wrote letters, accounts of Christ’s life, and other books. Over time, copies of these Apostolic books were copied and distributed throughout the Christian world. Eventually they were read during the Liturgy and respected as the “memoirs of the Apostles,” according to St. Justin the Philosopher and Martyr, who died around the year 165. Apostolic writings became especially important after the deaths of the Apostles, but they were not immediately considered Scripture. For the early Church, even Apostolic writings could not stand alongside sacred books such as Isaiah, Genesis, or the Psalms, which were hundreds of years old.

The term “canon of Scripture” simply means the list of books recognized by the Church as Scripture. The term “canon” is also used for the decision of a Church council, or a regulation or guideline written by a Church council. The Greek word kanon was the word for a reed which grew in marshes. The segmented reeds were used as measuring rods or sticks, the way we use a ruler or yardstick today. Some scholars believe the list of books recognized as Scripture is called the “canon” because the Church used a measurement or standard for deciding which books would be included. Others say the term “canon” was used because the books of the Bible are the basis for how we measure ourselves.

As I explained in my last column in these pages (“Heresy and the Scriptural Canon”, fall 2019 issue), the process of selecting a canon was triggered by the emergence of two heresies: Gnosticism and Marcionism. As the exponents of these false teachings tried to distort or supplant Holy Scripture, ecclesial leaders saw a need to defend the true Christian texts by formally recognizing their authority. In this column I would like to address the question of how the canon was ultimately selected.

Once the process of choosing a canon had begun, there was little debate over the books that would form the core. Among the four books we now recognize as the canonical Gospels, the only one that sparked any disagreement was the Gospel of John. It was so different from the other three that it was viewed with suspicion by some. St. Irenaeus (c. 190) championed its acceptance by arguing that God had always intended four Gospels. The number four, he argued, symbolized universality and completeness, like the four corners of the earth, the four winds, the four elements of the created world, and the four creatures by the throne of God. Other books that were accepted universally, without any debate, were Acts of the Apostles, the 13 epistles of Paul, 1 John, and 1 Peter.

However, some other books were not accepted so readily. In the West, Hebrews was hotly debated. Its theology is perfectly sound (for instance, where it describes Christ as the heavenly High Priest). However, it was “anonymous”— not attributed to an Apostle —and therefore some Western Christians questioned its inclusion. But the East loved Hebrews, and eminent Church leaders like St. John Chrysostom believed it was so brilliant, so inspired, that it must have been written by St. Paul. The West eventually accepted it after it was supported by St. Augustine and St. Jerome.

Something like the inverse happened with the book of Revelation: It was initially accepted throughout both the East and the West, but around the middle of the fourth century, it fell out of favor in the East and was seldom quoted by the Fathers and never read in Church. It was eventually accepted again in the East relatively recently. (The acceptance of Revelation in the New Testament is unique and too complicated to be discussed in this article. For the details on how and why this happened, see my book Guiding to a Blessed End: Andrew of Caesarea and the Apocalypse, The Catholic University of America Press, 2013.)

Who decided which books would ultimately be in the New Testament? Bishops, priests, and even laypeople had different canons. Remember that a canon is simply the list of books that a person considered to be Scripture. Because no single person or group had the authority to decide the issue for the entire Church, everyone could weigh in with his or her opinion, and a number of anonymous early canons still exist. Local councils occasionally listed the books they accepted, and local churches sometimes recognized different canons, although all of them included the “core” Apostolic books mentioned previously. The New Testament canon was formed by the consensus of the entire Church through the discussions that lasted more than 200 years — from roughly the year 200 until the early fifth century.

Many people wrongly believed that St. Athanasius the Great, the bishop of Alexandria, singlehandedly settled the matter. But he was only the first person to list as his canon the same 27 books which we now have in our New Testament (in the year 367). Other people wrongly believed that Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, ruled on the canon in the early fourth century. But Constantine also had no authority to make that decision for the Church, and at any rate, the Church in Constantine’s day was preoccupied with fighting the heresy of Arianism. In the end, no single leader or council decided which books would be included in the New Testament. It was a decision the Church reached by consensus, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

The books under consideration were assigned to three categories. Books which were accepted by all, meaning “undisputed,” were called homologoumena. “Disputed books,” such as 2 Peter or Hebrews, were called antilegomena. A final category existed for books that no one in the Church accepted as genuine: notha, which meant “spurious.” Notha were easily recognized as fake or counterfeit and this recognition was so universal that they were never even among the “disputed” books. When Christians challenged the authenticity of the false writings by asking why those books had only recently appeared, and had not been known in the Church before, the excuse given was that those books had been kept secret — so they became known as apocrypha, the Greek word for “hidden.” The apocrypha never appear on anyone’s canon.

In addition to heretical apocrypha, some Christians wrote counterfeit books and falsely attributed them to Apostles. These books are Christian apocrypha. The Protoevangelion of James, for instance, narrates and embellishes the life of the Theotokos. It was written by someone in the second or third century and falsely attributed to St. James, the “brother of the Lord.” However, this book was also rejected by the Church, even though some people read it today. It was never considered for a place in the New Testament. Some people say the Church “learned” about the life of the Theotokos from this book, but the Church did not need a false book to acquire information about the life of the Theotokos. Rather, her life was known within the oral tradition of the Church. The author of the Protoevangelium of James took the existing oral tradition and elaborated upon it. The Church never accepted the Protoevangelium of James or any other Christian apocrypha as authentic, and they never appear on any canons.

The term “apocrypha” is also used today by Protestant Christians to describe Old Testament books which Martin Luther (d. 1546) removed from the Bible but which most Christians still accept. Luther knew that the term for rejected books was “apocrypha,” so when he removed a few books from his German Old Testament, he used that term for the books he was discarding. When Protestants refer to “apocrypha” today they are usually referring to those same books. (Catholics — who, like the Orthodox, still regard those books as scripture — dubbed them “deuterocanonicals.”)

What factors did the Church use when deciding whether a book should be in the canon? As people made their lists and discussed the issue, we can identify three main factors that the Fathers, Church councils, and ordinary Christians considered: Antiquity, Apostolicity, and Orthodoxy. Another way to understand these criteria is that the writings had to be Apostolic in time, Apostolic in authorship and Apostolic in content (i.e., doctrinally Orthodox).

“Antiquity” meant the book was Apostolic in time, meaning it had been in existence from the first decades of Christianity. Our New Testament books date from before the year 100. How did the Church discern which books were ancient and genuine? First, it was already known among the early Christians which Apostles had written which books during their lifetimes, even when a particular Christian had never seen or read a particular book. This information was not only passed along orally, but was also written down in some early Christian writings, such as 1 Clement, the epistle of an early bishop of Rome. Clement mentioned the authors of the Gospels in the 90s, before the year 100, and another bishop in Asia Minor, Papias of Hierapolis, discussed who the Gospel writers were around the year 120. This means that the books already existed and were circulating within the Church.

The Apostolic books were read within local communities, so the first Christians knew which books already existed prior to the year 100. In addition, we have other Christian books that were composed in the early and mid-second century (such as the writings of Justin Martyr) that quote from our New Testament

books, so we know the New Testament books came first. By contrast, none of the apocrypha is quoted by second-century Christian authors, indicating that those books either did not exist or were not accepted in the 1st century. To us, living nearly two thousand years later, a second- or third-century book seems quite ancient! But it was not considered “ancient” for the people who were discussing the issue of the canon in the third and fourth centuries.

“Apostolicity” meant that the Church required that any book admitted into the canon be written by the Apostles or by those closely connected with them. One reason was that the Apostles were eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Christ and to all the other things Christ said and did. Everyone can understand why this is important. Eyewitness testimony is paramount in courts of law because it is presumed to be more reliable than hearsay. Authors of the apocrypha knew that no one would read their writings if the true authorship were known, but they knew they could fool people into reading their writings by claiming Apostolic authorship. Therefore, these works falsely bear the names of Apostles. Some books which were popular, and which appear on early canons, such as the Epistles of St. Ignatius, were ultimately not accepted into the New Testament. They were false, but they were not Apostolic, even though they are quite early. Or in the case of the Didache, they were anonymous and Apostolic authorship could not be established. These books are very different from the apocrypha because they are not falsified writings.

The final criterion was “Orthodoxy”: every book deemed worthy of canonicity had to be Apostolic in its content. Contrary to the genuine New Testament Scriptures, apocrypha present fairy tales and false teachings (heresy) about the Lord. Gnostic apocrypha, for instance, present Jesus as not human, but as one of many divine beings. And some Christian apocrypha present Jesus as a young boy making mischief by destroying property, magically bringing toys to life, and injuring or even killing young playmates who anger Him. Such stories contradict what we know about Christ. They also contradict the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), which indicate clearly that Jesus seemed to be an ordinary boy, that He was obedient to Mary and Joseph and that He performed no miracles until He began His public ministry. His amazing eloquence and astonishing powers were a complete surprise to those in His village who knew Him as a boy (see Mk 6:2-3). This highlights the reason why the Church rejected apocrypha: The contents were not true.

The story of the formation of the New Testament canon is an interesting one and very inspiring. Everyone had an opinion, and everyone —

Codex Sinaiticus

(fourth century) The codex contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. This leaf: Collection of the British Library, London, United Kingdom

laypersons, clergy, and councils — participated in the discussion that lasted over two hundred years. No one person, group, or council determined the canon, and yet eventually a consensus was reached. The Orthodox Church teaches that infallibility rests within the entire Church guided by the Holy Spirit. The formation of the New Testament canon is a classic example of the operation of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.

DR. JEANNIE CONSTANINOU teaches Biblical Studies and Early Christianity as a teaching professor at the University of San Diego. She hosts the podcast Search the Scriptures and the call-in show Search the Scriptures LIVE! on Ancient Faith Radio. She is a parishioner at Saint Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church in San Diego, California. Her husband, Rev. Costas Constantinou, is a retired Greek Orthodox priest.