A Tale of Early Canons

One of the topics which divide Catholics and non-Catholics is the canon of Scripture.  That is to say, which books belong in the table of contents of the Bible.  Catholics have a list which contains 73 books and non-Catholics typically have 66 books.  In this essay I will refer to these as the “Catholic Canon” and the “Protestant Canon”.

The primary difference is seven books which are found in the Old Testament.  Those are:  1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch.  Catholics refer these at the “Deuterocanon” and non-Catholics call these the “Apocrypha”.

We could look at the various arguments presented by the two sides for the inclusion or exclusion of those books, but today I wanted to ask a purely historical question:

If you were a Christian in the early church, what books would you regard as Scripture?

The answer is not as straightforward as you may imagine.  So what do the earliest witnesses say?


The Apostolic Fathers:

The first three centuries of the Church featured a number of prolific writers.  These included Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Ireneus of Lyons, and so on.  However, none of them left records containing a full list of what they regarded as scripture.  The best one can do is see what they quoted and try to reverse-engineer their canon.

That’s a worthy study, but not what I’m doing today.  I want to focus on systematic lists given by early witnesses.  But to find lists of this sort, we have to skip forward to the fourth century AD.


Eusebius’ Summary -  325AD:

The first attempt we see to describe a canon was done by the early Christian historian Eusebius of Caesarea in the year 325AD.  He provides this in his magnum opus on Church history – aptly named, “Church History”.  The list is found in book 3, Chapters 24-25.  It only concerned the New Testament.

He divides his list into three groups.  First, he names the books which are acknowledged universally as Scriptural throughout the Christian world.  Second, there are the books which are disagreed about – some communities read them as Scripture, others rejected them as such.  Lastly, there are the books which everyone agreed were not Scripture.

Here is how it broke down:

Today we take for granted the canonicity of the books in the center column.  But in the year 325AD, depending on where you lived and who your bishop was, you may have believed they were not genuinely Scriptural.

That is simply the way it was back then.  The individual writings of the New Testament had been written and were being circulated, but the collection of books known today as “the Bible” did not exist.  The Church was still discerning the true contents of the Canon.
 

The Laodecian / Cyrilian Canon - (LC Canon) - 350 and 363 AD:

The next list we can examine appears in two places in close historical proximity.  It is mentioned in the Catechetical Lectures of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in 350AD (book 4, sections 33-37).  It also appears at the conclusion of the pronouncements of the Synod of Laodecia in 363AD (canon 60).

This list most closely resembles the modern Protestant Canon… but not quite.  Regarding the 7 books which divide Catholics and non-Catholics, the LC Canon rejects 6 of them.  However, it accepts Baruch as canonical.

To throw on another wrinkle, the LC Canon rejects the book of Revelation.  So in total, the LC Canon wouldn’t be accepted today by either Catholics or non-Catholics.



The Athanasian Canon - (Ath Canon) - 367 AD:

The next list is found in the Easter Letter of Saint Athanasius in the year 367.  This canon marks the first place we see a complete New Testament in recorded history.  Athanasius accepted all 27 books found in modern New Testaments.  For this reason he is regarded by many non-Catholics as being the guy who established the Canon of Scripture.

But not so fast.

His New Testament list corresponds to the one used today, but that is not the case with his Old Testament list.  Regarding the 7 books disputed by Catholics and non-Catholics, he rejected 6 of them.  But just like the LC Canon, Athanasius accepted Baruch as Scripture.  But then things get even weirder… because he rejected Esther.

So one cannot say that Athanasius “decided” or “set” the modern canon of scripture.  Sure, his list of New Testament books matches ours – but if he was invested with the authority to settle the canon for Christianity, everyone’s Old Testament would look different.


The Damasine / Vulgate / Carthaginian / Augustinian Canon - (DVCA Canon) – 382 and 397 AD

The final list appears in four places toward the close of the fourth century.  This canon was compiled at the Synod of Rome in 382AD under the leadership of Pope Damasus.  Pope Damasus then commissioned Saint Jerome to translate the books in this list into what became known as the “Vulgate”.

It appears once more at the Synod of Carthage in 397AD, and is also affirmed by Saint Augustine in his writings on Christian doctrine the same year (On Christian Doctrine, Book 2, chapter 8).

This list includes all of the books which are used by Catholics today.  In other words, this is the Catholic Canon.  And due to its credentials and the promulgation of the Vulgate throughout the Roman Empire, this became the accepted Canon throughout the Christian world for the next 1120 years.

Taking Account:

So when one compiles the canons which were proposed in the early Church, one gets something like this:

What of Saint Jerome?:

There are some who may assert that Saint Jerome actually rejected all seven books in the Deuterocanon.  He supposedly wrote in the introduction to one of the Deuterocanonical books that it was not among the books recognized by the Jews.  Thus, some argue that Jerome himself rejected them.  However, when one considers that he was responsible for giving us the Vulgate, that theory becomes doubtful.

For further evidence on Saint Jerome’s thinking on the matter we can examine a letter he sent to a man named Rufinius.  Rufinius was proposing that Jerome had rejected the Greek version of Daniel because it wasn’t used by the Jews of his time.  In reply, Saint Jerome stated that he followed the opinion of the churches and was only stating what the Jews thought – not his own opinions:

"What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susanna, the Son of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume (ie. canon), proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I wasn't relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us" - Against Rufinus 2:33,  401AD

To Conclude:

I wanted to end with three concluding thoughts.

First, the contents of the Bible were still under debate centuries in the Christian era.  Many Christians might imagine that Christianity was birthed from the womb of the Bible.  That is historically inaccurate.    Rather, the institution of the Church – apostolic succession, bishops, and so on – came first.  The Bible was birthed from the Church.

Second, but even though there were disagreements about what belonged in the Bible, each of these witnesses agreed on how we know the content of the Bible.  In each case, the writer said something to the effect of, “Here is what is read in the churches.”

There was an implicit trust that the Holy Spirit was guiding the Church into the proper list – and the way you knew the state of things was by the criteria of “catholicity”.  This principle is actually found in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  He was writing to the Corinthians about their customs during worship and concluded by saying:

“But if anyone is inclined to be argumentative, we do not have such a custom, nor do the churches of God.” – 1 Corinthians 11:16

I would propose that just as the Holy Spirit led the Church into a fuller understanding of things like the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the necessity of grace… the same Holy Spirit guided the Church into the proper canon.

Lastly, while some early canons came close to the Protestant Canon, none of them ever matched it.  Most notably, the epistle of Baruch was affirmed in every list.  Reflecting on this, one may rightly ask:

Who was the first Christian in recorded history to deny the canonicity of Baruch?

The answer to that question doesn’t come until 1519… and a certain confused Augustinian monk.