In the second century developments occurred that have been formative for most Christian churches ever since. These developments took place in the process of self-definition against the variant interpretations of the Christian message discussed in the preceding chapter.

The issue between the great church, as Celsus already called it in the second half of the second century, and its rivals—Marcionites, Gnostics, Montanists, some Jewish Christians, and Encratites—was the question, “What is apostolic faith and practice?” Authentic Christianity had to do with the question of origins. The apostles and first disciples of Jesus Christ were universally recognized as authoritative sources for the genuine Christian message.

The second-century church developed a three-fold defense of “what is apostolic.” The logical order of thought was as follows:

• To the question, “Where is apostolic teaching to be found?” the church pointed to the Scriptures

• To the question, “How are these Scriptures to be interpreted?” it pointed to their content in the “rule of faith.”

• To the further question, “What is the channel through which this teaching has been preserved and where is it to be found now?” the church pointed to its succession of duly appointed bishops and presbyters.

According to the historical order in which each achieved definitive form, the church claimed an apostolic ministry (episcopate), an apostolic faith (rule of faith and creed), and apostolic Scriptures (canon). It is in their historical order of emergence that these three developments will be discussed.

All three developments had their roots in the Christian communities apart from the major conflicts of the second century, but all three were influenced by these conflicts and received sharper definition and greater emphasis in response to the issues that were raised.

MONEPISCOPACY AND APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION#

The later books of the New Testament and some of the Apostolic Fathers provide impressive evidence of a wide geographical spread for a particular church order. In each church, that order involved a plurality of elders or bishops (the terms were used interchangeably) assisted by deacons:

1. Jerusalem and Judea—Acts 11:30; 15:6; James 5:14

2. Syria—Didache 15:1

3. Galatia—Acts 14:23

4. Asia Minor—1 Peter 5:1–4

5. Ephesus—Acts 20:17, 28; 1 Timothy 3:1–13

6. Philippi—Philippians 1:1; Polycarp, Philippians 6

7. Corinth—1Clement 42:4; 44:3–6

8. Crete—Titus 1:5–7

9. Rome—1Clement 42; 44; Hermas, Vision 3.5.1

The emergence of one bishop at the head of the presbytery (monepiscopacy) is attested first at Antioch of Syria and in Asia Minor by the letters of Ignatius.

The three-fold ministry of the local church (bishop, presbyters, deacons) became the general pattern by the mid-second century.

• Justin Martyr’s “president” of the Sunday assembly was presumably the “bishop.”

• Marcion’s church organization (with a bishop) apparently copied that of the great church.

• Hegesippus and Irenaeus at the end of the second century drew up lists of bishops in various cities, an indication that persons fitting the description of a single head of the community could be identified for some generations previous.

• Dionysius, bishop of Corinth around 170, refers to the bishops of the churches to which he wrote and indeed sometimes wrote to bishops of churches (unlike Clement and Polycarp, who wrote to churches, not to fellow bishops).

Some of the factors involved in the emergence of a single head of the presbyteries would have included the following: presidency of the eucharist, administration of church funds, representation of the church in correspondence and hospitality, and the giving of authoritative teaching. Ordination was not yet mentioned in the sources; the limitation of the right of ordination to a bishop is first attested in the Apostolic Tradition in the early third century.

The strengthened position of the bishop by the end of the second century is shown in Irenaeus’s argument from apostolic succession. Sometimes Clement of Rome is stated to have been the first witness to apostolic succession, but Clement claims apostolic appointment of the office of bishops and deacons and provision for these offices to be filled when the original holders die. This is simply a succession in the office according to a pattern established by the apostles.

Drawing on Hegesippus’s lists of bishops in various cities, Irenaeus formulated the orthodox counter-claim. In the hands of Irenaeus, apostolic succession was an argument, not an article of faith; but it often happens to successful arguments that they become integral to the position they support and are no longer solely an argument for the position. The position for which Irenaeus was contending was that the apostolic faith was preserved in the churches by the public succession of bishops and presbyters (Irenaeus included presbyters in the succession) going back to the apostles, not in the sequences of Gnostic teachers.

Irenaeus’s argument—each bishop in each church taught the same doctrine—took the following form.

1. The stability or uniformity of the teaching was guaranteed by its publicity. The same teaching was heard from Sunday to Sunday in the church. In secret transmission there is the possibility of faulty communication or deliberate alteration, but in public teaching too many people hear the same thing for significant changes to go undetected.

2. The correctness of the doctrine was confirmed by the agreement among the teachings given from the different teaching chairs. That the same teaching was given in Rome as in Philippi, Smyrna, Ephesus, and so on showed a common origin in the same apostolic message.

3. Moreover, Irenaeus argued that if the apostles had any secrets to impart, they would have delivered them to the men in whom they had enough confidence to entrust the care of the churches as bishops and presbyters.

The Hellenistic world had its successions of teachers in the philosophical schools; the Jews had succession lists of rabbis and of high priests at Jerusalem. Against this background of interest in succession lists, Montanists claimed a succession of prophets, and Gnostics a succession of teachers. In response to the latter, Irenaeus had a collective succession (presbyters of the churches) as well as individual (bishops), and he emphasized a succession of faith and life rather than a transmission of special gifts.

Each holder of the teaching chair received the truth as a gift from his predecessor, but not a gift that guaranteed the truth of what he taught. The true succession required a holy life and sound doctrine (Against Heresies 4.26.5); just to be in the succession was not enough, although it did mark off the heretics who withdrew. In contrast to what apostolic succession became, for Irenaeus it passed from the one sitting in the teaching chair of a church to the next holder of the chair, and not from ordainer to ordained.

Tertullian, with his characteristic sharpness and exaggeration, carried Irenaeus’s argument further. Whereas Irenaeus let the church at Rome stand for his argument, Tertullian appealed to other churches of apostolic foundation in addition to Rome. He mentions only the bishop and not presbyters in his argument. With brilliant satire, contrasting the uniformity of teaching in the churches with the variety in different heretical groups, he asked how all the churches, if not maintaining the one apostolic faith, could have accidentally stumbled into the same “error.”

This becomes clear in one passage in Cyprian (mid-third century), for whom the bishop was a bishop in the whole church (comparable to one of the college of twelve apostles) rather than just the bishop of his own community. The episcopate was one property, ruling the church, a property jointly shared by each bishop (chapter 9). The identity of episcopate and apostolate became the rule in the fourth century.

RULE OF FAITH AND APOSTLES’ CREED#

The correct teaching passed down in the churches by their bishops and presbyters was summarized for Irenaeus by the “rule of faith,” or the “canon of truth.” For Irenaeus, the canon of truth represented the plot of Scripture, the unfolding of which was the arrangements or dispensations in God’s saving plan.

Earlier investigators of the history of the development of creeds often obscured matters by confusing the rule of faith with the creed. The content of the two is related, but they had different functions that account for the variety of wording employed in reference to the rules of faith and the comparative fixity of wording in the Apostles’ Creed.

• The rule of faith was a summary of the apostolic message and expressed the legitimate content of Scripture, not a separate body of doctrine. In content it was roughly similar to the kerygma, as now used in New Testament studies, to stand for a summary of apostolic preaching.

• The creed, on the other hand, was the faith confessed by those converted to the apostolic preaching, a faith confessed especially as part of the baptismal ceremony. The faith preached (rule of faith or canon of truth) was also the faith believed and confessed (Apostles’ Creed).

The statements of the former served in many situations and so the wordings were flexible according to an author’s purpose, whereas statements of the latter occurred principally in definite liturgical contexts and so soon were stabilized with a relatively fixed wording.

The statements of the rule of faith focus on the historical acts of God’s saving work in Jesus Christ: his virgin birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and coming again in judgment. In an anti-heretical context, these summaries are often given a Trinitarian structure, relating the work of Christ to God the Father as Creator and to the Holy Spirit, who prophesied the coming of Christ and is now at work in the church.

The earliest confession of faith to acquire a creedal elaboration was the baptismal confession of the church at Rome, known as the Apostles’ Creed or Apostles’ Symbol. A “symbol” meant a sign, a badge of identity, or token of a pact, and so stood for one’s faith.

It seems that the Apostolic Tradition reflected the actual earlier liturgical practice, an interrogatory confession of faith. Those questions were then made declaratory and became the basis of instruction in the faith given to new converts and, in the developed practice of the fourth century, a statement that the converts had to memorize and recite as part of the baptismal preparation.

The Roman church appears to have been the pioneer in the production of a crystallized creedal formula. The name “Apostles’ Creed” or “Apostles’ Symbol” was given because the content was thought to be an accurate summary of the apostolic faith. Not until the Council of Nicaea in 325 did creeds expand their function as confessions of faith to become tests of fellowship.

By the time of Rufinus, around 400, the Apostles’ Creed was believed to be not simply “apostolic” in content but to have been actually drawn up by the apostles to assure that—as they dispersed to preach the gospel—they would deliver a common message. Eventually the creed was distributed into twelve clauses, each contributed by one of the apostles.

THE OLD ROMAN SYMBOL

I believe in God the Father almighty;

And in Christ Jesus his only Son, our Lord;

who was born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,

who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried,

on the third day rose again from the dead,

ascended into heaven,

sits at the right hand of the Father,

whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead;

And in the Holy Spirit,

the holy church,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the flesh.

THE BIBLICAL CANON#

The church began with a canon of Scripture. That is, it took over and claimed the Jewish Scriptures as its own. From the beginning, however, Christians placed Jesus at the center of their faith, so they followed the Old Testament as related to Jesus and as interpreted in reference to him.

The Gospel of John reflects the early situation by saying “they [the disciples] believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken” (2:22). The Old Testament was followed in the light of the coming of Jesus: “‘Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:44–45). The Scriptures were read through the eyes of faith in Jesus: “the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). Alongside the Old Testament, then, the first Christians added its interpretation by Jesus, the words spoken by Jesus, and salvation through faith in Jesus.

Marcion had, so far as we know, the first fixed collection of New Testament books, but by his time the letters of Paul were certainly available in collections and very probably the four Gospels also. Marcion did not originate the idea of canon within the church, and the church’s immediate reaction was that his was a narrowing down of the apostolic message that lay at the foundation of the church (cf. Eusebius, Church History 2.25). The church would have had its own canon in spite of Marcion, but he may have hastened the process of bringing the authoritative books together, for there was no need to pronounce judgment on what was not in dispute.

The Old Testament Canon#

By the time of the birth of Christianity the main lines of the Jewish canon were clearly drawn. Of the three parts of the Hebrew Bible—Law, Prophets, and Writings (corresponding in a different order to the thirty-nine books in the present Protestant Old Testament)—the limits of the first two parts were already firmly established. The evidence does not permit the same degree of certainty about the contents of the third part at the time of Jesus. Although a case can be made for its being fairly well determined in his day, there were doubts among the Jews about some books, such as Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.

Moreover, some books not included in the Hebrew canon were highly regarded by some—Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon (which were among the books that achieved Deutero-canonical status among Christians) and 1Enoch (which had more limited acceptance in Christian circles but was included in the canon of the Ethiopian church). Christians received, along with their Jewish heritage, not only the Jewish Scriptures, but also other writings that were found useful. Thus, in manuscripts of the Greek translation of the Old Testament (Septuagint) preserved by Christians, there were often included varying numbers of other books not found in the Hebrew canon of Scripture.

No common agreement was reached on which of these additional books to count as canonical, and indeed it was not until the age of the Reformation, when Protestants insisted on limiting the Old Testament to the thirty-nine books accepted by the Jews, that the Roman Catholic church made an official determination of which books (those called the “Apocrypha” by Protestants) would be included in its Old Testament (Council of Trent, 1546). The Orthodox Church accepts, in addition to the books recognized by Roman Catholics, 1 Esdras, the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, and 3 Maccabees as Deutero-canonical.

Early Christian scholars who researched the matter listed the Old Testament books according to the Jewish canon.

• The earliest we know who did so was Melito of Sardis (whose list corresponds to the Hebrew canon except for the absence of Esther) in the second half of the second century.

• Later, Jerome argued for the Jewish canon and the exclusion of the apocryphal books.

• On the other hand, there were those who argued for a broader canon than that found in the Hebrew Bible, notably Origen (to a limited extent), who recognized the Jewish canon but defended additions found in the Greek text (notably of Daniel, against criticisms from Julius Africanus)

• Augustine, whose authority determined the attitude of the Latin church and established the tradition that culminated in the decision at Trent.

• Athanasius’s intermediate approach was typical of many. He listed as “included in the canon” the books accepted by the Jews (except that he too omits Esther), but commended other books as useful for those who “wish to be instructed in the word of true religion”: Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Esther, Judith, and Tobit.

The acceptance by Christians of the earlier view expressed by Hellenistic Jews (Epistle of Aristeas, Philo) that the Septuagint was an inspired translation opened the way for the acknowledgement of the books that might be found in Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament as Scripture.

The situation for many in regard to the Old Testament was this:

They acknowledged the priority of the Jewish canon and were in common agreement on nearly all the books in its collection, but allowed some fluidity in defining its exact limits and using some other related books circulated in Greek and in the translations dependent on it.

Much greater unanimity was attained, and at a much earlier date, in regard to the books of the New Testament.

The New Testament Canon#

The determination of the limits of the canon went through four stages, and failure to distinguish these stages has produced much confusion in efforts to write the history of the New Testament canon. The formation of the canon passed through these different stages at different times at different places and in the thought of different authors, but the lines of development are clear.

1. The Scripture principle#

The first stage was marked by the transition from the oral to the written form of the Christian message. This was gradual, and for a long time the sayings of Jesus and the teaching of the apostles were preserved in both oral and written forms side by side. The acceptance of the Scripture principle was the recognition of written authority. And in a sense all the later stages are implicit in the Scripture principle.

There are many early indications of the recognition of the authority, not just the use, of certain Christian writings.

• The date of 2 Peter is in dispute, but it shows a collection of Paul’s writings was included among the “Scriptures” (3:15)

• Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna knew and quoted from Paul’s letters, presumably in a collection. Indeed Polycarp quotes Ephesians 4:26 as “Scripture” (Philippians 12.1).

• Both Barnabas (4.14) and 2 Clement (2.4) quote Matthew as “Scripture.” It is true that the interest of both writers is in the authority of the Lord, but they find his words in a literary work that is treated as an authoritative source.

• Papias and Justin Martyr referred to the “Memoirs” of the apostles, referring to the Gospels, and Justin records that they were read in the Sunday assembly of the church alongside the Prophets.

• The significance of Tatian’s Diatessaron (c. 170) may be argued in two directions, either that he had so little regard for the text of the four Gospels that he could treat them freely in creating one composite text or that these four Gospels were held in such high regard that he wanted to harmonize them into one Gospel

The latter has been the motivation of other producers through the centuries of Gospel harmonies in one continuous narrative (not synopses in parallel columns) and seems to be closer to Tatian’s attitude and the status the four Gospels held by his time. The acceptance of the Diatessaron for a long time in the Syriac church as the standard form of the Gospels would seem to argue that it was a compilation of authoritative books.

• The Gnostics of the second century argued from the Christian Scriptures (e.g., Basilides) and among the Gnostics the first commentaries of New Testament books were written (e.g., Heracleon on John).

Overlapping with the second stage, the canonical principle, is the translation of Christian writings from Greek into other languages. Books now acknowledged as belonging to the New Testament were translated into Latin and Syriac as early as the second century and into Coptic (the word is derived from the Greek for “Egypt” and refers to the vernacular language of the native Egyptians) in the third century if not earlier. This practice is a clear indication of the importance and authority of these books and the need to have them available in the language of believers.

2. The canonical principle#

The second stage in the formation of the canon is marked by the transition from recognition of written authority to the explicit recognition that the number of authoritative written documents is limited, although the line of where precisely these limits are has not been drawn. At this stage the canon is theoretically a closed canon but practically still open. There is the positive acknowledgement of certain documents as forming the source of authority, but there is not the negative determination that only these documents form the authority, for there may be other documents unknown at the time or about which a final determination has not been made.

In principle, the idea of canon was established by about 180.

• When Tertullian wrote his Prescription against Heretics at the beginning of the third century, one of his arguments (37; cf. 36) concerned who has the right to the “Christian Scriptures.” There must have been some idea of an identifiable entity (however imprecise the boundaries may have been) for there to be an argument over who owns Scripture and has the right interpretation of it (cf. Against Marcion 4.1.3; Against the Jews 2.7).

• Irenaeus’s writings in the last two decades of the second century build from Scripture as a whole, Old and New Testaments. He goes through the words of Jesus, the Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul, and other apostolic writings (citing nearly every New Testament book) in order to refute the heretics.

The term “New Testament” or “New Covenant” was a title of a collection of books for Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen, if not already for Irenaeus. For there to have been a collective title, there must have been an identifiable entity to be given a name. These writers may have differed among themselves where the precise limits belonged, but at least they thought they had something to talk about and give a name to.

Muratorian Fragment#

The date of the Muratorian Fragment has entered into the discussion of how early a canonical principle was recognized in the church.

• The traditional date for the Muratorian Fragment from the end of the second century supports the position indicated by the other evidence adduced above, but that position is hardly dependent on a second-century date for the Muratorian Fragment.

• Dating it in the fourth-century scarcely necessitates rewriting the history of the New Testament canon. The Muratorian Fragment reflects in broad outline the situation that can be determined from Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen.

By the end of the second century there was a core canon recognized virtually everywhere in the great church: four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen letters of Paul, and varying other apostolic writings. In general:

• Revelation was accepted in the West but not in the East

• Hebrews was accepted in the East as a writing by Paul, but not in the West

• Of the general epistles, the widest acceptance was given to 1 Peter and 1 John; the others were less well known.

The canon described in the Muratorian Fragment reflects a similar situation, but its exact contents are something of an anomaly in the church, whether second or fourth century, whether East or West. Of our twenty-seven books, the Fragment does not mention Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and perhaps one letter of John (whether some of these were mentioned, as certainly Matthew and Mark were, in the now missing parts of the document cannot be determined). In addition the document includes, if it is transcribed accurately, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Apocalypse of Peter in its New Testament canon.

3. A closed canon#

The third stage is the logical move from the recognition of a canon to the attempt to define its exact limits, from an “open” canon to a “closed” canon. At this stage there was the endeavor to prevent more additions or deletions from an accepted list. Thus from the fourth century there come a number of lists of the canonical Scriptures. This fact has been used to support a fourth-century date for the Muratorian canon, but in form it is not a bare list, as the others are, but a discussion of the different books.

Eusebius noted as books accepted everywhere: four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles of Paul (including Hebrews, mentioned by name by Origen but not by Eusebius), 1 John, 1 Peter, and Revelation (which Eusebius himself questioned).

The following were widely acknowledged but were disputed by some: James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John.

Other books that were not genuine but not regarded as heretical included: Acts of Paul, Shepherd, Apocalypse of Peter, Barnabas, and Didache (Eusebius wanted to put Revelation here also).

Finally, there were heretical books to be avoided altogether: Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Matthias, Acts of Andrew, and Acts of John.

The situation had not really changed from Origen’s time to Eusebius’s.

Any lingering doubts or lack of knowledge of the books in Eusebius’s second category were soon removed, for the contents of his first and second categories are combined without any reservations in the canon list of Athanasius of Alexandria (Festal Letter 39 for 367), the first ancient list to correspond exactly to our present canon of twenty-seven books.

4. Recognition of the same closed canon#

In the fourth and fifth centuries there came to be general agreement in the Greek and Latin churches about the extent of the New Testament canon, although several Greek authors did continue to omit the book of Revelation from their lists and some Latin sources were ambivalent about the Pauline authorship of Hebrews.

Jerome treated the New Testament canon as a “given” not subject to modification, and councils at Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 followed Augustine in ratifying a twenty-seven-book New Testament.

The Syriac churches were slower in reaching this stage, for it was not until the sixth century that a Syriac edition of the New Testament included 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation, and the Church of the East (Nestorian) never accepted these books.

CANON OF ATHANASIUS, FESTAL LETTER, 367

[After listing the books of the Old Testament, Athanasius says,] We must not hesitate to name the books of the New Testament. They are as follows:

Four Gospels—according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John.

Then after these the Acts of the Apostles and the seven so-called catholic epistles of the apostles, as follows: one of James, two of Peter, three of John, and after these, one of Jude.

Next to these are fourteen epistles of the apostle Paul, written in order as follows: First, to the Romans; then two to the Corinthians, and after these to the Galatians and next that to the Ephesians; then to the Philippians and one to the Colossians and two to the Thessalonians and that to the Hebrews. Next are two to Timothy, one to Titus, and last the one to Philemon.

Moreover, John’s Apocalypse.

These are the “springs of salvation.” . . . In these alone is the teaching of true religion proclaimed as good news. Let no one add to these or take anything from them. . . .

There are other books outside these, which are not indeed included in the canon, but have been appointed from the time of the fathers to be read to those who are recent converts to our company and wish to be instructed in the word of true religion. These are the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, the so-called Teaching of the Apostles [Didache] and the Shepherd . But while the former are included in the canon and the latter are read, no mention is to be made of the apocryphal works. They are the invention of heretics.

Criteria of Canonicity#

There was no systematic treatment of canonicity in the ancient church, but the Muratorian Fragment is typical in the considerations it urges in incidental remars.

1. Inspiration#

“[All things in the four Gospels] are declared by the one sovereign Spirit.” The attitude of the church at large seems to have been that inspiration was assumed as a minimum requirement, but not all works treated as in some sense inspired were necessarily included in the canon of Scripture.

2. Apostolicity#

One reason for rejecting Hermas’s Shepherd was that “it cannot be published for the people in the church, neither among the Prophets, since their number is complete, nor among the Apostles for it is after their time.” Apostolic authorship was not literally insisted upon, for the compiler of the Muratorian canon acknowledged that Luke had not seen the Lord in the flesh and was only a companion of Paul.

The apostolic writings included, therefore, in addition to books written by apostles, the books also that came from apostolic circles and carried apostolic authority.

3. Antiquity#

Closely related to the preceding is the exclusion, if the translation above is correct, of works “after their [apostles’] time.” John’s works, on the other hand, are commended because he was “an eyewitness and hearer . . . of the wonderful things of the Lord.”

4. Applicability to the whole church (catholicity)#

In explanation that Paul in writing to seven churches (two letters each to Thessalonica and Corinth) was actually writing to all churches, the analogy to the Apocalypse of John was made, “For John also, though he wrote in the Apocalypse to seven churches, nevertheless he speaks to them all.”

The number seven represented completeness and so stood for the whole, the “one church diffused throughout the whole globe of the earth.” Canonical writings had to be useful to the universal church. That is likely a factor in some inspired writings not being preserved (e.g., letters that Paul says he wrote): they did not have wider applicability to other churches.

5. Public reading in the assembly#

Closely related to general applicability was the use in worship, “to be read in the church.” Non-canonical works were occasionally read in the assemblies for special events or for special reasons, but regular reading was limited to authoritative texts.

6. Right doctrine#

“There are many others [epistles] which cannot be received in the Catholic Church, for gall cannot be mixed with honey.” Whether a writing agreed with the teaching that had been received was important in the reception of the writing itself.

No one of these criteria by itself was sufficient to assure canonical standing, but all had to be taken together. They appear not so much to have been thought-out standards that were then applied to documents as to have been somewhat “arguments after the fact.”

That is, Christians received certain documents and then reflected on why these had come down to them. When other works were brought forward, the comparison with the received works was made according to standards recognized in the accepted writings.

Works that had most of the characteristics, but not all, yet were found to carry the authentic apostolic message, might gain general acceptance but more slowly and to a lesser extent. Orthodox writings lacking some of the criteria continued to be used but without canonical standing; writings containing unsound teachings were rejected.

Theological Reflections#

The organized church did not create the canon, but recognized it. This is evident in the way that the decisions of church councils did not enter the process until its later phases. It was only in connection with the final closing of the canon in the West around AD 400 that the church authorities had an effect.

The canon was in a sense “inherited.” Writers from the second century on repeatedly referred to the canonical writings as the books “handed down to us.” Authoritative books were received as part of the deposit of faith handed down in the church. Succeeding centuries ratified a situation already established.

The approach of the church was not “We determine,” but “We recognize” these books as apostolic. The canon represented the books “received” by the church.

The church, therefore, functioned as a witness, not as the judge in the process of canonization. In that sense, the church gave us the Bible. It received and preserved the sacred Scriptures.

So, to an extent, if contemporary Christians take the Scriptures, they must also take the church. But that does not mean they must accept the authority of the church per se, or the authority of the church on all other matters. Certainly the church is part of the apostolic faith and the living of the Christian life, so accepting the faith includes accepting participation in the ongoing life of the church.

On the other hand, when the later church departs from the faith and practice described in the New Testament writings, its witness to the authority of those writings becomes all the more significant, for a witness is more credible when giving testimony against his or her interest.

Instead of being an indication that the church has authority over the Scriptures, the church’s role in recognizing the canon of Scripture is a testimony against the authority of the church. Recognizing a canon was an act of placing herself under another authority. If the church wanted to have unlimited authority, it would not have said, “These books are our authority in doctrine and life.” The act of canonization was an act of declaring that the church was not her own authority, but that she was submitting to another authority.

Church order, standards of belief, and recognition of the Scriptures have continued to be foundational to the churches. Forms of church polity vary, different creedal statements are accepted, and differences in the content of Scripture (Catholic and Protestant Bibles) remain; but the steps begun in the second century have marked the path on which the churches have walked ever since.