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3.5.3.4. Traditional Usage
Another criterion is that of traditional usage, that is, whether a writing had been employed from an early time and in most churches, and the importance of the community or communities where the books or writings originated and where they were being used as well as the acts of local synods and councils. Pride of place were given to the local communities of Antioch in Syria (Matthew), communities around the Asian Minor and Greece (Pauline Letters, the Johannine Corpus and most likely Luke and Acts) and Rome (Mark and the Letter to the Hebrews). This principle came strongly into play only in the 3rd and 4th centuries when the Church had a retrospect in promoting the authority of various documents before it was articulated as a principle of canonicity.
While all of these criteria were important, none is definitive in determining inclusion/exclusion. Thus, while the letters of Paul were no doubt apostolic in origin, they lack in Catholicity since they were essentially addressed to particular communities, sometimes to tackle problems and issues peculiar to those communities. On the same vein, what the letter to the Hebrews lacks in apostolic authority, it complements in the importance of the community and in the universality of the issues it addresses. The same also goes for the letters of Jude and 2 Peter that could not boast of emerging from a community of repute, although they address issues of universal concern and import. All these go to show that the inconsistencies that were at play in establishing and applying these criteria.
It is very surprising to observe that while the inclusion of a book in the canon entails an affirmation that it is inspired, inspiration was not a criterion for the book’s inclusion. The reason for this is obvious. In the first place, there is apparently no way to identify the characteristic of inspiration, in order to establish (or to discredit) a book’s claim to be included in the canon or to establish definitively that no books other than those in the canon are divinely inspired. Secondly, and perhaps more important, the Church claims inspiration as characteristic of all dimension of her life and tradition, part of which is the Holy Writing.
Since inspiration as a concept is larger than and extends far beyond the written tradition, it could not have served as a criterion for distinguishing and separating books that were composed within and by the Church itself.
59 The earliest documented list of the NT canon is contained in the so-called Muratorian Fragment (named after Lodovico Antonio Muratorio (1672-1750) who discovered the fragment in Milan’s Ambrosian Library in 1740). The date and provenance of this fragment are in debate; with the claim made that it was written towards the end of the second century CE in Rome.
The document is fragmentary and badly translated into Latin, but lists the following books as canonical: the four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the 13 letters of Paul (excluding Hebrews); Jude, 1 and 2 John;
the Wisdom of Solomon; the Apocalypse of John; and the Apocalypse of Peter. The omission of most of the “Catholic Epistles like James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John is notable, and so is the inclusion of the Wisdom of Solomon in the list of Christian books. The Shepherd of Hermas is rejected because it is late. Writings emanating from Gnostic, Marcionite or Montanist circles are rejected outright. We have here, then, a list of 24 documents accepted for reading in the church, including two that did not finally become canonical, but excluding five that did.
3.5.2.2. The Testimony of Eusebius
In his Church History, written in the first decades of the 4th century, Eusebius variously comments on the uses made of early Christian writings by previous Christian figures. In Hist. Eccl. 3.25 he provides a summary list of these writings in three categories: (1) acknowledged books, i.e., those accepted without qualifications; (2) disputed books, i.e., those whose genuineness or authority is questioned; and (3) heretical works, i.e., those that are firmly rejected. The acknowledged writings include four gospels, Acts, the (14) letters of Paul, 1 John and 1 Peter. He also allows that Revelation may be placed in this group “if it seems desirable.” The disputed books are James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache. He also allows that Revelation may be classed among these books “if this view prevails,” and notes that some would place the gospel of the Hebrews also in this category.
Rejected books are the gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthias, among others, and the Acts of Andrew, John, and others. The acknowledged books, then, are 21 (22 with Revelation), and the disputed books are 10 (11 with Revelation). This list must reflect what Eusebius took to be the situation obtaining in his time and among the churches of his acquaintance. The ambiguity about Revelation was felt widely in the East, and surely also by Eusebius himself.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
i. Account for the beginning of the Old Testament canon
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ii. In what order were the books of the OT recognised as part of the OT Canon?
iii. Arrange the Canon of the NT according to the nature of the literature that it contains.
4.0 CONCLUSION
The establishment of the canon set in motion the hermeneutical dialectic between scripture and tradition. Although it was the Church that acknowledged the canonical status of these books and recognised them, these books, once so-recognised, possessed and exercised divine authority in and of themselves. Again, once the canon was established, the Church was no longer dealing with a collection of documents but with a single “book”, a unity that became the whole in terms of which each part, no matter where, when, or by whom composed, had to be interpreted. In other words, the real meaning of each book was affected by its inclusion in the whole that the Church recognised as scripture.
And dialectically, the meaning of the whole was influenced by the interpretation of each part.
These books, once they have been recognised as canonical, became the norm of tradition in its oral, written, liturgical, and other forms; while the tradition continued to function as the context for the interpretation of these scriptures. In summary, the establishment of the canon, including the composition of its books, their unification into a single book, and their recognition as inspired scripture, was a work of tradition. The scripture thus traditionally established became the norm of ongoing tradition, which nevertheless, remains the indispensable context of the Bible’s interpretation.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, you have learnt the meaning of the word canon, the process of the coming to be of both the Old and New Testament Canons, the earliest collections of these canons as well as the criteria used in admitting books into the NT Canon. We have also seen how, despite the fact that human beings played a role in the process of canonisation, the Bible, once canonised, is self- authenticating and radiates its own divine authority.
6.0 TUTOR- MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. Briefly explain the meaning of the word canon.
2. What were the early collections of the OT Canon? Describe 3 in
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3. What is the contribution of the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls to the OT Canon debate?
4. Why was it necessary to come up with a Canon of the NT?
5. What were the criteria for adopting a book into the NT Canon.