Program / Course 4: Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics / Lesson 1.3
What you will learn
- Trace the stages by which gospels and letters came to be read as Scripture.
- Name the main early witnesses: Marcion, Justin, Irenaeus, the Muratorian fragment, Eusebius and Athanasius.
- Explain which books were disputed for a time and why.
- State what the fourth and fifth century lists did and did not do.
The big idea
The New Testament did not begin as a book. It began as letters to churches and as accounts of Jesus passed on in speech and in writing. Some of these were read in worship and copied from place to place. By the late second century most churches treated the four gospels and the letters of Paul as authoritative. A small group of books stayed under discussion for generations. In the fourth century writers began to name the same twenty-seven books, and that list became the standard for nearly all Christians.
Key terms
- Gospel
- A word meaning good news. It names the accounts of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that stand at the start of the New Testament.
- Epistle
- A letter. Most of the New Testament after Acts is made up of epistles.
- Marcion
- A teacher in Rome around the middle of the second century who rejected the Old Testament and offered a short list of his own: an edited Luke and ten letters of Paul.
- Muratorian fragment
- A damaged Latin text that contains a list of New Testament books. Scholars date it either to the late second century or to the fourth, and the question is debated.
- Antilegomena
- A Greek word meaning spoken against. It names the books that were disputed in some churches for a time, such as Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation.
- Codex
- A book made of pages bound on one side, the ancestor of the modern book. Christians adopted it early and widely.
- Festal letter
- A letter from the bishop of Alexandria sent each year to announce the date of Easter, which sometimes carried other teaching.
Background
The earliest Christian writings are the letters of Paul, written in the middle of the first century, and the gospels, written in the later decades of the first century by the usual scholarly estimate. These were not written to form a book. Paul wrote to particular churches about particular matters. Yet the churches saw value in sharing them. A letter that helped one congregation was copied and sent to another, and within a few generations collections of Paul’s letters and of the four gospels were circulating.
Several pressures pushed Christians to be clearer about which writings they trusted. Teachers such as Marcion offered a smaller and different set. Groups that scholars call Gnostic produced gospels under the names of apostles, such as the Gospel of Thomas, which taught things the wider church did not recognize. And in times of persecution, when the authorities ordered Christian books handed over, churches had to know which books were sacred. None of these pressures alone explains the canon, but together they made the question urgent.
The rest of this lesson follows the evidence in order. As always in this course, keep apart the books that were written, the books that were read, and the lists that were drawn up.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: The first collections
By around the year 100 several churches probably knew a number of Paul’s letters. A text such as 2 Peter 3:16 shows that Paul’s letters were being read alongside “the other scriptures,” although the date and authorship of 2 Peter are themselves debated. Around the middle of the second century, Justin Martyr described Christian worship in Rome and said that “the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets” were read on Sundays. By memoirs he meant the gospels. This is early evidence of public reading.
Step 2: The four gospels
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon in the late second century, argued that the church had four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and no more. His argument was partly theological: he compared the four to the four winds and the four corners of the earth. The deeper reason is that these four were the ones the churches had received from the apostolic age. Around the same time Tatian wove the four into one continuous account, called the Diatessaron, and it was widely used in the Syriac church for some time. This shows that the four were accepted, though some chose to read them in a different form.
A fuller account of how Irenaeus argued is in the reading assigned for this course. It is worth reading for the way he ties the gospels to the teaching that churches in every place had received.
Step 3: Lists and disputed books
The Muratorian fragment names the four gospels, Acts, thirteen letters of Paul, Jude, two letters of John and Revelation, and it mentions others as read by some. If it is from the second century, it is among the earliest lists. If it is from the fourth century, as some scholars argue, it is evidence for an Eastern or Western list later in the story. Scholars are divided on the date, so the fragment should be used with care.
Eusebius, a church historian of the early fourth century, sorted books into three groups: those recognized by all, those disputed though known to many, and those he considered spurious. He placed James, Jude, 2 Peter and 2 and 3 John among the disputed. He was uncertain about Revelation, and he noted that some had doubts about Hebrews. The picture varies by region. Western churches were slower to accept Hebrews as Paul’s work. Some Eastern churches were slower to accept Revelation, and the early Syriac Bible left out several of the short letters and Revelation.
Step 4: The fourth century lists
In 367, Athanasius of Alexandria wrote his thirty-ninth festal letter and listed the twenty-seven books of the New Testament exactly as most Christians count them today. It is the earliest surviving list that matches the modern count in full. Local councils at Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397 in North Africa named the same twenty-seven. These were regional gatherings, and they did not bind the whole church by themselves. Their significance is that they show wide agreement by the end of the fourth century.
Agreement was not total. Some manuscripts of the same period, such as Codex Sinaiticus, include writings such as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas after the twenty-seven. Some churches in the East used slightly different lists for centuries. The line between listed and unlisted was clearer than before, but it did not appear overnight.
- Which writings does this source say were read in worship?
- Is the source describing its own region or the whole church?
- How early is the evidence, and how securely can it be dated?
- What reasons does the writer give for accepting or doubting a book?
- What would be lost if the book were removed, and what would be gained?
- Who disagreed, and what did they say?
Examples
Justin on Sunday worship
In his First Apology, Justin describes Christians gathering on Sunday and reading the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets as long as time permits. A reader in Rome in the mid second century would have heard gospel readings in worship. The passage is early evidence that these books had a public role well before any list.
A disputed book
Hebrews does not name its author. The Eastern churches accepted it widely as a letter of Paul, while the Western churches for a time hesitated. By the late fourth century both East and West listed it. The case shows a book gaining acceptance as its worth was recognized, with the question of authorship left unsettled.
A book that was read and then set aside
The Shepherd of Hermas was read and valued by many in the second century. Over time, church leaders came to place it outside the list, in part because it was not seen as coming from the apostolic age. Some writers continued to recommend it for private reading. The case shows that being valued is not the same as being canonical.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic teaching holds that the church, under the Spirit, recognized the twenty-seven books, and the Council of Trent later stated the list formally. Catholics generally see the fourth century agreement as the fruit of a process guided by the Spirit and ratified in the church’s authority.
Orthodox
Orthodox writers stress the liturgical use of the books and the witness of the fathers. They honor the lists of Athanasius and of the councils, and they have historically differed slightly over Revelation, which is not read in the public services of the Eastern liturgy in the same way as other books.
Protestant
Protestants accept the same twenty-seven books. Luther raised doubts about James, Jude, Hebrews and Revelation, and printed them at the end of his German New Testament, but Protestant churches in the end received all twenty-seven. They typically say that the books carry their own authority by the Spirit’s witness, and the early church recognized them.
Scholarly historians
Historians differ about how early a New Testament existed in practice. Some, following Metzger, stress that a core was accepted by about 200 and the edges were settled later. Others emphasize the role of the fourth century. Most agree there was no single decision and that regional variation lasted for a long time.
Why it matters
The twenty-seven books shape Christian worship, teaching and argument. Knowing how they were gathered helps you read criticisms and defenses with care. It also guards against two extremes: the claim that a late council invented the New Testament, and the claim that the list fell from heaven complete. The evidence supports a more modest and more interesting story of use, testing and agreement.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: The Council of Nicaea chose the books of the New Testament.
Correction: There is no good evidence that Nicaea in 325 considered the question of the canon. Its work was on the Trinity, the date of Easter and church order.
Misunderstanding: Many other gospels were suppressed and equal in standing to the four.
Correction: Other gospels existed, and some are valuable to historians. But most were written later and were not widely read in the churches, and the four were treated as authoritative much earlier.
Misunderstanding: Athanasius’s letter of 367 settled the matter for the whole church.
Correction: It is a landmark, but it was one bishop’s letter. Agreement spread over the following decades and some churches kept different lists for a long time.
Misunderstanding: The disputed books were doubtful because they were late.
Correction: They were disputed for a variety of reasons, such as uncertainty about authorship, limited circulation in some regions, or concern about content. Lateness was not the main reason.
Knowledge check
Why did Irenaeus argue for four gospels, and what was his underlying reason?
He compared the four to the four winds and four corners of the earth, which is a symbolic argument. His deeper point was that these four had been received from the apostolic age and read in the churches everywhere, while other gospels came later or from sources outside the church’s tradition.
Name three books that were disputed for a time and say who disputed them.
Examples are Hebrews, doubted for a while in the West because the author was not named; Revelation, doubted in parts of the East; and James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John or Jude, which Eusebius listed as disputed. Any three of these are correct.
What is the significance of Athanasius’s festal letter of 367?
It is the earliest surviving list that names exactly the twenty-seven books of the modern New Testament. It does not by itself settle the canon for all churches, but it shows where agreement was heading, and later North African councils named the same books.
Why is the date of the Muratorian fragment important, and what do scholars say?
If it comes from the late second century, it is among the earliest lists of New Testament books. If it is from the fourth century, as some argue, it is later evidence. Scholars are divided, so it should be cited with a note about the debate.
Think it through
- Why might it matter that the four gospels were read aloud in worship before any list existed?
- How does Marcion’s short list help explain why churches wanted to be clear about which books they accepted?
- What is the difference between a book being doubted and a book being rejected?
- How would you explain to a friend that the New Testament was gathered gradually without sounding as if it was uncertain?
Independent assignment
A timeline of the New Testament canon
In your notebook, draw a timeline from the year 50 to the year 400. Mark at least eight points: the earliest letters of Paul, the gospels, Marcion, Justin, Irenaeus, the Muratorian fragment (with its debated date), Eusebius, Athanasius and the North African councils. Under each point write one sentence saying what it shows and one sentence naming what is uncertain about it. Aim for 300 to 450 words in all. Keep it in your notebook.
Further study
- Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament Read selectively on the earliest lists, the role of church use, and the debates over disputed books.
- Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies Read Book 3, chapters 1 to 4, on the four gospels and apostolic teaching.
- Justin Martyr, The First Apology Read the description of Sunday worship near the end of the work.
- Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word Read to know the author whose festal letter gave the list of 367.
- F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? A traditional survey of the evidence, to compare with Metzger.
- 2 Peter 3:16 Paul’s letters beside the other Scriptures.
- Luke 1:1 Luke’s preface mentions earlier accounts.
- John 20:31 The stated purpose of the Gospel of John.