The Formation and Establishment of the New Testament as Canon

Ben Stimpson November 10, 2002 Religious Studies 333 Professor Troxel

The Story of the formation of what is known as the New Testament canon is a story of the demand for authority. The Christian Church set out with a preposterously unlikely tale: that a person who had recently been executed by Romans at the instigation of the Jewish religious authorities had been restored to life and was the very cornerstone of the entire building called Israel. Where was their evidence for this and what was their authority?1 Any new movement faces the challenge of proving its legitimacy in the eyes of the established status quo. The formation of the canon of the New Testament is a history of a search for authority in the midst of Jewish society and, later, in the midst of Christian society. In order to be considered valid, the early church needed to draw on the authority of pre-existing Jewish scriptures. However, the church considered itself an extension of Judaism. This made necessary a new set of scriptures to explain the churchs role in and apart from Judaism. The establishment of these new writings into scripture and then into a closed canon is a story of the churchs demand for an authoritative word in its actions. The story begins with Jesus and his disciples use of the Hebrew Bible and formally ends with the Council of Chalcedon in 451 where the New Testament canon was set at the familiar twenty-seven books. The determination of certain writings as authoritative (and so considered as scripture) is dependent on the historical and social events surrounding the early churchnamely, the problem of heresy and the reality of persecution.

Terms and Definitions In the course of this paper, a number of terms will be used periodically. To avoid confusion, I will explain the terms chosen and their definitions used. In the study of the early church, one comes into contact with the sacred writings of two religious traditions: Christianity
1

C. F. D. Moule, The Birth of the New Testament (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1966), 178.

and Judaism.

To refer to the sacred writings of the early church that eventually were

incorporated into the present-day New Testament canon, I will use the phrase New Testament literature. I will refer to the sacred literature employed by Judaism at this time (and later employed by Christians), as the Hebrew Bible or the Jewish scriptures. Those writings described as apocryphal are any early writings that were not incorporated into the present-day canons either Christian or Jewishbut were held with a certain amount of religious authority in the early communities. The terms canon and scripture also need to be defined. Scripture will refer to those writings considered by Christians to be authoritative in religious matters. Canon refers to the closed set of scripture. Scripture means a changing set of writings while canon is unchanging. The history of the New Testament canon is a history of Christian writings moving to the level of scripture and finally to the level of canon in terms of their authority in the religious life.

A Short History of the Move Toward Scripture then Canon The history of the New Testament is, as a whole, a history of the acceptance of certain books as authoritative. The scriptures of early Christianity began as merely those inherited from Judaismthe writings of the prophets, the books of Moses, and various apocryphal books. With Jesus gone, however, his disciples (the apostles) began to move away from Judaism and began to place greater emphasis on the work and teachings of Jesus himself. These early Christians held to an oral tradition of Jesus sayings and deeds as authoritative. As the apostles also died (end of the first century), the early church began to turn toward a reliance on written accounts rather than oral. At this time, the four gospels were readily accepted as having authority. There was, however, great variety throughout the church concerning other Christian writings. With the rise

of the Gnostics in the second century, the church was pushed towards defining an actual set of acceptable books. Marcion, who rejected all Jewish influences, had an impact on the

development of the New Testament. The list of commonly accepted books became inclusive of many traditions rather than exclusive of some. However, with the rise of the Montanists, the early church felt a push toward closing the canon and excluding certain writings. Throughout all, there was persecution that brought to the forefront a high regard for martyrdom in the early church. As these factors combinedheresies and persecutionthe core of acceptable scriptures began to solidify. There was much variety in the churchs choice of scriptural writings even until the Council of Chalcedon in 451. However, the basic New Testament was largely

determined by 367, as seen in Athenasius thirty-ninth paschal letter in 367.

Criteria for Acceptance as Scripture The early church accepted a number of writings as authoritative throughout its history. Yet today, the canon of the New Testament is a set list of twenty-seven books. Many of the early writings were not accepted as scripture and consequently placed in the canon. The choice of certain writings over others was made based on a number of criteria centering on the question of a texts authority over the believer. Throughout the history of the canon, this question was determined based on its apostolicity, its relation to the early apostles. Four criteria explain this: apostolic authorship, agreement with tradition, common usage within the church, and historical accuracy.2 The criterion of apostolic authorship is strongly stressed by early Christian writers. This criterion asks the question, Was the text written by an apostle? If the answer is affirmative, then

Robert M. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Harper and Row Pubs, 1972), 63.

the text in question carries authority. If the answer is negative, then the text does not carry the same authority. This question at first seems simple, yet it still needs to be explained what exactly is meant by apostle. It seems as if the early church in general gave a rather loose definition to this word. According to the synoptic gospels, Jesus chose twelve men to be apostles. Then it would seem that an apostle is any from that list of twelve. However, Paul, an early leader in the Christian church, is referred to as an apostle. This broadens the list a bit. Further, a few of those writings deemed to have apostolic authorship were not believed to have been actually written by an apostle. The book of Mark, for example, was commonly given apostolic authorship. Yet almost every early church leader held that the book was written by Mark, a disciple of Peter. Though Mark was not an apostle, there is no question about Peter. The early church transmitted the apostolic authority of Paul to his disciple Mark. If a book was to be held as authoritative, it was necessary that the book be written by an apostle or a disciple of an apostle. The question of a texts apostolicity continues to the criterion of agreement to church tradition. This criterion asks, Does the text agree with the traditions of the church? Despite the obvious looseness with which apostolic authorship was applied, the early church continued to hold to a belief in the authoritativeness of the early apostles and their disciples. Because the church and its tradition was a direct descendant of the apostles and their teaching, the tradition itself carried a certain amount of authority inherited from those apostles. The gospel of Mark could possibly fit into this category. Though the book was never believed to have been written by Mark, it was accepted in part because it propounded those beliefs and traditions held dear to the church. The apocryphal writings such as the gospels of Thomas and Peter were not accepted into the canon because they did not agree with the accepted tradition of the church.

From a modern perspective, this criterion is quite unsatisfactory. The assumption of the church was that it had been passed the correct and incorrupt truth from the apostles. Suppose that this assumption was in fact incorrect. If a text was then found which showed the actual teachings of an apostle, it would never be accepted as apostolic. If a text disagreed with church tradition, then it could not be correct and accurate. For the early church, the authority of tradition was much higher than the authority of a piece of writing. The third criterion used by the early church in evaluating documents with respect to their apostolicity is usage by the church. This question asks, Is the text currently being used by orthodox Christians? This criterion derives once again from the assumption that the tradition of the church was transmitted without error from the apostles. There is an assumption on the part of early Christians that, since the apostles started the orthodox church, then the church would not choose to follow anything unorthodox. Serapion, bishop of Antioch mistakenly makes this assumption around the year 190. A question of the authority of the Gospel of Peter came to his attention when visiting Rhossus. He supposed that all the Christians at Rhossus held to the true faith and therefore would be reading only orthodox books.3 However, when he returned to Antioch and examined the disputed gospel, he arrived at a different conclusion. (This was done, as a matter of fact, by using the second criterion of apostolicity. Serapion compared the Gospel of Peter to those gospels already accepted by the church from tradition, i.e. the synoptic gospels.) Though Serapion made a mistaken judgment based on this criterion of common usage in the church, the principle still stands. If the orthodox church in general was using a piece of writing as scripture, then there was a reason. One such reason is that this writing is in fact apostolic in origin. (This is an especially valid argument based on the early churchs assumption that the current orthodox tradition was passed from the apostles.)
3

Robert M. Grant, The Formation of the New Testament (New York: Harper and Row Pubs, 1965), 149.

The final criterion is historical accuracy. This principle asks, Is the text historically accurate? This principle is very closely tied with tradition (the second criterion) because the early church relied on a history that was closely linked with tradition. Therefore, to ask if a text is historically accurate is almost the same as asking if the text lines up with the traditional view of history. There is, however, a slight nuance. This criterion brings to mind the fact that the early church did not base all their inquiries on tradition. There was an effort on the churchs part to determine what actually happened. Though these four criteriaapostolic authorship, agreement with tradition, common usage within the church, and historical accuracythe church began to sift through the many different writings. The choice of certain texts over others as authoritative is very closely linked to the accepted religious traditions of the church. The New Testament did not form the church and its traditions, but the traditions formed the New Testament.4 The canon was created based on those books found acceptable by real people living in a real world. The social and historical context of the early church in its formative years, then, had a profound impact on the type of canon that resulted.

Social and Historical Factors Contributing to Canon Formation The New Testament canon was shaped by the people of the early church. Through the influence of certain social and historical factors, the church itself was shaped. As the church was shaped, so was its choice of scriptures. William R. Farmer has stated, In the shaping of the canon, the theological and the literary historical factors were inseparable.5 The early churchs choice for what is scriptural cannot be separated from the historical environment in which they
4 5

Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament, 25. William R. Farmer and Denis M. Farkasfalvy, Formation of the New Testament Canon: An Ecumenical Approach (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 15.

lived. The New Testament was not formed by a group of theologians discussing theology in a quiet room totally separate from the rest of society. Rather, real people, with real problems, chose the books in the midst of real life. The two main historical factors affecting the early churchs choice of scripture were the problem of heresy and the reality of persecution.6 As the early church spread, it came into contact with new forms of thinking that differed with the apostolic tradition. As heretical writings arose and began to spread, the church found it necessary to determine which writings were valid and which were not. Those writings that were determined invalid had a profound influence on the eventual choice for a canon. The heresies that arose helped to determine those writings the church accepted and those it did not. The first threat to orthodoxy arose from the Gnostics in the second century. The Gnostics taught a form of the gospel deriving from the belief in a set of secret knowledge which was available to the apostles and somehow not transmitted to the church as a whole. It was, however, transmitted to the adherents of Gnosticism. With the aid of this secret knowledge, a person was able to free his soul from the corrupt material world and be saved into the higher realm of the spiritual. There are two main Gnostic writers in the second century who impacted the eventual New Testament canon. The first of these writers is Basilides of Alexandria, who lived and worked during the early second century. He is one of the first writers to begin quoting not only the Hebrew Bible as scripture but also New Testament writings. Basilides use of New

Testament writings lent credence to the idea of the New Testament as authoritative. He began the move toward acceptance of scriptures other than those inherited from Judaism. Further, he forced the church to begin evaluating all Christian writings as either authoritative or heretical. Another early Gnostic, Marcion worked a few years after Basilides. He set out to make known the true gospel, the message of Jesus not contaminated by any Jewish tendencies.
6

Ibid., 31.

With this goal, he made a list of those books he considered authoritative: a modified gospel of Luke and edited versions of the Pauline epistles. Marcion, though not the first to bring an idea of a set of authoritative writings, did bring to the development of the canon a more rigorous and defined set of books. With Marcion, a book was definitely either allowed or prohibited. There was no gray area. Marcion also contributed by pushing the church to an acceptance of Jewish scriptures that he had rejected. He pushed the church toward an inclusive canon rather than an exclusive one. After Gnosticism, another major heresy arose in the second century that helped to form the New Testament canon. The Montanists, led by Montanus, viewed their religion to be the religion of the Holy Spirit and all others to be practicing false Christianity. This group

pronounced oracles in the name of the Holy Spirit and referred to them with the same authority as to the accepted Hebrew Bible. Whereas Marcion had forced the church towards an inclusive canon, the Montanists forced the church towards an exclusive canon. The church reacted against the Montanist use of their own oracles as scripture by beginning to close off the list of scripture. This heresy and the Gnostics helped to bring to formation the canon that exists today. As the church reacted against these heresies, they were forced to make a stand about what is accepted and what is not. This began the process of choosing a closed list of accepted books, the canon. The heresies of the second century impacted the early churchs choice of what to use as scripture. Another factor that affected the formation of the canon is the widespread persecution of Christians during the first four centuries. During these years, persecution was an ever-present threat, whether actively supported by the Roman authorities or not. During the first century, the early church wrote letters and gospels in the midst of attack. During the second century, the same church came to love and hold dear those writings because of their usefulness in the midst

of persecution.

This set up in the church a traditional usage of those books concerning

persecution and martyrdom. Because of this traditional acceptance, the writings gained authority in the church, and were eventually more likely to be included in the canon. The New Testament is a collection of books written and used by a church of martyrs. Farmer has written that the New Testament is the book of the covenant of Christ to all who stand in martyrological tradition [i.e. the tradition of being a martyr] of Jesus and the apostles.7 The persecution in Gaul is seen affecting the scriptures used by Irenaeus during the last quarter of the second century. In the year 178, intense persecution against Christians broke out in Gaul. Irenaeus choice of certain New Testament books as scripture reflect the contemporary persecutions in Gaul. He included the four gospels because of their depiction of the martyrdom of Jesus. The epistles were accepted because they portrayed the martyrdom of the apostles. Acts was chosen based on its history of the martyrdom of Stephen. He considered the Revelation of John to be scripture because it depicted the martyrdom of the saints. 8 Though Irenaeus did not yet speak of a closed set of scripture (a canon), his choice of those books to be considered scriptural reflect the atmosphere of persecution in Gaul in the second century. Origen, a Christian writer from Alexandria shortly after Irenaeus, also shows the effect of martyrdom and persecution on the early churchs choice of scripture. The effect is seen most plainly in the often-disputed book of Hebrews. Origen, unlike many of his contemporaries, accepted Hebrews as authoritative scripture even though he knew that Paul did not write the book. Why would Origen accept a book commonly held as disputed when even he admits it was not written by an apostle? The answer to this dilemma lies in Origens use of Hebrews for his theology. Origen, like Irenaeus, was a product of the persecutions of his times. His theology

7 8

Ibid., 34. Ibid., 37.

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was largely a theology of martyrdomChristians were called to be martyrs in the footsteps of Jesus and the apostles. To be apostolic was to hear and obey the call to martyrdom. 9 Since the book of Hebrews supported the call to martyrdom, then, it was considered to be apostolic. Origen includes the book because of its usefulness in describing a theology of martyrdom, which he held to have been taught by the apostles. In examining the history of the New Testament as scripture and then as canon, it is seen that the choice of books as scripture was dependent on the social and historical context of the early church. The early church was affected by the various heresies that arose and the

persecution that remained a threat. Through these two factors, the early church came to hold certain books as more important than others. The New Testament was not formed into a canon by a group of monks separated from the society around them. Rather, it was formed by a church trying to define itself in the midst of heresies and persecutions. The story of the formation of the New Testament as canon is a story of the acceptance and rejection of certain books. As Grant has said, The books of the New Testament, not necessarily always accepted by everyone, were those which came to be universally accepted by the overwhelming majority of Christians . . . .10 The Council of Chalcedon in 451 chose those books that were commonly accepted and placed them in a set, closed canon. The canon was a product of the church and its history, as it sought to define itself and validate its tradition in the midst of real life.

10

Ibid., 24. Grant, The Formation of the New Testament, 185.

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Bibliography Childs, Brevard S. The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984. Farmer, William R. and Denis M. Farkasfalvy. Formation of the New Testament Canon: An Ecumenical Approach. New York: Paulist Press, 1983. Grant, Robert M. The Formation of the New Testament. New York: Harper and Row

Publishers, 1965. __________. A Historical Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1972. Hahneman, Geoffrey M. The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Lienhard, Joseph T. The Bible, the Church, and Authority: The Canon of the Christian Bible in History and Theology. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1995. Moule, C. F. D. The Birth of the New Testament. New York: Adam and Charles Black, 1966. Sheeley, Steven M. From Scripture to Canon: The Development of the New Testament Canon. Review and Expositor 95 (Fall 1998): 513-522. Wade, Rick. Persecution in the Early Church, 1999, <http://www. probe.org/docs/persecution.html> (November 2002).

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