L. Gaussen, The Canon of the Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light of History, translated from the French and abridged by Edward N. Kirk (Boston: American Tract Society, 1862), 18-23.
[Note: The essential truth of canonical collation was the recognition and reception by the Church as the Word of God. The canon of Scripture was not the result of ecclesiastical mandate, designation, or imposition but rather the canon shaped the Church. What follows is a historical accounting of this recognition and reception. Again, the reader should come to grips with the providential sequence God when giving His Word to the Church: 1. That the Word is self-attesting and self-authenticating because it was inspired. Inspiration grounds the recognition and reception of the canon. 2. Once recognized and received, the Church utilized the canon, didactically, apologetically teaching the Church and defending the Church against the influences of non-canonical, non-inspired documents.]
Before even consulting the ecclesiastical historians on this subject, we may already comprehend, from the nature of things, that the idea of a divine collection of the writings of the New Testament, must have early sprung up in all the communities of those who believed in Christ. Is it not evident that it must have originated as soon as these churches saw the men, “apostles and prophets,”[1] who announced to them the gospel with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven,[2] beginning to write to them apostolical letters, or transmit to them the history of the Savior’s life and teachings?
In fact, they were entirely prepared for it by having in their hands the Old Testament. This collection, already formed for so many ages, and of the divinity of which there was never but one opinion among the Jews, as Josephus informs us;[3] this collection, venerated by the people of God in every age, venerated by the Apostles, who called it the oracles of God;[4] venerated by the Son of God himself, who called it the Law, your Law, the Scripture, the Scriptures; venerated by the Christian churches, who read it in all their assemblies; this collection, we say, must necessarily have led all their company to the notion of an. analogous collection of the sacred books of the New Testament.
Was not the idea of a canon of the scriptures the characteristic trait of the people of God for fifteen hundred years? Had it not always appeared to them from the beginning of their national existence, the very reason of their existence, and the indispensable means of its continuance? Yet, at the same time, this notion born in the desert with the Israelitish church, and always maintained by that church, had never been that of a code completed by one hand, or in one generation, or received in its fullness once for all. On the contrary, it was that of a collection commencing with the five books of Moses, and destined to grow from age to age; continued by the addition of new books, during eleven centuries, as God raised up new prophets, and not ceasing to accumulate its treasures to the days of Malachi, when the spirit of prophecy became silent for four centuries. It was then very natural that the church, at the coming of the Messiah, should look for new additions, since the ancient spirit of prophecy had just been restored to her, and since new men of God, “apostles and prophets,” more miraculously endowed than the ancients, had just been raised up. We may go farther; it was even impossible that she should not expect it. Was not the epoch of Christ’s advent much more important and solemn than that of his annunciation; were not the revelations more striking; the objects more divine; the promises richer; the prophets more powerful; the signs more marvelous?
Nor should we forget that the church has already begun in the synagogue and, for the first fifteen years of Christianity, contains no other than Jewish members. All her preachers and her first converts are Jews. At the last voyage Paul made to meet the converts in Jerusalem, the members of that church, mother of all the others, contained already many thousands, (Acts xxi. 20, posai muriadeV.) In all the cities of the Gentiles the apostles began their labors among the children of Israel. And there they constantly held in their hands the canon of the scriptures, and always repeated the words of Jesus, “Search the Scriptures,” (John V. 39.) Always they “expounded and testified. the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets,” (Acts xxviii. 23.) “Saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come,” (Acts xxvi. 22.) And even although they did not directly quote from the sacred books, when preaching to pagan audiences, yet they were very careful to do it as soon as these had been brought to believe. We may select, as an instance, the salutation of Paul in closing his epistle to the Romans: “Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which is now made manifest by the Scriptures of the Prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations, for the obedience of faith. To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ, for ever. Amen.”
So then if, on the one hand, the notion of a canon of the Scriptures was, as it were, incarnated in the people of God, if it was with them inseparable from the notion of the church; on the other hand, the thought of incorporating the not less sacred books of the New Testament with those of the Old, as they were written successively, was with them equally inseparable from their notion of the scriptures.
The history of primitive Christianity strongly confirms this view of the notion of the sacred canon then prevalent in the church. So far from being introduced at a later period, as has been asserted by some, we find it constantly, from the beginning, both in the church and in its enemies.
The evidence of this we shall produce at length, contenting ourselves here with a few quotations. Peter, in closing his career, in his Second Epistle, speaking of “all the epistles of Paul,” calls them ” the scriptures,” comparing or classing them with “the other scriptures.”[5]
From the beginning, the writings of the apostles were successively gathered into one collection, which was respected by the primitive Christians equally with the Old Testament, which they read in their religious meetings, and which, after Peter’s example, they called the Scriptures ; or after the example of the Fathers the Book, (ta Biblia,) the New Testament[6] the Divine Instrument,[7] the Sacred Digest,[8] the Divine Oracles; or again, the Evangelists and the Apostles;[9] after the example of Jesus Christ, who had called the Old Testament “the Law and the Prophets” They then early adopted the custom of calling it the Canon, or the Rule, and whatever constituted a portion of this infallible code, Canonical Books.
Irenceus, born in Greece A. D. 120 or 140, and martyred in A. D. 202, speaking of the Scriptures as divine, calls them the Rule, or the Canon of Truth (kanona thV alhqeiaV)[10] Tertullian, in the same century, opposing Valentinus to Marcion, both deep in the Gnostic heresy, toward A. D. 138, says of the former, that he at least appears to make use of a Complete Instrument, meaning the collection of the books of the New Testament then accepted by the church.[11] Clement of Alexandria, in the same century, speaking of a quotation taken from an apocryphal book, is indignant that any one should follow anything but “the true evangelical canon;” and Origen, born A. D. 183, careful, as Eusebius[12] remarks, to follow the ecclesiastical canon, ecclesiastical canon, ton ekklhsiastikon fulattwn kanona, “declares that he knows only the four Gospels, which alone, he adds, are admitted without contradiction in the universal church spread abroad under the whole heavens.” The same Origen, when giving us his catalogue of canonical Scriptures, calls them ai endiaqhkai grafai, the intestamented Scriptures,[13] that is, the books inserted in the New Testament. Athanasius in his Festal Epistle,[14] speaks of three kinds of books: the canonical, (which are those of our present Protestant Bible); the ecclesiastical, which were permitted to be read in the Christian meetings; and the apocryphal. And when, at a later period, the Council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, decreed that no other book than “the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments ” should be read in the churches, far from originating the distinction between canonical and uncanonical books, this decree was but a sanctioning of the distinction long before adopted by the universal church.
Jerome also frequently speaks of the canon of Scripture. He says, for instance, “Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, the Pastor,… are not in the canon. The church permits the books of Judith, Tobit, and the Maccabees to be read, but she does not receive them as a part of the canonical Scriptures. The books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus may be read for the edification of the people, but not as authority for establishing doctrine.”[15]
Such is the origin of the notion of the canon, and such is its meaning.
[1] Eph. ii. 20.
[2] 1 Pet i. 12.
[3] Reply to Apion, Book I. chap. 2.
[4] Rom. iii. 2; Heb. v. 12; 1 Pet. iv. 11.
[5] 2 Pet. iii. 16. This testimony, whatever objections any may have to the canonicity of this Epistle, shows indisputably the antiquity of the usage which ranks the books of the New Testament with the Scriptures; for we shall hereafter establish the antiquity of this Epistle, even independently of its canonicity.
[6] See Lardner, vol. viii. p. 197. See, also, vol. ii. p. 529. Paul having given the name of Old Testament to the Book of Moses and the Prophets, it was altogether natural that they should give to the book of the Evangelists and Apostles the name of New Testament, and that they should call intestamented, or endiaqhhkouV, (Euseb. H. E. vi. 25,) the books admitted into the canon.
[7] Tertullian adv. Marcion, Lib. v. cap. 13.
[8] Ibid. Lib. iv. cap. 13.
[9] Clement of Alexandria, Strom, vii. pp. 706, 757. Ignatius, Ep. to the Philad. chap. v. Epis, to Diognet, chap. xi. Justin Martyr, Great Apol. chap. 67. Tertullian, de Graec. Script, chap. 36. Apol. chap. 39. Hippolitus the Martyr, on Antichrist, chap. 58.
[10] Adv. Heresies, Book iii. chap. 11; Book iv. chaps. 35, 69.
[11] Tertullian De Praescript. Hœretic. chaps. 30-38.
[12] Ecc. Hist. Book vi. chap. 25.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Chap, xxxix. vol. ii. p. 961, Benedict, edit, ta kanonizomena kai paradoqenta te Qeia enai
Bilblia.
[15] See, also, Lardner, vol. x. pp. 41, 43, 52.
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