Church History to the Reformation

Church History to the Reformation CH506 LESSON 06 of 24 Garth M. Rosell, PhD Experience: Professor of Church History and Director Emeritus, Ockenga Institute at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary This is lecture number six, the Formation of the Biblical Canon. Greetings once again in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me invite you to join me in prayer as we start our class today. Let us pray. Eternal God, we give You thanks once again that we have the privilege of studying Your work among Your people throughout church history. We ask that by Your Spirit, You might guide us in our thoughts together today that what we say and think would honor you, for Christ s sake, amen. We want to focus our attention in this class upon the formation of the biblical canon. How did we actually get our Old and New Testament Scriptures? This is a fascinating and, of course, a very important chapter of church history. But before we turn to that topic, we need to complete our exploration of what we called in our last lecture the young church in action. In that lecture, you may recall we were looking at various developments within the Christian church over the first three centuries between its founding at Pentecost and the age of Constantine. We examined first the practice of the Christian church as it gathered together for worship, fellowship, and training. And now we need to turn our attention for a few moments to talk about the church as it s scattered throughout the community in service and in ministry. How did the early Christians live out their faith? How did they view their vocations? What sorts of social involvements did they have and the like? From the very beginnings of course, Christianity taught that the faith should issue in holy living, not compartmentalized as we so often find it today but lived out in job, recreation, family, and indeed every part of life. We want now to explore some of the ways in which this took place, for Christianity made a difference in the lives of the early Christians. As Justin Martyr commented, 1 of 15

We who once served lust now find our delight in pure morals. We who once followed sorcery have now seen ourselves in the place of the eternal, good God. We who once loved gain above all now give up what we have for the common use. We who once hated and killed each other now pray for our enemies and seek to convince those who hate us without a cause. As Minucius Felix wrote, You (speaking of the Romans) prohibit adultery by law and practice it in secret. You punish wickedness only in the overt act. We look upon it as criminal even in thought. You dread the inspection of others. We stand in awe of nothing but our own consciences. And finally, your prisons are overflowing with criminals, but they are all heathen. There is not a Christian in there. There were, of course, faults in these early Christian communities to be sure. But the constant reminder was there day after day that they were to live out their faith. They were to practice their faith in every area of life. And if we look at our little collection of writings that we ve been using from Richardson, we find this theme repeated over and over again. Let me give you a few examples to whet your appetites. Those of you who have your Richardson will want to open it first to page 66 to Clement s first letter. And we re becoming more and more familiar with these materials as we move through the course. Clement, of course, is writing from Rome and writing up to the church in Corinth, and included in that in chapter 48 beginning at verse 5, Let a man be faithful. Let him be capable of uttering knowledge. Let him be wise in judging arguments. Let him be pure in conduct. But the greater he appears to be, the more humble he ought to be and the more ready to seek the common good in preference to his own. We hear that phrase common good again and again in the early Christian communities. Whoever has Christian love must keep Christ s commandments. Who can describe the bond of God s love? Who is capable of expressing its great beauty? The heights to which love leads are beyond description. Love unites us to God. 2 of 15

Love hides a multitude of sins. Love puts up with everything and is always patient. There is nothing vulgar about love, nothing arrogant. Love knows nothing of schism or revolt. Love does everything in harmony. And then he picks up this theme throughout his letter calling for the common good in preference to one s individual interests. We see the same theme in Ignatius. Remember he was the head of the church in Antioch in the early part of the second century. And on page 119 of our little collection, we see him calling once again for care for widows and slaves and others in need. Widows must not be neglected, he writes on page 119 chapter four. After the Lord, you must be their protector. Do not let anything be done without your consent, and do nothing without God s as indeed you do not. Stand firm. Don t treat slaves and slave girls contemptuously. Moreover, slaves must not be overanxious to gain their freedom at the community s expense lest they prove to be slaves of selfish passion. Flee from such wicked practices. Nay, rather preach against them. We see the same theme picked up on page 133 of our collection in the writings of Polycarp. Remember Polycarp was the head of the church in Smyrna. The bottom of page 133 in chapter six it reads, Also the presbyters must be compassionate, merciful to all, turning back those who have gone astray, looking after the sick, not neglecting the widows or orphans or anyone who s poor but always taking thought for what is honorable in the sight of God and men. And then over on page 135 in chapter 10, Stand firm, therefore, in the things and follow the example of the Lord steadfast and immovable in your faith, loving the brotherhood, cherishing one another, fellow companions in truth in the gentleness of the Lord preferring one another and despising no one. Whenever you are able to do a kindness, don t put it off because almsgiving frees from debt. All of you submit yourselves to one another having your manner of life above reproach from the heathen so that you may receive praise for your good works and the Lord may not be blasphemed on your account. 3 of 15

We see this picked up in the Didache, and remember this was the writing of the twelve this document from rural Syria in the late first early second century. And if you turn there to pages 171 and following, you see contrasted the way of life and the way of death. The way of life is to give to everyone and ask no return. For the Father wants His own gifts to be universally shared, we read at the bottom of page 171. And then over on page 173 chapter 4 this very interesting section, If your labor has brought you earnings, pay a ransom for your sins. Do not hesitate to give and do not give with bad grace, for you will discover who He is who pays you back a reward with good grace. Do not turn your back on the needy but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own. And then this fascinating little sentence, For if you have what is eternal in common (as they did of course) how much more should you have what is transient? And if you turn to page 194 in the collection to that early sermon by Clement known as Clement II you have a call for compassion again. And if you look at Diognetus page 221 late second century, he talks about the great happiness which comes to Christians through giving. Or if you look at Justin Martyr page 251, you see him calling again for Christians to share with those who have need. And the materials again and again are filled with these kinds of admonitions for Christians to live out their faith concretely dealing with the needs of others. This was, of course, to extend to people s jobs. The principle within the early church seemed to be that all work was legitimate and could be pursued with a new spirit emphasizing the work for the glory of God and for the benefit of others. There was a new kind of sanctity which was placed around the whole subject of work and vocation. It was to be seen as a Christian calling. We are not exiles from life, wrote Tertullian the North African theologian. We dwell with you in this world. We carry on commerce, agriculture, and trade with you. We take part in your pursuits and give our labors for your use. Only those jobs were shunned or prohibited which seemed to involve immorality or injustice. All legitimate work was to be taken up as a calling from above. They were to be salt and light in the world in their work as well as in their homes. A very interesting little book has been written by Al Glenn called Taking Your Faith to Work put out by Baker Book House in 1980. And what Glenn tries to do in present day language is the very same thing that these early Christians were calling upon one another 4 of 15

to do as they lived out their faith in their jobs and in their homes. And of course this deeply affected family life. In Greece and Rome of course, the highest virtues were connected with the state. Wisdom, courage, moderation, justice were all seen as political virtues fundamentally. Life was aimed at the benefit of the state. Individuals were valued only as they added to the state s glory. For the Christian community, however, there was a new sense of sanctity of life and of importance of relationships. Marriage, for example, which had been subservient to the interests of the state, now took on a whole new context and attitude. Relationships within the home were to be different. They were to flow out of love and mutual respect and support. This, of course, brought a whole new dignity to women. And one of the fascinating developments in church history over recent years has been the new understanding and the massive new research which has been done on women s role within the life of the church. One of the very interesting new collections in this regard was put out by Ruth A. Tucker and Walter Liefeld called Daughters of the Church: Women in Ministry from the New Testament Times to the Present. This was published in 1987 and is a very interesting place to begin for those of you who might be interested in exploring this area more fully. I think we have some great new discoveries to make in the future as to the important ministry which men and women brought to the church across the centuries. And we ll be picking up some of that theme later on. Perhaps the most striking living out of the early Christian faith however was the active involvement of Christians again and again in what might be called social service. Christianity was to be a servant faith. This is not a popular theme in our day, because we like to be served rather than serve. And yet when you look back at the biblical materials, the call of Christ and the example of our Lord is again and again to live out the faith in loving service to one another. Remember in Matthew 20 that remarkable account beginning at verse 20 when the mother of the Zebedee sons came to Jesus along with her sons and kneeling down asked a favor of Him. What do you want? He asked. She said, Grant that one of these sons shall sit at Your right hand and the other at Your left hand in the kingdom. Isn t that something? You don t know what you re asking, Jesus said. Can you drink the cup I m going to drink? We can, they answered. And Jesus said, You will indeed drink from my cup. But to sit at My right or left is not for Me to grant. When the 10 heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. They probably wished that they had gotten 5 of 15

there first. Jesus called them together and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles Lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. That s a powerful text. Or if you look over in Luke 22, just after that marvelous, holy moment of the Lord s Supper which our Lord shared with His disciples, we read in verse 24 And a dispute immediately arose among them as to which was considered the greatest. Jesus said, The kings of the Gentiles Lord it over them, and those who exercise authority call themselves benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at table? But I am among you as one who serves. Jesus symbol of leadership was a bowl of water and a towel. And that is to be the symbol of leadership for the Christian community today as well as in the early Christian centuries. And we see that lived out again and again. One of the most powerful things about the early life of the church was that these folk loved and served one another again and again and served the world for Christ s sake. This tended to draw people to them. Notice how these people love each other. And they were talking about very concrete ways of loving. You see the Christian faith is not only to draw us together in fellowship and training and the enjoyment of being together in the fellowship of faith, but it s to go out into the world to be salt and light and to live out this kind of self-giving, sacrificial service for the purpose of drawing men and women to Jesus Christ. And that was exemplified beautifully, not perfectly, but beautifully by the early church, and it needs to be exemplified by us as well. I want to turn our attention now, though we ll be picking up some of those themes of course again and again as we go through this course. I want to turn our attention now to this fascinating story about how we got our Bible, because the early Christians of course drew their strength and guided their life and faith by the written Scriptures. How did they then come to us? Now we re fortunate to have some wonderful sources upon which to draw. Let me point out a few of these in case you d like to pursue this subject more thoroughly. A recent book was produced by F.F. Bruce, the 6 of 15

great New Testament scholar from England entitled The Canon of Scripture published by Intervarsity Press in 1988. And I would commend that book to you if you haven t read anything else in the area and would like a good place to begin. That s a nice place to start, or Bruce Metzger s The Canon of the New Testament published by Oxford in 1987 a bit more technical but a wonderful book as well. William Barclay has a little book called The Making of the Bible which he published in 1961 which is very readable. Barclay, of course, is known to many of us through his Bible commentaries. Or you could read D.A. Carson and John Woodbridge, both of them teachers at Trinity Seminary, Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon which they published in 1986 dealing with these subjects. Or perhaps one of the most standard works now is the Ackroyd and Evans, The Cambridge History of the Bible. Volume I is particularly important for the things we are doing here from the beginnings to the time of Jerome. This is a three-volume set, and I would commend to you all three volumes, but certainly Volume I. Let s turn to our subject then and see what we can come to understand about the formation of the Bible. And this of course is usually titled the Canon of Scripture. Canon of course comes from Greek kanon or the Hebrew kane which means reed or rod or standard, the standard for measuring. Canon, therefore, has a kind of simple meaning for us. It s that list of books which are contained in Scripture. For Christians, it s the list of writings which are acknowledged by the church as divine revelation, as writings from God Himself. In this sense, the term was first used by Athanasius, the great bishop of Alexandria in a letter which he wrote in 367 AD. There he uses the canon as the rule of faith against which Christian teaching and action must be measured. How do we think about the faith? How do we live out the faith? The answer of course is how the Scripture tells us to do it, and we in obedience obey. The basic question: how did certain documents and these only come to be received with this kind of recognition in the church? Who decided? What criteria did they use? Our concern here is of course with the Christian Bible both the Old and the New Testament. The Old Testament came into being written over a period of some thousand years. The New Testament of course was written in a period of less than a century. By the end of the second century AD, we can say that the two collections came to be described as the Old Covenant or Old Testament and the New 7 of 15

Covenant or the New Testament. The implication is clearly that the canon by that time was closed. That is, it was such that nothing could be taken from it and nothing added to it. And we pick that up in such texts as Deuteronomy 4:2 or Revelation 22:18 or in our little collection of early Christian writings in the Didache, chapter 4, verse 13. When the early Christian church was formed at Pentecost, it already had in hand sacred Scriptures what they call the Law and the Prophets. These were both revered and actively used in the worship of the early Christian communities. Those were the writings, the Old Testament writings from which they preached, from which they read, and which directed their lives. They began reading them of course through the eyes of what they had learned in the teachings and work of Jesus Christ. The great messianic passages of the Old Testament came to be increasingly important within the life of the early church. But you ll remember that the early members of the church were almost without exception Jewish, those who had come to see Jesus as the Messiah and who brought with them not only their practices from the synagogue which we ve seen already but their Scriptures of the Old Testament. Jesus Himself had regularly appealed to the Hebrew Scriptures to validate and explain His own mission, words, and action. Remember Luke chapter 4 when Jesus came to the synagogue in Nazareth. The words of Isaiah 61 were read, and He used that text then to explain who He was and why He was there. The early church s use of the Old Testament grew quite naturally out of the fact that Jesus had used it. We see that in Luke 24:27. When early Christians then spoke of the Scriptures, they knew exactly what writings they had in mind. These were the twentyfour books of the Old Testament in three divisions: The Law of course (the Torah, the five books of Moses), the second category the prophets. These were the four former prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings as they were known and the four latter prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel; and the fourth of those, the collection of 12 what we often call Minor Prophets or shorter prophetic writings. So here were the Law and the Prophets and also then the writings, the eleven books: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the five scrolls, that is the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah which were then considered as one book, and Chronicles. 8 of 15

Now we see the references to this three-fold division of Law, Prophets, and writings in a number of places. The earliest spot we find them is in the writings of Yeshua ben Sira from Alexandria in 132 BC. We see the references in the New Testament in Luke 24:44 for example, though the New Testament writers by in large refer to the Old Testament all of the writing as the Law and the Prophets. We see this three-fold division also in Josephus in his Against Apion for example written in the late first century. This of course is the arrangement found in most of the Hebrew Bibles: the Law, Prophets, and writings in roughly this order. Of course many have commented that it was the council at Jamnia, socalled, that drew these together and ultimately closed the Old Testament canon. It s a little grandiose to call what happened at Jamnia a council. In fact, it was a gathering of rabbis which had come together out of the devastations of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD talking together about the faith and in fact where the community was to go after that devastating experience. So gathering in the late first century following that event they reviewed the Scripture traditions. They debated hotly all of these issues, and they ultimately reconfirmed the twenty-four books which carried special authority in their community. Now some have suggested I think the first to do this was H.E. Ryle in his Canon of the Old Testament in 1892. But it s picked up by a good number of others including F.F. Bruce and some of those that I mentioned in the list earlier on. But the Old Testament canon was not really established at Jamnia. It was reconfirmed there, but it had in fact been canonized in three stages relating in fact to those three divisions: the Law canonized after the return from the Babylonian captivity, the Prophets closed in the late third century BC, and the Writings closed there in that gathering at Jamnia. So Jamnia grew together what ultimately came to be the collection that we know as the Old Testament. I should just add a little parenthesis here that the great Qumran discoveries, that series of documents from the caves in the northwest end of the Dead Sea in 1947, have greatly increased our knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. They included of course some 500 separate documents a hundred of these are copies of the Hebrew Bible. In fact, all of the books of the Old Testament are represented in that collection except for Esther. And in that collection are also some commentaries on these Old Testament writings. A great deal more will be learned also as these are 9 of 15

studied over the coming years. Let s turn our attention then to the New Testament. We can assume that the early church adopted that basic collection of Old Testament writings, treated them as Scripture, and in fact used them for their worship, for their reading and their preaching and their teaching in the community; but what about the New Testament? Jesus we know wrote no book. He taught by word of mouth and personal example. His followers retold His stories again and again. These were treasured and remembered carefully in what is called the oral tradition of the faith which was passed down from parents to children and from people who evangelized to those who had received the world gladly. Some of His followers, however, began to write things down. Paul is one of the most notable of these sometimes writing when he couldn t make a personal visit as in Galatians 4:20 where he wishes he could come but can t; and the letter will have to suffice. Or he writes sometimes because he feels a letter is better than coming. We get a hint of this at least in the Corinthian correspondence 2 Corinthians 1:23 and following for example. Writing became even more important at the start of the Gentile mission as the church moves out from its very largely Jewish focus in Jerusalem out into the Gentile world. The fact that documents would need to be there to carry the faith and in fact to teach the faith over the centuries made the collection more and more important. Paul s letters gained worldwide circulation, at least within the Roman world, very early. Second Peter 3:15 perhaps the last of the New Testament writing refers to Paul s letters as Scripture even that early. Clement of Rome quotes the words of Jesus as being on the same level as the Old Testament writings. We see this in 1 Clement 13:1 and following. Ignatius, the leader of the church at Antioch in the early second century, speaks of these great archives of the faith. Let me read just a portion of that for you. We find this in his letter to the Philadelphians on page 110 and 111 of our collection if you want to follow that. It s absolutely fascinating. In chapter 8 he writes I hear some people saying if I don t find it in the original document, I don t believe it is in the gospel. Original documents of course are the Old Testament that we ve been talking about. And he said, It is written there. And they retorted That s just the question in our minds. 10 of 15

To my mind, Ignatius then concludes, it is Jesus Christ who is the original document. Isn t that fascinating? The inviolable archives are His cross and His death and His resurrection and the faith that came by Him. Then over at page 11, But there s something special about the gospel, I mean the coming of the Savior our Lord Jesus Christ, His passion, and resurrection. The beloved prophets announced His coming, but the gospel is the crowning achievement forever. In other words, the Old Testament we treasure because it points to Christ, but it is only complete in Christ who is Himself the great archive of the church in person. We find in 2 Clement, one of those early sermons 2:1-4 that the original gospel writings are referred to as Scriptures. And we see the same thing in Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna mid-second century. And we find it in Barnabas and Hippolytus and Eusebius and most of those early writers who clearly though they don t recognize a complete enclosed canon at this time, understand the authority of Christ and His apostles, which was on a par with the Old Testament. So as they treasured the Old Testament, they now treasured the oral and written remains of their own Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Authority, you see, always precedes canonicity. We can say also by the last half of the second century that collections of these Christian writings were already not only taking shape but circulating, most notably the four-fold gospel, which is often called the memoirs of the apostles, and in fact collections of the Pauline letters. These begin to circulate individually at first and then increasingly are put together in collections and begin to circulate all throughout the Christian church and the Christian world. What about the four-fold gospel? The Didache chapter 8, verse 2 late first century Syria of course, uses the gospel as a term to refer to Matthew. Justin Martyr in his first apology refers to these memoirs of the apostle. Justin Martyr s own disciple Tatian, in fact puts together a Diatessaron which was in Syriac originally, an integrated edition based largely upon John s work and structure, a harmony in a sense of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And this comes to circulate and have very great popularity in a number of areas of the church. John s gospel was undoubtedly the last to be accepted widely. But very early in the life of the church, all four are not only circulating but often circulating together. It became popular by the mid-second century to bind all four Gospels together in fact in codex form. 11 of 15

Now you need to recognize that before the Christian era, most writings were in scrolls rolled up. And we ve seen some of those carried around often in boxes. But the codex form became very popular in the first and second century. And the codex is very much like a modern book only of course the printing press had not yet been discovered, so these were all handwritten. But they looked very much like normal books where you could read from page to page. What about the Pauline corpus? We don t know when the first edition of Paul s collected letters was first produced. C.F.D. Moule in his Birth of the New Testament in 1981 suggests that it was Luke s doing to bring together the collected letters of Paul. And that s quite possible. We do know that from the early second century, Paul s letters circulated in many places as a collection. The earliest reference again is 2 Peter 3:15. The oldest surviving copy we have of any sort of Pauline collection is the Chester Beatty manuscript known as P46, probably used by a Greek-speaking congregation in the rural areas of Egypt. This manuscript written about 200 AD includes eighty-six of the original 104 folio pages. It doesn t include the pastoral epistles1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, but it does include Hebrews interestingly enough. And of course those have quite fascinating histories just in and of themselves. The bringing together of the Gospels and the Pauline letters is probably in part due to Acts. Originally Luke had written his gospel and Acts as a single overall work, clearly the work of one author. These have been pulled apart in order that Luke as the gospel could circulate along with the three other gospels. But gradually the church came to see the value of tying the Gospels together eventually with the letters of Paul and others through that link of the Acts which is an incredibly interesting book. And I encouraged you earlier and will encourage you again to read Luke-Acts together at one sitting, because it will do your heart good. And it will give you a perspective on the growth of the early church that you wouldn t get otherwise. We do know that Marcion was instrumental in helping to draw together a recognized collection. He was the first person to publish a fixed collection himself of New Testament books, although Valentinus may also have produced one. Born in the Black Sea at the sea coast of the Black Sea in 100 AD, traveling to Rome around 138 AD, he came to reject the Old Testament and the Old Testament God. He was passionately devoted to the writings and work of Paul. And he stressed the gospel of grace as opposed to 12 of 15

the Old Testament legalisms as he came to see them. He produced an edition of the Greek New Testament called The Gospel and Apostle. The gospel, of course, was simply Luke and actually a somewhat truncated version of Luke. He left out, for example, the birth narratives because he found birth disgusting. In fact, the church which he established in Rome was completely celibate. It also treated men and women with complete equality which is another interesting feature of this movement. But I m going to come to the Marcionite movement later in the course, and I won t take time to go into that in detail here. The gospel then is a somewhat truncated version of Luke, and ten of the letters of Paul also cleaned up according to Marcion from certain elements that he felt didn t emphasize his central concerns quite clearly enough. Paul s letter to the Romans, for example, has a whole variety of things left out of it. Now despite the limitations which are clearly there, Marcion is clearly heretical. His drawing together of these materials in a collection spurred the larger church to consider its own understanding of the collected writings. And the orthodox response to Marcion and Valentinus was to affirm the Old Testament Scriptures that we ve talked about already along with the four gospels, thirteen letters of Paul now including the Pastoral Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, and the other writings. These formed what was called a catholic collection as opposed to Marcion s rather sectarian canon. And these are the ones that we find in the Muratorian list, this list from 1740, the codex which comes originally out of the seventh or eighth century and now can be found in one of the libraries in Milan. This list probably dates back to somewhere around the late second century. It gives us a pretty good indication that the church now is increasingly gathering together these elements into a common collection to circulate within the church and to use for its worship and faith. By Irenaeus time, the late second century, it s clear that a recognizable collection has been adopted by the church even though Irenaeus unfortunately never takes time to list them all for us. Probably his list is very much like this Muratorian fragment with the addition perhaps of 1 Peter. There seems to be a coherent corpus by this time of some twenty-two books, all of the books except for Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 3 John, and Jude. These were debated at this time and gradually worked their way into the present canon. Hippolytus in the early third century, one of the great Roman leaders, one of the last to write in Greek as a matter of fact reflects essentially this same collection. 13 of 15

Tertullian, the great African leader from Carthage, was one of the early theologians who wrote in Latin; later on in life he became a Montanist. We ll pick up that story as well. He s the first to speak of the New Testament. He included in this collection the four Gospels, Acts, the thirteen Pauline epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John, Revelation, and Jude. There s no mention in his writings of James, 2 Peter, or 2, 3 John. He felt that Hebrews ought to be included and, in fact, felt that it had been written by Barnabas, which was an interesting suggestion. By Tertullian s time, much of the current New Testament was already being circulated in North Africa in a Latin form. By the way, when you hear references to the Latin, normally the references are to Jerome s later vulgate which gained the ascendancy in many parts of the church. All of the earlier Latin translations are known as old Latin versions, so you ll see that popping up in the literature periodically. But by and large, the Latin is dominated by Jerome. Eusebius was asked by Constantine to arrange for fifty copies of the Christian Scriptures, Old and New Testament in Greek, to be sent to Constantinople the new capital for use in the churches there. You have an account of this in Eusebius Life of Constantine from which we read earlier on. Now this is very fascinating, because these fifty copies include, some folk feel, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus, two of the great early uncials. That s probably not true, but we do feel that a number of materials come from those original fifty copies. And in fact they popularized in a very visible form the notion of a New Testament and the idea then of this collection circulating and being used within the life of the church. We come then to Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, who devoted much of his thirty-ninth vestal letter written in 367 AD to the matter of the canon. He s the very first writer that we have who lists exactly the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as we know them, so that from 367 AD on, we can clearly date this matter of canon as a collection of the books that we know now as our New Testament Scriptures: the four Gospels, Acts, the seven catholic epistles, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-2-3 John, Jude, the fourteen Pauline epistles so called and John s Apocalypse. We find additional lists in Cyril of Jerusalem in 386, Gregory Nazianzus, Chrysostom, Theodore Mopsuestia, and others. By the time of Jerome, late fourth century, and Augustine early fifth century, the canon of Scripture was clearly fixed and clearly accepted fully by the church. The council of Hippo in 393 is the first church council to lay down the limits of the canon. 14 of 15

Well, what were the criteria that they used in canonicity? Well, one might note apostolic authority, antiquity, orthodoxy, catholicity; but I think the key element is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit not only guided the writers to record what God had intended, but the Holy Spirit guided the church to recognize and receive as authoritative that which God had intended for their use. Inspiration, you see, precedes authority. And authority precedes canonization. So that it is not as if a church council determines that the Scripture is the Scripture. In fact, God intended the Scripture as Scripture, and by the teaching and leading of the Holy Spirit, helped the Christian communities to come to recognize that and affirm that. The church built its faith and its ministry on the reliability of those Scriptures Old and New Testament. That is the very foundation upon which the church today, and in every age, must found its faith. What we teach, how we live, what we say, and what we do grows out of the Book. We are people of the Book, and we can be thankful that by His Spirit, God gave us this wonderful document to guide our faith and to inspire us in our Christian living. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 15 of 15