The History of the Development of the Cannon of Sacred Scripture from Palestine to the First Vatican Council

1
The History of the Development of the Cannon
of Sacred Scripture from Palestine to the
First Vatican Council
2
THE PERIOD OF DISCUSSION (A.D. 220-367)
Eusebius

• In this stage of the historical development of
  the Canon we encounter for the first time a
  consciousness reflected in certain ecclesiastical
  writers, of the differences between the sacred
  collections in diverse sections of Christendom.
• This variation is witnessed to, and the
  discussion stimulated by, two of the most learned
  men of Christian antiquity,
• Origen, and Eusebius of Caesarea, the
  ecclesiastical historian.

Origen
3
Origen's travels gave him exceptional
opportunities to know the traditions of widely
separated portions of the Church.

• They made him very conversant with the discrepant
  attitudes toward certain parts of the New
  Testament
• Origen divided books with Biblical claims into
  two classes
• Homologoumena - those universally received
• The Gospels, the thirteen Pauline Epistles, Acts,
  Apocalypse, I Peter, and I John.
• Antilegomena - those with questions.
• Hebrews, II Peter, II and III John, James, Jude,
  Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache,
  and the Gospel of the Hebrews.
• All the books of the Hebrew Old Testament are
  cited in the New except those which have been
  aptly called the Antilegomena of the Old
  Testament
• Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles moreover
  Ezra and Nehemiah are not employed.
• Personally, Origen accepted all of these as
  Divinely inspired, though viewing contrary
  opinions with toleration.

4
Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine, was one
of Origen's most eminent disciples.

• In imitation of his master he divided religious
  literature into three classes
• Homologoumena, or compositions universally
  received as sacred
• The Four Gospels, thirteen Epistles of St. Paul,
  Hebrews, Acts, I Peter, I John.
• There is some inconsistency in his classification
• Though ranking Hebrews with the books of
  universal reception, he elsewhere admits it is
  disputed.
• He rejects Apocalypse
• He was the first to call attention to important
  variations in the text of the Gospels
• The presence in some copies and the absence in
  others of the final paragraph of Mark, the
  passage of the Adulterous Woman, and the Bloody
  Sweat.

5
The second category is composed of the
Antilegomena, or contested writings

• Old Testament
• Three documents added to protocanonical books
• the supplement to Esther, from 104, to the end,
• the Canticle of the Three Youths (Song of the
  Three Children) in Daniel 3,
• and the stories of Susanna and the Elders and Bel
  and the Dragon
• New Testament
• The Epistles of St. James and St. Jude, II Peter,
  II and III John
• these, like Origen, Eusebius wished to be
  admitted to the Canon, but was forced to record
  their uncertain status
• The Antilegomena of the inferior sort were
  Barnabas, the Didache, Gospel of the Hebrews, the
  Acts of Paul, the Shepherd, the Apocalypse of
  Peter.
• All the rest are spurious (notha).

6

• St. Hippolytus (d. 236) may fairly be considered
  as representing the primitive Roman tradition.
• He comments on the Susanna chapter,
• often quotes Wisdom as the work of Solomon,
• and employs as Sacred Scripture Baruch and the
  Maccabees.

7

• For the West African Church the larger canon has
  two strong witnesses in Tertullian and St.
  Cyprian.
• Cyprian, whose Scriptural Canon certainly
  reflects the contents of the first Latin Bible
  received all the books of the New Testament
  except Hebrews, II Peter, James, and Jude
• Jude had been recognized by Tertullian, but,
  strangely, it had lost its position in the
  African Church, probably owing to its citation of
  the apocryphal Henoch.
• Both Cyprian and Tertullian give strong evidence
  for the larger Old Testament canon.
• They use all the deuteros except Tobit, Judith
  and the addition to Esther throughout their
  works.

8
THE PERIOD OF FIXATION (A.D. 367-405)

• In this period the position of the
  deuterocanonical literature is no longer as
  secure as in the primitive age.
• The doubts which arose should be attributed
  largely to a reaction against the apocryphal or
  pseudo-Biblical writings which had been flooded
  by heretical writers.
• The situation became possible through the absence
  of any Apostolic or ecclesiastical definition of
  the Canon.

9
THE PERIOD OF FIXATION (A.D. 367-405)

• The definite and inalterable determination of the
  sacred sources,
• like that of all Catholic doctrines,
• was in the Divine economy left to gradually work
  itself out under the stimulus of questions and
  opposition.

10
Alexandria had from the beginning been a
congenial field for apocryphal literature

• St. Athanasius, ever the vigilant pastor of that
  flock,
• to protect it against the pernicious influence,
• drew up a catalogue of books with the values to
  be attached to each.
• First, the strict canon and authoritative source
  of truth is the Jewish Old Testament, Esther
  excepted.
• Besides, there are certain books which the
  Fathers had appointed to be read to catechumens
  for edification and instruction
• these are the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of
  Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Esther, Judith, Tobias,
  the Didache, or Doctrine of the Apostles, the
  Shepherd of Hermas.
• All others are apocrypha and the inventions of
  heretics
• (Festal Epistle for 367).

11
While the influence of Athanasius on the Canon of
the Old Testament was negative and exclusive

• In that of the New Testament it was trenchantly
  constructive.
• In his "Epistola Festalis" (A.D. 367) the Bishop
  of Alexandria ranks all of Origen's New Testament
  Antilegomena, which are identical with the
  deuteros, boldly inside the Canon, without
  noticing any of the scruples about them.
• Thenceforward they were formally and firmly fixed
  in the Alexandrian Canon.

12
The Debate on the Old Testament Deuteros

• St. Cyril of Jerusalem, while vindicating for the
  Church the right to fix the Canon, placed Old
  Testament deuteos among the apocrypha and forbid
  all books to be read privately which were not
  read in the churches.
• St. Epiphanius shows hesitation about the rank of
  the deuteros he esteemed them, but they had not
  the same place as the Hebrew books in his regard.

13
The Debate on the Old Testament Deuteros

• The historian Eusebius attests the widespread
  doubts in his time he classes them as
  antilegomena, or disputed writings, and, like
  Athanasius, places them in a class intermediate
  between the books received by all and the
  apocrypha.
• St. Hilary of Poitiers and Rufinus followed their
  footsteps, excluding the deuteros from canonical
  rank in theory, but admitting them in practice.
  The latter styles them "ecclesiastical" books,
  but in authority unequal to the other Scriptures.

14
St. Jerome cast his vote on the side unfavorable
to the disputed books.

• In appreciating his attitude we must remember
  that Jerome lived long in Palestine, in an
  environment where everything outside the Jewish
  Canon was suspect, and that, moreover, he had an
  excessive veneration for the Hebrew text, the
  Hebraica veritas as he called it.
• In his famous "Prologus Galeatus", or Preface to
  his translation of Samuel and Kings, he declares
  that everything not Hebrew should be classed with
  the apocrypha, and explicitly says that Wisdom,
  Ecclesiasticus, Tobias, and Judith are not on the
  Canon.
• These books, he adds, are read in the churches
  for the edification of the people, and not for
  the confirmation of revealed doctrine.

15

• Obviously, the inferior rank to which the
  deuteros were relegated by authorities like
  Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too
  rigid a conception of canonicity,
• one demanding that a book,
• to be entitled to this supreme dignity,
• must be received by all,
• must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity,
• and must moreover be adapted not only to
  edification, but also to the "confirmation of the
  doctrine of the Church", to borrow Jerome's
  phrase.

16
The official attitude of the Latin Church, always
favorable to the deuteros kept the majestic tenor
of its way.

• Two documents of capital importance in the
  history of the canon constitute
• the first formal utterance of papal authority on
  the subject.
• The first is the so-called "Decretal of
  Gelasius", the essential part of which is now
  generally attributed to a synod convoked by Pope
  Damasus in the year 382.
• The other is the Canon of Innocent I, sent in 405
  to a Gallican bishop in answer to an inquiry.
• Both contain all the Old and New Testament
  deuterocanonicals, without any distinction, and
  are identical with the catalogue of Trent.

17
It was some little time before the African Church
perfectly adjusted its New Testament to the
Damasan Canon.
Optatus of Mileve (370-85) did not use Hebrews.
St. Augustine, while himself receiving the
integral Canon, acknowledged that many contested
this Epistle. But in the Synod of Hippo (393)
the great Doctor's view prevailed, and the
correct Canon was adopted.
18
However, it is evident that it found many
opponents in Africa, since three councils there
at brief intervals --Hippo, Carthage, in 393
Third of Carthage in 397 Carthage in
419 found it necessary to formulate catalogues.
The introduction of Hebrews was an especial
crux, and a reflection of this is found in the
first Carthage list, where the much vexed
Epistle, though styled of St. Paul, is still
numbered separately from the time-consecrated
group of thirteen.
19
Which prompted Pope Innocent I, in 405, to send a
list of the Sacred Books to one of its bishops,
Exsuperius of Toulouse. At the close of the
first decade of the fifth century the entire
Western Church was in possession of the full
Canon of the New Testament In the East, where,
with the exception of the Edessene Syrian Church,
approximate completeness had long obtained
without the aid of formal enactments, though
opinions were still somewhat divided on the
Apocalypse. For the Catholic Church as a whole
the content of the New Testament was definitely
fixed, and the discussion closed.
In Gaul some doubts lingered for a time
20
The Council of Florence (1442)

• In 1442, during the life, and with the approval,
  of this Council, Eugenius IV issued several
  Bulls, or decrees, with a view to restore the
  Oriental schismatic bodies to communion with Rome
• According to the common teaching of theologians
  these documents are infallible states of
  doctrine.
• The "Decretum pro Jacobitis" contains a complete
  list of the books received by the Church as
  inspired but omits, perhaps advisedly, the terms
  canon and canonical.
• The Council of Florence therefore taught the
  inspiration of all the Scriptures, but did not
  formally pass on their canonicity.

21
The Council of Trent (1546)

• This ecumenical synod had to defend the integrity
  of the New Testament as well as the Old against
  the attacks of the pseudo-Reformers
• Luther, basing his action on dogmatic reasons and
  the judgment of antiquity, had discarded Hebrews,
  James, Jude, and Apocalypse as altogether
  uncanonical.
• Zwingli could not see in Apocalypse a Biblical
  book.
• OEcolampadius placed James, Jude, II Peter, II
  and III John in an inferior rank.
• Even a few Catholic scholars notably Erasmus and
  Cajetan, had thrown some doubts on the canonicity
  of the last twelve verses of Mark, the passage
  about the Bloody Sweat in Luke, and the Pericope
  Adulteræ in John.

22
It was the exigencies of controversy that first
led Luther to draw a sharp line between the books
of the Hebrew Canon and the Alexandrian writings.

• In his disputation with Eck at Leipzig, in 1519,
  when his opponent urged the well-known text from
  II Maccabees in proof of the doctrine of
  purgatory,
• Luther replied that the passage had no binding
  authority since the books was outside the Canon.
• In the first edition of Luthers Bible, 1534, the
  deuteros were relegated, as apocrypha, to a
  separate place between the two Testaments.

23
To meet this radical departure of the Protestants,

• and as well define clearly the inspired sources
  from which the Catholic Faith draws its defense,
• the Council of Trent among its first acts
  solemnly declared as
• "sacred and canonical"
• all the books of the Old and New Testaments
• "with all their parts as they have been used to
  be read in the churches, and as found in the
  ancient vulgate edition".

24
During the deliberations of the Council there
never was any real question as to the reception
of all the traditional Scripture.

• Neither in the proceedings is there manifest any
  serious doubt of the canonicity of the disputed
  writings.
• In the mind of the Tridentine Fathers they had
  been virtually canonized, by the same decree of
  Florence
• The same Fathers felt especially bound by the
  action of the preceding ecumenical synod.

25
The Council of Trent's Definition of the Canon

• True to the practical genius of the Latin Church,
  
• It based its decision on immemorial tradition
• as manifested in the decrees of previous councils
  
• and popes, and liturgical reading,
• relying on traditional teaching and usage to
  determine a question of tradition.

26

• The great constructive Synod of Trent
• Put the sacredness and canonicity of the whole
  traditional Bible forever beyond the
  permissibility of doubt on the part of Catholics.
  
• By implication it had defined that Bible's
  plenary inspiration also.

27
The Catholic Canon is that given by the Council
of Trent, Session IV, 1546.

• For the Old Testament its catalogue reads as
  follows
• The five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus,
  Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy),
• Joshua, Judges, Ruth, III Samuel, III Kings,
  III Chronicles
• Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, III
  Maccabees, Job
• The Davidic Psalter (in number one hundred and
  fifty Psalms),
• Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of
  Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaiah,
  Jeremiah, with Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel
• The twelve minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos,
  Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk,
  Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi),
• The order of books copies that of the Council of
  Florence,
• Its general plan is that of the Septuagint.
• The divergence of titles from those found in the
  Protestant versions is due to the fact that the
  official Latin Vulgate retained the forms of the
  Septuagint.

28
The First Vatican Council (1870)

• The First Vatican Council took occasion of an
  error on inspiration to remove any lingering
  shadow of uncertainty on this
• It formally ratified the action of Trent and
  explicitly defined the Divine inspiration of all
  the books with their parts.