Canon and text of the New Testament

Front matter

Qass Book

UO

The International Theolodca

Introduction

The first duty of a scholar is to secure a clear view of his aim in taking up a given subject. In the case of a large number of the writings which treat of the right that the New Testament books have to a place in that collection, this duty has so far as I can see been neglected. The discussions touching the proper contents of the New Testament have been dominated by the word canon. This word has, it may be imperceptibly, come to determine the course of the inquiry. The general supposition is that a canon exists. It is in approaching the subject taken for granted as a thing long ago proved, or so certainly and well known as to need no proof, that a certain canon was settled upon at a very early date in the history of the Christian Church. And the word canon in connection with this view means a sharply denned and unalterable collection made, put together, decided upon by general Church authority under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The long held theory of the inspiration of every word in the books of the Bible needed as an accompaniment an inspired selection of the inspired books. For the purposes, then, of the inquiring scholar the canon of the New Testament is the book or the collection of the books of the New Testament, and that of the New Testament precisely in the extent and within the limits of the one that we use to-day.

From this starting-point it has been the custom to enter upon the " history " of the canon. The canon is presupposed as something that of right exists and is beyond all doubt. All then that is to be done is to trace the various steps that led in the early age of the Church to its formation and determination or authorisation, that is to say, it is only necessary to write the history of the canon, as though we should speak of the history of the Church or of the history of Greece. If in examining the subject one thing or another seem uncertain or not clear, it is no matter. That is a mere accident of history. The canon exists, that is plain, whether we know or do not know when and why, according to what rules and regulations, and by whom it was formed. The inquiry then serves merely to determine the question of more or of less in the contents of the canon, or of more or less in the testimony to the existence and contents of the canon. These things are all very well ; they are right, and are of weight in clearing up the whole field. Nevertheless this is not the right aim, not the right way to put the question. The reason why it has done less mischief than it otherwise might have done, is that the larger number of the books of the New Testament were from a very early period beyond all doubt in the possession of and were diligently used by many Christians.

That way of opening the case was wrong. The first thing to be done is to determine whether or not there is a canon. For the moment we may here hold fast to the current use of the expression. The first duty of the inquirer in this field is to determine whether or not there existed at an early period in the history of the Christian Church a positively official and authorised collection of books that was acknowledged by the whole of Christendom, that was everywhere and in precisely the same manner constituted and certain, and that corresponded exactly to the New Testament now generally in use in Western Europe and in America. Compare the case with that of the word doctrine or dogma. A dogma is a doctrinal statement that has been officially, ecclesiastically defined, that has been determined upon by a general council of the Church. Were it not open to view that such official definitions are in our hands, the first aim of the dogmatician would be to inquire whether there were any dogmas in existence. We have now to ask, whether or not there is a canon of the New Testament. Our first aim is not the history of the canon, but the criticism of the canon. Should it be objected that we cannot criticise a thing that does not exist, the reply to this just observation is, that the criticism of the canon, in case a canon does not exist, resolves itself into the criticism of the statements about a presupposed canon, statements that have been rife for a long while. We have, on

INTRODUCTION 9

the one hand, to examine the traditionally accepted statements and declarations bearing upon the origin or the original existence of the books of the New Testament and upon the process by which they were gathered together into one collection. On the other hand, we have to seek in the surroundings of the early Church, in the early Church in so far as it occupied itself with the earliest books, in the early Church as the guardian of the earliest books, — we have to seek for signs of the combination of, the putting together of, the uniting of, two or more books in such a way that they were to remain together as forming a special and definite volume of a more or less normative character for the use of Christians and the Church. We say of Christians and of the Church. The two are not of necessity the same. It would be quite possible to think of the combining into one volume of various books which would be interesting and useful and even adapted to build up a Christian character, and which, therefore, would be desirable for Christians, which nevertheless would not be suited in the least for the public services of the Church. We shall see later that it was possible for some writings to be upon the boundary between these two classes, between the books for Christians in their private life and the books for use in church.

Should any one fear that it must be totally impossible to give a due answer to the question as to the existence of a canon before the whole field has been carefully examined, the difficulty or the impossibility must at once be conceded. As a matter of fact, however, the difficulty is hardly more than an apparent, or a theoretical, or a momentary one. For if we proceed upon the supposition that no canon is to be presupposed, that we are not to determine that there is a canon until we discover it in the course of our inquiry, the difficulty will be only apparent or theoretical. Our researches upon the lines already pointed out will continue unhampered, either until a canon offers itself to view, or until, having reached the present without detecting signs of a canon, we conclude that none ever existed. The answer to the question must come forth from the threads of the discussion. It is indifferent at what point. In so far as the fear alluded to proceeds from a solicitude for the dearly cherished canon of tradition, the difficulty may prove to be but temporary. For the current assumption is, that the canon is there almost from the first, that the books of the New Testament can scarcely be conceived of as all in existence for an appreciable space of time before the swift arm of ecclesiastical power and forethought gathered them from the four winds of heaven and sealed them in the official volume. Should we, then, in the earliest periods of the history of the Church find that the assumed canon fails to present itself to our view, there will, it is true, be a certain shock to be borne by those who have thus far held to the existence of the canon. But that will pass quickly by and leave a calm mind for the treatment of the succeeding periods.

In one case or another a question might emerge from the discussion that would perplex the inquiring mind. Should the testimony for a given book seem either to be weak in general or to offer special and peculiar reasons for uncertainty, the query would at once arise, whether it have had, and whether it still to-day continue to have or cease to have, a right to hold the place it actually occupies in the New Testament volume. Such doubt might even find a proper place in consideration of the rules which were either clearly seen to be, or which have long been traditionally assumed to be, the rules of the early Christians for accepting or for rejecting books. In such a case it would not be absolutely necessary to think of a false judgment, of a false subjective conception, on the part of the Christians of that day, of facts or of circumstances that stood and stand in fully the same manner at the command of the Christians then and of Christians to-day. For it is altogether conceivable that a scholar to-day should be able to gain a wider and more comprehensive view of the circumstances of that early time, as well as greater clearness and greater depth of insight into the mental movements of the period, than a Christian scholar of that very time could have secured. It may be possible or necessary to say that the decision at that time would have been rendered in another sense if the judges had known what we now know.

This question would in outward practice take the form of asking, whether or not we intend to-day either to limit or to extend the number of the books in the New Testament, whether, for example, we should like to leave out the Epistle of James because Luther did not like it, or the Revelation because it

INTRODUCTION II

is too dream -like, or the Epistle to the Hebrews because it is not from Paul's mouth, or the Second Epistle of Peter because it was so little known at the first, or the Acts of the Apostles partly because it is not mentioned until a late date, partly because it offers to us a great many puzzling questions, or the Fourth Gospel because it does not say : " I, John the son of Zebedee, write this present book and place my seal upon it, which shall remain visible to every man to all eternity." Do we really purpose to ask the Bible societies to publish the New Testament without one or the other of these books? This question will strike younger men as very strange. It will seem less singular to the older ones who remember the apocryphal books of the Old Testament in our common Bibles. These books had for centuries in many circles maintained their place beside, among, the books of the Old Testament. The Protestant Church looked askance at some of them, condemned them all, and put them out of the Bibles in common use, so that to-day it is not easy for any but scholars to find access to them. It was scarcely well-advised to turn those books out of the sacred volume ; for they offered not only much valuable historical matter, but as well religious writings suited to elevate the soul. They went far to bridge over the gulf between the Old and the New Testament. From this — to return to the practical question just put — it will at once be apparent to every one that we do not cherish the wish to reduce the number of the books of the New Testament.

The companion thought is just as possible. It may be necessary to ask, whether after due consideration of the circumstances it may become our duty to say that other writings besides those that are found in our New Testament to-day are to be declared worthy to have a place in it. Perhaps some one may succeed in proving that if the Christians of that day had had our knowledge touching a given book they would have received it as a proper part of the New Testament collection. This thought may assume the form, that we are in a position to declare that a certain book, which in some circles was then regarded as either belonging \o the New Testament or as being fully equal to the writings of the New Testament, would certainly also on the part of the authoritative or ruling circles of the time have met with a more favourable reception and have been placed among the books of the New Testament had those high circles had our present knowledge with respect to the book in question. But we have no desire to increase directly the number of the books in our New Testament or to add to it as a second volume the so-called " New Testament outside of the received canon."

Lest any one should be led by these observations to suppose that it is our purpose to turn the whole of the New Testament upside down, or at least to make it appear that the greater part of it is of doubtful value, we hasten to state that we have no such intention, and that we regard anything of that kind as scientifically impossible. The books of the New Testament are in general to be recognised as from an early date the normative writings of the rising Christian Church. It is not easy to see upon what ground a man could take his stand, who should set out to prove, let us say, that only one Gospel or only one letter of Paul's was genuine, or even that not a single New Testament book was genuine. In that case Christianity must have developed itself from a cell or a convolution in the brain of a Gnostic of the second century, and also have unfolded itself by a backward motion into the books of the so-called New Testament. But, if the Church were prepared to accept this, we may be sure that some one would at once call the existence of that Gnostic, or of any and every Gnostic, in question. It is, then, not our purpose either to declare or to prove that the New Testament is not genuine.

People, however, often treat the Bible, and in particular the New Testament, as if they were fetish worshippers. They refer to the books, to the paragraphs, to the sentences, and to the words with a species of holy fear. They refuse to allow the least portion of it to be called in question. They consider a free, a paraphrastic use of its sentences to be something profane. They hold that the words of the New Testament are to be reproduced, quoted, used with the most painful accuracy precisely as they stand upon the sacred page. They think that anything else, any free use of the words, any shortening or lengthening of the sentences, falls under the terrible curse pronounced in the Revelation of John at the close of its prophecies. It may readily be granted that the general thought

INTRODUCTION 1 3

of those verses may in special cases find a fitting application within a limited circle, in order to keep thoughtless men from a trifling use of these books and of their words. As a curse, the words should be remanded to the time and the circle of the author of that particular book. It is never desirable, never admissible to use the truth and the words of the truth as a means of frightening the ignorant, and as little should we try to protect the words of the truth by a bugbear. The truth suffers, it is true, under every impure application of its contents, and as well under every less careful observance of, or every twisted and untrue use of, the form of its contents. The writings of the New Testament are not to be treated with levity. But they are just as little to be used in a mysterious way to frighten people.

It will be our duty here first of all to examine the somewhat kaleidoscopic word canon, since we shall otherwise stumble at every step in tracing its use in profane and ecclesiastical history. After that it will be advisable to cast a glance at the way in which the Jews treated their sacred books. The Jews stood as patterns to a certain degree for the men who gathered the books of the New Testament together, seeing that at the first these books were brought into close connection with the books of the Old Testament. As a matter of course no Jewish authority can have had a hand in the collection of the Christian books. Yet we must seek in Jewish circles for a clue to the thoughts that guided the Christian collectors. The question as to the freedom of travel and the ease or difficulty of communication between different parts of the known world of that day, or of the Roman Empire with its surroundings, might seem at the first blush to lie far aside from our inquiry. If I do not err, it really has much weight for our researches, and we shall devote a few moments to it. It will also be apparent to every one that we must give some attention in advance to the/ way in which books were written, given to the public, and reproduced in the early centuries of our era. These four points : the canon, the Jewish canon, intercommunication in the Roman Empire, and bookmaking, complete the necessary preparation for the work before us. We shall then describe briefly what it is to which we have to direct our attention in entering upon the examination of the early history and literature of the- Church.

In the criticism of the canon itself, it would be most fortunate if we could, as is desirable in every treatment of historical matter, build our foundation or lay out the course of our researches concomitantly, not only according to time, but also according to place. Since that is, alas ! impossible, it would be a good thing to pass through the whole field of this criticism twice, discussing everything the first time according to the succession of the years and centuries, and the second time according to the contemporaneous conditions in the several divisions of the growing Church, in the Churches of the different countries, peoples, and tongues. This would, however, exceed the limits of our space, and we shall therefore have to content ourselves with treating our subject according to time. We shall speak of six periods. The distinction of these periods is to a large extent not severely necessary, but it is convenient.

The first period extends from the year 30 to 90 after Christ, and may be termed the period of the Apostles. In it the most of the books with which we have to do were written. The second period, from 90 to 160. places before our eyes the earlier use of the books that are in the New Testament, and the gathering them together into groups, preparing for their combination into a single whole. This period is, as a matter of fact, by far the most important period in the course of our discussion. For it is during these years of this post-apostolic period that these books pass from a common to a sacred use. The third period, from 160 to 200, we may call the period of Irenaeus. Here the Old Catholic Church is on a firm footing, and the life in several of the great national divis'.ons of the Church begins to be more open and more confident. The fourth period, from 200 to 300, bears the stamp of the giant Origen, but brings with it many a valiant man, not least Dionysius of Alexandria and Tertullian of Carthage. The fifth period, from 300 to 370, the period of Eusebius, sees the opening of the series of great councils in the Council of Nice in 325. Eusebius himself, the quoter of the earlier literature of the Church, has done a vast deal for the definition of the canon. The sixth period, from 370 to 700, bears the name of the much

INTRODUCTION—^. THE WORD CANON 1 5

defamed scholar, the great theologian Theodore of Mopsuestia, and brings us into the work of Jerome and of Augustine. By that time the treatment of the books of the New Testament has become to such a degree uniform in the different parts of the Church, or has, in case of the variation of some communities from the general rule, attained such a stability, that it is no longer necessary to follow it up in detail. Should a canon not be determined upon before the close of that period, should a given book not have won for itself a clear recognition by that time, there is but little likelihood that the one or thp, other ever will come to pass.

A. The Word Canon.

The word canon seems to spring from a Hebrew root, unless indeed this should be one of the roots that extend across the bounds of the classes of languages and may claim a universal authority. The Hebrew verb " kana " means to stand a thing up straight, and then takes the subsidiary meanings of creating or founding, and of gaining or buying. The first or main sense leads to the Hebrew noun " kane" that at first means a reed. Of course such a reed was for a man without wood at hand an excellent measuring-rod, and the word was applied to that too ; and it was taken horizontally also and used for the rod of a pair of scales, and then for the scales themselves. In Greek we find the word " kanna " used for a reed and for things made by weaving reeds together, and the word "kanon " for any straight stick like a yardstick or the scale beam. In Homer the latter word was used for the two pieces of wood that were laid crosswise to keep the leather shield well rounded out. The word " kanon" which we then write canon in English, found favour in the eyes of the Greek, and passed from the sense of a measuring-rod to be used for a plumbline or for a level, or a ruler, for anything that was a measure or a rule for other things. It entered the mental sphere and there it also stood for a rule, for an order that told a man what was right or what he had to do. In sculpture a statue modelled by Polycleitos was called a canon, for it was so nearly perfect that it was acknowledged as a rule for the proportions of a beautiful human body. In music the monochord was called a canon, seeing that all the further relations of tones were determined from it as a basis. We call the ancient Greek writers classics, because they are supposed to be patterns or models in more ways than one ; the grammarians in Alexandria called them the canon. And these same grammarians called their rules for declensions and conjugations and syntax canons. In chronology the canons were the great dates which were known or assumed to be certain and firm. The periods in between were then calculated from these main dates. The word was thus very varied in its application ; it might mean a table of contents, it might mean an important principle.

A favourite use of the word was for a measure, a definition, an order, a command, a law. Euripides speaks of the canon of good, Aeschines of the canon of what is just. Philo speaks o£ Joshua as a canon, as we might say, an ideal for subsequent leaders. Before the time of Christ I do not know that it was applied to religion, but it was applied in morals. Other words were often used by preference for positive laws and ordinances, and canon was used for a law or a command that only existed in the conception of the mind or for an ideal rule.

Christians found good use for such a word. Paul used it in the sixth chapter of Galatians and the sixteenth verse, where after speaking of the worthlessness of circumcision and of noncircumcision and the worth of a new creation, he added : mercy be upon all those that walk according to this canon. And in the tenth chapter of Second Corinthians, verses thirteen to sixteen, he alluded to the measure of the canon, to our canon, and to a foreign canon. Our good women of to-day will not admire the phrase used in the letter of the Church at Rome to the Church at Corinth, the so-called letter of Clement, which speaks (i. 3) of the women " who are under the canon of obedience." The same letter also says (7. 2): "Let us quit, then, the empty and vain cares and pass on to the glorious and honourable canon of our tradition." And in still a third sentence of it (41. 1) we find the words : " without going out beyond the set canon of his due service." Hegesippus (Eus. H. E. 3. 32) speaks of people "who try to corrupt the sound canon of the saving preaching " or of the proclamation of salvation. The author of the Clementine books finds the " canon of the Church " in that in which all Jews agree with each other, for he conceives of the Church merely

INTRODUCTION—^. THE WORD CANON 1 7

as a spiritual Judaism. The Christian Church began to feel its union in a more distinct manner than at the first, and the Old Catholic Church began to crystallise during the second century. The Christianity of this movement was a development, but a development backwards, for, like the author just mentioned, it found its basis in the Old Testament. Christianity was no longer with Paul free from the law. It had put itself again under the law, even though with manifold modifications. For this Christianity our word was applied in a general sense; the ecclesiastical canon was the token of the union of the Old and the New Testament. Clement of Alexandria (Str. 6. 15) called "the ecclesiastical canon the harmony and symphony of both law and prophets with the covenant or the testament given when the Lord was here," while in another passage (6. 11) he refers to the "musical ecclesiastical harmony of law and prophets, joined also' with apostles, with the gospel." He also speaks of the canon of the truth. Elsewhere (7. 16) he speaks of those who like heretics " steal the canon of the Church." Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus, in writing to Victor of Rome appealed to the witness of men who followed after the canon of the faith. Origen, Clement's pupil, refers (de Pr. 4. 9) to the canon " of the heavenly Church of Jesus Christ according to the succession of the apostles." He still thinks of the canon as something which lies more in the idea ; the ecclesiastical proclamation or preaching was, on the contrary, something actual.

Little by little the word canon came to be used in the Church for a concrete thing, for a definite and certain decision. This is in one way a return to the origin, only that it is no longer a footrule or a spirit-level, but an ecclesiastical determination. It was about the middle of the third century that Cornelius, the bishop of Rome, wrote to Fabian, the bishop of Antioch, about Novatus, and complained (Eus. H. E. 6. 43) that, after being baptized when he was ill, he had not done what, "according to the canon of the Church," was necessary. Firmilian seems to have, the word canon in mind shortly after the middle of the third century, when he writes (Cypr. Ep. 75) about a woman who imitated a baptism so well " that nothing seemed to vary from the ecclesiastical rule " ; he probably would have used the word canon if he had been writing in Greek instead of in Latin. In the year 266 a synod at Antioch (Mansi, i. 1033), in referring to Paul of 2

I 8 THE CANON

Samosata, declared one of his doctrines to be "foreign to the ecclesiastical canon " ; the synod used the cautious expression " we think it to be," but added : " and all the Catholic Churches agree with us." The edicts of Constantine after 311 made the conception of Christianity upon which the Catholic and Apostolic Church was based, that is to say, the ecclesiastical canon of the Catholics, a recognised religion. Had it been a religion with a visible god, its god would then have had a right to a place in the Pantheon at Rome. Thus the ecclesiastical canon, the canon of the Church, had become a set phrase to denote the rule of the Church, the custom and general doctrine of the Church. Often merely the word canon was used The Synod of Ancyra in the year 315 referred to it as the canon, and so did the Council of Nice in 325 repeatedly. The plural appears to view first about the beginning of the fourth century. Perhaps in the year 306 Peter, the bishop of Alexandria, in writing of repentance calls the conclusions canons, and Eusebius speaks of Philo as having the canons of the Church. At first the decisions of councils were called dogmas, but towards the middle of the fourth century, in the year 341 at Antioch, they also came to be called canons. Thus far, as we have seen, the word has not been applied, in the writings which are preserved to us, to the books of Scripture. It would, however, appear that about the year 350 it gradually came to be applied to them, but we do not know precisely at what moment or where or by whom. It has been assumed that this application might well be carried back as far as the time of Diocletian, and to an imperial edict of the year 303 that ordered the Christian Scriptures to be burned ; but we have not the least foundation for such a theory. Felix, the official charged with the duty of caring for religion, and of preventing the worship and spread of religions that were not recognised by the State, said to the Bishop Paul : " Bring me the scriptures of the law," and Csecilian wrote in 303 to Felix and alluded to the scriptures of the law. . But this expression is so properly and so naturally suggested by the Old Testament and Jewish use of the word law, as to make it totally improper to argue that the word law here is canon. Much less does it seem to me to be admissible, until we receive evidence that is not now known, to attribute the use of the cognate words canonical and canonise in connection with the Scriptures to Origen. It is by no means certain that the word was