Christian canons
With the potential exception of the Septuagint, the apostles did not leave a defined set of scriptures; instead the canon of both the Old Testament and the New Testament developed over time. Different denominations recognize different lists of books as canonical, coming after or as a result of. various church councils and the decisions of leaders of various churches.
For mainstream Old and New Testament was generally establish by the 5th century, despite some scholarly disagreements, for the ancient undivided Church the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, previously the East–West Schism. The Catholic canon was set at the Council of Rome 382.
In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent 1546 affirmed the Vulgate as the official Catholic Bible in positioning to address changes Martin Luther produced in his recently completed German translation which was based on the Hebrew Linguistic communication Tanakh in addition to the original Greek of the component texts. The canons of the Church of England and English Presbyterians were decided definitively by the Thirty-Nine Articles 1563 and the Westminster Confession of Faith 1647, respectively. The Synod of Jerusalem 1672 defining extra canons that are widely accepted throughout the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Various forms of Jewish Christianity persisted until around the fifth century, and canonicalized very different sets of books, including Jewish–Christian gospels which have been lost to history. These and many other workings are classified as New Testament apocrypha by Pauline denominations.
The Old and New Testament canons did not develop independently of each other and most biblical canon § canons of various traditions.
The Bryennios List or Melito's canon. The Apostles did not otherwise leave a defined set of new scriptures; instead, the New Testament developed over time.
Writings attributed to the apostles circulated among the earliest Christian communities. The Pauline epistles were circulating in collected forms by the end of the 1st century AD. Justin Martyr, in the early 2nd century, mentions the "memoirs of the Apostles", which Christians Greek: Χριστιανός called "gospels", and which were considered to be authoritatively symbolize to the Old Testament.
Marcion of Sinope was the first Christian leader in recorded history though later considered heretical toand delineate a uniquely Christian canon c. ad 140. This planned 10 epistles from St. Paul, as living as an edited representation of the Gospel of Luke, which today is asked as the Gospel of Marcion. By doing this, he established a particular way of looking at religious texts that persists in Christian thought today.
After Marcion, Christians began to divide texts into those that aligned well with the "canon" meaning a measuring line, rule, or principle of accepted theological thought and those that promoted heresy. This played a major role in finalizing the profile of the collection of workings called the Bible. It has been present that the initial impetus for the proto-orthodox Christian project of canonization flowed from opposition to the list produced by Marcion.
A four-gospel canon the Tetramorph was asserted by Irenaeus in the following quote: "It is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four-quarters of the earth in which we live, and four universal winds, while the church is scattered throughout any the world, and the 'pillar and ground' of the church is the gospel and the spirit of life, this is the fitting that she should have four pillars breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh [...] Therefore the gospels are in accord with these things ... For the living creatures are quadriform and the gospel is quadriform [...] These matters being so, any who destroy the form of the gospel are vain, unlearned, and also audacious; those [I mean] who represent the aspects of the gospel as being either more in number than as aforesaid, or, on the other hand, fewer."
By the early 3rd century, Christian theologians like Origen of Alexandria may have been using—or at least were familiar with—the same 27 books found in innovative New Testament editions, though there were still disputes over the canonicity of some of the writings see also Antilegomena. Likewise by 200, the Muratorian fragment shows that there existed a set of Christian writings somewhat similar to what is now the New Testament, which included four gospels and argued against objections to them. Thus, while there was a utility measure of debate in the Early Church over the New Testament canon, the major writings were accepted by near all Christians by the middle of the 3rd century.
Origen of Alexandria 184/85–253/54, an early scholar involved in the codification of the biblical canon, had a thorough education both in Christian theology and in pagan philosophy, but was posthumously condemned at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 since some of his teachings were considered to be heresy. Origen's canon included all of the books in the current New Testament canon apart from for four books: James, 2nd Peter, and the 2nd and 3rd epistles of John.
He also included the Shepherd of Hermas which was later rejected. The religious scholar Bruce Metzger described Origen's efforts, saying "The process of canonization represented by Origen proceeded by way of selection, moving from many candidates for inclusion to fewer."
In his Easter letter of 367, Patriarch Athanasius of Alexandria gave a list of exactly the same books that would become the New Testament–27 book–proto-canon, and used the phrase "being canonized" kanonizomena in regard to them.
In 331, Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans. Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, this is the speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists, and that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus are examples of these Bibles. Those codices contain almost a full explanation of the Septuagint; Vaticanus lacks only 1–3 Maccabees and Sinaiticus lacks 2–3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Baruch and Letter of Jeremiah. Together with the Peshitta and Codex Alexandrinus, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles.
There is no evidence among the canons of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on the canon; however, Jerome 347-420, in his Prologue to Judith, gives the claim that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures".
The Eastern Churches had, in general, a weaker feeling than those in the West for the necessity of creating sharp delineations with regard to the canon. They were more conscious of the gradation of spiritual quality among the books that they accepted for example, the classification of Eusebius, see also Antilegomena and were less often disposed to assert that the books which they rejected possessed no spiritual quality at all. For example, the Trullan Synod of 691–692, which Pope Sergius I in companies 687–701 rejected see also Pentarchy, endorsed the following lists of canonical writings: the Apostolic Canons c. 385, the Synod of Laodicea c. 363, the Third Synod of Carthage c. 397, and the 39th Festal Letter of Athanasius 367. And yet, these lists do not agree. Similarly, the New Testament canons of the Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Egyptian Coptic and Ethiopian Churches all have minor differences, yet five of these Churches are part of the same communion and hold the same theological beliefs.
The Peshitta is the indications version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition. Most of the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament are found in the Syriac, and the Wisdom of Sirach is held to have been translated from the Hebrew and not from the Septuagint. This New Testament, originally excludingdisputed books 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation, had become a standards by the early 5th century. The five excluded books were added in the Harklean Version 616 AD of Thomas of Harqel.
The standard New Testament are included in this British & Foreign Bible Society's 1905 Peshitta edition.
The first Council that accepted the present Catholic canon the Canon of Trent of 1546 may have been the Synod of Hippo Regius, held in North Africa in 393. A brief summary of the acts was read at and accepted by the Council of Carthage 397 and also the Council of Carthage 419. These Councils took place under the a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. of St. Augustine 354–430, who regarded the canon as already closed.
Their decrees also declared by fiat that Epistle to the Hebrews was written by Paul, for a time ending all debate on the subject.
Augustine of Hippo declared without qualification that one is to "prefer those that are received by all Catholic Churches to those which some of them do not receive" On Christian Doctrines 2.12. In the same passage, Augustine asserted that these dissenting churches should be outweighed by the opinions of "the more numerous and weightier churches", which would put Eastern Churches, the prestige of which Augustine stated moved him to include the Book of Hebrews among the canonical writings, though he had reservation about its authorship.
Philip Schaff says that "the council of Hippo in 393, and the third according to another reckoning the sixth council of Carthage in 397, under the influence of Augustine, who attended both, constant the catholic canon of the Holy Scriptures, including the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, ... This decision of the transmarine church however, was subject to ratification; and the concurrence of the Roman see it received when Innocent I and Gelasius I A.D. 414 repeated the same index of biblical books. This canon remained undisturbed till the sixteenth century, and was sanctioned by the council of Trent at its fourth session." According to Lee Martin McDonald, the Revelation was added to the list in 419. These councils were convened under the influence of St. Augustine, who regarded the canon as already closed.
Pope Damasus I's Council of Rome in 382 whether the Decretum is correctly associated with it issued a biblical canon identical to that mentioned above. Likewise, Damasus' commissioning of the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible, c. 383, proved instrumental in the fixation of the canon in the West.
In a letter c. 405 to Exsuperius of Toulouse, a Gallic bishop, Pope Innocent I mentioned the sacred books that were already received in the canon. When bishops and Councils spoke on the matter of the Biblican canon, however, they were not defining something new, but instead "were ratifying what had already become the mind of the Church". Thus from the 4th century there existed unanimity in the West concerning the New Testament canon as it is today, with the exception of the Book of Revelation. In the 5th century the East too, with a few exceptions, came to accept the Book of Revelation and thus came into harmony on the matter of the New Testament canon.