As regards the history of the Canon of the Syrian Church, it may suffice here to allude to the strange hold which Tatian’s Diatessaron obtained there. It was popularly used as a substitute for the Gospels, to the neglect of the reading of them in public worship—an abuse which had to be dealt with by authority as late as the 5th cent. But such a fact is of importance as throwing light upon the history of that Church generally, not as bearing on the authenticity of the Gospels. [The subject of the history of the Canon in the Syrian Church is a very obscure one: for discussions of it see especially Zahn, Kan. i. ο. 8, and Harnack’s criticism thereupon in Ν᾽ um 200, § 10.]
Primarily, then, in dealing with the history of the Canon of NT, we have to fix our thoughts upon Greek-speaking Christendom, though we may now join thereto the Christians of the Roman province of N. Africa, who were far more closely bound up with it than the Christians of the East were. Tertullian is fully aware that he and the other Christians of his portion of the Church, who were but ‘of yesterday,’ had simply received the faith and its documents from more ancient Churches. It was probably here that a translation of the NT into Latin was first made, and expressions used by Tertullian have been commonly thought to show that one already existed in his time. But if, as Zahn has argued (Kan. i. 48-60), the task was not accomplished till later, though before the middle of the 3rd cent., it was not for want of recognizing the value and authority of the writings held to be apostolic. Tertullian’s works certainly prove this. It is not material, therefore, for our present purpose to decide exactly when a Latin version was first made.
Now, although there are some Churches of note as to which we have no direct information for the period in question, even within that portion of Christendom the bounds of which we have indi- cated, we are justified in assuming that throughout the whole of it there was substantial agreement as to the sacred writings of the New Dispensation, to the extent to which it is found in the writers whose works have come down to us from that time. In view both of the eminence of those men and their wide knowledge of the Church, and the intercourse which existed between different parts of it within the area described, there could hardly have been any considerable divergences on serious points which have remained concealed. _ It is to be added that, even for those regions within the limits defined—in particular the Greek Churches of Syria and of the central and eastern parts of Asia Minor—as to which evidence is lacking at this epoch, it is forthcoming shortly afterwards, and there is not a trace of any doubts in regard to the books above enumerated.
To the close of the 2nd cent. or first years of the
NEW TESTAMENT CANON
8rd belongs most likely the earliest actual list of the writings of NT which we possess. It is called after Muratori, its discoverer. It has now been rendered highly probable that it was the work of Hippolytus. [On the Muratorian fragment see esp. Zahn, Kan. ii. 1-148, and Lightfoot, Clem. Rom. ii. 405-413.] Though the earliest list of the kind that has come down to us, it may not have been the earliest made. Melito, bishop of Sardis (6. A.D. 170), in a fragment which Eusebius has preserved (HE iv. 26), gives a list of ‘the books of the Old Covenant,’ and the phrase seems naturally to suggest by contrast the existence of a list of the books of the New. Further, at the time we have reached, the name of ‘Scriptures’ is given to the new sacred books equally with the old (see Iren. adv. Her. ii. 58. 2). And a conception has been formed of a NT, as a collection of books which made a companion to the OT, and the name even of ‘Testament’ is so applied in Clem. Alex. and Tertullian [Clem. Strom. v. 85; Tertull. de Pudic. 1]. Tertullian also employs the word ‘instru- mentum,’ or in the pl. ‘instrumenta’ (i.e. ‘the document’ or ‘the documents’), considering it more expressive. It should be observed that such a conception was found possible, although the contents of the collection of writings had not been in all respects certainly determined.
The usage of heretics confirms what is known as to that of the Church. The Valentinians were but the most numerous and widely spread Gnostic sect. Valentinus, according to Tertullian, used ‘a complete Instrument,’ which must be taken to mean all the books of Scripture which Tertul- lian himself acknowledged (Prescr. Her. c. 38). Whether the remark was true or not of the founder of the school himself, it was so undoubtedly of the Valentinians in the last quarter of the 2nd cent.,
as may be gathered from Irenzus’ treatise, as well
as from Tertullian. It answered their purpose best to accept the NT Scriptures acknowledged in the Church, and to make them the vehicle of their own tenets by means of allegorical interpretation. (b) The inferences that may be drawn as to the previous history of the reception of these writings in the Church—In estimating the force of the evidence in this respect, it will be desirable to distinguish between the value of the personal reminiscences of individual writers in regard to traditions about the books of the NT, and the significance of the general belief of the Church. The testimony of individuals, founded on what they themselves remembered, might be of great weight. That of Irenus is so in particular. Too much stress may sometimes have been laid upon it. Possibly his opportunities for knowing the mind and teaching of Polycarp may have been rather more restricted than they have been assumed to be by some ; and he may have known no other man, besides, belonging to the generation which actually overlapped that of the apostles. But he certainly knew other Asiatic Christians older than himself, who must have been acquainted as he was, or better than he was, with the testimony both of Polycarp and of contemporaries of Polycarp, who had passed away before him. With such oppor- tunities for correcting his own impressions, it is hardly possible that he should have been at fault as to simple facts which he believed that he re- membered. It is therefore altogether unreason- able to suppose, as Harnack does, that, in spite of his very distinct statement as to Polycarp’s reminiscences of John the Apostle, he is in his own memory making a confusion with another Jobn. (Comp. Harn. Chronol. i. p. 333 ff, with Gwatkin’s answer in Contemp. Review, Feb. 1897, and Lightfoot, Essays on Sup. Rel. pp. 90 f., 265. ] But the position which the greater part of the