With the exception of this statement, we know nothing of the Canon of the Church of Rome and the Churches dependent upon her, or of the Church of N. Africa, during the period under considera- tion.
C. CONCLUDING PERIOD.—In the age ushered in by the victory of Constantine, many causes were at work tending to fix the Canon. The Scriptures were endeared, and the difference between them and all other books was emphasized, by the recol- lection of the last persecution, in which their destruction had been made a principal aim; and zeal for them found exercise in the multiplication of fresh copies. Now, also, large volumes, com- prising the entire Greek Bible, began probably to be made, such as those fifty magnificent ones which Constantine ordered Eusebius to have prepared at the expense of the royal treasury (Kus. Vit. Const. iv. 36). The Scriptures were thus vividly pre- sented as a distinct whole, and the question of their limits was raised in a very practical manner. Further, the definition of the Church’s creed led naturally to a fuller settlement of her Canon of Scripture. And thus, when the ties between the Latin-speaking Church and Athanasius had first been drawn closer through the conflict with Arian- ism, and when afterwards the conservatives of the East had embraced the Nicene faith, and East and
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542 NEW TESTAMENT CANON NIBHAZ West were united in common sympathies, the | not be too much to say that all their speculations and labours
same Canon came in course of time to be received.
Lists of the NT Scriptures have come down to us from various parts of the 4th cent. ; but, in spite of the many Councils that were held during this period, most of these lists rest on the authority of individual Fathers, though representing, no doubt, the faith and practice of the portions of the Church to which they belonged. The earliest Synodical decree on the subject which is of certain date and authenticity belongs to the close, almost, of the century. The Acts of the Synod of Laodicea, according to some MSS, contain a catalogue of the books of Scripture, but it is probably a later addition. The date of this Synod has also been matter of dispute, though it most likely took place A.D, 363 (see Westcott, Canon, p. 439 f.).
The Canon of Cyril of Jerusalem in his Cate- chetical lectures (6. A.D. 340) corresponds with our own, With the single exception that he omits the Apocalypse (Catech. iv. 33). In the Canon given by Athanasius ( Fest. Ep. 39, A.D. 367), we meet for the first time with one the same in every respect as our own. So, too, is that of Epiphanius (er. 76). Turning to the West, the list known as the Cheltenham Catalogue, which appears evidently to be of the 4th cent. and to belong to N. Africa, differs from Athanasius’ in omitting the Ep. to Heb., but in that point only. In A.D. 397, how- ever, the 3rd Council of Carthage, in its Canon on the subject of the Scriptures, includes this Ep., and thus gives the contents of NT as at present received ; while Ambrose a little earlier is a witness for the Church of Milan, and Rufinus for that of Aquileia, to the same effect.
In Asia Minor, near the close of the 4th cent., the Apocalypse was not received. So we gather from the lists of the Council of Laodicea (Gregory Naz. Carm. i. § 1. 12, and Amphilochius, ad Seleucum (ap. Greg. Naz. ii. ἃ 2. 87). The latter appears, also, to allow the legitimacy of opposite views on the subject of 2 and 3 Jn, 2 P, and Jude.
The great Greek teachers of Antioch—Chrysos- tom, Theodore, and Theodoret—seem to have been of the number who did not receive, or who had doubts respecting, these Epp. as well as the Apocalypse, while they accepted Ep. to Heb. and Ep. of James. Their Canon would thus be the same as that of the Peshitta. In process of time, in spite of the influence which this version exer- cised, the Canon in use even in the more distant parts of the East appears to have become assimi- lated to a considerable degree to that of the rest of the Church (see, eg., statements of Junilius in Westcott, p. 451).
The Canon was synodically determined for the Catholic Church of East and West by the Quini- sext. Council, A.D. 691, which confirmed the decrees of 3rd Council of Carthage.
The Reformation of the 16th cent. made no change as to the books of NT received as Scripture, opinions of individuals, such as that of Luther in regard to Ep. of James, having met with no general assent. But it tended to throw more stress on the recognition of the inspiration of the sacred books, by comparison with the tradition of apostolic authority, which counted for most in their actual collection by the early Church.
Lireratvre.—J.S. Semler may be said to have given the first impulse to the free critical inquiries of modern times into the history of the Canon of NT, both by his writings in general and in particular by his Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Kanons, W771. Among writers who in the early part of the present century sought to investigate the subject systemati- cally in this spirit, C. A. Credner holds the foremost rb 3 see his Zinleitung in das Neue Testament, 1836, Beitrage eur Geachichtad. Kanons, 1847, and his Geschichte des NT Kanons, which was edited with notes by G. Volkmar, and published (1560) after Credner'’s death. Of the Tibingen school, the rise of which was contemporary with Credner’s later life, it would