One testimony, however, which derives its origin from the Syrian Church, is specially worthy of notice. Junilins, an African bishop of the 6th century, has preserved a ftdl and interesting account of the teach- ings of Panlus, a Persian, on Holy Scripture, who was educated at Nisibis, where " the Divine Law was regu- larly explained by public masters" as a branch of
CANON
81
CANON
iednGatkm(Jaiiil.2VjxiH.2B7.Pr0/:). Hedi- vidflB &e books of the Bible into two classes, those of '^ perfect" and those of **mean" antbority. The first daas indodes all the books of the Hebrew Canon with the exoeptioB of 1 and 2 Chion., Job, Canticles, and Esther, and with the addition of EcdeticuHcua. The second c^ss consists of Chronicles (2), Job, Esdras (2), /iKfiO, Esther, and Maccabeet (2), which aie added by '* very many" Q^bfrtms) to the canonical books. Thia renutfaung books are pronooncedto be of no anthority, and of these Canticles and Wisdom are said to be add- ed by ** some** (^mdam) to the Canon. The dassiflca- tion as it stands is not without difficnlties, but it de- serves more attention than it has reoeiyed (comp. Hody, p. 653; Gallatidi BibUotk. zH, 79 sq. The rfr- print m Wordsworth, On the Ocaum, App. A, p. 42 sq., is veiy hnperfect).
8. The Armenian Canon, as far as it can be bbc6t- tsined twm editions, follows that of the Sept., but it is of no critical antbority ; and a similar remark ap- plies to the Ethiopic Canon, though it is more easy in this case to trace the changes through which it has passed (Dillmann, Ueber d, A€th. Kan,, in Ewald*s /aib^6«cA,1858,p.l44sq.).
See, on this branch of the subject, in addition to the vorks above, Schmid, Hki. ani, H vmXe, Can, 8, Vet. et y<m. Tui. (laps. 1776) ; [H. Corrodi], Vermch einer B^ lemittmg . . . d. Bibl. K(mon$ (Halle, 1792) ; Moyers, Lod qudam Hid. Can, V. T, UluttraU (Breslau, 1842). Tbe great work ef Hody (De HbKor, text. Ozon. 1706) contains a rich store of materials, though even this is not ftee from minor errors. Stuart's Critical History and De/enee of ike Old-TesL Canon is rather an apology than a history. See Apocrypha.
rv. The Camm of the New TVseomai^.— The history of the K.-T. Canon presents a remarkable analogy to that of the Canon of the 0. T. The beginnings of both Csnons are obscure fhrni the dicumstances under which they arose ; both grew silently under the guid- ance of an inward instinct rather thui by the force of external authority ; both' were connected with other rdiglons literature by a series of books which claimed a partial and questionable authority ; both gained def- initeness in times of persecution. The chief difference Ilea m the general consent with which all the churches of tbe West have joined in ratifying one Canon of the N. T., while they are divided as to the position of the 0.-T. Apocrypha.
L An eodesiastieal tradition (Photius, Bibl, Cod, p. 254) ascribes to the apostle John the work of collect- ing and sanctioning the writings which were worthy of a place in the Canon ; but this tradition is too late, too unsupported by collateral evidence, and too modi opposed by certain fkcts, such as the exist- ence of doubt in some of the early churches as to the canonici^ of certain books, the different arrange- ment of the books apparent in catalogues of the Can- oi stQl extant, etc, for any weight to be allowed to it A much more probable opinion, and one in which nearly aU the modem writers who are favorable to ^ claims of the Canon are agreed, is, tfiat each of the original churches, especially those of larger size and greater ability, collected for itself a comi^ete set of tiion wrftiQgs which could be proved, by competent tettimony, to be the production of inspired men, and to have been communicated by them to any of the chorefaes as part of the written word of God ; so that in this way a great many complete collections of the N.-T. Scriptures came to be extant, the accordance of ^"hich with each other, as to the books admitted, ftir- Biahes hrefhigable evidence of the correctness of the Canon as we now have it. This opinion, which in it- self is higiily probable, is rendered still more so when VB consider the scrupulous care which the early churches took to discriminate spurious compositions ftma Bueh as were authentic-— the existence, among •MM, of doubt regarding certain of the N.-T. bookff, II.— F
indicating that each Church claimed tiie right of salas- fying its^ in tiiis matter — their high veneration for the genuine apostolic writings — their anxious regard for each other's prosperity leading to the tne commu- nication fhmi one to another of whatever could pro- mote this, and, of course, among other things, of those writings which had been intrusted to any one of them, and by which, more than by any other means, the spiritual welfiire of the whole would be promoted — ^the practice of the fathers of arguing the canonicity of any book, from its reception by the churches, as a sufficient proof of this— and the reason assigned by Eusebius {Hiet, Eceles, ill, 26) for dividing the books of the N. T. into 6fio\oyo6fuvoi and 6vTiXty6fuvoi, viz. that the fbrmer class was composed of those which the univer- sal tradition of the churches authenticated, while the latter contained such as had been received by the ma- jority, but not by all (Storch, Comment, HiH. Crit. de Libb, N, TettcmenU Canone, etc p. 112 sq. ; Olshausen's iSch^eit der IV. Evang. p. 489). In this way we may readily believe that, without the intervention of any authoritative decision, either ttom an indtvidoal or a council, but by the natural process of each body of Christians seeking to procure for themselves and to convey to their brethren authentic copies of writings in which all were deeply interested, the Canon of the New Testament was formed.