RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Canon of Scripture
and even as false. The Muratorian Canon excluded it from the regular and public reading of the Scriptures, though its perusal was permitted and even enjoined. This was the first attempt to form a secondary canon. There are two Latin translations of the book, and an unknown Roman bishop cited it as scripture, while Novatian and Commodian indorsed it, and the Latin liturgies show its influence. Yet by an ecclesiastical decision about 200-210 the Shepherd was set outside the canon. While Clement of Alexandria did not include the Shepherd in his brief commentary, he did treat the Apocalypse of Peter, a little book of about 300 lines. This book closed the canon of Codex Claromontanus ; but the Armenian List put it among the Apocrypha, and Eusebius (Hist, eccl., III. xxv. 4, cf. iii. 2) declared against its genuineness. Sozomen says that it was used as late as 430 in Palestine at Easter. The Didache was cited and used as scripture by Clement and Origen, and during the next century this was its status in Egypt. Eusebius (Hist eccl., III. xxv. 4) put it among the antilegomena of the second grade. It was known in the neighborhood of Antioch and in the West. The apocryphal Acts of the Apostles were often read in the early Church without question. The Acts of Paul came the nearest to winning canonical authority, and received favorable notice from Clement and Tertullian.
The New Testament of the Greek and Latin Church of 170-220 included as in quite definite authority the four Gospels, thirteen letters of Paul, Revelation, I Peter, I John (to which were attached II and III John), probably also Jude. 7. Summary. Up to 210 the Shepherd was also included. On the other hand, there were questionings about James, Hebrews, II Peter, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Didache, Barnabas, I and II Clement, Acts of Paul, and the Shepherd. The polemic against Marcion, the Gnostics, and the Alogi brought the discussion of the New Testament canon to a focus about the time of Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria. There was yet lacking that definiteness of organization of all the churches which alone could secure uniformity. The New Testament of about 200 was not the result of a revolution occurring 150-170, but of a broad development which was many-sided. The sharply bounded canon of Marcion had pointed the way to a definiteness in canonicity which the Church was soon to follow.
3. The New Testament, 140-170: Valentinus had founded his school which had divided into many sections and spread from the Rhone to the Tigris with a rich literary activity and yet a general consensus of action. Marcion founded his church at Rome after he had separated from the catholic Church probably about 147. Alongside the polemic against these movements, Christian writers were engaged in the apologetic of the Church which was to go before the pagan rulers and populations. 1 he apologetic, however, found far less occasion to deal with the Christian Scriptures than did the writings against the heretics.
Knowledge of Marcion's Bible is due chiefly to tertullian, who claimed to use as a weapon against
the heretic his own New Testament, and so came to traverse the Jatter from beginning to end. After Tertullian as a source of knowledge comes Epiphanius (Hcer., xlii.), and a number of 1. Marcion's citations from Greeks and Syrians up Bible. to the fifth century which enable one t to reconstruct quite securely Marcion's
canon. Marcion issued not only his New Testament buKalso his Antithesis as a defense of his dogmatic position and of his critical edition of the New Testament, and this became the doctrinal basis of his Church, which was studied by Tertu£ lian, Ephraem Syrus, and others. "His Bible consisted of a " Gospel " and an " Apostle," both anonymous. Since Paul seemed to him the one preacher of an unadulterated gospel, his " Apostle " embraced ten epistles of Paul and in the following order: Gal., I and II Cor., Rom., I and II Thess., Laodiceans (i.e., Eph.), Col., Phil., Philem. It is of course evident that this collection must have been received by him from the Church. He sought to show that the letter to the Ephesians was the letter to the Laodiceans mentioned in Col. iv. 16. Galatians he especially prized because of the anti- Judaic polemic it contains. I and II Tim. and Titus he discarded as private letters, Philemon was admitted on the ground that it is a letter to a church in a household, and this alone was left intact and unedited. *^For the criticism of the writings he received he depended neither upon historic tradition nor on testimonies to historicity; his basis was his own subjective conception of what true Christianity was and what the Pauline Gospel was; from this standpoint proceeded all his textcriticism. That he recognized the Gospel of Luke, the basis of his own, as the work of one of the Pauline school is shown by his elimination of the words " the beloved physician " in Col. iv. 14. ""His gospel, so far as its text'ean be made out, proves that he had before him the third Gospel, and this, in consequence of its long association with the first and second Gospels, had received amplifications of its text from them. But no trace of influence due to extracanonical Gospels upon Marcion has ever been shown. It follows from this that the canon of the Gospels of the Church at Rome from about 140 on was our four Gospels. Marcion's canon of the epistles coincides with that of the Muratorian Canon. It is natural that he should place no value upon the letters of Peter, John, or James, the lastnamed especially in view of Gal. ii. 9, 12. Acts and Rev. he appears to have expressly rejected. » In comparison with the ecclesiastical New Testament not only of his times but of the next two centuries with its varying boundaries and its variant text, the Marcion canon is a sharply drawn work of art in miniature, though it was the work of an arbitrary lawgiver.
What Marcion accomplished with knife and eraser the Valentinians sought to do by means of exposition. Since they had not voluntarily separated from the Church, but merely distinguished themselves from the communes ecclesiastici, they had no objection to raise to the common edition of the " Prophets and Apostles." They needed jjio special Bible. They used the Gospels
Canon of Scripture