RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Canon of Scripture^
as to be placed before the catechumens for their instruction. They included Wisd. of Sol., Ecclus., Esther, Judith, Tobit, the Didache, and the Shepherd. The Didache had great influence upon the liturgy in Egypt, and to the Shepherd Athanasius himself attached high value. The surprising element, however, is the complete silence concerning other writings which at least in Alexandria had equally with the Didache and the Shepherd been reckoned with New Testament writings. Serapion, the friend of Athanasius, had cited Barnabas as " the most honored apostle Barnabas " along with the Romans of Paul, and in Codex Sinaiticus it stood between Rev. and the Shepherd. The New Testament of twenty-seven books seemed to be as firmly settled as that of Eusebius's twenty-six had been. And this view came to have the victory in the Church, ruling out finally the shorter canon of Eusebius and the use of a class of books merely for the instruction of catechumens.
9. The Development in the Orient till the Time of Justinian: The peculiar criticism of Theodore of Mopsuestia did not essentially change the situation established by Lucian and Eusebius. The concordant testimony of Theodore's opponent Leontius and of his admirer Jesudad is that Theodore rejected the seven Catholic Epistles. And since as an Antiochean he rejected the Apocalypse, his New Testament was the Syrian one of about 340. In the arrangement of the Pauline Epistles (Rom., I and II Cor., Heb., Eph.) he followed the Syrian usage in respect to Heb., and the Greek in respect to Rom. and Gal. He defended the canonicity of Philemon, but rejected III Cor. It is no wonder that, admired as he was by the Syrian Nestorians, these latter adopted his canon. And the Nestorian Jesudad (ninth century) still regarded the three greater Catholic Epistles as a sort of antilegomena. How tenacious the opposition to the Apocalypse was, as also that to the four lesser Catholic Epistles, has been shown above. Nevertheless, by the sixth century the Apocalypse had won all along the line from Jerusalem to Constantinople. If Philoxenus of Mabug, c. 508, had Rev. and the lesser Catholic Epistles translated for the first time into Syriac, this implies that in the contiguous Greek ecclesiastical province, in the patriarchate of Antioch, the Apocalypse was no more ignored as it was c. 400, that on the contrary it was again received. About the year 500 Andrew wrote in Csesarea his great commentary on the Apocalypse, in which with a certain assiduity by appeal to the older teachers from Papias to Cyril he defended the inspiration of the book, and in a note on Rev. xxii. 18-19 assailed the critics. About 530 Leontius designated, in lectures delivered in the monastery at Jerusalem, the " Apocalypse of the Holy John " as the latest canonical book of the Church.
10. The Assimilation of the West: By the vacillation and the attempts at fixation which the canon underwent in the East the Latin Church was not immediately affected. Until the fourth century the New Testament there excluded Heb., had an incomplete canon of the Catholic Epistles, but included the Apocalypse, which was seriously
assailed only by Caius. The events of the fourth century made isolation impossible. The settlement of Pierios, " the new Origen," in Rome was a significant preparation. There followed the councils, the exile of Athanasius in Trier (336-337), in Rome (340-343), and in other parts of the West (tiil 340); of Hilary of Poitiers in Asia Minor (356-360), of Lucifer of Cagliari, Eusebius of Vercelli, and others; the long sojourn of Jerome and Rufinus in Palestine, Egypt, and Syria, and during this whole period the close connection of Latin Church literature, especially of exegesis, with Greek models. The ecumenical consciousness of the Church overleaped all barriers and affected even the canon. The influence of Athanasius in thisrespect is not to be underestimated, especially in connection with the production of a recension of the Bible at Rome 340-343.
Hebrews, prized by the Novatians as a production of Barnabas, began after the time of Hilary and Lucifer to be quoted more and more in the West as Pauline and, therefore, canonical. The growth of sentiment in favor of James took place unnoted, as did that of the lesser Catholic Epistles. The- African Canon (350-365), published by Mommsen, has a more or less official air; it makes no mention of Heb., Jas., or Jude, but includes I and II Pet., I, II, and III John; but it was corrected by a reviser so as to omit II Pet. and II and III John. In a synod of c. 382 the controlling spirit was Jerome, so that II and III John were received as the presbyter's while the rest of the Catholic Epistles were ascribed to Apostles. Hebrews was reckoned as a fourteenth Pauline letter. The influence of Augustine was dominant in the synods of Hippo- (383) and Carthage (397), the pronouncement of which was for thirteen Pauline Epistles, to which Hebrews was added as a sort of stranger.
The history of the canon was closed in the West by the beginning of the fifth century, a hundred years earlier than in the East. (T. Zahn.)
Bibliography: On the general topic of the canon for the reader of English possibly the best survey of the results of modern scholarship is W. Sanday, Inspiration Early History and Origin of the Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration, London, 1896 (fairly advanced on the O. T., conservative on the N. T.); L. Gaussen, Le Canon des saintes ecritures au double point de vue de la science et de la foi, 2 vols., Geneva, 1860, Eng. transl., London, 1863;
E. Reuss, Histoire du canon des saintes ecritures dans I'eglise chretienne, Strasburg, 1864, Eng. transl., Edinburgh, 1891; T. H. Home, Introduction to the Critical Study . of the Holy Scriptures, 3 vols., London, 1872 (though written a century ago, it contains much that is still valuable); S. Davidson, The Canon of the Bible, ib. 1880 (radical, but the work of a scholar); F. Overbeck, Zur Geschichte des Kanons, Chemnitz, 1880 (contains an essay on the origin of the canon); J. J. Given, The Truth of Scripture in Connection with . . the Canon, Edinburgh, 1881; G. T. Ladd, The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, 2 vols., New York, 1883 (abstract and wordy, but scholarly); C. A. Briggs, Study of Holy Scripture, chaps, v.-vi., ib. 1899; W. H. Bennett and W. F. Adeney, Biblical Introduction, London, 1899 (brief, but accurate);
F. E. C. Gigot, General Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures, vol. i., New York, 1901 (an example of the newer Roman Catholic scholarship).
On the canon of the O. T. there are four works of first rank, viz.. H. E. Ryle, Canon of the O. T., London, 1892; F Buhl, Kanon und Text des A. T., Leipsic, 1891, Eng. transl., Edinburgh, 1892 (a short treatise, but lucid and uncumbered with technicalities); G. Wildeboer, Het
Canonical Hours
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