CANON. 1. The Greek word denotes, primarily, a straight rod ; and from this flow nu merous derivative uses of it, in all of which the idea of straightness, as opposed to obliquity, is manifest. Among the rest, as a rod was employed to keep other things straight, or as a test of straightness, the word is employed to denote a rule or standard, by a reference to which the rectitude of opinions or actions may be determined. Thus the Greeks spoke of a Kalloii I/cc. 602), and Aristotle (Eth. Arco m. iii. 6) describes the good man tt7tEp traviov Kat al-rpov iircto-nov dv. They also used the verb to denote determining by rule or standard (Aristot. Eth. Nic. ii. 2). In this latter acceptation Kardw is used in the New Testa ment (comp. Gal. vi. 16; Phil. iii. 16). In the same sense it is frequently used by the Greek fathers (Suicer. Thes. Eccles. in voc.) ; and as the great standard to which they sought to appeal in all matters of faith and duty was the revealed will of God contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, they came insensibly to apply this term to the truth thus revealed. Whether from the first they applied it also to the collective body of the sacred writings, and spoke of them in this capacity as the canon or rule, does not appear. They may have done so, however, for the usage already existed among the Greek grammarians, by whom the collective body of the Greek classics was called the Canon (Ridinken, Hist. Oran. 94 ; comp. Quintil, Inst. Rhet. x. 1, 54). The earliest instance extant of the term being applied to the sacred books, as such, is in the iambic lines to Seleucus preserved by Gregory of Nazianzus, when, after enumerating the books of the New Testament, the author says, Oros hiketZecr-raros Kapcsop ap et?? 7utv 5T0 7rvairtrwv way5elip. Before this, however, we have Origen speaking of `canonical scriptures' (De Prin cip. iv. 33 ; Prol. in CallliC s. f.; Comment. in than., sec. 117) and canonized books' (In Malt., sec.
28), though it remains uncertain whether by this epithet lie intends books having regulative autho rity, or books ratified by authority. The term as used now of the sacred books is employed in the former sense, and in this acceptation we shall use it in this article.
2. The Canon, then, may be defined to be ' The Authoritative Standard of Religion and Morals, composed of those writings which have been given for this purpose by God to men, or the collection of books which comprise the divine and authoritative standard of religious truth and duty. We prefer this to the definition frequently given of the Canon, that it is ' The Catalogue of the Sacred Books ;' while Semler (Von Freier Ontersuchungen da Canons), Doederlein (Institntio Theol. Christ. torn. i. p. 83), and others, define it as ' The List of the Books publicly read in the meetings of the early Christians.' The former of these definitions eviscerates the term Canon, as applied to the sacred writings, of its proper meaning ; and the latter is doubly erroneous, as it not only omits the main cha racteristic of the Canon, its divine authority, but sub stitutes for this a characteristic which is historically false, as the Canon was not at any time synony mous with the list of books read in public in the early churches. De Wette and some others would identify the Canon, at least as respects the Old Testa ment, with the national literature of the yews, on the ground, that it was enough for a Jew that a book was written by one of his own nation to entitle it to be viewed as also, and for that reason, sacred (Einl., sec. 16). But this is not true in point of fact ; for the Jews distinguished among writings all of which were of Jewish authorship, those which they held sacred from those which were not so held. (Cf. Eccl. xii. 11, 12 ; Joseph. Contr. Apia', i. 8). Something beyond mere national authorship was required to entitle any book to a place in the Canon of the Jews.