9. Formation of the New Testament Canon.— Whilst there is abundance of evidence in favour of the divine authority of the New Testament books, taken separately, fully greater perhaps than can be adduced in support of many of those of the Old Testament, the history of the formation of the New Testament Canon is in volved in greater obscurity than that of the Old. An ecclesiastical tradition ascribes to the apostle John the work of collecting and sanctioning the writings which were worthy of a place in the Canon ; but this tradition is too late, too un supported by collateral evidence, and too much opposed by certain facts, such as the existence of doubt in some of the early churches as to the canonicity of certain books, the different arrange ment of the books apparent in catalogues of the Canon still extant, etc., for any weight to be allowed to it. A much more probable opinion, and one in which nearly all the modern writers who are favourable to the claims of the Canon are agreed, is, that each of the original churches, espe cially those of larger size and greater ability, col lected for itself a complete set of those writings which could be proved, by competent testimony, to be the production of inspired men, and to have been communicated by them to any of the churches as part of the written word of God ; so that in this way a great many complete collections of the New Testament scriptures came to be extant, the accord ance of which with each other, as to the books ad misted, furnishes irrefragable evidence of the correct. ness of the Canon as we now have it. This opinion, which in itself is highly probable, is rendered still more so when we consider the scrupulous care which the early churches took to discriminate spu rious compositions from such as were authentic— the existence, among some, of doubts regarding certain of the New Testament books, indicating that each church claimed the right of satisfying itself in this matter—their high veneration for the genuine apostolic writings—their anxious regard for each other's prosperity leading to the free communi cation from one to another of whatever could pro mote this, and, of course, among other things, of those writings which had been entrusted to any one of them, and by which, more than by any other means, the spiritual welfare 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 (Hist. Eccles. iii. 25) for dividing the books of the New Testament into Op.oXo^yotip.evor and avrac-Auevos, viz., that the for mer 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 majority, but not by all* (Stosch, Comment. Hist. Grit. de Libb. N. Testamenti Carron, etc., p. 112, ff. ; Olshausen's Echtheit der IV. Evang. s. 439). In this way we may readily believe that, without the intervention of any authoritative decision, either from an individual 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 Tes tament was formed. With this natural desire two circumstances of an outward kind co-operated. The one was the rise of heretical sects, leading to disputes, for the settling of which a fixed canon be came indispensable ; the other was the persecutions to which the Christians were exposed, and which naturally led them to be scrupulously careful to determine on solid grounds the number of books for adherence to which they were prepared to suf fer. The persecution of Diocletian may be almost said to have given the touch by which the previ ously somewhat unsettled elements were crystal lized and fixed.
to. History of the New Testament Canon. — On this interesting subject we can do little more here than indicate the sources of information, and state generally the results of inquiry. The first certain notice which we have of the existence of any of the New Testament writings, in a col lected form, occurs in 2 Pet. iii. 16, where the writer speaks of the epistles of Paul in such a way as to lead us to infer that at that time the whole or the greater part of these were collected together, were known amongst the churches generally (for Peter is not addressing any particular church) and were regarded as on a par with the other Scrip tures,' by which latter expression Peter plainly means the sacred writings both of the Old Testa ment and the New Testament, as far as then ex tant. A late tradition ascribes to St. John the
collection and arrangement of the other Gospels (Photius, Bibl. Cod. 254); to this much importance cannot be attached ; but that St. John must have had before him copies of the other evangelists is pro bable from the supplementary character of his own gospel.
Second century. —The witnesses here are the Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Papias, the Muratori Fragment (of uncertain authorship, but certainly not of later date than the latter part of the second century), the Peshito version, Iremeus, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alex andria, Tertullian, and the Gnostic and Marcionite heretics. In the Apostolic Fathers we have little beyond citations from the New Testament writers to which to appeal ; but these are so numerous as to embrace not only the Gospels, but all the Epis tles with the exception of Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, from which no quotations are made, and and 2 Thess., Colos., Tit., and Philem., to which the references were too indistinct to be held valid in a question of evidence. Whether all the refe rences in these writings to the gospel history are tc be traced to our extant Gospels must be admitted as a doubtful point ; but it is important to observe, that near as these writers were to the apostolic age, they draw a clear line of distinction between themselves and the Apostles. Clement calls his readers to the illustrious and venerable Canon of their holy calling' (Ad. Cor. i. 7), which, however, it must be confessed, may refer merely to princi ples, without relation to these as embodied in writing ; and he appeals them ' to the epistle of the blessed Paul,' addressed to them as of supreme authority (47). In the same spirit Polycarp calls the attention of the Philippians to the wisdom of ' the blessed and glorified Paul,' as that to which neither he nor any other like him could aspire, and which they had embodied in that epistle writ ten by Paul to them, and by attention to which they might be edified in the faith (Ep. ad Phil. c. iii.) Ignatius, writing to the Romans (sec. 4), says, Not as Peter and Paul do I enjoin upon you,' etc. ; and the relation, in general, in which these men considered themselves and their writings, as standing to the churches, may be gathered from the statement of Barnabas, who, after saying that the Lord had spoken by the prophets, adds : but I, not as a teacher, but as one of yourselves, will shew a few things by which you may be in very many respects gladdened' (c. i.) In the anonymous Epistle to Diognetus, which is, on good grounds, supposed to be one of the earliest of the uninspired Christian writings, the writer speaks of the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, and the Apostles (sec. xi. ed. Hefele). But the most remarkable passage is that in which Ignatius speaks of betaking him self to the Gospel as the flesh of Jesus, and to the apostles as the Presbytery of the church,' and adds, the prophets also we love ; thus shewing, that it is to the Scriptures he was referring (Ep. ad Phil adelphenos, sec. v.) Theophilus of Antioch speaks frequently of the New Testament writings under the appellation of al ilycat -ypag)al, or 6 &Fos X6yos, and in one place mentions the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels, as alike divinely inspired (Ad. Auto/. iii. 1). Clement of Alexandria speaks of the ypaqli7, and discriminates the droo-roNor or the cir6 X as the designation of a collective body of writings from the €6a-y-yeXtop, and classes both with the rpoq!Ybrat as containing the doctrine of the Lord, and as being authoritative. (See the passages in Lardner, lVorks ii. 231, ed. 1788). Ter tullian distinctly intimates the existence of the New Testament Canon in a complete form in his day, by calling it Evangelicum Instrumentum ' (Adv. Marc. iv. 2), by describing the whole Bible as totum instrumentum utriusque Testamenti ' (Adv. Prax. c. 20), and by distinguishing between the Scriptura Vetus' and the Novum Testa mentum (Ibid. c. 13). Irenasus repeatedly calls the writings of the New Testament the Holy Scrip tures,' the Oracles of God' (Adv. firer. ii. 27 ; i. 8, etc.), and in one place he puts the Evangelical and Apostolical writings on a par with the Law and the Prophets (Ibid. i. 3, sec. 6). From these allusions we may justly infer, that before the end of the second century the New Testament Scrip tures were generally known by the Christians in a collected form, and reverenced as the word of God.