THE CANON.
We have studied with what care we were able tee historical problem of
the origin and authorship of the several books of the Old and New
Testament; we now come to a deeply interesting question,--the question
of the canon.
This word, as used in this connection, means simply an authoritative
list or catalogue. The canon of the Bible is the determined and official
table of contents. The settlement of the canon is the process of
determining what and how many books the Bible shall contain. In the Old
Testament are thirty-nine books, in the New Testament twenty-seven; and
it is a fixed principle with Protestants that these books and no others
constitute the Sacred Scriptures,--that no more can be added and none
taken away.
The popular belief respecting this matter has been largely founded upon
the words with which the Book of Revelation concludes:--
"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of
this book, If any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the
plagues which are written in this book: and if any man shall take away
from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his
part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written
in this book."
The common notion is that the "book" here referred to is the Bible; and
that these sentences, therefore, are the divine authorization of the
present contents of the Bible, a solemn testimony from the Lord himself
to the integrity of the canon. But this is a misapprehension. The book
referred to is the Revelation of St. John,--not the Bible, not even the
New Testament. When these words were written, says Dr. Barnes in his
"Commentary," "the books that now constitute what we call the Bible were
not collected into a single volume. That passage, therefore, should not
be adduced as referring to the whole of the Sacred Scriptures." In fact,
when these words of the Revelation were written, several of the books of
the New Testament were not yet in existence; for this is by no means the
last of the New Testament writings, though it stands at the end of the
collection. The Gospel and the Epistles of John were added after this;
and we may trust that no plagues were "added" to the beloved disciple
for writing them.
Nevertheless, as I said, it is assumed that the contents of the Bible
are fixed; that the collection is and for a long time has been complete
and perfect; that it admits neither of subtractions nor of additions;
that nothing is in the book which ought not to be there, and that there
is nothing outside of its covers which ought to be within them; that the
canon is settled, inflexibly and infallibly and finally.
The questions now to be considered are these: Who settled it? When was
it settled? On what grounds was it determined? Was any question ever
raised concerning the sacredness or authority of any of the books now
included in the canon? Did any other books, not now included in the
canon, ever claim a place in it? If so, why were these rejected and
those retained?
This is, as will be seen, a simple question of history. We can trace
with tolerable certainty the steps by which this collection of sacred
writings was made; we know pretty well who did it, and when and how it
was done. And there is nothing profane or irreverent in this inquiry,
for the work of collecting these writings and fixing this canon has been
done mainly, if not wholly, by men who were not inspired and did not
claim to be. There is nothing mysterious or miraculous about their
doings any more than there is about the acts of the framers of the
Westminster Confession, or the American Constitution. They were dealing
with sacred matters, no doubt, when they were trying to determine what
books should be received and used as Scriptures, but they were dealing
with them in exactly the same way that we do, by using the best lights
they had.
As we have learned in previous chapters, the beginning of our canon was
made by Ezra the scribe, who, in the fifth century before Christ, newly
published and consecrated the Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses, as the
Holy Book of the Jewish people.
After Ezra came Nehemiah, to whom the beginning of the second collection
of Jewish Scriptures, called the Prophets, is ascribed in one of the
apocryphal books. But this collection was not apparently finished and
closed by Nehemiah. The histories of Joshua and Judges, of Samuel and
Kings, and the principal books of the Prophets were undoubtedly gathered
by him; but it would seem that the collection was left open for future
prophecies.
About the same time the third group of the Old Testament Scriptures,
"The Hagiographa," or "Writings," began to be collected. No book of the
Bible contains any information concerning the making of these two later
collections, the Prophets and the Hagiographa; and we are obliged to
rely wholly upon Jewish tradition, and upon references which we find in
Jewish writers. Professor Westcott, who is one of the most conservative
of Biblical scholars, says that "the combined evidence of tradition and
of the general course of Jewish history leads to the conclusion that the
canon in its present shape was formed gradually during a lengthened
interval, beginning with Ezra and extending through a part, or even the
whole of the Persian period," or from B.C. 458 to 332. Without adopting
this conclusion, we may remark that this last date, 332, was nearly a
century after Nehemiah and Malachi, the last of the prophets; so that if
the canon was closed at a date so late as this, it must have been closed
by men who were certainly not known to have been inspired. If it was
forming, through all this period, then it must have been formed in part
by men in behalf of whom no claim of inspiration has ever been set up.
According to Jewish tradition the work of collecting, editing, and
authorizing the sacred writings was done by a certain "Great Synagogue,"
founded by Ezra, presided over by Nehemiah, after him, and continuing in
existence down to about the year 200 B.C. This is wholly a tradition,
and has been proved to be baseless. There never was such a synagogue;
the Scriptures know nothing about it; the apocryphal writers, so
numerous and widely dispersed, have never heard of it; Philo and
Josephus are ignorant concerning it. None of the Jewish authors of the
period who freely discuss the Scriptures and their authority makes
mention of this Great Synagogue. The story of its existence is first
heard from some Jewish rabbin hundreds of years after Christ.
We have proof enough in the New Testament that the Jews had certain
Sacred Scriptures; the New Testament writers often quote them and refer
to them; but there is no conclusive proof that they had been gathered at
this time into a complete collection. Jesus tells the Jews that they
search the Scriptures, but he does not say how many of these Scriptures
there were in his day; Paul reminds Timothy that from a child he had
known the Holy Scriptures, but he gives no list of their titles. If we
found all the books of the Old Testament quoted or referred to by the
New Testament writers, then we should know that they possessed the same
books that we have. Most of these books are thus referred to; but there
are seven Old Testament books whose names the New Testament never
quotes, and at least five to which it makes no reference whatever:
Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah. To Judges,
Chronicles, and Ezekiel it refers only in the same way that it refers to
a number of the apocryphal books. Some of these omissions appear to be
significant. The New Testament gives us therefore no definite
information by which we can determine whether the Old Testament canon
was closed at the time of Christ, nor does it tell us of what books it
was composed.
We have seen already that two different collections of Old Testament
writings were in existence, one in Hebrew, and the other a translation
into the Greek, made by Jews in Alexandria, and called the Septuagint.
The latter collection was the one most used by our Lord and the
apostles; much the greater number of quotations from the Old Testament
found in the Gospels and the Epistles are taken from the Septuagint.
This Greek Bible contained quite a number of books which are not in the
Hebrew Bible: they were later in their origin than any of the Old
Testament books; most of them were originally written in Greek; and
while they were regarded by some of the more conservative of the Jews in
Egypt as inferior to the Law and the Prophets, they were generally
ranked with the books of the Hagiographa as sacred writings. This is
evident from the fact that they were mingled indiscriminately with these
books of the older Scriptures. You know that I am speaking now of the
apocryphal books which you find in some of your old Bibles, between the
Old and New Testaments. These were the later books contained in the
Septuagint, and not in the Hebrew Bible. But they were not sorted out by
themselves in the Septuagint; they were interspersed through the other
books, as of equal value. Thus in the Vatican Bible, of which we shall
learn more by and by, Esdras First and Second succeed the Chronicles;
Tobit and Judith are between Nehemiah and Esther; the Wisdom of Solomon
and Sirach follow Solomon's Song; Baruch is next to Jeremiah; Daniel is
followed by Susanna and Bel and the Dragon, and the collection closes
with the three books of Maccabees.
All the old manuscripts of the Bible which we possess--those which are
regarded as above all others sacred and authoritative--contain these
apocryphal writings thus intermingled with the books of our own canon.
It is clear, therefore, that to the Alexandrian Jews these later books
were Sacred Scriptures; and it is certain also that our Lord and his
apostles used the collection which contained these books. It is said
that they do not refer to them, and it is true that they do not mention
them by name; but they do use them occasionally. Let me read you a few
passages which will illustrate their familiarity with the apocryphal
books.
James i.19: "Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak." Sirach v.
11; iv. 29: "Be swift to hear." "Be not hasty in thy tongue."
Hebrews i. 3: "Who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image
of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power."
Wisdom vii. 26: "For she (Wisdom) is the brightness of the everlasting
light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his
goodness."
Rom. ix. 21: "Hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same
lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?"
Wisdom xv. 7: "For the potter, tempering soft earth, fashioneth every
vessel with much labor for our service; yea, of the same clay he maketh
both the vessels that serve for clean uses, and likewise also such as
serve to the contrary: but what is the use of either sort, the potter
himself is the judge."
I Cor. ii. 10, 11: "The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep
things of God. For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the
spirit of the man, which is in him? even so the things of God none
knoweth save the Spirit of God." Judith viii. 14: "For ye cannot find
the depth of the heart of man, neither can ye perceive the things that
he thinketh: then how can ye search out God, that hath made all these
things, and know his mind, or comprehend his purpose?"
Several similar indications of the familiarity of the New Testament
writers with these apocryphal books might be pointed out. These are not
express citations, but they are clear appropriations of the thought and
the language of the apocryphal writers. We have, then, the most
indubitable proof that the apocryphal books were in the hands of the New
Testament writers; and so far as New Testament use authenticates an Old
Testament writing, several of the apocryphal books stand on much better
footing than do five of our Old Testament books.
It is true that the Hebrew or Palestinian canon differed from the Greek
or Alexandrian canon; the books which were written in Greek had never
been translated into the Hebrew, and could not, of course, be
incorporated into the Hebrew canon; and there was undoubtedly a strong
feeling among the stricter Jews against recognizing any of these later
books as Sacred Scriptures; nevertheless, the Greek Bible, with all its
additions, had large currency among the Jews even in Palestine, and the
assertion that our Lord and his apostles measured the Alexandrian Bible
by the Palestinian canon, and accepted all the books of the latter while
declining to recognize any of the additions of the former, is sheer
assumption, for which there is not a particle of evidence, and against
which the facts already adduced bear convincingly. Paul, in his letter
to Timothy, refers to the "Scriptures" as having been in the hands of
Timothy from his childhood; and we have every reason to believe that the
Scriptures to which he refers was this Greek collection containing the
Apocrypha. Whatever Paul says about the inspiration of the Scriptures
must be interpreted with this fact in mind. To find in these words of
Paul the guarantee of the inspiration and infallibility of the books of
the collection which are translated from the Hebrew, and not those which
are written in Greek, is a freak of exegesis not more violent than
fantastic. We know that Paul read and used some of these apocryphal
books, and there are several of the books in our Hebrew Bible that he
never quotes or refers to in the remotest way. The attempt which is
often made to show that the New Testament writers have established, by
their testimony, the Old Testament canon, as containing just those books
which are in our Old Testament, and no more, is a most unwarrantable
distortion of the facts.
It is true that at the time of Christ the Palestinian Jews had not, for
a century or so, added any new books to their collection, and were not
inclined to add any more. Their canon was practically closed to this
extent, that no new books were likely to get in. But it was not yet
settled that some later books, which had been trying to maintain a
footing in the canon, should not be put out. Esther, Ecclesiastes, and
Solomon's Song were regarded by some of the Palestinian Jews as sacred
books, but their right to this distinction was hotly disputed by others.
This question was not settled at the time of our Lord.
"The canon," says Davidson, "was not considered to be closed in the
first century before and the first after Christ. There were doubts about
some portions. The Book of Ezekiel gave offense, because some of its
statements seemed to contradict the Law. Doubts about some of the others
were of a more serious nature--about Ecclesiastes, the Canticles,
Esther, and the Proverbs. The first was impugned because it had
contradictory passages and a heretical tendency; the second because of
its worldly and sensual tone; Esther for its want of religiousness; and
Proverbs on account of inconsistencies. This skepticism went far to
procure the exclusion of the suspected works from the canon and their
relegation to the class of the _genuzim_. But it did not prevail.
Hananiah, son of Hezekiah, son of Garon, about 32 B.C., is said to have
reconciled the contradictions and allayed the doubts. But these traces
of resistance to the fixity of the canon were not the last. They
reappeared about 65 A. D., as we learn from the Talmud, when the
controversy turned mainly upon the canonicity of Ecclesiastes, which the
school of Schammai, which had the majority, opposed; so that that book
was probably excluded. The question emerged again at a later synod in
Jabneh or Jamnia, when R. Eleaser ben Asaria was chosen patriarch, and
Gamaliel the Second, deposed. Here it was decided, not unanimously,
however, but by a majority of Hillelites, that Ecclesiastes and the Song
of Songs 'pollute the hands,' _i. e._, belong properly to the
Hagiographa. This was about 90 A. D. Thus the question of the canonicity
of certain books was discussed by two synods." [Footnote: _Encyc.
Brit_., v. 3.]
By such a plain tale do we put down the fiction, so widely disseminated,
that the canon of the Old Testament was "fixed" long before the time of
Christ, and, presumably, by inspired men. It was not "fixed," even in
Palestine, until sixty years after our Lord's death; several of the
books were in dispute during the whole apostolic period, and these are
the very books which are not referred to in the New Testament. Whether
the men who finally "fixed" it were exceptionally qualified to judge of
the ethical and spiritual values of the writings in question may be
doubted. They were the kind of men who slew our Lord and persecuted his
followers. When we are asked what are our historical reasons for
believing that Esther and Ecclesiastes and Solomon's Song are sacred
books and ought to be in the Old Testament canon, let us answer: It is
not because any prophet or inspired person adjudged them to be sacred,
for no such person had anything to say about them; it is not because our
Lord and his apostles indorsed them, for they do not even mention them;
it is not because they held a place in a collection of Sacred Scriptures
used by our Lord and his apostles, for their position in that collection
was in dispute at that time; it is because the chief priests and scribes
who rejected Christ pronounced them sacred. The external authority for
these books reduces to exactly this. Those who insist that all parts of
the Old Testament are of equal value and authority, and that a
questioning of the sacredness of one book casts doubts upon the whole
collection, ought to look these facts in the face and see on what a
slender thread they suspend the Bible which they so highly value. These
later books, says one, "have been delivered to us; they have their use
and value, which is to be ascertained by a frank and reverent study of
the texts themselves; but those who insist on placing them on the same
footing of undisputed authority with the Law, the Prophets, and the
Psalms, to which our Lord bears direct testimony, and so make the whole
doctrine of the canon depend on its weakest part, sacrifice the true
strength of the evidence on which the Old Testament is received by
Christians." [Footnote: _The Old Testament in the Jewish Church_,
p. 175.]
Such, then, is the statement with respect to the Old Testament canon in
the apostolic age. The Palestinian canon, which was identical with our
Old Testament, was practically settled at the synod of Jamnia about 90
A. D., though doubts were still entertained by devout Jews concerning
Esther. The Alexandrian collection, containing our apocryphal books,
was, however, widely circulated; and as it was the Greek version which
had been most used by the apostles, so it was the Greek version which
the early Christian fathers universally studied and quoted. Very few if
any of these Christian fathers of the first two centuries understood the
Hebrew; they could not, therefore, use the Palestinian manuscripts; the
Greek Bible was their only treasury of inspired truth, and the Greek
Bible contained the Apocrypha. Accordingly we find them quoting freely
as Sacred Scripture all the apocryphal books. Westcott gives us a table,
in Smith's "Bible Dictionary," of citations made from these apocryphal
books by fifteen of the Greek fathers, beginning with Clement of Rome
and ending with Chrysostom, and by eight Latin writers, beginning with
Tertullian and ending with Augustine. Every one of these apocryphal
books is thus quoted with some such formula as "The Scripture saith," or
"It is written," by one or more of these writers; the Book of Wisdom is
quoted by all of them except Polycarp and Cyril; Baruch and the
Additions to Daniel are quoted by the great majority of them; Origen
quotes them all, Clement of Alexandria all but one, Cyprian all but two.
It will therefore be seen that these books must have had wide acceptance
as Sacred Scriptures during the first centuries of the Christian church.
In the face of these facts, which may be found in sources as
unassailable as Smith's "Bible Dictionary," we have such statements as
the following, put forth by teachers of the people, and indorsed by
eminent theological professors:--
"We may say of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament that, while
some who were not Jews and who were unacquainted with Hebrew used them
to some extent, yet they never gained wide acceptance, and soon dropped
out altogether."
"Certain apocryphal writings have since been bound up with the
Septuagint, but _there is no reason to think that they made any part
of it in the days of our Saviour_"!
"These books were not received as canonical by the Christian fathers,
but were expressly declared to be apocryphal"!
The last statements are copied from a volume on the Bible, prepared for
popular circulation by the president of a theological seminary!
It is true that some of the most inquisitive and critical of the
Christian fathers entertained doubts about these apocryphal books;
Melito of Sardis traveled to Palestine on purpose to inquire into the
matter, and came back, of course, with the Palestinian canon to which,
however, he did not adhere. Origen made a similar investigation, and
seems to have been convinced that the later books ought to be regarded
as uncanonical; nevertheless, he keeps on quoting them; Jerome was the
first strenuously to challenge the canonicity of these later Greek books
and to maintain a tolerably consistent opposition to them. While,
therefore, several of these early fathers were led by their
investigations in Palestine to believe that the narrower canon was the
more correct one, their opinions had but little weight with the people
at large; and even these fathers themselves freely and constantly quoted
as Sacred Scripture the questionable writings.
In 393 the African bishops held a council at Hippo, in which the canon
was discussed. The list agreed upon includes all the Old Testament
Scriptures of our canon, and, in addition to them, Wisdom,
Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, and the two books of Maccabees. In 397
another council at Carthage reaffirmed the list of its predecessor.
Augustine was the leader of both councils.
In spite of the protests of Jerome and of other scholars in all the
centuries, this list, for substance, was regarded as authoritative,
until the Council of Trent, in 1546, when the long debate was finally
settled, so far as the Roman Catholic Church is concerned, by the
adoption of the Augustinian canon, embracing the apocryphal books, the
list concluding with the following anathema. "If any one will not
receive as sacred and authoritative the whole books with all their
parts, let him be accursed." This determines the matter for all good
Catholics. Since 1546, they have known exactly how many books their
Bible contains. And if usage and tradition are and ought to be
authoritative, they have the strongest reasons for receiving as sacred
the books of their Bible; for it is beyond question that the books which
they accept and which we reject have been received and used as Sacred
Scriptures in all the ages of the church. Most of us who do not accept
usage and tradition as authoritative will continue, no doubt, to think
our own thoughts about the matter.
The Council of Trent marks the definite separation of the Roman Catholic
Church from the Protestant reformers. Up to this time there had been
among the reformers some differences of opinion respecting the Old
Testament books; when they were excluded from the Holy Church and were
compelled to fall back upon the authority of the Bible, the present
limits of the canon at once became an important question. They did not
settle it all at once. Luther, in making his German version of the
Bible, translated Judith, Wisdom, Tobit, Sirach, Baruch, 1 and 2
Maccabees, the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel, with the Prayer of
Manasseh. Each of these books he prefaces with comments of his own.
First Maccabees he regards as almost equal to the other books of Holy
Scripture, and not unworthy to be reckoned among them. He had doubted
long whether Wisdom should not be admitted to the canon, and he truly
says of Sirach that it is a right good book, the work of a wise man.
Baruch and 2 Maccabees he finds fault with; but of none of these
apocryphal books does he speak so severely as of Esther, which he is
more than willing to cast out of the canon. The fact that Luther
translated these apocryphal books is good evidence that he thought them
of value to the church; nevertheless, he considered the books of the
Hebrew canon, with the exception of Esther, as occupying a higher plane
than those of the Apocrypha. Gradually this opinion gained acceptance
among the Protestants; the apocryphal books were separated from the
rest, and although by some of the Reformed churches, as by the Anglican
church, they were commended to be read "for example of life and
instruction of manners," they ceased to be regarded as authoritative
sources of Christian doctrine. Since the sixteenth century, there has
been little question among Protestants as to the extent of the canon.
The books which now compose our Old Testament, and no others, have been
found in the Bible of the Protestants for the past three hundred years.
The apocryphal books have sometimes been printed between the Old and the
New Testaments, but they have not been used in the churches, [Footnote:
The English Church uses some portions of them.] nor have they been
regarded as part of the Sacred Scripture.
The history of the New Testament canon is much less obscure, and may be
more briefly treated. The Bible of the early Christians was the Old
Testament. They relied wholly upon this for religious instruction; they
had no thought of any other Sacred Scripture.
I have explained in a former chapter how the Epistles and the Gospels
originated; but when these writings first came into the hands of the
disciples there was not, it is probable, any conception in their minds
that these were sacred writings, to be ranked along with the books of
the Old Testament. They read them for instruction and suggestion; they
did not at first think of them as holy. But their conviction of the
value and sacredness of these writings soon began to strengthen; we find
them quoting Gospels and Epistles with the same formula that they apply
to the Old Testament books; and thus they began to feel the need of
making a collection of this apostolic literature for use in the
churches. It is not until the second half of the second century that any
such collection comes into view. It consisted at first of two parts, The
Gospel and The Apostle; the first part contained the four Gospels, and
the second the Acts, thirteen Epistles of Paul, one of Peter, one of
John, and the Revelation. It will be seen that this twofold Testament
omitted several of our books,--the Epistle to the Hebrews, two of
John's Epistles, one of Peter's, and the Epistles of James and Jude.
About this time there was also in circulation certain writings which are
not now in our canon, but which were sometimes included by the
authorities of that time among the apostolic writings, and were quoted
as Scripture by the early fathers. There was a book called "The Gospel
according to the Egyptians," and another entitled "The Preaching of
Peter," and another called "The Acts of Paul," and another called "The
Shepherd of Hermas," and an epistle attributed to Barnabas, and several
others, all claiming to be sacred and apostolic writings. It became,
therefore, a delicate and important question for these early Christians
to decide which of these writings were sacred, and which were not; and
they began to make lists of those which they regarded as canonical. The
earliest of these lists is a fragmentary anonymous canon, which was made
about 170. It mentions all the books in our New Testament but
four,--Hebrews, First and Second Peter, and James.
Irenæus, who died about 200, had a canon which included all the books of
our New Testament except Hebrews, Jude, James, Second Peter, and Third
John. First Peter, Second John, and "The Shepherd of Hermas" he put by
themselves in a second class of writings, which he thought excellent but
not inspired.
Clement of Alexandria (180) puts into his list most of our canonical
books, but regards several of them as of inferior value, among them
Hebrews, Second John, and Jude. In the same list of inferior writings he
includes "The Shepherd of Hermas," the "Epistle of Barnabas," and the
"Apocalypse of Peter."
Tertullian (200) omits entirely James, Second Peter, and Third John, but
includes among useful though not inspired books, Hebrews, Jude, "The
Shepherd of Hermas," Second John, and Second Peter.
These are the greatest authorities of the first two centuries. No
Christian teachers of that day were better informed or more trustworthy
than these, and it will be seen that they were far from agreeing with
one another or with our canon; that each one of them received as sacred
some books which we do not possess, and rejected some which we receive.
Coming down into the third century, we find Origen (250), one of the
great scholars, wrestling with the problem. He seems to have made three
classes of the New Testament writings, the authentic, the non-authentic,
and the doubtful. The authentic books are the Gospels, the Acts, the
thirteen Epistles of Paul, and the Apocalypse; the non-authentic ones
are "The Shepherd of Hermas," "The Epistle of Barnabas," and several
other books not in our canon; and the doubtful ones are James, Jude,
Second and Third John, and Second Peter. It will be seen that Origen
admits none that are not in our collection, but that he is in doubt
respecting some that are in it.
Facts like these are writ large over every page of the history of the
early church. And yet we have eminent theological professors asserting
that the canon of the New Testament was finally settled "during the
first half of the second century, within fifty years after the death of
the Apostle John." A more baseless statement could not be fabricated. It
is from teachers of this class that we hear the most vehement outcries
against the "Higher Criticism."
Eusebius, who died in 340, has a list agreeing substantially with that
of Origen.
Cyril of Jerusalem (386) includes all of our books except the
Apocalypse, and no others.
Athanasius (365) and Augustine (430) have lists identical with ours.
This indicates a steady progress toward unanimity, and when the two
great councils of Hippo and Carthage confirmed this judgment of the two
great fathers last named, the question of the New Testament canon was
practically settled. [Footnote: It is noted, however, that the reception
of the doubtful books into the canon does not imply a recognition of
their equality with the other books. The distinct admission of their
inferiority was made by all the ecclesiastical authorities of that
period. None of the early fathers believed that all these writings were
equally inspired and equally authoritative.] Nevertheless, considerable
independent judgment on the subject still seems to have been tolerated,
and writings which we do not now receive were long included in the New
Testament collection. The three oldest manuscripts of the Bible now in
existence are the Sinaitic, the Vatican, and the Alexandrian Bibles,
dating from the fourth and the fifth centuries. Of these the Sinaitic
and the Alexandrian Bibles both include some of these doubtful books in
the New Testament collection; the Sinai Bible has "The Epistle of
Barnabas" and "The Shepherd of Hermas;" the Alexandrian Bible the
Epistle of Clement and one of Athanasius. These old Bibles are clear
witnesses to the fact that the contents of the New Testament were not
clearly defined even so late as the fifth century. Indeed, there was
always some freedom of opinion concerning this matter until the
Reformation era. Then, of course, the Council of Trent fixed the canon
of the New Testament as well as of the Old for all good Catholics; and
the New Testament of the Catholics, unlike their Old Testament, is
identical with our own.
The Protestants of that time were still in doubt about certain of the
New Testament books. Luther, as every one knows, was inclined to reject
the Epistle of James; he called it "a right strawy epistle." The letter
to the Hebrews was a good book, but not apostolic; he put it in a
subordinate class. Jude was a poor transcript of Second Peter, and he
assigned that also to a lower place. "The Apocalypse," says Davidson,
"he considered neither apostolic nor prophetic, but put it almost on a
level with the Fourth Book of Esdras, which he spoke elsewhere of
tossing into the Elbe." Luther's principle of judgment in many of these
cases was quite too subjective; he carried the Protestant principle of
private judgment to an extreme; I only quote his opinions to show with
what freedom the strong men of the Reformation handled these questions
of Biblical criticism.
Zwingli rejected the Apocalypse. OEcolampadius placed James, Jude,
Second Peter, Second and Third John and the Apocalypse along with the
Apocryphal books, on a lower level than the other New Testament
Scriptures.
The great majority of the Reformers, however, speedily fixed upon that
canon which we now receive, and their decision has not been seriously
called in question since the sixteenth century.
I have now answered most of the questions proposed at the beginning of
this chapter. We have seen that while the great majority of the books in
both Testaments have been universally received, questions have been
raised at various times concerning the canonicity of several of the
books in either Testament; that many good men, from the second century
before Christ until the sixteenth century after Christ, have disputed
the authority of some of these books. We have seen also that quite a
number of other books have at one time and another been regarded as
sacred and numbered among the Holy Scriptures; we have seen that the
final judgment respecting these doubtful books is different in different
branches of the church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Catholic
Church admitting into their canons several books that the Reformed
churches exclude from theirs.
We have seen that the decision which has been reached by the several
branches of the church respecting this matter has been reached as the
result of discussion and argument; that the canonicity of the disputed
books was freely canvassed by the church fathers in their writings, by
the church councils in their assemblies, by the Reformers in their
inquiries; that no supernatural methods have been employed to determine
the canonicity of these several books; but that the enlightened reason
of the church has been the arbiter of the whole matter.
The grounds upon which the Jews acted in admitting or rejecting books
into their Scriptures it might be difficult for us to determine. In some
cases we know that they were fanciful and absurd. But the grounds on
which the Christians proceeded in making up their canon we know pretty
well.
The first question respecting each one of the Christian writings seems
to have been: "Was it written by an apostle?" If this question could be
answered in the affirmative, the book was admitted. And in deciding this
question, the Christians of later times made appeal to the opinions of
those of earlier times; authority and tradition had much to do in
determining it. "Was it the general opinion of the early church that
this book was written by an apostle?" they asked. And if this seemed to
be the case, they were inclined to admit it. Besides, they compared
Scripture with Scripture: certain books were unquestionably written by
Paul or Luke or John; other books which were doubted were also ascribed
to them; if they found the language of the disputed book corresponding
to that of the undisputed book, in style and in forms of expression,
they judged that it must have been written by the same man. Upon such
grounds of external and internal evidence, it finally came to be
believed that all of the New Testament books except four were written by
apostles, and that these four, Mark, Luke, The Acts of the Apostles, and
the Epistle to the Hebrews, were written by men under the immediate
direction of apostles.
But, it may be said, there have been great differences of opinion on
this matter through all the ages, down to the sixteenth century; how do
we know but that those good and holy men, like Ignatius and Clement and
Tertullian and Origen in the early church, and Luther and Zwingli and
OEcolampadius in the Reformed church, were right in rejecting some books
that we receive and in receiving some that we reject?
If you were a good Catholic, that question would not trouble you. For
the fundamental article of your creed would then be, The Holy Catholic
Church, when she is represented by her bishops in a general council, can
never make a mistake. And the Holy Catholic Church in a general council
at Trent, in 1546, said that such and such books belonged to the Bible,
and that no others do; and the council of the Vatican, in 1870, said the
same thing over again, making it doubly sure; so, that, as a good
Catholic, you would have no right to any doubts or questions about it.
But, being a Protestant, you cannot help knowing that all general
councils have made grave and terrible mistakes; that no one of them ever
was infallible; and so you could not rest satisfied with the decisions
of Trent and the Vatican, even if they gave you the same Bible that you
now possess, which, of course, they do not. What certainty has the
Protestant, then, that his canon is the correct one? He has no absolute
certainty. There is no such thing as absolute certainty with respect to
historical religious truth. But this discussion has made one or two
things plain to the dullest apprehension.
The first is that the books of this Bible are not all of equal rank and
sacredness. If there is one truth which all the ages, with all their
voices, join to declare, it is that the Bible is made up of many
different kinds of books, with very different degrees of sacredness and
authority. For one, I do not wish to part with any of them; I find
instruction in all of them, though in some of them, as in Esther and
Ecclesiastes, it is rather as records of savagery and of skepticism,
from which every Christian ought to recoil, that I can see any value in
them. As powerful delineations of the kind of sentiments that the
Christian ought not to cherish, and the kind of doubts that he cannot
entertain without imperilling his soul, they may be useful. It is not,
therefore, at all desirable that these ancient records should be torn
asunder and portions of them flung away. That process of mutilation none
of us is wise enough to attempt. Let the Bible stand; there are good
uses for every part of it. But let us remember the lesson which this
survey has brought home to us, that these books are not all alike, and
that the message of divine wisdom is spoken to us in some of them far
more clearly than in others,
Richard Baxter is an authority in religion for whose opinion all
conservative people ought to entertain respect. He cannot be suspected
of being a "New Departure" man; he was a stanch Presbyterian, and he
passed to the "Saints' Rest" nearly two hundred years ago. With a few
words of his upon the question now before us, this chapter may fitly
close:--
"And here I must tell you a great and needful truth, which Christians,
fearing to confess, by overdoing, tempt men to infidelity. The Scripture
is like a man's body, where some parts are but for the preservation of
the rest, and may be maimed without death. The sense is the soul of the
Scripture, and the letters but the body or vehicle. The doctrine of the
Creed, Lord's Prayer and Decalogue, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, is
the vital part and Christianity itself. The Old Testament letter
(written as we have it about Ezra's time) is that vehicle which is as
imperfect as the revelation of those times was. But as, after Christ's
incarnation and ascension, the Spirit was more abundantly given, and the
revelation more perfect and sealed, so the doctrine is more full, and
the vehicle or body, that is the words, are less imperfect and more sure
to us; so that he which doubteth of the truth of some words in the Old
Testament or of some circumstances in the New, hath no reason therefore
to doubt of the Christian religion of which these writings are but the
vehicle or body, sufficient to ascertain us of the truth of the History
and Doctrine." [Footnote: _The Catechizing of Christian Families_,
p. 36.]