`Abdullah David, M S M Saifullah & Usman Sheikh

© Islamic Awareness, All Rights Reserved.

First Composed: 20th August 2005

Last Updated: 26th January 2006

Assalamu-`alaykum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:

Today the vast majority of Christians assume that the New Testament accurately reflects the authentic words and teachings of Jesus. It is also the case, however, that the vast majority of Christians are unaware of the historical processes behind the formation of the New Testament canon. Many do not realise that there was a time when the New Testament canon (i.e., an authoritative collection of books) simply did not exist. Jesus did not write the New Testament; neither did he instruct his followers to write a New Testament. Thus, the New Testament canon did not come into being by the direct instruction of Jesus, nor of anyone so authorised by him. In fact, there is no one person, Church Council or Christian community which can claim to have originated the canon of the New Testament. The canonicity of many books of the New Testament were still being vigorously debated hundreds of years after the departure of Jesus, and, in fact, this debate continues to this very day. Given these well acknowledged facts, it is somewhat perplexing to find the missionaries and apologists identifying their canon of the Bible (i.e., Protestant Bible) as authoritative. If one surveys their literature, one would be inclined to think that the twenty-seven book canon of the New Testament simply dropped out of the sky not long after Jesus departed, to complement the already agreed upon Old Testament canon. What the missionaries and apologists are less inclined to discuss, is that their exist numerous other "canons" of the Bible, and, the respective churches which represent these canons all make the same truth claim – our canon of scripture is the "divinely inspired" word of God. Let us now take a brief survey of evangelical, missionary and apologetical statements regarding the canon of the New Testament.

One of the strangest claims come from F. F. Bruce, a prominent evangelical New Testament scholar, who says that since the fourth century the twenty-seven book New Testament is the actual canon of the Bible. According to him:

That the New Testament consists of the twenty-seven books which have been recognized as belonging to it since the fourth century is not a value judgment; it is a statement of fact. Individuals of communities may consider that it is too restricted or too comprehensive; but their opinion does not affect the identity of the canon. The canon is not going to be diminished or decreased because of what they think or say: it is a literary, historical, and theological datum.^[1]

Similarly, the Christian apologist Josh McDowell claims that since the Third Synod of Carthage (397 CE):

... there has been no serious questioning of the twenty-seven accepted books of the New Testament by Roman Catholics, Protestants, or the Eastern Orthodox Church.^[2]

There is a host of Christian missionary writings that make similar claims. For example, Nehls, while dealing with Muslim assertions concerning the corruption of the Bible, claims that:

There is no doubt that at least as early as A.D. 350 well before the time of Mohammed there was a uniform canon of the Bible and nothing has been changed, adulterated, polluted or perverted since.

Furthermore, he confidently adds that the selection of the books of the Bible was not only universal but also uanimous.

So we can, with the greatest degree of confidence claim that the New Testament was not just accepted by a group of bishops at a certain church council at random. The selection was not only universal and unanimous; it was actually a decision, which had already been made earlier by all the local churches over the years independently and at their own discretion.

According to Christian apologist J. R. White the canon of the Bible, obviously a Protestant one, was clearly functioning for more than a millennia.

But once again, there is a vast difference between an infallible declaration on Rome's part and the clearly functioning, well known canon of the Scriptures that had been in place more than a millennia.

Yet another Christian missionary claims that:

According to Metzger, the Church universally came to accept the 27 books of the NT in the fourth century, nearly three centuries before the advent of Islam.

If we analyse these various claims we can start to see some common points of agreement. All agree that since the fourth century there have been twenty-seven books comprising the New Testament (i.e., matching the Protestant New Testament canon). McDowell ventures one step further and claims that since the third Synod of Carthage, nobody has seriously questioned the twenty-seven books accepted by Catholics, Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox Church. White thinks that the councils of Hippo and Carthage "finish the process with an 'official' canon list". Nehls thinks that since 350 CE there has been a uniform canon of the Bible and nothing has been changed ever since; he then goes on to say the selection of the twenty-seven books was universal and unanimous, made by all the local churches. Finally, to give credibility to these claims discussed above, the missionary Shamoun uses the scholarship of Metzger as a stamp of authority, thus negating the need for any further enquiry.

In this paper we propose to examine 'canon' from a historical viewpoint. We will chart the development of canon within the various centres of early Christendom and pause briefly over some of the circumstances leading to the establishment of the twenty-seven book list accepted as "divinely inspired" by Protestants today. A broad selection of early church decisions, as well as those of the early fathers on the nature of canon is noted. A complete catalogue of books of the entire Bible according to the major churches of Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) Christendom, as seen in the modern times, will also be provided. The historic decisions of the Council of Trent will be discussed and we will briefly contrast the Protestant and Catholic view of the canon. The nature of the documentary evidence in relation to the canon will also be mentioned. Consequently, these historical facts will be contrasted with the historical and theological exegesis of the evangelists, missionaries and apologists in order to establish the validity of their claims.

2. Canon – An Overview

The twentieth century has seen two opposing conceptions regarding the formation of the New Testament canon proposed by two German scholars, Franz Theodor Ritter von Zahn (1838 – 1933 CE) Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Introduction at Erlangen, subsequently Professor at Leipzig, and, Adolf von Harnack (1851 – 1930 CE) Professor of Church History at Leipzig (1874) subsequently Professor at Giessen (1879 CE), Marburg (1886 CE) and finally at the University of Berlin (1888 CE). Harnack first described his view on the canon of the New Testament in his Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte and it was during his time at Berlin that Harnack completed his pioneering work, entitled Die Entstehung des Neuen Testaments und die wichtigsten Folgen der neuen Schöpfung,^[3] published in 1914 CE, describing the formation of the New Testament canon. Zahn contested Harnack's view that the canonical process only found its maturity in the end of the second century, and set out to prove that many of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament were actually canonical by c. 80 – c. 110 CE. Harnack generally did not dispute the factual data in Zahn's thesis but instead debated his interpretation of the facts. Harnack viewed the rise of early 'heretical' sects such as Marcionism, Gnosticism and Montanism, as critical to the development of the New Testament canon. The advocates of these 'heretical' sects, by discussing which books were and were not to be accepted, provided an impetus to the early Church to start considering what it believed to be writings worthy of being considered as scripture. Harnack also held the view that the scriptures possessed authority because they had been so accorded by the communities in which they were prevalent (i.e., considered "inspired" scripture), and, that this would occur when a particular piece of Christian writing was held in the same esteem as the Jewish Scripture. Zahn, however, considered that the authority of a piece of Christian writing could be derived from its contents. Thus, should the writing in question contain the "Lord's" sayings, this acted as a self-authenticating mechanism which guaranteed its canonical status. Zahn attempted to demonstrate through the comments of the early fathers that much of the New Testament, including the four gospels, thirteen epistles of Paul as well as some other writings, were read and valued at an early period; he therefore perceived the development of the New Testament canon to be one of growth and augmentation. Harnack, on the other hand, perceived the development of the New Testament canon to be one of sifting and rejection, linking the formation of the New Testament canon with the rise of early 'heterodox' Christian sects. Due to these subtle and sometimes confusing differences in definitions, Zahn placed the existence of the New Testament canon as late first, early second century. Harnack, analysing the process by which the books were selected as being canonical by the individuals and communities in which they were circulating, suggested a late second century formulation.^[4] Metzger neatly summarises their controversy:

The actual facts were hardly touched by the controversy, for it is altogether possible that small collections of Gospel materials and apostolic epistles were made here and there before the end of the first century, but that only in later generations did such collections gain exclusive canonical authority on the level of inspired Scripture. In short, 'canonical' means authoritative books, but 'the canon' means the only authoritative books. Use does not equal authority; though a certain kind of use does, namely, use that excludes any other.^[5]

Similarly, the Revd. John Barton insights in his book, The Spirit And The Letter: Studies In The Biblical Canon, are noted by H. J. de Jonge, Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature at Leiden University, the Netherlands. With reference to Zahn and Harnack's understanding of the definition of 'canon', he concludes,

The debate between Zahn and Harnack has been analysed and evaluated by some more recent scholars, among them Bruce Metzger in his The Canon of the New Testament (1987) and especially John Barton in his The Spirit and the Letter (1997). Barton has pointed out that the controversy between Zahn and Harnack originated from the two scholars' fundamentally different ideas of what the nature of the New Testament canon was. For Zahn the canon was a product of continued collection, augmentation and growth. Harnack, on the other hand, looked upon the New Testament canon as the result of a process of delimitation and exclusion. Consequently, Zahn's concept of the canon was less strict than Harnack's and, as a result, Zahn's date for the canon earlier than Harnack's.

It will be wise to keep Barton's lessons in mind: both sides of the formation process of the New Testament canon have to be reckoned with: its growth and its delimitation. These two developments took place independently. The growth came first, delimitation and exclusion occurred later. The notion "Scripture" has to be distinguished from the notion "canon". The former is an open collection of authoritative books, a collection with only vague contours; books can still be added to it, or removed from it. A canon however is a closed and exclusive list of books regarded as authoritative. The more strictly one defines "canon", the later the date of its origin. Taking into account Barton's insights, the canon of the New Testament cannot be said to have come into existence until the second half of the fourth Century. It is no coincidence that the earliest evidence for the use of the Greek word kanon in the sense of "exclusive list of the authoritative books of Holy Scripture" dates from the middle of the fourth century. The earliest attestation occurs in Athanasius' treatise on the resolutions of the Council of Nicea, which dates from 350 or 351 AD.^[6]

Therefore, we can observe a very broad three-stage development with regard to the precise nature and definition of canon. Zahn suggested that the recitation of scripture in public worship, broad usage, and the scriptures normative status acted as a mark of self-authentication; thus the early Church did not purposely choose what became canonical, rather the writings arose naturally and spontaneously and were inherently canonical.^[7] Harnack proposed that the creation of the New Testament canon was a deliberate act of the early Church seeking to secure itself against the major heterodox sects (which he located in the second century) and that was where the real foundation of canon formation could be located. The main proposals by Harnack and Zahn have subsequently been debated and largely adopted by scholars (in Harnack's case) studying the history of the canon. Contemporary scholars have since reconsidered the precise nature and definition of canon, and, if the process is understood to be an authoritative collection of books to which nothing can be added and nothing can be subtracted, (i.e., echoing the decree of Athanasius' Epistola Festalis) the period of canon formation is properly located in the fourth/fifth century CE.

Only after the second half of the fourth century did Christian writers begin to use "canon" to refer to a canon of "scriptures", either using the Greek word Kanōn or the Latin word canon. Prior to this, the term canon was being applied to metaphorical standards and to refer to fixed lists in both the east and the west; for example, describing orthodox Christian teachings, terms such as the "canon of Truth", "canon of Faith" or "ecclesiastical cannon" were used. Canon was also used to refer to a "list" or "table" in astronomical, mathematical and chronological writings of the early Christians. However, only after the Council of Nicea (325 CE) did the word canon begin to be used to describe other types of lists, such as resolutions of Church synods or official lists of clergy. Soon afterward, the word canon was applied to lists of accepted Christian writings. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260 – c. 339 CE) is the first to use the term Kanōn or its cognate for a list of Christian scriptures – this refers only to the fourfold Gospel collection however. Although Eusebius in his History Of The Church spoke of the canon of the early fathers, namely Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 120 – c. 202 CE), Clement of Alexandria (d. c. 215 CE) and Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 – c. 254 CE), these writers never identified an authoritative list of books, i.e., a canon. Eusebius constructed these lists on behalf of the early fathers by analysing their written material; therefore, these "canonical" lists do not represent the original writings of his predecessors, but are instead of Eusebius own creation. Athanasius (c. 293 – c. 373 CE), bishop of Alexandria (Egypt), writing around c. 350 CE provides for us the earliest extant use of the word Kanōn in reference to the Christian scriptures in general.^[8]

Given that it is important to distinguish between several similar but distinct terms, lets us now highlight some popular terms. A note of caution though: even trying to define the terms canon and scripture is fraught with difficulties as these definitions are usually constructed according to the holder's preferred interpretation of Christian history, and, importantly, on their own theological presuppositions. Eugene Ulrich, Professor of Hebrew Scriptures at the University of Notre Dame, in his comprehensive treatment on the notion and definition of canon, helps to clarify many ambiguous terms and concepts. Discussing the differences between canon and other closely related concepts, he states,

A collection of authoritative scriptures... But it is necessary to keep in mind Bruce Metzger's distinction between "a collection of authoritative books" and "an authoritative collection of books." One can designate the growing collection of authoritative books as "canonical" in the first sense of the rule, but there is not yet a canon in the second sense of an authoritative list.^[9]

Ulrich then goes on to speak about the essential elements in the concept of canon,

1. The book, not its textual form,
2. Reflective judgement, and
3. Closed list.

With regard to the third essential element, that the "canon" constitutes a closed list, Ulrich explains,

Closed list. An essential part of the process toward the canon was the judging and sifting to determine which books were supremely authoritative and which not. As long as the list was open, there was a collection of authoritative books, a collection of scriptures, but there was not yet an authoritative collection of books, a canon. We have noted Metzger's insistence, echoing Athanasius, that the process by which the canon was formed "was a task, not only of collecting, but also of sifting and rejecting."^[10]

Thus the requirement of reflective judgement and an exclusively closed list of books (prescinding from the textual form of the books) are essential elements in the concept of canon. As long as those elements are missing, the community has a collection of authoritative books of scripture, but it does not yet have a canon. This important distinction is unfortunately lost in the missionaries rush to prove that many books of the New Testament had reached "God inspired" status by the late first century! The missionary Farooq Ibrahim claims to describe the process by which certain books of the New Testament became an authoritative collection (i.e., a canon). He states,

I also discovered that of the 27 books of the Injeel, the 4 gospel books, book of Acts, and 15 letters of Peter, John and Paul were widely used and quoted by the early Christian leaders before 70 AD, within 30 years after Isa's ascension, while eye witness to these events were still alive. These 20 books were all considered God inspired scripture by the Christian community as the apostles did many miracles similar to those of Isa, thereby validating their claim of being divinely inspired.

Apart from the not insignificant fact that numerous books on the above list were not even in existence before 70 CE, including Matthew, Luke and John^[11] did the fact that these books were quoted by the early Christians and considered as 'inspired' impact their canonicity in terms of the second sense of the rule as described by Ulrich above? The answer is clearly no. The writings of the apostolic fathers only point to the existence and dissemination of certain Gospels and Epistles. There is little recognition of them being regarded as 'holy scripture'.^[12] Moreover, the public reading of a certain book of the New Testament does not guarantee its canonical status. While (in hindsight) every canonical book was read in public worship, the converse is simply not true – that is, every book read in public worship is canonical.^[13] Furthermore, 'inspiration' as a criterion of canonicity was never employed by the early Christians as an exclusive deciding factor.^[14] So what criteria did the early church use to decide what writing was to become canonical and what writing was not? We can certainly state that the early church outlined no definitive criteria for the selection of canonical books. Rather, scholars today analyse the process by which certain books of the New Testament became canonical and then create certain criteria which, in their opinion, the early church utilised. As a result, the criteria proposed can sometimes be contradictory and be quite distinct from criteria proposed by other scholars. De Jonge makes reference to a comprehensive study on the criteria of canon contained in Karl-Heinz Ohlig's, Die Theologische Begründung des Neutestamentlichen Kanons in der alten Kirche. Ohlig mentions eleven different criteria used by the early Christians in deciding upon the canonicity of any given writing. These criteria were not applied consistently, neither were they applied universally:

1. apostolicity, sometimes taken in the narrow meaning of authenticity, but more often in the broader sense of deriving either from an apostle or from a follower of an apostle; apostolic could even mean "in keeping with the pure and right teaching of the apostles"; 2. the age of the document in question; 3. the historical likelihood of its contents (obviously fictitious and fantastic stories are often a ground for rejecting the book in which they occur); 4. orthodoxy; 5. the agreement with the Scriptures of the Old Testament; 6. the edifying nature of the document at issue; 7. its being directed to the Church as a whole (catholicity); 8. clarity and meaningfulness (the contents must not be absurd); 9. spirituality of the contents; 10. acceptance by the Church at large; 11. use for public lessons in the Church. It has often been observed that these criteria were applied with striking inconsistency. For instance, not all writings attributed to an apostle succeeded in being accepted as canonical, as the fate of the Gospel of Thomas or that of the Gospel of Peter may illustrate. l Clement is probably considerably older than such writings as 2 Peter and Jude; yet the latter two were eventually received into the canon, whereas the former was not. It will not do to argue that the author of l Clement was not known to be an apostle or an apostle's follower, for the author of the letter to the Hebrews was not known at all which did not prevent this writing from being highly esteemed in the eastern Church and, eventually, from being canonized both in the East and the West. Finally, several writings that were included in the list of authoritative books did not meet the criteria applied to justify the recognition of other writings. For instance, it is hard to maintain that such Pauline letters as those to Philemon or to the Galatians are addressed to the Church as a whole. In brief, the so-called criteria of canonicity were used with notable flexibility and irritating inconsistency.^[15]

Many other early Christian writings are spoken favourably of by early fathers and considered by them to be 'divinely inspired', such as I Clement (II Clement), the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. In fact, scholars have shown that these writings were used more often, were more widely accepted, and found in larger geographical areas than other writings that were eventually canonised in the New Testament such as, Hebrews, II Peter, James, and II and III John!^[16] Based on surviving manuscript evidence, in comparison to the gospel according to 'Mark',^[17] scholars have shown that in the early centuries of Christendom, the gospel according to 'Peter' has three times the amount of manuscript evidence, suggesting that it was at least as popular as Mark if not more so.^[18] Up until the sixth century CE the most popular non-canonical writing called the Shepherd of Hermas had stronger manuscript evidence than some of the books that would eventually become part of the canonical (Protestant) New Testament! For instance, focussing on the early centuries of Christendom, in comparison to Mark, the Shepherd of Hermas has greater manuscript evidence, suggesting that it was more widely read than Mark.^[19]

One notes, however, that these books did not make their way into the final collection of the twenty-seven book (Protestant) canon. Conversely, other books that did find their way into the canon, such as the Catholic Epistles and Revelation, were disputed by many in the early church – disputes that continue to this very day. Also, numerous apostolic fathers simply made no reference whatsoever to many writings that would eventually be found in the twenty-seven book (Protestant) canon.^[20] One can see that this lack of terminological rigour has caused the missionary to misinterpret the historical data through which he constructs his own hypotheses regarding the essential elements of the concept of canon, paying scant regard to the etymology, theological definitions, including those of Jews, Catholics and Protestants, and the historical processes that are clearly elucidated in the scholarly discussions on the subject.^[21]

3. A "Developing" Canon

Harnack considered the 'heretical' movements of early Christianity as a decisive factor in the churches' move towards a canon of the New Testament. Harnack identified influences such as Marcionism, Gnosticism and Montanism, as major contributory factors towards the development of the New Testament canon. For example, the challenges proposed by Marcion and his insistence on the Gospel of Luke (in modified form)^[22] and the ten Epistles of Paul (also in modified form). Until Marcion's declaration, no one had advanced the claim to present the only normative and authentic documents for all Christendom.^[23] Marcion, therefore, was one of the earliest, if not the earliest promoter of a collection of written Christian scriptures. This led the early church, reacting to what they believed to be 'heretical' claims, to think more carefully about what writings could be considered 'inspired' and authoritative and what writings could not, as well as the scope of the New Testament. One should bear in mind the difference between a collection of scriptures and a canon of scriptures (i.e., to which nothing can be added and to which nothing can be subtracted). Contemporary scholars have shown that Marcion cannot be credited with being the first entity to advocate a (closed) canon (i.e., to which nothing can be added and to which nothing can be subtracted) of the New Testament; there is no direct evidence that Marcion knew or excluded other gospels. Although Tertullian accused Marcion of rejecting certain epistles of Paul, there is no evidence to suggest he knew of them. In any case, his work continued to be edited by his followers who apparently did not consider their founder's view as one of exclusivity.^[24]

No one can be absolutely sure of the historical reasons behind the emergence of the New Testament canon; some popular reasons associated with its emergence are as follows: Marcionism, Gnosticism, Montanism as well as persecution and book making practices.^[25] However, with the exception of the Muratorian fragment,^[26] there are no catalogues of the Christian canon before the fourth century CE, and, as such, to speak of a canon before the fourth century CE is problematic. As has been noted by Barton, as well as others, the stricter the definition of canon, the later its date of formation is located. With this in mind, taking into account the definitions of canon noted above, i.e., canon being an authoritative collection of books – an exclusive list, let us progress forward to the significant developments of the fourth century CE, paying attention to the major Bishoprics of early Christendom, i.e., Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch, and their respective localities.

Figure 1: Map of the Roman Empire: The Mediterranean in late antiquity.^[27]

Athanasius, being the first Christian to advocate the twenty-seven book list of the New Testament, accepted as canonical by Protestants today, holds particular prominence in canon study. Without the aid of modern calendars and time-keeping devices, the date for Easter had to be set every year. Athanasius would thus take the opportunity to offer pastoral advice and council to his local congregations in churches and monasteries throughout Egypt under his jurisdiction. In his thirty-ninth Epistola Festalis written in 367 CE, as part of his religious advice, he delineates the extent of the New Testament canon that his churches were to accept – i.e., the twenty-seven book list accepted as canonical by Protestants today. However, even in Athanasius' own church there was intense disagreement regarding his proclamation. Didymus the Blind (c. 313 – c. 398 CE), a contemporary and close friend of Athanasius, claimed that II Peter was a "forgery". He also considered the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas and I Clement as authoritative and canonical.^[28] Based on the historical facts, de Jonge observes,

Moreover, it should be remembered that the fixation of the New Testament canon in Athanasius' 39th Festal Letter of 367 and in the acts of the Synods of Hippo Regius of 393, confirmed by the Synods of Carthage of 397 and 419, was only temporary and provisional. In later sources, canon lists show hardly less variation than before 367. The first really effective measures were the decisions of the Council of Trent of 1545, and the inclusion of canon lists in a series of early confessions of faith drawn up by Protestants. These Protestant confessions include the Confession de foy or Confessio Gallicana of the French (Reformed) Churches established in Paris in 1559, and the Confession de foy or Confessio Belgica drawn up in 1561 by Guy de Brès and adopted by the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands in the sixties and seventies of the sixteenth century.^[29]

Even if we focus on the general timeframe of Athanasius proclamation, during the period of the fourth and early fifth centuries CE, we can observe the proliferation of canonical lists delineating the limits of the New Testament; in this period there are fifteen undisputed lists of the Christian canon, the bulk of them of them differing (i.e., their canon) from each other. The lists are as follows (in chronological order):^[30]

1. Eusebius.
2. Catalogue in Codex Claromontanus.
3. Cyril of Jerusalem.
4. Athanasius.
5. Mommsen Catalogue.
6. Epiphanius.
7. Apostolic Canons.
8. Gregory of Nazianzus.
9. African Canons.
10. Jerome.
11. Augustine.
12. Amphilochius.
13. Rufinus.
14. Pope Innocent.
15. Syrian Catalogue of St. Catherine's.

So it is clear that Athanasius was not the only person advocating a canonical list of the New Testament; many other notable figures were involved in promulgating a canon of the New Testament, each entity representing their own community/church. Therefore, if we examine the provenance of these above named lists it becomes abundantly clear that "the Church" did not come to "universally" accept the twenty-seven book canon of the New Testament by the fourth century CE, let alone the "complete" Bible.^[31]

Table I: The Provenance Of Fourth Century Catalogues.^[32]

Should one be surprised by the facts provided in Table I above? It certainly would not have been surprising to the early Christians living at this period of time, as each Christian community was actively advocating their canon of scripture as there was no authoritative universally agreed-upon canon, received either through human instruction or divine revelation. For example, Tatian (d. c. 185 CE), a student of the famous Justin Martyr (c. 100 – c. 165 CE), after returning to the East c. 172 CE, brought with him his Diatessaron (harmonisation of the four gospel accounts) which he introduced amongst the local churches. After managing to establish the authority of his book in Edessa, it spread throughout all churches in the region. The Diatessaron continued to be used for centuries longer amongst the Syrian clergy including notable figures such as Aphraat (c. 290 – c. 370 CE) and Ephraem (d. c. 373 CE), both of whom never make reference to any Catholic Epistle, rejected the Epistle to Philemon and accepted as canonical III Corinthians. The earliest known canon of scriptures in the eastern Syriac speaking churches is gathered from the Doctrine of Addai (c. 400 CE). It consists of Tatian's Diatessaron, the Epistles of Paul and the book of Acts. The seven Catholic Epistles and the book of Revelation are not used. We can observe a reaction against this "heretical" move when major personalities in the region began to remove the Diatessaron from circulation and replace them instead with the separate four-fold Gospel collection.^[33] One should also recall the astonishing statement of Amphilochius of Iconium (see Table I above), bishop in Asia-minor, cousin of Gregory of Nazianzus, a contemporary and colleague of Basil the Great, who, in reference to his own catalogue of scripture states:

This is perhaps the most reliable [literally, the most unfalsified] canon of the divinely inspired scriptures.^[34]

Amphilochius' catalogue appears to reject II Peter, II and III John, and Jude, and almost certainly rejects Revelation. Counted as one of the most highly rated theologians of his time, whose extensive secular erudition as well as scriptural knowledge was witnessed to by no less a figure than Jerome,^[35] he was still unsure as to the extent of the New Testament canon at the close of the fourth century. Rather, he preferred a purely logical approach, suggesting that his list of scriptures was the one that could be falsified the least!

Although in the Western (Latin) Church there was a general recognition of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament by the beginning of the fifth century CE, it would be incorrect to suggest that the canon was finally settled in all the divergent Christian communities. The Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans is found in more than 100 manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate, including the oldest manuscript Codex Fuldensis (546 CE) as well as in manuscripts of early Albigensian, Bohemian, English and Flemish Versions. Aelfric of Dorset and John of Salisbury both accept the epistle as part of the canon of the New Testament. In all eighteen German Bibles printed prior to Luther's translation, beginning 1488 CE, the Epistle finds its way in between Galatians and Ephesians. The first Czech (Bohemian) Bible, published in 1488 CE (including numerous re-prints in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), the Epistle finds its way between Colossians and I Thessalonians.^[36] In the Eastern (Greek) Church the situation is even worse. For instance, the Trullan Synod (691 – 692 CE) in Constantinople endorsed the canonical lists of the following Synods: the Council of Laodicea [Canon 59 (60)], Apostolic Canons [Canon 85] and Council of Carthage [Canon 47], as well as those of the Nicene and post-Nicene fathers namely Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus and Amphilochius of Iconium. In places these canonical lists vary considerably among themselves.^[37] Therefore, in Eastern (Greek) Christendom, at the close of the seventh century we are left with a contradictory account of the canon of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Numerous Eastern Orthodox (Greek) theologians throughout the Byzantine period including Andrew of Crete (c. 660 – c. 740 CE), Germanus (patriarch) of Constantinople (c. 634 – 732 CE), Theodore the Studite (c. 759 – 826 CE) and Theophylact of Bulgaria (c. 1050 – c. 1108 CE) considered many books of the "apocryphal" Old Testament as canonical due to the fact that the Septuagint version of the Bible was widely accepted and received as authoritative in Greek speaking Christianity. They considered the canonicity of these "apocryphal" books to be on the same level as the 'canonical' books. At the second ecumenical council of Nicea (Asia Minor) in 767 CE, which included representatives from the patriarchs of Rome, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch, certain apocrypha were quoted as authoritative (i.e., considered canonical). Likewise at the fourth general council of Constantinople (Asia Minor) in 869 CE convened by Basil the Macedonian (c. 813 – c. 886 CE), which included representatives from the patriarchs of Rome, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch, certain apocrypha were also quoted as authoritative.^[38]

As a result of this confusion, focussing specifically on the 10th century CE, B. F. Westcott is able to enumerate no less than six different canons of both the New and Old Testament that were received in the Greek Church alone.^[39] Given that the core of these historical facts are clearly recorded in Metzger's The Canon Of The New Testament: Its Origin, Significance & Development, one cannot help but note the incredible dishonesty in the following statement,

According to Metzger, the Church universally came to accept the 27 books of the NT in the fourth century...

Contrary to the claim of the missionary, Metzger did not say that the Church "universally came to accept the 27 books of the New Testament in the fourth century." Rather Metzger points out that,

During the third and part of the fourth century there was a sifting of the disputed books; certain of them came to be acknowledged as canonical and others as apocryphal. Among the church fathers who made a careful study of the usage through out the church was Eusebius of Caesarea, who quotes in his Ecclessiastical History the pronouncements of earlier writers concerning the limits of the canon. In summarizing the results of his investigations (Book III, chap. 25), he divides the books into three classes: (a) twenty-two are generally acknowledged to be canonical, namely the four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul (including Hebrews), I John, I Peter, and Revelation (though see Eusebius' comment cited in (c) below); (b) five are widely accepted, though disputed by some (apparently all were accepted by Eusebius himself), namely James, Jude, II Peter (earlier regarded by Eusebius as spurious), II and III John; and (c) five are spurious... Eusebius continues, "To these perhaps the Revelation of John should be added, as some reject it while other count it among the accepted books." It will be observed that this is virtually the canon as we know it today. After Eusebius' time (about A.D. 325) the fluctuations in the canon are very slight.

In the East, Athanasius was the first to name (in his Festal Letter for A.D. 367) exactly the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as exclusively canonical. In the West, at the African synods of Hippo Regius (A.D. 393) and Carthage (A.D. 397 and 419) the twenty-seven books of the New Testament were accepted... Though in the East some continued to have doubts about the canonicity of the book of Revelation, eventually the canon of most of the Eastern churches came to be identical with that of the Western church. The Syrian church, however, accepted only twenty-two books; II Peter, II and III John, Jude, and Revelation are lacking in the standard version of the Syriac Bible, called the Peshitta, dating from the early part of the fifth century.^[40]

As one can see it does even remotely sound like Metzger is saying that the Church "universally came to accept the twenty-seven books of the New Testament in the fourth century." In fact, there is no such assertion by Metzger at all! Metzger is simply pointing out that in Eusebius' time there were differences among the extent of the New Testament canon, and not everyone accepted the authority of all the twenty-seven books. Furthermore, he also adds that the Syriac Church has twenty-two books in their New Testament; five books less than what is accepted by the Protestants and Roman Catholics today.

The dispute over the extent of the Old Testament and New Testament has never ceased even to this day. Remarkably, even the celebrated Protestant reformer Luther (1483 – 1546 CE) considered several books of the New Testament declared canonical in Athanasius list, were in actual fact apocryphal! As we have observed, the decision to sanction the twenty-seven book canon was made at a local level either through synods or council meetings. Their proceedings were not binding on the whole church.^[41] In fact, there was no official "church-wide" decree until the (Roman Catholic) Council of Trent (1545 – 1563 CE), where the issue of canon was debated and finally decided upon in the fourth session on the 8th April, 1546 CE, by a vote of twenty-four to fifteen, with sixteen abstentions.^[42] Soon thereafter there appeared numerous Protestant confessional statements, many of which included an authoritative list of books, i.e., a canon.

Is the question of canon closed? A quick glance at the last 2,000 years of Christian scholarship from various churches, denominations and sects, throughout the ancient, medieval and modern period, suggests not. M. J. Sawyer, Professor of Theology at Western Seminary, comments,

The Festal letter of Athanasius (c. A.D. 367) is well known as the first list to contain all and only the present twenty-seven book New Testament Canon. Thirty years later the Synod of Carthage, under the influence of the great Augustine, reached a similar conclusion. Youngblood gives the common Protestant evaluation of these pronouncements:

Thus led (as we believe) by divine Providence, scholars during the latter half of the fourth century settled for all time the limits of the New Testament canon. The 27 books of Matthew through Revelation constitute that New Testament, which possesses divine authority equal to that of the Old.

The problem with such a sweeping assertion is that it does not fit the historical facts. First, the synods of Hippo and Carthage were not ecumenical councils, but local assemblies whose decisions held sway only in the local sees. The Festal letter of Athanasius, to be sure, gives us the judgment of a key figure of the ancient church, but it did not bind even the Eastern Church. The ancient church never reached a conscious and binding decision as to the extent of canon. Proof of this fact can be seen in the canons of the various churches of the empire.^[43]

Let us now turn our attention to the historical position regarding various books of the Bible in various Churches.

4. Catalogue Of Canonical Books In Various Churches

The list below represents the historical position regarding various books of the Bible in different Churches, in both the Eastern and the Western Christianity. The list may be slightly different from that of modern printed editions. For the sake of comparison we have also added the list of books in the Vulgate, Septuagint and in Luther's Bible.^[44]

P Present

(P) Present in some recensions

ARejected as Apocrypha

.Not present or not listed

OLD TESTAMENT

NEW TESTAMENT

A more exhaustive treatment on the issue of canons is available in the article The Canons Of The Old Testament & The New Testament Through The Ages. Various canons and recensions of Armenian Bible are tabulated here.

5. The Protestant Reformation & The Council Of Trent

Following on from the period known as the "dark ages", where large swathes of Latin and Greek Christendom were characterised by a poverty of thought and material advancement, men of new learning known as the 'humanists' sought to raise themselves above the scholasticism that was all pervasive at the time. This new mode of learning and advancement of knowledge saw the biblical texts once again come under the magnifying glass of the 'original' languages in which they were commonly written. One man of particular importance during this period was Johannes Reuchlin (1455 – 1522 CE), founder of the university of Wittenberg, Germany, who was the first person to introduce the focussed study of Greek and Hebrew into German universities. An in-depth knowledge of the original biblical languages would subsequently lay the foundations for the Protestant reformers application of 'canonical criticism', including two people who would eventually become fellow professors at Wittenberg, Martin Luther (1483 – 1546 CE) and Andreas Rudolf Bodenstein von Karlstadt (c. 1480 – 1541 CE).

LUTHER AND KARLSTADT: THE STRUGGLE FOR ASCENDANCY

"... Now a wild Boar from the forest threatens to ravage the vineyard, indeed, a wild animal threatens to pluck its fruit...",^[45]

So Pope Leo X declares in his famous opening paragraph in his papal bull Exsurge Domine of 1520 CE in reference to one of the major figureheads of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther. What interests us here, however, is not how Luther understood what he recognised as the corrupt practices and theological errors of the Roman Catholic Church, rather it is his view of scripture and how he interprets its canonical authority. Bodenstein, who conferred on Luther his doctorate of theology, anticipated him in two important respects that would be foundational in his approach to the question of canon.

1. Bodenstein's 152 theses of April 1517 CE included an important pronouncement on the relative authority of the Bible, and,
2. Whilst defending Luther in a second series of theses published in May 1518 CE, Karlstadt affirmed the supremacy of the Bible over and above those decisions of councils, popes and the church.

Later in 1517 CE, Luther, in response to Silvester Mazzolini (official censor of the Pope Leo X) for the first time appeals to books he called canonical as alone binding. Let us now turn to a watershed moment in the application of 'canonical criticism'. On the 8th July 1519 CE, whilst discussing the subject of purgatory with Johann Eck (1486 – 1543 CE), the chief strategist of the Roman see and Luther's principal theological adversary, Luther stated that the second book of Maccabees was not part of the biblical canon and therefore could not be used to prove any point of doctrine. This was the first explicit statement by a Protestant reformer that a book commonly received by 'the church' was not in fact part of the biblical canon. In a subsequent exchange with Eck, Luther stated that a book affirmed its own canonical authority and needed no other witness apart from itself.

Let not one conclude that such disputations, debates and discussions were conducted by those on opposite sides of the theological spectrum. The Protestant reformers quarrelled among themselves regarding what biblical books were to be viewed as authoritative and which were not. For example, Luther's understanding of justification by faith and faith alone, ran contrary to the message he saw portrayed in the epistle of James, and he, along with his students at Wittenberg held a low view of James and poured contempt on it. Karlstadt however devoted a summer term to lecture on James and maintained its canonicity in the most vigorous language. Such was the heat of the discussion that a rivalry and feud broke out amongst their respective students. Karlstadt, appalled by the fact that Luther had reduced the mater of canonicity to one of personal choice and internal illumination, wrote a work entitled De Canonicis Scripturis Libellus published in August 1520 CE, where he attempted to deal with the problem of the biblical canon in a methodical and scientific way, and in doing so attacked Luther's adopted stance. In his treatise Karlstadt condemned Luther's rejection of the epistle of James and said, "One must appeal either to know apostolic authorship or to universal historical acceptance as to the test of a book's canonicity not to internal doctrinal considerations."^[46] It is remarkable then that the motivation behind the first systematic work on the biblical canon from a Protestant reformer, was not in response to the Roman Catholic Church but due to a fellow professor and reformed colleague at Wittenberg, namely Martin Luther!

It seems as though Luther, Karlstadt and others were largely influenced by Reuchlin, who in turn followed Jerome and adopted the canonical position of the Hebrew Old Testament. Therefore, Karlstadt divides both Old and New Testaments into three different ranks of dignity wherein each book is classified according to its level of divine inspiration and authority. The third and lowest class of books (i.e., comparatively inferior to the other two classes) which are termed as tertius ordo canonis and In tertium et infirmum auctoritatis divinae locum respectively, include Job, Psalms, the three books of Solomon, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, the two books of Chronicles, Esdras, Esther, and, the seven antilegomena (disputed) books of James, II Peter, II and III John, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation. Howarth notes that Karlstadt innovated an interesting two fold division of Old Testament books he considered outside the Hebrew canon:

Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Judith Tobias, two books of Maccabees: These are apocryphi, he says, i.e. outside the Hebrew Canon, nevertheless agiographi ('Hi sunt apocryphi, i.e. extra canonem hebraeorum, tamen agiographi').

The two later books of Esdras, Baruch, the prayer of Manasses, a large part of the third chapter of Daniel, the last two chapters of Daniel: These books are plainly apocryphal ('Hi sunt plane apocryphi, virgis censoriis animadvertendi').

The first class of books in this two fold division was still considered by Karlstadt to be scripture; nevertheless they were rejected from his canon of scripture because they were not accepted by the Jews. The first "complete" Bible according to the view of the Protestant reformers was that of the Lutheran evangelist Andreas Osiander (1498 – 1552 CE). Published in December 1522 CE, it was a new edition of Jerome's Latin Vulgate corrected in several places from the Hebrew, wherein the Hebrew Old Testament canon was followed. It also contained numerous "apocryphal" books many of which have attached to them headings and marginal notes identifying their lack of canonical authority. The first edition of Luther's New Testament was completed in September 1522 CE with a second edition complete by December. The textual basis for his translation was the second edition of the Greek New Testament of Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466 – 1536 CE). The actual physical construction of Luther's New Testament is very interesting. In his list there are twenty-three New Testament books which are numbered sequentially. The four New Testament books viz., Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation were all placed at the end separated by a space and were numberless. In the prefaces to each of these books, Luther explains his doubts as to their apostolic as well as canonical authority.^[47] What was the fate of these four books? Luther's principal test to determine canonicity can be summed up in three words: was Christum treibet ("whatever promotes Christ"). Whatever preaches Christ is thus the principal way to delineate the extent of the biblical canon.^[48] This key principle allowed Luther to call into question and subsequently reject as apocryphal Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation – writings which had been declared as part of an exclusive collection of books first promulgated by Athanasius in his Epistola Festalis of 367 CE. Not only did Luther dismiss these four books as "apocryphal", he divided the remaining twenty-three books of the New Testament into different ranks of nobility dependant on his interpretation of was Christum treibet. For example, John's Gospel is "... the one, fine, true, and chief gospel, far, far to be preferred over the other three and placed high above them."^[49] The letters of Paul and Peter "far surpass the other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke."^[50]

In a very short period of time, Luther's theories on what constituted the biblical canon, his canonical ordering and relative value judgements on the biblical books, very quickly spread throughout large parts of Western Christendom as we shall now observe.

PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE BIBLE: THE ACCEPTANCE OF LUTHER'S CANONICAL JUDGEMENT

Two Low-German editions of the New Testament were completed in 1523 CE and were published by Simon Corver and Melchior Lotther at Hamburg and Wittenberg respectively. Luther's prefaces to the biblical books and his understanding of their relative value and canonical order were adopted. In the same year the first volume of Luther's Old Testament was published at Wittenberg and it contained a title page which indicated he intended to publish his work in five separate volumes, the fifth and final volume containing the "apocryphal" books. A translation of Luther's New Testament into Dutch was published at Antwerp and maintained Luther's prefaces to the biblical books, his understanding of their relative value and canonical order. In 1524 CE there appeared a translation of the New Testament into Danish at Leipzig. The epistles and Revelation were translated from Luther's edition as was his general introduction as well as some other introductions to the biblical books. Luther's canonical ordering of the biblical books was maintained. In 1525 CE a Dutch translation of the Old Testament was also published at Antwerp. The Torah and Psalms were translated from Luther's edition with the rest of the Old Testament being translated from the Delft edition of the Vulgate of 1477 CE. The apocryphal books are printed in the order as they appear in the Vulgate with the Prayer of Manasses coming after II Chronicles. In 1526 CE another complete Bible in Dutch was published by Van Liesveldt. The New Testament was translated from Luther's edition and maintained Luther's prefaces to the biblical books, his understanding of their relative value and canonical order. The Old Testament was translated from Luther's edition only from Genesis to Canticles. This was apparently the first complete Bible in a modern language where the "apocrypha" were separated from the (Luther's) other "canonical" books. Also in 1526 CE a Swedish translation of the New Testament was published at Stockholm. It was based on Luther's edition and maintained his prefaces to the biblical books, his understanding of their relative value and canonical order. The first complete Bible in Iceland appeared in 1584 CE; the New Testament books were present in accordance with Luther's canonical order. Howarth notes that by the early sixteenth century, all of the Scandinavian countries adopted Luther's understanding and ordering of the biblical canon, and, as we have observed, this was reflected in their printed editions of the Bible.

In Switzerland, Huldreich Zwingli (1484 – 1531 CE) also adopted Luther's understanding of the biblical canon. With the assistance of his friends, Zwingli translated the Bible into Swiss-German using Luther's edition of the New Testament and Old Testament (from Genesis to Canticles only). This 'Zürich' Bible was published between 1527 – 1529 CE and it maintained Luther's prefaces to the biblical books, his understanding of their relative value and canonical order. As was the case with several other Bible's and other editions of this period, the books given on the title page and the actual books contained within the text were not the same; although nowhere to be seen in the title page, the third book of Maccabees is included^[51] within the text of the Zürich Bible with the following heading: 'Das dritt büch Machabaeorum nach dem Graechischen (als der Sibenzig spraachmeysteren edition vermag) recht tygenlich verteuschet'. In 1529 CE a Latin translation of Luther's Bible (as far as it had been printed) was published at Wittenberg. The books of the New Testament are present in accordance with Luther's canonical order. Johannes Oecolampadius (1482 – 1531 CE), a German Protestant reformer and an associate of Zwingli in the Reformation in Switzerland said that, "We do not despise Judith, Tobit, Baruch, the last two books of Esdras, the three books of Maccabees, the last two chapters of Daniel, but we do not allow them Divine authority equally with those others (i.e. of the Hebrew Canon)." He also added, "In the New Testament... we do not compare the Apocalypse, the Epistles of James, and Jude, and II Peter and II, III John with the rest."^[52] Writing just one year before his death, Oecolampadius enumerated a complete listing of the biblical books of both the Old and New Testament; the epistle to the Hebrews was not mentioned as being part of the New Testament. In 1530 CE Lefèvre completed a French translation of the complete Bible that was published anonymously at Antwerp. This version of the Bible would become the foundation from which all subsequent French Bibles would be built. In 1534 CE a second edition was published which included a 'special table' of books. The "apocrypha", in contrast to the other biblical books, had their titles set back. Several books not mentioned in the list, namely the Prayer of Manasses, Lamentations and the Epistle of Jeremy found their way into text of the Bible. Also in 1530 CE a second edition of the (Zwingli et al) Zürich Bible was published. All of the "apocryphal" books were now printed at the end of the New Testament, making them even more separated than was previously so. In 1531 CE yet another edition of the Zürich Bible was published. This time the Old Testament "apocrypha" follow immediately after Esther. The last four books of the New Testament, namely Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation, were present in accordance with Luther's canonical order. In 1532 CE, a revised edition containing an updated translation of Liesveldt's Dutch Bible was published; the New Testament books were present in accordance with Luther's canonical order.

By 1532 CE, Luther had published a total of four volumes which contained all the books he considered to be part of the canonical Old Testament. The fifth volume which would have contained the "apocrypha" never made it to press, although Luther did throughout his career make a number of independent translations of various "apocryphal" books. A Low-German edition of the Bible published at Lübeck in 1533 CE omits numbering the four books, although subsequent editions would vary in this regard; whatever the case, Luther's prefaces to the biblical books, his understanding of their relative value and canonical order were maintained. Consequently, Luther's theories on the biblical canon were further solidified among the Lutherans of North Germany. In 1534 CE a German translation of the Bible was published by Egenolph at Frankfort and was based on Luther's translations of the biblical books available at the time. The "apocrypha" were printed after Malachi with a title page named "apocrypha". Baruch was placed in the "apocrypha" along with the additions to Esther and the three books of Maccabees. The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children and the Prayer of Manasses, found in previous editions of the Bible according to other Protestant reformers, were not present. Luther's canonical arrangement of the New Testament books was followed. The first complete Luther's Bible was published in 1534 CE. Luther had the printing of the "apocrypha" towards the end of the Old Testament.^[53] Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation were printed towards the end of the New Testament. In prefaces to each of these books, Luther explains his doubts as to their apostolic as well as canonical authority. Interestingly, Luther's apocryphal list of books had changed with time. In this complete edition of his Bible, Esra was nowhere to be seen and the Prayer of Manasses was included even although it was not to be found in his earlier list of Old Testament "apocrypha" nor the present one – indeed the Prayer of Manasses was rejected by Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. Contrary to the recently published Zürich Bible, the third and fourth books of Esdras were not included. Howarth comments:

He [Luther] thus emphasized the difficulty created by the subjective method of discriminating the Canonicity of the books, and, by his own practice, admitted that among the Reformers there was dissension as to the very keystone of their position, i.e., as to what were the legitimate contents of the Bible.

A second issue of the first edition of Coverdale's English Bible was published in 1536 CE. In his dedication to the King, Coverdale stated his translation was based on 'five sundry interpreters' which scholars have understood to mean the Zürich Bible, Luther's and Tyndale's translations that were available at the time, the Latin version of the Dominican Pagnini and the Vulgate. Interestingly the third book of Maccabees is not present, given its presence in numerous influential Protestant translations of the Bible (e.g., Zürich Bible) that were widely available. The New Testament books are present in accordance with Luther's canonical order and they would remain so in subsequent editions. Pierre-Robert Olivetan (c. 1506 – 1536 CE), the cousin of John Calvin (1509 – 1564 CE), completed a new French translation (probably an edition of Lefèvre with some corrections) of both the Old and New Testament which was published in 1534 CE and 1535 CE respectively at Neuchatel, France. The Old Testament is present according to the Hebrew canon and is followed by the heading 'Les Apocryphes', which included the books that the Protestant reformers generally understood to be the "apocrypha", with the Prayer of Manasses appearing last; the only exception to this is the absence of III Maccabees. The canonical order of the New Testament is present in accordance with that of the Vulgate. Like the Tyndale Bible published in 1525 CE, successive English translations of the Bible including the Nycolson Bible published in 1537 CE, the Matthew Bible published in 1537 CE and the Taverner Bible published in 1539 CE, maintained Luther's canonical arrangement of the New Testament books. The 'Great Bible' published in 1539 CE was the first English Bible officially authorised for public use. The canonical order of the New Testament was present in accordance with that of the Vulgate.

Calvin accepted the twenty-seven books as being the canonical New Testament with the possible exception of II John, III John and the Apocalypse, all of which he never wrote any commentaries on. Although he quotes the Apocalypse in his Institutes Of The Christian Religion, he never quotes II John or III John. Calvin also said that for II Peter to be accepted as canonical its Petrine authorship must be conceded and like Luther and Zwingli before him, he also commented on the relative value of individual New Testament books. In 1540 CE, just one year after Calvin had spoken forcefully about the authority of the Bible in his Institutes Of The Christian Religion, he published a corrected edition of Olivetan's Bible at Geneva. In the title page of this edition particular emphasis is laid on the appeal to the canonical books alone, which included the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. In contrast to previous printed editions of the Bible, the third book of Maccabees is excluded. An examination of printed editions of the Bibles issued under the patronage of Calvin and other Genevan reformers shows that they differed markedly from the other continental reformers regarding the authority and scope of the New Testament canon, in that they had always considered the twenty-seven books as comprising the canonical New Testament. The first complete Swedish translation of the entire Bible was published in 1540–1541 CE wherein Luther's edition of 1534 CE is followed precisely. It contains all of his prefaces (some abridged) as well as Luther's canonical arrangement of the Old/New Testament books. Therefore, as noted by Howarth, the Lutherans of Sweden entirely adopted their spiritual mentor's theory of the biblical canon. Moving back to Switzerland, a revised edition of the Zürich Bible (1531 CE) was published in 1542 CE; what makes this edition particularly notable was its abandonment of Luther's canonical ordering of the New Testament books.

After the birth of Luther's theories on the biblical canon his influence was steadily growing; throughout the first half of the sixteenth century a large section of Western Christendom had adopted his theories of the biblical canon. There was a major response to the Protestant reformation sometimes termed as the Catholic reformation and it is to this we now turn our attention.

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT

On 8th February 1546 CE, the first president, Cardinal Del Monte, announced his intention to proclaim the precise nature of the biblical canon in order that the foundations could be laid for all decisions on matters of faith. On 11th February 1546 CE, the particular congregation discussed the question of canon and this was followed by subsequent meetings of the general congregations on the 12th and 15th of February 1546 CE. It was thereafter agreed to accept the canon of the Council of Florence, however, this was not met with unanimous approval. The jurists Del Monte and Pacheco along with the majority of others, maintained that the canon of the Council of Florence was the decree of a general council, there could be no further discussion, only approval of what had already occurred. Cervini and Madruzzo along with a minority of supporters, said further discussion was necessary to highlight the reasons of the Florentine decision, given the modern arguments aggressively pursued by the humanists and reformers of the period, such as Erasmus and Luther, not to mention the criticisms of their own clergy, such as the reputed Tommaso de Vio, also known as (Cardinal) Cajetan. After much disagreement, Cervini's view was defeated. Critically, in order to prevent any further discussion on the scope of the canon Pacheco proposed in the General Congregation of the 15th February 1546 CE to add an anathema to the decree, i.e., declaring it an article of faith. This shrewd move instigated by Pacheco was met with fierce resistance, and as a result it was not possible to gauge the opinion of the Council other than to put the matter in hand to a vote! The result: twenty-four prelates sided with Del Monte's proposal while fifteen rejected his proposal; the remaining sixteen, clearly unhappy with the direction taken by the Council, abstained.^[54]

Some of Luther's most devoted followers distanced themselves from his canonical test theories and instead fell back upon more ancient canonical divisions of the New Testament, such as those devised by the early church fathers including the scheme espoused by the Christian historian Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260 – c. 339 CE), who categorised the books vying for a place in the New Testament as homologoumena (recognised), antilegomena (disputed), notha (spurious) and the 'fictions of heretics'. Lutheran devotee Matthias Flacius (1520 – 1575 CE), quoting the opinion of Eusebius in reference to II Peter, II John, III John and Hebrews, regarded them as not legitimate. Martin Bucer (1491 – 1551 CE) a leading reformer based in Strassburg, South Germany, also insisted that the early church recognised only the twenty books as homologoumena. Later on due to political trouble in his home city, Bucer fled to England at the invitation of Archbishop Cranmer; he would eventually become Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge where he taught until his death. Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz (1522 – 1586 CE) who had previously studied under Luther at the University of Wittenberg, wrote a response to the recently convened Council of Trent named Examen Concilii Tridentini which was published between 1565 CE and 1573 CE. Chemnitz distanced himself from his spiritual mentor theories of the biblical canon and instead adopted the Eusebian division. Chemnitz stated the seven antilegomena could not be used for proofs of doctrine but only for the purposes of edification. Johannes Brenz (1499 – 1570 CE), one of the primary authors of the Württemberg Confession designated the seven antilegomena as apocrypha; James, II Peter, II and III John, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation were useful to read but were not fully canonical. Later on, in a Low-German edition of the Bible published at Hamburg in 1596 CE, Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation were plainly labelled as apocrypha. In fact, in a Dutch polyglot edition of the Bible also published at Hamburg in 1596 CE, these four books were explicitly labelled as non-canonical! In another Low-German edition of the Bible which was published at Goslar in 1614 CE, the four books were once again labelled as apocrypha. This practice was also observed in Sweden, and, beginning in 1618 CE, the 'Gustavus Adolphus' Bible had the four dubious books labelled with the caption "Apocr(yphal) N. T." In this edition of the Bible including its future printings, as well as some other editions published in this period, the New Testament is divided threefold: "Gospels and Acts", "Epistles and Holy Apostles", and "Apocryphal New Testament".

At the beginning of the seventeenth century ardent Lutherans such as M. Hafenreffer and J. Schroeder in their written works also designated the seven antilegomena as apocrypha. It is important to note that this view was not held by the odd eccentric Lutheran, it was also the view of the theological faculty at the University of Wittenberg – the theological heart of the Protestant reformation. In response to criticisms of the Roman Church, Hafenreffer further changed his mind and judged that the New Testament apocrypha had greater authority than the Old Testament apocrypha. Similar views were also shared by the Lutherans F. Balduin and Dieterich. Leonhard Hutter (1563 – 1616 CE), professor of theology at Wittenberg, stated that the New Testament apocrypha (i.e., the antilegomena) occupied a place intermediate between the Old Testament apocrypha and the canonical books. Therefore, some of these reformers considered the seven antilegomena on a par with the Old Testament apocrypha while others judged them to be superior; some even went as far as to say that four books from the seven antilegomena, viz., Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation were non-canonical. Adopting an advanced defensive position in anticipation of further criticism, terminology such as 'apocrypha' was no longer applied to the antilegomena and they were to be distinguished by titles such as Libri canonici secundi ordinis and deuterocanonici.

By the early seventeenth century, England, Scotland, Holland and the German speaking Swiss reformers hailing from Zürich and Basle eventually came to adopt the canonical order in accordance with the Vulgate, after initially preferring the canonical arrangement of Luther and Zwingli. It should be remembered though that editions of the Bible in accordance with the Lutheran order of books were still being read and/or published for a considerable time afterward. In Germany and Scandinavia where Luther's theories on the biblical canon found strong favour, there was unswerving support and no such reversion to the canonical order of the Vulgate (of note) was observed. Although Luther's canonical order was modified in the next official revision of the Bible in Sweden published in the early eighteenth century, in countless instances, Luther's comments, prefaces to the biblical books and other associated materials were carried forward unhesitatingly in these two regions. In the revised standard edition of Luther's Bible published in 1892 CE, his canonical order is maintained. Luther's canonical order of the biblical books remains to this day in printed editions of Danish, Norwegian and German Bible's.

Based on his study of the New Testament books as reflected in the printed editions of the Bible in Western Christendom beginning from the time of Luther, Wikgren concludes:

From length of usage as either canonical or near-canonical writings, this really leaves the seven disputed New Testament books as primary candidates for the title "New Testament Apocrypha". Churchmen and scholars of the early Reformation period were not far off the mark in so designating them, although modern critical evaluation would probably add others from the standpoint of the pseudepigraphic criterion. But, as we have seen, this was not necessarily a deciding factor in the matter. Ultimately the long ecclesiastical usage of the books and their cultural involvements militated against the tendency to demote them from full canonical status, and the church found itself without a separate corpus of books which would be legitimately comparable to the Old Testament Apocrypha.

Luther said that the continual inspiration of the 'Holy Spirit', which he said could be found in every good Christian, would protect him from error, and, as such, Luther made himself the final authority on what constituted the biblical canon. Whatever book passed his test found welcome;^[55] whatever book failed his test was deprecated and excluded. Calvin and his scholars had an even more elastic test for canonicity. Calvin claimed that the 'Holy Spirit' spoke within him and enabled him to distinguish the true word of God from other spurious writings. For them, canonicity was based on the internal witness of the 'Holy Spirit' and no further test was required. It is worthwhile pointing out that Luther as well as the other early Protestant reformers treated the Bible commonly received by the Roman church as containing the maximum number of possible canonical books. This means that they did not conduct any canonical tests on biblical books not otherwise found in the Roman Catholic canon.^[56] As we have observed, these canonical decisions greatly influenced those reformers from other parts of the continent where Luther's theories on the biblical canon were adopted by a large section of Western Christendom and this was reflected in successive printed editions of the Old Testament, New Testament, "complete" Bibles and other editions. It should be mentioned that some scholars opine that Luther eventually came to accept the canon of the medieval Church. Whatever the case may be this only serves to h