Victor R. Claveau, MJ
The formation of the New Testament was like that of the Old Testament — a gradual process. While the Old Testament was composed over a period of approximately 1,200 years, the New Testament was written in less than 60 years.
From its very foundation, the Christian Church possessed a Canon of Sacred Scripture — the Old Testament. Our Lord and his Apostles, pious Jews, accepted and referred to the Old Testament as the inspired Word of God. For them and the primitive Church that immediately followed, the Old Testament had absolute authority.
Because Jesus had taught from the Old Testament, the Apostles and early Christian apologists appealed to its authority to demonstrate the orthodoxy of their beliefs. St. Paul’s Epistles to the Romans, Hebrews and Galatians attest to this fact.
For the Apostolic Fathers and other early Christians, the Old Testament clearly prophesied the Messiah, and the prophecy was fulfilled in the person of Jesus the Nazarene. As stated by the Fathers at the Second Vatican Council (Dei Verbum): “The economy of the Old Testament was deliberately so oriented that it should prepare for and declare in prophecy the coming of Christ, redeemer of all men, and of the messianic kingdom.” (cf. Luke 24:44; John 5:39; 1 Peter 1:10[1]
Dei Verbum went on to quote St. Augustine: “God the inspirer and author of the books of both Testaments, in his wisdom has so brought it about that the New should be hidden in the Old and that the Old should be made manifest in the New.”[2]
It naturally followed that the Old Testament could be properly understood only in light of this belief. The certainty that the Old Testament was the prefigurement of Christ demonstrated the preeminent authority was not the scriptures but in Christ himself, whose every word and deed radiated from and through it.
Rather than preach the Old Testament, the Apostles and their successors bore witness to the risen Christ. Even Paul referred to the words of Jesus as definitive and normative (1 Cor. 7:10; 9:14; Acts 20:35).
Next to Jesus comes the authority of the Apostles who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, preached and directed the early Christian community.
Thus, the early Church had three authoritative sources of revelation — the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus and the Apostles. But the final decisive authority was Jesus, who spoke directly through His words and actions and indirectly through the witness and testimony of his disciples. It was this situation that prompted the need for a second canon, one in addition to the Old Testament.
Initially, the words and deeds of Christ were passed on orally. When it became apparent that Christ’s return might not be imminent, it became necessary to commit his words to writing.
As the Christian community expanded to other localities, it was necessary to substitute letters for oral preaching. These letters instructed the faithful, answered questions and warned them against heretical innovations. They were not received simply as correspondence, but as authoritative declarations.
As time progressed and the Apostles died, each in his own time, it became increasingly necessary to refer to their writings in order to settle disputes or clarify doctrine. Keeping in mind the writings of Paul and the other Apostles were mainly concerned with local issues, it was a long time before they began to be collected and established as a second canon with incontestable authority equal to the Old Testament. It wasn’t until the middle of second century that these writings were considered on a par with, and as authoritative as, the Old Testament.
The Growth of the New Testament Canon
The initial formulation of the New Testament is obscure and shrouded in history. It is clear there were two collections that provided the foundation for the full canon of 27 New Testament books — namely, the four Gospels and the Pauline writings.
The four Gospels were written early in the second half of the first century and were primarily intended for certain geographical areas — Matthew for the Jewish-Christian communities of Palestine and Syria, and Mark for the Roman community and Italy. Luke also was intended for Italy. But it was not long before these Gospels circulated outside of their intended audience.
It is not possible to say when the four Gospels were first collected together, but it is apparent that they were in common usage during the first half of the second century and possessed full canonical authority by the middle of that period.
St. Justin Martyr was the first witness to testify the Gospels were read in the liturgical assemblies. He stated this was a firmly established custom. According to his first Apology (67, 3), composed about AD 155, Justin wrote the “memoirs of the Apostles” (which are called Gospels) or the writings of the Old Testament Prophets were read, and were followed by a sermon.[3] This demonstrates the Gospels were assuming a greater importance to the Christian communities.
In the case of the majority of the books, the Church gave its approval without hesitation — the four Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles and the Letters of St. Paul were received without controversy. The Book of Revelation was sometimes called into question. The Letter to the Hebrews and the Catholic Letters were the subject of doubts concerning their origin, and were received only after long discussion.
The collection of St. Paul’s letters took place earlier than the Gospels. It is highly probable they existed as a collection by the end of the first century in Greece, Asia Minor and possibly Italy. The most important evidence that attests to this is Bishop Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians, composed very early in the first century. In his letter, Polycarp acknowledged all 13 Pauline epistles, except 1 Thessalonians, Titus and Philemon.
There is no evidence to suggest there were any other Apostolic writings in the first half of the second century.
The first time the terms “Old and New Testaments” were used together was by Melito, the Bishop of Sardes, in his Excerpts from the Law and the Prophets (c. 170-180). Bishop Melito wrote that he had taken great care in determining the books of the Old Testament, which logically implies the “books of the New Testament” were familiar to him.
The oldest evidence we possess of the title “New Testament” applied to the inspired Christian writings appears in an anonymous writing quoted by Eusebius in his Church History in the year AD 192.[4] Orchard explains the canon was commonly accepted during the second century:
“By the end of the second century all the New Testament books were generally known and accepted as divinely inspired. Irenæus (140-202?) explicitly named and accepted the four Gospels, quotes twelve letters of St. Paul as Scripture, accepted the Apocalypse as written by St. John, and made use of the Catholic letters. He had no reference to Philemon and did not think that Hebrews was written by St. Paul.”[5]
It is clear the main centers of Christianity — Rome, Antioch, Corinth, Alexandria and others — possessed apostolic writings, which they regarded as genuine and authoritative. In addition, there were many apocryphal writings used by the heretics, who borrowed from every source that taught in agreement with their particular ideas. As a result, the Church found it necessary to assure the purity of the faith, and hence to determine its sources with greater accuracy.
The Apocrypha of the New Testament
The term apocryphal (hidden), when applied to a book, may simply mean the author or the origin of the work are unknown. In ecclesiastical terminology, it means the work has been excluded for official use in the Church. An apocryphal work is an uncanonical book and, besides lacking Church recognition, often is regarded as legendary and as propagating questionable or false doctrines.
The authors of the New Testament apocrypha were Christians. Their writings comprised Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, letters and Apocalypses. There were actually as many as 50 gospels, 22 books of “Acts,” as well as apocalypses and numerous epistles. These may be divided into two distinct groups.
The first group is a collection of vague and false religious philosophies called Gnostic literature. These heretical works purport that Our Lord and his Apostles taught doctrines contrary to the accepted teachings of the Church.
The second group is known as Apocryphal literature.
[1] Abbott, Documents of Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, (Dei Verbum)” 759.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Roberts, First Apology. The Before-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, p. 186.
[4] Schaff, The Church History of Eusebius.” The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 1, p. 230.
[5] Orchard, Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, p. 19.