Victor R. Claveau, MJ
The formation of the New Testament was like the Old Testament, a gradual process. While the Old Testament was composed over a period of approximately 1200 years, the New Testament was written in less than sixty.
It is reasonable to assume that 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. The Church found it necessary to assure the purity of the faith, and hence to determine its sources with greater accuracy.
There were as many as fifty gospels, twenty-two books of “Acts,” apocalypses and numerous epistles, as well as a collection of vague and false religious philosophies called Gnostic[i] literature. These Gnostic books were presented as revelations of the Lord entrusted by Him to a few chosen initiates.
Amidst this great confusion, the Church had a duty to separate fact from fiction. From the first, she had given to Christians under her own guarantee the books, which were inspired by God. This codification of the Canon was not the work of one person; it was the confirmation of the Church. It is not well known that like the Old Testament, the New contains a number of deuterocanonical books. These are The Letter to the Hebrews, The Letter of James, The Letter of Jude, The Second Letter of Peter, The Second and Third Letters of John and the Book of Revelation. This fact has received little attention in modern times because Protestants, while they reject the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, inconsistently enough accept those of the New.
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 first known list of the sacred books emanated from Rome in the middle of the second century (c. 142- 155 A.D.), in the text of the Muratorian Fragment. This canon contained all the New Testament books, except the Letter of James, the Letter to the Hebrews, and 2 Peter.
According to Orchard:
“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.”[ii]
It is generally admitted that from the beginning of the third century the New Testament comprised the same books as our present canon. Yet during this time there was still controversy as to some of the writings.
In 367 Athanasius (c. 296-373), an influential opponent of Arianism,[iii] wrote a festal letter that listed, for the first time, the 27 books of the New Testament and in the order known today.[iv]
At the end of the fourth century the African Councils previously cited finally settled difficulties. Since that time there has been no serious attempt to challenge the New Testament canon of the Catholic Church. The canon approved at that time is the same as the one formally defined at the Council of Trent. From the time of the establishment of the African Canon in the early fourth century, till the time of the Protestant Reformation in the beginning of the sixteenth century, there was essentially no dispute as to the canon.
- [i] Gnosticism (“one who knows”) is the collective name for a group of false religious beliefs that arose in the first century. Based upon personal revelations the errors in general were that Jesus’ body was unreal, that he merely “appeared” in a human body and therefore only seemed to die (Docetism). Also there was the false teaching that: matter” (i.e., human bodies, creation, etc.) is morally evil and that the spirit is in essence morally good. The First Council of Nicea (c. 325) refuted many early forms of Gnosticism.
- [ii] Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, p. 19.
- [iii] Arianism taught that the Son of God is not of one nature or substance with God the Father, nor equal to Him in dignity and not co-eternal.
- [iv] Shanks, p. 321.