Eusebius knew many writings that bore the name of Peter. But, drawing on the judgment of the elders, that is to say, sources from the second and third centuries, he recognized only one writing as genuine which bore the name of Peter. It was not sufficient that the book be attributed to an apostle. But, it counted against it, if it could not be, as in the case of the book of Hebrews. Eusebius knew a lot of other books and made his judgment about the worthiness of what we call the first epistle of Peter on the basis of that knowledge, and on the basis of the attitude of former church teachers. It is clear that he has rejected II Peter, a book which appears in our New Testament. There were other writers who also found II Peter not to be genuine.
To put some books in means to leave others out. Why were the twenty-seven put in and the other dozens left out? Who decided that? Was it a good choice? Do we want to endorse that decision? If we do not, what difference does it make? There was no shortage of books. Many were left aside. Others did not survive. By the middle of the second century there were many writings. As well as the twenty-seven books which Christians are familiar with from their New Testament there were such books as the two Epistles of Clement, the Didache, or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, the Shepherd of Hermas, Letters of Ignatius, the Epistle of Barnabas, Polycarp, various Gospels and Apocalypses, the Wisdom of Solomon.
Already there were different assessments of all these books. Not all churches agreed as to what were and were not acceptable books, as to which ones were written and which ones were not written by apostles or by someone closely associated with an apostle. From early lists we know that there were several disputed books, books whose standing as Scripture was questioned. These were Hebrews, James, II Peter, II and III John, Jude and Revelation.20 These books were included in later lists, but in assessing their position, we should not overlook the fact of earlier judgments about them. From the beginning the church was aware that some of the books it would later endorse were less important, and less widely accepted than were others, less important in particular than the Gospels and the letters of Paul.
It was not until judgments and lists began to appear that it could not agree with, that the church made an effort to secure uniformity. The heretic Marcion produced a list of books which led the church to give attention to the matter. By the end of the fourth century the church came to agree, almost unanimously, on the twenty-seven books which form our New Testament.21 That decision and that list was handed down and was accepted thereafter as right. The limits of the Christian Bible had (it seemed) been finally decided upon. After the list had appeared in the Festal Letter of Athanasius in A.D. 376 there is no serious question as to which books constituted the New Testament.
It is important to observe that while councils made such pronouncements, it was not the pronouncements that established the authority of the books. The books were not authoritative because they were included on a list, because a council or two, or an archbishop or two, or a pope or two, pronounced them so. They were included on the list because they had already won recognition. The fact that a list is made does not confer status on the books. It constitutes a formal recognition that the books have performed and are performing a most important function in the church. It gives formal recognition to a state of affairs in the church. These books were the books the communities were reading and were finding helpful in promoting their life and mission, worship and proclamation. The church in her practice had already settled the question. The pronouncements of the synods and the lists drawn up endorsed and expressed the implications of that practice.
Christians pronounced on the limits of the Canon for three particular reasons:
1 to exclude heretical books, such as those of the Gnostics, whose teachings ran counter to the teachings of Christianity.
2 because an unsatisfactory list of writings had appeared. This was Marcion’s canon. Marcion separated the God of the Old Testament (whom he rejected) from the God of Jesus. He ‘mutilated’ Luke and dismembered the letters of Paul,22 so as to make them agree with his teaching. These two reasons are historical ones.
3 Underlying them is the theological conviction that for a collection of books to have authority, you have to be quite clear which books are to be included. The limits of that collection must be clearly fixed.
When the books are taken as doctrinal sources, as providing the resources for true teaching, it is obviously necessary to know precisely which books are to be taken in this way, and which other writings are not. If we are going to get authoritative guidance for both practice and teaching, we have to know which are reliable books to give such guidance, and which are not. A decision is appropriate, provided such guidance is sought for. Agreement in the Christian community that certain teachings, for example about faith, about Jesus, about the resurrection of believers, are true, goes along with an agreement about those books that teach correctly. So the ideas of heresy and of unacceptable writings develop together in the formative period of the church’s growth. So do the ideas of orthodoxy and of canon.
But what do we mean when we say that the church used, endorsed and then formally recognized particular writings?
We should not take for granted the idea that Scripture is holy. Christopher Evans raises the question sharply. He asks, ‘Is Holy Scripture Christian?’23 The fact is that the books of the New Testament came to be regarded as holy Scripture. How did they? Various explanations have been offered.
1 The writings came to have authority because of their contents.
2 The writings came to have authority because they were written by authors who were recognised as having authority, by apostles.
3 The writings come to have authority because they are included on a list which is considered authoritative, that is to say canonical.
A writing comes to have influence as it is read widely and accepted as helpful and edifying for the growing and struggling Christian community. Because it actually built up the communities the writing would, by that very fact, have approved itself. It would have shown its worth, its merit. It would then be accepted as authoritative, because it had shown and was showing its value in its effectiveness. It exhibited its ‘authority’ by its effects. It thus ensured its place in the actual life of the church. This is what some writers mean when they say that it is ‘self-authenticating.’ It is not necessary to appeal from the writings and their effect in edifying the church to some other, external, criterion, for example: to who wrote them, or to whether they appear on a list which is officially accepted. It is enough that they nurture the faith of the community.
The books at first held their place because of their effect upon the groups of believers who read them. Paul’s writings were effective. They built up the piety and unity, doctrinal and practical, of the congregations to which they were addressed, and of the wider church in due course. This is what, I take it, Evans means when he says that the books made ‘profound religious sense.’ That was at the beginning. ‘It is, however, the case that the criterion of self-authentication is speedily overtaken by that of authorship, and the writings are then on their way to becoming canonical on other grounds.’24 Evans prefers such self-authentication to the appeal to apostolicity, finding that the evidence does not permit us to establish the ‘authority’ of the books on the ground of their being traceable either directly or indirectly to an apostle as their source. He regards such apostolicity as a fiction, a fabrication.
6 THE CANON AND THE QUESTION OF INSPIRATION
Christians inherited a doctrine of inspiration from the Jews. The doctrine of inspiration was later made into a very elaborate scheme and led to no little confusion. One thing is noteworthy. The term itself is not in evidence in the earliest judgments of the church about Scripture. Only much later did it become in some circles the standard, the orthodox way of speaking of the authority of the Bible. But from the beginning it was not so. And with good reason. You can, as did the early church, affirm the primary importance of Scripture without elaborating a theory of inspiration.
Would it be true to say that the