Posted: July 12th, 2022

The Foundation of the Canon

The Foundation of the Canon
Canonical books are believed to have been inspired by God and express the authoritative history existing between God and man. The publication of the 27 canonical books in the new testament was a symbol of unity of the church. Evidence of God preserving his word for His people is contained in the books and among the bishops who were filled with the holy spirit and fought off the heretical teachings that wanted to be part of the writings in the Holy Bible. Through key people, events, and movements, the canonical books of the New Testament were influenced into being and God was able to preserve His word through generations.
Heresy; Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Montanism Movements
The rise of Christianity in the first and second century resulted to a significant number of strange doctrines which were contrary to the Apostles’ orthodox teachings one of them known as Gnosticism. The doctrine was a belief that the world was divided into two cosmic forces namely good and evil. The teaching in Gnosticism were that salvation would be acquired through special knowledge which would be acquired from a series of its teachings, and even though it included gospels, it did not recognize salvation as a gift hence demoting the sacrificial work of Christ. To them, the deity that other believers believed to be the creator of the was only an illusion and they regarded God as evil. Its idea of special knowledge was a major threat to the Christian Apostles forcing the church in Rome to redefine itself. Apostle John in his letter attacked the Gnosticism heresy by arguing “and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ came in flesh (matter), is not of God: and this is that of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come; and even now already it is in the world.” (1 John 4:3). Gnosticism led to the birth of a new heretical school of though known as Marcionism, whose founder was the first in antiquity to produce his own New Testament Canon Writings.
The initial move towards the formation of the new Testament Canon was a heresy by a ship owner and merchant called Marcion, who was the son an Asian Minor Bishop. Marcionism movement taught its followers that the God who created the material universe, the God of Israel was a different God from the one whom Jesus referred to as His Father. It also denied that Christianity came into the world through flesh, son of God born of a woman hence it rejected Christ’s incarnation and consequently regarding the message from the gospel as ineffective. He proposed the rejection of the Jewish scriptures and adoption of the new canon solely. According to Marcion, the Jewish scriptures were based on the covenant between God and the Israelites which did not match up to Christianity. The writings of Paul and Luke contained references to the Jewish God and there Marcion excluded the segments with the references in his New Testament that he proposed. The last attempt by the Jews to gain their freedom, the Roman suppression of the Bar Kochba rebellion between 132-135 C.E prompted Marcion to take his stand. His radical approach resulted to the church considering the question on the canon more consciously making him the first person to make a proposition on a particular new canon for Christians. The church begun to evaluate which of its writings were to be considered canonical given the heterodoxic and heretical nature of Marcion’s rationale which forced the church to review the status of the Jewish Scriptures. Later in about thirty years, Marcion was to make his canon proposal which was adopted by the church but differed with his definitions of the gospel and apostle since to them it was minimalistic. In his canon, there was only one gospel, the Luke gospel, and Paul as the only apostle. The church instead included four gospels and four apostles as opposed to Marcion’s one apostle and one gospel. Along with letters of Paul and two main epistles, the Acts of Apostles was included in the canonical list as a second heading.
The other movement within the second century was the Montanism led by Montanus who believed that the promise of the Holy Spirit by Christ had been met and he was the mouthpiece for Paraclete. Montanus claimed that together with his prophetesses, they had been inspired by God to a new revelation which resulted to them challenging the orthodoxy indirectly. However, none of the movement’s writings were ever equated to the scripture and neither did the teachings attack the validity of the Old and New Testament Writings.
Constantine, Eusebius, and Origen.
In 331 C.E, Emperor Constantine sent a letter to Eusebius requesting for the production of fifty bibles that would be used in churches in his empire precisely the new capital, Constantinople. The emperor was concerned with the unity of the church and that of his empire, and so Eusebius was well aware of the positive impact the new bibles would create in the church’s unity. According to Eusebius, including the list by Athanasius would tolerate the political aspects and would hence resolve the argument about the Hebrews canonical status and Revelation if both books were included. The state’s needs led to the inclusion of the last six books on the canonical list, neither the historical nor theological needs led to the inclusion. Constantine’s push for the fifty bibles and the unity of the church is known to be one of the probable reasons that lead to the publication of the 27 canonical books which were a symbol of both the church’s and the empire’s unity.
To meet up Marcion’s challenge, the church came up with list of books approved to be read which included the Muratorian and the Eusebius Canon. Eusebius was an advisor and confidant of the emperor Constantine and was also a Bishop in Caesarea who listed twenty books to be included in the New Testament, and divide them into three; acknowledged, disputed, and rejected. The books under the acknowledged writings had also been approved earlier in 185 C.E by Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon in Gaul, as canonical books and he included two more writing in his canon to make a total of twenty-two. The two writings were the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Revelation, where in the following century, Origen of Alexandria approved a similar list of twenty-two writings as canonical.
Around 165 C.E., Tatian produced a one through four composite gospel which included writings from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John which revealed the unity of the church, however, the Tatian gospel did not survive the time as Irenaeus paid respect to number four as authentic to the gospel in that the church all over the world could not hold more or less than four writings in its gospel.

Athanasius
Published in 367 C.E. was another list by Athanasius which named the twenty-seven books that would be in the New Testament. Between Eusebius’ and Athanasius’ period, the six writings that were under the disputed and rejected categories were moved to approved and hence were part of the New Testament canon which is in use to date. In reference to the twenty-seven books, He wrote “These are the wells of salvation, so that whoever thirsts may be satisfied with the sayings in these. Let no one add to these. Let nothing be taken away.” However, some top theologians such as Martin Luther kept challenging some of the writings in the canon such as James, Jude, and Revelation and felt that they were undeserving to be among the canonical books.

Conclusion
The synod of Hippo known as synod of 393 led by Hippo Regius during the early Christian Church is known for approving the Christian Biblical Canon which was later approved by the Council of Carthage 397. In totality, the books contained in the present day twenty-seven New Testament Canon include; Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romana, 1&2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1&2 Thessalonians, 1&2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1&2 Peter, 1,2 & 3 John, Jude, and Revelation/Apocalypse.

References
Baker, R. A. (2008). How the New Testament Canon was Formed.

The Foundation of the Canon
Canonical books are believed to have been inspired by God and express the authoritative history existing between God and man. The publication of the 27 canonical books in the new testament was a symbol of unity of the church. Evidence of God preserving his word for His people is contained in the books and among the bishops who were filled with the holy spirit and fought off the heretical teachings that wanted to be part of the writings in the Holy Bible. Through key people, events, and movements, the canonical books of the New Testament were influenced into being and God was able to preserve His word through generations.
Heresy; Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Montanism Movements
The rise of Christianity in the first and second century resulted to a significant number of strange doctrines which were contrary to the Apostles’ orthodox teachings one of them known as Gnosticism. The doctrine was a belief that the world was divided into two cosmic forces namely good and evil. The teaching in Gnosticism were that salvation would be acquired through special knowledge which would be acquired from a series of its teachings, and even though it included gospels, it did not recognize salvation as a gift hence demoting the sacrificial work of Christ. To them, the deity that other believers believed to be the creator of the was only an illusion and they regarded God as evil. Its idea of special knowledge was a major threat to the Christian Apostles forcing the church in Rome to redefine itself. Apostle John in his letter attacked the Gnosticism heresy by arguing “and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ came in flesh (matter), is not of God: and this is that of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come; and even now already it is in the world.” (1 John 4:3). Gnosticism led to the birth of a new heretical school of though known as Marcionism, whose founder was the first in antiquity to produce his own New Testament Canon Writings.
The initial move towards the formation of the new Testament Canon was a heresy by a ship owner and merchant called Marcion, who was the son an Asian Minor Bishop. Marcionism movement taught its followers that the God who created the material universe, the God of Israel was a different God from the one whom Jesus referred to as His Father. It also denied that Christianity came into the world through flesh, son of God born of a woman hence it rejected Christ’s incarnation and consequently regarding the message from the gospel as ineffective. He proposed the rejection of the Jewish scriptures and adoption of the new canon solely. According to Marcion, the Jewish scriptures were based on the covenant between God and the Israelites which did not match up to Christianity. The writings of Paul and Luke contained references to the Jewish God and there Marcion excluded the segments with the references in his New Testament that he proposed. The last attempt by the Jews to gain their freedom, the Roman suppression of the Bar Kochba rebellion between 132-135 C.E prompted Marcion to take his stand (Foster, 2010). His radical approach resulted to the church considering the question on the canon more consciously making him the first person to make a proposition on a particular new canon for Christians. The church begun to evaluate which of its writings were to be considered canonical given the heterodoxic and heretical nature of Marcion’s rationale which forced the church to review the status of the Jewish Scriptures. Later in about thirty years, Marcion was to make his canon proposal which was adopted by the church but differed with his definitions of the gospel and apostle since to them it was minimalistic. In his canon, there was only one gospel, the Luke gospel, and Paul as the only apostle. The church instead included four gospels and four apostles as opposed to Marcion’s one apostle and one gospel. Along with letters of Paul and two main epistles, the Acts of Apostles was included in the canonical list as a second heading.
The other movement within the second century was the Montanism led by Montanus who believed that the promise of the Holy Spirit by Christ had been met and he was the mouthpiece for Paraclete. Montanus claimed that together with his prophetesses, they had been inspired by God to a new revelation which resulted to them challenging the orthodoxy indirectly. However, none of the movement’s writings were ever equated to the scripture and neither did the teachings attack the validity of the Old and New Testament Writings.
Constantine, Eusebius, and Origen.
In 331 C.E, Emperor Constantine sent a letter to Eusebius requesting for the production of fifty bibles that would be used in churches in his empire precisely the new capital, Constantinople. The emperor was concerned with the unity of the church and that of his empire, and so Eusebius was well aware of the positive impact the new bibles would create in the church’s unity. According to Eusebius, including the list by Athanasius would tolerate the political aspects and would hence resolve the argument about the Hebrews canonical status and Revelation if both books were included. The state’s needs led to the inclusion of the last six books on the canonical list, neither the historical nor theological needs led to the inclusion. Constantine’s push for the fifty bibles and the unity of the church is known to be one of the probable reasons that lead to the publication of the 27 canonical books which were a symbol of both the church’s and the empire’s unity (Gutzman, 1997).
To meet up Marcion’s challenge, the church came up with list of books approved to be read which included the Muratorian and the Eusebius Canon. Eusebius was an advisor and confidant of the emperor Constantine and was also a Bishop in Caesarea who listed twenty books to be included in the New Testament, and divide them into three; acknowledged, disputed, and rejected. The books under the acknowledged writings had also been approved earlier in 185 C.E by Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon in Gaul, as canonical books and he included two more writing in his canon to make a total of twenty-two (Briggman, 2011). The two writings were the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Revelation, where in the following century, Origen of Alexandria approved a similar list of twenty-two writings as canonical.
Around 165 C.E., Tatian produced a one through four composite gospel which included writings from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John which revealed the unity of the church, however, the Tatian gospel did not survive the time as Irenaeus paid respect to number four as authentic to the gospel in that the church all over the world could not hold more or less than four writings in its gospel (Crossan, 2008).
Athanasius
Published in 367 C.E. was another list by Athanasius which named the twenty-seven books that would be in the New Testament. Between Eusebius’ and Athanasius’ period, the six writings that were under the disputed and rejected categories were moved to approved and hence were part of the New Testament canon which is in use to date. In reference to the twenty-seven books, He wrote “These are the wells of salvation, so that whoever thirsts may be satisfied with the sayings in these. Let no one add to these. Let nothing be taken away.” However, some top theologians such as Martin Luther kept challenging some of the writings in the canon such as James, Jude, and Revelation and felt that they were undeserving to be among the canonical books.

Conclusion
The synod of Hippo known as synod of 393 led by Hippo Regius during the early Christian Church is known for approving the Christian Biblical Canon which was later approved by the Council of Carthage 397. In totality, the books contained in the present day twenty-seven New Testament Canon include; Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romana, 1&2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1&2 Thessalonians, 1&2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1&2 Peter, 1,2 & 3 John, Jude, and Revelation/Apocalypse (Baker, 2008).

References
Baker, R. A. (2008). How the New Testament Canon was Formed.
Briggman, A. (2011). Revisiting Irenaeus’ Philosophical Acumen. Vigiliae christianae, 65(2), 115-124.
Crossan, J. D. (2008). Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contour of Canon. Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Foster, P. (2010). Marcion: His life, works, beliefs, and impact. The Expository Times, 121(6), 269-280.
Gutzman, K. C. (1997). Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea and his” Life of Constantine”: A Heretic’s legacy. Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 42(3/4), 351.

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