[SERay]

Big question Watchman. The spiritual Christian belief is that the Holy Spirit, who controlled the writing of the individual books, also controlled their selection and collection, thus continuing to fulfill our Lord's promise that He would guide His disciples into all the truth. This, however, is something that is to be discerned by spiritualization, and not by historical research. Some will tell us that we receive the twenty-seven books of the New Testament on the authority of the Church; but even if we do, as you have asked Watchman, how did the Church come to recognize these twenty-seven and no others as worthy of being placed on a level of inspiration and authority with the Old Testament canon?

A few of the shorter Epistles (e.g. 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, Jude) and the Revelation required longer debate before being accepted than others; while elsewhere books which we do not now include in the New Testament were received as canonical. Thus the Codex Sinaiticus included the 'Epistle of Barnabas' and the Shepherd of Hermas, a Roman work of about AD 110 or earlier, while the Codex Alexandrinus included the writings known as the First and Second Epistles of Clement; and the inclusion of these works alongside the biblical writings probably indicates that they were accorded some degree of canonical status. Personally, I think it a loss not to include the Epistle of Barnabas. The Epistles of Clement were equally inspired I think. I study them just the same, despite not being included.

The first steps in the formation of a canon of authoritative Christian books, appear to have been taken about the beginning of the second century, when there is evidence for the circulation of two collections of Christian writings in the Church. At a very early date it appears that the four Gospels were united in one collection. They must have been brought together very soon after the writing of the Gospel of John. This fourfold collection was known originally as 'The Gospel' in the singular, not 'The Gospels' in the plural; there was only one Gospel, narrated in four records, distinguished as according to each book.

The corpus Paulinum, or second collection of Paul's writings, was brought together about the same time as the collecting of the fourfold Gospel. As the Gospel collection was designated by the Greek word Euangelion, so the Pauline collection was designated by the one word Apostolos, each letter being distinguished as 'To the Romans,' 'First to the Corinthians,' and so on. Before long, the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews was bound up with the Pauline writings. Acts, as a matter of convenience, came to be bound up with the 'General Epistles' (those of Peter, James, John and Jude).

The only books about which there was any substantial doubt after the middle of the second century were some of those which come at the end of our New Testament. Origen Adamantius (185-254 AD) mentions the four Gospels, the Acts, the thirteen Paulines, 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation as acknowledged by all; he says that Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James and Jude, with the 'Epistle of Barnabas,' the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and the 'Gospel according to the Hebrews,' were disputed by some. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 265-340) mentions as generally acknowledged all the books of our New Testament except James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, which were disputed by some, but recognized by the majority. Athanasius of Alexandria, who was a Christian theologian, bishop of Alexandria, and Church Father in 367, lays down the twenty-seven books of our New Testament as alone canonical. Shortly afterwards Saint Jerome (Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus) and Augustine of Hippo followed his example in the West. The process farther east took a little longer; it was not until 508 AD that 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation were included in a version of the Syriac Bible in addition to the other twenty two books.

One thing must be clearly stated, because it is a source of confusion. The New Testament books did not become authoritative for the Church because they were formally included in a canonical list; on the contrary, the Church included them in her canon because she already regarded them as divinely inspired, recognizing their worth and general apostolic authority, direct or indirect. The first ecclesiastical councils to classify the canonical books were both held in North Africa — at the Council of Hippo in 393 AD and at Council of Carthage in 397 AD — but what these councils did was not to impose something new upon the Christian communities but to codify what was already the general practice of those communities.

There are many theological questions arising out of the history of the canon which I cannot attempt to do here; but for a practical demonstration that the Church made the right choice one need only compare the books of our New Testament with the various early documents collected by M. R. James in his Apocryphal New Testament (1924), or even with the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, to realize the divine superiority of our New Testament books to these others. As a whole, it was a rigorous and complicated process to define the embodiment of the New Testament when one reflects the full history, which is only lightly touched upon here. I seriously enjoy church history and spend hours weekly studying these details