Other New Testaments

Other New Testaments

Much like today, early Christians had their favorite texts, and occasionally, letters or even whole Gospels remained unused in certain regions. Second Peter, for example, was read almost exclusively in its “target area,” northern Asia Minor. Clement of Rome, writing in about a.d. 96 (perhaps several decades earlier) is the first known author to have quoted from this letter. Communities elsewhere in the Roman Empire had not even heard of it, let alone read it initially. When it finally reached them, some uttered doubts about its apostolic authorship. (However, Origen, the third-century theologian and philologist, stated that Peter had proclaimed the gospel of Christ on “the twin trumpets of his two letters.”)

Or take Mark’s Gospel—it may, in all likelihood, have been the first full Gospel ever completed. But Matthew’s longer, story-and-speech Gospel soon became more popular, and thus we know of more manuscript fragments of Matthew than of Mark.

It isn’t surprising, then, that some people began collecting and arranging Christian writings in peculiar ways. A man called Marcion arrived in Rome in about A.D. 140 and developed a pseudo-Christian idea of God and Christ. That led him to exclude those early apostolic writings that highlighted the physical resurrection of Christ and the Jewish roots of Christianity. In the end, all he accepted was a severely condensed version of Luke (without the Nativity scenes and the detailed Resurrection appearances), and ten of Paul’s letters. Soon enough, he and his followers were condemned as heretics, and their movement eventually petered out.

Narrowing the List

Marcion, however misguided, did force the church to consider more formally which books should make up the New Testament.

In this process, the church never gave in to the temptation to “harmonize” the documents. The four Gospels—with their different emphases, narratives, speeches—were seen not as an embarrassing multitude but as complementary, as the God-given fullness of reports by human beings with their individualities. They were never seen, as Marcion saw them, as contradictory, and therefore in need of editing.

To give another example: early Christians were perceptive enough to notice that the letter of Jude had taken over large chunks from 2 Peter (or vice-versa). But they were also intelligent enough to realize that this provided an insight into the way letters were used and applied during the first generations.

Nor was Martin Luther the first to notice that Paul, with his emphasis on faith, appeared to see things in a different light from James, who stresses the importance of works. The early Christians preferred to see these themes as complementary. “Unity in diversity”—this may be a description of the yardstick applied to the collection that grew into our New Testament.

But where to end? How extensive should that diverse collection finally be? Which books and letters should be used in services? In particular, what about such writings as the second-century Didache, or the Letter of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, or the two letters to the Corinthians once attributed to Clement of Rome?

Eusebius of Caesarea, writing at the beginning of the fourth century, surveyed the state of things. He pretty much confirmed the contents of a fragmentary list from about a.d. 200, a list called “Canon Muratori.” Eusebius says that some texts are still under debate in some churches—the letters of James and Jude, the second letter of Peter, the second and third letters of John, and Revelation. Though he does not share such doubts himself, he is adamant that the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Acts of Paul, the Letter of Barnabas and the Didache are “not genuine,” that is, not of truly apostolic origin.

A few decades after Eusebius, the Codex Vaticanus, a Greek volume of both Old and New Testaments, contained the complete New Testament as we have it today; but only slightly later, Codex Sinaiticus still included the Letter of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. Later still, toward the end of the fourth century, the Codex Alexandrinus excluded the Shepherd and Barnabas, but had the two letters of Clement instead.

In other words, even major, official codices, expensive to make and therefore produced with at least regional authority, continued to show a certain degree of freedom of choice beyond the agreed core of the 27 writings. It was an individual who finally helped clarify things.

Unshakable Consensus

In 367, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, used the opportunity of his annual Easter Festal Letter (a letter to all the churches and monasteries under his jurisdiction) to explain what the Old Testament and New Testament should consist of. In terms of the New Testament, he listed the same 27 texts we have today, and he wrote, “These are the ‘springs of salvation,’ so that anyone who is thirsty may be satisfied with the messages contained in them. Only in them is the teaching of true religion proclaimed as the ‘Good News.’ Let no one add to these or take anything away from them.”

Athanasius then says that the Shepherd of Hermas and the Teaching of the Apostles (the Didache) are “indeed not included in the canon.” He does say, however, that they are helpful reading for new converts.

Athanasius’s list did not settle the matter everywhere. In the West, variations remained possible, and as we have seen, a codex like Alexandrinus could, decades after the Festal Letter, happily include two letters the bishop did not even mention. But by the early 400s, the consensus of tradition was more or less established.

In a letter in 414, Jerome appears to accept the New Testament books listed by Athanasius—a list that corresponds to today’s New Testament. But Jerome thinks the Letter of Barnabas should also be included, since the author was the companion of Paul and an apostle. But, and this is important, while agreeing to differ, Jerome accepted what had come to be the consensus. In other words, Jerome confirms that by the beginning of the fifth century, the canon of the New Testament had achieved a kind of solemn, unshakable status; it could not be altered, even if one had different opinions.

Since Jerome’s time, the canon of our New Testament has been approved by history, tradition, and worship. In spite of some scholarly attempts to exclude or add some books, these 27 books have remained a non-negotiable nucleus of Christianity worldwide.