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 received its impulse from Athanasius, the power by which it was carried through and established was largely that of his powerful ally, the Church of Rome.

The final victory was no doubt a little delayed. Asia Minor and Syria were for most of the 4th century divided between the following of Eusebius (Cyril of Jerusalem in 348, Gregory of Nazianzus, the list of Apost. Can. 85, that attached to Can. 59 of the Council of Laodicea, c.  363) and the school of Antioch. The leading members of that school adopted 3 Epp. Cath. (James, 1 Peter, 1 John), Theod. Mops. omitting this group altogether, and the whole school omitting Apoc. Amphilochius of Iconium (c. 380) gives the two lists, Eusebian and Antiochene, as alternatives. The Eusebian list only wanted the complete admission of the Apocalypse to be identical with the Athanasian; and Athanasius had one stalwart supporter in Epiphanius (ob. 403).

The original Syriac list, as we have seen, had neither Epp. Cath. nor Apoc. The Peshito version, in regard to which Professor Burkitt’s view is now pretty generally accepted, that it was the work of Rabbula, bishop of Edessa, 411–433, added the 3 Epp. Cath. The remaining 4 Epp. Cath. and Apoc. were supplied in the Philoxenian version of 508, and retained in the Harklean revision of 616. But both these were Monophysite and of limited use, and the Nestorians still went on using the Peshito.

Meantime, in the West, an important Synod was held by Damasus at Rome in 382 which, under the dominant influence of Jerome and the Athanasian tradition, drew up a list corresponding to the present Canon. This was ratified by Pope Gelasius (492–496), and independently confirmed for the province of Africa by a series of Synods held at Hippo Regius in 393, and at Carthage in 397 and 419, under the lead of Augustine. The formal completion of the whole process in East and West was reserved for the Quinisextine Council (Council in Trullo) of 692. But even after that date irregularities occur from time to time, especially in the East.

In the fixing of the Canon, as in the fixing of doctrine, the decisive influence proceeded from the bishops and the theologians of the period 325–450. But behind these was the practice of the greater churches; and behind that again was not only the lead of a few distinguished individuals, but the instinctive judgment of the main body of the faithful. It was really this instinct that told in the end more than any process of quasi-scientific criticism. And it was well that it should be so, because the methods of criticism are apt to be, and certainly would have been when the Canon was formed, both faulty and inadequate, whereas instinct brings into play the religious sense as a whole; with spirit speaking to spirit rests the last word. Even this is not infallible; and it cannot be claimed that the Canon of the Christian Sacred Books is infallible. But experience has shown that the mistakes, so far as there have been mistakes, are unimportant; and in practice even these are rectified by the natural gravitation of the mind of man to that which it finds most nourishing and most elevating.

2. Texts and Versions.

The apparatus criticus of the New Testament consists, from one point of view, entirely of MSS.; but these MSS. may be divided into three groups: (A) Greek MSS., which in practice are known “The MSS,” (B) MSS. of versions in other languages representing translations from the Greek, (C) MSS. of other writings whether in Greek or other languages which contain quotations from the New Testament.

(A) Greek MSS.—These may be divided into classes according to style of writing, material, or contents. The first method distinguishes between uncial or majuscule, and cursive or minuscule; the second between papyrus, vellum or parchment, and paper (for further details see and ); and the third distinguishes mainly between Gospels, Acts and Epistles (with or without the Apocalypse), New Testaments (the word in this connexion being somewhat broadly interpreted), lectionaries and commentaries.

Quite accurate statistics on this subject are scarcely attainable. Von Soden’s analysis of numbers, contents and date may be tabulated as follows, but it must be remembered that it reckons many small fragments as separate MSS., especially in the earlier centuries. It is also necessary to add that there is one small scrap of papyrus of the 3rd century containing a few verses of the 4th Gospel.