Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/20

10 canon was simultaneous. The circumstances in which the collection originated were unfavourable to the authenticity of its materials, for tradition had been busy over them and their authors. Instead of attributing the formation of the canon to the Church, it would be more correct to say that the important stage in it was due to three teachers, each working separately and in his own way, who were intent upon the creation of a Christian society which did not appear in the apostolic age, a visible organisation united in faith, where the discordant opinions of apostolic and sub-apostolic times should be finally merged. The canon was not the work of the Christian Church so much as of the men who were striving to form that Church, and could not get beyond the mould received by primitive Christian literature. The first mention of a &quot;Catholic Church&quot; occurs in The Martyrdom of Polycarp, an epistle that cannot be dated earlier than 160 A.D., and may perhaps be ten years later. But though the idea be there and in the Ignatian epistles, its established use is due to Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian. Origen was the first who took a somewhat scientific view of the relative value belonging to the different parts of the biblical collection. His examination of the canon was critical. Before him the leading books had been regarded as divine and sacred, the source of doctrinal and historic truth ; and from this stand-point he did not depart. With him ecclesiastical tradition was a prevailing principle in the recognition of books belonging of right to the New Testament collection. He was also guided by the inspiration of the authors, a criterion arbitrary in its application, as his own statements show. In his time, however, the collection was being gradually enlarged, his third class, i.e., the mixed, approaching reception into the first. But amid all the fluctuations of opinion to which certain portions of the New Testament were subject, and the unscientific procedure both of fathers and churches in the matter, though councils had not met to discuss it, and vague tradition had strengthened with time, a certain spiritual consciousness manifested itself throughout the East and West in the matter of the canon. Tolerable unanimity ensued. The result was a remarkable one, and calls for our gratitude. Though the development was pervaded by no critical or definite principle, it ended in a canon which has maintained its validity for centuries. It is sometimes said that the history of the canon should be sought from definite catalogues, not from isolated quotations. The latter are supposed to be of slight value, the former to be the result of deliberate judgment. This remark is more specious than solid. In relation to the Old Testament, the catalogues given by the fathers, as by Melito and Origen, rest solely on the tradition of the Jews, apart from which they have no independent authority. As none except Jerome and Origen knew Hebrew, their lists of the Old Testament books are. simply a reflection of what they learned from others. If they deviate in practice from their masters by quoting as Scripture other than the canonical books, they show their judgment over-riding an external theory. The very men v/ho give a list of the Jewish books evince an inclination to the Christian and enlarged canon. So Origen says, in his Epistle to Afri- camis, that &quot; the churches use Tobit.&quot; In explaining the prophet Isaiah, Jerome employs Sirach vi. 6, in proof of his view, remarking that the apocryphal work is in the Christian catalogue. In like manner Epiphanius, in a pas sage against Aetius, after referring to the books of Scrip ture, adds, &quot;as well as the books of Wisdom, i.e., the Wisdom of Solomon and of Jesus son of Sirach ; finally, all the other books of Scripture.&quot; In another place he gives the canon of the Jews historically, and excludes the apocryphal Greek books ; but here he includes some of the latter. We also learn from Jerome that Judith was in the number of the books reckoned up by the.Nicene Council. Thus the fathers who give catalogues of the Old Testament show the existence of a Jewish and a Christian canon in relation to the Old Testament ; the latter wider than the former, their private opinion more favourable to the one, though the other was historically transmitted. In relation to the New Testament, the synods which drew up lists of the sacred books show the opinion of some leading father like Augustine, along with what custom had sanctioned. In this department no member of the synod exercised his critical faculty ; a number together would decide such questions summarily. Bishops proceed in the track of tradition or authority.

The Canon from the Fourth Century.

It will now be convenient to treat of the two Testaments together, i.e., the canon of the Bible. The canons of both have been considered separately to the end of the third century ; they may be henceforward discussed together. We proceed, therefore, to the Bible-canon of the fourth century, first in the Greek Church aud then in the Latin.

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