The apocryphal Gospel of St. Peter, dating from about 150, is based on our canonical Evangelists. St. Augustine seems to theoretically recognize degrees of inspiration; in practice he employs protos and deuteros without any discrimination whatsoever. So with the very ancient Gospel of the Hebrews and Egyptians (seeApocrypha). Wildeboer, Origin of the Canon of the O. T., Par. All the authorities cited for the Gospel Canon show acquaintance with, and recognize, the sacred quality of these letters. Regarding the sources of canonicity among the Hebrew ancients, we are left to surmise an analogy. St. Jerome, a rising light in the Church, though but a simple priest, was summoned by Pope Damasus from the East, where he was pursuing sacred lore, to assist at an eclectic, but not ecumenical, synod at Rome in the year 382. The Septuagint, LXX: 10 Archeological proofs the Septuagint - Bible The admitted absence of any explicit citation of the deutero writings does not therefore prove that they were regarded as inferior to the above-mentioned works in the eyes of N. T. personages and authors. Believing as he did in the inspiration of the Greek version as a whole, it is difficult to think that he made a distinction between the different parts of it. THE JEWISH ALEXANDRIAN CANON THEORY AND ITS REVISIONS. Ignatius and Polycarp employ these Epistles. But the negative tests were in part arbitrary, and an intuitive sense cannot give the assurance of Divine certification. During the deliberations of the Council there never was any real question as to the reception of all the traditional Scriptures. To historically learn the Apostolic Canon of the O. T. we must interrogate less sacred but later documents, expressing more explicitly the belief of the first ages of Christianity. Alexandrian canon | biblical literature | Britannica As to whole books, the Protestant doubts were the only ones the Fathers of Trent took cognizance of; there was not the slightest hesitation regarding the authority of any entire document. But while eminent scholars and theorists were thus depreciating the additional writings, the official attitude of the Latin Church, always favorable to them, kept the majestic tenor of its way. ), which speaks of the Law, and the Prophets, and the others that have followed them. Abdias, Nahum, and Sophonias, while not directly honored, are included in the quotations from the other minor Prophets by virtue of the traditional unity of that collection. We find the substantive first applied to the Sacred Scriptures in the fourth century, by St. Athanasius; for its derivatives, the Council of Laodicea of the same period speaks of the kanonika biblia and Athanasius of the biblia kanonizomena. to the middle of the second century of our era (Wildeboer). The view that Apostolicity was the test of the inspiration during the building up of the N. T. Canon, is favored by the many instances where the early Fathers base the authority of a book on its Apostolic origin, and by the truth that the definitive placing of the contested books on the N. T. catalogue coincided with their general acceptance as of Apostolic authorship. There is an Apocrypha appendix to the British Revised Version, in a separate volume. The unique quality of the Sacred Books is a revealed dogma. We may be sure, then, that the chief test of canonicity, at least for the Hagiographa, was conformity with the Canon par excellence, the Pentateuch. It's history previous is unknown. The books of the second and third divisions have been redistributed and arranged according to Read More While use of the word purgatory (in Latin purgatorium) as a noun appeared perhaps only between 1160 and 1180, giving rise to the idea of purgatory as a place (what Jacques Le Goff called the birth of purgatory ), the Roman Catholic tradition of purgatory as a transitional condition has a history that dates back. Cyprians testimony to the non-canonicity of Hebrews and James is confirmed by Commodian, another African writer of the period. ), when, moved by the fact that the Septuagint had become the O. T. of the Church, it was put under ban by the Jerusalem Scribes, who were actuated moreover (thus especially Kaulen) by hostility to the Hellenistic largeness of spirit and Greek composition of our deuterocanonical books.. The Unreliability of the Alexandrian Manuscripts - Preserved Word The title of the decreeNunc vero de scripturis divinis agendum est quid universalis Catholica recipiat ecclesia, et quid vitare debeatproves that the council drew up a list of apocryphal as well as authentic Scriptures. Catholic champions of Apostolicity as a criterion are: Ubaldi (Introductio in Sacram Scripturam, II, 1876); Schanz (in Theologische Quartalschrift, 1885, pp. As remarked above, there are cogent reasons for believing that it was not a fixed quantity at the time. In fact, for the earliest Christians the Gospel of Christ, in the wide sense above noted, was not to be classified with, because transcending, the O. T. It was not until about the middle of the second century that under the rubric ofScripturethe New Testament writings were assimilated to the Old; the authority of the N. T. as the Word preceded and produced its authority as a new Scripture. Yet the force of the direct and indirect employment of O. T. writings by the New is slightly impaired by the disconcerting truth that at least one of the N. T. authors, St. Jude, quotes explicitly from the Book of Henoch, long universally recognized as apocryphal, see verse 14, while in verse 9 he borrows from another apocryphal narrative, the Assumption of Moses. The three Epistles of St. John and II Peter appear, but after each stands the noteuna sola, added by an almost contemporary hand, and evidently in protest against the reception of these Antilegomena, which; presumably, had found a place in the official list recently, but whose right to be there was seriously questioned. These same conservative students of the Canonnow scarcely represented outside the Churchmaintain, for the reception of the documents composing these groups into the sacred literature of the Israelites, dates which are in general much earlier than those admitted by critics. For the other terminus the lowest possible date is that of the prologue to Ecclesiasticus (c. 132 B.C. Its ancient version, the Vetus Latina (less correctly the Itala), had admitted all the O. T. Scriptures. Neither did it trouble itself about questions of authorship or character of contents. The impulse of religious feeling or liturgical usage must have been the prevailing positive factors in the decision. The Catholic church based its Bible off the expanded Greek translation and early on shifted which books were included. It contains 46 books from the old testament, 27 books from the new testament, making it 73 books of the Bible. The Old Testament as it has come down in Greek translation from the Jews of Alexandria via the Christian church differs in many respects from the Hebrew Scriptures. The Shepherd and the false Apocalypse of Peter now received their final blow. The Protestant Churches have continued to exclude the deutero writings from their canons, classifying them as Apocrypha. They employ Matthew, Luke, and John. St. Justin Martyr is the first to note that the Church has a set of O. T. Scriptures different from the Jews, and also the earliest to intimate the principle proclaimed by later writers, namely, the self-sufficiency of the Church in establishing the Canon; its independence of the Synagogue in this respect. It is more probable that a reaction against the abuse of the Johannine Apocalypse by the Montanists and ChiliastsAsia Minor being the nursery of both these errorsled to the elimination of a book whose authority had perhaps been previously suspected. King James Bible has 39 books of Old and 27 books of the New Testament. The first was the Palestine canon which is identical to the Protestant Old Testament . Some Protestants use Bibles which also include 14 additional books in a section known as the Apocrypha (though these are not considered canonical) bringing the total to 80 books . All other evidences fall short of the certainty and finality necessary to compel the absolute assent of faith. (c) St. Clement, Bishop of Rome, and disciple of St. Paul, addressed his Letter to the Corinthian Church c. A.D. 97, and, although it cites no Evangelist explicitly, this epistle contains combinations of texts taken from the three synoptic Gospels, especially from St. Matthew. The idea of a New Testament: The question of the principle that dominated the practical canonization of the N. T. Scriptures has already been discussed under (b). The Muratorian Canon, contemporary with Irenseus, gives the complete list of the thirteen, which, it should be remembered, does not include Hebrews. Being dogmatic in its purport, it implies that the Apostles bequeathed the same Canon to the Church, as a part of the depositum fidei. The Canon of the Old Testament in the Catholic Church. The Council of Florence therefore taught the inspiration of all the Scriptures, but did not formally pass on their eanonicity. The first was the Palestine canon which is identical to the Protestant Old Testament. The creation of the above-mentioned Samaritan Canon (c. 432 B.C.) In this period the position of the deuterocanonical literature is no longer as secure as in the primitive age. All through the Middle Ages we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. It has already been intimated that there is a smaller, or incomplete, and a larger, or complete, Old Testament. The most explicit definition of the Catholic Canon is that given by the Council of Trent, Session IV, 1546. (Revue Biblique, 1903, 226 sqq.) Greek Christianity everywhere, from about the beginning of the sixth century, practically had a complete and pure N. T. Canon. The English word canon comes from the Greek kann, meaning "rule" or "measuring stick".The use of the word "canon" to refer to a set of religious scriptures was first used by David Ruhnken, in the 18th century. Thence-forward they were formally and firmly fixed in the Alexandrian Canon. In the first edition of Luthers Bible, 1534, the deuteros were relegated, as apocrypha, to a separate place between the two Testaments. This was always the Canon par excellence of the Israelites. The copious extracts from Marcions works scattered through Iremeus and Tertullian show that he was acquainted with the thirteen as in ecclesiastical use, and selected hisApostolikonof six from them. Philo, a typical Alexandrian-Jewish thinker, has even an exaggerated notion of the diffusion of inspiration (Quis rerum divinarum hmres, 52; ed. Moreover, the advocates of this hypothesis point out that the Apostles office corresponded with that of the Prophets of the Old Law, inferring that as inspiration was attached to themunus propheticumso the Apostles were aided by Divine inspiration whenever in the exercise of their calling they either spoke or wrote. The rejection of these books by the Russian theologians and authorities is a lapse which began early in the eighteenth century (cf. A: There are seven books in the Catholic Bible Baruch, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Sirach, Tobit and Wisdom that are not included in the Protestant version of the Old Testament. The origin and history of the doubts concerning these writings will be considered in their place. While the influence of Athanasius on the Canon of the O. T. was negative and exclusive (seesupra), in that of the N. T. it was trenchantly constructive. The latter phrase proves that the passive sense of canon, viz., that of a regulated and defined collection, was already in use, and this has remained the prevailing connotation of the word in ecclesiastical literature. The magisterial statement of Irenseus may be corroborated by the very ancient catalogue known as the Muratorian Canon, and St. Hippolytus, representing Roman tradition; by Tertullian in Africa, by Clement in Alexandria; the works of the Gnostic Valentinus, and the Syrian Tatians Diatessaron, a blending together of the Evangelists writings, presuppose the authority enjoyed by the fourfold Gospel towards the middle of the second century. Nevertheless Origen employs all the deuterocanonicals as Divine Scriptures, and in his letter to Julius Africanus defends the sacredness of Tobias, Judith, and the fragments of Daniel; at the same time implicitly asserting the autonomy of the Church in fixing the Canon (see references in Comely): In his Hexapiar edition of the O. T. all the deuteros find a place. The larger Canon of the O. T. passed through the Apostles hands to the Church tacitly, by way of their usage and whole attitude toward its components; an attitude which, for most of the sacred writings of the Old Testament, reveals itself in the New, and for the rest, must have exhibited itself in oral utterances, or at least in tacit approval of the special reverence of the faithful. The order of books copies that of the Council of Florence, 1442, and in its general plan is that of the Septuagint. The N. T. portion bears the marks of Jeromes views (cf. The Book of Daniel was relegated to the Hagiographa as a work of the prophetic gift indeed, but not of the permanent prophetic office. Since the Council of Trent it is not permitted for a Catholic to question the inspiration of these passages. These criteria are negative and exclusive rather than directive. The Greek kanon means primarily a reed, or measuring-rod; by a natural figure it was employed by ancient writers both profane and religious to denote a rule or standard. The 59th (or 60th) canon of the provincial Council of Laodicea (the authenticity of which however is contested) gives a catalogue of the Scriptures entirely in accord with the ideas of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. The Council of Trent did not enter into an examination of the fluctuations in the history of the Canon. Lips., iii, 57; De migratione Abrahae, 11,299; ed. King James Bible is one of the versions of the Bible available in Christianity. The scope of an article on the sacred Canon may now be seen to be properly limited to an examination of (1) what may be ascertained regarding the process of the collection of the sacred writings into bodies or groups which from their very inception were the objects of a greater or less degree of veneration; (2) the circumstances and manner in which these collections were definitely canonized, or adjudged to have a uniquely Divine and authoritative quality; (3) the vicissitudes which certain compositions underwent in the opinions of individuals and localities before their Scriptural character was universally established. The deuterocanonical book is the Greek Septuagint Collection used to create the book of the Old Testament. This variation is witnessed to, and the discussion stimulated by, two of the most learned men of Christian antiquity, Origen, and Eusebius of Caesarea, the ecclesiastical historian. Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, was one of Origens most eminent disciples, a man of wide erudition. And the clause cum omnibus Buis partibus regards especially these portions.For an account of the action of Trent on the Canon, the reader is referred back to the respective section of this article: II. Luther, basing his action on dogmatic reasons and the judgment of antiquity, had discarded Hebrews, James, Jude, and Apocalypse as altogether uncanonical. The divergence of titles from those found in the Protestant versions is due to the fact that the official Latin Vulgate retained the forms of the Septuagint. Death is there an eternal sleep, and retribution takes place in this life. Epistles of Saint John;Apocalypse.). Russian and other branches of the schismatic Greek Church have a N. T. identical with the Catholic. That a written sacred Torah was previously unknown among the Israelites, is demonstrated by the negative evidence of the earlier prophets, by the absence of any such factor from the religious reform undertaken by Ezechias (Hezekiah), while it was the mainspring of that carried out by Josias, and lastly by the plain surprise and consternation of the latter ruler at the finding of such a work. Overpassing Jewish particularism, it often approaches Christianity in doctrine and spirit, so that some(80) have even assumed a Christian origin for it. Like the O. T., the New has its deuterocanonical books and portions of books, their canonicity having formerly been a subject of some controversy in the Church. And yet these doubts must be regarded as more or less academic. The Prophets were subdivided by the Jews into the Former Prophets U. e. the prophetico-historical books: Josue, Judges, Samuel (I and II Kings), and Kings (III and IV Kings)] and the Latter Prophets (Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel, and the twelve minor Prophets, counted by the He-brews as one book). Biblical canon - Wikipedia Your email address will not be published. Josephus is the earliest writer who numbers the books of the Jewish Bible. But so far as concerns the great majority of the Palestinian Hagiographaa fortiori, the Pentateuch and Prophetswhatever want of conclusiveness there may be in the N. T., evidence of their canonical standing is abundantly supplemented from Jewish sources alone, in the series of witnesses beginning with the Mishnah and running back through Josephus and Philo to the translation of the above books for the Hellenist Greeks. The doubts which arose should be attributed largely to a reaction against the apocryphal or pseudo-Biblical writings with which the East especially had been flooded by heretical and other writers. Both of these were handed down by the Jews; the former by the Palestinian, the latter by the Alexandrian, or Hellenist, Jews; in consequence, this large topic must be subdivided: The Jewish Bible of today is composed of three divisions, whose titles combined form the current Hebrew name for the complete Scriptures of Judaism: Hat-Torah, Nebiim, wa-Krthubim, i. e. The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Moreover, by its very nature inspiration eludes human observation and is not self-evident, being essentially superphysical and supernatural. Understanding of the Bible For Protestant Christians, Luther made clear that the Bible is the Sola Skriptura, Gods only book, in which He provided His revelations to the people and which allows them to enter in communion with Him. No unfavorable argument can be drawn from the loose, implicit character of these citations, since these Apostolic Fathers quote the protocanonical Scriptures in precisely the same manner. They had even separated in a measure from the latter, by erecting a temple at Leontopolis; and their enlargement of the canon was another step of divergence. There is no sign that the Western Church ever positively repudiated any of the N. T. deuteros; not admitted from the beginning, these had slowly advanced towards a complete acceptance there. The ancient Greek Old Testament known as the Septuagint was the vehicle which conveyed these additional Scriptures into the Catholic Church. The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the N. T. existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. This adverse view has been taken by Franzelin (De Divina, Traditione et Scripture, 1882), Schmid (De Inspirations Bibliorum Vi et Ratione, 1885), Crets (De Divine, Bibliorum Inspiration, 1886), Leitner (Die prophetische Inspiration, 1895a monograph), Pesch (De Inspiratione Sacrie Scriptures, 1906). Because of the wealth of resources devoted to the project, it was the most faithful and scholarly translation to datenot to mention the most accessible. It should be noticed, however, that the document to which this catalogue was prefixed is capable of being understood as having an anti-Jewish polemical purpose, in which case Melitos restricted canon is explicable on another ground (see Comely, Introductio, I, 75 sqq.). For details of these testimonies see Loisy, Canon de lAncien Testament, pp. a special indwelling of the Holy Ghost, beginning with Pentecost: Matth., x, 19, 20; Acts, xv, 28; I Cor., ii, 13; II Cor., xiii, 3; I Thess., ii, 13, are cited. The Alexandrian canon differed from the Palestinian. A kindred external influence is to be added to Montanism: the need of setting up a barrier, between the genuine inspired literature and the flood of pseudo-Apostolic apocrypha, gave an additional impulse to the idea of a N. T. Canon, and later contributed not a little to the demarcation of its fixed limits. Catholic Bible is the general term for a Christian Bible . Previously, older books of the Bible often stressed sheol ("the grave"), and did not dwell on a potential afterlife. The other is the Canon of Innocent I, sent in 405 to a Gallican bishop in answer to an inquiry. Catholic Bible has 46 books of Old and 27 books of the New Testament. The Catholic church based its Bible off the expanded Greek translation and early on shifted which books were included. Contents 1 Names 2 Composition 2.1 Jewish legend 2.2 History 2.3 Language In total, 39 books are numbered in the Old Testament in the Protestant version, 46 books in the Catholic Church version, and 51 books in the Orthodox Church version.