Who Chose the New Testament?

Before We delve into the writers of the early church, I want to spend a Sunday or two on some basics of early church writings. I also want to encourage anybody with serious questions to message me at my Google+ page (attached to this blog to the right) with any questions that you might have; I may just use them in the next blog!

Why were these writings not included in the NT if they were read so much and viewed so highly?

For the early church, there began to form a standard for which writings could be considered for inclusion in the NT and why. What were these qualifications? Though there are quite a few qualifications, here are the three most important for the study of early church writings:

1.      Apostolic Authorship: The book or letter in question needed to be authentically written by one of the Apostles or by a disciple who was very close to an Apostle. For example, Mark was very close with the Apostle Peter; he was probably a “scribe” for Peter, and thus his Gospel was most likely influenced by the Apostle. Another would be James the Just; All together, there are five different James in the NT (four, if you exclude the father of Jude in Acts 1:13) – two were Apostles, and a third the writer of the Epistle of James, the brother of Jesus and Bishop in Jerusalem.

2.      Widely Used: Just because a book or letter was very popular in one city or region in the Christian world, and maybe even used in early liturgy, does not make the writing eligible for the early church’s “Dream Team.” (Forgive me; football season is around the corner and I am ramping up my fantasy team!). Gospels - such as the four we hold near and dear to our heart - were widely used all over early Christendom: from Alexandria Egypt to Roman Byzantium to Rome itself. Other relatively early Gospels, such as the Gospel of Peter (we will discuss this writing in detail), were used for a short time in certain regions, but not others; however, the Gospel of Peter – and others like it - also fail our next qualifier:

3.      Coherency with existing Scripture and Rule of Faith: Even if a book were used throughout Christendom without issue, and could be argued was written by someone close to an Apostle (or even attributed to an Apostle, many times falsely), this would still not be enough. The writing in question must also be coherent with the Scriptures (in our era of study, this mainly describes the Old Testament – OT), and the Synoptic Gospels that were very quickly accepted as authentic and true. Using the Gospel of Peter as an example yet again, this writing caused concern with the local Bishop after he approved its use in liturgy; after which he deemed it unsuitable for use by the church due to it not measuring up doctrinally or theologically with the Scriptures and the Known True Gospels at the time. To many local bishops if it didn’t sound right it probably wasn’t – thus investigation ensued. This was the early church’s way of making sure what was being put out there by Christians, monks, priests, was in-tune with what the Apostles had thought the church; this is often called the “Rule of Faith,” which included the Apostles writings in the NT, their oral teachings that were not captured in writing but carried on by their students in tradition, and the orthopraxy (write practice) of the church through prayer, fasting, scripture reading, and taking part in the sacramental life.

           These three are some of the most common criteria for having a letter or book made canonical, but they are by far not the only – that would take another year of blogs. What we should take away from this is the fact that over time the church (its bishops, priests, and each communal Christian) was able to narrow down and Identify which letters and books were to be used in liturgy as part of the worship of God. It took a span of 4+ centuries for the united church to finally agree as to which of the letters and books on the suggested lists would make the cut. 

            One of the last lists to suggest a list of proposed NT cannon letters and books was that of (my Patron St.) Saint Athanasios in his Festal Letter in 367 ad. In which he includes proper OT books, proper NT Gospels and letters, books and letters that are good for instruction and godly encouragement, and books that were to be considered “apocryphal” and cast out of the assemblies of believers as heresy. 

            I have included a link to St. Athanasios’ Festal Letter (so maybe we will get to some early church writings today after all!!!). pay close attention to sections 5-7. Enjoy until next time! 

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxv.iii.iii.xxv.html

 
Also, a VERY good read about the Early Church and the Canon is "Who chose the Gospels?" by C.E. Hill 

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Chose-Gospels-Probing-Conspiracy/dp/0199640297/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408342428&sr=1-1&keywords=who+chose+the+gospels+hill

 

Blessings,
Devin (Athanasios) Green