The Canon: Thoughts on the First-Generation
Christian Literature
2. What They Called It before They Called It Canon
The rabbis said it like this: “All the Holy
Scriptures render the hands unclean.” The Mishnah records a discussion
among the rabbis which concluded with the consensus that the Song of
Songs and Ecclesiastes both render the hands unclean (M. Yad. 3.5). So
that’s what the rabbis called it: books which were holy scripture and
inspired and authoritative were said to “render the hands unclean.”
The earliest Christians were Jews, so they too
spoke of the Hebrew Bible as “scripture.” In addition the Christians
soon possessed the Gospels and the letters of Paul and some other books,
and they viewed them as scripture, too.
As time passed, Christians developed a more-or-less
informal vocabulary to distinguish authoritative books from other books.
But they didn’t use the word canon at first.
Around the year 300, Eusebius of Caesarea, in
Church History 3.25, gave the current status of Christian literature.
His classification listed books in three categories:
(1) Recognized or “acknowledged” books (ὁμολογουμένοι).
(2) Disputed books (ἀντιλεγομένοι).
This doesn’t mean that every Christian disputed every one of these
books. This is just Eusebius’ category for books known to most Christians and
accepted by some and disputed by others, although some must be said to
be spurious [νόθοι, i.e., “bastard books,” not written by who they say they are].
(3) wicked and impious books (ἄτοπα
πάντῃ καὶ δυσσεβῆ) put forward by heretics.
We will come back to the books Eusebius reported as
being in these categories. The point now is to notice his vocabulary.
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