sundberg, canon muratori, a fourth-century list

Harvard Divinity School

Canon Muratori: A Fourth-Century ListAuthor(s): Albert C. Sundberg, Jr.Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Jan., 1973), pp. 1-41Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity SchoolStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1509348 .Accessed: 20/03/2011 13:22

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HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW VOLUME 66 JANUARY 1973 No. 1

CANON MURATORI: A FOURTH-CENTURY LIST

ALBERT C. SUNDBERG, JR. GARRETT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

EVANSTON, ILLINOIS 60201

To HENRY JOEL CADBURY, NONAGENARIAN

As everyone knows, Canon Muratori is a list of New Testament books that was found by Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672-1750) in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and is contained in a codex dating from the eighth or possibly the seventh century,1 which belonged originally to Columban's Monastery at Bobbio.2 The list of New Testament books is part of this codex, which also contains a collection of tracts and creeds that appeared between the second and fifth centuries and that seem to have been collected and transcribed in the eighth (or seventh) century.3 The fragment on the canon is just that, since the beginning is lost, and the text ends abruptly, showing that it was copied from a mutilated and presumably ancient exemplar.4 There are also some bits of the Muratorian canon that were found in four eleventh- or twelfth-

century Latin manuscripts of St. Paul's epistles at Monte Cassino.5

1 L. A. MURATORI, Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi (Mediolani, 1740), III, 809- 8o. For bibliography cf. S. RITTER, Il Frammento Muratoriano, Rivista di Archeo- logia Cristiana, III (1926), 226-31; J. QUASTEN, Patrology (Utrecht, 195o-6o), II, 2o9f.; T. ZAHN, Grundriss der Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons (Leipzig,

1901), 74. The text of H. LIETZMANN, Das Muratorische Fragment, in Kleine

Texte, I (Bohn, 90o8), i-16 will be used. 2QUASTEN, Op. cit., II, 207; IRITTER, op. Cit., 217-24. ' B. F. WESTCOTT, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New

Testament (London, 1866), I84f., 466f.; G. KUHN, Das Muratorische Fragment

(Ziirich, 1892), 4; E. S. BUCHANAN, The Codex Muratorianus, JTS VIII (90o7), 537-39, etc.

*S. P. TREGELLES, Canon Muratorianus (Oxford, 1867), facsimile following p. viii; H. LIETZMANN, op. cit., 4f., IOf.

5 Fragmentum Muratorianum iuxta Codd. Casinenses, in Miscellanea Cassinese, II, I (1897), 1-5, cited by A. HARNACK, Excerpta aus dem Muratorischen Fragment (saec. xi et xii), in Theologische Literaturzeitung XXIII (1898), 131-34; LIETZ-

MANN, op. cit., 3, 6, 8, IO. Cf. QUASTEN, op. cit., II, 207; J. P. KIRscH, Muratorian

Canon, in Catholic Encyclopedia, X (New York, 1911), 642.

2 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

And it has been shown that the compiler of the prologue in which these occur cannot have used the Milan manuscript. The fact that he was working from an independent source indicates that the poor Latin of the Milan text was not that of the original author."a A Greek original was suggested by Muratori when he first published the list in 1740; 6 his suggestion has received wide

support,' though some have argued for a Latin original.8 Muratori assigned the list to Caius, a presbyter in Rome, but others have suggested Papias, Hegesippus of Rome, Rhodon, Melito of Sardis, and others.' But all attempts to identify the author of the list are subject to Westcott's comment, "There is no significant evidence to determine the authorship of the Fragment. . . . such guesses

5a HARNACK, op. cit., 133; T. ZAHN, Muratorian Canon, The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia (New York, 1908-14), VIII, 53f.

M MURATORI'S comments on the canon are reproduced in TREGELLES, op. cit., 11-13.

7 WESTCOTT, op. cit., 186, 188 n.I; B. J. LIGHTFOOT, The Apostolic Fathers, Pt. I, vol. II (New York, 1890), 407, etc. For translations into Greek cf. C. K. J. BUNSEN, Analecta anti-Nicaena, I (London, 1854), 142ff.; A. HILGENFELD, Einleitung in das N.T. (Leipzig, 1875), 79ff.; T. ZAHN, Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons (Erlangen, 1888/90), II, 138-43; and LIGHTFOOT has attempted a translation into

Greek verse, op. cit., 409ff. RITTER, op. cit., 233.

8 F. H. HESSE, Das Muratorische Fragment (Giessen, 1873), 25-39; A. T.

EHRHARDT, The Gospels in the Muratorian Fragment, Ostkirchliche Studien, II

(1953), I2I. Cf. J. CAMPOS, Epoca del fragmenta Muratoriano, Helmantica, Revista de Humanidades Clasicas, II (1960), 495 n.8. He, however, by examination of spelling, vocabulary, and syntax (pp. 486-95) has shown that the Latin of the fragment dates from not earlier than the last decade of the fourth century. He goes on to show (pp. 495f.) that the Latin text discloses close acquaintance with the Vulgate and, hence, could not have been produced earlier than the first part of the fifth century. This late date for the Latin of the text precludes the possibility of a Latin original for the fragment, since it contains elements that must be dated earlier than the Latin of the text. Cf. RITTER, op. cit., 233f. It seems unlikely that an earlier Latin text would have been revised early in the fifth century to accom- modate it to the Vulgate, whereas the Vulgate may well have influenced the word-

ing of a translation from Greek at that time. Cf. KUHN, op. cit., 3-16, who also

argued for a fourth- or fifth-century translation from a Greek original. KUHN also countered the thesis of G. VOLKMAR (in C. A. CREDNER, Zur Geschichte des

Kanons [Halle, 1847], 341ff.) that the text of the fragment is not in Latin but in

the lingua vulgata (the language of the provinces such as Africa). J. DONALDSON, History of Christian Literature, III (London, 1866), 2I1ff., argued that the fragment was composed originally in Latin, probably in the African church toward the end of the first half of the third century. But WESTCOTT, op. cit., 188 n.i, noted that the order of the gospels in the fragment is not that of the African church, where the oldest authorities have Matthew, John (but cf. TERTULLIAN, Adv. Marc.

4.2,5, John, Matthew). Therefore, he concluded that an African (and therefore Latin) origin for the list is very unlikely. Cf. ZAHN, NT Kanons, II, 128-31.

o Cf. WESTCOTT, op. cit., 186; KUHN, op. cit., 32f., etc.

ALBERT C. SUNDBERG, JR. 3

are barely ingenious." 10 The fragment, which has been dated as early as the middle of the second century,"1 is now commonly placed in the last decades of that century.12 This date became so generally accepted that by the seventh decade of the last century Westcott could observe, "the opinions of those who assign it to the fourth century. . . . scarcely deserve mention." 13 Indeed, the case for the Muratorian canon and its relationship to the history of the New Testament canon is so pat that the Interpreter's Dic- tionary of the Bible needed to devote only eight lines to its description. They read, "Muratorian Fragment. A fragment of a cor- rupt Latin manuscript named for its discoverer, L. A. Muratori (in 1740), and comprising the greater part of a list of the Chris- tian writings accepted as canonical by someone, probably at Rome near the end of the 2nd century. The document has great importance in the history of the New Testament Canon. J. Knox." 4" Neither the old nor the new R. G. G. gives a more comprehensive treatment.15

Adolf von Harnack was, perhaps, the last great apologist for the Muratorian canon."1 Confident that the time and place for

1o Op. cit., 186, following CREDNER, op. cit., 93.

1 ZAHN, NT Kanons, II, I34f. 12E. HENNECKE, W. SCHNEEMELCHER, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen (Tiibin-

gen, 1959-64), I, 18f.; RITTER, op. cit., 233, etc. 13 Op. cit., 4. Cf. TREGELLES, op. cit., 5 and CAMPOS, op. cit., 495 n.7 for bibli-

ography on various datings of the list. A. HARNACK, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius (Leipzig, 1958), II. 2, 331, cites G. KOFFMANE-KUNITZ, Das wahre Alter und die Herkunft des sogenannten Muratorischen Kanons, in Neue Jahrbiicher

fitr deutsche Theologie, II (1893), 163-223, as an example for a late

dating of the canon. This is a substantial and well-argued case and deserves close attention. HARNACK, however, dismisses it with a reference to H. ACHELIS, Zum Muratorischen Fragment, Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theologie XXXVII

(1894), 223-32. ACHELIS, however, deals only with KOFFMANE-KUNITZ' statement regarding the time and place of the script of the fragment and makes no attempt to

reply to other considerations in KOFFMANE-KUNITZ' case.

1 G. A. BUTTRICK, ed. (New York, 1962), III, 456. ' Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart IV (Tiibingen, 1930), 289; (1960),

II9I. " A. HARNACK, Tatians Diatessaron im Muratorischen Fragmente nachgewiesen,

in Zeitschrift fiir lutheranische Theologie und Kirche XXXV (1874), 276-88. Also his Der polemische Abschnitt im Muratorischen Fragmente als Schliissel fiir ein geschichtliches Verstiindniss desselben, ibid., 445-64, XXVI (1875) 207ff.; Zur Geschichte der Marcionitischen Kirchen, ZWT XIX (1876), 109-13; Das Murator- ische Fragment und die Entstehung einer Sammlung Apostolisch-Katholischer Schriften, Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte III (1879), 358-4o8, 595-98; Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, I, 646f., II, 330-33.


the canon was already clearly staked out, Harnack proceeded to interpret it as an official document published in Rome and defining the content of the New Testament for the whole church.17 He argued that the author of the canon speaks with authority. For this reason he must either have been a bishop or, less likely, in close association with a bishop, and writing under the bishop's direction. He assumed that what the church from which the canon emanated did, or may do, in reference to the New Testa- ment canon is self-evident and requires no defense (though the author of the list does partly defend and justify the acceptance or exclusion of some books). The procedure, argued Harnack, is intelligible only on the supposition that the author was addressing himself to outsiders who were uncertain about what should be included in the new collection of Christian sacred writings. He proclaimed, "this is our custom," and assumed that this custom must be the custom of the church everywhere. This attitude, says Harnack, is exactly the same as that of Rome in the Easter controversy. Secondly, Harnack argued that the apostolic, catholic standard dominates the fragment from beginning to end. He regarded the phrases, "we" and the "Catholic Church," when used in the fragment, as interchangeable and as denoting the Roman church. Hence, the terms "a nobis" (line 46), "recipimus" and "non recipimus" (lines 72 and 82), and "quidam ex nostris" (lines 72f.) designate properly and certainly the church to which the author belonged, as did "in catholica habentur," is since the phrase is linked with "recipimus." Unequivocally identifying this church with the Roman church, Harnack asked whether any western

church, at the transition from the second to the third century, 17 A. HARNACK, tber den Verfasser und den literarischen Charakter des Mura-

torischen Fragments, ZNW XXIV (1925), 5-7, and Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Leipzig, 1924), II, 860 n.2.

'sLine 69. M. J. ROUTII, Reliquiae Sacrae (Oxonii, 1818), I, 425; III, 44, has shown that TERTULLIAN and later writers sometimes omit "ecclesia." The usage here, however, may be due to the translator or the copyist. C. K. J. BUNSEN, Hippolytus und seine Zeit (Leipzig, 1852), II, 136, followed by WESTCOTT, op. cit., 191 n.2, is almost certainly wrong in amending the text to "Catholicis," presup- posing KaOoXtK71 •r71-TroTXj, since this passage is clearly parallel to "in honore tamen

ecclesiae catholicae" (lines 6if.), and to the negative, "in catholicam ecclesiam recipi non potest" (lines 66f., cf. lines 72, 82). Cf. WESTCOTT, op. cit., 480, where his corrected text reads "in catholica" with n. 4, "if the original reading was not 'in catholicis' "


other than the Roman and its bishop or his agent could have spoken thus. Thus Harnack found the Roman church here defining the New Testament for herself as well as for the church at large, holding that the fragment gives clear testimony that this particular canon is the specific work of the Roman church which cherishes, guards, and develops it, and now also delivers it to the other churches as the apostolic-Catholic canon to be accepted by them and observed.

Here Harnack has pushed beyond the position held by Zahn that "the circumstantial solemnity with which the position of Pius is described [in Canon Muratori] is intelligible only if the author was writing not indeed in Rome for Romans, but in or for a western church in some way connected with Rome," 19 whereas Harnack made the fragment into an official promulgation of a New Testament canon by and for the Roman church, and not for it only, but also for the whole of Christendom.20 Harnack suggested Victor, bishop of Rome 189-199, or less probably Zephyrinus (199-217), or someone under his authorization as the probable author. It is Harnack's view, but with relief at some points, such as the official character .of the fragment or the author specified, that has come to be the accepted view on Canon Muratori.

However, Harnack overextended himself in his argument. This has been conclusively demonstrated with respect to the linguistic argument for Rome by H. Koch in his article "Zu A.v.Harnacks Beweis fiir den amtlichen rb*mischen Ursprung des Muratorischen

Fragments." 21 Koch shows that Harnack has jumped to a rash conclusion in making the identification "catholica (ecclesia)" equals Rome, by showing that Cyprian in the third century was able to use the term in writing to bishops of other than the see of

Rome, meaning by it their several individual seats, and "catholicae ecclesiae" when more than one were involved. Hence for Cyprian the Christian community in each city could be called "catholica." Koch points out that he had already made this point in his

S"Muratorian Canon," p. 54. 2?TREGELLES, Op. cit., i, however, regarded the canon as an incidental account

rather than a formal canon. And EHRHARDT, op. Cit., 121, thinks that the canon was

produced to mark the occasion when the four-gospel canon was established in the church at Rome.

'ZNW XXIV (1925), 154-63.


book, Cyprian und der riimische Primat (1925), but Har- nack was ignorant of or has ignored his work. Koch then goes on to show that the terms "in urbe Roma" and "cathedra urbis Romae ecclesiae" are not, as Zahn had already noticed, the language one would expect in a document written from the city of Rome. Rather, Koch illustrates, writings emanating from the

city of Rome use the phrase "hic in urbe Roma" in reference to that city. Thus, if the Muratorian fragment emanated from the

city of Rome, one would expect not simply the phrase "urbs Roma," but rather a phrase such as "pastorem hic in urbe Roma Hermas conscripsit. . . ." Koch concludes that Harnack thus has no grounds to support his argument that the Muratorian fragment must have originated in the city of Rome.22 That Koch's article lies buried and forgotten while Harnack's position pre- vails is probably to be explained by the fact that in Harnack's

day Harnack was the man to read and Koch was not. There is one word that has been related to the place of origin of

the fragment that was not discussed by Koch. It is the word urbs

standing alone in lines 38f. Since in line 76 we find the phrase "urbis Romae," it is argued that "urbs" standing alone can only refer to the city of Rome (which, indeed, it does) and that it is

only in the city of Rome or in its environs that the word "urbs" could be thus used and mean the city of Rome.23 One must allow that this certainly would be the case if the usage of the term "urbs" depended upon the place of writing for its meaning. But in lines 34-39 of the fragment that is certainly not the case. Rather, the meaning of "urbs" is clearly defined by its reference to a supposed journey by Paul to Spain following his release from prison in Rome, which events are not described in the Book of Acts. The

passage reads: "Acta autem omnium apostolorum sub uno libro

scripta sunt. Lucas optimo Theophilo comprendit, quae sub

22 QUASTEN, op. cit., II, 208, concedes that KoCH has destroyed HARNACK'S argument that Canon Muratori is "an official document involving the responsibility of the Roman Church" (EHRIARDT, op. Cit., 132 n.64, erroneously cites KOCH as

supporting HARNACK'S position). But what QUASTEN has not seen is that KOCH also

destroyed HARNACK'S argument for Rome as the place of origin for the fragment, which is the main point of KocH's argument.

23HARNACK, Verf. u. literarischer Charakter des Muratorischen Fragments, 5; Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, II, 2, 331; TREGELLES, Op. cit., 40, etc.


praesentia eius singula gerebantur, sicuti et semota passione Petri evidenter declarat, sed et profectione Pauli ab urbe ad Spaniam proficiscentis." Quite evidently here the author of the fragment has assumed that since Acts closes abruptly with Paul in prison in Rome preaching the gospel freely for two years, and since Paul, in Rom. 15:24, 29, had evidenced his desire of continuing on to Spain after visiting Rome, that Paul, upon being released from prison, did depart the city (Rome) on his way to Spain but without Luke in his company.24 Hence, it is fruitless to argue from the use of "urbs," though it stands alone in this passage, that the fragment can only have been written in the city of Rome (though it does refer to that city) because the meaning of the term "urbs" does not depend upon the place of writing of the fragment but, rather, upon the place designated in Acts 28:3of. and Rom.

15:24, 28. Thus the linguistic argument for the designation of

place of writing as Rome is lost.24a 24WESTCOTT, op. cit., 189 n.I. Cf. HENNECKE, op. Cit., II, 177f., for refutation

of the argument that Canon Muratori was dependent on the Acts of Peter for information about these events.

24a ERHARDT, op. Cit., 124f., rightly dismissed the arguments that the play on

words in line 67, "fel enim cum melle misceri non congruit," and the phrase in line

75, "sedente in cathedra urbis Romae Pio episcopo," are useful language and place- of-origin indicators as inconsequential, since the first is a Latin proverb that could easily be included in a translation (cf. KUHN, op. cit., 86; QUASTEN, op. Cit., II, 209), and IRENAEUS used the same method as the latter for dating Valentinus' stay in Rome (Adv. Haer. 3.4.3). However, the case made by HARNACK, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, II, 2, 330f., independently restated by ERHARDT that the

phrase "iuris studiosum" (line 4) is "a remark pointing to Roman secular life which, in this form, could not have been made anywhere but at Rome" (op. cit., 124f.), appears erroneous. That this is a legal term is certain. However, HARNACK and ERHARDT tacitly assume that this fact is a sure pointer to Rome. But the study of Roman law in Latin was not limited to Rome. Probably in the second century a school of Roman law had been established in Beirut (P. COLLINET, Beyrouth, centre

d'affichage et de dep6t des constitutions imperiales, Syria V [1924], 359-72), and similar schools developed at Constantinople and Carthage (H. I. MARROU, A His-

tory of Education in Antiquity, trans. G. Lamb [New York, 1956], 389f.; E. S.

BOUCHIER, Life and Letters in Roman Africa [Oxford, 1913], 34). And, according to BOUCHIER, students of jurisprudence at Carthage became "iuris studiosi" or "studentes" (however, I am not able to discover these terms at the places cited by

BOUCHIER: C. I. L. VIII, 2470; Ephemeris Epigraphicus V, 191). It would appear that legal terminology, such as the term "iuris studiosus" would follow the study and practice of Roman law, especially in a center such as Beirut, which was a center for public proclamations, and the archives of the imperial laws and constitutions affecting the eastern portion of the empire were located there (MARROU, Op.

cit., 389). Thus, the use of "iuris studiosus" for a staff member of a Roman official can hardly have been exclusively Roman. But cf. also KUHN, op. cit., 40; KOFFMANE-KUNITZ, op. cit., I64f.


But not only is the linguistic argument as to place of origin lost; it would also appear that the linguistic argument for date is subject to question as well. The passage upon which dating depends is that dealing with the writing of the Shepherd of Hermas (lines 73-77), which reads: "Pastorem vero nuperrime temporibus nostris in urbe Roma Hermas conscripsit sedente cathedra urbis Romae ecclesiae Pio episcopo fratre eius." 24b Zahn succinctly puts the alternatives of date implied in this passage thus: i) If the words "very recently, in our own times" are intended to be con- trasted with the times of the prophets and apostles, which follow hard upon the statement about Shepherd and read, "and therefore, while it ought to be read, to the end of the ages, it cannot be read publicly in church to the people, either among the prophets whose ranks are complete or among the apostles," then these words would allow a lapse of a considerable amount of time between the writing of the Shepherd and this document. But Zahn finds the words "temporibus nostris" to be conclusive for the other alternative; 2) that the author of the fragment must have been born before the death of Pius, i.e., not later than Easter, A.D.

154.25 But is it possible to argue so conclusively from the words

"nuperrime temporibus nostris?" Scholars who have discussed the matter, in their willingness to date the fragment and establish a New Testament canon about the end of the second century A.D., have apparently overlooked significant alternatives to their con- clusions. One of these is to be found in the term "nuperrime," translated almost universally "very recently." And, indeed, one

possible translation of "nuperrime" is "very recently" if taken as a diminished superlative. Otherwise, and equally viable, the

meaning is "most recently." And with the latter the comparison of date for the Shepherd of Hermas is with the preceding books in the list. The meaning is that Shepherd of Hermas is not

comparable to the preceding books in the list in terms of antiquity of authorship. Here it is not necessary nor do I intend to argue that the second alternative is the only correct translation. It is

24bWESTCOTT, op. cit., 185; TREGELLES, op. cit., 58-64; ZAHN, NT Kanons, 134-36; KUHN, op. cit., 29; HARNACK, Altchristlichen Literatur, II, 331, etc.

' "Muratorian Canon," p. 54; cf. ZAHN, NT Kanons, II, 134.


important, however, to note that the second alternative is as viable a translation as the one commonly received. That is to say, the term "nuperrime" does not necessarily fix the time-comparison with the lifetime of the author of the list, but may relate the time- comparison for the writing of the Shepherd of Hermas to the previously listed apostolic books, as Zahn allowed.25a

As we have noted, Zahn regarded the words "temporibus nostris" to be conclusive evidence that the author of the list must have been born before the death of Pius. This conclusion implies that these words also are subject to only one meaning, i.e., "within our lifetime." But that this is the only meaning possible for these words is also subject to question. Already, as early as Ignatius (d. 117) and Polycarp (d. 156) a conscious differentiation between the apostles and these men was noted.26 And a tradition subsequently arose in the church setting apart the apostolic time from subsequent periods of church history. This tradition is illustrated, for example, by Hegesippus (I5O-I8o), who believed that the church remained a pure and uncorrupted virgin throughout the times of the apostles and their hearers. "But when the sacred band of the apostles" and their hearers had passed, then heresies arose in the church.27 For Hegesippus the turning point seems to have been the reign of Trajan. Or again, Eusebius, ob-

serving that he had described "the facts concerning the apostles and their times" in H. E. 3.31.6, continued the narrative in 3.32.1 after Nero and Domitian. Thus, the times of the apostles and the times subsequent to the apostles are set off by the reign of either Trajan or Domitian.27a A passage that has special bearing upon our interest here is found in Irenaeus, Haer. 5:30.3 28 which

reads, "We therefore will not take the risk of making any positive statement concerning the name of the Antichrist. For if it had been announced clearly at the present time, it would have been spoken by him who also saw the Revelation; for it was not

25a Cf. PHILASTRIUS, Haer. iio, "Alia est heresis quae dicit Christianas nuperio- res et posteriores Iudaeis . . ." (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, X [Turn-

holte, 1957], 247). 28 IGNATIUS, Eph. 13; POLYCARP, Phil. 3.9. '

EUSEBIUS, H. E. 4.22.4; cf. 3.32.6. 2a

KOFFMANE-KUNITZ, op. cit., 177. ' Cf. EUSEB., H. E. 5.8.6 for the Greek text. The translation is K. Lake's.


even seen a long time ago, but almost in our own generation towards the end of the reign of Domitian" (o'8 yap wrpo rToXXoo3 XPOVOV E(paO•1 qX, -XESOV

ET 7' raa 0EErE'pc,

- yEvEa , •TpO rT(J TEXrEL

7-^, Ao?Erteavov dpx-g).29 It would be surprising that Irenaeus could use such language to describe a lapse of time approaching a century apart from the fact that he is utilizing the tradition which differentiates between apostolic and subsequent time. It is clear that he believed that the Apocalypse of John was written about the end of the apostolic period, i.e., "almost in our own generation (o-XE8ob dE'r't r ij )1ETE'pag yEvEam). And the similarity of the language used by Irenaeus to describe the time in which the Apocalypse of John was written to the language used in the Muratorian canon to describe the time in which the Shepherd of Hermas was written leaves the argument poorly founded that the words "temporibus nostris" can mean nothing else than within the lifetime of the author. It is clear from the Irenaeus citation that he would call the time subsequent to Domitian 4i ( qLErupa yEVEd, and this appears to be the equivalent of Canon Muratori's phrase, "temporibus nostris." Thus, the similarity of the language used by Irenaeus to describe the time in which the Apocalypse of John was written to the language used by the Muratorian canon to describe the time in which the Shepherd of Hermas was written is evident. I would suggest that, in view of the language and time lapse involved in Irenaeus' statement, it is not inconceivable that we may be dealing with a time lapse of similar magnitude in the statement in Canon Muratori, if indeed the author of the Muratorian fragment had accurate information on the matter.3,

That the statement in the fragment is apologetic, and that the 29' The Latin translation of IRENAEUS reads, "Neque enim ante multum temporis

visum est, sed pene sub nostro saeculo ad finem Domitiani imperii." J. P. MIGNE, Patrologia ... Graeca (Paris, 1857-87), VII, 1207.

"3Cf. B. H. STREETER, The Primitive Church (New York, 1929), 213, "The phrase 'in our own time,' occurring in such a context, is of course the rhetorical exaggeration of the controversialist. It cannot be pressed, as has been often done, to imply that the author lived near enough to the time of Pius to be well informed in the matter. In any case such language in early Christian usage allowed considerable elbowroom." And he goes on to cite IREN., Adv. Haer. 5.30.3. Cf. KUHN,

op. cit., 25 n.i; KOFFMANE-KUNITZ, op. cit., i76f. But STREETER failed to notice that this undercut the accepted basis for dating the Muratorian fragment. Conse- quently he continued to regard it as reliable evidence for the shape of the New Testament canon about the end of the second century in Rome. Ibid., 2IIf. DONALDSON, op. Cit., III, 212, etc. Cf. EUSEBIUS, H. E. 3.28.3; 5.28.I.


author of the fragment is pleading a negative case against the canonicity of the Shepherd, is clear.31 The point of the argument is that the Shepherd of Hermas was written too late to be considered apostolic. And the conclusion of the argument for the late dating of the Shepherd refers not to the lifetime of the author of the Muratorian list but rather to the lifetime of Pius of Rome. Thus, the negative argument in the canon could be paraphrased as follows, Shepherd of Hermas was written "most recently" (that is, later than the apostolic books previously mentioned) "in our time" (that is, not in apostolic time) when Pius was Bishop of Rome. Thus, the language of Canon Muratori can be understood as making its case against the Shepherd of Hermas without any reference to the lifetime of the author of the list.

It is to be noticed that I do not argue that the alternative translation, "but Hermas wrote the Shepherd most recently, in our time (i.e., in post-apostolic times), in the city of Rome, while his brother Pius was the bishop occupying the episcopal chair of the church of the city of Rome," is the only possible translation but that this is a possible translation and that it is a viable alternative to the traditional dogmatic interpretation of the passage. This means that the argument that the author of the fragment must have been born before the death of Pius is inconclusive, and that the phrase "nuperrime temporibus nostris" understood as con- trasted with the times of the prophets and of the apostles is another viable meaning of the passage.

If then the statement about Rome and the statement about the Shepherd do not conclusively place and date the Muratorian fragment, as has been dogmatically held in the past, it becomes neces-

sary to look at other items in the fragment in order to establish its date and place. Samuel Tregelles has devoted section four of his work, Canon Muratorianus, to the relation of the Muratorian canon to authorities in the second century.32 These are not sur-

prising, whether the fragment is to be dated at the end of the

31 WESTCOTT, op. cit., 186; HARNACK, Der polemische Abschnitt im Muratorischen Fragmente, 2 76-88; P. VIELHAUER, Apocalyptic in Early Christianity, in HENNECKE, op. cit., II, 453; STREETER, op. cit., 213; B. J. LIGHTFOOT, et al., Excluded Books of the New Testament (New York, 1927), 251; S. GIET, Hermas et les Pasteurs (Paris,

1963), 286f.; KUHN, op. cit., 98. 32 Op. cit., 66-91.


second century or later. What is wanting in Tregelles' work is a section discussing those features in the canon which cannot be paralleled within the second-century church fathers and which find parallels only in substantially later materials.

J. Donaldson, one of the few authors who has questioned the second-century dating of the canon, has noted that the phrase "ecclesiastica disciplina" is unknown to any writer described in his third volume of A Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine, which deals with the apologists in the latter part of

the second century; 32a nor can he find the words "sedente cathedra urbis Romae ecclesiae" paralleled in Tertullian, but observes that there are many such expressions in Cyprian (A.D. 2 58).33

Again, the place of Hermas in Canon Muratori is of particular importance.33a The Shepherd of Hermas was highly regarded in the early church. Irenaeus (c. 185) cited it with approval; 34

32a Op. cit., 212. He also includes the phrase "ecclesiae catholicae" as late. But its Greek equivalent appears as early as IGNATIUS, Smyrna. 8.2; Martyrdom of Poly- carp 8.1; 16.2; 19.2, etc. Cf. KUHN, op. cit., 29.

" Op. cit., 212. DONALDSON indeed regarded the wording of the passage dealing

with the date of Hermas as so strange to the time of Hegesippus that he believed it to be an interpolation by the Roman or African translator expressly as proof that Hermas was not inspired. Ibid., 209. Cf. G. SALMON, Muratorian Fragment, in Dictionary of Christian Biography, III (London, 188o), 1oo2, who, noting the disparity between the historical circumstances of leadership in the Roman church at the time of Pius and that assumed by the author of the fragment, concluded that a much greater interval between the time of Pius and that of the Muratorian writer than the generally allowed twenty years must have occurred, since the author of the fragment reflects no memory of the struggle for monarchical episcopacy in Rome but simply assumes it. That struggle was far from over in Pius' day. Cf. G. LA

PIANA, The Roman Church at the end of the Second Century, HTR XVIII (1925), 201-77; KOFFMANE-KUNITZ, op. cit., 175f.

33a The late dating of the Shepherd of Hermas at about the middle of the second century is dependent upon the Canon Muratori statement. However, if the end- of-the-second-century dating of Canon Muratori proves erroneous, then Shepherd must be dated by its internal evidence and appears to belong to the end of the first century. Cf. W. J. WILSON, The Career of the Prophet Hermas, HTR XX

(1927), 21-62; W. COLEBORNE, A Linguistic Approach to the Problem of Structure and Composition of the Shepherd of Hermas, Colloquium III (1969), 133-42.

' Adv. Haer. 4.20.2; EUSEB., H. E. 5.8.7. Cf. A. JULICHER, An Introduction to the New Testament, trans. J. P. Ward (London, 1904), 500. For citations of Hermas in the church fathers cf. O. GEBHARDT, A. HARNACK, T. ZAHN, eds., Patrum Apostol- icorum Opera, third ed., III, Hermae Pastor (Lipsiae, 1877), xliv-lxxi. Though IRENAEUS calls Hermas ypaqo, it is overstatement to say that this means canonical

since ypao' was not a technical term. Cf. A. C. SUNDBERG, JR., Towards a Re-

vised History of the New Testament Canon, Studia Evangelica IV (1968), 454-57;


Clement of Alexandria (c. 215) regarded it as divinely spoken and by revelation; 3" Tertullian (c. 222-25), while initially accepting the book,36 under the influence of Montanism came to reject the Shepherd, calling it "the book that loves adulterers," and saying that even the synod of the orthodox counted it spurious." Ap- parently Tertullian's objection was that the Shepherd taught a doctrine allowing a fallen Christian to be restored,38 and his statement that it was rejected by 'the synod of the orthodox is probably to be understood as an expression of prejudice since we have no confirmation of it and since it is contrary to orthodox usage of the time.39 Origen (c. 185-253) had a high regard for the Shepherd of Hermas, calling it "authoritative scripture" 4o and "divinely inspired," 41 and attributing it to the Hermas mentioned in Rom. i6:14. He was aware that some opposed the work 4" and seems himself to have become more sensitive to this opposition toward the latter part of his life.43 We do not know the reasons for his objection. Quite possibly, as with the Mon-

tanists, objection to Hermas was raised by rigorist supporters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. And Origen was known for his asceticism and came to be a defender of Hebrews.44

Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263-339/40) seems to mark the turn-

J. LAWSON, The Biblical Theology of Saint Irenaeus (London, 1948), 50f.; J. WERNER, Der Paulinismus des Irenaeus, in Texte und Untersuchungen, VI.2 (Leip- zig, 1889), 36-38.

3 Stromata 1.17, 29; 2.1, 9, 12. 36 De oratione 16.

3 De pudicitia 10, 20. Cf. KRiGER, Op. cit., 41.

38 SALMON, op. cit., I002f. dated the canon between TERTULLIAN'S publication of De oratione and De pudicitia, since the latter marks the first instance of the re-

jection of the Shepherd. However, SALMON overlooked Tertullian's conversion to Montanism as the probable reason for his subsequent rejection of this work. SALMON regarded the fragment as anti-Montanist. If it is, one would have ex- pected it to defend the Shepherd against this Montanist attack.

9 Cf. JiJLICHER, op. cit., 521, "The 'Shepherd' of Hermas was treated by practi- cally all the Greek theologians of the third century who had occasion to use it as a canonical document."

40 De principiis 1.3.3; 2.1.5; 3.2.4.

"*Comm. in Rom. 10.31, cf. Tractatus 35 (on Lk. 12:59). 4 De princ. 4.1.11.

3 Comm. on Matt. 14.21; ibid., Pt. 2.53; Trac. on Num. 8.1; ibid., Trac. I (on Ps. 38), sect. i. Cf. R. P. C. HANSON, Origen's Doctrine of Tradition (London, 1954), 139f., where the foregoing passages from ORIGEN are cited.

44 EUSEB., H. E. 6.25.11-3.


ing point with respect to Hermas. He notes that some take the Shepherd to be the work of that Hermas mentioned in Romans; on the other hand, he feels it should be known that Hermas is rejected by some. Hence, for their sake, it should not be placed among the accepted books (6/zoXoyo1+Evot) though it is judged to be most valuable by others, especially for those needing elemen- tary instruction.45 Eusebius knows that it has been used in public in churches and he says he has found it quoted by some of the most ancient writers. Immediately following these comments on Hermas in H. E. 3.3.6-7, he continues, "let this suffice for the establishment of the divine writings which are disputed, and of those which are not received by all"

(',Jv /tq lrap IrTlo-tv

6FLOXoyovLE/WvY OGElov ypa~eLtL/oTv Wpgrpo-Ow). However, while here

placing Hermas among the divine but disputed writings, a little later in H. E. 3.2 5.4, where Eusebius is giving a summary of the New Testament books, he places Hermas among the spurious books (v6Oot). These passages are particularly important, since in each of them Eusebius is making his own evaluation of the books named, in one naming Hermas among the divine but disputed books, in the other listing Hermas as spurious. Following Eusebius, Hermas finds no place in New Testament lists.46 Atha- nasius of Alexandria, in his Easter Letter of 367, is the earliest to give a list of twenty-seven books of the New Testament which alone are to be regarded as canonical."47 His list matches ours. Shepherd is not included in the canon, but he notes that it may be read by catechumens together with the so-called Teaching of the Apostles. Thus, Eusebius appears to mark the transition to the

rejection of Hermas. But even after the will of the east had re- moved Hermas from the New Testament canon, there was an

5 H. E. 3.3.6f.; cf. 5.8.7. 8 However, the Shepherd is included together with the Epistle of Barnabas in

the fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus, and JEROME, De vir. ill. io notes the tradition that the author of the Shepherd was the Hermas mentioned in Rm. 16 and says that some in the Greek church read the Shepherd in public. However, see his Comm. on Habak. 1.14.

" G. SALMON, Hermas, in Dictionary of Christian Biography, III, 913f. The list of the apocrypha reads: Wisd. Sol., Wisd. Sir., Esther, Judith, Tobit, Teaching of the Apostles, Shepherd. Since the list of the apocrypha follows the Old and the New Testament canons, it apparently was intended to include both Old and New Testament apocrypha.


attempt in the west to preserve the book by attaching it to the Old Testament list.4"

Let me now return to the matter that first attracted my attention to the quesion of place and date of the Muratorian fragment. These are the statements that describe the circumstance of Old Testament canon in the church at the time and place when the Muratorian fragment was written. First, there is the statement that the Shepherd of Hermas cannot be read publicly in the church to the people "either among the prophets whose ranks are complete (neque inter prophetas completo numero), or among the apostles" (neque inter apostolos) (lines 77-80). And there is the other statement a few lines previous to this one that reads, "certainly the epistle of Jude and the two bearing John's name are accepted in the Catholic (Church), as well as the Wisdom, written by the friends of Solomon in his honor (et Sapientia ab amicis Salo- monis in honorem ipsius scripta) (lines 68-71)." These two statements give us two bits of information concerning the status of Old Testament canon at the time and place where the Muratorian canon was written. First, they tell us that the author of the Mura- torian canon knew the Old Testament as a closed canon, for I take the words "inter prophetas" to refer to the Old Testament. "Pro-

phetas" can hardly be a reference to apocalypses, i.e., by John and Peter, since the writer of the list nowhere names their authors

"prophets," since no closed collections of apocalypses as such are

48 SALMON, Hermas, 913; A. HARNACK, History of Dogma, 3rd ed. trans. N. Buchanan (Boston, 1897), III, 198 n.i and The Origin of the New Testament, trans. J. R. Wilkinson (Covent Garden, W. C. 2, 1925), 171; 0. DE GEBHARDT et al., op. cit., xii-xxiv, where Hermas appears: in Cod., Bodleianus Oxoniesis between Tobit and Macc.; in Cod. Dresdensis A 47 between Ps. (of Sol.?) and Prov. Sol.; Cod. Vindobonensis Lat. 1217 (Theol. 51) between Wisd. and Isa., exemplars of the versio Latina vulgata. Cf. S. BERGER, Histoire de la Vulgate (New York, N.Y., orig. pub. 1893), 67, for the inclusion of Hermas among the 0. T. Apocrypha. SALMON, however, is mistaken in supposing that ATHANASIUS' list set the example for this practice (cf. n. 47 above). It is rather JEROME who -apparently set this

precedent, saying in Prologus Galeatus (before the Book of Kings) that Wisd. Sol., Sir., Judith, Tobit, and Shepherd are not canonical. In the Decretum of Gelasius (492-96) 17, the Shepherd is called "apocryphus" and placed among writings "quae . . . a catholicis vitanda sunt."

40 BUNSEN'S attempt to find evidence here of the omission of Hebrews (op. cit., II, 138, 152) can only be regarded as fanciful. Cf. TREGELLES, op. cit., 51; and his On a Passage in the Muratorian Canon, Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology IV (1855), 37-43.


known in the church, and since the reference to "prophets and apostles" was a common designation for the Old Testament and Christian writings in the church. These statements also tell us that the closed Old Testament canon known to the author of Canon Muratori did not include the Wisdom of Solomon, since the author of the list included it in the New Testament. Until recently, each of these statements has been an enigma."0 This is because it has long been assumed that early Christianity received a closed canon from Judaism, not the Palestinian or Hebrew canon of scripture of A.D. go, but a larger collection that included the books of the Apocrypha and was thought to be the Alexandrian or the Septu- agint canon of diaspora Judaism. But since this supposed larger Alexandrian canon included the Wisdom of Solomon, what need was there for Wisdom of Solomon to appear in a New Testament list? Now, however, it has become evident that the legacy the church received from Judaism cannot be described as a closed canon." An Alexandrian or Septuagint canon never existed. And it is now possible to understand these two statements in Canon Muratori in view of what has been shown to be the differing his- tories of the Old Testament canon in the church in the east and in the west. So far as our extant information goes, it would appear that the church in the west, including Rome, was relatively slow in becoming concerned with the closing of the Old Testament canon. And when it did take up the matter, the Old Testament of the western church usually included the Wisdom of Solomon.12 In the eastern church, however, the impact of a closed Jewish canon from Jamnia upon the more inclusive usage of Jewish scriptures in the church was felt at a much earlier date. Already by the sixth decade of the second century Melito, bishop of Sardis (c.

170), travelled to the east to the "place where these things were preached and done," to inquire into the facts concerning the number and order of the ancient writings."3 He obviously obtained

50 WESTCOTT, op. cit., 192; TREGELLES, Canon Muratorianus, 50-55, followed by P. KATZ, The Johannine Epistles in the Muratorian Canon, JTS VIII (1957), 273f. But cf. J. REIDER, The Book of Wisdom (New York, 1957), if.

51A. C. SUNDBERG, JR., The Old Testament of the Early Church (Harvard Theological Studies XX, Cambridge, Mass., 1964), 51-103.

52 Ibid., 59, 148-59. 53 EUSEBIUS, H. E. 4.26.13.


his list from the Jews, since his Old Testament canon exactly parallels that of Jamnia except that he inadvertently omitted Lamentations."5 And thereafter in the eastern fathers we find a tendency to exclude several of the books that we call the Apocrypha, including the Wisdom of Solomon. So, for example, Athanasius (295-373) excludes the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Esther, Judith, and Tobit from his Old Testament canon. And he goes on to say, "but for greater exactness I add this also, writing of necessity: that there are other books besides these [i.e., the Old and New Testaments], on the one hand not canonical (ob'

Kavo•tLO/dEva), but appointed by the fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of Godliness. The Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Sirach and Esther and Judith and Tobit and the so-called Teaching of the Apostles and the Shepherd" (Letters on the Pascal Festival, A.D. 367).55 It is interesting to find that in Athanasius not only is Wisdom excluded from his Old Testament canonical list but he is also concerned to say that the Shepherd of Hermas is not canonical, which was also the concern of the author of the Muratorian list. And surprisingly enough, another eastern father, Epiphanius of Salamis in Cyprus (d. 403), omits the Wisdom of Solomon from his Old Testament lists,56 but he includes the Wis- dom of Solomon and Sirach as a part of his New Testament canon.57 Similarly, Eusebius, when illustrating Irenaeus' use of New Testament books, mentions Irenaeus' quotations from the Wisdom of Solomon among them.5" These are interesting com-

5 SUNDBERG, O. T. of the Early Church, I33f. 5 Ep. Fest. 39, in J. P. MIGNE, P. G. XXVI, 1436f.

"5Adv. Haer. 1.1.8, in MIGNE, P. G. XXXIII, 497-500; De mens. et pond. 6, in MIGNE, P. G. XLIII, 244; De mens. et pond. 23, in MIGNE, P. G. XLIII, 277-80.

In De mens. et pond. 6, however, Wisdom and Sirach are added as at ycip rtLXcPeL• Uo lipXot, a continuing interest in these books even though they cannot stand in

the Old Testament list. 5 Adv. Haer. 76, in MIGNE, P.G. XLVII, 560f. 5" H. E. 5.8.1-8. The books named are: Matt., Mk., Lk., Jn., Apoc. of Jn., I Jn.,

I Pet., Shep., Wisd. Sol. Eusebius' list for Irenaeus is certainly not complete. But the writings he does include show that Eusebius thought that Irenaeus treated them as scripture, since Eusebius introduced the passage thus: "At the beginning of this work we made a promise to quote from time to time the sayings of the presbyters and writers of the church of the first period in which they have delivered the traditions which have come down to them about the canonical scriptures (rckW v8taOlKKWV yypao.Tv) of whom also was Irenaeus" (5.8.1). Cf. the index of Codex


parisons to make with the status of the Old Testament canon as we find it in the Muratorian fragment. It is probable that Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, and Tobit were excluded from the Old Testament canon in the eastern church because they were not included in the Jewish Jamnia list, and the traditions concerning them in the eastern church did not make it possible for them to be included by the process of agglomeration under the titles in the Jewish list. However, the impact of the Jamnia list on the eastern church did not become a live issue until the time of Athanasius. And the inclusion of Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon by Epiphan- ius in his New Testament list in all probability was due to an interest to continue the usefulness of these books in the church even though they could not be fitted under authors of the Jamnia list of the Old Testament canon.59 Thus, the inclusion of Wisdom of Solomon in the New Testament list in Canon Muratori is seen to have a close parallel in the inclusion of Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach in the New Testament list of Epiphanius and in Euse- bius' inclusion of Wisdom of Solomon among the New Testament books used by Irenaeus. There are no parallels to this practice in the west. However, we have noted previously a similar attempt in the western church to include the Shepherd of Hermas in the Old Testament when it could no longer stand in the New Testa- ment canon. Thus, we observe parallel phenomena in east and west respecting the treatment of books once generally accepted when they could no longer be included in the canonical list to which they belonged. The east tended to include Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach in the New Testament, and the west sometimes included the Shepherd of Hermas in the Old. Canon Muratori is an example of the former tendency; it follows the eastern church in including the Wisdom of Solomon in the New

Testament, and the reason for this tendency in the east is first observed in Athanasius, with Epiphanius being the earliest clear ex-

ample of parallel inclusion. Further information concerning time and place of writing for

Canon Muratori may be obtained from its statements concerning

Alexandrinus, probably Palestinian, which concludes the New Testament list with the Psalms of Solomon, in WESTCOTT, Op. cit., 493f.

59 SUNDBERG, O. T. of the Early Church, 145-48.


apocalypses. The Apocalypse of John is referred to three times in the list: lines 47-50, "cum ipse beatus apostolus Paulus sequens prodecessoris sui Iohannis ordinem non nisi nominatim septem ecclesiis scribat"; lines 57-59 (which are a continuation of the argument of lines 47-50), "et Iohannes enim in apocalypsi licet septem ecclesiis scribat, tamen omnibus dicit." While these lines are related by the author to the letters of Paul, it appears un-

likely that they were used by the author to argue for the canonic-

ity of Paul's letters, as K. Stendahl has suggested.60 The author first begins to list Paul's letters in lines 39-46 with no apologetic concerning their canonicity other than that they are Paul's.61

" The Apocalypse of John and the Epistles of Paul in the Muratorian Fragment, W. KLASSEN and G. F. SNYDER, eds., Current Issues in New Testament Interpreta- tion (New York, 1962), 239-43. V. BARTLET, observing that Canon Muratori, in

making Paul dependent on the example of the Apocalypse of John in writing letters to seven churches, is the reverse of the situation described by HIPPOLYTUS, accord-

ing to BAR SALIBI, cited in T. H. ROBINSON, The Authorship of the Muratorian

'Canon, Expositor, Series 7, I (I906), 488, where John, in writing to seven churches in his Apocalypse, is dependent on the example of Paul (cf. V. BARTLET, Melito the author of the Muratorian Canon, Expositor, Series 7, II [Igo6], 211).

He suggests in explanation that the Muratorian form must have taken shape where the Johannine tradition was even stronger than the Pauline; "there only could the notion of making John the norm of fitting action readily occur, without the

chronological question, too, needing to be considered very seriously" (ibid., 218). Both STENDAHL and BARTLET, however, have overlooked the larger tradition con-

cerning the universality of Paul's letters. Thus TERTULLIAN remarked, "But of what

consequence are the titles, since in writing to a certain church the apostle did in fact write to all," in explaining that Ephesians, rather than Laodiceans, was the correct name of that letter (Adv. Marc. 5.17). And CYPRIAN, after citing ex-

amples in which the mystical number seven occurs in scripture, continues, "And the Apostle Paul who was mindful of this proper and definite number writes to seven Churches. And in the Apocalypse the Lord writes his divine commands and

heavenly precepts to seven churches and their Angels" (De exhort. mart. ii).

VICTORINUS, bishop of Pettau in Pannonia, similarly says, "There are . . . seven

spirits . . . seven golden candlesticks . . . seven churches addressed by Paul, seven deacons . . ." (cited in ROUTH, op. cit., III, 459). And JEROME comments, "The

Apostle Paul writes to seven churches, for his eighth epistle to the Hebrews is by most excluded from the number" (ad Paul. 50, cited in WESTCOTT, op. cit., 324f.). These show that the concept of the universality of Paul's letters existed apart from the connection of that tradition with the numerological interest in seven, and that the seven-churches interest also existed apart from its being related to the seven churches of the Apocalypse of John. CYPRIAN's remark simply observes the coin- cidence that seven churches are addressed in Paul's letters and in Revelation.

1 The text reads: Epistulae autem Pauli, quae a quo loco vel qua ex causa directae sint, volentibus intellegere ipsae declarant: primum omnium Corinthiis schismae haereses interdicens, deinceps Galatis circumcisionem, Romanis autem ordinem scripturarum sed et principium earum esse Christum intimans prolixius scripsit.


Similarly, Philemon, Titus, and I and II Timothy are accepted as written by Paul for ecclesiastical discipline," and the comparison to Revelation in lines 47-59 does not apply to them. But this provoked no hesitation concerning their status in the list. Rather, lines 47-59 argue that although Paul's letters are addressed to particular churches, Paul must have intended them for the uni- versal use to which they have been put, since he addressed them by name only to seven churches, thus paralleling John's writing to seven churches as an introduction to Revelation, which was intended for the whole church.63 The final statement is about the apocalypses of John and of Peter, lines 71-73: "Apocalypses

62 Lines 59-63: Verum ad Philemonem unam et ad Titum unam et ad Timotheum duas pro affectu et dilectione, in honorem tamen ecclesiae catholicae in ordinationem ecclesiasticae disciplinae sanctificatae sunt.

6a On the significance of seven churches addressed cf. WESTCOTT, op. Cit., 189; ROUTH, op. cit., I, 416f; KUHN, op. cit., 76; N. A. DAHL, The Particularity of the Pauline Epistles as a Problem in the Ancient Church, in Neotestamentica et Patris- tica, ed. W. C. VAN UNNIK (Supplements to Novum Testamentum 6, 1962), 261-63. It appears to this writer that the author of the Muratorian list had two different arrangements of the Pauline corpus in hand when he composed his list. This is indicated by the fact that one arrangement commences in line 39 with the order: Corinthians, Galatians, Romans; the other, beginning in line 47, gives the order: Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, Thessalonians, Romans. The first arrangement is obviously not complete. But its format, though introduced: Epistulae autem Pauli, quae a quo loco vel qua ex causa directae sint, volentibus intellegere ipsae declarant, evidently was to name Paul's letters, giving for each a brief statement of the purpose for writing, whereas the second arrangement simply names and numbers the letters written to churches (cf. N. A. DAHL, Welche Ordnung der Paulusbriefe wird vom muratorischen Kanon Vorausgesetzt?, ZNW LII

(I96I), 44, "Die Darstellung des Mur. ist offenbar nicht aus einem Gus." DAHL notes lines 54-55 as particular evidence of this. However, he also refers to lines 42-46, 50-54, 59-60 as "beide Hauptgruppen," 43, cf. 45. That lines 39-46 contain a real arrangement of Paul's letters with Romans standing third (fourth) is confirmed by the arrangement of the Pauline letters in Marcion (EPIPHANIUS,

Haer. 1.3.42; TERTULLIAN, Adv. Marc. 5.2-21; and a Syrian list of about A.D. 400 [in A. SOUTER, The Text and Canon of the New Testament (New York, I913), 226]), which run: Galatians, Corinthians I II, Romans. . ... Here, however, the order is Corinthians, Galatians, which has a parallel in TERTULLIAN, Adv. Haer. 4.5 (where Romans is placed at the end of the list). It is evident that lines 39-41 intro- duce one arrangement of Paul's letters available to the author and lines 47-50 another. And the introduction to the first arrangement appeals to the self-eviden- tial character of Paul's letters (i.e., their usage), including, presumably, their inspiration, since their inspiration was everywhere accepted (cf. DAHL, The Par- ticularity of the Pauline Epistles, 264ff.). Note also TERTULLIAN'S comment, "But of what consequences are the titles (to Paul's letters), since in writing to a certain church the apostle did in fact write to all" (Adv. Haer. 5.17), which recog- nizes the catholicity of Paul's letters (presumably deduced from their catholic use) without appeal to any formula of catholicity (ibid., 265).


etiam Iohannis et Petri tantum recipimus, quas quidam ex nostris legi in ecclesia nolunt." 64

That the Apocalypse of John is an accepted book in the list is evident. But the tentative nature of this acceptance has not been recognized. It appears possible to divide the Muratorian list into the categories used by Eusebius: accepted, questioned, spurious, and rejected.64a And if so, then it is to be noted that while John's Apocalypse is named in the main body of the list, that naming is only related to the letters-to-seven-churches statement and not as a received book in the list. As a received book in the list, John's Apocalypse appears only as the last accepted book and then in close conjunction with the Apocalypse of Peter, which is questioned. Thus the Apocalypse of John seems to lie on the very fringe of acceptance. Another indicator of the tentative nature of the acceptability of Revelation in this list is that it is positioned among the accepted books, but only after the naming of Wisdom of Solomon. We have noted above the reason for the inclusion of Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Psalms of Solomon in New Testa- ment lists. Apart from Canon Muratori, wherever these books are included, they are placed at the end of the list. Thus Epi- phanius' list concludes: Apocalypse of John, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach; Eusebius on Irenaeus: Apocalypse of John, I John, I

Peter, Shepherd, Wisdom of Solomon; the index in Codex Alex- andrinus: Apocalypse of John, I and II Clement, Psalms of Solomon.64b However, in Canon Muratori the apocalypses are

relegated to positions below Wisdom of Solomon, with John's re-

ceived, Peter's questioned. This indicates that the apocalypses are on the very fringe of canonicity in this list. And we must seek a historical situation that will lend understanding to this fringe position for the Apocalypse of John in the Muratorian list.

It is evident that the Apocalypse of John was early received as authoritative in the church. In the west its imagery appears to have been employed by Hermas.65 Justin Martyr (A.D. 165) used

"Apocalypse should be amended to apocalypses. J. VAN GILSE, Disputatio de

Antiquissimo Librorum Sacrorum novi foederis Catalogo, qui vulgo Fragmentum Muratorii Appellatur (Amstelodami, 1852), 16; LIETZMANN, op. Cit., 8f.

64a H. E. 3.25. "b EPIPIANIUS, Adv. Haer. 76.5; SOUTER, op. cit., 2I1, respectively. SA. H. CHARTERIS, Canonicity (Edinburgh, 1880), 336f. n. Hermas I.


the book and attributed it to John the apostle."6 It was used and named as John's frequently by Irenaeus," and it is quoted in the letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons of about the same

date.6" In the latter part of the second century the Apocalypse of John came under attack in Rome by Gaius and the Alogoii." However, it does not appear to be their attack that is reflected in the precarious position of John's Apocalypse in Canon Muratori, since Gaius and the Alogoi rejected not only the Apocalypse but also the Gospel and the Epistles of John as well, whereas the Gos- pel and two Epistles of John are securely accepted in the Mura- torian canon (lines 9-15, 68f.). But the anti-Montanist attack of Gaius and the Alogoi was of only limited effect. Hippolytus (c. 236) cites the Apocalypse as by the apostle and disciple John,7o and Victorinus of Pettau (c. 304), whose commentary on the Apocalypse is the earliest that is extant," accepted it as written by the John who wrote the Gospel.7" Hilary of Poitiers (c. 367) accepted the Apocalypse as written by St. John,73 and Jerome (c. 340-420) included it in his New Testament canon.7" Thus, apart from Gaius and the Alogoi, the Apocalypse of John was fully accepted in the west.Ia

Similarly, the Apocalypse of John was accepted in North Africa. Tertullian spoke of it as by John the apostle,75 Cyprian regarded

"•I Ap. 2.8; Dial. 81; EUSEB., H. E. 3.I8.If.; 4.I18.8. 67Haer. 4.18.6; 4.20.10, II; 5.26.1, etc.; EUSEB., H. E. 5.8.5. The attempt to

distinguish between John the Apostle, author of the Apocalypse and 2, 3 John, and John the disciple, author of the Gospel and I John, apparently begins with CREDNER,

op. cit., I5If. Cf. WESTCOTT, Op. cit., 187 n. 2, who finds no evidence that the author of the Muratorian list made any distinction between the Johns named.

s EUSEB., H. E. 5.1.58. 6'R. M. GRANT, Second Century Christianity (London, 1946), I04-o8. Cf.

ROBINSON, op. cit., 481-85, 487. Note that, according to TERTULLIAN, Adv. Marc. 4.5, the Apocalypse was rejected by Marcion as well.

' De Christo et Antichr. 36, 6, 47, 60, 61, etc. "7 CHARTERIS, Op. Cit., 351, Victorianus n. I; QUASTEN, Op. cit., II, 411f. " De fabrica mundi, in CHARTERIS, Op. cit., 351. Cf. JEROME, De vir. ill. 74.

7 In Psalm. I; De trinit. 6, in CHARTERIS, Op. cit., 355. 7 Epist. II, ad Paulinunm, in CHARTERIS, op. cit., 22; Catal. script. eccl. 9;

Praefatio in codd. antiq.; Adv. Jovinianum 1.26. But cf. Ep. 129.4: nec Graecorum

quidem ecclesiae Apocalypsin Joannis eadem libertate suscipiant (MIGNE, P. L. XXII, II103), and In Isa. Lib. i8 Proem., where JEROME notes that the "most eloquent" Dionysius of Alexandria had written an "elegant" book against the Apocalypse.

7a JfiLICHER, Op. cit., 536. 7 De praescript. haer. 3; Adv. Marcion. 3.14; 4-5.


it as the words of the Lord and by John,76 and Lactantius (c. 340) spoke of it as written by John." It was included in the canon of the Third Council of Carthage (397).71 Thus the west provides no parallel to the treatment of the Apocalypse of John in Canon Muratori.

Initially in the east the Apocalypse of John was as generally accepted as it was in the west. Papias of Hierapolis (early second century) is said to have used it,79 Melito of Sardis (c. 194) to have commented upon it,s0 and Apollonius (c. 186) to have used it.8s Theophilus of Antioch (c. 186) quoted from the Apocalypse,82 as did Pamphilus of Caesarea (c. 309),83 and Methodius of Olympus

(311)."4 But it was questioned by Amphilochius of Iconium

(c. 400)s5 and it was omitted by Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 389).8" In Egypt Clement of Alexandria named and quoted the Apoc- alypse s7 and Origen used and spoke of it as by John the son of Zebedee and disciple of Jesus." Dionysius (265), however, intro- duces a change of attitude toward the Apocalypse of John in the east. It was the work of Nepos of Arsione that directed Dionysius' attention to the Apocalypse. Nepos had refused Origen's allegori- cal interpretation of the Apocalypse and insisted on what Eusebius called a more Jewish (i.e., literal) interpretation in support of chiliastic views and wrote a book entitled Refutation of the Alle- gorists, setting forth his position. Dionysius, who had been Origen's pupil and was now his successor, attacked Nepos' in-

terpretation in two volumes entitled On Promises; in the second

76Epist. 63.x; De eleemos. 21; De bono patient.; etc. 77Epist. 42; Instit. 7.10. 78 G. D. MANSI, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (Florentiae,

1759-92), II, 1177.

S7ANDREAS CAESARIENSIS, in Apoc. 34, Serm. 12; OECUMENIUS et ARETHAS,

Comment. in Apoc. 12.7, both in CHARTERIS, op. cit., 338. so EUSEB., H. E. 4.26.2; repeated in JEROME, De vir. ill. 24.

s EUSEB., H. E. 5.18.14. 82 Ad Autolyc. 2.28; EUSEB., H. E. 4.24.1.

83 Apol. pro Orig., in CHARTERIS, op. cit., 352.

s ANDR., proleg. in Apoc., in CHARTERIS, op. cit., 339; Conviv. 1.5; 7.5, etc. 85 Epist. iambica ad Seleuc. 316.

s6 Carm. I.I.12.39, in MIGNE, P.G. XXXVII, 474. 7 Instr. 1.6; 2.9; Strom. 6.13, 16, etc.

ssDe princip. 1.2.IO; 4.1.25; Contra Cel. 6.6.6.; Hom. in libr. Jesu Nave. 7.2; Comm. in Matt. 16; Comm. in Joann. 2.8; 5.3; EUSEB., H. E. 6.25.10.


he treated the Apocalypse of John.s9 His arguments are summa- rized by Eusebius.9o First noticing that the Apocalypse had earlier been rejected by some who attributed it to Cerinthus (probably Gaius and the Alogoi), Dionysius says that he would not dare to reject the book. But, although he did not understand it, still he thought that the Apocalypse was written by a holy and inspired person named John. Dionysius argued, however, that the author of the Apocalypse could not have been the disciple John, the author of the Gospel and a catholic epistle or of the two shorter epistles: differences in general arrangement, vocabulary, and style are too great. Moreover, the disciple John never named himself in his writings, whereas the author of the Apocalypse put his name forward at the very beginning and repeatedly. Since there were many persons named John and since there were two tombs of John in Ephesus, Dionysius concluded that the Apocalypse must have been written by another John than the disciple. Subse- quently, however, Athanasius included the Apocalypse in the canonical list of his Festal Letter of 367.91

As in the discussion of the Shepherd of Hermas above, Euse- bius' treatment of the Apocalypse of John calls for particular attention. On occasion Eusebius could use and name this writing as the Apocalypse of John without further comment,"9 while else- where he would indicate that he was aware that it was questioned, dubbing it the "so-called (XEyop~vlq) Apocalypse of John," 9" or

stating that some advocated its acceptability while others disputed it."9 The final step of rejection is found in the Canones Aposto- lorum " and in Cyril of Jerusalem,"9 where the Apocalypse of John is missing in both canonical lists, though it is included in the list of Epiphanius of Salamis."9 It was included in the Byzantine text of the New Testament, probably created by Lucian of An-

89EUSEB., H. E. 7.24.1-4. QUASTEN'S citation, 7.14.1-3 (op. cit., II, 104), is incorrect.

90H. E. 7.25; cf. 7.10.2.

"1 Ep. Fest., in MIGNE, P. G. XXVI, I436f. 92 Demonstr. Ev. 8. " H. E. 3.18.2. 94 Ibid., 3.24.18. 95 76 (85), in WESTCOTT, op. cit., 484, cf. 389. 96 Catech. 4.36, in CHARTERIS, op. cit., 19. "1 Haer. 76.5, in WESTCOTT, op. cit., 492, cf. 398.


tioch (c. 312),"9 but it was omitted from the Peshitta Version of the Syriac, created toward the end of the fourth century, and did not come to be included in Syria until 508.99

We must return to Eusebius and his canonical list 100 because his treatment of the Apocalypse of John provides an interesting parallel to its treatment in Canon Muratori. Eusebius divided the books named in his list into four classifications: acknowledged books

(6O.toXoyoLE•vot), disputed books (&vrtXEydOEvot), spurious books (v6Oot), and heretical books (alpE7TKOt). The Apocalypse of John is first mentioned as the last of the acknowledged books, but with a reservation. He says, "In addition to these should be put, if it seem desirable (E'I yE avar), the Apocalypse of John, the arguments concerning which we will expound at the proper time. These belong to the acknowledged books." 101"' Then, after disputed books, the Apocalypse of John appears again as last among the spurious books. Concerning it Eusebius says, "And in addition, as I said, the Apocalypse of John, if this view prevail. For, as I said, some reject it, but others count it among the acknowledged books. ... These all belong to the disputed books"

(VrLXEyd eVoEt).102 Eusebius thus in the summary statement combines the disputed and the spurious books under the classi- fication "disputed" (vr-EtEy'/d.tvo). Subsequently Eusebius suggests that this apocalypse was written by John the presbyter, noting that Papias had named two Johns, one among the apostles and another among the apostolic men with whom he had con-

versed, and that there are still two tombs at Ephesus called

John's.o03 Eusebius concludes, "This calls for attention: for it is

probable that the second (unless anyone prefer the former) saw the Revelation which passes under the name of John." 104

The similarity of the treatment of the Apocalypse of John in Canon Muratori to that of Eusebius is immediately apparent, once it is called to attention. Canon Muratori mentions John's

9s B. METZGER, The Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 1964), 141, 213.

9 Ibid., 69, 136 n. 2, 7of.

"o H. E. 3.25. "ox Ibid., 3.25.2.

102 Ibid., 3.25.4

"o0 Ibid., 3.39.5f- 10o Ibid., 3.39.4.


Apocalypse in illustrating the catholicity of Paul's letters written to churches, which favors its acceptability, but does not name it as a listed book until the most tenuous position, following Wis- dom of Solomon and associated in the same sentence with the disputed Apocalypse of Peter. In Eusebius' list the Apocalypse of John, while being listed among the acknowledged books, is with the notation that it is questioned and later to be named among the spurious books. Thus, in Eusebius, as in the Muratorian canon, the Apocalypse of John is on the very fringe of canonicity. The slight preponderance in Eusebius' judgment appears to be negative; in Canon Muratori the judgment is slightly positive. But both appear to stem from the same milieu of discussion about the canonicity of the Apocalypse of John. And this questioning of its status finds no sitz im leben in the church until subsequent to Dionysius, and then only in the east.

If this evaluation be correct, then definition with respect both to time and locale reaches considerable precision with respect to the treatment of the Apocalypse of John. Although apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse of John was questioned by Diony- sius, serious doubts about it appear not to have taken root in

Egypt, since it is included without question in the canon of Atha- nasius. Similarly, its continued use by the fathers in Asia Minor and its inclusion in the Byzantine text of the New Testament would appear to exclude Asia Minor. It is Palestine-Syria and the Eusebius-Cyril-Peshitta context that are most closely related to Canon Muratori with respect to its treatment of the Apocalypse of John, with Eusebius providing the closest parallel.

As to the Apocalypse of Peter, it is first to be noted that, as M. R. James has said, there is only the scantiest evidence of its use in the west.1'0 He observes that A. Harnack "'o had cited the Muratorian Canon (which is here under question), Hippolytus, TEpL 70 ro Tavros and Ref. Haer. 10.34, a passage from de laude

Martyrii (printed among the works of Cyprian but which Har- nack ascribed to Novatian), the Acts of SS. Felix, Fortunatus,

"'0A New Text of the Apocalypse of Peter, II, JTS XII (I910-I1), 380-83.

The text may possibly have originated in Egypt. Cf. HENNECKE, op. cit., II, 49. 10 Die Petrusapokalypse in der alten Abendliindischen Kirche, Texte und Un-

tersuchungen, XIII, i (1895), 71-73.


and Achillaeus (Acta SS. 23 Ap.), and the Acts of Ferreolus and Ferrutio (June 16) and of Dorothea and Theophilus (Feb. 6). To these James adds a list of twenty-one "veiled allusions and reminiscences" in the Shepherd of Hermas (which, he concludes, are possible though not certain), a passage in de Aleatoribus, and finally a passage in the fourth-century Homily on the Ten Virgins, which names the apocalypse: "Ostium clausum flumen igneum est quo impii regno Dei arcebuntur, ut apud Danielem et apud Pet- rum - in Apocalypsi eius - scriptum est" (lines 58ff.).1O7 James considers "that Hippolytus' acquaintance with the Apocalypse of Peter is rendered certain by his use of the word -rap-rapoi3Xo in

Ref. Haer. 10.34," o108 which is his earliest certain text. However, he has overlooked the use of -rap-rapo-raa in II Pet. 2:4, which was better known in the west than was the Apocalypse of Peter.1o9 Thus the Homily on the Ten Virgins appears to be the first sure evidence of the use of the Apocalypse of Peter in the west.

In the east the situation with respect to the Apocalypse of Peter is very different. Clement of Alexandria appears to quote from it in Eclogae ex propheticis scripturis 41.1,110 and names it in Ecl.

41.2, 48.1, and 49 (8q0 KaL il po , 'v r? dcrOKXvEt EL 4o-lv, etc.). According to Eusebius, Clement commented on it in his Hypoty- poseis."' Thus Clement gives us our earliest sure indication of the use of the Apocalypse of Peter. Zahn, however, noting that Origen, who used other apocryphal writings attributed to Peter, has no evidence of knowledge of the Apocalypse of Peter, that it is not mentioned by Athanasius, and that no Coptic translation is

known, wondered whether Clement had not learned of this writing 107

JAMES, op. cit., 383. A. WILMART, Un anonyme ancien de x virginibus, Bulletin d'ancienne litterature et d'archeologie chre'tiennes I (1911), 37, 46-49; HENNECKE, op. cit., II, 469.

`08 Ibid., 381, cf. 370f.

1'0 Cf. Job 40:15 (20); 41:23 (24); Prov. 24:51; Enoch 20:2.

11no0 JAMES acknowledges that this passage might be suggested by Wsd. 3:16-18;

4:8, 16. Ibid., 377, cf. 369. ZAHN, NT Kanons, II, 2, 81off., and others suggest that the quotation is from another apocalypse, since the Apocalypse of Peter is named in the following citation. However, there is no recognizable pattern in Clement relative to the naming or non-naming of works from which he quotes. Moreover, JAMES is certainly correct in holding it to be a considerable risk to at- tribute this quotation to another apocalypse when the words ra3p .

. .

T•fLpE0XovX '7rapa•oi3a0T d'yyEXcw are found also in a named quotation from the

Apocalypse of Peter in Ecl. 48. JAMES, op. cit., 370. 111 H. E. 6.14.1.


from Palestinian Christians and questioned whether the writing was in circulation in Egypt.112 Zahn's inference, however, appears to be overdrawn, since the Greek text of the Apocalypse was found in Upper Egypt 113 and an Ethiopic translation was found in

1910.114 However, the absence of any mention of the Apocalypse of Peter in Origen and Athanasius does indicate that this Apoc- alypse was so little known in Egypt that it did not figure in canonical discussions there. Methodius, who Quasten says was probably bishop of Philippi but who must have resided in Lycia for a considerable period, "so that for a long time he was thought to have been bishop of Olympus," 1" quotes the Apocalypse of Peter with the introduction, "Whence also we have received in inspired writings that .. ." (o60v 84 Ka . . .rapEtXra~LEv EV

eoi.TrEv.o-ot'7o ypdptao-w) .G .

Eusebius' evidence runs from negative to equivocal on the Apocalypse of Peter. On the one hand is his complete rejection of the book. He says, "of the Acts bearing his (Peter's) name and the Gospel named according to him, and the Preaching called his and the so-called Apocalypse (KaXovUt`&v'v 'AlroKMdv4Iv ), we have no knowledge at all in catholic tradition, for no ecclesiastic writer of the ancient time or of our own has used their testi- monies." 117 But this is certainly an erroneous overstatement. As we have seen, it is Eusebius who informs us that Clement of Alex- andria commented on the Apocalypse of Peter. And since it was Eusebius who divided the books upon which Clement commented into categories, it will be useful to cite his statement:

And in the Hypotyposeis, to speak briefly, he (Clement) has given concise explanations of all the canonical scriptures (Tiy1 ivsta60pKov

ypatos), not passing over even the disputed writings (-Tas dVTXAyo-

tdva'), I mean the Epistle of Jude and the remaining Catholic Epistles, and the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Apocalypse known as Peter's.118

112 NT Kanons, II, 2, 81off. 113 HENNECKE, op. cit., II, 468. 114 JAMES, op. cit., 36-54, 362-83, 573-83.

11 Op. cit., II, 129. Cf. G. KRtiGER, Op. Cit., 235.

"oSymposium 2.6. JAMES, op. cit., 373; ZAHN, NT Kanons, II, 2, 8iof. n.2.

117 H. E. 3.3.2. This is the only passage in EUSEBIUS cited by QUASTEN on the Apocalypse of Peter, op. cit., I, 144.

11s H. E. 6.I4.If.


Here Eusebius placed the Apocalypse of Peter among the dis-

puted books and before the Epistle to the Hebrews, the discussion of which follows immediately upon the passage cited. In Eusebius' canonical list,"9 however, the Apocalypse of Peter appears among the spurious books (v60ot), which are then combined with the disputed books (diVrhEYtZEvot). It thus appears that a New Testament canonical list was far from being a settled matter for Eusebius; his comments suggest rather that the canon was in the process of formation in his own mind. In his canonical list the Apocalypse of Peter appears as the third entry together with the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Letter of Barna- bas, the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse of John. And to these, it is noted, some add the Gospel according to the Hebrews. The heretical books in Eusebius' list include gospels of Peter, Thomas, Matthias, and others, acts of Andrew, John, and others. And Eusebius goes on to say,

To none of these has any who belonged to the succession of the orthodox ever thought it right to refer in his writings. Moreover, the type of phraseology differs from apostolic style, and the opinion and tendency of their contents is widely dissonant from true orthodoxy and clearly shows that they are the forgeries of heretics. They ought, therefore, to be reckoned not even among the spurious books (veo'L) but shunned as altogether wicked and impious.120

This passage gives us some understanding of H. E. 3.3.2. Judging from these comments of Eusebius, it would appear that when he wrote H. E. 3.3.2 he was thinking of the Apocalypse of Peter as a pseudepigraphal work rather than of its usage in the church of his acquaintance, and thus described it and the other pseudonymous works attributed to Peter in language very similar to that with which he described the heretical books in his canonical list. Euse- bius' testimony concerning the Apocalypse of Peter therefore suggests that it was acknowledged by some and questioned by others toward the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth century in Palestine, and Eusebius is to be numbered among the latter.

no Ibid., 3.25.4.

1. Ibid., 3.25.6f.


The Apocalypse of Peter is also named and cited by Macarius Magnes (c. 400) in his Apocriticus.121 The philosopher-critic of Christianity, whose arguments are given and then answered by Macarius in this work, is described as giving two citations from the Apocalypse of Peter, naming the book in the first instance. The second quotation is followed by a quotation supporting the same point from Matthew. In his answer Macarius says, "for even if we pass over the Apocalypse of Peter, we are brought to the same thing by the other two passages," citing from Isaiah and Matthew.'12 From these passages some have read a favorable treatment 123 and others a rejection of the Apocalypse of Peter by Macarius.124 It is not possible to judge accurately to what extent the philosopher-antagonist in this work, especially with respect to his use of scripture, is Macarius' straw man,125 similar to Jus- tin's Trypho. If the antagonist's position and use of scripture is

verisimilar, then we must conclude that the Apocalypse of Peter was so widely used in the church in the vicinity where this document was composed that it had come to the attention of the an-

tagonists of Christianity. And it is to be marked that Macarius' reply attempts no denial of the Apocalypse as a heretical book. At most Macarius' reply indicates hesitation on his part about a book that is acknowledged by (most?) other Christians in his area. On the other hand, if the antagonist in the Apocriticus, especially with respect to the use of scripture, is Macarius' cre-

ation, our conclusion concerning the status of the Apocalypse of Peter is much the same, except that the cursory treatment of the Apocalypse may carry the overtones of a mild attack upon a

popularly acknowledged book. In either case, Macarius' position appears to be very similar to that of Eusebius in that it is Chris- tian usage in their environment that brought attention to the

121 6, 7, in T. W. CRAFER, The Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes (London, I919), 129, 130. The Greek text edited by C. BLONDEL and P. FOUCART, Mdyvr70To

'A-OKpLTLK6S i) MovoYTEV'. Macarii Magnetis quae supersint ex inedito codice ed.

(Paris, 1876) was not available to this writer. 122 Apocrit. 16, in CRAFER, op. cit., 131.

"1 KRtGER, op. Cit., 34. 124 CRAFER, op. cit., 13o n. 2, 131 n. 2; HENNECKE, op. cit., II, 469. Cf. E. J.

GoODSPEED, A History of Early Christian Literature (Chicago, Illinois, 1942), 55. 125 QUASTEN, op. cit., III, 487.


Apocalypse of Peter in their works, even though they themselves were hesitant about or rejected it.

This similarity of Macarius' attitude toward the Apocalypse of Peter to that of Eusebius makes the locale of this writing important. Macarius Magnes, the author of the Apocriticus,12' is usually identified with Macarius, bishop of Magnesia, who was present at the Synod of the Oak (403), which would place the work in Asia Minor.'27 Crafer, however, has shown that there are significant reasons for relating the work to Syria; his argument runs as follows: 128 I) The author of the Apocriticus cannot have been the ardent anti-Origenist that accused Heraclides of heresy at the Synod of the Oak because of his Origenism, because the Apocriti- cus is full of Origenism.129 2) When the interlocutor suggests that since to "drink any deadly thing" cannot hurt a believer, this ought to be a test in the choosing of bishops, the author does not answer with any sense of self-defence.130 These argue against the author's having been a bishop.130a Moreover, there are reasons to think that the Apocriticus was not written in Asia Minor. 3) The author points to Syria, especially Edessa and Antioch, as examples of the effects of the faith; 131 he once uses the Persian word

"parsang" as a measure of distance; 132 and Ethiopia is located to the southwest.'33 Crafer notes that there are indications that the author had some acquaintance with Asia Minor and Rome 134

(though he also calls the Romans "a barbarian race" 135) and concludes that Macarius was probably born in Magnesia (though he was not the bishop of that name there), traveled as far as Rome, and settled in Syria, where he wrote the Apocriticus.135a Crafer's

126T. W. CRAFER, Macarius Magnes, A Neglected Apologist, JTS VIII (1907), 401.

127 QUASTEN, op. cit., III, 486f. The second name is probably to be regarded as a place name meaning "Magnesian." Cf. CRAFER, Apocriticus, xixf.

128 Ibid., xx-xxiii. 129 Ibid., xxii. 130 Apocr. 3.16, 41. 130a CRAFER notes that Nicephorus had already come to this conclusion in the

ninth century. Ibid., xxii. 131 Ibid., 3.24. 132 Ibid., 3.40. 133 Ibid., 4-13.

3 Op. cit., xxi. 135 Apocr. 2.17. 135a Cf. F. C. BURKITT, Urchristentum im Orient (Tiibingen, 1907), 58; G.


further hypothesis that the work of this Macarius, written in Syria, came to be seized upon by Macarius, Bishop of Magnesia (403), and was worked by him into the present form is impossible. There is no more reason to suppose that Bishop Macarius would have found this work with all its Origenisms more to his liking than he found Origen's followers. More probably the author of this work came to be confused with Macarius, the bishop of Magnesia, and the work subsequently attributed to the latter. And if the author's name was Macarius, his name would have provided a ready basis for the confusion.136 Thus we have another illustration of the presence of the Apocalypse of Peter in Syria/Palestine in probably the late third or early fourth century.137

It was after Jerome had moved east and settled at Bethlehem that he wrote his De viris illustribus sive de scriptoribus ecclesi- asticis (393-95). In the first chapter of this work, having noted the acknowledged writings related to Peter, he goes on to list the books attributed to Peter but rejected (dro80KLa'~?ECV) as apocrypha (JdarKpvca): The Acts, the Gospel, the Preaching, the

Apocalypse, and the Trial.'38 This passage follows in the tradition of Eusebius, H. E. 3.3.2, except that Jerome added the Trial of Peter. And it is not unlikely that Jerome gained his acquaintance with the Apocalypse of Peter in Palestine. Despite the negative judgment of Eusebius and Jerome, however, Sozomen tells us in his Historia Ecclesiastica 7.I9.9f., written between 439 and 450, that the Apocalypse of Peter, though considered completely spurious (vdOov TavTEXCo) by the ancients, nevertheless was being read in his day in some of the churches in Palestine on the Day of Preparation at a feast in memory of the passion.'39

Codex Claromontanus, a sixth-century codex containing only the letters of Paul,'40 includes between Philemon and Hebrews a

QUISPEL, Makarius, das Thomasevangelium und das Lied von der Perle (Leiden, 1967), 7-9.

136 Cf. D. LUMPER, De Magnete Presbytero, MIGNE, P. L. V., 343f. 137 QUASTEN places the Apocriticus among the writings from Antioch and Syria.

Op. cit., III, 386ff. 138Here SOZOMEN, who wrote his history as a sequel to that of Eusebius, also

appears to be dependent on EUSEB., H. E. 3.3.2.

139 MIGNE, P. L. XXIII, 6o8-io.

14o METZGER, op. cit., 51.


list of Old and New Testament books.'41 This list, persuasively argued by Zahn to be eastern and dating from the third or fourth century,142 gives the following as the last six books in the list: Epistle of Barnabas, Apocalypse of John, Acts of the Apostles, Shepherd, Acts of Paul, Apocalypse of Peter.'43 In the list the scribe placed a horizontal line before Barnabas, Shepherd, Acts of Paul, and Apocalypse of Peter, perhaps thus indicating some question concerning them.144 Also, the Stichometry of Nicephorus (c. 500?), a list of biblical books appended to Nicephorus' (828) Chronography, is also regarded as Palestinian."45 In it the New Testament list is given under three categories: the new teaching (rijg vE'ag 8aOK41jK), the new disputed books (hj9 vEag

avT•LXEyovrat), and the new apocrypha (n39 viag dLTordKpvLa). The

disputed books, similar to Canon Muratori, include the apocalypses of John and Peter as well as the Epistle of Barnabas and the

Gospel according to the Hebrews, whereas the apocrypha include the travels of Peter, John, and Thomas, the Gospel of Thomas, the Teaching of the Apostles, I and II Clement, Ignatius, Poly- carp, and Hermas.146

The presence of the Apocalypse of Peter in the canonical list of the Muratorian fragment led Kuhn to conclude that the fragment was of eastern origin. 147 He was unacquainted with the western Homily on the Ten Virgins, but on the other hand he

41 In ZAHN, NT Kanons, 11.2, 157-59; CHARTERIS, op. cit., 27 and n. 2. 142 He thinks especially of the Alexandrian tradition. NT Kanons, II, 161-72,

followed by KR-iGER, op. cit., 37. Cf. SOUTER, op. Cit., 2IIf. ZAHN's persuasive arguments are not to be set aside for J tLICHER'S assessing the list as Latin, op. cit., 536, followed by HENNECKE, op. Cit., I, 21. JULICHER, however, makes no reference

to ZAHN and gives only a similar acquaintance with apocryphal books by the Spaniard PRISCILLIAN (385) as the reason for "unhesitatingly" regarding the list in Claromontanus as Latin. But see the parallel status of the Acts of Paul in EUSE- BIUS (H. E. 3.3.5) and Codex Claromontanus described in HENNECKE, Op. cit., II, 223. JtiLICHER's remark is not accompanied by a comparison of the apocryphal books used by PRISCILLIAN, which show a marked proclivity for asceticism, with those included in Codex Claromontanus, which do not.

143 CHARTERIS, op. Cit., 27.

14 A. SOUTER, op. cit., 212 n. I.

14" KRGER, op. cit., 37; HENNECKE, op. cit., I, 24, where a date earlier than c.

850 is left open. 146 Against EHRHARDT, op. cit., 121, who thinks that the treatment of the Apoc-

alypse of Peter as a canonical book was a view "we can say for certain . . .

was no longer tenrable after about A.D. 240."

147 Op. cit., 30f., 9of. Cf. BARTLET, op. cit., 214-19.


counted Jerome as a western witness. And the Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes was unknown to him. Otherwise our information does not differ markedly from his. It is evident that the Apocalypse of Peter circulated in the eastern church with the witnesses to it especially concentrated in Syria/Palestine. And the position of the Apocalypse of Peter in Canon Muratori, accepted but questioned by some, is parallel to its position in Codex Claromontanus, and is the converse to the position in which it is located in Eusebius' list and Macarius Magnes' apparent treatment, where the Apocalypse of Peter is disputed but evi-

dently accepted by some. The Stichometry of Nicephorus represents the middle ground, with the Apocalypse of Peter being listed as disputed but with no indication of the attitude of the author of the list.

In the foregoing discussion it has become increasingly clear that there are several salient features of Canon Muratori that have no place in the early western church but find their earliest

parallels in the eastern church during the late third and fourth centuries. In the place of the Shepherd (outside the canon, though proper to be read), in the inclusion of Wisdom of Solomon, in the

equivocal position of the apocalypses of John and Peter, Canon Muratori reflects an eastern orientation. And these items are of particular importance because it is just at the edges of can-

onicity that identification can be made. Thus the position of

Shepherd in the Muratorian list appears to be later than the

equivocal circumstance observed in Eusebius and more closely parallels the place of Shepherd in Athanasius' Festal Letter 39. The inclusion of Wisdom of Solomon in Canon Muratori finds its earliest parallels in Eusebius and Epiphanius. Canon Muratori's uncertain treatment of the Apocalypse of John finds its closest

parallel in Eusebius' similar treatment of that book, and the evidence for location points to Syria-Palestine. Similarly, it was

only in the east that the Apocalypse of Peter was ever considered as canonical material, and again it is Eusebius who provides the closest parallel to Canon Muratori's treatment of this book. In view of the foregoing critique of the traditional date and place for this list, features such as these become the prime factors in re-


assessing the time and place from which this list emanated. And the evidence herein adduced points strongly to the eastern church and the fourth century.

It would be an anomaly if the Muratorian canon were produced and put forth about the end of the second century in Rome, since there are no known parallels to it in the church for more than a century. It is usually held that the first known New Testament canon was created by Marcion. But if the differentiation between "scripture" (as writings regarded as in some sense authoritative) and "canon" (as a closed collection of scripture to which nothing can be added, nothing subtracted) 14" is a correct one, then it probably is an overstatement to call Marcion's collection a canon. On the one hand Marcion represents a special case, since he rejected out of hand the Jewish scriptures received into the church. But it was not a defined Old Testament canon that he rejected.149 In their place he put the Pauline scriptures: the Gospel of Luke, regarded as Paul's gospel,1'5 and Paul's letters.'5 But it appears that his own work, the Antitheses, stood at the head of his collection.'52 And it is not at all clear that he regarded this collection as a closed collection. Instead, the proscription of letters to Laodicea and Alexandria and "a new book of Psalms for Marcion" (novum Psalmorum librum Marcioni conscripserunt) 153 in Canon Mura- tori suggests that these were accepted as scripture by the Mar- cionites when Canon Muratori was written. The orthodox answer to Marcion was the first step toward a canon; the church defined a closed four-gospel collection.'" But it is evident that no con-

4s W. C. VAN UNNIK, De la regle u•re rpo-cr•Oipal C re dloeXEip dans l'histoire du

Canon, Vigiliae Christianae III (i949), 1-36; A. C. SUNDBERG, JR., Towards a Revised History of the New Testament Canon, Studia Evangelica IV (Berlin, 1968), 452-54.

149 Ibid., 459f. 'O TERTULLIAN, Adv. Marc. 4.2,5; 5.1; 1.2o. 151 Ibid., 4.5 ; 5. 15 Ibid., 1.19; 4.1. It is to be noted that TERTULLIAN in his Adversus

Marcionem deals first with the Antitheses (books I-3) then with Luke (book 4), and finally with Paul's letters (book 5). Cf. A. HARNACK, Origin of the New Testament, 30 and n. i. But cf. A. HARNACK, Marcion (Leipzig, 1921, Texte und Untersuchungen, 45), 70o and n. i.

6 Lines 83f. Cf. E. C. BLACKMAN, Marcion and His Influence (London, 1948), 64f.

' IRENAEUS, Adv. Haer. 3.1.1; 3.11.8; CLEMENT of Alexandria, Strom. 3.13, and EUSEBIUS, H. E. 6.14.5-7; TERTULLIAN, Adv. Marc. 4.2, 5; ORIGEN, Comm. in Matt.


cept of a New Testament was in mind. Irenaeus, the prime mover in defining the closed four-gospel collection,155 made no further movement toward defining a New Testament collection. Tertullian, in pitting orthodox Christian scripture against Mar- cion's collection, in one place listed the gospels John, Matthew, Luke, Mark,156 and shortly thereafter John, Matthew, Mark, Luke; 15i6a and first he listed Paul's Letters in the order Corin- thians, Galatians, Philippians, Thessalonians, Ephesians, Romans,157 but in discussing them does so in the order Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, I and II Thessalonians, Ephesians (Laodiceans), Colossians, Philippians, Philemon - Marcion's

order.15' And while he accused Marcion of tampering even with the number of Paul's letters 159 he did not correct this error in his own list.1•9a So little did Tertullian have a New Testament order and collection in mind. Similarly, though Eusebius attempted to create a canonical list for him,16" R. P. C. Hanson has shown that Origen had no list nor concept of a canonical collection of New Testament scriptures.1"' What has been regarded as Origen's New Testament list was Eusebius' creation."12 And this is particularly significant since Origen did give a list of the Old Testament canon.163 But he did not deduce from it the concept of a New Testament canon. Though he knew the four gospels as a closed

I, in EUSEBIUS, H. E. 6.25.4; Comm. in Jn. 5.3. Cf. SUNDBERG, Towards a Re- vised History of New Testament Canon, 459f.

155Cf. note 154. A. C. SUNDBERG, Jr., Dependent Canonicity in Irenaeus and Tertullian, Studia Evangelica III (Berlin, 1964), 403-09. Even if the anti-Mar- cionite prologues to the gospels are to be dated before Irenaeus (D. DE BRUYNE, Les plus anciens prologues Latins des RIvangiles, Revue Benedictine XL [1928], 193-214. But cf. W. F. HOWARD, The Anti-Marcionite Prologues to the Gospels, Expository Times XLVII [1935-36], 537f.), no evidence of a prologue for

Matthew exists, and no definition of a closed fourfold gospel canon is made in the three prologues available.

156 Adv. Marc. 4.2. 156a Ibid., 4.5. 157 Idem. 158 Ibid., 5. 5"' Ibid., 5.1. 15a Ibid., 5; but, while not discussing them, he does name the pastorals as

omitted by Marcion (ibid., 5.21).

160 H. E. 6.25.3-14. 161 Origen's Doctrine of Tradition (London, 1954), 133, 137, 143, 182ff. 162 SUNDBERG, Towards a Revised History of the New Testament Canon, 460. 163 In EUSEBIUS, H. E. 6.25.2.


collection,1" he seems to have been unaware of a Pauline corpus because, while having just quoted from I Cor. 2:6-8 in Contra Celsum 3.19, he continues in 3.20, "first of all examine the epistles of him who utters these words, . . . say, in those to the Ephe- sians, and Colossians, and Thessalonians, and Philippians, and Romans. .. ." But Corinthians and Galatians go unmentioned, which would be unthinkable if Origen had been aware of a "Paul- ine corpus." "" And while he was aware of one acknowledged (6ItoXoyo0udit`v) and one doubted (aCLpufMlXXErat) epistle of Peter, of writings of John: Gospel, Apocalypse, one Epistle, and a second and third but "not all say that these are genuine" (yvYro-ove), and of the dispute over the authorship of Hebrews, whether Clement or Luke ("but who wrote the epistle, in truth God knows"), 65a

still Origen shows no evidence of relating these concerns to the larger question of a New Testament collection paralleling the Old.

From the time of Origen to that of Eusebius, apart from chance remarks on particular books, we have only the usage of the fathers to inform us on the circumstances concerning Christian scriptures.166 Thus, no lists of Christian scripture are found stemming from the third century. But this circumstance is signif- icantly changed in the fourth century, since during that century New Testament canonical lists came to appear in many parts of the church: 167 in Syria/Palestine the list of Eusebius, H. E. 3.25

(303?-25); that of Cyril of Jerusalem (348), Catech. 4.33; of Epiphanius, Haer. 8.6; and of Chrysostom (c. 407), Synopsis Sacr. Script.; the list in Codex Claromontanus; and a Syrian canon of c. 400; in Alexandria, the list of Athanasius, Ep. Fest. 39; an African canon of about 360; and the Carthaginian Cata- logue (397); in Asia Minor, the list of Gregory Nazianzus, Carm.

14 Cf. n. I54. '" Both the Chicago school and its critics have overlooked this listing of Paul's

letters that actually commences with Ephesians! The handbooks take the quotation from I Corinthians as the beginning of ORIGEN'S list, and students of the Pauline corpus have followed their lead. But the text is clear; the list begins with Ephesians. Note that TERTULLIAN omits Colossians in his listing of Paul's letters in Adv. Marc. 4.5.

Ma Cf. n. 160.

1o WESTCOTT, op. cit., 321-48. "1 Ibid., 481-515; SOUTER, Op. Cit., 211-26.


12.3 ; of Amphilochius, Iambi. ad Seleucum; and the Laodicene Catalogue (363); and in Rome, a canon dated about 400.

Previously, when it was thought that Origen had produced a New Testament canonical list,"Gs the Muratorian list did not appear so strange as a product of the Roman church toward the end of the second century. But now its verisimilitude is brought into question. And it appears more likely that this list was produced during the fourth century under the circumstances that brought forth the several other similar lists of that time than that Canon Muratori appeared in Rome about the end of the second century but remained an isolated phenomenon for a century before any other similar New Testament canons appeared.

In the foregoing it has been argued that the Muratorian canon is an eastern list. However, the codex in which it is found is western and belonged formerly to Columban's Monastery at Bobbio. Similarly, fragments of the same list were found in manuscripts at Monte Cassino. And the problem arises as to how one can explain the presence of such an eastern list in western manuscripts. The reasons for such an inclusion lie beyond the knowl-

edge of the present writer. However, it may be useful to note that such an inclusion is not unique for Canon Muratori. The codex itself in which the Muratorian fragment is found, while filled in

major portion with western texts, also includes De reparatorem lapsi of John Chrysostom (345/7-407)"1 of Antioch until 398, and thereafter Constantinople. The inscription on the first page of this codex reads: liber sZti colfibani de bobio/Iohis grisostomi.o70 But this attribution of the entire contents of the codex to Chry- sostom is obviously erroneous.171 Codex Claromontanus, contain-

ing the epistles of Paul,17" is another example of a western codex

containing a canonical list of eastern origin."" Since this is a stichometric list, one possibility is that it moved west as a reckon-

ing-sheet in the process of book production. However, since it is

18 Ibid., I82f.; C. R. GREGORY, Canon and Text of the New Testament (Edin-

burgh, 1907), 224-27, etc.

1.9 BUCHANAN, op. cit., 537. 170

Ibid., 538. 171 Idem. 172 METZGER, op. cit., 5I.

173 Cf. n. 142.


a list of Old Testament and New in this codex of Pauline letters, and since it appears within the codex between Philemon and Hebrews rather than at the end, it is unlikely that its presence in Codex Claromontanus can be understood as a scribe's charge- sheet.173a Its placement in the codex and the difference in the order of Paul's letters from that of the codex suggest that it was included because of an interest in the stichometry as a canonical list. The list displays two judgments on the contents of the canon, the list itself being one judgment, and the editorial horizontal lines before Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd, Acts of Paul, and

Apocalypse of Peter another, which probably wished to exclude these books from the canon. And since the list appears between Philemon and Hebrews in the codex and does not itself contain Hebrews (similar to Canon Muratori), its presence in the codex

probably expresses a scribal protest against the inclusion of Hebrews in the codex among the letters of Paul. Thus, this

stichometry in Codex Claromontanus probably served a polemical purpose within the codex. In this way the presence of the sticho-

metry in Codex Claromontanus may give some hint as to why such eastern lists may have come to be included among western materials. The codex containing Canon Muratori, however, is otherwise made up of miscellaneous writings not related to the question of canon and thus provides no information as to the reason for its inclusion in the codex.

While the location of Canon Muratori offers no information

concerning the use of such an eastern list in the west, the use of the bits of Canon Muratori in the Monte Cassino manuscripts mentioned above may, however, provide a clue to the use of this canon in the west. They form part of a prologue to the text of the Pauline letters in four separate codices. And Harnack has shown that this prologue is composite and that an archetype of the Mura-

173a According to ZAHN'S description (NT Kanons, II, I57-65), Hebrews is

separated from Paul's letters in the codex by markings following Philemon and by the space in which the stichometry now appears. The stichometry is not by the same hand as that of the letters of Paul and Hebrews. Thus it would appear that the stichometry was introduced into the codex to reinforce what appears to have been a concern of the original scribe, i.e., to separate Hebrews from the letters of Paul.


torian canon was used by the author in compiling this prologue."17 Each of the four codices in which this prologue is found contains fourteen Pauline letters, with Hebrews appearing as the last."5 The enumeration of the Pauline letters in the prologue, however, is of only ten letters in the usual western order, but with Philemon (and the Pastorals) missing and, again, with Hebrews at the

end."1 The prologue begins with an introduction to the list of Paul's letters from the archetype of Canon Muratori lines 42-50. Therein is contained the letters-to-seven-churches statement (discussed above) which anticipates a seven or nine-letter list. As noted, Philemon is not included, presumably because it is not addressed to a church. But Hebrews is included as the last item in the list. It appears that Hebrews, like Galatians, is regarded as addressed to a church, and the list of letters addressed to churches is thus expanded to ten (= eight churches).'" It would appear, therefore, that the author of this prologue not only intended to substitute a western ordering of Paul's letters for that found in Canon Muratori, but also desired to extend the aegis of the Mura- torian introduction to the Pauline list to a list that included Hebrews as a Pauline letter. This suggests that the author was involved in the controversy over the inclusion or noninclusion of Hebrews among Paul's letters. It further suggests not only that he favored the inclusion of Hebrews but, in thus appropriating the Muratorian introduction to Paul's letters for a list that included Hebrews, that he was deliberately attempting to alter the support of this introduction from a list that did not include Hebrews to a list that did. Thus, indirectly the prologue to the Monte Cassino codices witnesses to the use of the archetype of Canon Muratori against the inclusion of Hebrews among Paul's letters in the west. Therefore a utilization of the Muratorian list in the west as a polemic against the inclusion of Hebrews among the letters of Paul or in the New Testament canon, similar to that observed for the stichometry in Codex Claromontanus, appears probable.

17' A. HARNACK, Excerpte aus dem Muratorischen Fragment (saec. XI et XII), 132f.

175 Ibid., col. 131.

17. Ibid., col. 132, where the text of the prologue is reproduced. "17 Cf. SOUTER, op. Cit., I9Of.; CHARTERIS, op. Cit., 276 n. I.


It would appear, then, that when the west was being pressured by the east to include Hebrews in the New Testament, arguments against that pressure included the utilization of eastern New Testament lists (with salient features foreign to the west that clearly identified them as eastern) that did not include Hebrews.

sundberg, canon muratori, a fourth-century list

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