The Lost Scriptures – books that did not make it into the New Testament. 

The Canon of Athanasius of Alexandria.

“And without hesitation I should again speak of the books of the New Testament. For they are as follows:  the four Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Then after these the Acts of the Apostles and the seven books by the apostles called the Catholic Epistles: one of James, two of Peter, then three of John, and after them one of Jude. In addition to these are the fourteen epistles of the Apostle Paul, written in the following order: first to the Romans, then two to the Corinthians, and after these to the Galatians and next to the Ephesians; then to the Philippians and to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians and then to the Hebrews; after these are two to Timothy, one to Titus, and finally, one to Philemon. In addition is the Apocalypse of John.”     

Athanasius was one of the most important figures in orthodox Christianity. He lived in the fourth century and he attended the first ecumenical council, the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. This council was called by emperor Constantine to try to resolve differences in theology that was splitting the church of its day.

Athanasius became the bishop of the church of Alexandria in 328 C.E. He would determine the date of Easter for the churches under his jurisdiction. The most important letter he wrote came in 367 C.E., called the Thirty-Ninth Festal letter, in which he laid out for his churches the structure of the Old and New Testament canon. In this letter he indicates the books that are to be read in the church, and which should not be read in the church. It is Athanasius who first sets out the current twenty-seven books of the New Testament – though even with his letter, the matter still was not settled or resolved for all church leaders.  

One instruction Athanasius included were books he thought should be read by those who have recently come to faith and wish to be instructed in the word of piety: the Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, Tobit and the Didache to name just a few.

Have you ever read the Didache, also called The Teaching? Have you read any of the books of the Apocrypha? You should. Even though we do not include the Apocrypha in our canon for the Lutheran church, and even though we do not offer readings from the Gospel of Thomas, still they are books that help to enrich our understanding of the decisions that were made by people like Athanasius and Eusebius about scripture, and about practice.

There is more to come.

Pastor Dave

The Lost Scriptures – books that did not make it into the New Testament.

The Canon of Eusebius

Eusebius of Caesarea is commonly known as the “Father of Church History”. He published a ten volume work titled Church History in 311 C.E. His work was the first full history of the church from the days of Jesus to his own time. He is the historian many turn to for information about the Christian church during the first three centuries of existence. His listing of books is somewhat complicated – he makes the comment that some of the books he considers were still under dispute. As such he gave four categories of books to be considered in the canon: “Acknowledged Books”, “Disputed Books”, “Spurious Books”, and “Rejected Books”.

Some of the disputed books include the epistle of James, Jude, the second epistle of Peter, and 2 and 3 John. Books he called spurious include Acts of Paul, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the epistle of Barnabas.

Perhaps the most important contribution of Eusebius was a clever and unique way of referencing specific portions of Scripture text. First he divided the Gospels into numbered sections — 355 in Matthew, 241 in Mark, 342 in Luke, and John had 232 sections. This made it easy to refer to a specific passage, even without chapters and verses. Then Eusebius created 10 lists in which parallel passages were listed by their reference number. These were called Eusebius’ 10 “canon” tables; here the word “canon” means a Listing of Items.

The Eusebian canon could be found in bibles up until the 1600’s when better cross-referencing schemes were developed. If you have read some of the Apocryphal books like 1 and 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Ecclesiasticus, or Bel the Dragon, what about those books do you find interesting, helpful, or inspiring?

Pastor Dave