HOW THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS CANONIZED: Eusebius (AD 264-340), Bishop of Caesarea, Church Historian, was the first to recognize that there are 27 books that constitute the New Testament. Eusebius was imprisoned during Diocletian’s persecution of Christians which was Rome’s final effort to blot out the Christians Name. Their main target is the destruction of all Christian Scriptures. For ten years Bibles were hunted by agents of Rome, and burned in public market places. But Eusebius survived and lived until the reign of Constantine, who accepted Christianity. He became the Emperor’s chief religious adviser. Constantine ordered Eusebius, as his first job to prepare under his direction, FIFTY Bibles, for the churches in Constantinople; by skillful copyist, to be written on a prepared parchment, in the finest of vellum and in a portable form. Eusebius then speak of four classes of books: 1. Those Universally accepted. 2. The disputed books: James, II Peter, Jude, II and III John, which though included in the Bible is doubted by some. 3. The spurious books among them are: “Acts of Paul”,” Shepherd of Hermas”, , “Apocalypse of Peter” , “Epistle of Barnabas” and “Didache”, and 4. Forgeries of Heretics: “Gospel of Peter”, “Gospel of Thomas”, “Gospel of Matthias”, “Acts of Andrew”, “Acts of John”. In AD 397 the 27 books acknowledged by Eusebius as with the Genuine Apostolic Authority, was formally ratified as the 27 books of the New Testament by the unanimous judgment of the Churches. How the New Testament with the Genuine Apostolic Authority was recognized then from the spurious ones? To start with we must consider that the Apostle wrote many letters, having in mind the immediate need of the churches. This New Testament writings had originated in widely separated countries such as: Palestine or Israel, Damascus or Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor as Antioch or Galatia region now is Turkey, Corinth or Greece and Rome of Italy. It was not a world of railroads, airplanes, radios and cell phones. Travel and communication were slow and dangerous. A trip of few hours now was a trip of months and years. Printing was unknown and making of copies is by hand and are slow and laborious. Moreover, it is an age of persecution, wherein precious Christian writings have to be kept hid. There is no Church Council or Conferences of churches to compare one writing with the other till the days of Constantine (AD 306-337). Hence there were spurious gospels: Acts of Apostles and Epistles which began in the 2nd Century (AD 100 onward). They were mostly forgeries and full of nonsense stories of Christ and the Apostles. There were known to have 50 of the spurious “Gospels” beside many “Acts” and “Epistles”. Some of these are “Gospel of Nicodemus”, “Acts of Pilate”, then a narrative from the birth of Mary (the mother of Jesus) to the slaughter of innocents, her passing away, the removal of “ her spotless and precious body” to paradise, written in the 4th century, and the rise of the Virgin worship. Others are gospel according to the Hebrews, with some alleged sayings of Jesus; Gospel of the Ebionites, of the Egyptians, of Peter, of Thomas and so forth. The main characteristic of these writings is, they are fiction representing itself as history, but for the most part their falsity is self- evident. However there were Apostolic Fathers whose lives overlapped the Apostolic generation, who guard these writings and who were disciples of the Apostles particularly John the beloved who lived until AD 97. These are: Clement, bishop of Rome (AD 91-100) discipled by John the beloved; Polycarp, pupil of John, Bishop of Smyrna; Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (AD 110), Papias, Justine Martyr and many more. These people guarded the New Testament with their writings that were temporarily regarded as Scriptures until the 27 books were ratified in AD 397.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 00:00:52 +0000
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