Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AUGUSTINE TO THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES
AUGUSTINE
Augustine, like Jerome, inherited the canon of scripture as something ‘given’. It was part of the Christian faith which he embraced at his conversion in 386 and, as with so many other elements of the Christian faith, he set himself to understand, defend and expound it.
In the second book of his work On Christian Learning, after listing the books within which, as he says, ‘the authority of the Old Testament is contained’, he continues:
That of the New Testament, again, is contained within the following:
Four books of the gospel—according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John. Fourteen epistles of the apostle Paul—one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy, one to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews. Two [epistles] of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and one of James. One book of the Acts of the Apostles, and one of the Revelation of John.
These are the same twenty-seven books as were listed by Athanasius, although they are not in the same order. Those which form groups are placed first—the four gospels, the fourteen epistles of Paul, the seven catholic epistles (with Peter’s being accorded the primacy)—and then the two which stand on their own: Acts and Revelation.
While he received the twenty-seven books as they had been delivered to him, Augustine, like other Christian thinkers, considered the question: Why these, and no others? He prefaces his list of canonical books with these observations:
Among the canonical scriptures he [the interpreter of the sacred writings] will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Again, among those which are not received by all, he will prefer such as are sanctioned by the greater number of churches and by those of greater authority to such as held by the smaller number and by those of less authority. If, however, he finds that some books are held by the greater number of churches, and others by the churches of greater authority (although this is not a very likely thing to happen), I think that in such a case the authority on the two sides is to be considered as equal.
It is plain from this that, when Augustine wrote, no ecclesiastical council had made a pronouncement on the canon which could be recognized as the voice of the church. All twenty-seven books had been delivered to him and his contemporaries, but not all with the same authority: the practice of different churches varied, and greater respect would be paid to those of higher prestige (especially, no doubt, to those of apostolic foundation) or to the majority consensus (and these two criteria might conceivably conflict at times). The prestige of Jerome and Augustine ensured that their canon prevailed in the west, but the distinction between those books which were received by all and those which were disputed by some (namely, Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, Revelation) was not entirely forgotten, and surfaced again in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Augustine enjoyed critical freedom, according to the standards of his time, in expounding the books within the canon. He tackles discrepancies between different gospel accounts of the same incident: how, for example, could John the Baptist say of Jesus, ‘I myself did not know him’ (Jn 1:31, 33), when, according to another evangelist, he could say to him, ‘I need to be baptized by you’ (Mt. 3:14)? If Joseph was afraid to settle in Judaea because Archelaus was ruler there (Mt. 2:22), how could he settle happily in Galilee, where another son of Herod (Antipas) was ruler (Lk 3:1; cf Mt. 14:1)? Or, to take a problem peculiar to one of the evangelists, why does Matthew 27:9 ascribe to Jeremiah an oracle which actually appears in Zechariah 11:13? (Matthew perhaps experienced a slip of memory, thinking of the incident of Jer. 32:6–15, and then reflected that this slip of memory may have been divinely prompted: after all, the prophets spoke with one voice.)
In saying that Paul’s epistles are fourteen in number, Augustine does not intend to foreclose the question of the authorship of Hebrews. ‘In his earliest writings (down to 406) he cites the Epistle as Paul’s; in the middle period he wavers between Pauline authorship and anonymity; in his old age (409–30) he refers to it always as anonymous.’ But he never questions its canonicity: for him, as for Jerome, canonicity and authorship are separate issues. It is not so certain as has sometimes been thought that the inclusion of Hebrews in the New Testament is due to the ‘happy fault’ of its wrong ascription to Paul.
COUNCILS OF HIPPO AND CARTHAGE
The Council of Hippo (393) was probably the first church council to lay down the limits of the canon of scripture: its enactments are not extant, but its statement on the canon was repeated as Canon 47 of the Third Council of Carthage (397). The relevant words are these:
And further it was resolved that nothing should be read in church under the name of the divine scriptures except the canonical writings. The canonical writings, then, are these:… Of the New Testament:
The four books of the gospels,
the one book of the Acts of the Apostles,
the thirteen epistles of the apostle Paul,
the one [epistle] to the Hebrews, by the same,
two of the apostle Peter,
three of John,
one of James,
one of Jude,
John’s Apocalypse—one book.
… Let it be permitted, however, that the passions of martyrs be read when their anniversaries are celebrated.
Here Hebrews is ascribed to Paul, but listed separately from the thirteen letters which bear his name. As in Augustine’s list, Peter’s letters come first among the catholic epistles (but Jude follows James instead of preceding it). The permission given to read the account of a martyrdom when its anniversary came round was reasonable: no one would think that such an account was part of holy scripture. What was important was that nothing should be read as holy scripture which was not listed in the canon. Augustine himself is said to have read extracts from Cyprian’s works in church occasionally, but none of his flock was given reason to suppose that he regarded Cyprian as canonical.
The Sixth Council of Carthage (419) repromulgated in Canon 24 the resolution of the Third Council regarding the canon of scripture, and added a note directing that the resolution be sent to the bishop of Rome (Boniface I) and other bishops:
Let this be made known also to our brother and fellow-priest Boniface, or to other bishops of those parts, for the purpose of confirming that Canon [Canon 47 of the Third Council], because we have received from our fathers that these are the books which are to be read in church.
POPE INNOCENT’S LIST
In his list of canonical books addressed to Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse, in 405, Pope Innocent I specifies the books of the New Testament (after those of the Old Testament) as follows:
Of the gospels—four,
epistles of the apostle Paul—thirteen,
epistles of John—three,
epistles of Peter—two,
epistle of Jude,
epistle of James,
Acts of the Apostles,
John’s Apocalypse.
But the rest of the books, which appear under the name of Matthias or of James the less, or under the name of Peter and John (which were written by a certain Leucius), or under the name of Andrew (which [were written] by the philosophers Xenocharides and Leonidas), or under the name of Thomas, and whatever others there may be, you should know are to be not only rejected but also condemned.
The omission of Hebrews from the New Testament books is surprising. The manuscripts, in fact, are divergent in their testimony: the three best ones reckon Paul’s epistles as thirteen (written XIII), but the rest reckon them as fourteen (written XIIII).
THE GELASIAN DECREE
The sixth-century compilation commonly called the ‘Gelasian decree’ continues as follows after its list of Old Testament books:
The order of the scriptures of the New Testament, which the holy and catholic Roman church accepts and venerates:
Of the gospels four books:
according to Matthew—one book
according to Mark—one book
according to Luke—one book
according to John—one book
Also: of the Acts of the Apostles—one book
Epistles of the apostle Paul—in number fourteen:
to the Romans—one epistle
to the Corinthians—two epistles
to the Ephesians—one epistle
to the Thessalonians—two epistles
to the Galatians—one epistle
to the Philippians—one epistle
to the Colossians—one epistle
to Timothy—two epistles
to Titus—one epistle
to Philemon—one epistle
to the Hebrews—one epistle
Also: John’s Apocalypse—one book
Also: canonical epistles—in number seven:
of the apostle Peter—two epistles
of the apostle James—one epistle
of the apostle John—one epistle
of the other John, the elder—two epistles
of the apostle Jude the Zealot—one epistle
The Canon of the New Testament ends.
In this list it is worthy of note that John’s Apocalypse precedes the catholic epistles, that the latter are called the ‘canonical epistles’, that within this group 2 and 3 John are assigned (as by Jerome) to another John than the evangelist (who is identified with the author of 1 John), and that Jude is called ‘the Zealot’ (this designation having evidently been transferred to him from the apostle Simon, called the Zealot in Luke 6:15 and Acts 1:13).
The Gelasian decree follows its lists of books that are to be received with a long catalogue of books that are not to be received, comprising a variety of apocryphal, spurious and heretical writings.
THE DIATESSARON IN WESTERN EUROPE
Throughout the Middle Ages the shape of the New Testament canon in Western Europe remained unchanged, but there were some interesting, if local and temporary, developments within it.
The Diatessaron, which was displaced by the ‘separated gospels’ in its Syrian and Mesopotamian homeland in the course of the fifth century, had a fresh lease of life in some parts of the west during the following centuries. When a gospel harmony from this period is identified, it is necessary to make sure that it is really based on Tatian’s Diatessaron and that it is not rather an independent production. There is little room for doubt on this score with the Dutch gospel harmony, composed in the middle of the thirteenth century and best preserved in a Liège manuscript of about 1270–1280. This was evidently based on a lost Old Latin original, which in turn was derived from a Syriac and not a Greek copy of the Diatessaron.
The influence of the Diatessaron can be recognized much earlier in the Old Saxon versified form of the gospel story, commonly known nowadays as the Heliand (‘Saviour’), dating from the first half of the ninth century. This is not a straight translation, but the Diatessaron is evidently its basis. It is the basis also of an East Franconian version of the gospel story, extant in its entirety in a late ninth-century manuscript.
Apart from versions or paraphrases which show the specific influence of Tatian’s Diatessaron, there are others which follow Tatian’s arrangement of gospel material without being dependent on his wording. Codex Fuldensis, for example, is an important witness to the text of the Latin Vulgate; the copyist completed his work for Victor, bishop of Capua, who corrected it and signed his name in it in 546. But in the gospels, while the text is that of the Vulgate, the arrangement is that of Tatian. Various mediaeval gospel harmonies were based on this form of the text: Magdalene College, Cambridge, for example, possesses a manuscript from about 1400 which once belonged to Samuel Pepys, containing a Middle English Harmony. Of a similar character is a mediaeval gospel harmony in the Tuscan dialect of Italy.
THE LETTER TO THE HEBREWS
While the ascription of Hebrews to Paul was generally accepted throughout the Middle Ages, the precedent of Augustine, who recognized it as canonical and anonymous, encouraged some students to think of another author than Paul. Those who did so tended to prefer Luke—‘Luke, that excellent advocate, translated that work of art from Hebrew into Greek’, said Thomas Aquinas. Rabanus Maurus and Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury were also among those who ascribed the work to Luke.
It is uncertain what significance to attach to the omission of Hebrews from Codex Boernerianus (p) a ninth-century Graeco-Latin manuscript or the Pauline epistles. It ends with the letter to Philemon, after which stands a note: ‘Here begins the letter to the Laodiceans’—but the text of that document is not included.
THE LETTER TO THE LAODICEANS
This reference to ‘the letter to the Laodiceans’ provides an occasion to mention the extraordinary popularity in the Middle Ages of a spurious work bearing that title.
When Paul writes to the Colossians, ‘when this letter has been read among you, have it read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you read also the letter from Laodicea’ (Col. 4:16), the status of this ‘letter from Laodicea’ is not quite clear to a reader today (although no doubt it was perfectly clear to the original readers). Was it a letter originating from Laodicea, or was it a letter sent by Paul to the Laodicean church, which the Colossians were to procure ‘from Laodicea’? The latter is more probable. If the reference is to a letter composed by Paul, have we any other information about it? From time to time it has been identified with what we know as the epistle to the Ephesians (the oldest form of which seems to contain no indication of the addressees’ whereabouts or identity). Marcion evidently made this identification, and gave Ephesians the title ‘To the Laodiceans’. The compiler of the Muratorian list speaks of a ‘letter in Paul’s name to the Laodiceans’ which, he says, was ‘forged in accordance with Marcion’s heresy’. This may be an unintelligent reference to the letter which Marcion entitled ‘To the Laodiceans’, or the compiler may actually have known a spurious work so designated.
There is extant a spurious work so designated, but it betrays no trace of Marcion’s heresy. This work has been well described as a ‘worthless patching together of Pauline passages and phrases, mainly from the Epistle to the Philippians’ (although its opening words are taken from Galatians). The chapter-headings supplied for it in a twelfth-century manuscript of the Latin Bible in Trinity College, Cambridge, sum up its contents thus:
1. Paul the apostle gives thanks to the Lord for the Laodiceans and exhorts them not to be deceived by those who would lead them astray.
2. Concerning the apostle’s ‘manifest’ bonds, in which he rejoices and exults.
3. The apostle admonishes the Laodiceans that, as they heard him when he was present with them, so they should retain his teaching and practise it without drawing back.
4. The apostle exhorts the Laodiceans to be steadfast in the faith and do those things which are marked by integrity and truth and which bring pleasure to God. He greets the brothers.
The Letter to the Laodiceans was probably written in the fourth century; it is mentioned by Filaster and Jerome and quoted in the fifth-century work called the Speculum, a topical arrangement of Bible texts, traditionally but mistakenly ascribed to Augustine. Its original language was Greek, but the original Greek text has not survived. Its circulation in the eastern church seems to have been checked after it was pronounced a forgery by the Second Council of Nicaea (787). Almost as soon as it was composed, however, it was translated into Latin, and the Latin version flourished for a thousand years and more. It was drawn into the textual tradition of the Old Latin Bible, and later, although Jerome gave it no countenance, it was absorbed into the Vulgate text and is found in many Vulgate manuscripts, including Codex Fuldensis, mentioned above.
Pope Gregory the Great (c 595) says that Paul wrote fifteen letters, although only fourteen were reckoned canonical: although he does not expressly say so, it is probable that this Laodicean letter was the fifteenth. Aelfric, abbot of Cerne in Dorset (late tenth century), is more explicit: he not only says that Paul wrote fifteen epistles but lists them, and names that to the Laodiceans as the fifteenth. John of Salisbury, another English writer about two centuries later, writes to the same effect although he knows that he is contradicting Jerome: ‘Jerome says that it is rejected by all; nevertheless it was written by the apostle.’ Yet another writer of that period, possibly Herveus Burgidolensis, speaks of Paul as the author of fifteen or sixteen letters (including not only the Laodicean letter but another apocryphon, 3 Corinthians).
From the Latin text the Letter to the Laodiceans was translated into several of the western European vernaculars and was included in Bible versions in those languages. Although it did not form part originally of either the earlier or the later Wycliffite Bibles, two independent Middle English versions of the work made their way into the manuscript tradition of the Wycliffite Bible, and were repeatedly reproduced from the first half of the fifteenth century onward.
With the invention of printing in the middle of the fifteenth century, the Laodicean letter was included in some of the earliest printed editions of the New Testament. This did not happen in England, where the printing of the Bible was inhibited by the anti-Lollard Constitutions of Oxford (1408): the first printed edition of the New Testament in English (Tyndale’s) had to be produced on the Continent (1525/26) and, being based on the Greek text, did not include the Letter to the Laodiceans. But the earliest printed German New Testaments (from 1466 onward) and Czech New Testaments (from 1475 onward) included it: it was omitted, however, from the new versions which were based on the Greek text, such as Luther’s (1522) and the Czech Kralice Bible (1593).
In France, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (Faber Stapulensis) wrote a commentary on the Latin text of the Pauline epistles in 1513; in this he not only included the Laodicean letter but also the spurious correspondence of the philosopher Seneca with Paul. A more critical assessment was made by Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, who in 1521 listed the work among the New Testament apocrypha, together with the last twelve verses of Mark’s gospel. Any claims by the work to be treated as a genuine Pauline letter were finally exploded by Erasmus and Luther.
See p. 95.
On Christian Learning, 2.13.
See p. 208.
On Christian Learning, 2.12.
This passage is discussed by C. R. Gregory, Canon and Text of the New Testament (Edinburgh, 1907), pp. 287f. ‘The “important” churches in Augustine’s eyes’, he says, ‘are those that have apostolical bishops’ seats: Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and those that received Epistles from apostles.’
See pp. 242, 248.
On the Consensus of the Evangelists, 2.15.
On the Consensus of the Evangelists, 2.8.
On the Consensus of the Evangelists, 3.28–31.
A. Souter, The Text and Canon of the New Testament (London, 21954), p. 174, summarizing O. Rottmanner, ‘Saint Augustin sur l’auteur de l’épiÌ‚tre aux Hébreux’, Revue Bénédictine 18 (1901), pp. 257–261, reprinted in his Geistesfrüchte aus der Klosterzelle (Munich, 1908), pp. 84–90.
Cf W. F. Howard, ‘The Greek Bible’, in The Bible in its Ancient and English Versions, ed. H. W. Robinson (Oxford, 1940), p. 68: ‘To the mistaken critical judgement of the ancient Church we owe the presence in the New Testament of not a few books. The most striking instance is Hebrews, which was certainly not written by Paul. O felix culpa!’
See p. 97.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius, 25. See C. J. Costello, St Augustine’s Doctrine on the Inspiration and Canonicity of Scripture (Washington, D. C., 1930), p. 48.
See NPNF, series 2, XIV, p. 454.
Innocent, Epistle 6.7. With regard to the apocryphal works which he mentions, on Matthias see pp. 191, 201; on James the less it may be observed that an Apocryphon of James is included in the Nag Hammadi documents; on the Leucian Acts see p. 202; on the Acts of Andrew see p. 202; on Thomas the reference may be to a Gospel of Thomas (see p. 300) or the Acts of Thomas (see pp. 202f.).
See E. von Dobschütz, Das Decretum Gelasianum (Leipzig, 1912), pp. 27f. (see p. 97, n. 74).
The apostle Judas—‘not Iscariot’—is called ‘Judas the Zealot’ in some Old Latin texts of Mt. 10:3 (where our other witnesses read ‘Thaddaeus’); Judas the Zealot is also listed among the apostles in the second-century Epistle of the Apostles, 2.
See M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1924), pp. 21–23, for a translation of the catalogue.
In the last phrase of Luke 2:42, the Dutch wording means not ‘according to the custom of the feast’ (as it should) but ‘according to the custom of their habits’. This is best explained as a confusion between two Syriac words, meaning respectively ‘feast’ and ‘habit’, which have the same consonants (and in fact share the same root). See W. B. Lockwood, ‘Vernacular Scriptures in Germany and the Low Countries before 1500’, CHB II, p. 430. On the Diatessaron see also p. 127 above.
See Lockwood, ‘Vernacular Scriptures …’, pp. 418–420.
See Lockwood, ‘Vernacular Scriptures …’. p. 418
See B. M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 1964), p. 89; The Early Versions of the New Testament (Oxford, 1977), pp. 20f., 28., 335.
See Metzger, Early Versions, p. 25.
See K. Foster, ‘Vernacular Scriptures in Italy’, CHB II, p. 464.
Preface to the Epistle to the Hebrews.
See C. Spicq, L’Epître aux Hébreux, I (Paris, 1952), p. 198, n. 1.
Codex Boernerianus (in Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden)
See p. 131.
See p. 139.
See p. 167.
R. Knopf and G. Krüger in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, ed. E. Hennecke (Tübingen, 21924), p. 150, quoted by W. Schneemelcher in Hennecke-Schneemelcher-Wilson, New Testament Apocrypha, II, p. 129.
From Phil. 1:13.
The Latin text of these chapter-headings is reproduced by J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (London, 1875), p. 284 (in the course of an informative and judicial account of this apocryphon, pp. 281–300).
Filaster, Heresies, 89.
Jerome, On Illustrious Men, 5.
It quotes verse 4 of the work: ‘See that you are not robbed by certain people who tell you vain tales in order to turn you away from the truth of the gospel which is proclaimed by me’.
Reasons for believing that the extant Latin text is based on a Greek original are given by Lightfoot, Colossians-Philemon, pp. 291–294. He provides a Greek retroversion.
Gregory, Moral Exposition of Job, 35.25.
Aelfricus Abbas, A Saxon Treatise concerning the Old and New Testament, ed. W. L’Isle (London, 1623), p. 28, cited by Lightfoot, p. 296.
John of Salisbury, Epistle 143.
On the Epistle to the Colossians, ad loc. (PL 181, col. 1355). J. B. Lightfoot notes the possibility that the author might be Anselm of Laon.
3 Corinthians is included in the Acts of Paul; see Hennecke-Schneemelcher-Wilson, New Testament Apocrypha, II, pp. 374–378. See p. 215 above.
The New Testament part of the Kralice Bible (the ‘authorised version’ of the Czech Bible) was based on an earlier translation from the Greek by Jan Blahoslav (1564).
This third-century compilation was regarded as authentic even by Jerome (On Illustrious Men, 12). For an English translation see Hennecke-Schneemelcher-Wilson, New Testament Apocrypha, II, pp. 133–141.
In his Welche Bücher heilig und biblisch sind (Wittenberg, 1521), a popular version of De canonicis libris libellus (Wittenberg, 1520).
Erasmus, on Col. 4:16: ‘it is not for any Tom, Dick or Harry to copy the mind of Paul.’
The mere fact of its omission from Luther’s New Testament was its sufficient quietus in the lands of the Reformation. It had already been omitted from the list of New Testament books published by the Council of Florence about 1440 (see p. 104).