THE TWO CATALOGUES, DRAWN UP BY COUNCILS, OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.

SECTION I.

NATURE OF THEIR TESTIMONY.

83. WHAT we have now heard from the mouth of all the Fathers of the fourth century, who have bequeathed to us their definitions of Holy Scripture, is in strict accordance with the statements of councils of the same century, that formally inquired into the number of the sacred books, and left us a catalogue of them.

Only two councils, during the fourth century, have given expression to the mind of their times on the canon. These are the Council of Laodicea and that of Carthage. The former was held in Asia Minor, on the banks of the Lycus, in the province of Phrygia, in the year 364, thirty-nine years after the General Council of Nice; the latter, in Africa, thirty-three years later, presided over by Bishop Aurelius, who was aided, it is said, by the celebrated Augustin, bishop of Hippo, in the year 397.

84. We have hitherto seen, from all the catalogues of this century, what striking unanimity the Fathers, from the date of the Council of Nice — though on this point no shadow of constraint was ever exerted — spontaneously came to an agreement on the sacred canon of the New Testament, with the sole exception, on the part of a few, of the Revelation of John. This agreement was unshaken, as it had always been, as to the twenty books of the first canon; it was henceforth universal in reference to the five antilegomena of Eusebius, or the second canon, and it was no less complete as to the Epistle to the Hebrews. There was no longer any hesitation, real or apparent, except in reference to the Apocalypse. We say real or apparent, because two circumstances very different from each other may, according to the case, alternately account for this diversity. On the one hand, among some, the dispute with the millenarians was still too recent, and the controversy had been too keen, in the Hast especially, to admit the entire removal of prejudice against that book, which was regarded as the great prop of their views, On the other, even in many of the Churches most distinctly upholding the divine canonicity of the Apocalypse, that book appeared too mysterious to be read in public religious meetings. Though, however, these two circumstances still contributed more or less to preserve some discordance in the language of the Churches in reference to the Apocalypse, even that discordance had ceased, and all the Churches, on this and on every other point, had come to an entire agreement, and were henceforth to utter but one and the same sound all over the earth. This will now be attested by the Councils of Laodicea and of Carthage, that are going to express themselves as the Fathers have done.

85. It will, however, be proper, before hearing them, to point out the exact object they had in view. That object was, on this point, evidently the maintenance of the discipline and not of the doctrine of the Church. They expressly speak to record testimony, and not to establish authoritatively an article of faith. Neither of these councils professes to decide which books shall be held in the Church, henceforth, of Divine authority, and which shall not. Their intention was simply to regulate the public reading in their religious meetings, and, with this view, to declare the mind of contemporaneous churches, and the testimonies of antiquity, regarding the canonical books, and the books allowed to be read in public. “For,” says the Council of Carthage, “we know from the Fathers that these are the books which should be read in the church, (quia a patribus ista accepimus in ecclesia legenda). It will thus be seen that there is nothing in their language resembling the haughty tone of the Council of Trent, deciding for the universal Church, as God might do, the canonicity of such and such a book, and pronouncing an anathema (post jactum fider confessions fundamentum)¹ against all who dare to differ in opinion on this point, (Si quis libros [istos] pro sacris et canonicis non susceperit, . . . anathema sit.) The decree of the Council of Carthage, as well as that of Laodicea, proves that the councils did not mean to enact what books should be recognised as Divine, but to declare what books were already held as Divine in the Church of God, according to tradition and history, and, therefore, should be publicly read in the religious assemblies of Asia Minor and of Africa Zeugitana,

“Neither private psalms (ἰδιωτικοὺς, that is, composed by private individuals) nor uncanonical books, (ἀκανόνιστα)” says the Council of Laodicea, “shall be recited (λέγεσθαι) in church, but only the canonical books of the New Testament and of the Old. Here are the books to be read, (ἀνιυγινώσκεσθαι.)”²

“It has been deemed by us proper,” says that of Carthage, “that, besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing should be read in church under the name of sacred Scriptures (nihil in ecclesia legatur sub nomine Divinarwm Scriptwrarwm) except, perhaps, it may be allowable to read in it acts of the martyrs, or the anniversaries of their death.”³

86. The catalogue of Laodicea and that of Carthage have each two peculiarities: —

In regard to the Old Testament, the Council of Laodicea entirely excludes the apocryphal books, and does not mention the Apocalypse as part of the New; while, in all other respects, it is identical with the canon of our Churches.

On the contrary, the Council of Carthage admits the apocryphal books as part of the Old Testament, and mentions the Apocalypse as part of the New; so that, as to the New Testament, it is identical with the canon of our Churches.

These two orders of facts, when rightly understood, are quite reconcilable, as we shall shew by and by. They are opposed to each other only in appearance.

SECTION II.

THE COUNCIL OF LAODICEA.

87. The Council of Laodicea was convoked to represent the churches throughout the different regions of Asia Minor, and promote the revival of ecclesiastical discipline. Thirty-two bishops assembled at Laodicea, under the moderatorship of their metropolitan, Nunechius, in 364. This date is furnished by the “Code of the Canons of the Universal Church,” which had early admitted the canons of Laodicea, and which was the law of the Church till the sixteenth century. The Council of Laodicea, which was much larger than a provincial synod, as it contained deputies from the whole of Asia Minor, was, from its commencement, an object of respect throughout the Christian Church, and its decisions were regarded at once, both among the Greeks⁴ and the Latins, as forming a part of the “Ecclesiastical Regulations” binding on all bishops. This is evident from the epistle which Pope Leo IV. addressed, about the year 850, to the clergy of Great Britain.⁵ In fact, it was not only by the sixth Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople,⁶ that the canons of Laodicea were admitted into the “Code of the Universal Church,” but, previously, by the fourth Ecumenical Council, held at Chalcedon in 451, and by a decree of the Emperor Justinian in 536;⁷ so that, all over the Church, they had the same authority as the canons of General Councils and the imperial laws that ratified them.

On these facts the clear and conclusive writings of Justel⁸ and Le Chassier⁹ may be consulted, as well as the learned expositions of Bishop Cosin in his work on the canon.¹⁰

88. Yet, how great soever may have been the veneration of the ancient Church for the Council of Laodicea, it was to be expected that the Roman doctors would try to destroy its authority,¹¹ as it absolutely excludes from the canonical books the Old Testament apocrypha, admited into the canon 1200 years later by the Council of Trent. The arguments of the Romanists on this point have been very powerfully combated by Bishop Cosin:—

1. “Dionysius the Little,” say the Romanists, “has omitted the catalogue in his translation of the ‘Universal Code of Canons.’”

But Dionysius the Little is known to have made many other alterations and omissions.

2. Neither does the Roman code, dies add, contain it.

But it is to the Greeks rather than to the Latins, to the Universal Code, rather than to the Roman Code, that we must appeal. The latter omits, in like manner, eight canons of the Council of Ephesus, the last three of the Council of Constantinople, and the last two of the Council of Chalcedon.

Besides, says Cosin, the fraud betrays it through a singular oversight. In discarding from the 59th canon of Laodicea the catalogue of canonical Scriptures, its preface and title have been inadvertently retained, and these make a manifest allusion to the books enumerated further on in all other editions of the Council. Those published by Mercator, Merlin, Crab, Surius, du Tiller, Binnius, as well as those published by Balsamon and Zonaras, all contain the catalogue omitted in the Roman Code.¹²

3. Catharin, to evade the testimony of the decree of Laodicea, has recourse, on the contrary, to the supposition that the catalogue was originally more extended, and that the apocryphal books had been subsequently omitted. “Vehementer suspicor,” says he; “I strongly suspect.”

But by such gratuitous conjectures anything could be established and anything overturned.

4, Lastly, Baronius, in his “Annales,” goes still further. He represents the Council of Laodicea as earlier than that of Nice, and makes the latter pass a decree regarding the Apocrypha¹³ He thus expected to upset the authority of the former by that of the latter, as a General Council can modify the decisions of a Provincial.

But, in the first place, we have already shewn (Theses 52 and 53) that the supposition of a Nicean decree about the book of Judith is without foundation.

In the second place, the Code of the Universal Church, in reproducing the canons of Laodicea, specifies 364 as the date of the Council.

In the third place, ail ancient collections, either Greek or Latin, of the Synodical Canons have always placed those of Laodicea after those of Antioch, and we know that the Council of Antioch was held sixteen years after that of Nice.

Lastly, the Photimians are condemned in the 7th canon of Laodicea. Now, these were first mentioned in 345, that is, twenty’ years after the Council of Nice.

89. The reader will probably feel an interest in reading the entire decree of Laodicea in the original: —

Canons LIX, and LX¹⁴

Οτι ού δεῖ ι’διωτικούς ψαλμοὺς λέγεσθαι ἐν τῇ ἒκκλησια οὐδὲ άκανόνιστα βιβλιοὶ, ἀλλά μόνα τά κανονικοὶ τῆς καινῆς καί παλαιᾶς διαθήκης.

’Ὅσα δεῖ βιβλία ἀναγινώσκεσθαι τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης. ά. Γὲνεσις κόσμου, β’.’Ἰζξοδος ἐξ Αἰγύπτου, γ’, Λευίτικόν, δ’. Ἀξιθμοί, ἒ. Δευτεξονόμιοι, ἕ. Ἰησοῦς Ναυῆ, ζ’. Κξιταί. Ῥούθ, ή. Ἐσθῆς, θ’. Βασιλειῶν οτξώτη καὶ δευτὲςα, ί. Τςίτη καὶ τετάξτη, ιά. Παξαλειοτόμενα πρῶτον καί δεύτερον, ιβ’. ’Έσδξας πρῶτον καί δεύτεξον, ιγʹ. Βίβλος ψαλμῶν ἑκατόν πεντήκοντα, ιδʹ. Παξοιμίαι ’Σαλομώντος, ιέ. Εκκλησιαστής, ιςʹ. ’Λισμα ᾀσμάτων, ιζʹ. Ἰὼβ, ιή. Δώδεκα ςτξοφῆται, ιθʹ. Ἠσαίας, κʹ. Ἰεξεμιάς καί Βοιςούχ.¹⁵ Θξῆνοι καί ἐπιστολαί, κά. Ἰσζεκιὴλ, κβʹ. Δανιῆλ,

Τὰ δὲ τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης ταῦτα· Εὐαγγὲλια τέσσαξα, κατὰ, Ματθαῒον, κατὰ Μάξκον, κατὰ ’Λουκᾶν, κατά Ἰωάννην· Πξάξεις Ἀποστόλων, Ἐπιστολαί καθολικαί ἑπτὰ, οὕτως· Ἰακώβου μία, Πὲτςου δύο, Ἰωάννου τρεῖς, Ἰούδα μία. Ἐπιστολαί Παύλου δεκατέσσαρες· πξὸς Ῥωμαίους μία, πρὸς Κορινθίους δύο, πρὸς Γαλάτας μία, ’πρὸς Ἐφεσίους μία, πρὸς Φιλιππησίους μία, πρὸς Καλασσαεῖς μία, πρὸς Θεσσαλονικεῖς δύο, πρὸς Ἐβξαίους μία, πρὸς Τιμόθεον δύο, πρὸς Τίτον μία, πρὸς Φιλήμονα μία.

90. It may be asked why the assembled bishops in this council made no mention of the Apocalypse. Had it not been for their silence on this single book, their catalocue would have been perfect.

Many will undoubtedly attribute this silence to the supposed circumstance of the Apocalypse not having been yet restored to the canon of sacred books. This explanation, however, we think absolutely incompatible with contemporary facts; and it appears to us much more likely that the Fathers of Laodicea, while they admitted the canonicity of that sacred book, considered it too symbolical and too mysterious to be read with propriety in public religious meetings.

In fact, we must not lose sight of the object these fathers had in view. Their attention was confined to the public reading of the Scriptures in church, and their declaration referred merely to two points. first, they prohibited the reading of what was not canonical scripture, and, secondly, they decreed that the twenty-two books of the Old Testament and twenty-six books of the New, should be read. But they did not say that the twenty-seventh book, though they did not mention it, was regarded by them as uncanonical. In like manner, the Church of England at the present day ranks the Apocalypse among the canonical books, (Prayer-book, and sixth of her Thirty-nine Articles,) while, on the other hand, in the Calendar, and in the preface to the Prayer-book, she excludes the Apocalypse from the public lessons.

If the bishops, instead of enacting a mere rule of discipline relating to the lessons of the Church, had professed to exclude the Apocalypse from the canon, the proceeding would have everywhere awakened an- outcry, the echoes of which would have reached our own times. The council could not have conceived the idea of setting at nought the striking testimony rendered to the Apocalypse by the most ancient martyrs and the most venerable fathers. The assembly could not have solemnly given the lie to the Justin Martyrs, the Irenzeuses, the Methodiuses, the Hippolytuses, the Melitos, the Clements of Alexandria, the Theophiluses of Antioch, the Origens, the Tertullians, without calling forth all over the Church an outburst of amazement and disapprobation.

Tertullian, in denouncing “heresies,” had specified as one of them the rejection of the Apocalypse.¹⁶

On the contrary, not one of the illustrious admirers of the Apocalypse, during that period, was heard to complain. Yet many such flourished at the very time of the council, and the fame of their writings filled the whole Christian world. Athanasius was still alive. So were Epiphanius, Basil the Great, Ephrem, all equally attached to the canonicity of that book.¹⁷ Jerome and Rufinus were still in the prime of life.¹⁸ Not only, however, was none of these eminent men heard to complain of the decision so contrary to their convictions, but none of the writers opposed to restoring the Apocalypse to the canon ever appealed to the authority of the decision of Laodicea as giving countenance to his views.

Besides, when, thirty-three years later, the Council of Carthage passed the decree in which the Apocalypse is specified, no one regarded it as at variance with the decision of the Council of Laodicea, which all the Churches, both of the East and of the West, held in so great respect. It must unquestionably have been that the difference between the two councils was considered merely .a matter of discipline regarding the lessons for the Lord’s-day, and the order of public worship — points on which one Church was at liberty to differ from another.

Lastly, there is another authentic fact which clearly proves that the two councils were regarded as entirely agreed on all matters of faith, and differing only in points of order and discipline, in which orthodox congregations were at perfect liberty to differ from each other. The fact to which we allude is what was done, at the end of the seventh century, at the sixth General Council, held at Constantinople.¹⁹ That great assembly, consisting of 227 bishops, solemnly ratified, by its second canon, the acts of the Council of Laodicea, as well as the epistles of Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Amphilochius, (which excludes from the list of Holy Scriptures, as is well known, the Apocrypha,) and, at the same time, ratified also the acts of the Council of Carthage. This fact appears to us decisive. It was impossible it could ratify the acts of both councils, had it not regarded the act of the Council of Carthage, relating to the books to be read in church, as a measure entirely compatible with the decree of the Council of Laodicea on the same subject. It follows, as we have said, that both decrees were clearly regarded as relating merely to a matter of discipline.

SECTION III.

THE COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE.

91. All accounts of the Council of Carthage agree as to its having been held at the beginning of September 397, (“Caesario et Aitico consulibus.”) It decreed, however, by its forty-seventh canon, “that the bishops should consult, on the tenor of their decisions, the Church beyond sea, as well as their brethren and colleagues, Boniface, or other bishops of the same regions.”

Now, this Boniface, the forty-third bishop of Rome, did not enter on his office till one-and-twenty years after the date of this decree. Either, therefore, this mention of the Pope must be one of those later interpolations with which the champions of Rome have disfigured nearly all their records of ecclesiastical antiquity, or the whole forty-seventh canon is a forgery, or (what appears still more probable) the forty-nine canons ascribed to the council belonged to it only in part, and, among others, the forty-seventh was enacted by some other African synod, held during the fifth century, and was afterwards inserted among the acts of Carthage by some blundering compiler, who had arranged them all according to his fancy, without any regard to their dates.

This explanation is confirmed by another act of the same council. Canon forty-eighth decrees that the members of the council should consult their brethren, Suricius and Simplicianus, bishops, the one of Rome, and the other of Milan. But between this Siricius, to be consulted according to the forty-eighth canon, and Boniface, to be consulted according to the forty-seventh, there intervened no fewer than three popes, the first having died in 398, a year after the holding of the council, and the second having only entered on his office twenty years later, that is, in 418,

92. This forty-seventh canon, however, whatever may be its real date, presents to us a record of the universal mind of the churches of the period. In fact, it not only gives us the same list of sacred. books as that now received by all the churches in the world, but enumerates them as far as the twenty-seventh in the order of our modern Bibles. 7

As given in the edition of the Councils by Labbé and Cossart, (vol. ii, p. 1177,²⁰) the list is as follows: —

“Canon 47. The council has decided that, besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing shall be read in church under the name of Sacred Scriptures, (Item placuit ut, præter Seripturas canonicas, nihil in ecclesia legatur sub nomine Divinarwm Scripturarum.)

“The canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament are these: . . . . .

“The canonical books of the New Testament are: — The Gospels, four books; the Acts of the Apostles, one book; thirteen epistles of the apostle Paul; one epistle of the same apostle to the Hebrews; two epistles of the apostle Peter; three of the apostle John; one of the apostle Jude; one of James; and one book of the Revelation of John, (Novi autem Testamenti, Evangeliorum libri quatuor; Actwum Apostolorum, liber unus; Pauli apostolr Epistolae, tredecim; ejusdem ad Hebroos, una; Petri apostol, duae; Joannis apostoli, tres; Jude apostoli, wna; et Jacobi, una; Apocalypsis Joannis, liber unus.²¹”)

The Council adds: “This shall be communicated to our brother and colleague Boniface, or other bishops of those regions,²² for the ratification of this canon, as we have it transmitted to us by the Fathers that these are the books to be read in church. It shall, however, be allowable to read the sufferings of the martyrs in celebrating their anniversaries.”

(“Hoe etiam fratri et sacerdoti²³ nostro Bonifacio vel aliis earum partium episcopis, pro confirmando isto canone, innotescat quia²⁴ a patribus ista accepimus in ecclesia legenda.

“Liceat enim legi passiones martyrum, cum anniversarii dies eorum celebrantur.”)

93. We shall have to return to what regards the Apocrypha in this catalogue of Carthage. To dwell on it at present would distract cur attention from the canon of the New Testament, to which we wish first to confine our inquiry. We shall merely remark, before passing on, that if this catalogue seems to differ from that of Laodicea about a fact, — about an expression, — the discordance, so far as regards the New Testament, is only apparent and external. As to the fact, the council decrees that those ecclesiastical books, the reading of which had been so often authorised by the ancients, but which the Council of Laodicea had thought proper to prohibit, should be read in the course of public worship. As to the expression, the council, in applying to these books the title canonical, employs the word in a more extended signification than that which it had borne during the first four centuries, and uses it in the sense of libri regulares, books fitted to regulate Christian sentiments and conduct. Such use of the term, says Cosin, was unknown till after the fourth century, and even then was very rare. We shall have occasion, further on, to explain the mind of the council in employing the term, as Augustin, who was present, (we are told,) never ceased to assert an essential difference between divinely-inspired scriptures and canonical books, and as he never appeals on this point to the decisions of the Council of Carthage, as if the question had been there disposed of.²⁵

1) Words of the Council of Trent, (Sess. iv.,) April 8, 1546, Labbé, Concilia, ton, xiv., p. 746.

2) Cave, Hist. Litt., p. 362.

3) Mansi, iii., p, 891.

4) “Hoe concilium, antiqua nobilitate celeberrimum,” says Binnius, “Græcorum atque Latinorum scriptis celebri memorize commendatum fecit,” (Ex Baronio not 1, in Laod. Cons.)

5) Canon de Libellis, Dist. 20.

6) Quini Sexta Synodus in Trullo, (692,) whose canons have met with some objections.

7) Novel. 131.

8) Præfat. in Cod. Eccl. Univers. Testimonia preefixa ante cod. Dionystii Exigu.

9) Opuse. in consult. de controv. inter Papam Paulum V. et Remp. Venet.

10) Art, lix.-lxiii.

11) It is marked as doubtful in many editions of the Councils, for example, in Harduin, (1. 79.)

12) Codex Canonum et Decretorum Ecclesie Romane, p. 502.;

13) We do not add a translation, as the substance has been given in Thesis 87.

14) These are the two last of the canons; but they are numbered 163 and 164 in the Universal Code, which contains 207, anterior to the time of Dionysius the Little.

15) This is no specifying of the apocryphal book of Baruch, but simply an exegetical mode of pointing out more distinctly what, according to the Jews, their twentieth book contained, which we are accustomed to call “Jeremiah and his Lamentations.” It was nearly in the same manner that Origen, a hundred years before, had distinguished in detail the game book of Jeremiah, (Euseb., Hist, Eeel., lib. vi., cap. 25;) “Jeremiah,” said he, “with his Lamentations and his Epistle (chap. 30) forms only one book.” Athanasius, also, and Cyril, in designating the book of Jeremiah, add, as the Council of Laodicea does, an indication of. the contents of chapter 29th, and of what is to be found in Jeremiah about Baruch. (See chapters 32, 36, 43, and 45.) Besides, the meaning of the council’s expression became clear from the number of twenty-two books, which it carefully retains,

16) Against Marcion, book iv.

17) They died respectively twelve, fifteen, and thirty-eight years afterwards.

18) In the thirty-third year of their age.

19) Quini-Sextum, in Truilo, 692.

20) See also p. 106. Ineger Codex Canonum Keclesiz African, Greece et Latine, cap. XXXIv.

21) Kirchhofer (p. 12) and Dr Wordsworth, (Append., p. 83,) both professing to follow the edition of Mansi, (vol. ili., p. 891,) have omitted the Epistle of James But the Greek code of the canons of the African Church (c. 34) says — Ἰακὼβου ἀποστόλου μία.. With this agrees also the code in the library of Cambridge University, E.E. iv. 29, (Westcott, Gen. Survey on the Canon, 185.) Kirchhofer also gives the same canon twice in his collection, at p. 18 (according to Bruns) and at p. 508 (according to Gerhard von Maestricht, Brem., 1772). The epistle of James is wanting in the one, and is given in the other.

22) An ancient manuscript, (vetustus codex,) says Labbé, (Consil. ii., p. 1177,) contains these words (sic habet): — “For the ratification of this canon, let the Church beyond the sea consulted,” (In confirmando isto canone, transmarina Ecclesia consulatur.)

23) Other editions, as that of Binius, read — Et consacerdoti nostro.

24) For quod, as in Greek — Γνώξιμον ἔστω ὁτι . . . . κτ. τ.

25) See, further on, what we have said on the doctrine of Augustin.