The formation of the biblical Canon was a gradual process that took place over several centuries. The Canon of the New Testament became established only after a period of almost four centuries as Christianity was slowly recognized as a flourishing religion. The process of canonization was not a straightforward one, and it varied from region to region. Initially, different communities had slightly different collections of texts that they considered authoritative, and it was only over time that a consensus emerged about which texts should be included in the Canon.
To this day, there is still some variation amongst different denominations of Christianity in regards to the extent of the Old Testament Canon, and more specifically, the Deuterocanon. The Old Testament is made up of a large group of writings dating hundreds of years before Christ. These writings usually chronicle the spiritual and historical formation of the people of Israel, as God's chosen people. In Jewish circles, these books are called the "Tanakh", representing the collection of Torah (the Law of Moses), Nevi'im (the deeds and utterances of the Prophets), and Ketuvim (other writings, such as poetry, music, and history books). Malachi is usually considered the last of the Old Testament prophets. The Old Testament story seems to come to an abrupt end as the people of Israel return from Babylon and construct the Second Temple. However, there were obviously other things that took place in the hundreds of years known as the "Second Temple Era" and these, along with other traditions of the Jews were written down by a multitude of writers, often in Greek (the lingua franca of the day).
Many of the more authoritative of these Greek Second Temple Era writings were later termed "deuterocanonical" by many Christian groups. Very early on in the history of Christendom, these books were widely circulating, and were often found in collections with other portions of the Tanakh translated into Greek. Therefore, many Christians had them readily accessible and used them often for reference. We even have evidence that these books were sometimes read to the local congregation in church services. However, it becomes more difficult to prove that they were actually considered canonical early on. While the deuterocanonical books were used in church services, so were many of the martyrdom accounts of early Christians and there is no dispute in Christian circles over whether those are considered canonical, they are not. Moreover, while the deuterocanonical books were often found in the same collection with the Tanakh, so were other books. We have to remember that at that point in time the books (even in the Septuagint Greek Old Testament) were not bound up into one volume, they were collections of separate scrolls. The earliest Tanakh Canon lists we have from Jews seem to give no indication of the Deuterocanon. The earliest lists we have in Christian history are from Melito and Origen. Melito, being the earlier one, does not include the deuterocanonical books at all. Origen enumerates the Jewish Tanakh, and then adds "And outside of these there are the Maccabees, which are entitled Sarbeth Sabanaiel." As time passed, more and more Deuterocanonical books became widespread in Christian communities. At the formation of the oldest codex-form Bibles, which finally contained all of the books in a single volume, we started to see an Old Testament more similar to the one Roman Catholics have agreed upon.
Usually, what differentiates the denominations is the amount of authority they grant to tradition in comparison to the Bible itself. The Eastern Orthodox have adopted a very extensive Deuterocanon, because of their belief that the holy tradition of the Church throughout all times is what should guide such decisions. Many of these books were traditionally widely used and have therefore been given canonical status. The Roman Catholic Church has stuck to a very old canonical list, the one we find in Jerome's Vulgate (a late 4th-century translation of the Bible into Latin). Following the guidance of the bishop of Rome and other Church authorities, Jerome translated a number of Deuterocanonical books and added them to the vulgate, although he marked many of them with an obelus, to make them easily distinguishable. Jerome, however, often openly expressed doubts about the Deuterocanonical books. At the Protestant reformation, the reformers made an argument that, if we want to submit primarily to the authority of the Bible as the inspired Word of God, we must rule out those books which have an ambiguous history of canonization and that are still disputed. The argument was that God had shown throughout history that the Canon of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh is indisputably the inspired Word of God. They thought it was wrong to push any later works onto what was indisputably given just because traditionally Christians had made use of these other books in different contexts.
In the Protestant tradition, the Deuterocanonical books have come to be called "Apocryphal" and are considered useful, but non-Canonical. They are not considered to be at the same level as the Bible, which is considered ontologically different from all other books as the only infallible Word of God. Martin Luther put it this way: "Apocrypha [are] books that are not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read." Confessional Protestants and Classical Evangelicals (in the stream of people like the Wesley brothers and Whitefield) usually hold to this position. Later on, many people in more modern and fundamentalist forms of the Evangelical movement and most non-denominational churches have outright rejected tradition as a whole in an attempt to make Christianity feel more personal. As such, they also outright reject the Apocrypha as having any value.
The writer of this blog post considers the Confessional Protestant understanding to be the most balanced, safe, biblical, and historically defensible position of these many. However, for the sake of being efficient, we will not go into any more depth about the Old Testament Canon.
The Council of Nicaea and the Biblical Canon
When it comes to the New Testament, there is an equally complex history of how the Canon was formed. This is where the idea that Constantine put together the Canon comes from. Roman emperor Constantine I plays an important role in the history of the Christian Church. As new Christian converts, Constantine and his mother Helena made sure to give the Christians a place in the political landscape of the Roman Empire. In 313 AD, he contributed to establishing the Edict of Milan, which was set in place to protect Christians from further persecution and to legally recognize Christianity as a religion that should be preserved. Contrary to popular belief, Constantine did not actually make Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire during his reign. However, he encouraged Christian evangelization efforts throughout the empire and provided large amounts of funding to the Church (especially to his local congregation in Rome). Emperor Theodosius I later issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD, which - due to Christianity's growing political influencing power - recognized Christianity as the state religion.
Constantine converted to Christianity during a time in which Christians were divided over an issue called the Arianism (Grk. Ἀρειανισμός). As Christianity finally found some rest after years and years of persecution within the Empire, there was a flourishing era of literary genius within the Church. In this era of growth, however, another heresy appeared. Hundreds of years had passed since the ascension of Jesus and Christianity was able to remain within its apostolic boundaries by defeating the ideas of heretics that had sprung up and challenged apostolic orthodoxy, such as Valentinus, Marcion, and Montanus.
Valentinus (~100-160 AD) was a proponent of Gnostic ideas and he therefore attempted to bring together Christianity and Platonism, obviously to the detriment of Christianity, in his system. Valentinians taught that everything has its origin in a primal force or being called Bythos. At one point, other beings and forces began to emanate from this primal being and these were, in a sense lower divine emanations called aeons. Later on, the lower cosmological level - the material world - came into being by mistake. Human beings are the highest-level being in the material world, participating (to a certain extent) in the non-material spiritual world. In an attempt to bring Christianity into this confused religion, the Valentinians supposedly taught that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three separate beings, with the Holy Spirit and Jesus being the ones involved in the redemption of the world by freeing humanity from bondage to the material through secret "knowledge" (gnosis). They thus rejected that Jesus really had anything to do with the physical world and that he was rather a spiritual being that never took on human flesh, that he was never truly crucified, or buried (P.S. they also made it an essential doctrine to believe that Jesus never defecated). The Valentinians were countered in writing by staunch defenders of apostolic teaching regarding Jesus' incarnation such as Tertullian and Irenaeus, and eventually the Valentinians lost their influence.
Marcion fell into a similar trap of Gnosticism. However, the way he attempted to harmonize Christianity with Gnostic Platonism was quite different. In Marcionism, there was a benevolent highest being that sent Jesus (again, not bodily) to save humanity from the demiurge, the creator god of this world identified with the God of the Old Testament. Marcion, not very well versed in the Old Testament (as may well be apparent) thought for this reason that the Old Testament presented an evil demiurge god that hated humanity. Jesus came, once again, with freeing gnosis (knowledge) to help bring humanity out of its bondage to the material world created by the demiurge. Because of this belief, Marcion rejected the Old Testament in its entirety and also rejected the Gospels. He believed the Apostle Paul to be the only true Apostle of Jesus Christ and therefore only accepted most of Paul's writings as inspired Scripture. He also used a heavily revised version of the Gospel of Luke, which fit his ideas. The Early Church was heavily involved in writing books and tractates against the teachings of Marcion. The most famous example is Tertullian's five-volume textbook called Against Marcion. Most modern scholarship on Gnosticism and Marcionism relies heavily on Tertullian's works.
Montanus had a different sort of heresy. In the latter half of the second century, Montanus and his two female companions Maximilla and Prisca started prophesying sporadically. It is said that Montanus, Maximilla, and Prisca often travelled together and prophesied to large groups of people. The large bulk of the prophesying was usually done by the two women. Montanus, a charismatic and charming man, became seen as an apostle of Jesus within the movement and a large community formed around them, encouraging the excessive use of Spiritual gifts, to the point that organized Church services were often metaphorically thrown out the window. Reports were heard throughout the Christian communities that Montanist circles encouraged manifestations that were unheard of in their intensity and peculiarity. There is little historical evidence as to what these manifestations might have been. We do have evidence that glossolalia (speaking in tongues) was over-used in the context of the church service, contrary to what Paul had taught the Corinthians. While most scholars agree that glossolalia was still practiced by Christians in that time period[1], an excessive push towards unorganized screaming in tongues in the Church service was seen as a serious issue by most Christians, but was common practice in Montanist circles. Montanism was also heavily legalistic in its leanings, something most Christians were against. As an "apostle", Montanus was viewed as having some sort of prophetic infallibility about him and a sort of personality cult formed around him. The great theologian and defender of apostolic orthodoxy Tertullian became associated with Montanist circles himself, although the extent of his involvement is still a subject of much debate. Many early traditions say that Tertullian abandoned the Montanist movement and possibly condemned their worst errors before his death. Some writings of Pre-Nicene fathers contain references to Montanism, usually casting them in a negative light, and Eusebius later wrote more extensively about the errors of Montanus. Montanism did not last very long after the deaths of Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla.
Now, as Constantine became a Christian, a new heresy had formed within the Church and had proved much more destructive than the ones that went before. This heresy called Arianism had split the church almost evenly into two. Arius, a very well-educated ordained Elder in the congregation at Alexandria, had started to spread his beliefs regarding Christology throughout the Empire. He postulated that there "was a time when He (Jesus Christ) was not." This was a clear veering away from the apostolic teaching given to the Church by Jesus and his Apostles in the Holy Scriptures. After all, Jesus said: "before Abraham was, I AM." The Apostle John said: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Apostle Paul said: "He IS before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Hebrews says: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Jesus says in Revelation: "I am the ALPHA and OMEGA → the BEGINNING and the END." Isaiah himself says that "unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given ... and his name shall be called: ... The MIGHTY GOD, The EVERLASTING FATHER."
However, unlike basically all of Christianity before him, Arius took many of the verses like the ones mentioned above, pulled them out of context, and made many of the verses mentioning Jesus' birth refer to Jesus being apparently "begotten" (in a creative manner) at some point in time before the Creation by the Father. He focused his attention on Paul's phrase "first-born of all creation", which references Christ's co-eternality with the Father and twisted its meaning to refer to God the Father actually begetting Jesus in some way before His creation of the world. This led to his separating the persons of the Trinity completely and denying the existence of a triune God. Rather, he considered the Father and Jesus two separate divine beings - one eternal and the other created.
Due to the largely uneducated and illiterate Christian population in those days, much of the Church's teaching and theology spread through songs and hymns that were sung in the congregation. Arius himself a very prominent writer of hymns and his hymns were the trojan horse that he used to subtly bring his teaching into Christian congregations throughout the Roman Empire. His teachings became increasingly popular throughout the Empire and even outside the reach of the Romans. Many presbyters and even bishops in Western and Northern Europe adopted this modified form of Christianity due to the influence of Arius. The Arian heresy became so widespread that, by the time of Constantine, the Church was ready to split over the issue. The defenders of orthodoxy in Rome and the Balkans were surrounded by Arians and were seeing more and more Arian influence in their communities. When Constantine became a Christian, he decided that the best course of action would be to call an "ecumenical council" - a gathering of all the leaders of Christian communities throughout the world - to discuss the issue of Arianism and to come to a consensus. The First Council of Nicaea was therefore scheduled to meet in the year 325 AD at Nicaea, in modern day Turkey.
At the meeting of the council in 325 AD, with Arius present, the ecumenical council settled upon a definition known as the Nicene Creed, which outlines the apostolic orthodox view of the Trinity saying:
"We believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
begotten from the Father before all ages,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made;
of the same essence as the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,
and was made human.
He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried.
The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again with glory
to judge the living and the dead.
His kingdom will never end.
And we believe in the Holy Spirit,
[the Lord, the giver of life.
He proceeds from the Father and the Son,
and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified...]"
*THE ITALICIZED PORTION AT THE END WAS APPENDED AT THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 381AD
The Arians were impressively defeated by people such as Athanasius I of Alexandria and Alexander I of Alexandria, two very well-educated people from the same local community as Arius himself. Alexander and Athanasius actually both served consecutive terms as Bishop/Patriarch of Alexandria, a very respected position within Christianity at the time. They taught that the teaching of the Scriptures was that Jesus is homoousion (Grk. ὁμοούσιον, meaning "of one/same essence") with the Father, as opposed to Arius, who argued that Jesus is homoiousios (Grk. ὁμοιούσιος, meaning "of 'similar' essence", having been created) with the Father. Hosius, bishop of Corduba, the two representatives of Sylvester I, bishop of Rome, and possibly Nicholas of Myra (yes, St. Nicholas himself) are some of the more famous examples of attendees at the First Council of Nicaea, all of whom are reported to have happily approved of the council's decision to maintain trinitarian orthodoxy.
The idea that the Council of Nicaea (325AD), under the authority of Roman Emperor Constantine, established the Christian biblical Canon is a myth. This idea is found very often in anti-trinitarian circles such as in Unitarian, Mormon, and Muslim groups but there is no historical basis for this idea that the Council of Nicaea discussed and established the Canon of Scripture and thus created the Bible. The popularity of this myth can be seen as a result of the best-selling book by Dan Brown, known as The Da Vinci Code, in which Dan often showcases an affinity for unorthodox conspiracy theories regarding Christian teaching and history. For example, among others, The Da Vinci Code was criticized for propagating the hypothesis that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene, had children, and that those descendants later became the partially divine Merovingian dynasty. Brown often displayed misunderstandings of his about the role of people such as Constantine in Christian history and he clearly misunderstood the heresies that developed in the early church. Most importantly, The Da Vinci Code puts forward the idea that the Bible and trinitarian orthodoxy were created by an influential elite within the institutional church, whose leader was Constantine.
The conspiracy theory that the Bible was bound by Constantine at Nicaea has become the common talking point of many who challenge the Christian Church and the Trinity. We've heard the same arguments time and time again in Islamic pop-apologetics, we've heard it as a talking point in the Jehovah's Witness' tractates, we've seen it in movies and shows. However, what is really being showcased is a lack of understanding of Church history. This is mostly due to a lack of the use of the evidentiary historical method in actually examining source documents and a lack in serious academic scholarship on the subject. Scholars in Church History overwhelmingly agree that this idea is nothing more than a myth (especially taking into account that Constantine was most likely NOT EVEN IN ATTENDANCE at the Council 👀).
As the early Christian Canon lists and other evidences show, there were discussions over the Canon before and after the Council of Nicaea. As I mentioned earlier, we find a few different Canon lists written by early Christians. Many of these provide the New Testament books that they had access to, read in their church services, and considered Canonical. Similar to the Old Testament, primary sources point to the fact that there emerged a sort of loose consensus about the Canon of the New Testament very early on [2]. Irenaeus (~170 AD-190 AD) includes the whole New Testament minus four of the smaller epistles (Philemon, 2 Peter, 3 John, and Jude) in his list. The Muratorian fragment (~180 AD) includes the whole New Testament minus Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John. In all early Canon lists, the bulk of the New Testament material remains the same, albeit with a few books which are noted to be disputed in certain communities. However, throughout the Early Church, we see an almost unanimous witness to the authority of the four Gospels, the book of Acts (sometimes included in the same book as the Gospel of Luke), the Pauline corpus (excluding Hebrews, which was still disputed in a few spurious communities, because of the lack of information about its author), the General Epistles (the extent of which was slightly debated), and the Revelation of John.
When making theological arguments or presenting devotional material, the earliest writers of the church constantly reference these books that make up the New Testament Canon. That some books were still disputed in certain communities is inevitable, as it was difficult for Christian groups to communicate with each other and come to conclusions during times often characterized by intense persecution. Moreover, their focus at that point was not to call ecumenical councils, but rather to spread the Gospel as far as possible, something made very difficult by sporadic waves of persecution.
In the same way, the focus of the First Council of Nicaea was not to create an authoritative Canon list, rather it was to combat the heresy that threatened to split the church in two. Furthermore, none of the early records from the Council nor eyewitness attendees mention any discussion over the Canon of Scripture. Eusebius, an early Church historian that was an eyewitness to the Council of Nicaea included a ton of information about the Council in his books on The History of the Church or Ecclesiastical History. A discussion of the biblical Canon is not said to have been included in the deliberations of the Council, according to Eusebius' recounting of events. Furthermore, Eusebius does not say that Constantine had any part in the discussion himself, this was a discussion between theologians, bishops, and pastors, not kings or political elites.
Constantine’s Role in the Formation of the Biblical Canon
A more established form of the Canon does seem to have appeared during the reign of Constantine, as Christians now had more peace and resources to communicate and come to agreements about these issues. However, all of these lists that we find during his own time come independent and unrelated to Constantine. Eusebius, in his discussing earlier heresies of the Church - not at all in the context of discussing the Council of Nicaea or Constantine's times - writes about the books considered canonical by the Church. He lists all of the 27 books of the New Testament, while noting that James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude are still disputed in certain communities.
Athanasius also clearly attested to the authenticity of the 27 books of the New Testament in his writings.
Constantine did not play a direct role in the formation of the biblical canon. The idea that he did could have come from multiple sources. One is the famous story of "Constantine's Fifty Bibles". Eusebius mentions in his Life of Constantine that Constantine asked him to "prepare fifty copies of the Sacred Scriptures" for the use of the Church. Eusebius did so, obviously including the 27 New Testament books in his Canon list in these Bibles. There is, however, no indication that Constantine ever gave Eusebius a list of books to include in these Bibles. More importantly, there is no evidence that these fifty Bibles were ever used as the standard bearers when it came to the canonical status of books. The Canon was still discussed and debated many years after the death of Constantine.
A second proposal for where the idea that Constantine created the Bible comes from is Jerome's mentioning that Judith (a book Catholics and Eastern Orthodox still consider Deuterocanonical) was "found by the Nicene council to be a part of Sacred Scriptures", although he never makes mention of any further dialogue about the Canon at Nicaea. Nor does he make the claim that there exists some official list of books approved by Constantine or the Nicene Council. Surely, the whole point is that in their combatting Arianism, the council made use of the book of Judith, which they considered a sacred Scripture. No other mention of canonicity discussion is found anywhere in eyewitness testimony or the writings of early Church historians about the Council at Nicaea.
Constantine fully legalized Christianity, convened the First Council of Nicaea to combat Arianism, condemned the writings of heretics, offered financial and political support to the institution of the Church, but he was not the one that created the Bible. The formation of the canon was a gradual process. However, it is most important for us Christians to recognize that the "main agent" involved in this process was God, who sovereignly kept His Word and gave us his infallible Word to guide us and lead us to Christ and His Kingdom. No matter what any man or institution could have tried to do to alter the course of history, God remained in control and His Word remains true forever.
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away." - Matthew 24:35 NKJV
[1] See Charles A. Sullivan's History of Glossolalia: Patristic Citation and his Gift of Tongues Project for Patristic citations regarding glossolalia in the Early Church.
[2] For a better visual representation, and for more information, visit: https://crossexamined.org/what-biblical-books-are-included-in-the-earliest-canonical-lists/
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