The Canon of Holy Scripture: History, Heresy, and Hearsay Pt. 3 by Chris White

Orthodox Church Service

So far in this series we have been setting the stage for understanding what is called the doctrine of canonicity.  When we speak of the canon of Holy Scripture we are referencing a rule or standard that is accepted by all.  F.F. Bruce defines it as “the list of the writings acknowledged by the Church as the documents of divine revelation.” The canon is beyond merely an official list of books, it is the rule of faith for the Christian. The Christian then has a particular loyalty to a particular series of books as the exclusive source and guide of his religious life.  This transcends loyalty to any particular leader or community of faith.

Because of historic divisions within the church (first Catholic and Orthodox, then Catholic and Protestant) there are slight differences in the canon which I think are important to address at the outset.  There is a small collection of books that are supplementary to the Old Testament which are known today as the Apocrypha.  Jewish and Greek Orthodox believers have regard for the Apocrypha but consider it outside the canon and therefore not scriptural.  They regard it as edifying literature but not inspired revelation.  Roman Catholics regard the Apocrypha as canonical scripture.  This had a long tradition beforehand, but became official in the 16^th century Council of Trent.  Protestants, in either protest or overreaction, have no regard for the Apocrypha as scripture or edifying reading and generally never include it even as a supplement in their Bibles.  Divisions aside, all the major branches of Christianity are in complete harmony regarding the canon of the New Testament and this has remained so all along.

In part three of this series, I want to explore some of the precipitating factors that led to the development of the New Testament canon.  Put another way, why was it necessary to recognize a Canon of Christian scripture?  One of the primary reasons for this was to rein-in on the doctrinal excesses of certain teachers.  Examples abound for this but I think two will suffice as touchstones for the rest.

Montanus: False Prophet of Phrygia

Montanus was a Christian prophet in the province of Phrygia, Asia Minor (Modern day Turkey).  He made bold prophecies that God was soon going to return to this earth and begin the Kingdom of God and when he returns, it will not be to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, but to his village in Asia Minor.  Montanus also taught that he himself was the paraclete or helper Jesus said would come and guide the church into all truth (Jn. 16).  Now if this was true, then what are we to make of the day of Pentecost?  More importantly, Jesus told his apostles to wait in Jerusalem until this “helper” arrived.  That would be quite difficult for them since Montanus lived some two hundred years later and Jerusalem had been destroyed twice during that time period!  What Montanus was claiming (along with the two divorced women who accompanied him as “prophetesses”) was that he was being given new revelations from God.  If Holy Scripture is, as I have asserted earlier, revelation in written form, then why not keep things open that additional revelations may be added?

Another example of doctrinal excess is Marcion of Sinope (also Asia Minor) who was a wealthy businessman and was raised in the church.  It was Marcion’s belief that the message of Christ was brand new and totally unrelated to the Old Testament.  In fact, he believed the God of the Old Testament was inferior to Jesus.  This might have been in part because he didn’t like the Jews which makes one wonder what race he thought Jesus originated from.  His ideas never caught on in the Church and so he broke away and started his own as so many false teachers often do (1 John 2:19).  He even released his own Bible called Gospel and the Apostle which was Luke and the Epistles of Paul because the contents were either written by or to Gentiles.  So, while Montanus would have us add more to the New Testament, Marcion would have us remove entire portions of it. 

Please don’t let me exaggerate this too much in your mind.  Most leaders in the Christian church gave no quarter to the teachings of these two men.  They were considered heretics (the Christian way of saying “the lunatic fringe element”) in their day.  However, the Church more often than not, formulated its creeds and regulations as a result of the actions of false teachers such as Montanus and Marcion.  Like Harold O.J. Brown has suggested, in the pond of heresy is often seen the reflection of what the Church truly believed.  But one of the reasons behind the canon was certainly to protect the church and its scriptures from the excesses of false teachers.