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Page 14
The Bible is a _selected_ record of religious experience. Old Testament
historians often refer to other books which have not been preserved; and
there were letters of St. Paul which were allowed to perish, and
gospels, other than our four, which failed to gain a place in the Canon.
A discriminating instinct was at work, judging between writings and
writings. We know little of the details of the process by which it
compiled the Old Testament. The Jewish Church spoke of its Scriptures as
"the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings"; and it is probable that in
this order it made collections of those books which it found expressed
and reproduced its faith. In the time of Jesus the Old Testament, as we
know it, was practically complete, although there still lingered some
discussion whether _Esther, Ecclesiastes_ and the _Song of Songs_ were
sacred books. We should like to know far more than students have yet
discovered of the reasons which Jewish scholars gave for admitting some
and rejecting other writings; but, whatever their alleged reasons, the
books underwent a struggle for recognition, and the fittest, according
to the judgment of the corporate religious experience of the devout,
survived.
The first Christians found the Jewish Bible in use as containing "the
oracles of God"; and as it had been their Lord's Bible it became theirs.
No one of the first generation of Christians thought of adding other
Scriptures. In that age the Coming of the Messiah and His Kingdom in
power were daily expected, and there seemed no need of writing anything
for succeeding times. Paul's letters were penned to meet current needs
in the churches, and were naturally kept, reread and passed from church
to church. As the years went by and disciples were added who had never
known the Lord in the days of His flesh, a demand arose for collections
of His sayings. Then gospels were written, and the New Testament
literature came into existence, although no one yet thought of these
writings as Holy Scripture.
Three factors, however, combined to give these books an authoritative
position. In the Church services _reading_ was a part of worship. What
should be read? A letter of an apostle, a selection of Jesus' sayings, a
memoir of His life, an account of the earliest days of the Church.
Certain books became favorites because they were most helpful in
creating and stimulating Christian faith and life; and they won their
own position of respect and authority.
Some books by reason of their _authorship_--Paul or Peter, for
instance--or because they contained the life and teaching of Jesus,
naturally held a place of reverence. This eventually led to the
ascription to well-known names of books that were found helpful which
had in fact been written by others. For example, the _Epistle to the
Hebrews_ was ultimately credited to Paul, and the _Second Epistle of
Peter_ to the Apostle Peter.
And, again, _controversies_ arose in which it was all important to agree
what were the sources to which appeal should be made. The first
collection of Christian writings, of which we know, consisting of ten
letters of Paul and an abridged version of the _Gospel according to
Luke_, was put forth by Marcion in the Second Century to defend his
interpretation of Christianity--an interpretation which the majority of
Christians did not accept. It was inevitable that a fuller collection of
writings should be made to refute those whose faith appeared incomplete
or incorrect.
In the last quarter of the Second Century we find established the
conception of the Bible as consisting of two parts--the Old and the New
Covenant. This meant that the Christian writings so acknowledged would
be given at least the same authority as was then accorded to the Jewish
Bible. Early in the Fourth Century the historian, Eusebius, tells us how
the New Testament stood in his day. He divides the books into three
classes--those acknowledged, those disputed, and those rejected. In the
second division he places the epistles of _James_ and _Jude_, the
_Second Epistle of Peter_ and the _Second_ and _Third_ of _John_; in the
first all our other books, but he says of the _Revelation of John_, that
some think that it should be put in the third division; in the third he
names a number of books which are of interest to us as showing what some
churches regarded as worthy of a place in the New Testament, and used as
they did our familiar gospels and epistles. By the end of that century,
under the influence of Athanasius and the Church in Rome, the New
Testament as it now stands became almost everywhere recognized.
The reason given for the acceptance or rejection of a book was its
_apostolic authorship_. Only books that could claim to have been written
by an apostle or an apostolic man were considered authoritative. We now
know that not all the books could meet this requirement; but the
Church's real reason was its own discriminating spiritual experience
which approved some books and refused others. Canon Sanday sums up the
selective process by saying: "In the fixing of the Canon, as in the
fixing of doctrine, the decisive influence proceeded from the bishops
and theologians of the period 325-450. But behind them was the practice
of the greater churches; and behind that again was not only the lead of
a few distinguished individuals, but the instinctive judgment of the
main body of the faithful. It was really this instinct that told in the
end more than any process of quasi-scientific criticism. And it was well
that it should be so, because the methods of criticism are apt to be,
and certainly would have been when the Canon was formed, both faulty and
inadequate, whereas instinct brings into play the religious sense as a
whole. Even this is not infallible; and it cannot be claimed that the
Canon of the Christian Sacred Books is infallible. But experience has
shown that the mistakes, so far as there have been mistakes, are
unimportant; and in practice even these are rectified by the natural
gravitation of the mind of man to that which it finds most nourishing
and most elevating."
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