Thoughts on Antiquity

This post will serve as a conclusion to my series on ancient canonical lists. This series has been a long time in the making; my introductory post and this concluding post are separated by nearly two and a half years.
In this post I intend to do only two things. First, here is an index to […]

This post is part 13 of my series on ancient canonical lists. It is also the last part that I intend to post, with the exception of a brief conclusion to the entire series.
Nicephorus was the patriarch of Constantinople very early in century IX. To the end of his Chronography of world history from Adam […]

This post is part 12 of my series on ancient canonical lists.
Codex Claromontanus, whose siglon in the standard critical texts of the New Testament is the letter D (or the number 06), is an uncial manuscript, containing only the Pauline epistles, dating to century VI. (Knowledgeable readers may recall that codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, which contains […]

This post is part 11 of my series on ancient canonical lists.
At long last I continue this survey of canonical lists with that of the third council of Carthage, held in the year 397. Fortunately, this post will be brief, since this council presented exactly the 27 books of the New Testament found in most […]

This post is part 10 of my series on ancient canonical lists.Canons 59-60 of the Laodicean synod (year 360):
Οτι ου δει ιδιωτικους ψαλμους λεγεσθαι εν τη εκκλησια, ουδε ακανονιστα βιβλια, αλλα μονα τα κανονικα της καινης και παλαιας διαθηκης. οσα δει βιβλια αναγινωσκεσθαι. ….
[It is resolved] that private psalms must not be read in the […]

This post is part 9 of my series on ancient canonical lists.
Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, writes in his magnum opus, the Panarion, at 76.22:
Ει γαρ ης εξ αγιου πνευματος γεγεννημενος, και προφηταις και αποστολοις μεμαθητευμενος, εδει σε διελθοντα απ αρχης γενεσεως κοσμου αχρι των της Αισθηρ χρονων, εν εικοσι και επτα βιβλοις παλαιας διαθηκης, εικοσι […]

This post is part 8 of my series on ancient canonical lists.
Athanasius was the highly influential bishop of Alexandria and a key figure in the christological debates of century IV. His interest to us here lies in his thirty-ninth festal letter, dated to year 367, in which he gives a list of canonical books whose […]

This post is part 7 of my series on ancient canonical lists.
Cyril was bishop of Jerusalem and at the center of several Christian controversies in the middle of century IV (refer to his Catholic Encyclopedia entry for a brief overview). But our interest is in the canonical list that he drew up in 4.36 of […]

This post is part 6 of my series on ancient canonical lists.
The pseudo-Clementine Apostolic Constitutions are a fascinating Christian document from century IV. Their genre is that of church order, similar in style to the Didache, the Didascalia, or the so-called Apostolic Church Ordinance, all of which are discussed in the Catholic Encyclopedia entry hosted […]

This post is part 5 of my series on ancient canonical lists. 
Theodor Mommsen discovered the Cheltenham canon, which is usually dated to century IV, in a manuscript of century X in a private library in Cheltenham, England. He published it in 1886. The New Testament part of the list runs as follows:
Sed ut in apocalypsi […]