I was beginning to think that was your claim – you seem to be saying, no New Testament, no Christians.
However, my position i. . . . .establishing the canon of the New Testament.
We know from the witness of Tatian and Ephrem Syrus, that the Gospels were extant in AD 170.
We know from other Fathers that Most of the Epistles were also then extant.
Witnesses to Luke also witness Acts.
The apocalypse indeed was acknowledged later.
Thus with the exception of the Apocalypse, the NT was extant in AD 170, and in Latin shortly after AD 200.
If you read St Jerome’s preface to the Gospels:
tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_preface_gospels.htm
It is thus clear that St Jerome had before him, Latin texts which he considered ancient. These are thus then of the age of the Latin Gospels of Carthage, and as he himself says, he only lightly edited them where they differed in substance from his best Greek texts, in the Clementine Gospels, we have essentially, those ancient, ca AD 200 Latin Gospels.
As for general NT witness, here are the words of Tertullian:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament
The history of translation and usage of the term New Testament
Some believe the English term New Testament ultimately comes from the Hebrew language. New Testament is taken from the Latin Novum Testamentum first coined by Tertullian. Some believe this in turn is a translation of the earlier Koine Greek Καινή Διαθήκη (pronounced in postclassical Greek as Keni Dhiathiki). This Greek term is found in the original Greek language of the New Testament, though commonly translated as new covenant, and found even earlier in the Greek translation of the Old Testament that is called the Septuagint. At Jeremiah 31:31, the Septuagint translated this term into Greek from the original Hebrew ברית חדשה (brit chadashah). The Hebrew term is usually also translated into English as new covenant.
As a result, some claim the term was first used by Early Christians to refer to the new covenant that was the basis for their relationship with God. About two centuries later at the time of Tertullian and Lactantius, the phrase was being used to designate a particular collection of books that some believed embodied this new covenant.
Tertullian, in the 2nd century, was the first to use the terms novum testamentum/new testament and vetus testamentum/old testament. For example, in Against Marcion book 3 [1], chapter 14, he wrote:
Code:
This may be understood to be the Divine Word, who is doubly edged with the two testaments of the law and the gospel
So in Tertulians time, the scripture was considered to be:
The Law - Torah or Pentateuch, and
The Gospel(s).
The rest of the OT, and what was to become the rest of the NT, was considered other, but nontheless, useful.
But during all those 350 years, . . . .the Old Testament.
Nope – it’s Greek for “cane.” . . . .things are measured."
This is strange. I agree I cannot find this word in a Latin dictionary, but when translating from a Latin text in which the word appears, the translation is given as I said. This was in the context of the Eusebian ‘canon tables’ if you will excuse the tautology.
To say there was a standard list of inspired Christian writing prior to the fixing of the Canon is to play with words.
The Canon, or the canons, existed long before The Canon was fixed. These list were simply registers of texts which local churches considered to be special. As we see above, Tertulian considered the canon to be:
Genesis,
Exodus’
Leviticus,
Numbers,
Deuteronomy,
Matthew,
Mark,
Luke,
John.
Where can we find a copy of this “Proto NT?” Which ancient writer refers to it?
So the Proto NT comprised only the Gospel(s),
Thus you could be referring to the four individual Gospels to which St Jerome refers, or either version of the Diatessaron.
For the latter, the original version, now lost in original format, but witnessed in a degenerate Arabic, is witnessed in the original by Eprem Syrus. The later version, composed in Latin, from the Old Latin Gospels of AD 200, is still extant in the Codex Fuldensis, and available in English by my poor translation.
I think you just tripped over the truth – without the ability to bind large books, the NT was a collection of books – which meant it was critical to have a Canon. A copy of the New Testament in those days would be a bucket, tub or casket full of scrolls.
Yes, a list of contents!
But there was no official Canon, so anything might be included. Books could be added to, or taken from the bucket, and no one could tell without inventorying the contents.
See, we are both saying the same thing, but using different words, and perhaps having different emphasis.
