The canons I’ve been talking about were not merely proposals. Some were established canons, such as Marcion’s, that the Catholic Church did not approve. In terms of indirect responsibility, The Catholic Church cannot label someone a heretic then lay claim their work…even indirectly.
Not exactly.
Marcion’s “Canon” (c. AD 140) consisted of Luke, Acts, and 10 letters of St. Paul. The Church did not have difficulty with these books, merely with how Marcion used them.
Prior to the 4th century, “canon” is an historically problematic word. It is important that we do not confuse “Books Used By” with “Established Canon”.
We can determine “Books Used By” by looking at citations throughout a particular author’s work. (This doesn’t mean, of course, that a particular author
didn’t use other books – but that’s an argument from silence, unable to be determined either way.
In the 2nd Century, the books used by St. Polycarp (c. AD 150) included Matthew, Mark, Acts, 9 of St. Paul’s letters, I Peter and I John. The books used by St. Justin Martyr (c. AD 165) included all four Gospels, 10 of St. Paul’s letters and Revelation.
The so-called “Muratorian Canon” c. AD 200 represents a partial list of books (the beginning and ending of the fragment is lost – and the only extant copy dates 400-500 years after the original). The interest of this document lies primarily in its age and not its content, as both the writer and the reader are unknown.
In the 3rd Century we have lists of books used by Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 215), Hippolytus of Rome (c. 235) and Origen (c. 254).
Clement used the entire corpus of what would become the New Testament except for James, II Peter, and II John. He used in his writings a number of books later deemed non-canonical, including three which he admitted were disputed (the Protevangelium of James, the Acts of John and the Acts of Paul).
Hippolytus used almost the same books as did Clement with these two exceptions. He seems to have used II Peter and he did not use Jude. He recognized both Hebrews and II Peter as “disputed”.
Origen used the entire corpus of what would become the New Testament but recognized the disputed nature of James, II Peter, II and III John, and Jude. He also used, but recognized as disputed I Clement, Barnabas, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas. He specifically named and rejected 8 other documents which seems to have had gnostic or docetic tendencies.
I believe it is because Catholics wrote the New Testament and came up with the entire Biblical canon. Am I right or am I wrong?
