As far as the gospels are concerned, we can already find sayings of Jesus quoted by Apostolic Fathers like Clement of Rome or Ignatius. In neither case, however, can we be sure that these writers had access to a written gospel, let alone a collection of gospels. Polycarp makes reference to a passage from Matthew that suggests that he had, or knew of, a written text, but once again we do not know if he had access to more than one account of Jesus’ life. Papias already makes reference to a tradition (which he claims to have received from ‘John the presbyter’) of Mark transcribing “
whatever [Peter] remembered of the things either said or done by the Lord” and Matthew authoring a work he dubs the
Logia or ‘Oracles’ “
in the Hebrew dialect.” Some authors like Richard Bauckham would also argue that he also knew of John’s gospel or a version thereof, and possibly even Luke. If this is correct, this would make Papias (so far) the earliest person we can name who knew all the four gospels.
It is with St. Justin Martyr in the mid-2nd century that we get a clearer evidence of a collection of gospels. Justin often speaks of “
the memoirs of the apostles” which, he says, were read during every Sunday liturgy at Rome (
First Apology 67.3). It seems from the extracts he provides that these ‘memoirs’ comprise of, or include, the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). His contemporary Tatian is also said to have produced a harmonized version of different accounts of Jesus’ life, dubbed the
Diatessaron, which was so influential that some Syriac-speaking Churches considered it to be
the gospel before the four separate gospels were (re-)introduced via the Peshitta. The fact that Tatian could take such huge liberties with the text is also revealing: it would suggest that these four gospels, while already of some fame, had not yet achieved a fixed status as Sacred Scripture.
The formation of a New Testament canon was encouraged by - ironically - the work of Marcion, who also lived at the same time period. Marcion held a dualist system of belief, where he distinguished between the jealous inferior god of the Old Testament (who also happened to be the creator of this world) and a superior, more benign and merciful ‘Heavenly Father’ of the New. He also held Jesus to be the son of this higher God but understood the incarnation in a docetic manner, i.e. that Jesus’ body was only an imitation of a material body. In contrast to the nascent Christian church, Marcion declared that Christianity was distinct from and in opposition to Judaism: for him, a literal reading of the Old Testament shows that the Israelite god is clearly not the same God spoken of by Jesus. This line of thinking has many elements in common with certain Christian gnosticisms, but Marcion differed from gnostics in that in his view, the ‘Heavenly Father’ was an totally alien God who had no connection whatsoever with the world: He really only intervened to save humanity because He was that merciful and awesome.
To support his view, Marcion was the first to propose a fixed canon of Scripture.
His canon consisted of only eleven books grouped into two sections: the
Euangelikon, a version of the Gospel of Luke purged of any references to Jesus’ childhood (because Jesus wasn’t really human, was He?
) or Jewishness (because we all know that the Jews were worshipping a vengeful tribal deity
) or virtually any material that challenged his dualistic viewpoint, and the
Apostolikon, a selection of ten letters of Paul (obviously edited), whom Marcion considered the only correct interpreter and transmitter of Jesus’ teachings.
Marcion’s idea furthered the notion in proto-orthodox Christianity that a clearer line between what is ‘orthodox’ and what is ‘heretical’ is in order. In rejecting Marcion’s position the need to name certain writings as authoritative soon emerged. A key figure here is St. Irenaeus of Lyons, who insisted that four, and only four gospels, should be accepted as reliable and authoritative. While there was still some debate regarding Luke (due to Marcion’s use of it), Irenaeus’ position came to be widely accepted, and so, by the end of the 2nd century, there existed more or less a fixed collection of four gospels.
The birth of the modern Bible came hand in hand with the closing of the canon.