Popes, Councils, And The New Testament Canon

It's often claimed that the New Testament canon, or the entire canon of scripture, was taught by one or more councils in the fourth century or by one or more Roman bishops in the fourth and fifth centuries. Sometimes it's claimed that the canon was settled by such a council or Roman bishop, as if they were exercising some sort of infallibility or were fallible, but widely followed. For example:

"The fact is that the Holy Spirit guided the Catholic Church over time to recognize and determine the canon of the New and Old Testaments in the year 382 at the synod of Rome, under Pope Damasus I. This decision was ratified again at the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397 and 419). You, my friend, accept exactly the same books of the New Testament that Pope Damasus decreed were canonical, and no others." (Catholic Answers)

Whatever Catholic Answers means by "determine", it seems that many people have the impression that fourth-century councils and Roman bishops around the same time played more of a role than they actually did. It's often claimed that the Council of Nicaea promulgated a canon, even though it didn't. Councils and Popes had less of a role than is often suggested:

"For the first fifteen centuries of Christianity, no Christian Church put forth a definitive list of biblical books. Most Christians had followed St. Augustine and included the 'Apocrypha' in the canon, but St. Jerome, who excluded them, had always had his defenders." (Joseph Lienhard, The Bible, The Church, And Authority [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1995], p. 59)

"in the fifth century a more or less final consensus [on the New Testament canon] was reached and shared by East and West. It is worth noting that no ecumenical council in the ancient church ever ruled for the church as a whole on the question of the contents of the canon." (Harry Gamble, in Lee McDonald and James Sanders, edd., The Canon Debate [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002], p. 291)

"[Athanasius was] a witness to a consensus that had long been emerging in the churches. The councils of the church played little part in the canonization of scripture. When councils did speak on the subject, their voice was a ratification of what had already become the mind of the church. Canon 60 of the Council of Laodicea (c. 363 C.E.) is likely a later insertion into the decrees of the council; it lists a twenty-six book New Testament, lacking Revelation. The first councils certainly to speak on the subject of the canon were in North Africa: Hippo (393) and Carthage (397 and 419). They were under the influence of Augustine, who regarded the canon as closed: 'For the canon of the sacred writings, which is properly closed' (Civ. 22.8)." (Everett Ferguson, in Lee McDonald and James Sanders, edd., The Canon Debate [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002], pp. 319-320)

"Revelation was added later in 419 at the subsequent synod at Carthage [after being left out in the synod that occurred there in 397]." (Lee McDonald, in Lee McDonald and James Sanders, edd., The Canon Debate [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002], n. 19 on p. 595)

"Since the study of canon should also include the documents collected much later into the 'Christian Bible,' notably the New Testament, additional documents must be included and the timeline extended to about 1000 CE when the Greek Orthodox Church accepted the Revelation of John (which is still not canonical according to the Syriac Church)." (James Charlesworth, in Craig Evans and Emanuel Tov, edd., Exploring The Origins Of The Bible [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2008], p. 59)

"But, as evidence from subsequent writers reveals, not all in the Church were ready to accept precisely the canon as identified by Athanasius, and throughout the following centuries there were minor fluctuations in the East as well as in the West." (Bruce Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], pp. 7-8)

"Eventually lists of apocryphal writings were drawn up, warning the faithful that they were not to be received as authoritative Scripture. One such list is included in an early Latin document, the so-called Decretum Gelasianum, which the manuscripts attribute indiscriminately to Popes Damasus, Hormisdas, and Gelasius. The document is in five parts, one of which gives a list of books included in the Old Testament and the New Testament (the latter is without the Book of Revelation), and another gives a lengthy list of apocryphal works (sixty-two titles) and heretical authors (thirty-five names). According to von Dobschutz it is not a Papal work at all, but a private compilation that was drawn up in Italy (but not at Rome) in the early sixth century." (Bruce Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], p. 188)

"If one asks what was the reason for this concern [by Eusebius] in registering numerous individual testimonies concerning the Scriptures, the answer certainly must point to Eusebius' search for certainty as well as to the absence of any official declaration having an absolute value, such as a canon issued by a synod, or the collective agreement among churches or bishops. Of these there is not a trace in the long series of literary notices, so conscientiously amassed by the historian....In the absence of any official list of the canonical writings of the New Testament, Eusebius finds it simplest to count the votes of his witnesses" (Bruce Metzger, The Canon Of The New Testament [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], pp. 202-203)

I agree with most of what the sources above have said. But I don't agree with everything.

Some scholars think that the portion of the Decretum Gelasianum listing the New Testament canon should be traced back to Damasus or might come from him. Metzger's opinion isn't shared by all scholars. But I include his comments to illustrate that it's a disputed matter and that Roman Catholics and others who make an appeal to Damasus should be expected to make a case for that appeal. And I don't know that Metzger is correct about the absence of Revelation in the Decretum Gelasianum. The copy of the document I've seen includes Revelation. But maybe one or more other copies don't. Or maybe there's some other reason to think that the original didn't include Revelation. I don't know.

Lee McDonald is the only scholar I've seen make the claim that Revelation wasn't included by the council of Carthage in 397. Other sources in that region around the same time and in earlier generations, like Tertullian and Augustine, treat Revelation as scripture. Even if Revelation wasn't included in the canonical list of the council in 397, it may have been left out unintentionally. In a recent post, I gave some examples of other canon lists that seem to have unintentionally left out one or more books. I don't know whether McDonald is right. But it's a disputed issue, and that fact should be kept in mind.

And these issues surrounding the Decretum Gelasianum and the council of 397 aren't of much significance. The twenty-seven-book New Testament was advocated by earlier sources. It's found in other sources around the same time as Damasus and the 397 council in Carthage. And we don't have any reason to believe that Damasus, a council in Rome in 382, or the council in Carthage in 397 was acting infallibly or was widely perceived as having settled the issue in some other manner.

My main point in this post is that there was nothing like a promulgation of the canon by an early ecumenical council or an early papal decree that was widely considered definitive. Rather, the fourth-century councils that produced a canon were regional councils that seem to have reflected an earlier consensus that arose without anything like a ruling from a Pope or ecumenical council. People in the West and East continued to advocate other Old Testament and New Testament canons for centuries afterward.