Henry Imler October 17th, 2008

The following is a general outline of the lecture I gave over canon lists last month for the Intro to Religion.  It was the first lecture I have given beyond teaching section.  I was quite nervous in front of 150+ undergrads, so don’t be too hard on me.

Let me begin by asking you all what makes a text sacred? While different groups have defined “sacred texts” in different ways, for our purposes, we are going to use the following definition:

“a sacred text is a text set apart by a religious community for the purposes of instruction or exhortation.”

Ok, that is a nice working definition. Let me ask you all another question. How do we go about figuring out what a given religious community used as sacred texts? [Field answers] A good way to get a feel for a community’s set of religious texts is to look at what they call their “canon.” C-A-N-O-N, with one N, not two N’s, like the weapon. What do we mean by “canon”? [Field answers]. The term is not easy to define. If you look it up, you’ll find several definitions, most of which sound similar to “any officially recognized set of sacred books,” which isn’t very helpful for nailing down what a sacred text is. Well, formal definitions aside, there is one fundamental property of canon that I want to highlight.

“a canon is that which defines the boundaries of a given system”

It establishes what is in and what is out. Any of you all read comic books? Or better yet, anyone read the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings? Have you seen the corresponding movies? For those of you that have, what do you do with the differences between the two sets of materials? Which one is official and which one is unofficial? Which one is canon and which one is not? [Field Answers] For most people, the books are the official version and the movies are interpretations. The same thing is going on here with religious texts and canon.

In the years following the death of Jesus of Nazareth, a variety of traditions developed around the figure in a community context. Usually they slowly took shape, moving from oral traditions to written ones. These written texts were circulated and gradually became accepted and used by larger and larger groups of people. As different groups grew, they had to find ways to define their borders of what was acceptable practice. They first few centuries of Christianity were marked by very diverse groups, all of which were competing with one another for the dominant position in Christianity. One of the ways in which Christian groups could separate themselves from the pack was by making canon lists, or lists of works that were inspired by God for the teaching of humans.

Big and Little O Orthodoxy

Before I go on about canon lists, I need to mention is what I mean by “orthodox.” What I don’t mean is the “Big O” Orthodox Church, which refers to the one of branches of Christianity that resulted from the “Great Schism of 1054CE and is referred to day by the terms Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, or Eastern Orthodox. Instead, I mean the “Little O” orthodox, which refers to the traditions that beat out the other competing traditions and became the dominant form of Christianity and the heir of most of the forms of Christianity we see today. Orthodox Christianity before they achieved this dominant position is referred to as “proto-orthodox Christianity.” Those people that defined themselves as “orthodox” defined everyone else as “heretical” Today, when I am talking about orthodox and heretical I am not talking about an objective stance on their theological systems, I am only referring to the historical winners and losers. What is the best way to refer to the heretics? – Call them by the names they used themselves. This goes back to one of Dr Flanagan’s points on how to do the study of religion in a public university – Self-Description. Because of this, no matter how disparate their social practices or theological systems, if they describe themselves as Christians, that is how we categorize them.

To recap:

“’little o’ orthodox refers to the tradition of Christianity that became dominant in the Roman empire”

“proto-orthodoxy refers to the orthodox Christian traditions before they achieved dominant status.

Some Canon Lists

On your hand handout you will find three of such lists. The first one is the list of books that the Marcionites, an early Christian group. The Marcionites were followers of Marcion, a Christian dualist. Marcion was a fascinating character who we only know about through the writings of his opponents. We know that he was excommunicated from the Church in Rome because he threatened to cause a rift in the Church by seeking to expunge all Jewish features of Christianity. Take a couple of minutes to look at the canon lists that I gave you. What interesting features do you notice in comparing the Marcionite canon with the canon we use today?

The Marcion Canon¹
(Aprox 150 CE)

One Narrative The Evangelion ( a pared down version of Luke) Ten Pauline epistles, the Apostolikon. Galatians 1st Corinthians 2nd Corinthians Romans 1st Thessalonians 2nd Thessalonians Laodiceans Colossians Philippians Philemon

Features to highlight:

1. It was composed of two “books,” the Evangelion Greek for the Gospel or good news, and Apostolikon, Greek for the Apostle.
2. Only used one gospel and a pared down version at that.
3. Only used the “letters of Paul”
4. Nothing outside of Paul, no Johns, nor Peters, no Hebrews, no Apocalypse of John.
5. Marcion’s canon lacks the more Jewish NT Texts, such as the Gospel of Matthew, the Letter to the Hebrews, the book of James, etc…
6. Another interesting note, Marcion edited his copy of Luke’s Gospel, taking out all Jewish references to Jews, especially all prophecies concerning him which the text claimed were fulfillments of Jewish prophecies found in the Old Testament.
7. There is also the curious letter to the Laodiceans – does anyone know what this letter contained? No? Don’t worry, no one knows. The only mention of this letter is found in Tertullian’s work entitled “Against Marcion.”

By examining Marcion’s canon list, we can see how Marcion and his followers adopted Pauling theology and rejected any sort of Jewish-Christian theology.  He edited out all references to Old Testament prophecies out of Luke and rejected wholesale any book that gave a stamp of approval of the Jewish God.  What was the reason for this?  Marcion, along with scores of early Christians, looked and Jesus’ teachings and the Old Testament Narrative.  They saw in the former a God of love and peace and in the latter a God of hate and war.  The reconciled this by equating Yahweh with Yaldabaoth, a gnostic demiurge.

The Euseubian Canon²

(Aprox 320 CE)

The next canon list on the sheet is the Eusubian Canon. It is taken from the Early Church historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, in his work History of the Church. It dates around 320 CE. This is a fascinating list because of all the categories Eusubius draws out. Again, take a couple of minutes to look at it. What do you notice?

Undisputed Works Five Narratives: Matthew Mark Luke John Acts of the Apostles Fourteen Epistles of Paul: 1st Corinthians 2nd Corinthians Ephesians Philippians Colossians Galatians 1st Thessalonians 2nd Thessalonians Romans Philemon Titus 1st Timothy 2nd Timothy Hebrews Two Other Epistles 1st John 1st Peter

Disputed Works Works which some Christians accept and some reject James Jude 2nd Peter 2nd John 3rd John The Apocalypse of John Explicitly Rejected Works Works that are considered by all “orthodox” Christians to be uninspired. Acts of Paul The Apocalypse of Peter The Epistle of Barnabas The Didache The Gospel according to the Hebrews Gospel of the Shepherd of Hermas Spurious Works Works that are “so very far from the true orthodoxy … [that they] ought therefore not even to be ordered among the illegitimate [books], but shunned as altogether improper and irreligious.” The Gospel of Peter The Gospel of Thomas The Gospel of Matthias The Acts of Andrew The Acts of John

Points to highlight:

1. We see four gospels here and the Acts of the Apostles instead of Marcion’s heavily edited one gospel.
2. We also see four more letters assigned to Paul, the letter to the Laodiceans is missing and the two letters to Timothy, a letter to Titus, and the Letter to the Hebrews has been added.
3. Also, there are the letters of John on the list.
4. Look in the 2nd column. What do you notice here? Yeah, he lists several other categories, the first of which is a list of disputed works, ones which some Christians accept and some don’t. Here we find
   1. Epistle of James
   2. Epistle of Jude
   3. Epistle of 2nd Peter
   4. Epistle of 2nd and 3rd John
   5. The Apocalypse of John (the Book of Revelation)
5. Next we have a list of rejected works. Here we find such works as the Acts of Paul, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Didache (an early instructional work that gave advice on traveling Christian preachers, and the liturgy, among other things). We also find two rejected Gospels, the gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Shepherd of Hermas. These are lost works, just like the Marcion’s letter to the Laodiceans.
6. We see an acceptance of both Pauline and Jewish Christian texts, in contrast to the Marcionite Canon.

There is a final list here, a list of “Spurious Works” ones that were considered “so very far from the true orthodoxy … [that they] ought therefore not even to be ordered among the illegitimate [books], but shunned as altogether improper and irreligious.” In this category we have several more Gospels (Peter, Thomas, and Matthias) and Acts (of Andrew and John).

Now that we have glanced over the features of the Eusubian canon, I want to spend a few minutes talking about the implications of Eusubius’s canon list. We could spend some time talking about what made it into his canon, but I think it is far more interesting to talk about what was excluded from the canon! What’s this canon saying about the illegitimate and spurious books? [Field answers] That’s right; it is saying that these are the things that people should stay away from. And if people in power are telling people out of power what they should not be doing, guess what that means? Yup, it means that the people were doing these things. So, if a Eusubius, a bishop, is telling people not to read something – it’s because they were reading it – and enough of them were reading it to make it a threat and warranted a prohibition.

Standardization of Christian Literature and Christian Thought

When the proto-orthodox bishops began to standardize church teaching and practice, they did the best they could to eradicate those works they deemed illegitimate and spurious. They were tremendously effective. Remember how we don’t have copies of the Letter to the Laodiceans, the Gospel of the Hebrews, or the Gospel of the Shepherd of Hermas? It is because they were systematically eradicated or edited. Some of the texts were whitewashed with orthodox theology or all the copies that they could find were burned. ∴ We are very lucky to have some of the noncanonical texts that we have today.

Now, given the fact that no one today uses these noncanonical texts and that they were rejected by the “official” church, is there any use of studying these texts?  Well, we do know that people were using these texts, and that these people were not among the powerful, the official church, but they were used on a more popular level. And there is often a difference between the official religion of a people and the popular religion of a people.

The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

Studying these texts will give us a window into the lives and religions of the popular people and leaders of the other, non-proto-orthodox movements. I want to spend the rest of the time talking about a particular group of ancient Christian literature called the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. There were a variety of types of early Christian literatures, but we only have time to look at one. This is group of books were all written around 150CE – 250CE all around the Mediterranean coast.

All of them center around the same theme – one of the twelve apostles is sent to a particular region for the purpose of converting that region. They are not histories as we think of history. They are fantastic adventures. For instance, the Acts of Matthias and Andrew finds Matthew being sent by Jesus to the “City of the Dogs” which is inhabited by cannibals. Matthias is captured and drugged as soon as he approached the city. Andrew is sent to the city to rescue him 27 days later.

[5 Min Narration of the Contents of the Book, highlighting

• Killing the guards
• Opening the Jail Cell
• Disarming more guards (numb hands and melting weapons)
• After capture, the prayer and escape from prison
• The flooding Statue
• The wall of fire that prevented the escape of the cannibals and the swallowing up of the cannibals by the earth
• The sudden conversion of the whole city
• The giving of laws and the resurrection of all of those that were killed]

The other Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles contain similar stories. For instance, in the Acts of Philip, a new Jewish convert is killed by a jealous Jewish community. They bury him to hide their deed. However, God has the earth move the body of Hananya to the bay where Philip was hanging out on his boat. A dolphin then gets the body from the shelf of the bay and brings it to Philip.

Now, these are obviously fantastical stories, very similar to our fantasy novels that we have today. Now, given the fact that there is next to zero historical value of the narrative itself, is there anything these texts can tell us – besides the fact that the popular Christians liked to read religious novels?

Legitimizing certain traditions

There are three very important things that these texts can tell us about the early Christians that read them. First, the texts sought to legitimize or delegitimize certain traditions. Notice that the Acts of Matthias and Andrew end with the giving of laws by Andrew. They are tying the validity of the law with the divine power of Jesus. ∴ The underlying argument is that if one accepts the power of Jesus then they should also accept the laws of this particular city. Compare this with the giving of the LAW to Moses in the Old Testament. Same thing is going on here.

Communal Relationships

Secondly, they tell us about the relations between different communities where these texts were written. Remember how the Jews killed a new Jewish convert? The rest of the story centers around Philip exposing the murder to the Roman governor and the divine punishment of the Jewish leaders by an Angel of the Lord. What do you think the relationship was between the Christian community and the Jewish community there? Think of all the anti-soviet propaganda during the cold war or perhaps anti-jihadist media since 2001. We can compare this with the way Jews are depicted in the Acts of Thomas. Often the Jews are the first persons to either convert or get what Thomas was saying. Interestingly enough we are able to trace the Acts of Thomas back to the city of Edessa. We also know through other sources that the Jews and the Christians there enjoyed a peaceful and tolerant relationship there. This is substantially different from what we see in the Acts of Philip.

Early Christian Practice

Lastly, we can piece together snippets of Christian practice. We often come across hymns, baptism rites, and doctrinal statements. When taken together, we are able to get a glimpse into early Christian liturgical practice. In the Acts of Thomas we find all three of these present. The ones I want to mention are the “Hymn of the Daughter of Light,” the “Baptism of the King and His Brother,” and the “Monologue of the Youth.” You can find excerpts of these on your handouts. We could spend all day analyzing what is going on here – but for the sake of time, we will just point to their existence in these texts.

If we take all of these things together, the liturgical elements, the legitimizing and delegitimizing of traditions, and statements of the relationship the various communities a much

more robust picture emerges of these early Christians outside the “official story” of the early Church fathers.

Conclusion

Today I have touched on several topics. What I want to stress as I end my time are three things.

1. There were many more sacred texts and traditions than the brand of Christianity that won out over the second through fourth centuries

2. One of the methods Christian groups used to define themselves was the use of canon lists which told them what was acceptable sacred texts and what was not and therefore helped to create their sense of identity.

3. Even though they are not histories in the modern sense of the word, the study of excluded texts can tell us a great many things about the lives and religion of “heretics” and laypersons

Footnotes:

1. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.27.2 and Tertullian, Against Marcion Books 4 and 5. While we are only looking at New Testament canons, it is worthwhile to note that Marcion rejected the Old Testament in its entirety. [↩]
2. Eusebius, History of the Church 3.25.1-7 [↩]

• Christianity , Religion , apocryphal literature , history
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