CANON, in an ecclesiastical sense, is a law or rule, either of doctrine or discipline, enacted especially by a council, and confirmed by the authority of the sovereign.
Canons are properly decisions of matters of religion; or regulations of the policy and discipline of a church, made by councils, either general, national, or provincial. Such are the canons of the council of Nice, or Trent, &c.
There have been various collections of the canons of the Eastern councils; but four principal ones, each ampler than the preceding. The first, according to Usher, A. D. 380, containing only those of the first ecumenical council, and the first provincial ones: they were but 164 in number. To these, Dionysius Exiguus, in the year 526, added the 50 canons of the apostles, and those of the other general councils. The Greek canons in this second collection end with those of the council of Chalcedon; to which are subjoined those of the council of Sardica; and the African coun-
cils. The fourth and last collection comes down as low as the second council of Nice; and it is on this that Balsamon and Zonaras have commented.
Apocryphal Canons, are those which have been usually ascribed to St. Clement. Bellarmin, Baronius, &c. will have them to be genuine canons of the apostles: Cotelerius observes, that they cannot be ascribed to the apostles or Clement, because they are not received with other books of scripture, are not quoted by the writers of the first ages, and contain many things not agreeable to the apostolical times: Hincmar, De Marca, Beveridge, &c. take them to be framed by the bishops who were the apostles' disciples in the second or third century; S. Bafnage is of opinion, that they were collected by an anonymous writer in the fifth century; but Daille, &c. maintain them to have been forged by some heretic in the sixth century; and S. Bafnage conjectures, that some of them are ancient, and others not older than the seventh century. The Greek church allow only 85 of them, and the Latins only 50; though there are 84 in the edition given of them in the Corpus Juris Canonici.