Apostolical CANONS, are those which have been usually ascribed to St Clement, Bellarmin, Baronius, &c. will have them to be genuine canons of the apostles; Catelius 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. Basnage 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. Basnage conjectures that some of them are ancient, and others not older than the seventh century. The Greek church allows only 85 of them, and the Latins only 50; though there are 84 in the edition given of them in the Corpus Juris Canonici.
CANON is also used for the authorized catalogue of the sacred writings. See BIBLE.
The ancient canon, or catalogue of the books of the Old Testament, was made by the Jews, and is ordinarily attributed to Ezra; who is said to have distributed them into the law, the prophets, and the hagiographa, to which our Saviour refers, Luke, chap. xxiv. ver. 44. The same division is also mentioned by Josephus, cont. Appion.
This is the canon allowed to have been followed by the primitive church, till the council of Carthage; and, according to St Jerome, this consisted of no more than 22 books; answering to the number of the Hebrew alphabet; though at present they are classed into 24 divisions, containing Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the twelve minor prophets, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, comprehending the book of Nehemiah and the Chronicles. However, this order is not universally observed either among Jews or Christians; nor were all the books above enumerated admitted into the canon in Ezra's time. It is most likely, says Dr Prideaux, that the two books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Malachi, were added in the time of Simon the Just, when the canon was completed. But that council enlarged the canon very considerably, taking into it the books which we call apocryphal; which the council of Trent has further enforced, enjoining all these to be received as books of Holy Scripture, upon pain of anathema, and being attainted of heresy. The Romanists, in defence of this canon, say, that it is the same with that of the council of Hippo, held in 393; and with that of the third council of Carthage, in 397, at which were present 46 bishops, and, among the rest, St Augustine: who declared that they received it from their fathers.
Their canon of the New Testament perfectly agrees with ours. It consists of books that are well known; some of which have been universally acknowledged; such are the four Gospels, and acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of St Paul, one Epistle of St Peter, and one Epistle of St John; and others, concerning which doubts were entertained, but which were afterwards received as genuine; such are the epistle to the Hebrews, that of James, the second of Peter, the second and third of John, that of Jude, and the Revelation. These books were written at different times; and they are authenticated, not by the decrees of councils, or infallible authority, but by such kind of evidence as is thought sufficient in the case of any other ancient writings. They were very extensively diffused; they were read in every Christian society; they were valued and preserved with care by the first Christians; they were cited by Christian writers of the second, third, and fourth century, as by Irenæus, Clement the Alexandrian, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, &c. and their genuineness is proved by the testimony of those who were contemporary with the apostles themselves, and by tradition. The four Gospels, and most of the other books of the New Testament, were collected either by one of the apostles, or some of their disciples and successors, before the end of the first century. The catalogue of canonical books furnished by the more ancient Christian writers, as Origen about the year 210, Eusebius and Athanasius in 315, Epiphanius in 370, Jerome in 382, Austin in 394, and many others, agrees with that which is now received among Christians. For the time of writing the several books of the New Testament, see the titles of the books themselves; as the Gospel of St MATTHEW, MARK, &c.
Some of the fathers distinguish the inspired writings
into three classes; proto-canonical, deutero-canonical, and apocryphal.