Sheshbazzar

One cannot help but wonder, whatever became of that single complete precious manuscript that had somehow managed to survive all the way up till the 14th century to be "copied"..... And then pfffft.

Just saying.

Duvduv

This could even just be the tip of the iceberg, which leads to people (including academics) building whole sand castles about history based on such flimsy sources.

As I mentioned, I would love to see a book that traces the whole history of the manuscripts of the apologists (including Eusebius) such as Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, and the Festal Letter of Athanasius, Theodoret, Sozomen (almost all of whom are attributed to the 4th century and later).

But overall, Shesh, it strikes me that there are attitudes out there that consider such expressions as you make below to be verboten, censored......

Sheshbazzar

I am a skeptic.
There is far too much that is uncritically accepted on the say-so of too often unidentifiable and unknown sources that "copy" or 'quote' from mysteriously appearing and disappearing manuscripts, that are then accepted as being historical gospel.

Duvduv

Well said. Now is there any source that documents the history of msnuscripts of other apologist writings? And where are such manuscripts located today or where were they last known to have existed?
We still face the question as to under whose authority did they declare the texts of the NT to be canonical for the entire religion?
And if folks just did it on their own, then why are all the lists virtually identical? By what miracle did not a single apologist name a few others as alternative texts in the canon?
One would expect to see a variety if there was no ruling authority involved.

MrMacSon

The Catholic Encylopedia sums it up -
Further down it alludes to

The period of discussion (A.D. 220-367)
. and .
The period of fixation (A.D. 367-405)
~

Duvduv

Unfortunately this only begs the question. WHO were the decisive authorities of "the Church" and when? And why would the Roman Catholic Tridentine Council be so important since the books of NT existed long before the division of the church into Roman Catholic and Orthodox?

WHO authorized a set of texts that always happened to be the canonical texts from the writings of the unknown Irenaeus onward, and according to some, even before, i.e. the 2nd century? And why if it was a personal choice of the apologist did the texts never vary if there were no supervising authority?!

Iskander

It is a very honest account of the formation of an approved set of writings. Professor Harnack, and others, said much the same.

It is interesting that New Advent, in explaining the process of formation, drops the pretence of a very early Pope exerting spiritual and temporal control over a unified single church under his authority.


“Nearly all the New Testament writings were evoked by particular occasions, or addressed to particular destinations. But we may well presume that each of the leading Churches--Antioch, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Corinth, Rome--sought by exchanging with other Christian communities to add to its special treasure, and have publicly read in its religious assemblies all Apostolic writings which came under its knowledge.

It was doubtless in this way that the collections grew, and reached completeness within certain limits, but a considerable number of years must have elapsed (and that counting from the composition of the latest book) before all the widely separated Churches of early Christendom possessed the new sacred literature in full. And this want of an organized distribution, secondarily to the absence of an early fixation of the Canon, left room for variations and doubts which lasted far into the centuries.”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm

sotto voce

Really? Who decides that?

There's a lie in the first sentence. Which is a blind, anyway.

Sheshbazzar

IMHO Those who colluded and managed to seize control of the government, of its authority, and hence of its swords to enforce their dogmatically worded 'Edicts' and 'Decrees'.

Anyone was free to question, or to reject anything regarding religion according to their own personal conscience, convictions, and will, until the worst despots of Christianity seized all political power and forced their doctrines, dogma, Edicts and Decrees upon everyone within the reach of their bloody swords;
'Recite after us, -exactly after us- each of these these words of this sacred confession... or die'.

Duvduv

........At the time the Constantinian regime evolved into the middle or thereafter of the 4th century. They had the mean, motive and opportunity.