robto

In the western church, Revelation was considered canonical from the fourth century on. But eastern writers often rejected it, around the end of the fourth century. Later on, it became part of the eastern canon, too - but when did this happen? According to this site, the Catalogue of the Sixty Canonical Books (7th century)
So it seems to have been later than the 7th century, anyway. Was there ever an official declaration of the canon by the eastern church?

judge

If you mean the Church of the East, it never became part of their canon.
Their canon always has and still does exclude 2 Peter, Jude, 2 & 3 John and Revelation.

They did, around the 6th century IIRC, give the five disputed books some place, but not as part of their canon.


Bear in mind this church has never come into communion with the RCC, they did not participate in the "official" early church councils, but rather had their own councils.
Their number are small today but some estimates think that 1000 years ago their numbers were greater than the greek and roman churches combined.

Added in edit:
The COE doesn't seem to have followed the exact same path as the RCC in determining its canon.
They just seemed to have used and revered their 22 books of the peshitta. These are the books used in their lioturgy and quoted by their early monks.
They just didn't have or use the other five books in the same way.
Later, probably in an effort to have some unity with other "christian" institutions, they gave the other 5 books a place, they acknowledhed they were of some import but not as imporatnt as their original 22 books.

ck1

I grew up in one of the eastern churches - one of the many non-RCC rites (about 20 in number, I think) affiliated with Rome. However, the RCC church in the US largely ignores its eastern branches, and many Catholics are completely unaware of our existence.

I do know there are some doctrinal differences between the RCC and eastern branches of christianity (Orthodox as well as RCC-affiliated), and I am curious about the differences in biblical canon, as this is new to me. Do these canonical differences separate all Catholic rites from the eastern churches that are unaffiliated with Rome? Or are such differences also found between the eastern and western Catholic rites?

andrewcriddle

It might be possible to claim that Revelation, not being used as part of the Greek Orthodox lectionary has never been fully canonical in that Church.

It does appear to have been broadly accepted as Canonical Scripture by the Eastern Orthodox from the late 1st millenium CE.

Some websites claim that the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 http://catholicity.elcore.net/Confes...Dositheus.html declared the Book of Revelation canonical. By conforming the Canon to that in use in the Roman Catholic church it would seem to do so implicitly but not IIUC explicitly.

Andrew Criddle

robto

Thanks for the responses. I was thinking more of the Eastern Orthodox Church, rather than the Nestorians.

Andrew, can you be more specific? Are there proceedings of councils, etc., that declare a canon around this time?

andrewcriddle

I meant things like the first Greek commentaries being written on Revelation by Andreas and Arethas and other Eastern churches translating Revelation from Greek under the influence of the Greek Orthodox church.

This is not formal official canonisation but it does amount to de-facto acceptance.

Ray Moscow

Robert Price discusses this briefly in his The Da Vinci Fraud (or via: amazon.co.uk). The Western churches seem to have broadly accepted Revelation by about 400 CE, but the Eastern churches took "another 2 centuries" to do so.

And as mentioned above, the Nestorians never did accept it.

I suppose we have to go to some more primary history to pin this down any closer than late 6th/early 7th century.

Ray

Roger Pearse

They signed an agreement in 1994 with Pope John Paul II which restored communion between the RCC and the main Nestorian body. They recognise the councils up to Ephesus (433) at which Nestorius was condemned, under very dubious circumstances. Their disagreement was more with the Monophysites than with Rome, which after all held the Chalcedonian formula. Indeed the "Bazaar of Heracleides" which they preserved reveals that even Nestorius did not hold 'Nestorian' views.

The Nestorians have been nearly wiped out during the 20th century, starting with the massacres in 1915 by the Turks. Their main stronghold was in the mountains of northern Iraq, and the moslem Kurds have always been their main enemies.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

judge

I suppose that depends on what one means by the main Nestorian body. And just what exactly do you mean by the term communion? Are you using it in the common usage of churches being in official communion with one another, or merely that they had dialogue and made various compromises?

Roger Pearse

I'm not sure what terminology you prefer. I mean the Nestorians, not the uniates who, of course, have long been in communion.

The terminology was your own. But I understood that the former now applied, although few seem to know about it. Of course if anyone knows different...

All the best,

Roger Pearse