The Canon of Athanasius of Alexandria

Athanasius was one of the most important ﬁgures in orthodox Christianity of the fourth century. As a young man he attended the ﬁrst “ecumenical” church council, the Council of Nicea in 325 ce, called by the Emperor Constantine, in part, to resolve theological differences that were splitting the church. The creed that came out of the Council became instrumental in the formation of later Christian theology, and developed into what is now called the “Nicene Creed,” still recited in churches today. Throughout the fourth century Athanasius was an outspoken proponent of the doctrinal resolutions of Nicea and wrote numerous theological treatises that explicated his views. Athanasius became the bishop of the church of Alexandria in 328 ce. In this position, every year he wrote the churches under his jurisdiction in order to establish for them the date on which Easter was to be celebrated. He used the occasion of these letters to provide pastoral, practical, and theological instruction as well. Probably the most famous of these letters was the one he wrote in 367 ce, the thirty-ninth Festal letter, in which, among other things, he laid out for his churches the contours of the biblical canon, both Old and New Testaments. Here he indicates the books that were to be read in the churches, and indicates—both explicitly and by inference— the books that were not. “In these alone,” says Athanasius of the canonical writings, “the teaching of godliness is proclaimed. Let no one add to these; let nothing be taken away from them.”1 This is the ﬁrst time—some three centuries after the earliest Christian writings were produced—that any Christian author of any kind listed as canonical the current twenty-seven books of the New Testament. It should not be thought, however, that even with Athanasius the matter was ﬁnally resolved. For other Christian leaders—including some within Athanasius’s

See further, Ehrman, Lost Christianities, 230–31.

Translation by Bart D. Ehrman, based on the Greek text in Daniel J. Theron, Evidence of Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1957) 118.

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CANONICAL LISTS

own church—questioned the canonicity of several of the books he listed (e.g., 2 Peter) and maintained that some others should be included in the canon as well (e.g., the Shepherd of Hermas). Still, it was eventually the canon promoted ﬁrst by Athanasius that became the accepted list of sacred Christian books, the New Testament.

And now without hesitation I should again speak of the books of the New Testament. For they are as follows. The four Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then after these the Acts of the Apostles and the seven books by the apostles called the Catholic Epistles: one of James, two of Peter, then three of John, and after them one of Jude. In addition to these are the fourteen epistles of the apostle Paul, written in the following order: ﬁrst to the Romans, then two to the Corinthians, and after these to the Galatians and next to the Ephesians; then to the Philippians and to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians and then to the Hebrews; after these are two to Timothy, one to Titus, and, ﬁnally, one to Philemon. In addition is the Apocalypse of John. But for the sake of greater accuracy I

add the following, indicating out of necessity that there are books other than these that are not, on the one hand, included in the canon, but that have nonetheless been designated by the fathers as books to be read to those who have recently come to the faith and wish to be instructed in the word of piety: the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, the book called the Teaching [⫽ Didache] of the Apostles and the Shepherd. Nonetheless, brothers, while the former are in the canon and the latter are to be read, there should be no mention at all of apocryphal books created by heretics, who write them whenever they want but try to bestow favor on them by assigning them dates, that by setting them forth as ancient, they can be, on false grounds, used to deceive the simple minded.