Canon LX.
[
N. B.—This Canon is of most questionable
genuineness
.]
These
are all the books of Old
Testament appointed to be read: 1, Genesis of the world; 2, The
Exodus from Egypt; 3, Leviticus; 4, Numbers; 5, Deuteronomy; 6, Joshua,
the son of Nun; 7, Judges, Ruth; 8, Esther; 9, Of the Kings, First and
Second; 10, Of the Kings, Third and Fourth; 11, Chronicles, First and
Second; 12, Esdras, First and Second; 13, The Book of Psalms; 14, The
Proverbs of Solomon; 15, Ecclesiastes; 16, The Song of Songs; 17, Job;
18, The Twelve Prophets; 19, Isaiah; 20, Jeremiah, and Baruch, the
Lamentations, and the Epistle; 21, Ezekiel; 22, Daniel.
And these are the books of the New Testament: Four
Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; The Acts of the
Apostles; Seven Catholic Epistles, to wit, one of James, two of Peter,
three of John, one of Jude; Fourteen Epistles of Paul, one to the
Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, one to the
Ephesians, one to the Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to the
Thessalonians, one to the Hebrews, two to Timothy, one to Titus, and
one to Philemon.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon LX.
But of the new, the four Gospels—of Matthew, of
Mark, of Luke, of John; Acts; Seven Catholic epistles, viz. of James
one, of Peter two, of John three, of Jude one; of Paul fourteen,
viz.: to the Romans one, to the Corinthians two, to the Galatians
one, to the Ephesians one, to the Phillipians one, to the Colossians
one, to the Thessalonians two, to the Hebrews one, to Timothy two, to
Titus one, and to Philemon one.
It will be noticed that while this canon has often been
used for controversial purposes it really has little or no value in
this connexion, for the absence of the Revelation of St. John from the
New Testament to all orthodox Christians is, to say the least, as fatal
to its reception as an ecumenical definition of the canon of Holy
Scripture, as the absence of the book of Wisdom, etc., from the Old
Testament is to its reception by those who accept the books of what we
may call for convenience the Greek canon, as distinguished from the
Hebrew, as canonical.
We may therefore leave this question wholly out of
account, and merely consider the matter from the evidence we
possess.
In 1777 Spittler published a special treatise
199
to shew that the list of scriptural books
was no part of the original canon adopted by Laodicea. Hefele
gives the following resume of his argument:
200
(a) That Dionysius Exiguus has not this canon in
his translation of the Laodicean decrees. It might, indeed, be
said with Dallæus and Van Espen, that Dionysius omitted this list
of the books of Scripture because in Rome, where he composed his work,
another by Innocent I. was in general use.
(b) But, apart from the fact that Dionysius is
always a most faithful translator, this sixtieth canon is also omitted
by John of Antioch, one of the most esteemed and oldest Greek
collectors of canons, who could have had no such reasons as Dionysius
for his omission.
(c) Lastly, Bishop Martin of Braga in the sixth
century, though he has the fifty-ninth, has also not included in his
collection the sixtieth canon so nearly related to it, nor does the
Isidorian translation appear at first to have
had this canon.
201
Herbst, in the
Tübingen Review
, also accedes to these
arguments of Spittler’s, as did Fuchs and others before
him. Mr. Ffoulkes in his article on the Council of Laodicea in
Smith and Cheetham’s
Dictionary of Christian Antiquities
at length attempts to refute all objections, and affirms the
genuineness of the list, but his conclusions can hardly be accepted
when the careful consideration and discussion of the matter by Bishop
Westcott is kept in mind. (
History of the Canon of the New
Testament
, III
d
. Period, chapter ii. [p. 428 of the 4th
Edition.])
199
See new edition of his
collected works, vol. viij., pp. 66
et seqq
.
200
Hefele.
Hist. of
the Councils,
Vol. II., pp. 323, 324.
201
Leonis,
Opp
., Ed.
Ballerini, tom. iii., p. 441, n. xlviij.