An autistic fever came over me while reading Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament (Oxford) so I created this table (click on the image to enlarge). It only includes canonical lists for which I was able to find reliable references. I nearly included books cited by Justin Martyr (mid 2nd century) but the lists I was able to find were slightly too ambiguous. For reference, they included the Gospels (possibly all four, but possibly not), Acts, Letters by Paul (including Hebrews) and I Peter. An honourable mention of the following early books should be made, despite them quite clearly not being canonical:
- Acts of Paul (declared non-canonical but not impious by Eusebius; Tertullian wrote that it was faked by a presbyter) – includes references to Nero that are faintly absurd, but interesting.
- Apocalypse of Peter (the Muratorian Canon and Eusebius mention it approvingly but note that it was disputed) – contains lurid descriptions of afterlife punishments. Kind of gross. Not a fan, although the punishment for women who get abortions is memorably vivid.
- I and II Clement (included in the Codex Alexandrinus in the early 5th century).
- The Didache (favourably mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Eusebius) – very interesting breakdown of fundamentals, not too long and easy to read.
- Gospel of the Egyptians (favourably mentioned by Clement of Alexandria but rejected by Origen) – basically lost (fragmented). What we have seems vaguely misogynistic and abstruse.
- Gospel of the Hebrews (favourably mentioned by Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century) – also basically lost (fragmented). It was apparently used by Jewish-Christians.
- Letter of Barnabas (favourably mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Eusebius; included in the Codex Sinaiticus).
- The Shepherd of Hermas (favourably mentioned by Origen and Eusebius; included in the Codex Sinaiticus in the 4th century) – very long and honestly really quite boring.
The much famed Gospel of Thomas was named and condemned by Origen and Eusebius. There are numerous other books that are genuinely from the Roman period but are either fake or not proto-orthodox.
Note that the way canonical books would have been used by pre-Constantine Christians from the 2nd century onwards would have been along the lines of many Churches having an incomplete collection, and sometimes including books now considered definitively non-canonical. The Gospels would likely have been the most commonly held scripture. The books that Churches did have would have been read aloud in group gatherings – this would have been the extent to which the “Bible” was received in most cases. Only a small elite would have had all of the canonical books and the ability to read them in private, as most early Christians were essentially illiterate. Some of the non-canonical books have a crudeness about them that suggests quite a few early Christians were ... unsophisticated. I have a suspicion that two or three of the later books in the NT (eg, James and II Peter) might be early forgeries that early Christians accepted because the content was useful for combatting the various heresies of the day (and then customary acceptance took over).
On the Old Testament
Early Christians generally accepted the Greek Septuagint (first produced in the 2nd century BCE) as canonical, especially as it enabled them to locate prophecies fulfilled by Christ. The Septuagint is roughly equivalent to the books of the Hebrew Canon, plus additional books that Jews and Protestants usually do not accept as canonical – they include the Books of Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Maccabees, and others. Early Christians usually favoured allegorical interpretations of the Septuagint (Chadwick at 39). Literal interpretation was associated with the infamous Marcion (excommunicated in 144 CE), who believed that the God of the OT was a vain, angry and ruthless God who had created the material world, while the God of the NT (which for Marcion consisted only of the Gospel of Luke and Paul’s letters from Romans to II Thessalonians) was a different and more sublime God who had sent Christ not to redeem us of sin but so that we could escape the demonic OT God. It was in response to heresies such as these that the early Church began compiling canonical lists of approved books of the New Testament.
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- Britannica.com (I have a subscription)
- Chadwick, The Early Church (Penguin)
- Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament (Oxford)
- Yes – mentioned or presumed with excellent reason to be mentioned as canonical
- No – unknown or unmentioned or disputed or explicitly rejected as non-canonical or fake
- (P) – letter ascribed to Saint Paul
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