HistoricalChristian.Faith

Cyril of Jerusalem on the Biblical Canon

Dates: c. 350 (Catechetical Lecture 4, the baptismal catechesis delivered at Jerusalem c. 348–350; Cyril c. 313–386) · Wikipedia · his Old Testament canon page
Summary: Catechizing the candidates for baptism, Cyril gives an Eastern canon-list and frames the boundary as a rule of reading: study the twenty-two books of the Old Testament and the recognized New, but "have nothing to do with the apocryphal writings" — "those which are not read in the Churches, these read not even by thyself." A near-neighbour Eastern witness to Eusebius's sorting a generation earlier, his criterion is church reception and his register is repudiation, not destruction.

Claims & evidence

Read the canonical books, shun the apocrypha — and trouble not thyself over the disputed

Learn also diligently, and from the Church, what are the books of the Old Testament, and what those of the New. And, pray, read none of the apocryphal writings: for why dost thou, who knowest not those which are acknowledged among all, trouble thyself in vain about those which are disputed? Read the Divine Scriptures, the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, these that have been translated by the Seventy-two Interpreters.

— Catechetical Lecture 4.33, trans. E. H. Gifford (NPNF 2.7), historicalchristian.faith (also at New Advent).¹ Cyril draws the line by reception: the catechumen is to learn the canon "from the Church," busy himself only with what is "acknowledged among all," and leave the "disputed" alone. The twenty-two-book Old Testament is the Hebrew reckoning (the same count Athanasius and Jerome give), here credited — with the standard Letter of Aristeas legend Cyril retells in §34 — to the Seventy[-two].

"Have nothing to do with the apocryphal writings … read not even by thyself"

Of these read the two and twenty books, but have nothing to do with the apocryphal writings. Study earnestly these only which we read openly in the Church. Far wiser and more pious than thyself were the Apostles, and the bishops of old time, the presidents of the Church who handed down these books. Being therefore a child of the Church, trench thou not upon its statutes.

— Catechetical Lecture 4.35, historicalchristian.faith (also at New Advent).² The criterion is liturgical and traditional, not conciliar: read what "we read openly in the Church," because "the Apostles, and the bishops of old time … handed down these books." The apocrypha are to be left aside, not gathered and burned — exclusion by non-reception (see the note below).

The New Testament: four Gospels only, the rest "have false titles and are mischievous"

Then of the New Testament there are the four Gospels only, for the rest have false titles and are mischievous. The Manichaeans also wrote a Gospel according to Thomas, which being tinctured with the fragrance of the evangelic title corrupts the souls of the simple sort. Receive also the Acts of the Twelve Apostles; and in addition to these the seven Catholic Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude; and as a seal upon them all, and the last work of the disciples, the fourteen Epistles of Paul. But let all the rest be put aside in a secondary rank. And whatever books are not read in Churches, these read not even by thyself, as thou hast heard me say.

— Catechetical Lecture 4.36, historicalchristian.faith (also at New Advent).³ Cyril's New-Testament list runs four Gospels, Acts, seven Catholic Epistles, and fourteen of Paul — twenty-six of the twenty-seven books later fixed as the New Testament, all but the Apocalypse, which he conspicuously omits (the Eastern hesitancy over Revelation that the timeline notes elsewhere). Read from the inclusion side, then, Cyril's canon is all-but-complete a generation before Athanasius names the full twenty-seven (367). His "fourteen Epistles of Paul" fold the Epistle to the Hebrews into the Pauline corpus — the same count given by Origen and Athanasius, who likewise reckon Hebrews to Paul (its authorship in fact uncertain). Against the pseudonymous gospels he names a single example by name — a "Gospel according to Thomas" he ascribes to the Manichaeans — the same attribution he makes more fully at Catech. 6.31 (the work of "one of the three wicked disciples of Manes").

Notes

• An Eastern echo of Eusebius's sorting. A generation after Eusebius sorted the books into accepted, disputed, and rejected (Church History 3.25, c. 324), Cyril — teaching at Jerusalem, within Eusebius's own province — gives the same threefold logic pastorally: the "acknowledged among all," the "disputed," and the "apocryphal" one must not read at all. His list is the practical face of Eusebius's catalogue, addressed to baptismal candidates rather than to a literary history.
• Non-reception, not destruction. Cyril's verbs are of reading: the apocrypha are to be "put aside in a secondary rank" and "read not even by thyself." This is the documented register of the boundary — books not received and not read in church — not the "banned and burned" of the popular legend; compare the later Western rejection-lists (Innocent I, the Decretum Gelasianum), "not to be received" rather than destroyed, and the argument Were the infancy gospels suppressed?
• His "Gospel of Thomas" is the Manichaean one. Where Cyril's sense is recoverable, the "Gospel according to Thomas" he condemns is the book he twice ties to the Manichaeans (4.36 here and Catech. 6.31), not the miracle-working-boy Infancy Gospel. That tells on the argument Which "Gospel of Thomas" did the Fathers condemn? — the famous condemnations of "Thomas," where identifiable, target the sayings gospel or a Manichaean book of the name, not the infancy text. (NB: the fuller Manichaean notice lives at 6.31, already cited on that argument; this is the parallel notice at 4.36 — the two should not be conflated.)
• "Twenty-two books," and the Septuagint legend. Cyril's Old Testament is the twenty-two-book Hebrew canon (folding Ruth into Judges and Lamentations/Baruch/the Epistle into Jeremiah), which he nonetheless credits to the seventy-two translators via the Letter of Aristeas story he retells at §34 — the same combination of a Hebrew count with a Septuagint pedigree found across the fourth-century Eastern lists.

Sources