HistoricalChristian.Faith

The Muratorian Fragment on the Biblical Canon

Dates: c. 170 · Wikipedia
Summary: The Muratorian Fragment is the oldest surviving list of New-Testament books — an eighty-five-line Latin catalogue, mutilated at both ends, named for Ludovico Antonio Muratori, who published it in 1740 from an eighth-century codex in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It already knows most of the future twenty-seven: the four Gospels (Matthew and Mark assumed in the broken opening), Acts, the thirteen Pauline epistles, Jude, two epistles of John, and the Apocalypse of John — some twenty-two of the eventual books. But its edges are still soft: it omits James, both epistles of Peter, Hebrews, and 3 John; it ranks the Wisdom of Solomon among the received writings; it accepts the Apocalypse of Peter (while noting that "some of us are not willing that it be read in church"); it allows the Shepherd of Hermas to be read privately but not publicly "among the apostles," because it was written "very recently"; and it expressly rejects forgeries circulated under Paul's name and the books of the heretics. So it attests a canon already taking firm shape by the late second century, yet not a closed list — the fuzzy boundary, received-and-disputed at once, that the timeline's later witnesses gradually harden.

Claims & evidence

The four Gospels, fixed and apostolic — "the fourth of the Gospels is that of John"

The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke. Luke, the well-known physician … (9) The fourth of the Gospels is that of John, [one] of the disciples. … though various elements may be taught in the individual books of the Gospels, nevertheless this makes no difference to the faith of believers, since by the one sovereign Spirit all things have been declared in all [the Gospels]: concerning the nativity, concerning the passion, concerning the resurrection, concerning life with his disciples, and concerning his twofold coming.

— lines 2–26, source (trans. B. M. Metzger).¹ The fragment as we have it begins in mid-sentence, on what is plainly the close of an account of Mark; it then numbers Luke "the third book" and John "the fourth," so the lost opening must have treated Matthew and Mark — the four Gospels, no more and no fewer, already a settled set. The list narrates each Gospel's origin (Luke the physician, who "had not seen the Lord in the flesh"; John writing at his fellow-disciples' urging) and insists that, for all their differences of detail, "one sovereign Spirit" speaks through all four — the same fourfold-Gospel conviction Irenaeus defends in the same years with his image of the four-faced cherubim.

Acts and the thirteen letters of Paul, "to seven churches"

Moreover, the acts of all the apostles were written in one book. … As for the Epistles of Paul … the blessed apostle Paul himself, following the example of his predecessor John, writes by name to only seven churches … To the Corinthians first, to the Ephesians second, to the Philippians third, to the Colossians fourth, to the Galatians fifth, to the Thessalonians sixth, to the Romans seventh. … [Paul also wrote] out of affection and love one to Philemon, one to Titus, and two to Timothy.

— lines 34–63, source. The fragment receives Acts ("of all the apostles … in one book") and the full thirteen-letter Pauline corpus, which it organizes by the conceit that Paul, like John in Revelation, wrote "to seven churches" — the nine community-letters reckoned as seven addressees (Corinth and Thessalonica each written twice) plus the four to individuals (Philemon, Titus, two to Timothy), "held sacred … for the regulation of ecclesiastical discipline." It does not list Hebrews — the Pauline letter the East counted and the West long doubted — one of the books still outside this Western boundary.

Jude, two of John's epistles — and the Wisdom of Solomon among them

Moreover, the epistle of Jude and two of the above-mentioned (or, bearing the name of) John are counted (or, used) in the catholic [Church]; and [the book of] Wisdom, written by the friends of Solomon in his honour.

— lines 68–70, source. Of the seven Catholic Epistles the list names only Jude and "two … of John" (taken to be 1 and 2 John, or possibly 1 John with the two shorter letters reckoned as one) — James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John are absent. And in the same breath it slots the Wisdom of Solomon, an Old-Testament deuterocanonical book, into its New-Testament reckoning — one of the clearest marks that the boundary is not yet drawn where it later falls.

The Apocalypse of John — and of Peter, "though some … are not willing that it be read"

We receive only the apocalypses of John and Peter, though some of us are not willing that the latter be read in church.

— lines 71–72, source. The list receives the Apocalypse of John (Revelation) — the very book the East would later hesitate over, omitted by Cyril of Jerusalem — here without question. Beside it it receives the Apocalypse of Peter, a book that would not survive into the canon, with the telling qualification that "some of us are not willing that it be read in church": a book on the inside of the line for this compiler, already contested, and on its way out. This is the canon's fuzzy upper edge in a single sentence.

The Shepherd of Hermas — read, but "after [the apostles'] time"

But Hermas wrote the Shepherd very recently, in our times, in the city of Rome, while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the [episcopal] chair of the church of the city of Rome. And therefore it ought indeed to be read; but it cannot be read publicly to the people in church either among the Prophets, whose number is complete, or among the Apostles, for it is after [their] time.

— lines 73–80, source. The compiler draws an explicit line of principle: the Shepherd of Hermas — widely read and cited as Scripture by Irenaeus in these very years — "ought indeed to be read," privately and for edification, but may not be read publicly in church "among the Apostles, for it is after [their] time." The criterion is apostolic age: a book too recent to be apostolic can be useful without being Scripture. (The same notice supplies the fragment's chief dating clue — "very recently, in our times" under bishop Pius, who held the Roman see c. 140–154; see the note below.)

The forgeries rejected — the Marcionite epistles and the heretics' books

There is current also [an epistle] to the Laodiceans, [and] another to the Alexandrians, [both] forged in Paul's name to [further] the heresy of Marcion, and several others which cannot be received into the catholic Church — for it is not fitting that gall be mixed with honey. … But we accept nothing whatever of Arsinous or Valentinus or Miltiades, who also composed a new book of psalms for Marcion, together with Basilides, the Asian founder of the Cataphrygians.

— lines 63–85, source. The list closes (before breaking off) with its exclusions: two epistles "forged in Paul's name" for the Marcionites — to the Laodiceans and the Alexandrians — and the writings of the Gnostic and Marcionite teachers (Valentinus, Basilides, and the rest), rejected because "it is not fitting that gall be mixed with honey." So the fragment shows both faces of the canon at once: a positive list of received books and a register of forgeries shut out, two centuries before the formal rejection-lists systematize the second face.

Notes

• The dating debate. The surviving manuscript is a clumsy eighth-century Latin copy, but the text it copies is much older. The traditional dating — defended by Tregelles, Harnack, and Bruce Metzger — rests on the fragment's own words that the Shepherd of Hermas was written "very recently, in our times" under bishop Pius (c. 140–154), placing the list in the later second century, c. 170–200, at Rome. A minority redating, argued by A. C. Sundberg (1968–73) and developed at length by Geoffrey Hahneman, would move it to a fourth-century Eastern setting (c. 350–375), reading the "our times" notice as a deliberate archaism. The second-century date remains the scholarly consensus — Everett Ferguson's rebuttal of Sundberg's "anomalous in the West" argument was judged by Metzger to "all but demolish" the thesis, and Joseph Verheyden finds none of the late-dating arguments convincing — though the field is not unanimous. This page follows the majority second-century dating; the redating is noted because it bears on whether the fragment is the earliest list or merely an early one.²
• The lacuna. The fragment is mutilated at the beginning (and breaks off at the end), so its treatment of Matthew and Mark is lost; their presence is inferred from the surviving text's numbering of Luke as "the third book" and John as "the fourth." This is an inference from the text, not a direct attestation — secure, but worth marking.
• A fuzzy-edged canon, not a closed one. The fragment is the timeline's prime evidence that the early canon had soft edges in both directions: books later excluded sit inside its line (the Apocalypse of Peter, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Shepherd read privately), while several that made it are simply absent (James, 1–2 Peter, Hebrews, 3 John). That double blur — received-then-dropped, and slow-to-be-received — is the historical backbone of the canon's gradual formation, and it feeds the cross-cutting argument on the canon's fuzzy edges (the antilegomena).
• The fragment names Wisdom "written by the friends of Solomon" — a garbled Latin rendering (likely of a Greek phrase about the book being written "by Philo" or "for Solomon"); the textual puzzle does not affect the point that an Old-Testament wisdom book is counted here within a New-Testament list. Because the Wisdom of Solomon is a deuterocanonical Old-Testament book, this line also makes the fragment the earliest Western witness that a disputed OT book was received as Scripture — it is picked up for that on the Old Testament canon timeline.

Sources