HistoricalChristian.Faith

Origen of Alexandria on the Biblical Canon

Dates: c. 248 (Commentary on Matthew Book X and the Homilies on Joshua from his Caesarean years, c. 240s; the Homilies on Luke somewhat earlier, c. 233–244; the Commentary on John begun c. 231; d. c. 253) · Wikipedia
Summary: Origen attests both faces of the same boundary. On the inclusion side he is among the earliest writers to enumerate the whole New Testament from the inside: casting the apostles as priests sounding the trumpets of Jericho, he runs out the four Gospels, the Acts, the epistles of Peter, James, and Jude, the letters of John "[and Revelation]," and Paul's "fourteen" epistles (the thirteen plus Hebrews) — the present twenty-seven books, give or take the bracketed Apocalypse that some manuscripts omit, which he confirms elsewhere. On the exclusion side he is the earliest to name the apostolic-pseudonym and infancy gospels — "the Gospel according to Thomas," "according to Matthias," "the Book of James" (the Protoevangelium) — and to set them outside the four. His boundary is drawn by reception and authority, not (in these passages) by a charge of formal heresy: these are the books the church has "approved," and those it has not.

Claims & evidence

The whole New Testament enumerated — the apostles' "priestly trumpets"

But when our Lord Jesus Christ comes, whose arrival that prior son of Nun designated, he sends priests, his apostles, bearing "trumpets hammered thin," the magnificent and heavenly instruction of proclamation. Matthew first sounded the priestly trumpet in his Gospel; Mark also; Luke and John each played their own priestly trumpets. Even Peter cries out with trumpets in two of his epistles; also James and Jude. In addition, John also sounds the trumpet through his epistles [and Revelation], and Luke, as he describes the Acts of the Apostles. And now that last one comes, the one who said, "I think God displays us apostles last," and in fourteen of his epistles, thundering with trumpets, he casts down the walls of Jericho and all the devices of idolatry and dogmas of philosophers, all the way to the foundations.

— Homilies on Joshua 7.1 (on Joshua 6, the fall of Jericho), trans. B. J. Bruce (Fathers of the Church 105), as cited by Michael J. Kruger, "What is the Earliest Complete List of the Canon of the New Testament?"¹ This allegory of the apostolic "trumpets" is in effect a canon list: the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), Acts (Luke "describes the Acts of the Apostles"), the two epistles of Peter, James, Jude, the epistles of John "[and Revelation]," and — in "that last one," Paul — fourteen epistles. Origen's fourteen are the thirteen the church attributes to Paul together with Hebrews (whose authorship he elsewhere leaves open while keeping the letter in the count), so the total matches the modern twenty-seven exactly — the only soft spot being the bracketed "[and Revelation]," absent from some manuscripts of the homily.

"The wells of the New Testament" — the concise list

Isaac, therefore, digs also new wells, nay rather Isaac's servants dig them. Isaac's servants are Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; his servants are Peter, James, Jude; the apostle Paul is his servant. These all dig the wells of the New Testament.

— Homilies on Genesis 13.2 (on Isaac's wells, Genesis 26), trans. R. E. Heine (Fathers of the Church 71), as cited at carm.org.² A terser form of the same enumeration: the evangelists and apostles — Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, James, Jude, Paul — are the "servants" who dig "the wells of the New Testament," Origen's standing image for the apostolic writings as the canonical body.

Revelation received — and the disputed epistles flagged

And Peter, on whom the Church of Christ is built, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail left only one epistle of acknowledged genuineness. Suppose we allow that he left a second; for this is doubtful. What are we to say of him who leaned on Jesus' breast, namely, John, who left one Gospel, though confessing that he could make so many that the world would not contain them? But he wrote also the Apocalypse, being commanded to be silent and not to write the voices of the seven thunders. But he also left an epistle of very few lines. Suppose also a second and a third, since not all pronounce these to be genuine; but the two together do not amount to a hundred lines.

— Commentary on John 5.3 (on how sparingly the apostles wrote), ANF 9, historicalchristian.faith.³ This passage settles the one bracketed doubt in the Joshua list: John "wrote also the Apocalypse." It also shows the candor behind Origen's "twenty-six or twenty-seven": he keeps the books while frankly marking the still-disputed edges — Peter's second epistle "doubtful," John's second and third such that "not all pronounce these to be genuine." His is a canon firmly in hand but honest about its soft borders, the antilegomena Eusebius would later catalogue.

The four "approved" by the church; the rest — Thomas, Matthias, and the others — mere "attempts"

For Matthew did not "attempt," but wrote by the Holy Spirit, as did Mark and John, and similarly Luke. However, those who wrote the Gospel according to the Egyptians and the Gospel according to the Twelve "attempted" to write. And already Basilides also dared to write his Gospel according to Basilides. "Many, therefore, have taken in hand" — for there is also the Gospel according to Thomas and the Gospel according to Matthias and several others. These are attempts; the church of God has approved only the four.

— Homilies on Luke 1 (on Luke 1:1, "Many have taken in hand"), trans. Lienhard (FOTC 94), historicalchristian.faith.⁴ Reading Luke's "many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative" as a quiet criticism, Origen sorts the gospels into two classes: the four the church has "approved," written by the evangelists "by the Holy Spirit," and the "many" others — Thomas and Matthias among them — that were merely "attempted." This is a boundary drawn by reception: the named gospels are excluded not by a decree but by the church's having approved only the four.

A tradition from "the Book of James" adduced — but not as Scripture

But some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter, as it is entitled, or The Book of James, that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honour of Mary in virginity to the end …

— Commentary on Matthew X.17 (on Matt 13:55, "Is not this the carpenter's son?"), ANF 9, newadvent.org.⁵ The "Book of James" is the Protoevangelium of James; the "Gospel according to Peter" is the apocryphal gospel of that name. Origen reports the tradition they carry — that the Lord's "brethren" were Joseph's sons by an earlier marriage — and even finds it congenial to Mary's perpetual virginity, yet he frames it carefully as what "some say, basing it on a tradition" in those books, not as the teaching of Scripture. The infancy/apocryphal text is cited for a tradition without being granted the standing of the canonical Gospels. (The content of that tradition — that the Lord's brethren were Joseph's sons by a former wife — is a load-bearing early proof-text on another timeline: this same passage is Origen's own endorsement of the Epiphanian reading, weighed on the perpetual-virginity timeline at his detail page and at “Is the second-century stepbrother tradition genuine historical memory?”, alongside the Protevangelium of James itself. Here it serves the opposite point: Origen's handling of the book, adducing its tradition while withholding Scriptural standing, is a datum for how the canon's edge was drawn.)

Notes

• One timeline, both faces. Origen is the earliest witness on this page to draw the canon's two edges at once: the positive enumeration of the twenty-seven (the priestly trumpets, the wells of the New Testament) and the negative ranking of the rival gospels as mere "attempts." The same reception that admits the four Gospels excludes Thomas, Matthias, and the rest — inclusion and exclusion are the one act seen from two sides, the "how the books were received" story the later witnesses carry forward.
• Twenty-six or twenty-seven. Origen's list reaches the full modern count, but with two of the seven later-disputed books visibly soft: Revelation appears only in brackets in the Joshua homily (some manuscripts omit it), though he affirms it plainly in the Commentary on John; and 2 Peter and 2–3 John he marks as "doubtful" or not universally "genuine." His fourteen Pauline epistles include Hebrews, whose authorship he elsewhere leaves open ("who wrote the epistle, in truth God knows") while retaining the letter in the canon — matching the present New Testament exactly.
• Non-authority, not (here) heresy. Origen's register on the excluded side is reception and approval, not anathema: the four are what the church has "approved" and what was written "by the Holy Spirit," and the rest are "attempts" or carriers of a "tradition." He is not, in these texts, stopping to brand Thomas, Matthias, or the Book of James as heretical forgeries — that sharper language comes later, with Eusebius's "forgeries of heretics" (Church History 3.25) and the Western condemnations. (A scholarly caution attaches to pressing Origen too hard the other way, too: the strongest "from which the dogmas of the church are not derived" phrasing sometimes quoted for him survives only in Jerome's Latin rendering of the Luke homily, so the non-authority point should rest on the secure text — "the church of God has approved only the four" — rather than on the Latin clause.)
• An undescribed title names nothing. Origen's bare list — "the Gospel according to Thomas … and several others" — gives no contents, so it cannot by itself decide which "Gospel of Thomas" he meant: the Gnostic sayings gospel or the Infancy Gospel. This is why his notice, like Eusebius's catalogue-name, is among the few loose enough to admit the infancy text, but proves nothing about it on its own: see the argument Which "Gospel of Thomas" did the Fathers condemn?
• Exclusion by reception, not suppression. Origen names these books and declines to receive them; he does not call for their destruction — the same gradual non-reception that runs through the whole record, against the popular "banned and burned" framing weighed at Were the infancy gospels suppressed?

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