I've devoted a lot of time to studying the churches that the apostles started. There are a surprising number of writings from those churches. Just the writings from the late first and second centuries fill over 1,000 pages of small print (available in _The Ante-Nicene Fathers_, 10-volume set published by Hendrickson's and Eerdmans or free at http://www.ccel.org). Reading those writings can be a real eye opener. Imagine getting an idea of what was important in the churches the apostles started themselves!
I want to begin by passing on a quote I just found today. The 2nd century churches, as you may or may not know, had no set "canon" (the list of books that make up the Bible). They also quoted a lot of books as Scripture that you may never have heard of. One interesting one that's commonly quoted is 1 Enoch, which is also quoted in the letter of Jude in the Bible.
This is from Augustine of Hippo:
Now, in regard to the canonical Scriptures, he [i.e. "the skillful interpreter of the sacred writings"] must follow the judgment ofthe greater number of catholic churches; and among these, of course, a high place must be givento such as have been thought worthy to be the seat of an apostle and to receive epistles. Accordingly,among the canonical Scriptures he will judge according to the following standard: to prefer thosethat are received by all the catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those,again, which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater numberand those of greater authority, to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority.If, however, he shall find that some books are held by the greater number of churches, and othersby the churches of greater authority (though this is not a very likely thing to happen), I think that in such a case the authority on the two sides is to be looked upon as equal.
~On Christian Doctrine II:8:12, AD 397
This was fascinating to me. Note that it's almost AD 400, and Augustine, one of the most famous Christians of all time, is saying that there is no agreed canon!
Now I knew that the formation of the canon did not occur until almost that time, but I would never have dreamed that Augustine would leave the subject so open. Surely he, like Athanasius a generation before him, would have a list of books that he was sure were best. Au contraire! Fascinating.
I do need to point out that there was NOT widespread disagreement on what was Scripture. Athanasius was not the first to produce a list of which books constitute the Scriptures, and those lists are relatively similar. They don't start appearing until the late 2nd century, but quotes in the earlier writings prove they accepted the same basic books.
On the other hand, nailing the Bible down to exact books was obviously not important to the church, because they waited four centuries to do so!
I need to add here that we ourselves miss much by our strict adherence to a closed canon. I mentioned 1 Enoch above, for example, which is not only quoted by Jude, but also provides the earliest description of a hell (ch. 21) that matches what Jesus describes in Luke. The Martyrdom of Isaiah, a book no longer extant, is the source for the comment about a person "sawn in two" in Hebrews 11. The story of Tobit, part of the Roman Catholic Apocrypha, was familiar to all those in the early church, as was the angel Raphael, a key figure in the story. We evangelicals may complain that the Catholics added Bel and the Dragon and Susanna to the book of Daniel as chapters 13 and 14, but you'd have to be spiritually dead not to enjoy the stories and recognize them as typically Hebrew.
I'll tell you more about Augustine, his relationship to both Protestants and Roman Catholics, and a little about the time he lived in, but tomorrow. Good night!
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