Muratorian fragment
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The Muratorian fragment, also known as the Muratorian Canon (Latin: ), is a copy of perhaps the oldest known list of most of the books of the
New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
. The fragment, consisting of 85 lines, is a
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
manuscript bound in a roughly 8th-century
codex The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...
from the library of
Columbanus Saint Columbanus (; 543 – 23 November 615) was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries after 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey in presen ...
's monastery at Bobbio Abbey; it contains features suggesting it is a translation from a Greek original written in the late 2nd century (). Other scholars suggest it might have been originally written as late as the 4th century, although this is not the consensus opinion. Both the degraded condition of the manuscript and the poor Latin in which it was written have made it difficult to translate. The beginning of the fragment is missing, and it ends abruptly. The fragment consists of all that remains of a section of a list of all the works that were accepted as canonical by the churches known to its original compiler. During the time period of
early Christianity Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the History of Christianity, historical era of the Christianity, Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Spread of Christianity, Christian ...
, there was no accepted "New Testament", merely books considered of greater or lesser value. While likely not intended strictly as a canon list, the fragment is evidence of the first attempts to systemize such a group of approved writings, at least if it indeed dates to the 2nd century. Debates on what works should be accepted as scripture would continue. The earliest version of the eventual consensus New Testament canon did not occur until 367, when bishop
Athanasius of Alexandria Athanasius I of Alexandria ( – 2 May 373), also called Athanasius the Great, Athanasius the Confessor, or, among Coptic Christians, Athanasius the Apostolic, was a Christian theologian and the 20th patriarch of Alexandria (as Athanasius ...
in his annual Easter letter composed a list that is still recognized today as the canon of 27 books. However, it would take several more centuries of debate until agreement on Athanasius' canon was reached within all of Christendom.


Manuscript history

The Muratorian fragment was discovered in the Ambrosian Library in
Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
by Father Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672–1750), the most famous Italian historian of his generation. Realizing its significance and antiquity, he published it in 1740. The manuscript was likely copied sometime during or near the 8th century at Bobbio Abbey. A few lines of the Muratorian fragment were later found preserved in some codices of Paul's Epistles at the Benedictine abbey of
Monte Cassino The Abbey of Monte Cassino (today usually spelled Montecassino) is a Catholic Church, Catholic, Benedictines, Benedictine monastery on a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, in the Valle Latina, Latin Valley. Located on the site of the ancient ...
. These documents date from the 11th and 12th centuries, and the copied lines largely concur with the Bobbio version with minor variations.


Authorship and date

The original author of the fragment is unknown. The text of the list itself is traditionally dated to the second half of the second century because the author refers to Pius I,
bishop of Rome The pope is the bishop of Rome and the visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the pope was the sovereign or head of sta ...
(140—155), as recent:
But Hermas wrote ''The Shepherd'' "most recently in our time", in the city of Rome, while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the 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.
Another reason suggesting a date toward the end of the second century is the concern with denouncing
Marcion Marcion of Sinope (; ; ) was a theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ, who was distinct from the "vengeful" God ( Demiurge) who had created the world. He considered himself a follower of Paul the Apost ...
, a Christian bishop whose influence was the strongest in the second century, as well as Gnostics, who were also more prominent in the 2nd century than at later dates. The document contains a list of books the Roman church of his era considered authoritative — a predecessor to what would become the
New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
. A similar list concerning the Old Testament likely preceded it, but if such a section was written, it was not preserved in the fragment. The fragment is in barbarous Latin which has probably been translated from an original in Greek, the language prevailing in the second century Christian community of Rome.
Bruce Metzger Bruce Manning Metzger (February 9, 1914 – February 13, 2007) was an American biblical scholar, Bible translator and textual critic who was a longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of th ...
has advocated the traditional dating, as has Charles E. Hill. A reason to suspect an origin in the Western church, other than the obvious of the manuscript being found in Italy, is the absence of the
Epistle to the Hebrews The Epistle to the Hebrews () is one of the books of the New Testament. The text does not mention the name of its author, but was traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle; most of the Ancient Greek manuscripts, the Old Syriac Peshitto and ...
in the list, which appears to have been more widely accepted in the Greek-speaking east of the Roman Empire than in the Western, Roman church. Other scholars disagree with this dating, however. Albert Sundburg proposed a rival interpretation in 1973: that the fragment did not originate from Roman Christians, but rather the Greek-speaking east of the empire, and is dated to the fourth century due to its mention of the Apocalypse of Peter. In this interpretation, the reference to the Shepherd of Hermas merely meant "recently" in a broader sense of "not stretching all the way back to the 1st century", in this view. Another option propounded by Clare Rothschild is that the fragment was written in Latin originally in the 4th century, possibly even later, and the reason for the awful Latin style was not poor translation but rather the copyist being unfamiliar with the abbreviation style used in the older manuscript. Rothschild also sees the fragment as a forgery attempting to portray itself as being written in the 2nd century, to explain the reference to the Shepherd and Pius. As an example, most scholars do not believe the
Gelasian Decree The Gelasian Decree () is a Latin text traditionally thought to be a decretal of the prolific Pope Gelasius I (492-496). The work reached its final form in a five-chapter text written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553. The second chapt ...
to have been written by Pope Gelasius or even during his reign; similarly, it is possible that the writer was merely backdating their work by saying Pius was recent. The theories for a later composition date have in general not prevailed over the existing scholarly consensus suggesting a second century date as the most likely. The Rothschild theory in particular has been criticized by scholar Christophe Guignard on many aspects.


Contents

The unidentified author accepts four
Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
s, the last two of which are Luke and
John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...
, but the names of the first two at the beginning of the list are missing. Scholars find it highly likely that the missing two gospels are Matthew and
Mark Mark may refer to: In the Bible * Mark the Evangelist (5–68), traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark * Gospel of Mark, one of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic gospels Currencies * Mark (currency), a currenc ...
, although this remains uncertain. Also accepted by the author are the " Acts of all Apostles" and 13 of the
Pauline Epistles The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest ext ...
(the
Epistle to the Hebrews The Epistle to the Hebrews () is one of the books of the New Testament. The text does not mention the name of its author, but was traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle; most of the Ancient Greek manuscripts, the Old Syriac Peshitto and ...
is not mentioned in the fragment). The author considers spurious the letters claiming to have
Paul Paul may refer to: People * Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people * Paul (surname), a list of people * Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament * Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo ...
as author that are ostensibly addressed to the Laodiceans and to the Alexandrians. Of these he says they are "forged in Paul's name to urtherthe heresy of
Marcion Marcion of Sinope (; ; ) was a theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ, who was distinct from the "vengeful" God ( Demiurge) who had created the world. He considered himself a follower of Paul the Apost ...
." Of the General epistles, the author accepts the
Epistle of Jude The Epistle of Jude is the penultimate book of the New Testament and of the Christianity, Christian Bible. The Epistle of Jude claims authorship by Jude the Apostle, Jude, identified as a servant of Jesus and brother of James (and possibly Jesu ...
and says that two epistles "bearing the name of John are counted in the catholic church". 1 Peter,
2 Peter 2 Peter, also known as the Second Epistle of Peter and abbreviated as 2 Pet., is an epistle of the New Testament written in Koine Greek. It identifies the author as "Simon Peter" (in some translations, 'Simeon' or 'Shimon'), a bondservant and ...
, and James are not mentioned in the fragment. It is clear that the author assumed that the author of the Gospel of John was the same as the author of the First Epistle of John, for in the middle of discussing the Gospel of John he says "what marvel then is it that John brings forward these several things so constantly ''in his epistles also,'' saying in his own person, "What we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears, and our hands have handled that have we written," (1 John 1:1) which is a quotation from the
First Epistle of John The First Epistle of John is the first of the Johannine epistles of the New Testament, and the fourth of the catholic epistles. There is no scholarly consensus as to the authorship of the Johannine works. The author of the First Epistle is ...
. It is not clear whether the other
epistle An epistle (; ) is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The ...
in question is 2 John or
3 John The Third Epistle of John is the third-to-last book of the New Testament and the Christian Bible as a whole, and attributed to John the Evangelist, traditionally thought to be the author of the Gospel of John and the other two epistles of John ...
. Another indication that the author identified the Gospel writer John with two epistles bearing John's name is that when he specifically addresses the epistles of John, he writes, "the Epistle of Jude indeed, and the two belonging to ''the above mentioned John.''" In other words, he thinks that these letters were written by the John whom he has already discussed, namely John the gospel writer. He gives no indication that he considers the John of the Apocalypse to be a different John from the author of the Gospel of John. The author also includes the
Book of Wisdom The Book of Wisdom, or the Wisdom of Solomon, is a book written in Greek and most likely composed in Alexandria, Egypt. It is not part of the Hebrew Bible but is included in the Septuagint. Generally dated to the mid-first century BC, or to t ...
, "written by the friends of
Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...
in his honor" ine 70in the canon, and places the reference next to the epistles. The fragment mentions two approved works of
apocalyptic literature Apocalyptic literature is a genre of prophetical writing that developed in post- Exilic Jewish culture and was popular among millennialist early Christians. '' Apocalypse'' () is a Greek word meaning "revelation", "an unveiling or unfolding o ...
: the Apocalypse of John and the Apocalypse of Peter. The Apocalypse of John would go on to be better known as "Revelation" in the modern New Testament, while the Apocalypse of Peter would eventually fall out of favor in the 4th and 5th centuries. The author seems to think that the author of the Apocalypse of John (see debate on the authorship of Revelation) was a "predecessor" of Paul and wrote his epistles to the 7 churches first, although this dating does not match later scholarship, which believes Paul's epistles predate the Apocalypse. The author also remarks that "some of us will not allow he Apocalypse of Peterto be read in church". This hesitation with the Apocalypse of Peter would manifest in later centuries with it not being included in later canons. As the manuscript legacy for the Apocalypse of Peter is more sparse than books that made it into the New Testament, it is difficult to know how closely the Apocalypse of Peter read by the author of the fragment matches the few surviving manuscripts of it.


Canon list


Rejected works


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * *


Further reading

* Jonathan J. Armstrong, "Victorinus of Pettau as the Author of the Canon Muratori," ''Vigiliae Christianae'', 62,1 (2008), pp 1–34. * Bruce, F.F. ''The Canon of Scripture.'' Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988. * Kruger, Michael J. ''Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books''. Crossway, 2012 * Verheyden, J., "The Canon Muratori: A Matter of dispute," Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium (2003), The Biblical Canons, ed. by J.-M. Auwers & H. J. De Jonge, p. 487–556.


External links

* , an 1885 translation of the Muratorian fragment Text of the Muratorian fragment.
Leaving here for reference, but this is totally copyright infringement, it's Metzger's translation but that's not in the public domain. -->
The facsimile of the Muratorian Canon

"The development of the canon of the New Testament"
The Muratorian Canon * Henry Wace

Muratorian fragment

* ttp://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/extras/Muratorian.html Muratorian Fragment in the Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible* C. E. Hill
"The Debate Over the Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon," Westminster Theological Journal 57:2 (Fall 1995): 437–452
PDF)
More information at Earlier Latin Manuscripts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muratorian Fragment 7th-century biblical manuscripts Development of the Christian biblical canon Works published anonymously