When the last apostolic writings were completed near the end of the first century, Jehovah had already given His people a finished canon of Christian Scripture. The Gospels, Acts, the letters, and Revelation together formed the New Testament, standing alongside the Law, Prophets, and Writings of the Hebrew Bible. Yet for several generations after the apostles fell asleep in death, the congregations had to articulate more clearly which writings belonged to this inspired collection and which did not.

This need did not arise because the canon itself was uncertain in Jehovah’s sight. It arose because human beings, living amid persecution, heresy, and the spread of literacy, began to encounter a growing stream of books that claimed apostolic names or offered alternative stories about Jesus. Shepherds and believers had to distinguish between genuine apostolic Scripture and writings that, however pious or persuasive, lacked the mark of divine authority.

The second century was therefore a time of canonical struggle—not a struggle to invent the canon, but to confess publicly what had already functioned as Scripture from the days of the apostles. In that struggle, several forces pushed the congregations toward clarity: the presence of heretical writings, the challenge of Marcion’s mutilated canon, the need to summarize which books were being read in the congregations, and the recognition of clear criteria rooted in apostolic authority.

The Muratorian Fragment, an early list of accepted books, stands as an important witness to this process. It does not create Scripture, but it shows what second-century believers already recognized as the written Word of God.

---

Distinguishing Genuine Writings From Heretical Works

The Core That Was Never in Doubt

Even before any canon list was drafted, a solid core of writings functioned as Scripture across the congregations. The four Gospels, though sometimes read in different order or with local emphases, were treasured as the foundational accounts of Jesus’ earthly ministry, His atoning death, and His bodily resurrection. Acts provided the inspired record of the Spirit’s work through the apostles and the spread of the message from Jerusalem to Rome.

Paul’s letters, copied and circulated from early on, were valued as binding apostolic instruction. Peter could already speak of Paul’s letters as “Scriptures” alongside the rest of the written Word. Collections of Pauline letters traveled from congregation to congregation; believers read them aloud in worship, memorized them, and copied them for personal use.

Other apostolic letters and the book of Revelation also enjoyed wide recognition, though the speed of their circulation varied by region. The guiding reality, however, was simple: where a congregation knew a writing to be from an apostle or an approved apostolic companion and to be faithful to the gospel, they treated it as Scripture even before any formal statement was made.

A Flood of New “Gospels,” “Acts,” and “Revelations”

As decades passed, other writings appeared, many of them claiming apostolic names. Some arose from orthodox circles as edifying stories or expansions; others emerged from heretical groups seeking a foothold in the churches.

There were so-called gospels attached to Thomas, Peter, Philip, or the Hebrews; “acts” literature describing legendary exploits of Peter, Paul, Andrew, John, and others; and apocalyptic writings promising secret revelations of heavenly realms. Gnostic circles in particular produced texts that portrayed a very different “Jesus”—one who did not truly die, who dispensed secret knowledge rather than offering Himself as the atoning sacrifice, or who dismissed the Old Testament God as inferior.

These works varied in tone. Some were blatantly contrary to the apostolic faith; others wrapped false ideas in pious-sounding language. A few, like the Shepherd of Hermas or the Didache, came from otherwise orthodox circles and offered moral instruction without claiming to alter core doctrine.

But the sheer number of writings and the habit of attaching apostolic names to them created confusion. Illiterate believers depended heavily on what was read aloud in assemblies. If a pseudo-apostolic text was treated on the same level as the Gospels and letters, it could gradually reshape doctrine and piety in subtle ways.

Testing Spirits and Books

The apostles had already warned that many false prophets and false teachers would come. John urged believers to test the spirits and to watch for those who deny that Jesus came in the flesh or who go beyond the teaching of Christ. Paul warned against “another gospel” that corrupts grace with legalism or liberates sin by abuse of freedom.

In the second century, these warnings had to be applied to writings as well as to teachers. Overseers and congregations began asking pointed questions. Does this book proclaim the same Christ as the Gospels and apostolic letters? Does it uphold the Creator as Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, rather than denigrating the Old Testament? Does it affirm Jesus’ full deity and true humanity, His sacrificial death and bodily resurrection, rather than only spiritual ideas?

Books that failed these tests, or that introduced mythic speculations about emanations, secret rituals, or a purely spiritual Christ, were recognized as dangerous and excluded from public reading. Others, while perhaps useful for moral exhortation, were withheld from being placed on the same level as canonical Scripture.

The congregations did not rush to make pronouncements. Recognition grew as writings were read, examined, and compared with what was already known to be apostolic. Yet the need for clearer boundaries intensified when a radical challenge emerged from within the churches themselves: Marcion of Sinope.

---

Marcion’s Challenge and the Need for Clarity

Marcion’s Dualistic Gospel

Marcion, active around the middle of the second century, came from Sinope on the Black Sea and later made his way to Rome. Influenced by both Gnostic dualism and a sharp misreading of Paul, he concluded that the God of the Old Testament and the Father of Jesus Christ were two different beings.

In his view, the God of Israel was a strict, legalistic creator deity—just, perhaps, but not gracious. The Father proclaimed by Jesus, by contrast, was a higher God of love, unrelated to the material world. Marcion rejected the Old Testament entirely as the revelation of a lower god and sought to purify Christianity from every trace of it.

This dualism attacked the heart of biblical faith. The apostles had proclaimed that the same Jehovah who created the world and spoke through Moses and the prophets had now acted decisively in Jesus the Messiah. Christ fulfilled the promises made to Abraham and David; He died and rose according to the Scriptures. To split the Old and New Testaments into revelations of two different gods destroyed the unity of redemption and denied the goodness of creation.

A Truncated Canon

To support his theology, Marcion constructed his own canon—a sharply reduced set of books that, in his mind, represented true Christianity free from Jewish influence. He accepted only one Gospel, a heavily edited version of Luke from which he removed references to fulfillment of prophecy, Jesus’ human birth, and anything that tied Christ closely to Israel’s Scriptures.

He also kept ten Pauline letters—Galatians, 1–2 Corinthians, Romans, 1–2 Thessalonians, Ephesians (which he renamed “To the Laodiceans”), Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians—but again in edited form, cutting out passages that affirmed the Old Testament or creation’s goodness. The Pastoral Letters (1–2 Timothy, Titus) he rejected outright, likely because they emphasized sound teaching, moral qualifications for overseers, and the goodness of creation.

By presenting this abridged canon as the true Bible, Marcion forced the congregations to confront explicitly which books were genuinely apostolic and which were mutilated or forged. His movement spread rapidly; he organized separate communities with their own bishops and worship, claiming to be the pure church of Paul.

The Church’s Response

The church’s response to Marcion was vigorous and multifaceted. Teachers like Irenaeus, Tertullian, and others wrote against him, defending the unity of the Testaments and the goodness of Jehovah’s creation. They demonstrated from the unedited Gospels and letters that Jesus and the apostles constantly appeal to the Old Testament as God’s Word.

At the same time, they underscored the continuity of the canon. By showing that Marcion’s Gospel was an edited Luke and that his letters were mutilated Pauline epistles, they argued that his canon was not new revelation but a distortion of the existing Scriptures.

Marcion’s challenge thereby accelerated canonical self-consciousness. Believers had to say not only, “We read these books,” but also, “These and no others represent the authentic apostolic testimony.” The need for clarity about which Gospels and letters had been handed down in their full form, and which writings only pretended to be apostolic, became urgent.

In this setting of controversy and reflection, early summaries of accepted books began to appear. The most famous surviving example from the West is the Muratorian fragment.

---

The Muratorian List and Early Canon Recognition

Nature and Date of the Fragment

The Muratorian Fragment is a damaged Latin manuscript discovered in the eighteenth century and named after the scholar who first published it. The beginning and end are missing, but the portion that survives is widely regarded as a translation of a list originally composed in Greek, probably in Rome, sometime in the latter half of the second century.

Although the fragment is brief and sometimes difficult to interpret because of its condition, it offers a valuable snapshot of which writings were recognized in at least one major center at that time. It is significant not because it created the canon, but because it shows that a well-defined core of New Testament books was already in place and that certain others were carefully evaluated.

Contents of the List

The fragment begins in mid-sentence while discussing the Gospel of Luke, indicating that Matthew and Mark had been mentioned just before the portion we now possess. It then names the Gospel of John, presenting all four canonical Gospels as the accepted accounts of Jesus’ life and work.

Acts is acknowledged as the record of the apostles’ deeds, written by Luke. The fragment then turns to Paul’s letters, listing them in a somewhat different order than we are accustomed to but clearly affirming their authority and noting that Paul wrote to seven congregations as a sign of completeness, although he also addressed individuals.

The letters of Jude and, likely, two letters of John (our 1 and 2 John, or 2 and 3 John depending on how the text is read) are accepted. The fragment recognizes Revelation of John as inspired and also mentions an Apocalypse of Peter, noting that some in the congregation do not wish to have it read publicly. This comment shows a level of discernment already at work: even when a writing was valued by some, its status as canonical Scripture could still be questioned.

The fragment also refers positively to the Wisdom of Solomon, a book from the broader Greek Old Testament tradition. It rejects certain works explicitly: letters forged in Paul’s name to the Laodiceans and Alexandrians, which it calls spurious; and writings produced by heretical groups such as the Valentinians, which it says are not to be received. The Shepherd of Hermas is praised as useful for private reading but said to be unsuitable for public reading in the congregation as Scripture, because it was written in recent times and not in the apostolic age.

Significance of the Muratorian Witness

Several points stand out from this early list. First, the four Gospels, Acts, the Pauline corpus, at least some Catholic Epistles, and Revelation are firmly in place. This confirms that the primary shape of the New Testament was widely recognized long before later fourth-century councils summarized the canon.

Second, the fragment reflects careful discrimination. It distinguishes between writings suitable for public reading as Scripture, edifying works of recent origin that should not be treated as canonical, and outright heretical or forged texts that must be rejected.

Third, the comments about the Shepherd of Hermas and the Apocalypse of Peter show that the decisive factor was not popularity but apostolic origin and doctrinal soundness. A book might be beloved in some circles yet still not be considered part of the foundational apostolic deposit.

In short, the Muratorian list witnesses to an already existing conviction: the canon belongs to the apostolic era; writings produced later, however useful, stand on a different level; and documents that contradict apostolic teaching or falsify apostolic names have no place at all among the Scriptures.

---

Criteria for Apostolic Authority

Apostolic Origin or Connection

As congregations and leaders evaluated writings, certain criteria, drawn from Scripture itself and from the nature of apostolic ministry, came to the forefront.

The first was apostolic origin or direct connection. A book either had to be written by an apostle (such as Paul, Peter, or John) or by a close associate of the apostles who wrote under their oversight and within their circle (such as Luke or Mark). This reflected the unique role the apostles played as Christ’s chosen witnesses and foundational teachers.

The New Testament itself speaks of the church as “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.” Once this foundation was laid, no new layer of apostolic authority could be added. Therefore, writings from later generations, however helpful, could not join the apostolic canon.

When a book’s authorship was questioned—as with Hebrews in the West or 2 Peter in some regions—the issue was not whether the book was spiritually rich but whether it truly belonged to the apostolic era and bore the stamp of that foundational authority. Over time, believers weighed internal evidence, doctrinal content, and long-standing usage, recognizing that Jehovah had indeed inspired and preserved these writings, even when the human author’s name was less certain.

Orthodoxy: Harmony With the Rule of Faith

A second criterion was orthodoxy, meaning agreement with the “rule of faith”—the core summary of apostolic teaching about Jehovah, Christ, the Spirit, creation, sin, salvation, and the future. This rule was not an independent standard alongside Scripture; it was distilled from the Scriptures themselves and recited in baptismal confessions and catechetical instruction.

When a writing proclaimed a Christ who was less than fully divine, who did not truly take on flesh, or who did not die as an atoning sacrifice, it contradicted the rule of faith and therefore could not be apostolic. When it denied the Creator as Jehovah or disparaged the Old Testament, it clashed with the consistent message of the canonical books.

Orthodoxy thus functioned as a doctrinal test. The Spirit who inspired the apostles does not contradict Himself. A book that undermines the gospel revealed in the recognized Scriptures bears witness against its own claims to inspiration.

Widespread and Continuous Use

A third pattern was widespread and continuous use across congregations. Books recognized as Scripture were those read aloud in worship, copied, memorized, and appealed to in teaching and controversy.

This criterion did not mean that a book had to be universally accepted with identical enthusiasm from day one. Geographic distances, communication challenges, and persecutions affected circulation. For example, Revelation was warmly received in some regions and viewed with caution in others; Hebrews had a strong position in the East earlier than in the West.

But over time, a consensus emerged as elders and believers exchanged letters, attended regional gatherings, and compared the writings they used. Those books that had functioned as Scripture from early on, and whose apostolic origin and orthodoxy were clear, were recognized across the Christian world as part of the same canon.

Spiritual Power and Edifying Effect

A fourth element, though less easily measured, was the spiritual power and edifying effect of a book. Since the holy spirit works through the Word He inspired, writings that continually brought people to repentance and faith in Christ, strengthened congregations, and built up holy living testified to their divine origin.

This was never used independently of the other criteria. A book that seemed moving but contradicted apostolic doctrine could not be accepted. Yet the cumulative experience of generation after generation reading, preaching, and obeying these texts confirmed that Jehovah had indeed breathed them out.

In all these ways, the churches did not grant authority to certain books; they recognized the authority inherent in writings that bore the marks of apostolic inspiration.

---

Preserving the Integrity of Scripture

Rejecting Pseudonymous Works

One of the most important aspects of canonical struggle was the church’s consistent rejection of pseudonymous works—that is, books falsely written under apostolic names.

Some Gnostic texts attached the names of Thomas, Philip, or Mary Magdalene to lend credibility to their teachings. Other writings, such as letters supposed to be from Paul to the Laodiceans or Alexandrians, tried to infiltrate the canon by presenting themselves as Pauline correspondence.

The congregations, however, took the commandment against bearing false witness seriously. A book that lied about its authorship raised immediate suspicion. Even when its content seemed orthodox, the fact that it had entered the world under a false name indicated that it did not come from the holy spirit.

This principled rejection of forgery stands in stark contrast to some modern scholarly theories that imagine the early church as comfortable with pseudonymous apostolic writings. Historical evidence shows the opposite: when leaders like the author of the Muratorian Fragment discovered forged letters, they denounced them explicitly.

Copying and Transmission

As canonical recognition solidified, scribes and copyists devoted themselves to transmitting the approved texts with care. They worked with papyrus and later parchment, copying by hand in contexts of persecution and limited resources.

Inevitably, minor variations entered the text—misspellings, word order differences, occasional omissions or additions of short phrases. Yet because so many copies were produced independently across wide regions, later generations can compare manuscripts and recover the original wording with remarkable accuracy.

From a conservative textual perspective, the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament we possess today are 99.99 percent identical in wording to the original writings. No major doctrine of the faith depends on a disputed reading. The Spirit who inspired the Scriptures also watched over their preservation through the often-unheralded labor of copyists who revered the Word of God.

Later Councils as Recognition, Not Creation

By the fourth century, regional councils and prominent bishops occasionally produced lists of canonical books that match the 27-book New Testament recognized today. These lists did not introduce new writings; they acknowledged what the churches had already come to recognize across time and space.

In reality, documents like the Muratorian Fragment show that the essential shape of the canon was in place much earlier, especially in the West. The later summaries simply codified what had become the settled practice of the congregations.

Thus, the integrity of Scripture was preserved not by human fiat but by Jehovah’s providential guidance working through the ordinary processes of reading, copying, teaching, and discerning. The same Word that brought people to faith also enabled them to distinguish between the voice of the Shepherd and the voices of strangers.

Canonical Struggles as a Gift to the Church

The canonical struggles of the second and third centuries, though often painful and contentious, proved to be a gift. Through them, the churches clarified the boundaries of Scripture in such a way that later generations would not need to repeat the same debates at the foundational level.

Believers today benefit from this history whenever they open a New Testament whose contents are stable and trusted. The four Gospels, Acts, the letters, and Revelation together speak with a unified voice about Jesus the Messiah, His atoning death, His bodily resurrection, His return before the thousand-year reign, and the call to repentance and faith.

We do not need to sift through endless competing “gospels” or “letters” to discover which may be authentic. Jehovah has preserved, through the discernment of His people and the witness of the Spirit, the exact collection of writings He intended.

Our task is not to reopen the canon, add new revelations, or elevate later traditions alongside it. Our task is to receive the Scriptures as the inerrant, infallible Word of God, to interpret them with the historical-grammatical method rather than with allegorical speculation, and to obey their message.

When canonical struggles confronted the early congregations, they responded—often imperfectly, but decisively—by clinging to apostolic authority and rejecting those writings that undermined the gospel. In doing so, they preserved for us the integrity of the New Testament. Through these same Scriptures, the holy spirit still speaks, calling men and women today to turn from sin, to trust in Christ’s sacrifice, and to walk as holy ones until the day of resurrection.

You May Also Enjoy

The Role of Greek Apologists Against Paganism and Philosophical Attacks

About the Author

CLICK LINKED IMAGE TO VISIT ONLINE STORE

CLICK TO SCROLL THROUGH OUR BOOKS