Athanasius and the Councils

Introduction

On a date we can specify with unusual precision — Easter 367 — Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, sent his annual Festal Letter to the churches under his care. Like previous letters, it announced the date of Easter and addressed matters of church life. But the Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter contained something unprecedented: a list of the books of the Old and New Testaments that, for the first time in any surviving document, corresponds exactly to the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as we know it today.

Athanasius's list is often treated as the moment the New Testament canon was "decided." This is misleading. The list did not create the canon; it articulated what the churches had been recognizing for generations. But the precision and authority of Athanasius's statement — and the councils that followed — represent the culmination of the canonical process, the point at which the church's long discernment reached its definitive expression.

Athanasius of Alexandria

Athanasius (c. AD 296–373) was one of the most important theologians in Christian history — the champion of Nicene orthodoxy against the Arian heresy, a man exiled five times for his refusal to compromise on the deity of Christ. His authority as bishop of Alexandria — one of the most prestigious sees in Christendom — gave his pronouncements enormous weight, particularly in the East.

In his Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter, Athanasius distinguished three categories of books:

Canonical books (kanonizomena) — the books that are "the fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone is the teaching of godliness proclaimed. Let no one add to these or take away from them." For the New Testament, Athanasius lists: the four Gospels, Acts, seven Catholic epistles (James, 1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, Jude), fourteen Pauline epistles (including Hebrews, placed after 2 Thessalonians and before the Pastorals), and Revelation. Twenty-seven books — the same twenty-seven that make up the New Testament today.

Books "appointed to be read" (anaginoskomena) — texts that are not canonical but have been "appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness." These include the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Esther (or parts of it), Judith, Tobit, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas. These books are useful for catechetical instruction but are not Scripture in the strict sense — they cannot be used to establish doctrine.

Apocryphal books — texts that are "an invention of heretics, who write them when they choose, bestowing upon them their approbation, and assigning to them a date, that so, using them as ancient writings, they may find occasion to lead astray the simple." These are the Gnostic texts and other heterodox writings that the church firmly rejected.

The Councils

Athanasius's Festal Letter was a statement by an individual bishop, however authoritative. The canonical process reached its conciliar expression in a series of councils in the late fourth and early fifth centuries.

The Council of Laodicea (c. AD 363)

This regional council in Asia Minor produced a canonical list that closely matches Athanasius's — with one notable exception: it omits Revelation. This omission reflects the ongoing Eastern hesitation about the Apocalypse that we observed in Eusebius's ambiguous treatment. The Council of Laodicea represents the state of the canon in Asia Minor, where Revelation had not yet achieved universal acceptance.

The Council of Hippo (AD 393)

This North African council, influenced by Augustine of Hippo, produced a canonical list that matches the 27-book New Testament exactly and also includes the deuterocanonical/apocryphal books in the Old Testament. The Council of Hippo is significant because it represents the first conciliar affirmation of the 27-book New Testament in the West.

The Council of Carthage (AD 397)

The third Council of Carthage reaffirmed the list of Hippo, declaring that "aside from the canonical Scriptures, nothing is to be read in church under the name of divine Scriptures." The Carthaginian list has become the standard reference point for the conciliar recognition of the New Testament canon — though it should be emphasized that both Hippo and Carthage were regional councils, not ecumenical ones. They did not have the authority to bind the entire church.

Was the Canon a Fourth-Century Invention?

The claim that the New Testament canon was a fourth-century invention — decided by powerful bishops under the influence of Emperor Constantine, who selected books that supported his political agenda and suppressed those that did not — is one of the most persistent myths in popular culture. It was given wide circulation by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and has been repeated in countless documentaries, blogs, and social media posts.

The claim is historically indefensible. Here is why:

Constantine and Nicaea had nothing to do with the canon. The Council of Nicaea (AD 325) — the council most commonly associated with this myth — did not discuss the canon at all. Its agenda was the Arian controversy (the relationship of the Son to the Father) and various matters of church discipline. No ancient source — none — records any discussion of the biblical canon at Nicaea. The claim that "Constantine decided which books to include in the Bible" is pure fiction.

The evidence predates the fourth century by two hundred years. As we have seen in the preceding lessons, the core of the New Testament canon was recognized by the mid-second century (Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tatian), catalogued in the late second century (the Muratorian Fragment), and systematically described in the third century (Origen). The fourth-century councils did not decide the canon; they inherited and ratified a consensus that had been forming since the apostolic age.

The canonical process was too decentralized for top-down control. The recognition of the canon took place across multiple continents, in dozens of independent churches, over a period of three centuries. There was no institution, no individual, and no council with the power to impose a canon on the entire Christian world. The consistency of the canonical core across Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, Lyon, and Caesarea — communities separated by thousands of miles and with no centralized authority — is precisely the evidence that the canon was recognized, not invented.

The "suppressed" books were never serious candidates. The Gnostic gospels — Thomas, Philip, Judas, Mary — were written later than the canonical Gospels, by unknown authors, representing theological traditions that the churches had already identified as incompatible with the apostolic faith. They were not "voted out" by fourth-century bishops; they were never "in." The canonical Gospels had been recognized as uniquely authoritative since the early second century, long before any council addressed the question.

The Eastern Churches

A complete picture of the canonical process requires acknowledging that the Eastern churches reached the 27-book consensus somewhat later than the West. The Syrian church, in particular, long used a shorter New Testament — the Peshitta (the standard Syriac Bible, c. 5th century) contains only 22 books, omitting 2 Peter, 2–3 John, Jude, and Revelation. The Ethiopian church, by contrast, has a broader canon that includes additional texts. The Armenian church did not fully accept Revelation until the twelfth century.

These variations are important because they demonstrate that the canonical process was not a single, uniform event but a gradual, church-by-church discernment that unfolded at different rates in different regions. The 27-book canon that became universal in the West by the late fourth century took longer to achieve universal acceptance in some Eastern traditions — but the direction of the process was consistently toward the same 27-book collection, confirming that the books themselves, rather than institutional decree, drove the process.

Conclusion

Athanasius's Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter of AD 367 marks the first surviving articulation of the exact 27-book New Testament canon. The councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) provided conciliar ratification. But these formal statements were the culmination, not the origin, of a process that had been underway since the apostolic age. The canon was not invented in the fourth century; it was recognized over the course of three centuries and formally articulated in the fourth.

The story of the canon's formation is not a story of institutional power but of ecclesial discernment — the church, guided by the Spirit, recognizing in these particular books the voice of its Lord, transmitted through his authorized apostles, and preserved for the instruction, correction, and encouragement of every subsequent generation. The fact that this process was messy, gradual, and sometimes contentious is not a weakness but a strength. It demonstrates that the canon was not imposed by fiat but earned its authority through the consistent witness of the churches that received it.