andrew of caesarea and the apocalypse in the ancient church of the ...

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traveled second century Christian who had visited many différent congrégations would
probably never encounter the entire New Testament canon we now possess.
As books were exchanged, the rapidity of a given book's acceptance by a
congrégation could dépend upon a number of factors, including but not limited to whether
the book appealed to the congrégation on a spiritual or inspirational level, whether it
contained words of the Lord, and whether it was of apostolic origin. Initially no apparent
need to delineate a canon existed. But as the number of Christian writings grew and dogmatic
questions pressed upon the Church, hérésies took hold and began to threaten orthodox
Christianity. Apocryphal books soon mushroomed, both in an effort to promote divergent
views and to préserve earlier oral traditions. Consequently, lists of acceptable Christian
writings began to be drafted. Harnack remarks that the process of creating a Christian canon
was "a kind of involuntary undertaking of the Church in her conflict with Marcion and the
Gnostics." 117 The only way to accomplish this was for the Church to collect "everything
apostolic and déclare herself to be its only légal possessor."
2.1.2 Factors Influencing the Formation of the Canon
It was not at ail inévitable that the canon would take the shape of our présent list of
twenty seven books. The New Testament could easily hâve evolved in a very différent
direction. Harnack lists seven "embryonic collections" which might hâve led to collections of
works that would hâve formed a very différent canon. According to Harnack, one collection
could hâve been Jewish and Christian prophétie books, standing "side by side with the Old
Testament... .The Révélation of John... was meant to stand side by side rather than inside the
Old Testament."" 9 Johannes Leipoldt elevated the importance of the apocalyptic tradition,
after he surveyed the development of the canon and concluded that the apocalypses were
foundational for the New Testament canon. 120 Harry Gamble believes that another factor
117 Hamack, History ofDogma, 45.
118 Harnack, Histoty 46.
119 Adolph von Harnack, The Origen of the New Testament, trans. by JR Wilkinson (London: Williams and
Norgate, 1925), 169-178, cited by Farmer and Farkasfalvy, 27.
120 Johannes Leipoldt, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, 2 vols. (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1907, 1908;
reprinted, Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1974.)