200 AD TO 350 AD
200-350 AD
This is the middle period of the early Church, for our purposes. By the end of this period, with the conversion of Constantine, and the Edict of Milan finally granting freedom from persecution, the early Church will enter a new phase, which will include the vast majority of the canon lists.
But unfortunately, with so few canon lists during this middle period, there is almost no evidence to understand what people thought about the canon. It is 150 years of utter and complete blankness, during which no one cared at all about what Books were being read and preached every Sunday.
Of course, that is not remotely true. We actually have plenty of evidence to discuss, and in fact clear documented evidence starts to grow rapidly—it is just not assembled in list form. But anyone who focuses only on lists is, indeed, skipping over a vast swath of history. And there is no good reason at all to pass over the evidence that comes outside of lists.
After 200, citation evidence starts to grow enormously for all the New Testament, Old Testament, and Apocryphal Books, and we will be able to make comparisons among them. But also, this is the era when the types of writings we find begin to diversify—some citations are sermons and homilies on the Apocrypha themselves, some citations are Scriptural commentaries on the Apocrypha, some (like the letter from Origen) are treatises on what is Scripture, why it is Scripture, and how the decision is being made.
Citation evidence also helps us understand the lists we will see in the later era (350 AD+). We will know what was going on before the lists, which will be useful information when Fathers in later years give us conflicting versions of what they claim “was handed down from the beginning.”
