Athanasius of Alexandria Canon List
Athanasius of Alexandria Canon List
367 AD: Athanasius of Alexandria.[1] “Because Athanasius’ canon is the closest canon of any of the Church Fathers to the one used by Protestant Churches today, many Protestants point to Athanasius as the Father of the Canon.”[2] Note that it says “the closest”—and even he does not match it (what his list matches is the New Testament, not the Old). Notably, his “full canon” includes Baruch and excludes Esther; he also implicitly includes Susanna (given citations to it in his other works).
In addition, he is, of course, the first to give us a third category: “There are other books besides these, indeed not received as canonical but having been appointed by our fathers to be read to those just approaching and wishing to be instructed in the word of godliness: Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd. But the former, my brethren, are included in the Canon, the latter being merely read…”
There is no corroborating evidence for this limitation having been in place before 367 AD, even though Athanasius says it has been handed down from the Fathers—which is what everyone always claims. It goes against innumerable claims made by others before 367 AD. In particular, Athanasius is Bishop of Alexandria, and we have heard from other Fathers from Alexandria—including Clement and Origen, who are two of the most prodigious writers of the early Church.
One thing to note on this point is that there are old translations of Athanasius that do not stress this. E.g., if you check out www.bible-researcher.com/athanasius.html, they give us an 1892 translation that begins the list with “In proceeding to make mention of these things, I shall adopt, to commend my undertaking…” But a modern translation (from Gallagher and Meade) says, “… in order to commend my audacity…”
In the end, scholars (including Gallagher and Meade) usually note somewhere that there is no reason to think Athanasius is telling us what was actually done to that point.[3] He is telling us what he wants done (and he is a powerful Bishop, so within his sphere, we can assume it was done—while questioning what that sphere was and how long it lasted, etc.). Athanasius also gives no basis for his list: no precedents, no names from the past, no fellow supporters, not even any arguments or reasoning—just the claim that it was handed down from the Fathers, while naming no Fathers.
Athanasius himself was an old man when he said it and had been writing for decades without ever once mentioning the third category or actually showing that he treated the Books on his list all that differently. He had already cited to the Apocrypha as Scripture many times, in many works, over many years, in a consistent fashion. Consider the Book of Wisdom:
… as the wisdom of God testifies beforehand when it says… Wisdom 14:12
He [Jesus] teaches us and says … Wisdom 13:5
Scripture taught us beforehand long ago, when it said … Wisdom 14:12
… what Scripture calls… Wisdom 14:21
… divine Scripture recognizes… Wisdom 9:2.
…such illustrations and such images has Scripture proposed… Wisdom 13:5
hearing the Scriptures we believe… Wisdom 13:5
…to which I suppose the divine Scripture refers, when it says: Wisdom 6:19
He says the Book of Wisdom is the work of God, the Divine word of God, Scripture, the Divine Scripture, the wisdom of God, etc.[4] Athanasius cites to Wisdom 48 times.[5] The date ranges for 45 of those citations end before 367, the year of the letter that includes the canon list. The three remaining citations occur in two works: two were in Epistula ad uirgines (Letter to the Virgins, not available online) with a date range of 350-373 (and thus, much more likely to have been written before 367 than after), and one was in Epistula ad Afros, which is given a very specific date of 371-372. That would, of course, be after the canon list. However, Biblindex took that date from an 1857 translation, and a more modern translation of the same work gives it a date of 366-367,[6] which (presumably) is more accurate.
Athanasius also does not apologize for having misled readers by not having done what he claims the earlier fathers told him to do. Athanasius spent his whole life attacking others and defending himself (he was exiled five times and was known as Athanasius Contra Mundum—one of history’s great nicknames: Latin for “Athanasius Against the World”) yet not once was he called out for his “heretical” claims that Apocrypha were Scripture, canon, etc. In fact, he and others use Apocrypha as canonical Scriptural proofs when Athanasius was arguing over heresy:
when arguing Against the Heathen Athanasius quotes ten entire verses (an exceptionally long quote for the Fathers) from the Book of Wisdom 14:12-21 as “Scripture taught us beforehand long ago, when it said …;”
when Discoursing Against the Aryans, he says “… the word of truth confutes them as follows:…God is not as man, as Scripture has said” (Judith 8:16);
in his Defense against Arius, he quotes a letter from his supporter, Alexander of Thessalonica, that says, “as the Holy Scripture somewhere says, ‘though his father die, yet he is as though he were not dead’” (Sirach 30:4);
when Lucifer of Caligari defends him in Concerning Saint Athanasius, he quotes the Book of Wisdom as Prophecy from the Holy Spirit;
when the opponents of the Nicene Council quote Baruch 3:14 and Wisdom 7:26 to describe the Son, Athanasius counters with the orthodox view;
and a council of Bishops ruling in Athanasius’ favor cite Tobit as providing a command that his accusers violated (See 12:7); etc.[7]
Note that Athanasius himself never says that the Apocrypha are “not to be used to confirm doctrine” (that comes later from Rufinus and Jerome), and all of these uses would seem to be contrary to such a concept in the exact context where orthodox proof is most critical: arguing over heresy.
Still, Gallagher and Meade feel that there is a distinction between Athanasius’ canon category and his “to be read” category in frequency of use over Athanasius’ lifetime: “Although Athanasius described these books positively, he used them comparatively fewer times than the books he designated canonical.”[8] They cite to “Ernest, James D. 2004. The Bible in Athanasius of Alexandria. The Bible in Ancient Christianity 2. Leiden: Brill, Appendix B, 380-418, in which all of the deuterocanonical and noncanonical references are listed on one page, while the references to the canonical books comprise thirty-seven pages.”
That seems like a dubious methodology, if only because it does not seem to distinguish the Old Testament from the New (cited as much as fifty times as often, per Kruger). Here are the numbers from www.biblindex.org/citation_biblique/search for Poetic/Wisdom Books by citations from Athanasius per 100 verses (i.e., by size), the method that seems to have the most scholarly support:
| Cites | Book | Verses | Rate |
| 32 | Song of Songs | 117 | 27.4 |
| 648 | Psalms | 2526 | 25.7 |
| 220 | Proverbs | 915 | 24.0 |
| 48 | Wisdom | 436 | 11.0 |
| 24 | Ecclesiastes | 222 | 10.8 |
| 62 | Job | 1068 | 5.8 |
| 19 | Sirach | 1372 | 1.4 |
Wisdom does not seem to be “discriminated against,” although Sirach might well be (but bear in mind that there are occasional weird results in citations by individual Fathers that do not seem to mean anything).
For historical Books:
| Cites | Book | Verses | Rate |
| 74 | 1 Kings | 817 | 9.1 |
| 58 | 1 Samuel | 810 | 7.2 |
| 47 | 2 Kings | 719 | 6.5 |
| 21 | Joshua | 658 | 3.2 |
| 17 | Judges | 618 | 2.8 |
| 17 | 2 Samuel | 695 | 2.4 |
| 6 | Ezra | 280 | 2.1 |
| 3 | Esther | 272 | 1.1 |
| 6 | 2 Maccabees | 556 | 1.1 |
| 3 | Judith | 340 | 0.9 |
| 2 | Tobit | 245 | 0.8 |
| 2 | Nehemiah | 405 | 0.5 |
| 4 | 1 Maccabees | 922 | 0.4 |
| 3 | 2 Chronicles | 821 | 0.4 |
| 0 | Ruth | 85 | – |
| 0 | 1 Chronicles | 943 | – |
So, all the historical Books in Athanasius’ “to be read” category rate pretty well, including Esther. (Note the complete lack of even a single citation to either Ruth or 1 Chronicles—an apparently random circumstance, as just mentioned regarding Sirach).
Athanasius did not treat the “to be read” Books differently until after he came up with his list idea, except, perhaps, Sirach—and something he did not like about Sirach might well be part of his inspiration for the “only to be read” idea in the first place.
Thus, there is no evidence for a “third category” canon being in existence before 367 AD, not even in Athanasius’ own head. And that is more than 300 years after Christ.[9] So to me, his claim that “[t]here are other books besides these, indeed not received as canonical but having been appointed by our fathers to be read” means that (a) the Fathers did appoint them, but (b) it is Athanasius who is now saying they are “only to be read” and not received as Canon. He is the one drawing that distinction.
In any event, the list remains, and I definitely see it as defining Athanasius’ views from 367 on. I did not find any other evidence to show people following his lead—at least regarding his specific canon. I take it for granted that, even without evidence, there was some use of his canon in Alexandria for at least a little while. But it is the idea and not the specifics that starts to gain followers (as we will see, the idea gets used differently by each Father that adopts it).
One last thing to stress here, is that Athanasius meant for us to learn these Books in Sunday School before we graduated to the Bible: “not received as canonical but having been appointed by our fathers to be read to those just approaching and wishing to be instructed in the word of godliness.” They are important and not being minimized—to the contrary, they are used to teach. Athanasius is clear that these were not dangerous heretical Books to avoid.
[1] www.bible-researcher.com/athanasius.html. There is another list (the Synopsis of Sacred Scripture) once attributed to Athanasius, but it is now thought to be spurious and to have come much later. See www.bible-researcher.com/sss.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_of_Alexandria
[3] And my statistical analyses confirm that Apocrypha are not treated differently.
[4] The citations are shown above in my chart for the Book of Wisdom.
[5] Not every citation expressly states that it is Scripture, but many do. Others use it to confirm doctrine, while others are made along with canonical Scripture without qualification, etc.
[6] see www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110866261/html?lang=en
[7] Respectively: www.newadvent.org/fathers/2801.htm; www.newadvent.org/fathers/28162.htm; www.newadvent.org/fathers/28082.htm; the next two are per Gary G. Michuta in the Case for the Deuterocanon, not available online; and the last is at www.newadvent.org/fathers/28081.htm
[8] P. 129 and footnote 274.
[9] Three hundred and thirty-four years to be exact, assuming Christ died in 33 AD. As I write this, 334 years ago was the year before the Salem witch trials, and the great grandchildren of anyone born in that year would probably be the ones to join up with George Washington (born only 293 years ago) and fight in the American Revolution—my point being that even in reading the Fathers from Athanasius’ era, we are no longer anywhere close to the Apostles.
