Silent For Too Long said:
Thats just not true. The earliest extra biblical sources, like first Clement, directly reference documents that would later be cannonized.
They weren't just navel gazing and making things up. They were continuing and building on the traditions started by Paul and the gospel writers, as well as the Old Testament scriptures.
… later be canonized. They're not canonical until they are canonical. Just because a document references a document that would later be declared canonical doesn't mean those documents were the sole standard. Their canonicity was arrived at by comparing their content with the oral traditions and other received praxis that were taught by the apostles to their successors, who then assessed the veracity of those writings by comparison to what they were taught and had come to know as true. Were the writings that were later canonized referred to and looked to as a source of orthodoxy? Yes. 100%. But given how rare they were and the limited number of literate people at that time, oral teaching still prevailed for some time, especially in the first century or two.
Moreover, we know with certainty that the early church predates all of the writings, some more than others. We also know that some of the writings that were being used were later rejected or omitted. So just being a writing used by the a church or community of Christians wasn't enough. It still had to be assessed by some body with the authority to determine if it was orthodox and should be considered canonical.
The process of canonization happened organically, naturally developing from the first century on. Even so, those criteria can be identified by observing that process of development.
The process of canonization involved both passive reception and active creation by the Church, reflecting a complex interrelationship. This is the fingerprint of the Holy Spirit working through Jesus's established ecclesia and into human history.
The four primary criteria the Church used for determining whether certain books were accepted into the canon while others were rejected were:
1. Apostolic Origin - attributed to and/or based on the preaching and teaching of the first-generation apostles or their closest companions.
2. Universal Acceptance - acknowledged by all major Christian communities in the Mediterranean world by the end of the fourth century.
3. Liturgical Use - read publicly along with the Old Testament when early Christians gathered for Eucharistic liturgy.
4. Consistent Message - containing theological ideas compatible with other accepted Christian beliefs, traditions and writings, including the divinity and humanity of Jesus.
Apostolic authorship or association meant the text needed a direct connection to Jesus' original apostles or their close companions. Paul's letters qualified because of his apostleship; the Gospel of Mark was accepted because Mark was associated with Peter.
Orthodoxy required consistency with accepted Christian teaching, oral and written. Texts that contradicted core doctrines were excluded. The Church had to look to the oral and written teachings that were handed down by apostles to make this determination. The Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas, for instance, contained teachings that diverged significantly from mainstream Christian belief. Orthodoxy served as a crucial reason for a text's canonicity, but not a sufficient one. It was often used to exclude texts such as Gnostic writings.
Catholicity (Universality) refers to if there was a significant "split decision" on a work, then it failed to fulfill the test of catholicity. Those three tests apostolicity, orthodoxy, and catholicity guided the early church in its recognition of the canonical books.
Lastly, there was a natural shift of authority from the apostles to their writings after their deaths, and with this, the apostles' writings were collected, copied, and dispersed among the early Church. Books that were read at the Eucharistic assembly carried a weight of authority that others did not.
So I apologize if I am talking past your point. I agree that the authority of the New Testament as the Word preceded and produced its authority as a New Scripture; i.e., the New Testament writings carried authority before they were ever formally recognized as "Scripture." But I think this supports the argument that tradition preceded or at a minimum was concomitant with the writings that would later be canonized. Although no known Christian writings were produced until the decades following Jesus's death,
the earliest Christians preserved the teachings and acts of Jesus in memory and passed them on orally. These teachings were understood to have the highest authority in Christian communities and constituted the basis for Christian discipleship.
In other words, the Church was already alive, worshipping, baptizing, celebrating the Eucharist, and spreading the Gospel before a single letter of Paul or a single Gospel was written. The living Word of God Jesus Himself was being proclaimed orally by the Apostles.
Then, as the Apostles began to age and face martyrdom, that living proclamation began to be committed to writing. What they first proclaimed orally in synagogues, marketplaces, and homes soon also existed in written form of apostolic letters and Gospels that carried the same authority as their spoken preaching.
So the authority of these texts came from their apostolic origin and their faithful transmission of the Word of God not from any council declaring them Scripture. The Church's later recognition simply made explicit what was already operative in Christian life.
