Salutation / Introduction

About this work

Author: Caius

III.—Canon Muratorianus.

(In Muratori, V. C.

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I.…those things at which he was present he placed thus. The third book of the Gospel, that according to Luke, the well-known physician Luke wrote in his own name in order after the ascension of Christ, and when Paul had associated him with himself as one studious of right. Nor did he himself see the Lord in the flesh; and he, according as he was able to accomplish it, began his narrative with the nativity of John. The fourth Gospel is that of John, one of the disciples. When his fellow-disciples and bishops entreated him, he said, “Fast ye now with me for the space of three days, and let us recount to each other whatever may be revealed to each of us.” On the same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the apostles, that John should narrate all things in his own name as they called them to mind. And hence, although different points are taught us in the several books of the Gospels, there is no difference as regards the faith of believers, inasmuch as in all of them all things are related under one imperial Spirit, which concern the Lord’s nativity, His passion, His resurrection, His conversation with His disciples, and His twofold advent,—the first in the humiliation of rejection, which is now past, and the second in the glory of royal power, which is yet in the future. What marvel is it, then, that John brings forward these several things so constantly in his epistles also, saying in his own person, “What we have seen with our eyes, and heard with our ears, and our hands have handled, that have we written.” For thus he professes himself to be not only the eye-witness, but also the hearer; and besides that, the historian of all the wondrous facts concerning the Lord in their order.

Notes

1
An acephalous fragment on the canon of the sacred Scriptures, ascribed by some to Caius. This very important fragment [vol. ii. pp. 4 and 56, this series] was discovered by Muratori in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and published by him in his Antiquitates Italicæ in 1740. This manuscript belongs to the seventh or eighth century. Muratori ascribed it to Caius, Bunsen to Hegesippus; but there is no clue whatever to the authorship. From internal evidence the writer of the fragment is believed to belong to the latter half of the second century. The fragment has been much discussed. For a full account of it, see Westcott’s General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament, 2d ed. p. 184 ff., and Tregelles’ Canon Muratorianus; [also Routh, Rel., i. pp. 394–434].
2
The text is, “quibus tamen interfuit et ita posuit.” Westcott omits the “et.” Bunsen proposes “ipse noninterfuit.” The reference probably is to the statement of Papias (Euseb., Histor. Eccles., iii. 39) as to Mark’s Gospel being a narrative not of what he himself witnessed, but of what he heard from Peter.
3
The text gives “numine suo ex opinione concriset,” for which we read “nomine suo ex ordine conscripsit” with Westcott.
4
Reading “secum” for “secundum.”
5
The text gives “quasi ut juris studiosum,” for which “quasi et virtutis studiosum,” ="as one devoted to virtue,” has been proposed. Bunsen reads “itineris socium” ="as his companion in the way.”
6
“Incepit” for “incipet.”
7
Or as they revised them, recognoscentibus.
8

Principia.

9

Principali, leading. [Note this theory of inspiration.]

10

Singula.

11

1 John i. 1.