Church Fathers Recognize

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The Accepted Canon

In addition to the manuscripts and the miscellaneous items witnessing to the New Testament text, the student of textual criticism has available the patristic citations of the Scriptures to aid in his quest for the true text. The Fathers who made these references and citations lived during the early centuries of the church. Their closeness to the apostles and their use of the text provide information about the precise area, date, and type of text used throughout the early church.

— Source: From God To Us Revised and Expanded: How We Got Our Bible by Norman L Geisler, William E. Nix

They continued to look upon the Old Testament as a full and lasting record of the revelation of God. In one remarkable particular they carried this belief yet further than it had been carried before. With them the individuality of the several writers falls into the background. They practically regarded the whole Book as one Divine utterance.

-BF Wescott

Early Church Fathers

As the number of living apostles and first hand eyewitnesses began to diminish, their own disciples and other thinkers, theologians, and apologists became leaders as the early church began to grow.

We can virtually reproduce the entire New Testament from just the writings of the church fathers, many times over

DR. Daniel Wallace

Dr. Wallace is Executive Director of CSNTM & Senior Research Professor of NT Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary

The chart below demonstrates how often these early church fathers mentioned the NT canon writings in their own.

A Detailed Grid of References

In fact, this website has produced a detailed matrix of early church fathers referencing and recognizing the NT canon.

A Linked Outline

Other Translations + Lists

There were other translations and lists of canonical books that came out of the second and third centuries, that confirm the first century canon.

It’s important to note that a translation could only be made if there was a recognized list of books to be included in the translation. Some of these writings include:

  • The Old Syriac Translation
  • The Old Latin Translation
  • The Muratorian Canon (170 CE). Aside from the obviously abridged canon of the heretic Marcion (140 CE)
  • Codex Baroccio (206)
  • Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 340)
  • Athanasius of Alexandria (ca. 373)
  • The councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397)