CANON CANON LAW. 



23 



Apostolicon (the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles). 

 The five historical books, the Epistles of Paul, the 

 First Epistle of Peter, and the First Epistle of John, 

 were universally acknowledged to be genuine in the 

 3d century ; hence Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical His- 

 tory, written about A.D. 325, calls them Homologo- 

 mena, (universally received). The other five Catholic 

 Epistles (Second of Peter, Second and Third of Jolm, 

 Jude, and James) he calls Antilegomena (doubtful, 

 not universally received). At that time, the Epistle 

 to the Hebrews was considered genuine by most per- 

 sons, and the Apocalypse by many. These books 

 were received, in. the second half of the 4th century, 

 in the Egyptian church (where Athanasius first used 

 the term canonical), and in the Western church. In 

 the Eastern church, properly so called (the dioceses 

 of the patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and 

 Jerusalem), only the Catholic Epistles were of cano- 

 nical authority at that time ; the Apocalypse not till 

 the 6th century. The canon of the New Testament 

 has since remained unaltered, and the Protestant 

 churches hold it in common with the Greek and Ca- 

 tholic churches. The results of critical examinations 

 of the genuineness and canonical character of the 

 single books of the Bible, even when they were un- 

 favourable to the books, have produced no alteration 

 in the established canon. The reasons of the an- 

 cient fathers of the church for or against the cano- 

 nical character of the Biblical books were merely 

 historical and traditional, and built on philological 

 criticism; they are still the most tenable and ra- 

 tional : the philosophical grounds are more subject 

 to be affected by extraneous influences. Modern 

 criticism has attacked, with success, the genuineness 

 of single passages ; but it has failed in its attempt to 

 destroy the canonical authority of whole books. 

 With respect to the Apocalypse, or Revelation of 

 John, however, a large number of the Protestant 

 commentators incline to the side of the assailants. 



Canon is also the name of the prayers winch the 

 Catholic priests repeat before, at, and after the con- 

 secration of the host. 



In Arithmetic, algebra, &c., canon denotes a for- 

 mula obtained by the solution of a problem, and 

 containing the rule by which all examples, compre- 

 hended under the general problem may be solved. 



CANON OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES [writ- 

 ten by a Catholic]. * The distinguished characteris- 

 tic of the Catholic religion, is the authority which it 

 attributes to tradition, by which revelation continues 

 in life and power. The Holy Scriptures are esteemed 

 sacred by the Catholics, because the church has 

 transmitted them from age to age as sacred, and 

 illustrative of revelation, as far as any writings can 

 be. The church has only declared what writings 

 have been handed down as of divine origin. The 

 catalogue of these Holy Scriptures is the canon ; 

 the writings themselves are called Canonical Books. 

 In this sense, the Protestant church has no canon ; 

 it rejects the authority of all the traditions of the 

 church. Hence, in order to be consistent, it must 

 leave every Protestant, on free investigation, to de- 

 cide what books he will regard as canonical. But 

 the Bible, the pillar of the Protestant faith, is made 

 up of separate canonical books ; and, by pursuing 

 uch a course, the basis of the Protestant faith might 

 be undermined. It has been agreed, therefore, how- 

 ever inconsistently, to adopt the New Testament 

 canon of the Catholic church. But, in fixing the 



* In the original ' Conversations Lexicon,' there are se- 

 veral articles so distinguished. In those cases where the 

 Protestant view of the subject is also given, we think pro- 

 per to retain them, because many readers may be justly 

 desirous to see the tenets and doctrine* of the Catholics 

 fared by their own writers. Ed. 



canon of the Old Testament, the decisions of the 

 Catholic church have been rejected ; and, contrary 

 to the African councils and the usages of the Roman 

 church, established by the council of Trent, part of 

 Esther, also Baruch, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Eccle- 

 siasticus or Jesus the Son of Sirach, the two books 

 of Maccabees, the Song of the Three Youths in the 

 Fiery Furnace, described in Daniel, together with 

 the two last chapters of this prophet, are thrown out 

 as uncanonical and apocryphal. It is worthy of men- 

 tion, that a controversy on this subject broke off the 

 negotiations for a union of the Catholic and Protestant 

 churches, which commenced in the beginning of the 

 18th century, between Leibnitz, Molanus, and Bos- 

 suet. 



CANON AND CAPUT IN COUNCILS. A 

 council is not only the church universal assembled, 

 which declares the faith of the members, and fixes 

 the doctrines to be defended, but it also possesses the 

 supreme power in the administration of all ecclesias- 

 tical affairs, which have not immediate reference to 

 doctrines (as liturgies and rules of discipline). In 

 the language of the church, a distinction is made 

 between these two kinds of ordinances. Such as 

 respect doctrine are called canons; and every 

 other precept or regulation, caput or decretum. The 

 latter are subject to be changed, as the spirit of the 

 age requires, and hence lay no claim to infallibility : 

 the former are the unalterable truths and doctrines 

 of the infallible church of the Lord. The council 

 of Trent makes a distinction between the two, and 

 the capita on church discipline are superscribed De 

 Reformatione. It would be a great mistake to view 

 these capita as doctrinal truths, and then to reproach 

 the church with establishing erroneous dogmas as 

 truths essential to salvation. 



CANON LAW [written by a Catholic]. The 

 famous Gravina begins his Institutes of the canon 

 law thus: Since the word law is imperative, and 

 includes the idea of physical enforcement, the ancient 

 church preferred to apply to its precepts the milder 

 term of rule or canon (from the Greek xei&, rule), 

 which agrees with the language of the council of 

 Trent, and the most able canonists, as Van Espen, &c. 

 Canons, therefore, are the laws which the church has 

 promulgated ; and by canon law in English, is un- 

 derstood the whole body of ecclesiastical laws, or- 

 dinances, and regulations. The church has been, 

 from the tune or its establishment, a free society, 

 possessing and exercising the right of forming laws 

 for itself, either by positive enactment, or t>y the 

 gradual growth of custom. The regulations of the 

 apostles, the decrees of the general and particular 

 councils, and of the bishops, constitute these laws. 

 Even when, after the downfall of paganism, the 

 Christian church became connected with the state, 

 it retained this legislative power. If the Theodo- 

 sian code acquired authority, it was only in conse- 

 quence of reception. The more the organization of 

 the church became settled, the more frequent became 

 the regulations and orders of the supreme bishop 

 (the decretals). There is no question about the autho- 

 rity which was allowed to these decretals, and it is 

 useless to inquire here whether this authority origi- 

 nated from positive enactment or from customary 

 observance. The ecclesiastical as well as the poli- 

 tical law, is to be traced, in part, to each of these 

 sources. In the course of time, collections were 

 made of these canons, arranged in chronological 

 order (Collectio Canonum). These collections came 

 into use in the fifth and sixth centuries. The chief 

 basis of them was a translation of the decrees of the 

 four first general councils, to which other decrees of 

 | particular synods and decretals of the popes were 

 added. In the time of Charlen agne, the collection 



