In the Protestant churches of the continent canons as ecclesiastical officers have ceased to exist. In Prussia and Saxony, however, certain chapters, secularized at the Reformation, still exist. The canons (Domherren) are, however, laymen with no ecclesiastical character whatever, and their rich prebends are merely sources of endowment for the cadets of noble families.
See Phillimore, Eccles. Law, 2 vols. (London, 1895).
(W. A. P.)
The Scriptures.—There are three opinions as to the origin of the application of the term “canon” to the writings used by the Christian Church. According to Semler, Baur and others, the word had originally the sense of list or catalogue—the books publicly read in Christian assemblies. Others, as Steiner, suppose that since the Alexandrian grammarians applied it to collections of old Greek authors as models of excellence or classics, it meant classical (canonical) writings. According to a third opinion, the term included from the first the idea of a regulating principle. This is the more probable, because the same idea lies in the New Testament use of the noun, and pervades its applications in the language of the early Fathers down to the time of Constantine, as Credner has shown.[1] The “κανών of the church” in the Clementine homilies,[2] the “ecclesiastical κανών”[3] and the “κανών of the truth” in Clement and Irenaeus,[4] the κανών of the faith in Polycrates,[5] the regula fidei of Tertullian,[6] and the libri regulares of Origen[7] imply a normative principle. Credner’s view of κανών as an abbreviation of γραφαὶ κανόνος, equivalent to Scripturae legis in Diocletian’s Act,[8] is too artificial, and is unsanctioned by usage.
The earliest example of its application to a catalogue of the Old or New Testament books occurs in the Latin translation of Origen’s homily on Joshua, where the original seems to have been κανών. The word itself is certainly in Amphilochius,[9] as well as in Jerome[10] and Rufinus.[11] As the Latin translation of Origen has canonicus and canonizatus, we infer that he used κανονικός, opposed as it is to apocryphus or secretus. The first occurrence of κανονικός is in the 59th canon of the council of Laodicea, where it is contrasted with ἰδιωτικός and ἀκανόνιστος. Κανονιζόμενα, “canonized books,” is first used in Athanasius’s festal epistle.[12] The kind of rule which the earliest Fathers thought the Scriptures to be can only be conjectured; it is certain that they believed the Old Testament books to be a divine and infallible guide. But the New Testament was not so considered till towards the close of the 2nd century, when the conception of a Catholic Church was realized. The collection of writings was not called Scripture, or put on a par with the Old Testament as sacred and inspired, till the time of Theophilus of Antioch (about 180 a.d.). Hence Irenaeus applies the epithets divine and perfect to the Scriptures; and Clement of Alexandria calls them inspired.
When distinctions were made among the Biblical writings other words were employed, synonymous with Κανονιζόμενα or κεκανονισμένα, such as ἐνδιάθηκα, ὡρισμένα. The canon was thus a catalogue of writings, forming a rule of truth, sacred, divine, revealed by God for the instruction of men. The rule was perfect for its purpose. (See [Bible]: section Canon.)
The term “canonical,” i.e. that which is approved or ordered by the “canon” or rule, is applied to ecclesiastical vestments, “canonicals,” and to those hours set apart by the Church for prayer and devotion, the “Canonical Hours” (see [Breviary]).
(S. D.)
[1] Zur Geschichte des Kanons, pp. 3-68.