The Biblical Canon of
Eusebius of Caesarea

Known as the “Father of Church History”, Eusebius of Caesarea also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (260-339 A.D.), was a church historian and a scholar of the biblical canon and is regarded as one of the most learned Christians during late antiquity.  Some of his historical works include the Ecclesiastical History, On the Life of Pamphilus, the Chronicle, On the Martyrs, and also a biographical work on Emperor Constantine the Great.

In his Church History or Ecclesiastical History, (written ca. 325 A.D.) Eusebius wrote the first surviving history of the Christian Church, based on earlier sources, from the period of the Apostles to his own time.  In Ecclesiastical History 3.25, he also gave an early list of Christian writings divided according to their reception amongst various Christian communities.  Eusebius here classifies Christian Scripture according to three basic categories: writings accepted universally by orthodox Christians (homologoumena), writings disputed by Christians (antilegomena), and heretical writings. Within his discussion of the antilegomena, he added a subgroup which he labels certain writings as spurious (notha), meaning the works were of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin.  This quality of being labeled spurious/ notha, however, did not discredit works as Scripture.  Two examples of this include the Letter to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse of John (Revelation), of which he said;

“And the fourteen letters of Paul are obvious and plain, yet it is not right to ignore that some dispute the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it was rejected by the church of Rome as not being by Paul and I will expound at the proper time what was said about it by our predecessors.  Nor have I received his so-called Acts (of Paul) among undisputed books.” (Ecclesiastical History 3:3:5)

“Of the writings of John, in addition to the gospel, the first of the epistles has ben accepted without controversy by ancients and moderns alike but the other two are disputed and as to the Apocalypse there have been many advocates of either opinion up to the present.”  (Ecclesiastical History 3:24:17-18).

There were also works that would not make it into the place of modern Biblical canon that were, nonetheless, considered Scripture by early Christians and used liturgically.  The antilegomena were widely read in the Early Church and included the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, the Book of Revelation, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache.  There was disagreement in the Early Church on whether or not the respective texts deserved canonical status. One example of these disputed works is the Shepherd of Hermas, as Eusebius describes below;

“But since the same Apostle (Paul) in the salutations at the end of Romans has mentioned among others Hermas [Romans 16:14], whose, they say, is the Book of the Shepherd, it should be known that this also is rejected by some and for their sake should not be placed among accepted books but by others it has been judged most valuable, especially those who need elementary instruction. For this reason we know that it has been used in public in churches, and I have found it quoted by some of the most ancient writers.” (Ecclesiastical History 3:3:6)

Below is the complete list given by Eusebius of the works considered Scripture by ancient Christians divided into their respective categories given there overall acceptance.

Source:

• Chesnut, Glenn F. (1986), “Introduction”, The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius
• Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade. The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity:  Texts and Analysis.  Oxford University Press. 2017