Biblical canon

====Latin Fathers====
The first Council that accepted the present Catholic canon (the [[Canon of Trent]] of 1546) may have been the [[Synod of Hippo|Synod of Hippo Regius]], held in North Africa in 393. A brief summary of the acts was read at and accepted by the [[Council of Carthage (397)]] and also the [[Council of Carthage (419)]].{{sfnp|McDonald|Sanders|2002|loc=Appendix D-2, Note 19|ps=. "Revelation was added later in 419 at the subsequent synod of Carthage."}} These Councils took place under the authority of [[Augustine of Hippo]] (354–430), who regarded the canon as already closed.<ref>{{harvp|Ferguson|2002|p=320}}; {{cite book |author-first=F. F. |author-last=Bruce |title=The Canon of Scripture |publisher=Intervarsity Press |year=1988 |page=230 }}; cf. Augustine. ''De Civitate Dei''. 22.8.</ref>

[[Augustine of Hippo]] declared without qualification that one is to "prefer those that are received by all Catholic Churches to those which some of them do not receive" (On Christian Doctrines 2.12). In the same passage, Augustine asserted that these dissenting churches should be outweighed by the opinions of "the more numerous and weightier churches", which would include Eastern Churches, the prestige of which Augustine stated moved him to include the [[Book of Hebrews]] among the canonical writings, though he had reservation about its authorship.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ntgreek.org/SeminaryPapers/ChurchHistory/Criteria%20for%20Development%20of%20the%20NT%20Canon%20in%20First%20Four%20Centuries.pdf |title=Corey Keating, The Criteria Used for Developing the New Testament Canon.}}</ref>

[[Philip Schaff]] says that "the council of Hippo in 393, and the third (according to another reckoning the sixth) council of Carthage in 397, under the influence of Augustine, who attended both, fixed the catholic canon of the Holy Scriptures, including the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, ... This decision of the transmarine church however, was subject to ratification; and the concurrence of the [[Roman see]] it received when [[Innocent I]] and [[Gelasius I]] (414 AD) repeated the same index of biblical books. This canon remained undisturbed till the sixteenth century, and was sanctioned by the [[council of Trent]] at its fourth session."<ref name="Schaff">{{citation |title=History of the Christian Church |chapter=Chapter IX. Theological Controversies, and Development of the Ecumenical Orthodoxy |author-first=Philip |author-last=Schaff |publisher=CCEL |chapter-url=http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/3_ch09.htm}}</ref> According to Lee Martin McDonald, the [[Book of Revelation|Revelation]] was added to the list in 419.{{sfnp|McDonald|Sanders|2002|loc=Appendix D-2, Note 19|ps=. "Revelation was added later in 419 at the subsequent synod of Carthage."}} These councils were convened under the influence of [[Augustine of Hippo]], who regarded the canon as already closed.<ref name="Ferguson, Everett">Ferguson, Everett. "Factors leading to the Selection and Closure of the New Testament Canon", in ''The Canon Debate'', eds. L. M. McDonald & J. A. Sanders (Hendrickson, 2002) p. 320</ref><ref>F. F. Bruce, ''The Canon of Scripture'' (Intervarsity Press, 1988) p. 230</ref><ref>cf. Augustine, ''De Civitate Dei'' 22.8.</ref>

[[Pope Damasus I]]'s [[Council of Rome]] in 382 (if the ''[[Decretum Gelasianum|Decretum]]'' is correctly associated with it) issued a biblical canon identical to that mentioned above.<ref name="Lindberg 2006 15" /> Likewise, Damasus' commissioning of the Latin [[Vulgate]] edition of the Bible, {{circa}} 383, proved instrumental in the fixation of the canon in the West.{{sfnp|Bruce|1988|p= 225}}

In a letter ({{circa}} 405) to [[Exuperius|Exsuperius of Toulouse]], a Gallic bishop, [[Pope Innocent I]] mentioned the sacred books that were already received in the canon.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bible-researcher.com/innocent.html |title=Innocent I |publisher=Bible Research |access-date=21 May 2016}}</ref> When bishops and Councils spoke on the matter of the Biblican canon, however, they were not defining something new, but instead "were ratifying what had already become the mind of the Church".{{sfnp|Ferguson|2002|pp=319–320}} Thus from the 4th century there existed unanimity in the [[Western Christianity|West]] concerning the New Testament canon as it is today,{{sfnp|Bruce|1988|p= 215}} with the exception of the [[Book of Revelation]]. In the 5th century the [[Eastern Christianity|East]] too, with a few exceptions, came to accept the Book of Revelation and thus came into harmony on the matter of the New Testament canon.<ref>{{harvp|Ackroyd|Evans|1970|p=305}}; cf. {{cite book |author-last=Reid |author-first=George |title=Catholic Encyclopedia |publisher=Robert Appleton Company |year=1908 |chapter=Canon of the New Testament |chapter-url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm}}</ref>

As the canon crystallised, non-canonical texts fell into relative disfavour and neglect.<ref>{{cite book |author-last1=Rohmann |author-first1=Dirk |title=Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity: Studies in Text Transmission |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ie7CDAAAQBAJ |series=Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte |volume=135 |publisher=[[Walter de Gruyter]] GmbH & Co KG |date=2016 |isbn=9783110485554 |access-date=11 April 2018 |quote=Prudentius [348–{{circa}} 410] ... intends to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity and was likely aware that at this time the Bible has not replaced other books as much as he wants to think. This passage also presents a possible hint that old Latin translations were replaced with a new canonical version, perhaps alluding to the Vulgate, written by Jerome at the end of the fourth century. By implication, this suggests that uncanonical texts were unlikely to be transcribed—an ideologically and authoritatively endorsed selection process that comes close to modern understandings of censorship.}}</ref>