What is the original Canon of scirpture and how was it created?

Answer 1

Who Wrote the Bible and When was it Written?

The Bible was not written by one person or all at one time. It is a collection of books composed by different authors at different periods of time for different historical purposes. The books of the Old Testament may have first been written down as complete books beginning around the time of King David, approximately 1000 BC, with the last books written around 150 BC. Parts of the Old Testament are certainly much older, and unquestionably the oral tradition behind the most important parts of the Old Testament is far older, such as the stories of Abraham and Moses. Even after these books were written they probably did not take final form for quite a long while. People continued to add to them and rearrange the contents since the books were not considered Holy Scripture, but simply historical writings, collections of sacred songs (psalms), etc. For example, David is traditionally considered to be the author of the psalms. He probably wrote many psalms, but it is certain that he did not write all of them, because many psalms refer to historical events after the time of David. So after David’s death, people continued to add to the collection of psalms. This was considered perfectly appropriate at the time, because the Jews did not think of the psalms as part of sacred Scripture at that time.
In the case of the New Testament all, or nearly all, of the books were written during the apostolic age, between approximately AD 50 and 100. They were written by apostles or people closely connected to the apostles. Some of the books are anonymous and knowledge of their apostolic authorship has come down to us from tradition. All of our New Testament books were written very, very early in the life of the Church when people were still alive who were eyewitnesses to the events described.

The Scriptural “Library”

Originally the Bible did not exist as a single volume but was more like a library of books. As books were written, as was described above, they were added to this “library” collection. People did not call these books “the Bible” but “the Scriptures”, (literally, “writings”). Each book of Scripture was written independently of the others, circulated and hand-copied (as all books were) separately and independently of the other books. Furthermore, in the beginning not every Christian community (nor Jewish community) had the exact same books in its collection, and in the beginning no books were considered holy or sacred. In addition to the books that now comprise our Bible, other religious books were written, read, copied and circulated. Over a period of time some of these books acquired elevated status because people regarded them highly and began to think of them as Sacred or Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture is different from other ordinary writing because it is recognized by the worshipping community as God-inspired and authoritative.
The Jews, and later the Christians, realized that not all of these religious books in their collections were genuine or equal in merit or value. But which of these many religious books should be recognized as Holy Scripture? What books should form the “canon of Scripture”?

The Canon of Scripture is Formed

The word kanon in Greek (“canon”) originally meant a reed or measuring stick. It came to mean the applicable standard for measurement. We also use the word “canon” to refer to a rule or a type of law that guides the Church. What are the standards (“canons”) for fasting? What are the standards (“canons”) for ordaining men to the priesthood?, etc. “Canon” also means a list of books recognized as authoritative Scripture because when deciding which books should be considered Scripture, the Church applied certain standards. Furthermore, Scripture contains the standards for our Faith. Therefore, the “canon of Scripture” is the list of books that constitutes the collection that we call “the Bible.”
The canon of Scripture comprises the books which can be read in Church and none others. Many books were written that were never added to the list, thus never becoming part of the Bible. How did we end up with our current collection, the “canon” of Scripture, and when did this take place? Who decided?

The Old Testament

In the case of the Old Testament, the Church inherited these Scriptures from the Jews. We never had to determine a canon of Old Testament Scriptures because the first apostles were Jews and used the existing Jewish collection of Scriptures. The Christians not only inherited the existing canon of Jewish Scriptures, but they inherited a translation of those Scriptures in the Greek language. Long before Christ was born, around the year 250 B.C., Greek-speaking Jews had translated their Scriptures into Greek. This was necessary because Alexander the Great’s conquests, some 75 years earlier, had spread the Greek language and culture throughout the world. Large communities of Jews living outside Palestine no longer knew Hebrew but instead only spoke and read Greek. Greek-speaking Jews translated their Scriptures for use in their communities and this translation is called the “Septuagint.” It is abbreviated “LXX” for the Roman numeral 70 because a legend arose that 70 scholars translated it in 70 days because a king ordered it for the great Library of Alexandria. It is probable that a copy was placed in the Library of Alexandria but it is unlikely that the translation occurred because of such an order. More likely, the translation was done because a need existed among millions of Greek-speaking Jews. The Septuagint continues to be the Old Testament that we use in Church for our Old Testament readings today.

The New Testament

The Church did not have to determine a canon of the Old Testament since it was already using the Septuagint, the Jewish Scriptures in the Greek language. But for Christian writings, it was a different matter. All, or nearly all, of the books of our New Testament existed before the year AD 100 and were written by apostles or people who knew the apostles. None of these writings were considered Scripture at the time they were composed. At first, no one imagined that Christians would have any Scriptures other than the Jewish Scriptures. Although the earliest Christians knew the apostolic writings, “Scripture” for them still meant Jewish Scriptures only. Apostolic teachings were passed along orally and the early Christians believed that oral tradition was superior to writing because one always knew and could judge the trustworthiness of the source of oral information. Since books were copied by hand, one could never be certain that what a book contained was what the original author had written, or if it was even written by that person at all. Because books were hand-copied, it was very easy change what the original author had composed. But after a period of time, around the year A.D. 200, Christians began to think of the apostolic writings as “Scripture” equal to the Jewish Scriptures. It is around this time that the terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” arise, to distinguish Christian Scripture from Jewish Scripture. Now Christians began to use the apostolic writings as authoritative, trustworthy, and definitive expressions of Christian teaching.

Additional Christian Writings and Apocryphal Writings Appear

Christian writings continued to be composed and were read and copied in the second and third centuries and beyond. Some writings were genuine, such as letters from Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, written around A.D. 110. But as apostolic writings gained importance and status in the Church, counterfeit writings also appeared. These writings claimed to have been written by apostles or others who knew Christ, but they were fraudulent creations. We call these counterfeit books “apocrypha.” They continued to multiply during the second and third centuries. Countless false Gospels, Acts, Epistles and Apocalypses exist, such as the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Nicodemus, the Acts of Peter and Paul, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, the Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans, and the Apocalypse of Peter, and many, many others. Apocrypha were often produced by heretical groups who wanted to promote their false doctrines, such as teaching that Christ was not really human (Docetism), or that Christ taught secret knowledge necessary for salvation to a few disciples which he hid from others (Gnosticism). Other apocryphal books were written by people who invented stories about the childhood of Jesus to feed the curiosity of people about the “missing” years of his life. The Fathers of the Church, the saints, theologians and writers of the ancient Church, consistently warn Christians not to read these false books and stories. Among the apocrypha is the protoevangelion of James, which contains some details about the life of the Theotokos that the Church has acknowledged are true. Nonetheless, the book itself is apocryphal. It was not written by James, it is not genuine, authoritative or inspired and much of it, if not most of it, is false. It never appeared on any canonical list as a genuine apostolic book and was never accepted by any Father of the Church as genuine. Whatever true information it contained has already been incorporated by the Church into its liturgical life and there is no need to read it. Christians should read the canonical Scriptures only. This is the advice given by all of the Fathers.

**** “Apocrypha” was the designation for any book rejected from the canon of Scripture. Please note that if you have a Bible that states that it contains “apocrypha or deuterocanonicals” I am not referring to those books.
Those are Old Testament books which Protestants rejected, removed from the Old Testament, and called them “apocrypha.” However, those books were read and accepted in the early Church. Any books which you find in a Bible are Scripture, perfectly acceptable to read and do not constitute apocrypha by Orthodox standards. Orthodox Christians do not call those Old Testament books “apocrypha.” Apocrypha which Christians should never read are Christian or pseudo-Christian writings outside the Bible that claim to be apostolic but are not. These books were rejected by the early Church as counterfeit and false.

When did the Church Establish the New Testament Canon?

Once Christians began to think of Christian writings as Scripture in their own right, with the same authority as the Jewish Scriptures, a debate began as to which books should be included in the canon of Christian Scripture. Basically little or no debate took place over the gospels. All four canonical gospels were accepted. Although a small group of Christians wanted to reject the gospel of John, it was never seriously debated. Also accepted without any debate were the epistles of Paul, 1 John and 1 Peter. The other books, however were hotly debated. Discussion about which books should be in the canon of Scripture began around the year AD 200 and continued for over 200 years, even longer for the Book of Revelation. Different bishops, Fathers, and local churches had different “canons”, i.e., lists of Scripture, and expressed their opinion about which books should be considered Scripture.
Some lists included books which, in the end, did not find their way into our New Testament canon, such as the letters of Ignatius or the Epistle of Barnabas. But on the other hand, some bishops, local churches and even Fathers of the Church rejected books that we now include as part of our New Testament, such as Hebrews or Revelation.
In the end, no single council, no single bishop, no single Father of the Church decided which books would be included in the New Testament. It was a decision the Church reached by consensus over a long period of time, inspired, no doubt, by the Holy Spirit.
St. Athanasius the Great, the bishop of Alexandria, was the first person to list as his preferred canon the exact same books we now have in our New Testament. He published his canon in the year 376. But his opinion did not settle the issue definitively. His opinion was only one among many bishops expressing their opinions on this issue. Books written by early Fathers, such as the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch are perfectly acceptable to read. These are not apocrypha because these early Fathers were writing in their own names and not falsifying their identity as the apocrypha do.

What Factors did the Church Use When Deciding the New Testament Canon?

What factors did the Church use when deciding whether a book should be in the canon? We can identify three main factors that the Fathers of the Church, Church councils and other Christian writers used in expressing their opinions about which books should be in the New Testament: Antiquity, Apostolicity and Orthodoxy. Another way to understand these criteria is that the writings had to be Apostolic in Time, Apostolic in Authorship and Apostolic in Content.


1. Antiquity – Apostolic in Time - The book under consideration had to have been in existence from the first decades of Christianity. All or nearly all of our New Testament books date from before the year 100. The requirement of antiquity was closely tied to the second factor, apostolicity. Since all books were hand-copied, how did the Church know which books were ancient and genuine? First, Christians knew which books had been read and used since apostolic times and which books were more recent creations. Secondly, we have other Christian books that were composed in the early and mid-second century. These second century books quote from our New Testament books. If the second century books quote from the New Testament books, this means that our New Testament books pre-date the Christian books of the second century. By contrast, none of the apocrypha is quoted by second century Christian authors. This means that the apocrypha did not pre-date the second century writings. The apocrypha did not exist in the first century and thus they are not ancient. Therefore they certainly cannot be apostolic. To us, living nearly two thousand years later, “antiquity” seems a relative term. But to Christians at the end of the second century, apostolic writings were already recognized as old or “ancient”, in the same way that we would look back on the life and writings of Abraham Lincoln as something from long ago.

2. Apostolicity – Apostolic in Authorship - All or nearly all of our New Testament books were written by apostles or by people closely connected to the apostles. Apostolicity was an important factor because the apostles were witnesses to the resurrection of Christ and to all of the other things the Lord said and did. Testimony in a court of law is provided only by those who are actual witnesses to events because such testimony is presumed to be more reliable. People who wrote the apocrypha tried to gain acceptance of their works by fraudulently attributing the authorship of their writings to apostles and others who knew the Lord. They also include names, stories and sayings which sound familiar. Christians should not be duped into thinking that any apostles – James, Peter, Thomas, Nicodemus, Mary, etc. - were the actual authors of apocrypha. The real authors knew that no one would read their writings if the true authorship was known, but they knew they could fool people into reading their writings by claiming apostolic authorship. This is why these works falsely bear the names of apostles.

3. Orthodoxy of Doctrine – Apostolic in Content - Contrary to the genuine New Testament Scriptures, apocrypha present fairy tales and false teachings (heresy) about the Lord. Some apocrypha present Jesus as a young boy making mischief by destroying property, magically bringing toys to life, injuring and even killing young playmates who anger him. Such stories contradict what we know about the Lord –especially His holiness and love. They also contradict the canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) which indicate clearly that Jesus seemed to be an ordinary boy, that he was obedient to Mary and Joseph and that he performed no miracles until he began his public ministry. His amazing eloquence and astonishing powers were a complete surprise to those in his village who knew him as a boy (See Mk 6:2-3).

Other apocrypha are even worse. They present Jesus as one of many “aeons” (spiritual beings or demi-gods from heaven) who came down to reveal secret heavenly wisdom. These apocrypha were primarily written to promote the heresy of “Gnosticism,” which was the greatest threat to orthodoxy in the early Church. The epistles of Paul hint at this growing threat and by the time of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110) it was a serious problem. (See Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Smyrnaeans.)
Gnostics taught that there is not one God but many gods or aeons, which together create the “fullness of divinity.” Jesus and Christ are two distinct aeons among many. Jesus was not really human, but only seemed to be human. (This is a heresy called “Docetism.”) Gnostics taught that God did not create the world and that Jesus did not really suffer and die. Instead, he came from heaven to teach secret knowledge (gnosis) to an elite group of disciples about how to reach heaven. Gnostics taught that the death and resurrection of Christ were imaginary and that living a virtuous life was unimportant.
One’s salvation depended not upon Christ Himself, even less upon the conduct of one’s own life, but on acquiring this secret knowledge, something akin to knowing the “secret password” or other mysteries of a secret society. Gnostics believed that ordinary Christians did not have this knowledge and could not hope to be saved. At its heart, Gnosticism denies God’s love for the world and His desire that all people be saved. The term “apocrypha” in fact comes from the use of these counterfeit writings by Gnostics. The word apocrypha means ‘hidden.” The Gnostics claimed that the Lord had secret teachings which He hid from most people but which could be found in their “hidden” writings.

What Does All of This Mean About the Bible and the Church?

1. The Bible is the Scripture of the Church and can only be properly interpreted within the context of the life and Tradition of the Church. The Church decided what should comprise the canon of Scripture. Thus, the Bible is not “above” the Church. It does not dictate to the Church. Rather, it expresses the Holy Tradition of the Church in written form. The Bible is the book of the Church. The Bible does not stand alongside Tradition. It is Apostolic Tradition in written form.


2. The books in our New Testament are trustworthy. They come from the earliest decades of the Church. They preserve witness and apostolic testimony about Christ, His life and His teachings. Hence, they can be used authoritatively for Church doctrine and instruction. They can be read in Church. No other writings can be read during Church services with the exception of lives of saints on the feast day of that particular saint.


3. Apocrypha should never be read by Christians. They are forgeries. Their content is unreliable, and often heretical. They contain no secrets from the Lord or anything else Christians need to know. They dishonor Christ and the apostles by attributing to them words they never spoke and actions they never took. Orthodox Christians who read the apocrypha dishonor the Lord and the Apostles. Reading the apocrypha lends credibility to what are in fact deliberate forgeries, exactly what the writers of the apocrypha hoped to accomplish. We also waste time reading writings that are not spiritually profitable, and in fact could be harmful. By reading apocrypha we also dishonor all those Christians who over so many generations took pains to copy by hand, preserve and protect the canonical Scriptures, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. There is so much to learn about the Bible, so much inspiration and illumination to be found within it. Let us follow the command of the Lord who said, “Search the Scriptures.”

Answer 2

The Original Canon of WHICH Scripture -- Jewish or Christian? The Jewish Canon was closed in approx. 90 A.D:

"In 1871 C.E., H. Graetz concluded that the Hebrew canon was finally closed only with the Mishna, which he dated 189 C.E. He also thought that only the penultimate action related to the closing of the canon occurred at what he termed the "Synod of Jamnia." Other scholars rejected this late canonization and suggested that the canonization took place at Jamnia. F. Buhl (1892:24l = Leiman 1976:20), with reservations, popularized this view and, with time, it was advanced in terms of absolute certainty. So, Pfeiffer (1941:64) related, "the Council at Jamnia (ca. A. D. 90), under the leadership of Johanan ben Zakki, fixed for all times the canon of scripture."

The Catholic Canon of the NT was closed between 382-397 AD.

Question: If Protestants call us Catholics "wrong" on the books of the Old Testament (claiming that we added books to it), why do they agree with us on what is included in the NT? After all -- it was the Catholic Church that determined which 27 books were canonical. They disagree about the OT but find us correct with the NT because they use the same NT!

And if even the Fundamentalist Bible-believin' Christians state emphatically that the NT is "infallible" (incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals ), how could a so-called fallible church (The Catholic Church) have ever produced an infallible product? The Catholic Church, then, MUST be infallible.

Answer 3

Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_canon

Answer 4

The canon is all the books of the Bible and it was decided at the Council of Hippo around 1600 years ago.

Answer 5

Canon means measuring stick. The church used certain guidelines to accept a book as part of the Bible.

Answer 6

As far back as the Jewish captivity in Babylon, the faithful selected specific writings for public reading. Before widespread literacy and the printing press, religious teachings were imparted through public readings. The books that seemed to best represent the beliefs of the community were read publicly, and attained a greater status in the community. This practice continued well into the Christian era.

Christian communities adopted several books that were incompatible with mainstream Judaism. Around 90 AD the Jews met in Jamnia to select an official list of holy books. Their criteria was designed to exclude the books that were specifically Christian.

In the first few centuries of the Christian era, each Church had its own collection of sacred Scriptures. All Churches included the Jewish Septuagint, which was a translation of the Old Testament into Greek. That much was undisputed. Of the New Testament, some Churches had this book or that book. This did not cause controversy in the Church, because back then the books that were publicly in Christian communities were those that best represented the beliefs of the Church. In other words, the Bible did not dictate the beliefs of the Church - the beliefs of the Church dictated which books were read out loud or incorporated into the liturgy.

In the early 4th century, the Emperor Constantine (who was still a pagan at the time), developed a program to encourage the growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire. As part of the deal, he offered to print 50 brand new books for each of the Churches of the Roman Empire. He left the bishops of all the Churches to decide which books they wanted to include in the final copies. Rather than hashing out which books were best suited for inclusion, the bishops agreed to include every book that was read in every Church inclusive. This included all of the books of the modern Bible, along with the so-called 'Apocrypha.' And then, for good measure, several copies were printed with additional books that were not read in any Church, such as the letters of Ignatius of Antioch and the Shepherd of Hermas. The only book of the modern Bible that was not included was the book of Revelation, because it was not read publicly in any Church. Scholars believe that at least two of these original fifty 'bibles' are still in existence, and form the basis of most modern translations of the Bible, as well as the Seputagint still used in Orthodox Churches today.

A few decades after the printing of these Bibles, the Church of Carthage convened a local council to decide on an official list of books for the Church in Carthage. They adopted the same list of books, except that they dropped the Apocryopha (but the council still referred to some Apocryphal books as 'Scripture').

A couple of hundred years later, the Churches in western Europe encountered a problem, because the 'official' Bibles were in Greek, but most inhabitants of western Europe had adopted Latin. Several different Latin versions were floating around, and only the book of Psalms was standard in all the Churches. The pope comissioned a monk named Jerome to produce an official Bible in the 'vulgar' (or 'common') dialect of Latin. Jerome moved to Jerusalem and started work. He used the standardized version of the Latin Psalms, the Greek New Testament, and translated the remainder of the Old Testament from the Hebrew version used by the Jews at that time. The Jews rejected the Apocrypha, and Jerome followed suit. However, under orders from the Pope, Jerome translated the Apocrypha from Greek into Latin and included them at the end of his volume. He also removed several chapters from the Greek Old Testament where they were not found in the Hebrew and turned them into additional Apocryphal books. Jerome's version was known as the Vulgate, and became the standard volume used in western Europe (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church).

About one hundred years later, the Byzantine Empire convened the sixth Ecumenical Council, and bishops from all over the former Roman Empire met to look over the laws that had been written in earlier councils. Their purpose was to ratify any local Church laws and apply them to all Churches. Among the councils that they ratified was the Council of Carthage that had adopted a fomal version of the Bible. This was the first time that any official list of books had been adopted by an Ecumenical Council. Church laws were called 'Canons,' so the law regarding the list of books was called the 'Canon of Scripture.'

In the west, the Vulgate of Jerome was officially adopted as the 'Bible' at the Council of Trent in the 16th century. It included the Apocrypha.

In Orthodox Churches, the Canon varies. Orthodox Churches usually include the Apocrypha, along with a few books that are not in the Roman Catholic canon. Among the Greeks, the Apocrypha is regarded as a 'secondary canon' that is useful for study, but not inspired. Slavic Orthodox Churches generally regard the Apocrypha as a part of Scripture. Slavic Churches also include an extra book that is not found in an other canon.

In 1611, the King James Bible was produced. It was the first English translation in western Europe that was made from the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, rather than the Latin Vulgate. The went with Jerome's original plan, and separated the Apocrypha into its own section following the Old Testament. In 1769 the seventh edition of the King James Version was printed, and the Apocrypha was removed altogether and placed in a separate volume.

Today there are three different kinds of Bibles in English. Protestant Bibles do not include any Apocryphal books. Roman Catholic Bibles include the Apocrypha in a revised form. Ecumenical Bibles are meant for members of any denomination, and include all of the books accepted by the Slavic Orthodox Churches (the largest canon).

In addition to these, the Ethipoian Church includes several more books in their canon, as does the Aramaic Peshita (the version used by Syrian and Nestorian Churches).

Answer 7

Canon of the Mass (Latin: Canon Missæ, Canon Actionis) is the name used in the Roman Missal of the Tridentine period for the part of the Mass that began after the Sanctus with the words Te igitur. The Rubricae generales Missalis, XII, 6, stating: "After the Preface the Canon of the Mass begins inaudibly", confirmed this starting point. From there until the end of the Mass, each page of the Missal was headed "Canon Missae". However, some considered that it ended with the doxology before the Pater Noster (... omnis honor et gloria, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.). As support for this opinion, they cited the Ritus servandus in celebratione Missae, which, after the two sections, "VIII - Of the Canon of the Mass to the Consecration" and "IX - Of the Canon from the Consecration to the Lord's Prayer", headed the next section: "X - Of the Lord's Prayer and other parts to completion of the Communion". Others held that the Canon of the Mass included the Lord's Prayer with its introduction (Praeceptis salutaribus ...) and its embolism (Libera nos ...), but not the later parts of the Mass.

The present Roman Missal of 2002 (Mass of Paul VI) uses the term "Roman Canon" of the first of its four Eucharist Prayers, and leaves no doubt about the extent of the Eucharistic Prayer or Anaphora part of the Mass, placing the words "Eucharistic Prayer" before the dialogue that precedes the Preface, and putting the new heading "Rite of Communion" before the introduction to the Lord's Prayer.

Little is known of the liturgical formulas of the Church of Rome before the second century. In the "First Apology" of Justin Martyr (circa 165) an early outline of the liturgy is found, including a celebration of the Eucharist (thanksgiving) with an Anaphora, with the final Amen, that was of what would now be classified as Eastern type and that was celebrated in Greek.

Latin's use as a liturgical language seems to have occurred first in Africa (the Roman province corresponding approximately to present-day Tunisia, where knowledge of Greek was not as widespread as in Rome. On the basis of the uncertain attribution to him of a treatise found among the writings of Saint Cyprian, it is sometimes said that Pope Victor I (190-202) may have been the first Pope to write in Latin. A further supposition leads some to say he was the first Pope to use Latin in the liturgy. The burial inscriptions of the Popes suggest that the change of language for the papal Mass was somewhat later: the inscriptions begin to be in Latin with that of Cornelius (d. 253). But Latin may have been used in the liturgy for some groups in Rome earlier than that, just as, to judge from a quotation in Greek from a Roman oratio oblationis of 360, other groups will have continued to use Greek even later in that cosmopolitan city. (See volume I, page 65 of the original text of Josef Jungmann's work that has been translated into English as "The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development".)
Some of the prayers of the present Roman Canon can be traced to the Eastern Liturgy of St. James. Several of the prayers were in use before 400 in almost exactly their present form. Others (the Communicantes, the Hanc igitur, and the post-consecration Memento etiam and Nobis quoque) were added during the following century (see Jungmann, page 71, and Hermanus A. P. Schmidt, Introduction in Liturgiam Occidentalem, page 352). After the time of Pope Gregory I (590-604), who made at least one change in the text, the Canon remained largely unchanged in Rome. Not so elsewhere. The 11th-century Missal of Robert of Jumieges, Archbishop of Canterbury, interpolates the names of Saint Gertrude, Saint Gregory, Saint Ethraelda and other English saints in the Communicantes. And several Medieval French Missals contained the names of Saint Martin and Saint Hilary.

Pope Pius V's imposition of his 1570 edition of the Roman Missal restrained any tendency to alter the text of the Canon. Although other parts of the Missal were modified from time to time, the Canon remained quite unchanged from then until Pope John XXIII's insertion of a mention of Saint Joseph immediately after that of the Virgin Mary.

GO TO:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_of_the_Mass

Answer 8

Inspiration from God to those few few people close enough to God that God felt were worthy and deserving to write down His words.