HKB
"some other John than the Apostle" he would not even honour it with a place in his second group of "disputed" books, along with Hebrews, James, Jude, and 2nd Peter.
Thus at the end of the second century, while there was still much dispute (destined indeed to continue for centuries) as to the limits of the New Testament canon, there had in fact come to be a real canonical New Testament set over against the Old, as of equal, or even greater authority. The "word of the Lord," the "commandment of the apostles," and at last even the "revelations of the prophets," had successively ceased as living realities, and become crystallized into written form. They had been codified and canonized. The church had travelled the beaten track of the synagogue, and all the more rapidly from the example set before it. None of the early canons (i. e. lists of writings permitted to be read in the churches) coincides exactly, it is true, with the New Testament current among ourselves. The list of Athanasius is the first to give just our books. The Roman list of the Muratorian fragment (185-200) omits Hebrews, James and 2nd Peter, and gives at least a partial sanction to the Apocalypse of Peter. The lists of Origen (ob. 251) and Eusebius (325) vary as respects both inclusion and exclusion. All early authorities express a doubtful judgment regarding the outer fringe of minor writings such as James, Jude, 2nd Peter, 2nd and 3rd John. Even those of larger content, such as Hebrews and Revelation, if their apostolicity was questioned, remained subjects of dispute. But already by A.D. 200 the time had long since passed when any of the thirteen epistles bearing the name of Paul could be deemed open to question. Marcion's exclusion of the three Pastorals had been forgotten. Dispute of the four-gospel canon could still be tolerated; but not for long. Irenæus (186) has no patience with "those wretched men" who cannot see that in the nature of the case there should be neither more nor less than this number. But he explicitly refers to those who disputed "that aspect of the gospel which is called John's." There were, in fact, opponents of Montanism at Rome, who under the lead of Gaius had denied the authenticity of all the writings attributed to John, including the Gospel itself. But even those of the orthodox who were willing enough to reject Revelation, with its now unfashionable eschatology, agreed that Gaius' attack upon the fourth Gospel was too radical. The small body who continued for a few generations to resist the inclusion of any of the Johannine writings in the canon remained without influence, and were ultimately forgotten. The 'catholic'[6] church had repudiated heresy, standardized the faith, and confined its recognized historic expression to a 'canon' of New Testament Scripture.
Footnote 6: Catholic is here used in its etymological sense of "general" or universal. We shall have occasion to apply the term in a more limited sense hereafter.