d priest-vicars, are appointed by the
dean and chapter. Their function is mainly to sing the service, and they
are selected therefore mainly for their voices and musical
qualifications. They may hold a benefice, if it lies within 6 m. of the
cathedral.

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 "[Greek: kanon] of the church"
in the Clementine homilies,[2] the "ecclesiastical [Greek: kanon]"[3]
and the "[Greek: kanon] of the truth" in Clement and Irenaeus,[4] the
[Greek: kanon] 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 [Greek: kanon] as an abbreviation of
[Greek: grachai kanonos], 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 [Greek: kanon]. 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 [Greek: kanonikos], opposed as it
is to _apocryphus_ or