used by the church. According to Toland, Whiston, Semler, Baur,
and others, the word had originally the sense of _list_ or _catalogue_ of
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.(2) The "canon of
the church" in the Clementine homilies;(3) the "ecclesiastical canon,"(4)
and "the canon of the truth," in Clement and Irenaeus;(5) the "canon" of
the faith in Polycrates,(6) the _regula fidei_ of Tertullian,(7) and the
_libri regulares_ of Origen,(8) imply a _normative principle_. But we
cannot assent to Credner's view of the Greek word for _canon_ being an
abbreviation of "Scriptures of canon,"(9) equivalent to _Scripturae legis_
in Diocletian's Act(10)--a view too artificial, and unsanctioned by usage.

It is true that the word _canon_ was employed by Greek writers in the
sense of a mere _list_; but when it was transferred to the Scripture
books, it included the idea of a regulative and normal power--a list of
books forming a rule or law, because the newly-formed Catholic Church
required a standard of appeal in opposition to the Gnostics with their
arbitrary use of sacred writings. There is a lack of evidence on behalf of
its use before the books of the New Testament had been paralleled with
those of the Old in authority and inspiration.

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 "canon."(11) The word itself
is certainly in Amphilochius,(12) as well as in Jerome,(13) and
Rufinus.(14) As the Latin translation of Origen has _canonicus_ and
_canonizatus_, we infer that he used "canonical,"(15) opposed as it is to
_apocryphus_ or _secretus_. The first occurrence of "canonical" is in the
fifty-ninth canon of the Council of Laodicea, where it is contrasted with
two other Greek words.(16) "_Canonized_ books,"(17) is first used in
Athanasius's 39th festal epistle. The kind of rule w