Muratorian Canon

MURATORIANO, CANONE. – A fragment discovered by L. A. Muratori in an eighth-century Latin codex from Bobbio, preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan (I 101 sup.), and published by him in Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi (III, Milan 1740, pp. 851–54). It contains the list of the books of the New Testament (v. BIBLIA). The missing opening lines must have discussed the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Information follows concerning Luke (called the third Gospel), John, Acts, the Epistles I–II to the Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, I–II Thessalonians, Romans, Philemon, Titus, I–II Timothy, Jude, I–II (III?) John, Revelation, and I Peter (?). The Epistle to the Hebrews, that of James, and II Peter are absent.

It permits the private reading of the Shepherd, of which it says: «Nuperrime, temporibus nostris, in Urbe Roma Herma conscripati, sedente cathedra urbis Romae Ecclesiae Pio episcopo fratre eius» (ll. 74–76). From this chronological indication it follows that the document was written toward the end of the second century A.D., probably in Rome (referred to simply as «urbe» in ll. 35–36), or in its vicinity (P. Battifol, O. Bardenhewer, R. Cornely-A. Merk, P. H. Höpfl-B. Gut). It does not follow, however, that it is an official document of the Roman Church, as A. Harnack thinks. According to many scholars (J.-B. Lightfoot, T. H. Robinson, Th. Zahn, S. Ritter, M.-J. Lagrange, etc.), its author would have been St. Rome (v.); according to others (L. A. Muratori), Gaius Romanus. Others propose Melito of Sardis (v. Bartlet), or Polycrates of Ephesus (G. Kuhn), or Clement of Alexandria (J. Chapman). C. Erbes (Die Zeit des Muratorischen Fragments, in Zeitschr. für Kirchengeschichte, 35 [1914], pp. 331–62) maintains that its author was the anti-Gnostic Rhodo (ca. 220), of whom Eusebius speaks (Hist. ecl., V. 13: PG 20, 460 ff.).

According to A. Hilgenfeld, S. P. Tregelles, Th. Zahn, M. Schanz, and A. Merk, the original language would have been Greek;