Clement of Alexandria who lived in the early third century placed in his deutero-canon, as having inferior authority, Hebrews, Second John, Jude, which are not in the Bible, and the Revelation of Peter but not the Revelation of John. He also included the Shepherd of Hermas, the First Epistle of Clement, the Second Epistle of Clement, and the Epistle of Barnabas (Davidson, The Canon of the Bible, p. 139), which are not in the Bible. He thus placed the Epistle to the Hebrews, Second John and Jude, which are not in the Bible, on a level with the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas, which are not in the New Testament today. He recognized no distinct canon as of supreme authority (Ibid., 116), and he did not attach our idea of "uncanonical" as opposed to "canonical" to either of the Four Gospels or to any other books of the New Testament (Ibid., 139). Let us take time to see other information concerning Clement of Alexandria which helps explain his theological positions today in his writings and which explain his deviation from the "faith of the Jewish church."
Tertullian included in his canon the Four Gospels, Acts, Epistles of Paul, First John, and Revelation (Davidson, The Canon of the Bible, p. 139). He placed in an appendix, as not authoritative, Hebrews, Jude, Second John, and First Peter (Ibid., p. 139), which are in the Bible now, and the Shepherd of Hermas, which is not; and he said nothing of James, Second Peter and Third John (Ibid., p. 139), which today are in the canon. Notice he is not in agreement with the Muratorian Canon established twenty years or more before his time. Again, every man was a "canon" unto himself.
The Peshitta, that is, the "simple" (translation). This version has had such a complex literary history that its origin has long been a matter of debate. As far back as it can be traced, it has been a Christian version, since it contains the NT as well as the OT, and the extant copies of it have come from Christian hands. Yet the OT shows such a strong Jewish influence that many scholars hold that it was, at least in part, of Jewish origin, though some explain it as of Jewish-Christian origin. It may have been produced at Edessa, though Kahle states that it came from the region of Adiabene, lying east of the Tigris, where King Isates and his mother Helena became Jewish proselytes in the 1st cent. a.d. There are passages in the OT that are little more than transliterations of western Aramaic Targums into the Syriac script. While the text agrees in the main with the Masoretic Hebrew, it seems to have been revised on the basis of the LXX. Originally this Syriac version lacked Chr, Ezr, Neh, and Est, as well as the Apocrypha, all of which were added at a later date. The most valuable Syriac manuscript is the Codex Ambrosianus from about the 6th cent., now in Milan. A manuscript of Gen, Ex, Num, and Deut, from the monastery of St. Mary Deipara in Egypt, bears a date corresponding to a.d. 464, and is thus the oldest copy of the Bible in any language bearing a definite date
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Peshitta (Syriac: "simple," or "common") is the Syriac version of the Bible, the accepted Bible of Syrian Christian churches from the end of the 3rd century AD. The name Peshitta was first employed by Moses bar Kepha in the 9th century to suggest (as does the name of the Latin Vulgate) that the text was in common use. The name also may have been employed in contradistinction to the more complex Syro-Hexaplar version. Of the vernacular versions of the Bible, the Old Testament Peshitta is second only to the Greek Septuagint in antiquity, dating from probably the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. The earliest parts in Old Syriac are thought to have been translated from Hebrew or Aramaic texts by Jewish Christians at Edessa, although the Old Testament Peshitta was later revised according to Greek textual principles. The earliest extant versions of the New Testament Peshitta date to the 5th century AD and exclude The Second Letter of Peter, The Second Letter of John, the Third Letter of John, The Letter of Jude, and The Revelation to John, which were not canonical in the Syrian church.
Davidson, The Canon of the Bible, p. 139, also attests that the Peshito, the Bible of Ancient Syriac Christians, omitted Second Peter, Second John, Third John, Jude, and Revelation, all of which are not in our Bible (Ibid., 146).
The Old Latin. The Latin rendering of the Bible probably originated in North Africa as early as a.d. 150. It is even possible that the Christians of North Africa adopted a translation of the OT from Latin-speaking Jews. Tertullian (c. a.d. 160 – c. 230) knew the Old Latin Bible at least in part, and Cyprian (c. 200–258), bishop of Carthage, quotes frequently from both Testaments of this Bible. Only fragments of the Old Latin of the OT have survived. Several of the Apochryphal books were incorporated unrevised into the Vulgate. As for the the rest of The Bible, scholars have been able to piece together manuscript fragments covering a considerable portion of the OT. These, together with quotations in the early Latin Fathers, are our sources for the reconstruction of the Old Latin text of the OT. Scholars distinguish 2 types of text: the African and the European. The Old Latin of the OT was made from the Greek LXX, and its chief value today is as an aid in recovering the text of the LXX as it was before Origen’s revision of it.
What is important for us to notice is that the Old Latin version, the Bible of the early African Church, omitted the Epistle to the Hebrews, Second Peter, and James. The Epistle to the Hebrews was added subsequently as an anonymous book (Westcott, On The Canon of the New Testament, p. 254). Again we see no unity or agreement with those who came before and their "opinions" as to what was "God-breathed."
The Abyssinian Church was a church that believed in "monophysitism." This was a Christian schismatic sect of the 5th and 6th centuries that maintained that Christ had only one (divine) nature, thereby opposing the orthodox doctrine that he was both divine and human. The Monophysites were mainly confined to the Eastern church and gained little strength in the West. At the directive of Pope Leo I, the Council of Chalcedon in 451 attempted to steer a middle course between the orthodox and Monophysite views. The resulting edict did not satisfy the Monophysites, and the controversy continued, the Monophysites being supported by the Copts and the Eutychian sect. The Eastern church, in an effort to suppress the heresy, in the first half of the 6th century excommunicated the Monophysites, who thereupon formally seceded from the parent church. The Monophysites split into two factions over controversies regarding the incorruptibility of Christ's body. After 560 a third faction, the Tritheists, arose; they interpreted the three persons of the Deity as three separate gods and hence were regarded by the other factions as heretics. In Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia the Monophysite congregations remained strong throughout the controversy. Although finally condemned in 680-81, at the sixth ecumenical council, Monophysitism continues in some churches to this day. The modern Abyssinian church, Armenian church , Coptic church , and Jacobite church are all Monophysitic bodies.
The Canon of the Abyssinian Church included at first, Enoch (of course since it taught an Angel-Messiah and not a human messiah), Fourth Esdras, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Jubilees, and Asseneth (Davidson, The Canon of the Bible, p. 206), books which are not now in the Bible and of several of which the world now never hears. The list was changed frequently, and many books were eliminated or inserted, but, generally speaking, it contained Judith, Tobit, First Maccabees, Second Maccabees, Wisdom of Jesus, Wisdom of Solomon, and even a book called the Apocalypse of Isaiah (Davidson, The Canon of the Bible, p. 206), none of which are not in our Bible.
The Bibles of upper and lower Egypt are called "Coptic" as in the Coptic New Testaments. Of some 5 known Coptic versions, the most important are the Sahidic and the Bohairic.
(1) The Sahidic.
This version is the older version and was used in Southern (Upper) Egypt. It was formerly designated Thebaic, after the city of Thebes. Only fragments of this version are extant, but these fragments are of sufficient quantity to reconstruct the major part of the NT. The earliest manuscripts originate from the 4th cent. a.d..
(2) The Bohairic.
This version was current in Northern (Lower) Egypt and eventually replaced the other dialects. It is the Coptic used to this day in the church services, and the complete NT has been preserved in it. Both the Sahidic and Bohairic versions of the NT contain principally an Alexandrian (again we find the Alexandrian influence) type of text, similar to a text such as is found in the Codex Vaticanus.
The two canonical lists of upper and lower Egypt, called the Thebaic version, or version of Thebes, and the Memphitic version, or the version of Memphis, omitted Revelation (Westcott, On The Canon Of The New Testament, p. 266).
Origen (250 A.D.) included in his Old Testament list the Epistles of Jeremiah, First Maccabees, and Second Maccabees, which are not in our Bible, and he makes no mention of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, which are in our Bible (Euseb., Eccl. History, vi. 25). The omission of these twelve books is very singular, and Rufinus' Latin version (400 A.D.) kindly inserts them. Even if they were omitted by mistake, the error shows how careless and indifferent the Fathers were in stating what books were in the Bible. Origin did not formulate a consecutive list of the New Testament books, but passages gathered here and there from his works indicate what his opinion was (Ibid., 261). He apparently divided the New Testament books into three classes, authentic, unauthentic, and uncertain. The first included the Four Gospels, Acts, fourteen Epistles of Paul, First Peter, First John, and the Revelation of John. The second included the Shepherd of Hermas, thought he was rather inclined to place it in a higher class, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Acts of Paul, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel ;of the Egyptians, and the Preaching of Peter (Davidson, The Canon of the Bible, p. 146). The third class included the Epistles of James, Jude, Second Peter, Second John, and Third John (Davidson, The Canon of the Bible, p. 146), all of which are in the Bible today.
As you can see again over the next one hundred years there was little unity or agreement on "what" was the Word of God among the early Church. Now, let us continue.