Athanasius’s Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter
Athanasius lists the 27-book New Testament in his Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter
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An Easter letter that closed a list
Writing for Easter 367 and circulating from Alexandria, Bishop Athanasius used his Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter to identify a closed collection of accepted Old and New Testament writings.
His New Testament list runs: the four Gospels, Acts, seven Catholic Epistles, fourteen Pauline Epistles — Hebrews counted among them — and Revelation. Those are precisely the 27 books of the later generally accepted New Testament.
He said that no books should be added to or removed from the collection, using the language of books included in the canon and accredited as divine.
Three tiers of reading
Alongside the canon Athanasius set a second, separate category. He recommended Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, the Teaching of the Apostles and the Shepherd for instruction without placing them in the canon.
The reason he gave was practical rather than doctrinal. He said he feared that less-informed Christians would be misled into reading similarly named apocryphal books.
He accused apocryphal and heretical authors of giving newly composed books ancient names in order to mislead readers who could not tell the difference.
What “first” can be claimed
The letter is the earliest extant Christian document listing exactly those 27 books. It was not the first Christian list of scriptural writings of any kind, and the claim only holds with that qualification.
It survives in pieces: part in Greek, with further portions preserved through Coptic and Syriac witnesses. The year 367 and the association with that Easter letter are secure; a precise dispatch day is less so.
This was a bishop’s annual Easter letter rather than a council decree, and it did not instantly legislate a universal canon for every Christian community.
Sources
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What the sources leave uncertain
- The year 367 and association with that year’s Easter letter are secure; a precise dispatch day is less securely established.
- Only part of the letter survives in Greek; other portions are preserved through Coptic and Syriac witnesses.
- “First listing of the New Testament” is defensible only when qualified as the earliest extant list matching the later 27-book collection exactly.
- The letter’s authority and reception should be understood primarily in its fourth-century Egyptian setting, not as an ecumenical council’s decree.