New Evangelizers Post: Why Only the Four Gospels?

                     

I have a new article up at NewEvangelizers.com.  

There are literally dozens of Gospels that were floating around the ancient world. We are all familiar with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, But there are also many other Gospels like the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and so on.

Why do we only accept Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the Canonical Gospels?

The Canonical Gospels are the officially accepted Gospels. They are called Canonical because the word “canon” means “an official list or approved collection of written works.” This is because these are the ones that are accepted as officially inspired, as concluded in the 4th Century.

These Gospels met the criteria of St. Athanasius who said that they had to be Apostolic, Catholic, and liturgical.

Apostolic means that it had to be attributed to an Apostle (or to an apostolic tradition). In ancient days, many believed that Matthew and John were written by members of the 12. Mark was thought to be the secretary to St. Peter. And Luke was known to be a companion of St. Paul. And while the non-Canonical Gospels bear the names of Apostles, their connection was always taken as dubious.

Catholic means that it had to be something in the universal Church, and not just in a small geographical region. A number of the other Gospels were found only in a very small community and not accepted by the entire Church. In fact, within only a few decades of them being written, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were all accepted as authentic. The other non-Canonical Gospels were not.

Liturgical means that it had to have been incorporated in the worship of the Christian communities. Just as we do now, we read from the Gospels at our Eucharistic celebrations. And the only ones that were always accepted to be a part of this were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The Non-Canonical Gospels are the ones that are not in the officially accepted list of inspired books. These are divided into the categories of the Gnostic Gospels, which express different versions of the Gnostic heresy, and the rest are called the apocryphal Gospels. The Gnostic Gospels were written by the Gnostic heretics in order to give legitimacy to their heresy by putting their theology into the mouth of Christ. But these were written much later than the original Gospels. The apocryphal Gospels may not be part of this heretical group, but they lack to criteria set out by Athanasius.

So what makes us think that the Four Gospels are authentic historically?

You can read the whole article here.