Muratorian Fragment

A Dictionary of Early Christian Biography

Muratorian Fragment , a very ancient list of the books of N.T. first pub. in 1740 by Muratori ( Ant. Ital. Med. Aev. iii. 851) and found in a 7th or 8th cent. MS. in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. The MS. had come from the Irish monastery of Bobbio, and the fragment seems to have been a copy of a loose leaf or two of a lost volume. It is defective in the beginning, and breaks off in the middle of a sentence, and the mutilation must have taken place in the archetype of our present copy. This copy was made by an illiterate and careless scribe, and is full of blunders; but is of the greatest value as the earliest-known list of N.T. books recognized by the church. A reference to the episcopate of Pius at Rome ("nuperrime temporibus nostris") is usually taken to prove that the document cannot be later than c. 180, some 20 years after Pius's death (see infra ). This precludes Muratori's own conjecture as to authorship, viz. that it was by Caius the presbyter, c. 196; and Bunsen's conjecture that Hegesippus wrote it has nothing to recommend it. It is generally agreed that it was written in Rome. Though in Latin, it bears marks of translation from the Greek, though Hesse ( Das. Mur. Frag. , Giessen, 1873) and others maintain the originality of the Latin.

The first line of the fragment evidently concludes its notice of St. Mark's Gospel; for it proceeds to speak of St. Luke's as in the 3rd place St. John's in the 4th. A notice of St. Matthew's and St. Mark's must have come before but we have no means of knowing whether the O.T. books preceded that notice. The document appears to have dealt with the choice of topics in the Gospels and the point where each began (cf. Iren. iii. 11). It is stated that St. Luke (and apparently St. Mark also) had not seen our Lord in the flesh. For its story as to the composition of St. John's Gospel see LEUCIUS. The document goes on to say that by one and the same sovereign Spirit the same fundamental doctrines are fully taught in all concerning our Lord's birth life passion resurrection and future coming. At the date of this document therefore belief was fully established in the pre-eminence of the four Gospels and in their divine inspiration. Next comes the Acts St. Luke being credited with purposing to record only what fell under his own notice thus omitting the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul's journey to Spain. Thirteen epistles of St. Paul are then mentioned. (a) epistles to churches in the order: I. and II. Cor. Eph. Phil. Col. Gal. I. and II. Thess. Rom. It is observed that St. Paul addressed (like St. John) only seven churches by name shewing that he addressed the universal church. (b) Epistles to individuals: Philemon Titus and two to Timothy written from personal affection but hallowed by the Catholic church for the ordering of ecclesiastical discipline. Next follow words which we quote from Westcott's trans.: "Moreover there is in circulation an epistle to the Laodiceans and another to the Alexandrians forged under the name of Paul bearing on

Westcott has shewn that no argument can be built upon the omissions (Ep. of James, both Epp. of Peter, and Hebrews) of our fragment, since it shews so many blunders of transcription, and some breaks in the sense. Certainly I. Peter held, at the earliest date claimed for the fragment, such a position in the Roman church that entire silence in respect to it seems incredible. Of disquisitions on our fragment we may name Credner, N. T. Kanon , Volkmar's ed. 141 seq. 341 seq.; Routh, Rell. Sac. i. 394; Tregelles, Canon Muratorianus  ; Hesse, op. cit.  ; Westcott, N. T. Canon , 208 seq. 514 seq.; and esp. Zahn, Gesch. der N.T. Kanons , ii. 1 (1890), pp. 1–143; also Lietzman's Das Mur Frag. (Bonn, 1908), besides countless arts. in journals, e.g. Harnack, in Text und Unters. (1900); Overbeck, Zur Geschichte des Kanons (1880); Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift (1881), p. 129. Hilgenfeld ( Kanon , p. 44), and Bötticher (De Lagarde) in Bunsen's Hippolytus i. 2nd ed. Christianity and Mankind , attempted its re-translation into Greek; an ed., with notes and facsimile by S. P. Tregelles, is pub, by the Clar. Press. The present writer expressed in 1874 ( Hermathena i.) an opinion which he now holds with more confidence that the fragment was written in the episcopate of Zephyrinus. The words "temporibus nostris" must not be too severely pressed. We have no evidence that the writer was as careful and accurate as Eusebius, who yet speaks (iii. 28, cf. v. 27) of a period 50 or 60 years before he was writing as his own time. There are also indications from the history of the varying position held by the Shepherd that the publication of our fragment may have been between Tertullian's two tracts de Oratione and de Pudicitia (see D. C. B. 4-vol. ed. s.v. ); and if it be true that Montanism only became active in the Roman church in the episcopate of Zephyrinus, the date of the Muratorian document is settled, for it is clearly anti-Montanist. If we regard it as written in the episcopate of Zephyrinus, Muratori's conjecture that Caius wrote it becomes possible; and we know from Eusebius that the disputation of Caius with Proclus, written at that period, contained, in opposition to Montanist revelations, a list of the books reverenced by the Catholic church.

[G.S.]

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

also spoken of as Canon Of Muratori is a treatise on Biblical MSS. of great importance to the history of the N.T. canon. It is believed to have been composed shortly after the production of the Shepherd of Hermas (q.v.), and therefore belongs to the second half of the 2d century. It is important, first, because of its remote antiquity, and also as an evidence as to what writings passed for canonical in the Catholic Church of that time. It enumerates as such the Gospel of Luke (as the third, the two others being presupposed), the Gospel of John, the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Pauline epistles, a letter of Jude, two epistles of John, the Apocalypses of John and Peter, the latter, however, with contradiction asserted. The Epistles of Jacob (James) and Peter are therein omitted, also the one to the Hebrews. The epistles to the Laodicaeans and Alexandrians are rejected. The fragment was noticed by Muratori in his Antiq. Ital. medii cevi, 3:854, and has been reprinted in the Introductions to the N.T. of Eichhorn and Guericke, also by Kirchhofer and Credner. An exhaustive treatise on the subject, with the original text, and a translation of it into Greek, by Hilgenfeld, is found in the Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, 1872, page 560. See also Gieseler. in Studien u. Kritiken, 1847 and 1856; Hesse, Das Muratorische Fragment untersucht u. erklart (Giessen, 1873); Westcott, Canon of N.T. (2d ed.), page 184 sq.; Bapt. Quar. April 1868, page 282; Amer. Pres. Rev. January 1869, page 100.