Tertullian is the earliest Christian author who makes his
criterion for canonicity explicit. In his treatise De cultu feminarum,
Tertullian comments on the value of 1Enoch as a source for the cohabitation of
angels with women (1.3). He is aware that the Jews do not accept 1Enoch as
scripture, which has led some Christians to doubt the document’s worth. Tertullian
even provides a supposition for why the Jews have rejected it: Enoch lived before
the flood,
and so anything he wrote would have presumably perished in the deluge. Tertullian
himself rejects all this reasoning.
Sed cum Enoch eadem scriptura etiam de Domino praedicarit, a nobis
quidem nihil omnino reiciendum est, quod pertineat ad nos. Et legimus omnem
scripturam aedificationi habilem diuinitus inspirari.
But since Enoch in the same scripture preached also concerning the
Lord, what pertains to us is most definitely not to be rejected by us. And we
read, “all scripture suitable for edification is divinely inspired.”
The Vulgate of 2 Timothy 3:16 reads omnis scriptura diuinitus inspirate
et utilis (“all scripture is divinely inspired and suitable […]”).
Tertullian relies here on a rather loose paraphrase of the verse. The standard
derived therefrom is rather broad, and it is unclear how Tertullian actually
implemented it. Both the criterion and the rendering of 2 Timothy seem specially
designed for his argument here. Despite this idiosyncratic formulation, we can
include Tertullian broadly with those who adhere to the ‘ecclesiastical’ criterion
[of canonicity]. (Edmon L. Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical
Theology: Canon, Language, Text [Supplements to Vigilae Christianae 114;
Leiden: Brill, 2012], 20-21, comment in square brackets added for clarification)
