Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria by Chuck Collins

wrote a letter to his congregation dated January 7, 367 AD in which he included the first recorded complete list of the 27 books of the New Testament. In the next several decades the church canonized this list at the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397). The primary purpose of the bishop’s letter was not to establish the Canon of Scripture, but rather he wrote specifically to announce the date for Easter that year. The church didn't confer on the Bible its special authority, it "recognized" in these particular books God's uniquely inspired word. The term “sola scriptura” for the 16th century reformers meant that the Bible is the norm of faith and living by which every other norm is judged (including papal pronouncements, church councils, creeds & confessions, human reason, and experience). The Bible is not the product of the church, or one small part of church teaching (“If the church wrote it, it can rewrite it”). No! It is not like the “puddles of men’s traditions,” as Archbishop Cranmer said in the first Homily, but rather “food for the soul.” The books identified by Athanasius were recognized as God’s revelation that contain all things necessary to salvation “so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation” (Articles of Religion, VI). Athanasius’ regard for Holy Scripture was apparent in his 367 AD letter: “These are fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words that they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let him take anything from these.”