Sophia Scriptura

Festal Letter 39 (the canon of Scripture), Greek passage

Epistula festalis 39 · Ἑορταστικὴ ἐπιστολὴ λθʹ

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Contents

Only the Greek passage that survives (the list of Old and New Testament books and the books read to catechumens) is staged.

  1. 1In his Easter letter of 367 Athanasius lists the twenty-two books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven of the New as the canon, names other books to be read by catechumens, and rejects the apocrypha as heretical inventions.

About this work

Author
Athanasius of Alexandria
Attribution
authentic · Athanasius's thirty-ninth Festal Letter (Easter 367). Only the canon passage survives in Greek (preserved in the Greek tradition and the canonists); the whole letter survives in Syriac and, in part, Coptic.
Standing
Honoured by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. Honoured as a saint or in a church calendar by: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant.
Date
367 (Easter letter) (probable) · Festal letters were written each year for Easter; the 39th is dated to AD 367.
Written at
Alexandria, Egypt (approximate)
Addressed to
Marcellinus
Language
Greek
Genre
letter
Reference system
one section (the Greek canon passage); the Syriac and Coptic parts of the letter are not on this site
SBL abbreviation
Ep. fest. 39Not yet checked
Clavis
CPG 2102 (not yet checked)
Text from
J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca 26 (Paris: Migne, 1857), cols. 1436-1440, reprinting the Benedictine edition of B. de Montfaucon (Paris, 1698) (Printed edition in the public domain; OCR transcription (archive.org) of public-domain page images)
Critical editions
Louis-Théophile Lefort, ed., S. Athanase: Lettres festales et pastorales en copte, CSCO 150-151 (Louvain, 1955) (cited, not reproduced)