Historians of ancient Christianity derive a certain satisfaction from the fact that Athanasius of Alexandria, the fervent architect of Nicene Christianity, should also be the first known ecclesiastical authority to “list precisely the twenty-seven books that eventually formed the generally accepted canon of the New Testament.” This intersection of canon and creed abets the notion that Christianity matured and solidified in the latter half of the fourth century; henceforth heresy and extracanonical reading would together constitute evidence of theological backsliding, or, worse, deliberate and malicious distortion of an agreed-upon truth. If Eusebius at the beginning of the fourth century is frustratingly vague on what is and is not “canonical,” his reticence from within a period of dogmatic flux is understandable. In contrast, Athanasius toward the century's end is reassuringly firm, scripturally and doctrinally. From Easter of 367 onward, according to such a narrative, heresy and apocrypha would become coterminous, and a messy chapter of Christian history could be closed.
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