For my write-up today on The Cambridge History of Christianity: Origins to Constantine, I'll highlight what Harry Gamble says on pages 212-213 about the formation of the New Testament.
"By
the end of the second century the church at large held as its common
scriptural resources, in addition to the scriptures of Judaism...the
letters of Paul and a collection of four gospels. Paul's letters were
consistently valued and used, albeit in diverse editions, from the late
first or early second century onward. The collection of four gospels,
however, seems to have emerged only after the middle of the second
century, yet it had taken hold by the early third century everywhere
except in the east, where Tatian's Diatesseron[, which sought
to harmonize the four Gospels and combine them into a single narrative]
rivalled it until the fifth century. In addition to these gospels and
Paul's letters, other documents had come into wide use, including Acts, I
Peter, and I John, all of which were widely acknowledged and used in
the third century. Other documents that were known and used, but
enjoyed no similar consensus, included 2 Peter, Jude, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, 1 Clement and the Apocalypse of Peter.
The Apocalypse of John (also known to English readers as the book of
Revelation) was early and continuously appreciated in the west but
attracted little interest in the east, whereas Hebrews was much valued
in the east but virtually unknown in the west before the fourth
century. There seems to have been only limited knowledge and hesitant
use of 2 and 3 John and of James before the fourth century. The
indeterminacy in the scope of Christian scriptures that persisted
throughout the third century began to be resolved in the fourth
century."
I do not know on what Gamble is basing his narrative
about the formation of the New Testament. Perhaps it's based on the
works (that made their way into the New Testament, that is) that
patristic writings cite, or ancient references to what writings were
used in church services. But Gamble's model of canonization describes a
bottom-up process: the church accepted for the canon the writings that
were commonly used, with some exceptions (i.e., Revelation, Jude, etc.).
Even
so-called heretics used Paul and some of the Gospels. Or, more
accurately, according to Gamble, Irenaeus in the late second century
criticized those who used a single Gospel rather than all four----as the
Ebionites used Matthew, Marcion used Luke, docetists used Mark, and
Valentinians used John (Haer. 3.11.7-9). In the first part of the third
century, however, there were manuscripts that contained multiple
Gospels, whereas second century manuscripts had single Gospels. My
impression is that the third century may have been a time when all four
Gospels attained the wide-usage that made them canonized in the fourth
century.