The Rule of Faith and the Formation of the New Testament Canon

Tomas Bokedal

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Chapter 4 The Rule of Faith and the Formation of the New Testament Canon

In: The New Testament Canon in Contemporary Research

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Tomas Bokedal

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Pages:: 77–110

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004751071_006

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Abstract

This essay argues that the processes of composing, editing, and stabilizing the New Testament emerged in a setting where the early Rule of Faith pattern, or regula fidei, made a discernible impact upon the text(s). This took place by close mutual connection between the editorial nomina sacra practice and the regula fidei through shared vocabulary and textuality, arguably including numerological links with the Tetragrammaton (numeric values aligned with YHWH being either 26 or 17). Typical regula fidei phrasings (e.g., Irenaeus, Haer. 1.10.1; Epid. 6), such as God the Father, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Holy Spirit, and Father–Son–Spirit, are linked to nomina sacra configurations in the Scriptures. In many cases, they appear to be numerologically based on the Name through word-frequency patterns (e.g., multiples of 17 and 26).

1 Regula Fidei as Canon Criterion

In his classic monograph on the New Testament canon, Bruce Metzger addresses the relationship between the canon and the Rule of Faith. As he writes,

A basic prerequisite for canonicity was conformity to what was called the ‘rule of faith’ (ὁ κανὼν τῆς πίστεως, regula fidei), that is, the congruity of a given document with the basic Christian tradition recognized as normative by the Church. Just as under the Old Testament the message of a prophet was to be tested not merely by the success of the predictions but by the agreement of the substance of the prophecy with the fundamentals of Israel’s religion, so also under the New Covenant it is clear that writings which came with any claim to be authoritative were judged by the nature of their content.¹

We find examples of this emphasis on sound doctrine and content as early as the Muratorian Canon (ca. 200 CE) which speaks unfavorably of writings that have “gall mixed with honey.”² Other patristic literature follows suit. In response to “docetic” teaching,³ Serapion of Antioch (ca. 200 CE) appears to exclude the Gospel of Peter from the recognized New Testament texts. Similarly, Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 185 CE) describes the Gospel of Judas as “fictitious history,” characterizing it as incompatible with accepted Christian teaching (Haer. 1.31.1). Eusebius of Caesarea, early in the fourth century, makes further use of what we could call the canonical criterion of orthodoxy when he characterizes writings such as the gospels of Peter, of Thomas, and of Matthias as “fictions of heretics” and as “altogether worthless and impious” (ἄτοπα πάντη καὶ δυσσεβῆ; Hist. eccl. 3.25.6–7).⁴

2 Linking the Scriptures to the Regula Fidei: Narrative, Name Theology, Divine Acts

On the positive side, Irenaeus seems to closely relate the core teaching of the four canonical Gospels with the Rule of Faith, or the synonymous Rule of Truth (regula veritatis)—equating Scripture with the regula fidei/veritatis.⁵ When presenting the four evangelists and their written accounts, Irenaeus summarizes their teaching in the Gospels by referring to a brief formulation of the Rule of Faith/Truth: “These have all declared to us that there is one God, Creator of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophets; and one Christ, the Son of God” (Haer. 3.1.2).⁶ As part of the Christian Rule, Irenaeus does something similar here to what Paul does in 1 Cor 8:6, namely, reciting a Christological version of the Jewish confession in the one God. What Irenaeus seems to be asserting is that the Rule of Faith, here taking the form of a binitarian Shema, is closely related, or even equivalent to, the basic theology and narrative of the written Gospel. Expressing the fundamentals of Christian religion, the Rule is closely linked to the four Gospels and the Scriptures as a whole and may be written in short form (e.g., Epid. 6) and may even make up the core or outline of a complete work (e.g., Irenaeus’s catechetical work Epideixis 1–100). Thus, in Paul Blower’s wording, when Irenaeus (or Tertullian) defends the church against the Gnostics, the Rule of Faith is identified with Scripture’s own intrinsic storyline “in order to avoid the Gnostics’ double-talk, their propagating of one myth on the philosophical level while still trying, on another level, to communicate it with pieces of scriptural narrative.”⁷ To Blowers, this close relationship between Scripture and regula—where regula is identified with the scriptural storyline—can be noted historically while remaining relevant for the present church: “Far from being imposed on Scripture from without, the regula fidei bears out the true dramatic narrative of Scripture within the church universal, which is its ever contemporary context.”⁸

The mutual relationship between the Rule of Faith and the Christian Scriptures has been further described by Karlmann Beyschlag as “two sides of one and the same norm.”⁹ In like fashion, Johannes Kunze comments on the enduring relation between the two: There never was any Rule without the Scriptures.¹⁰ And, as Kurt Aland has proposed, the regula fidei was the framework within which the canonical process took place, and might be regarded as the totality of Christian faith.¹¹

Before providing a working definition of the notion of a “Rule of Faith pattern,” we shall take note of two further scholarly depictions of the Rule and its narrative and theological features. First, Robert Wall explains that the Rule is “… narrative in shape, trinitarian in substance, and relates the essential beliefs of Christianity together by the grammar of Christological monotheism.”¹² Second, Bengt Hägglund points to structural-narratival similarities between the regula fidei and Christian Scripture. On Irenaeus’s use of the Rule of Faith/Truth, Hägglund concludes that the regula is not so much a summary of the teaching, but rather the events to which sacred Scripture provides the authentic testimony. He writes, “God’s acts from creation until the foundation of the church through the apostles, as well as the acts of the future, belonging to the same history, the restoration of all creation, and the last judgment.”¹³ We may conclude that the key revelatory acts testified to in Scripture and the essential beliefs of Christianity pertaining to the Triune God are at the core of these renderings of the regula fidei. Complementing other early canon criteria, potential inclusion of a writing in a canonical sub-unit can thus be judged based also on this regula fidei configuration of God’s acts, and God’s Triune identity. Even so, the primary canon criterion appealed to in the early church is still apostolicity (in the broad sense), as may be indirectly sensed in Eusebius’s combination of criteria noted above (see his phrasing “fictions of heretics,” Hist. eccl. 3.25.7).

3 The Rule of Faith Pattern in Irenaeus’s Against Heresies

Addressing the Triune God’s acts in salvation history, Irenaeus presents the Rule of Faith/Truth in the following way in Haer. 1.10.1: The church, though spread throughout the whole world, … received (παραλαμβάνειν) from the apostles and their disciples the faith (πίστις) in (A) one God the Father Almighty, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; and in (B) one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in (C) the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the economies (οἰκονομία), and the coming, and the birth from the Virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord in the flesh into the heavens, and his coming (again) from the heavens in the glory of the Father to recapitulate all things and to raise up all flesh of the whole human race (Haer. 1.10.1).

As preparation for the discussion below in which we shall seek to link the textuality template provided by the regula fidei with the formation of canonical sub-units, I offer the following seven observations related to the Rule of Faith pattern based on Irenaeus’s account.¹⁴

The pattern involves close linking of the regula fidei to scriptural reading and interpretation. In Haer. 1.8.1–10.1, the Rule of Faith is treated as part of a hermeneutical discussion on reading the Scriptures in agreement with their order (τάξις) and sequence (εἱρμός), i.e., in line with their inner-biblical arrangement.
The pattern connects with, and is traced back to, the apostolic period (“received from the apostles and their disciples”; Haer. 1.10.1). This may be observed most clearly through its association with apostolic Scripture (3.1.1) and its treatment of the institution of baptism—the Rule of Truth “received through baptism” (1.9.4).
The pattern tends to focus on the divine Name. We find, for example, an appeal to Jewish and Christian monotheistic belief. There is often a focus on the characteristic binitarian Christian shaping of the Heis Theos-profession and the Shema as found in 1 Cor 8:4–6: “one God the Father,” “one Christ Jesus our Lord”; and a Triune organization of the faith: “God the Father, … Christ Jesus the Son of God, … the Holy Spirit” (cf. Matt 28:19).
The pattern uses traditional Christ-creed material such as the coming and the birth from the Virgin, the passion, the resurrection, the ascension, and the second coming.
The pattern typically incorporates a reference to the Jewish Scriptures—“according to the prophets/Scriptures” (Haer. 1.10.1; 3.1.2; Epid. 6; 1 Cor 15:3–4).
The pattern demonstrates flexibility, but also fixity, in regard to phrasing and by inclusion of one or more elements of a wider range of confessional elements, resulting in one-membered (e.g., 1 Cor 15:3–4), two-membered (Haer. 3.1.2; 1 Cor 8:4–6), and three-membered (Haer. 1.10.1; Epid. 6; cf. Matt 28:19) confessions.
The pattern parallels and shares the vocabulary and textuality of the so-called nomina sacra word-group (here in small caps), most likely marked off in Irenaeus’s Scriptures and used in his own writings. This was a common textual pattern for Christian Scripture (where the nomina sacra are highlighted) and the Rule of Faith (the key vocabulary of which is made up of key nomina sacra).

4 The Nomina Sacra as “Embryonic Creeds”

In Christian Greek biblical manuscripts, the so-called nomina sacra (“sacred names”; hereafter NS), or nomina divina (“divine names,” the core group of NS), are usually graphically highlighted by contraction, first and last letters, and use of a horizontal overbar, and are thus easily visible. The purpose of this design may have been to instill respect and special reverence for the words and what they signify. In majuscule manuscripts of the New Testament, the Greek name for Jesus, ΙΗϹΟΥϹ, is usually written as Ι̅Ϲ̅ in the nominative case (with an open Greek sigma) and those for God, Lord, Christ, and Spirit as Θ̅Ϲ̅, Κ̅Ϲ̅, Χ̅Ϲ̅ and Π̅Ν̅Α̅. Some manuscripts add further emphases. The British papyrologist Colin Roberts famously proposed that this peculiarly designed scribal-editorial system of NS, “may be plausibly viewed as the creation of the primitive Christian community, representing what might be regarded as the embryonic creed of the first Church … the belief … common to all Christians.”¹⁵ Perhaps there are implications here for the way the text of modern Bibles ought to appear, and for how the textual-creedal NS pattern and the creedal regula fidei pattern may be visibly or otherwise linked to one another. The following nine NS were commonly used in P46, P66 and elsewhere at the time when Irenaeus authored his literary works, in which he himself and/or his scribe also made use of NS demarcations:¹⁶ God, Father, Lord, Jesus, Christ, Son, man/human being, cross/crucify, and Spirit.¹⁷

Building on our preliminary description, I shall now outline, in four parallel steps (1–4 below), how the editorial-scribal system of NS (cf. point 7 above) may be said to endorse key features of the Rule of Faith pattern (points 1–7 in the preceding section).

An evaluation of early witnesses reveals a vocabulary and structural overlap between a selection of the most important words in Christian Scripture, highlighted as NS, and key (Greek) words in standard regula fidei phrasings: God, Father, Lord, Jesus, Christ, Son, man/human being, cross/crucify, and Spirit.¹⁸
The NS practice is commonly dated to the apostolic and sub-apostolic periods (corresponding to point 2 in the previous unit), with this editorial practice originating no later than the late first century.¹⁹
The core group of five NS (God, Lord, Jesus, Christ and Spirit), supplied by two additional NS (Father and Son), is made up of the key words found in Matt 28:19 where reference is made to baptism in the name of the Father, the Son and the Spirit, (cf. Did. 7.1, 3; Gal 4:6; Ign. Magn. 13.1) and 1 Cor 8:4–6 where reference is made to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The Rule of Faith, too, may be associated with these biblical passages (see point 3 above). In Codex Sinaiticus, we find that the core group of five NS is highlighted in over 95 percent of the occurrences of these words. We may further note—in terms of creedal emphasis—that together with the core group of five NS, the words Father and Son are highlighted in golden letters in the sixth-century manuscript Codex Purpureus Petropolitanus.²⁰ All seven of these terms, present also in P46, P66 and P75, are specially highlighted as key NS and constitute the core element of standard Rule of Faith formulas.
Occurrences in the biblical writings of traditional Triune and Christological creedal material, made up of terms from the NS word-group (corresponding to points 3, 4 and 6 above), tend to occur as multiples of the numerical values associated with the divine Name ‮יהוה‬‎—the Tetragrammaton—namely 26 (yod [10]+he [5]+waw [6]+he [5]= 26) and 17.²¹

In further exploration of the final point, we shall now consider some examples of NS word frequencies, occurring mainly as 17- and 26-multiples in the Epistle to the Romans, the broader Pauline corpus (including Hebrews, in line with the manuscript tradition), and elsewhere in the biblical literature, with particular focus on the New Testament.²²

5 NS Frequencies Occurring as 17- and 26-Multiples in the New Testament Canon and Beyond

Occurrences of potentially significant NS/nomina divina (“sacred/divine Names”) or combinations of NS/nomina divina—e.g., God and Father, God and Son, and other narrative-Christological-Triune NS configurations in line with the Rule of Faith pattern outlined above—may have been deliberately linked to the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton by means of word frequencies, or word-frequency patterns (multiples of 17 or 26). The below figures—based on THGNT, LXXR, LXXG, and BHS, unless indicated otherwise—embrace a range of canonical sub-units and indicate that such arithmetical linking to the Name may have been pursued (in addition to 17- and 26-multiples, I will in some cases note also multiples of the numerals 15 (the numerical value of the short form of the Tetragrammaton, ‮יה‬‎ = 15), 39 (the numerical value of ‮אֶחָד‬‎ ‮יהוה‬‎, “God is one” = 39), 22/27 (the Hebrew “alphabetical fullness” numbers) and 24 (the Hellenistic Greek “alphabetical fullness” number; cf. Rev 1:8; see further section 8 below)).²³

ὄνομα (which is not per se a nomen sacrum) appears in the Pauline corpus 26 times (hereafter abbreviated “×”), and in Luke 34× [2 × 17].
θεός appears in Romans 153× [9 × 17= 3 × 3×17], 34× in 1–2 Timothy [2 × 17], 68× in Hebrews [4 × 17], 52× in Matthew [2 × 26], and 289× in Luke-Acts (NA28) [17 × 17]. Corresponding figures for LXXG: 26× in Esther (O-text), 34× in Hosea [2 × 17], 17× in Jonah. ὁ θεός (nominative singular) further appears 26× in Romans and 78× in the Praxapostolos (Acts+Catholic Epistles) [3 × 26]. In LXXR it appears 208× in Deuteronomy [8 × 26], 17× in Esther, and 182× in the Major Prophets (Isa+Jer+Bar+Eze) [7 × 26]. In the Hebrew Bible ‮יהוה‬‎, “YHWH,” appears 1820× in the whole of the Pentateuch [70 × 26], 153× in 2 Samuel [9 × 17], 26× in Jonah, 34× in Zephaniah [2 × 17], and 17× in Nehemiah. ‮אֱלֹהִים‬‎, “God; god, deity,” appears 2600× in the entire Masoretic Text [10 × 10 × 26].
κύριος (singular forms; NA28) appears in Matthew 78× [3 × 26], Luke 102× [6 × 17], John 52× [2 × 26], Acts 104× [4 × 26], the twenty-seven-book New Testament 702× [27 × 26]; ὁ κύριος, moreover, appears 26× in Matthew, 17× in John, 78× in the Synoptic Gospels [3 × 26], 68× in Acts [4 × 17], 17× in 1–2 Timothy, and 351× in the entire New Testament [13 × 27= 3 × 3×39] (corresponding figure in TF35 is 364× [14 × 26]); ὁ κύριος (nominative singular; THGNT) appears 17× in Matthew and 26× in Luke. κυρίου, further, appears in the four Gospels 51× [3 × 17], 1–2 Thessalonians 26×, the Catholic Epistles 26×; and τοῦ κυρίου 78× [3 × 26] in Pauline corpus, and 17× in the Catholic Epistles.
πνεῦμα appears 34× in Romans [2 × 17], 17× in 2 Corinthians, 78× in the Synoptic Gospels [3 × 26], and 102× in the four Gospels [6 × 17]; πνεῦμα ἅγιον occurs 17× in Acts. In the Hebrew Bible ‮רוּחַ‬‎, “Spirit; spirit; wind,” appears 51× in Isaiah [3 × 17] and 52× in Ezekiel [2 × 26].
ἄνθρωπος appears 136× in Pauline corpus [8 × 17]. Corresponding figures in LXXR include the following: 34× in 1–2 Samuel [2 × 17], 26× in 2 Kings, 17× in Esther, 234× in the Historical Books [9 × 26], 390× in the Poetical Books (excluding Odes of Solomon and Psalms of Solomon) [15 × 26= 10 × 39], 85× in the whole of Jeremiah-Baruch-Lamentations [5 × 17]. Finally, in the Hebrew Bible: the unpointed ‮אדם‬‎ appears 34× in the Former Prophets [2 × 17], 26× in 1–2 Chronicles, and 221× in the Writings [13 × 17].

In addition to the above 17- and 26-multiples linked to NS frequencies in various canonical sub-units—with potential numerical reference to the Tetragrammaton—we shall now note, as well, configurations that include combinations of NS (or letter combinations linked to NS) in one and the same verse, or alternative text units (NB: division of the Jewish Scriptures into verses was known already by the rabbis, whereas in the New Testament verses were introduced by Robertus Stephanus in the sixteenth century).²⁴ This mode of NS combination searches will be complemented by another form of search in Accordance, namely simple addition of NS, such as occurrences of two or more words in specified canonical sub-units, such as θεός+Χριστός+πνεῦμα in Luke (170 total occurrences of the three terms in THGNT [10 × 17]) and Acts (260 total occurrences of the three terms in THGNT [10 × 26]).

5.1 NS Configurations Involving ὄνομα

5.2 Triune NS Configurations²⁵

5.3 Dyadic/Christological NS Configurations

5.4 NS Configurations Involving θεός, κύριος and οὐρανός

5.5 NS Configurations Involving Χριστός and Ἰησοῦς

5.6 NS Configurations Involving πνεῦμα

5.7 Christ-Creed and Creed-Related Configurations

5.8 NS Configurations Involving ἄνθρωπος

Two observations may be made regarding the possible relevance of these findings. On the one hand, it may be observed that the probability of 17- and 26-multiples to occur in these NS configurations—given that we are here dealing with randomly occurring word configurations, without involvement of intentional design—is approximately nine percent in each case, i.e., less than one in ten, for a probability of one in a hundred. On the other hand, if these figures have been deliberately designed, so as to link frequencies of NS/nomina divina, or NS/Christ-creed configurations, numerologically with the divine name (below, exclusively through 17- and 26-multiples), the following canonical sub-units may be said to have been arithmetically connected to the Christological or Triune Rule of Faith pattern outlined in the present chapter (points 1–64 above):

New Testament (involving twenty-nine canonical sub-units): Romans (points 2, 4, and 14 above), 1 Corinthians (points 23, 25, and 38), 2 Corinthians (points 4, 15, and 22), 1–2 Corinthians (points 6, 15, 22, 33, 36, and 37), Ephesians (points 29, 32, and 36), Philippians (points 6 and 32), 1 Thessalonians (points 14, 32, and 33), 2 Thessalonians (point 29), 1–2 Thessalonians (points 3, 19, 22, and 23), 2 Timothy (points 15, 33, and 34), 1–2 Timothy (points 2, 3, 14, 32, and 36), Hebrews (points 2, 13, 20, 27, and 33), Pauline corpus (points 1, 3, 5–7, 13, 16–17, 20–22, 26–27, 38, 43, 46, 52–53, 58, and 60–61), Matthew (points 2, 3, 29, and 35), Mark (point 27), Luke (points 1, 3, 5–6, 14, 29), Synoptic Gospels (points 3, 4, 9, 18, 27, 29, 37, 40, 42–43, and 62–63), John (points 3, 21, and 41), four Gospels (points 3, 4, 8, 13, 23, 29, 35, 37, 44, and 50), Acts (points 3–6, 14, 27, and 38), Luke-Acts (points 2, 6, 9, 26, 35, 37, 41, 44, and 59), Gospels+Acts (points 9, 16, 19, 25, 27, 41, 47, and 60), James (point 9), 2 Peter (point 33), 1–2 Peter (point 32), 1–3 John (point 20), Catholic Epistles (points 3 and 9), Praxapostolos (points 2, 9–10, 26, and 36), Revelation (point 18), the twenty-seven-book New Testament (points 3, 6, 11–13, 15, 17–18, 21–24, 28, 30–36, 39, 41–45, 48–49, 51, 54–57, 59, 62, and 64).

Several of the above texts being associated with numerical figures (17- and 26-multiples)—arguably aligning the New Testament text kerygmatically-credally to the divine Name—can be found in some late subcollectional layers, in particular Pauline corpus and the twenty-seven-book New Testament, but also 1–2 Corinthians, Hebrews, the Synoptic Gospels, the four Gospels, Acts, Luke-Acts, and Gospels+Acts.

Hebrew Bible (involving twelve canonical sub-units): Pentateuch (point 2 above), 2 Samuel (points 2 and 25), Former Prophets (point 5), Isaiah (point 4), Ezekiel (point 4), Jonah (point 2), Zephaniah (point 2), Latter Prophets (points 25 and 62), Nehemiah (point 2), 1–2 Chronicles (point 5), the Writings (point 5), twenty-four-book Masoretic Text (points 2 and 26)
LXX (involving sixteen canonical sub-units): Exodus (point 9 above), Deuteronomy (point 2), Pentateuch (points 25–26), 1 Samuel (point 32), 1–2 Samuel (point 5), 2 Kings (point 5), 1–2 Chronicles (point 9), Historical Books (point 5), Esther (points 2 and 5), Sirach (point 9), Poetic Books (point 5), Hosea (point 2), Jonah (point 2), Zechariah (point 9), Jeremiah+Baruch+Lamentations (point 5), Major Prophets (point 2).

6 NS Word-Group Patterns in Irenaeus: Connecting Regula Fidei and Scripture

Irenaeus’s employment of NS arguably includes at least the following eight terms: God, Father, Son, Jesus, Christ, Lord, Man, and Spirit.³³ If we infer from this that his NS usage is comparable to that in other contemporary manuscripts, such as the Ignatian Letters,³⁴ P46 (Pauline Epistles) and P66 (John’s Gospel), his rendering of the Rule at the outset of Epideixis may have thus had the following NS highlighted (seventeen English words below from the NS word-group in small caps):³⁵

And this is the drawing-up of our faith, the foundation of the building, and the consolidation of a way of life:

God, the Father, uncreated, beyond grasp, invisible, one God the maker of all; this is the first and foremost article of our faith.
But the second article is the Word of God, the Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, who was shown forth by the prophets … and through Him were made all things whatsoever. He also, in the end of times, for the recapitulation of all things, is become a Man among Men, visible and tangible, in order to abolish death and bring to light life, and bring about the communion of God and Man.
And the third article is the Holy Spirit, through whom the prophets prophesied and the patriarchs were taught about God and the just were led in the path of justice, and who in the end of times has been poured forth in a new manner upon humanity over all the earth renewing Man to God (Epid. 6).³⁶

We may here notice that each of Irenaeus’s pairing/grouping of terms from the NS word-group (Epid. 6 and Haer. 1.10.1) are among the arithmetically highlighted ones listed above—numerically associated with the Tetragrammaton (section 5, point 26 (θεός ⟨and⟩ πατήρ), point 28 (θεός ⟨and⟩ λόγος), point 21 (υἱός ⟨and⟩ θεός), points 33 and 34 (Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ Χριστός; ιησ* ⟨and⟩ χρι*), point 24 (Χριστός Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ κύριος), point 36 (κύριος ⟨and⟩ Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ Χριστός), point 32 (Χριστός ⟨and⟩ κύριος), point 63 (ἄνθρωπος ⟨and⟩ ἄνθρωπος), point 62 (θεός ⟨and⟩ ἄνθρωπος), and point 38 (πνεῦμα ⟨and⟩ ἅγιος)). These numerologically highlighted word combinations—appearing as 17- and 26-multiples in the biblical text—are representative of the Rule of Faith pattern and characteristic of both typical regula fidei formularies and key scriptural NS configurations (here including λόγος and ἅγιος).

To place Irenaeus’s early third-century catechetical work Epideixis (which contains traditional early second-century material) in its broader context, we may further compare the Triune structure of Irenaeus’s regula fidei with two passages from the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus, where the NS are highlighted, just as they are in Codex Sinaiticus and the great majority of the codices making up the Greek New Testament manuscript tradition.

An illustration of the NS system from Codex Alexandrinus is the Triune formulations in Matt 28:19, ΟΝΟΜΑ ΤΟΥ Π̅Ρ̅Ϲ̅ … Υ̅Υ̅ … Π̅Ν̅Ϲ̅, and 1 Clem. 46.6 (arguably alluding to 1 Cor 8:6 and Eph 4:4), Η ΟΥΧΙ ΕΝΑ Θ̅Ν̅ ΕΧΟΜΕΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΝΑ Χ̅Ν̅ ΚΑΙ ΕΝ Π̅Ν̅Α̅ ΤΗϹ ΧΑΡΙΤΟϹ ΤΟ ΕΚΧΥΘΕΝ ΕΦ ΗΜΑϹ ΚΑΙ ΜΙΑ ΚΛΗϹΙϹ ΕΝ Χ̅Ω̅ (“Do we not have one God and one Christ and one Spirit of grace that has been poured out upon us? And is there not one calling in Christ?”).³⁷

7 The Ecclesiastical Rule: Balancing Jewish Scripture with Apostolic Scripture

As we continue to reflect on the second- and third-century church, Clement of Alexandria’s (ca. 150–215 CE) approach to the Scriptures captures an important aspect of what later church teachers sought to encapsulate with the notion of a scriptural canon (κανών), namely a reference to the two-part division of the Scripture canon and the internal balance between the two parts. We could view this as a form of ‘canon-logic’, exemplified by Clement when he describes the Rule—with reference to the synonymous “Ecclesiastical Rule”—as “the agreement and unity of the Law and the Prophets with the [New] Testament delivered at the coming of the Lord.” (Strom. 6.15.125.3)

In his account of the Rule of Faith (ὁ κανὼν τῆς πίστεως), Mark Edwards continues this line of thought. As he writes, a major function of the early church’s Rule of Faith (regula fidei) was to guarantee that the faith community “read the Old Testament as the promise of the Gospel and the Gospel as the fulfilment of that promise.”³⁸

A similar scriptural-kerygmatic impulse surfaces also in Ignatius of Antioch’s (ca. 50–110 CE) Epistle to the Philadelphians. Ignatius, who in dialogue with a group of Christians who find it difficult to locate Christ in the Jewish Scriptures, writes:

Moreover, I urge you to do nothing in a spirit of contentiousness, but in accordance with the teaching of Christ. For I heard some people say, “If I do not find it in the archives/Old Testament Scriptures (ἐν τοῖς ἀρχείοις), I do not believe it in the Gospel.” And when I said to them, “It is written,” they answered me, “That is precisely the question.” But for me, the Scriptures/archives are Jesus Christ, the unalterable Scriptures/archives are his cross and death and his resurrection and the faith that comes through him; by these things I want, through your prayers, to be justified. (Phld. 8.2)³⁹

A creedal emphasis is here linked to the basic scriptural-textuality pattern, relating the Scriptures to Christ, and Christ to the Scriptures.

When we move forward a few decades to Irenaeus, an interesting example of this intertextual inclination in the apostolic and post-apostolic literature appears in Adversus Haereses, in which he reflects on the Rule of Faith. As we saw above, within this Triune pattern made up of three Articles of Faith (about (A) God the Father; (B) the Son of God, Christ Jesus; and (C) the Holy Spirit), most of the Second Article material about Christ is there moved to the Third Article about the Spirit of prophecy, and thus basically presents the whole Christology as taken directly out of the Jewish Scriptures. Scripture and Christological kerygma are thus textually brought together in the Third Article, which reads (also quoted above):

And in the Holy Spirit,

Who through the prophets proclaimed the economies (οἰκονομία),

The coming and birth from the Virgin,

The passion,

The resurrection from the dead, …

Haer. 1.10.1

Other Rule of Faith renderings in the early church, inclusive of Irenaeus’s own formulation in Epideixis, embrace a Scripture reference in the Second Article (“Christ Jesus our Lord, who was shown forth by the prophets”; Epid. 6; cf. 1 Cor 15:3–4), as an alternative to placing most of the Christological-scriptural material as part of the Third Article.

Below, I shall again suggest that the standard scribal practice of highlighting some eight to fifteen NS was associated with yet another practice of standardization in the composition of the Christian Scriptures, namely the attention that editors, authors, and scribes seem to have paid to textual arithmetic, a practice that may be observed in the frequencies of words and phrases, as well as in numerologically linked canonical shaping and graphic layout.

8 Early Bible Arithmetic: Expressing the Divine through Numbers

In what follows I shall take my point of departure in the writings of Josephus and Athanasius and in references in other ancient writings to the “alphabetical fullness” number 22 vis-à-vis the biblical canon. Athanasius famously writes in his thirty-ninth Festal Letter in 367 CE: “The Old Testament contains 22 books, being the same number as the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.” Jerome discusses the number 27 as a variant of that alphabetical number, when the five end-letter forms of the Hebrew twenty-two consonants are included in the count. My understanding from this is that the twenty-two books of the Syrian Peshitta and the twenty-seven books of Athanasius’s New Testament may, in fact, both be Hebrew alphabetical fullness references; as comparison, we may note the two Homeric epics, both of which are divided into twenty-four books, corresponding to the twenty-four letters of the Hellenistic Greek alphabet.⁴⁰

The alpha-omega reference, alluding to the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet, in the book of Revelation may also be of interest in this connection (Rev 1:8; 21:6; 22:13), since the nomen sacrum πνεῦμα occurs 24× in Revelation and in John’s Gospel, respectively, and θεός occurs ninety-six times in Revelation [4 × 24]. The key phrase related to the Name, ἐγώ εἰμι (including κἀγώ εἰμι in Acts 26:29 in THGNT) similarly features 24× in John (THGNT, NA28) and Leviticus (LXXR, LXXG), respectively, and 48× [2 × 24] in the full New Testament (THGNT, NA28), the Pentateuch (LXXR) and the Historical Books (LXXR), respectively. This may be creedally and canonically significant if these figures are deliberate at the compositional and/or editorial textual level.

9 Alphabetical-Numerical Shaping of New Testament Codices

In addition to alphabetical features in acrostic Old Testament texts such as Lamentations 1–4, several manuscripts appear to have adopted various ways of connecting also the New Testament writings to numbers indicating Hebrew and Greek “alphabetical fullness” (i.e., with reference to the two main biblical languages). This often involves multiples of the three alphabetical numerals 22 or 27 (= the total number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet) or 24 (= the total number of letters in the Hellenistic Greek alphabet; if not indicated otherwise, figures are obtained from information provided on the CSNTM webpage or from the number of columns/pages in images from the webpage):⁴¹

The number of lines per column being 48 [2 × 24] and the number of columns used for the fourfold Gospel in Codex Sinaiticus being 484 [22 × 22];⁴² similar alphabetical figures feature for the Gospels in GA 260.
The number of lines per column and the number of leaves in the Gospels codex GA 1443 (eleventh-century minuscule dated to 1047 CE) being twenty-two and 308 [14 × 22], respectively; similar alphabetical figures feature as well for the Gospels codices GA 534, GA 1443, and GA 2252, Codex Mosquensis GA 018, and the Gospels Lectionary GA Lect 1627.⁴³

10 Alphabetical-Numerical Configuring of New Testament Word-Frequencies

Prior to the introduction of the codicological features discussed above, alphabetical structuring of the New Testament material seems to have been introduced. Word frequencies for the fifteen terms in the NS word-group, for example, frequently feature as multiples of these alphabetical numerals (22, 24, and 27), as the examples in the table below from the twenty-seven-book New Testament corpus indicate (figures from THGNT, unless indicated otherwise).

The nomen sacrum and key creedal term υἱός, Son/son, provides a good example of this type of alphabetical structuring. The total number of times υἱός occurs within each of five related canonical sub-units appears to have significant meaning. The word occurs twenty-two times in 1 John, twenty-four times in 1–3 John (the first canonical sub-unit of which 1 John is part), twenty-seven times in the Catholic Epistles (the second canonical sub-unit of which 1 John is part), forty-eight times [2 × 24] in the Praxapostolos (Acts+Catholic Epistles; the third canonical sub-unit of which 1 John is part), and 378 times [14 × 27] in the twenty-seven-book New Testament corpus (the fourth canonical unit of which 1 John is part). In all five cases—across five canonical levels—these word-frequencies contain multiples of particular alphabetical numbers, namely, 22, 24, and 27. A hypothesis of this essay is that the word frequencies involving the term υἱός and other words,⁴⁴ may have been intended on the part of those engaged in the composition and editing of the textual sub-units that make up the New Testament canon. They may therefore potentially serve as a means of determining the inner canonical shaping of these respective text units, in which the key creedal term and nomen sacrum υἱός is alphabetically-numerically highlighted in the respective canonical text-units.

This textual phenomenon may be further observed in the following alphabetical New Testament figures pertaining to the name “Jesus” that are found in four canonical sub-units that directly, or indirectly, relate to the occurrence of the name in the Gospel of John (THGNT): Ἰησοῦς (all forms) appearing 240 times [10 × 24] in John and 912 times [38 × 24] in the twenty-seven-book New Testament corpus (including John); ὁ Ἰησοῦς (singular nominative) featuring 120 times [5 × 24] in John; τὸν Ἰησοῦν appearing twenty-two times in John; Ἰησοῦν occurring sixty-six times [3 × 22] in the four Gospels; Ἰησοῦ appearing 110 times [5 × 22] in Gospels+Acts; and ὁ Ἰησοῦς (all forms) occurring 384 times [16 × 24] in the four Gospels. In each of these cases a major creedal term (which is also a nomen sacrum) seems to be involved in a particular numerical practice designed to emphasize the concept of (alphabetical) fullness or completion.

Table 4.1

NS frequencies in the New Testament corpus (22‑, 24- and 27‑multiples)

Word(s)	Number of occurrences
σταυρός	27
σωτήρ	24
κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός	24 (NA28)
Ἰησοῦς Χριστός⁴⁵	135 [5 × 27] (NA28)
Ἰησοῦς	912 [38 × 24]
κύριος (singular forms)	702 [26 × 27] (NA28)
κύριος ὁ θεός	24
ὁ κύριος	351× [13 × 27]
ὁ κύριος (singular nominative)	110 [5 × 22]
κυρίου (singular genitive)	240 [10 × 24]
θεὸς πατήρ	24
πάτερ (singular vocative)	24
πατήρ (singular nominative)	110 [5 × 22]
ὁ πατήρ (nominative forms)	108 [4 × 27]
ὁ πατήρ (dative forms)	24
τὸν πατέρα (singular accusative)	72 [3 × 24]
Πατέρες (plural nominative)	24
τῷ οὐρανῷ (singular dative)	24
οὐρανός (accusative forms)	48 [2 × 24]
τὸ πνεῦμα	176 [8 × 22]
μήτηρ (singular forms)	81 [3 × 27]
ἄνθρωπος	550 [5 × 5×22]
ὁ ἄνθρωπος (singular forms)	162 [6 × 27]
ἀνθρώποις (plural dative)	44 [2 × 22]
υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (singular forms)	81 [3 × 27]
ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ	27
υἱός	378 [14 × 27]
υἱός (nominative forms)	192 [8 × 24]
υἱός (dative forms)⁴⁶	24

As for the broader vocabulary of the New Testament, we may also note the following: the creedal term, “I believe” (or “We believe”), πιστεύω, is featured 132 times [6 × 22] in the four Gospels, fifty-four times [2 × 27] in the Praxapostolos, and 242 times [11 × 22] in the New Testament corpus; πιστεύων (singular participle) appears twenty-four times in the New Testament corpus; ἐπίστευσαν (aorist plural) features twenty-two times in the New Testament corpus; πίστις occurs twenty-four times in the four Gospels, twenty-two times in Galatians, twenty-seven times in 1–2 Timothy, and 243 times [9 × 27] in the New Testament corpus; ἐκ πίστεως twenty-two times in Corpus Paulinum; τῇ πίστει (singular dative) twenty-two times in the New Testament corpus; and τὴν πίστιν (singular accusative) twenty-seven times in the entire New Testament corpus.

In terms of creedal significance, we may also note the following alphabetical frequency patterns (THGNT): the word ἀνίστημι, “to stand up; to raise,” which occurs twenty-seven times in Luke, seventy-two times [3 × 24] in Luke-Acts, forty-eight times [2 × 24] in the Synoptic Gospels, and 108 times [4 × 27] in the entire New Testament; and the word ἀποθνῄσκω, “to die,” which occurs twenty-seven times in John, fifty-four times [2 × 27] in Gospels+Acts, and 110 times [5 × 22] in the entire New Testament.⁴⁷

11 The Alphabetical Completeness Numbers 22, 24, and 27: Further Implications

As we have seen, numerical structuring appears to be a characteristic feature of a surprisingly large number of biblical texts. For instance, just as the acrostic Psalms 34, 111, and 112 are each alphabetically arranged with twenty-two sections, paralleling the total number of consonants in the Hebrew alphabet, alphabetical structuring also characterizes the famous Psalm 119 with its twenty-two paragraphs, each of which contains eight strophes that begin with the same letter.⁴⁸ Similar numerical features appear to be embedded in various layers of the biblical material. At a canonical level, Josephus and early church teachers such as Origen and Athanasius,⁴⁹ count the number of books contained in the Jewish Scriptures at twenty-two.⁵⁰ In Athanasius, the alphabetical-completeness pattern may arguably apply as well to his twenty-seven-book corpus, since the number of consonants in the Hebrew alphabet can be counted either as 22 or as 27.⁵¹ Protestant Bibles—possibly adhering to a similar alphabetical fullness inclination—commonly include a total of sixty-six canonical books [3 × 22].⁵² By analogy, canonical shaping of the number of New Testament writings in the early church could sometimes be identical to that of the Jewish Scriptures, when set at twenty-two.⁵³ This may be observed, for example in Eusebius’s twenty-two undisputed New Testament books, the twenty-two books of the Syrian Peshitta, and probably also John Chrysostom’s New Testament.⁵⁴ Augustine’s wider Old Testament canon, delimited to forty-four [2 × 22],⁵⁵ may also deliberately have connected to the Hebrew alphabetical number. It is possible, as well, that the medieval and modern division of the biblical material into chapters may have connected to this type of alphabetical arrangement, with Isaiah’s sixty-six chapters [3 × 22] and Revelation’s twenty-two.⁵⁶ In addition, we may note that the standard symbolic number of books said to be included in the Ethiopian Bible canon is eighty-one [3 × 27].

There is also the possibility that this alphabetical patterning applies, in part, even to the ancient paragraph divisions in the biblical manuscripts, now endorsed by the Tyndale House Greek New Testament with its fifth-four paragraphs [2 × 27] for 2 Corinthians, 405 [15 × 27] for Matthew, and 1458 [2 × 27 × 27] for Gospels+Acts.⁵⁷ More tangible codicological data, gathered from three individual manuscripts, can be provided for the number of columns in Codex Sinaiticus allocated to the four Gospels, namely 484 columns [22 × 22] (mentioned above) and to the Gospel of John’s 108 columns [4 × 27],⁵⁸ to the number of pages being used for the fourfold Gospel in Codex Washingtonianus, altogether 374 pages [17 × 22], and to the number of columns devoted to Luke, Acts, and Hebrews in Codex Alexandrinus, which are 88 [4 × 22], 81 [3 × 27] and 24, respectively. In all these cases from Sinaiticus, Washingtonianus, and Alexandrinus a reference either to the Hebrew alphabetical number 22 or 27, or the Hellenistic Greek alphabetical (and Jewish canonical) number 24 may be intended as a form of codicological canonical signal, indicating fullness or completeness.⁵⁹

As we look further afield, both on Greek and Jewish ground the Hellenistic Greek alphabetical (and canonical Hebrew) number 24 is significant as a canonical marker in sources such as the Homeric works, both of which—apparently for no other reason than that of signaling alphabetical all-comprehensiveness—were divided into twenty-four books,⁶⁰ and in the rabbinic scriptural twenty-four-book canon.

12 Triune and Christological NS Configurations in Basil the Great, Athanasius, and the New Testament

The works of Basil the Great, Athanasius, and a number of the New Testament writings (THGNT, unless otherwise indicated) contain numeral configurations related to the numbers 22/27 and 24. Enumerated below are several numbers with an alphabetical component (22‑, 24‑, and 27-multiples) and numbers that relate to the divine name (15‑, 17‑, and 26-multiples; 15 [short form of the divine Name, YH= 15]; textual scope for complex word searches: verse).

12.1 Basil the Great, on the Holy Spirit (Migne, accordance 13)

θεός ⟨and⟩ πατήρ ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα 136× [8 × 17]
ὁ θεός ⟨and⟩ ὁ πατήρ ⟨and⟩ ὁ υἱός ⟨and⟩ τὸ πνεῦμα 22×
ὄνομα ⟨and⟩ πατήρ ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα 60× [4 × 15]
θεός ⟨and⟩ Χριστός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα 130× [5 × 26]
ὁ υἱός ⟨and⟩ ὁ θεός 52× [2 × 26]
θεός (242× [11 × 22])+υἱός (183×) 425× [5 × 5×17]
πνεῦμα ⟨and⟩ ἅγιος 312× [12 × 26= 13 × 24]
σύ ⟨and⟩ εἰμί ⟨and⟩ ὁ Χριστός 17×
αὐτός ⟨and⟩ εἰμί ⟨and⟩ ὁ Χριστός 34× [2 × 17]

12.2 Athanasius (Migne, accordance 13)

ὁ πατήρ ⟨and⟩ ὁ υἱός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα Serapion 675× [3 × 15 × 15= 5 × 5×27]
τὸ ὄνομα ⟨and⟩ ὁ πατήρ ⟨and⟩ ὁ υἱός ⟨and⟩ τὸ πνεῦμα Serapion 288× [12 × 24]
ὁ θεός ⟨and⟩ ὁ Χριστός ⟨and⟩ τὸ πνεῦμα Serapion 195× [13 × 15]
θεός ⟨and⟩ κύριος ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα Arians 352× [4 × 4×22]
θεός ⟨and⟩ Ἰησοῦς Χριστός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα Arians 54× [2 × 27], Serapion 308× [14 × 22]
ὁ θεός ⟨and⟩ Ἰησους Χριστός ⟨and⟩ τὸ πνεῦμα Athanasian Corpus (Arians and Serapion) 240× [10 × 24]
ὁ υἱός ⟨and⟩ ὁ θεός Serapion 378× [14 × 27]
σύ ⟨and⟩ εἰμί ⟨and⟩ ὁ Χριστός Gentes 17×, Serapion 189× [7 × 27]
οὗτος ⟨and⟩ εἰμί ⟨and⟩ ὁ Χριστός Serapion 220× [10 × 22]
ἐκεῖνος ⟨and⟩ εἰμί ⟨and⟩ ὁ Χριστός Serapion 44× [2 × 22]
κύριος ⟨and⟩ εἰμί ⟨and⟩ ὁ Χριστός Incarnation 26×, Gentes 26×, Serapion 189× [7 × 27]
Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ εἰμί ⟨and⟩ ὁ Χριστός Arians 221× [13 × 17]

12.3 New Testament NS Configurations (Embracing Four Canonical Sub-Units)

θεός ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα Pauline corpus 17× (THGNT, NA28, ‮א‬‎), New Testament 26× (THGNT, NA28, ‮א‬‎)
θεός ⟨and⟩ κύριος ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα Pauline corpus 26× (THGNT, NA28, ‮א‬‎)
θεός ⟨and⟩ Χριστός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα Romans 17× (THGNT, NA28, ‮א‬‎)
θεο* ⟨and⟩ χρι* ⟨and⟩ πνε* Romans 17×, New Testament 68× [4 × 17] (THGNT, NA28)
πα* ⟨and⟩ υι* ⟨and⟩ πν* New Testament 22× (THGNT, NA28)
πα* ⟨and⟩ χρ* ⟨and⟩ πν* Praxapostolos 21× (THGNT)/22× (‮א‬‎), New Testament 52× [2 × 26]
θε* ⟨and⟩ υι* ⟨and⟩ πν* New Testament 27× (THGNT, NA28, ‮א‬‎)
θεός ⟨and⟩ εἷς/εἰς ⟨and⟩ καί ⟨and⟩ τρεῖς New Testament 15× (THGNT, NA28; corresponding figures for LXXG: Exodus 17×, Pentateuch 22×)
τρεῖς ⟨and⟩ ἐν ⟨and⟩ εἷς/εἰς New Testament 15× (THGNT, NA28)

12.4 New Testament Configurations of ἐγώ, λέγω, πιστεύω and Other Words

λέγω four Gospels 1804× [82 × 22], Acts 234 [9 × 26], Catholic Epistles 27×, Romans 48× [2 × 24], 2 Corinthians 15×, 1–2 Corinthians 48× [2 × 24], Hebrews 44× [2 × 22], Revelation 105× [7 × 15], New Testament 2349× [87 × 27]
ἐγώ ⟨and⟩ λέγω Matthew 330× [15 × 22; involving 130 verses [5 × 26]], John 450× [2 × 15 × 15; involving 154 verses [7 × 22]], Gospels+Acts 1464× [61 × 24; involving 552 verses [23 × 24]], 1 Corinthians 24×, Hebrews 44× [2 × 22; involving seventeen verses]
θεός ⟨and⟩ λέγω Luke 130× [5 × 26], Acts 85× [5 × 17], Praxapostolos 96× [4 × 24]; and in LXXG: Pentateuch 612× [3 × 12 × 17; θεός 300× [20 × 15], λέγω 312× (12 × 26)]
γραφή ⟨and⟩ λέγω four Gospels 26×
ἡ γραφή ⟨and⟩ λέγω four Gospels 24× (potential α–ω allusion)
Χριστός ⟨and⟩ λέγω Synoptic Gospels 60× [4 × 15], John 30× [2 × 15], four Gospels 90× [6 × 15], Pauline corpus 30× [2 × 15], New Testament 130× [5 × 26]
Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ λέγω Matthew 216× [8 × 27], Luke-Acts 153× [9 × 17], New Testament 782× [2 × 23 × 17]
ὁ υἱός ⟨and⟩ λέγω New Testament 189× [7 × 27]
ἐγώ ⟨and⟩ λέγω ⟨and⟩ σύ John 396× [18 × 22], four Gospels 969× [57 × 17], Acts 135× [5 × 27], Gospels+Acts 1104× [2 × 23 × 24]
ἐγώ (1 sing. nom.) ⟨and⟩ δέ ⟨and⟩ λέγω (1 sg. pres. act. ind.) ⟨and⟩ ὑμῖν (2 plur. dat.) Matthew 26×
ἐγώ ⟨and⟩ δέ ⟨and⟩ λέγω ⟨and⟩ σύ Matthew 154× [7 × 22], Mark 51× [3 × 17], Synoptic Gospels 364× [14 × 26], Gospels+Acts 561× [3 × 11 × 17]
ἐγώ ⟨and⟩ δέ ⟨and⟩ λέγω ⟨and⟩ σύ (NA28) four Gospels 476× [2 × 14 × 17], Gospels+Acts 576× [24 × 24; involving 108 verses [4 × 27]], New Testament 613× (613 is commonly regarded as the number of laws in the Torah)
Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ ἀποθνῄσκω Gospels+Acts 17×, New Testament 24× (potential α–ω allusion)
σύ ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ ἄνθρωπος Luke 26×, four Gospels 78× [3 × 26], New Testament 81× [3 × 27]
οὗτος ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ ἄνθρωπος New Testament 45× [3 × 15]
Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ ὁ υἱός ὁ ἄνθρωπος New Testament 24× (potential α–ω allusion)
Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ ἄνθρωπος four Gospels/Gospels+Acts/ New Testament 51× [3 × 17]
ὁ Ἰησους ⟨and⟩ ὁ υἱός ⟨and⟩ ὁ ἄνθρωπος New Testament 26×
Ἰησοῦσ ⟨and⟩ ὁ ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ ὁ ⟨and⟩ ἄνθρωπος Luke 22×, four Gospels/NT 130× [5 × 26]
αὐτός ⟨and⟩ ὁ ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ ὁ ⟨and⟩ ἄνθρωπος Mark 88× [4 × 22], Luke 72× [3 × 24], four Gospels 486× [18 × 27]
θεός ⟨and⟩ ὁ ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ ὁ ⟨and⟩ ἄνθρωπος Luke 17×, Luke-Acts 24×, New Testament 66× [3 × 22]
θεός ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ ἄνθρωπος New Testament 26×
ἐγώ ⟨and⟩ ὁ υἱός ὁ ἄνθρωπος four Gospels/ New Testament 17×

Ἐγώ (all forms; THGNT, unless indicated otherwise; NB the “perfect” results for Matthew, Luke, Acts, Luke-Acts and Gospels+Acts in THGNT, and for Catholic Epistles in Codex Sinaiticus, ‮א‬‎):

Matthew 270× [10 × 27] occurrences of ἐγώ
Mark 129×/130 [5 × 26] (NA28)
Luke 288× [12 × 24]
Synoptic Gospels 687×/682× [31 × 22] (‮א‬‎)
John 541×/525 [5 × 7×15] (‮א‬‎)
Four Gospels 1228×/1207× [71 × 17] (‮א‬‎)
Acts 312× [13 × 24= 12 × 26]
Luke-Acts 600× [40 × 15= 5 × 5×24]
Gospels+Acts 1540× [70 × 22]
James 23×/26× (‮א‬‎)
1–2 Peter 24×/27× (‮א‬‎)
1 John 57×/60× [4 × 15] (‮א‬‎)
1–2 John 63×/66× [3 × 22] (‮א‬‎)
1–3 John 69× [3 × 23]/72× [3 × 24] (‮א‬‎)
Catholic Epistles 123×/132× [6 × 22] (‮א‬‎)
Praxapostolos 438×/435× [29 × 15] (NA28)
Romans 150× [10 × 15]
1–2 Corinthians 312× [12 × 26]
Ephesians 46× [2 × 23]/45× [3 × 15] (NA28)
Philippians 60× [4 × 15]
Colossians 24×/26× (‮א‬‎)
1 Thessalonians 51× [3 × 17]/52× [2 × 26] (‮א‬‎)
2 Thessalonians 26×/24× (‮א‬‎)
1 Timothy 15×
Philemon 22×
Hebrews 66× [3 × 22]/68× [4 × 17] (‮א‬‎)
Revelation 102× [6 × 17] (THGNT, NA28, ‮א‬‎);⁶¹

In addition to these twenty-seven examples—examples that relate to the twenty-seven canonical writings—similar word-frequencies are found for the following seven forms of ἐγώ in the twenty-seven-book New Testament corpus:

ἐγώ 340× [20 × 17]⁶²
μου 567× [21 × 27]⁶³
μοι 225× [15 × 15]⁶⁴
ἐμοί 96× [4 × 24]⁶⁵
με 285× [19 × 15]⁶⁶
ἐμέ 94×/90× [6 × 15] (NA28)⁶⁷
κἀγώ 78× [3 × 26].⁶⁸

Finally, we may note some New Testament figures relating to the phrasing “I/we believe,” πιστεύω/πιστεύομεν, included in a number of ecclesial creedal formularies:

πιστεύω 17× in the Catholic Epistles, 54× in the Praxapostolos [2 × 27], 242× in the New Testament canon [11 × 22] (238× in the twenty-seven-book New Testament of Codex Sinaiticus [14 × 17])
πιστ* 24× in Matthew, 26× in Luke, 170× in the four Gospels [10 × 17]
“πισ*” (search in Accordance 13 on this form) 17× in Mark, 24× in Luke, 132× in the four Gospels [6 × 22], 476× in the New Testament canon [4 × 7×17]
πίστις 243× in the New Testament canon [9 × 27] (cf. πιστός 66× [3 × 22] and πιστεύω 242× [11 × 22] in the New Testament canon)
πιστεύω ⟨and⟩ ἐγώ 110× in John [5 × 22]
πιστεύω ⟨and⟩ σύ (cf. Matt 8:13 and John 6:30) 78× in John [3 × 26]
πιστεύω ⟨and⟩ αὐτός (cf. Matt 21:32 and John 2:11; 8:31) 17× in Matthew, 17× in Mark, 15× in Luke, 144× in John [6 × 24], 52× in Acts [2 × 26], and 17× in Romans
πιστεύω ⟨and⟩ Ἰησοῦς (cf. John 12:11) 51× in John [3 × 17]

Conclusions

This essay has sought to demonstrate various connections between an early narrative—Christological—Triune Rule of Faith pattern and the formation and stabilization of canonical sub-units. We first referred to an early presentation of the regula fidei, or Rule of Faith pattern, as canon criterion, used for purposes of exclusion and confirmation of text units vis-à-vis the Scripture canon. Parallels between the regula fidei and the scriptural system of nomina sacra (NS) were outlined, and it was noted that both Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, as well as more recent theologians acknowledge(d) close bonds between Scripture and regula fidei. In a next step, we attended to textual word-frequency patterns pertaining to the numeric value of the Tetragrammaton (multiples of 17 and 26), observing that NS configurations in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures tend to align with these patterns. Examples, based mainly on THGNT, BHS and LXXG, included word-frequencies for God/YHWH (θεός Matthew 52× [2 × 26], Romans 153× [9 × 17], Hebrews 68× [4 × 17]; Esther (O-text) 26×, Hosea 34× [2 × 17], Jonah 17×; ‮יהוה‬‎ Pentateuch 1820× [70 × 26], Nehemiah 17×, Jonah 26×; ‮אֱלֹהִים‬‎ Masoretic Text 2600× [10 × 10 × 26]); and the Triune word combination θεός ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα (Pauline corpus 17×, New Testament 26×). It was also seen that a regula fidei pattern was followed by Irenaeus as various configurations surface for terms in the NS word-group. This includes regula fidei phrasing that parallels the highlighting of 17- and 26-multiples in various canonical sub-units of the biblical text (θεός ⟨and⟩ πατήρ; υἱός ⟨and⟩ θεός; Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ Χριστός; Χριστός Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ κύριος; κύριος ⟨and⟩ Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ Χριστός; Χριστός ⟨and⟩ κύριος; θεός ⟨and⟩ ἄνθρωπος; πνεῦμα ⟨and⟩ ἅγιος). NS aligned arithmetical word-frequency structures based on the divine Name (17- and 26-multiples) thus resulted in twenty-nine detectable canonical sub-units, arguably intra-textually weaved into the New Testament canon. In addition, there were twenty-eight corresponding outcomes for the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint. Similar results emerged for NS associated—and canon-related codicological—figures linked to the Hebrew and Greek alphabetical fullness numbers 22, 24 and 27. For the New Testament term ἐγώ, analysis of alphabetical as well as Name-related word-frequency configurations resulted in the inclusion of a total of twenty-eight discernible canonical sub-units. Similar figures were found also for the word πιστεύω, “I/we believe.”

We may conclude that the Rule of Faith pattern analyzed in the present chapter in various ways can be detected in, or in association with, the shaping of canonical sub-units that constitute the Christian Scriptures (here primarily the New Testament). As for the function of the regula fidei pattern in the canon formation process, it may thus be noted that numerical configurations of individual NS and/or combinations of NS linked to the divine Name, on the one hand, and regula fidei phrasings embracing these NS, on the other, resulted in an inner-biblical formation of canonical sub-units—that helped to weave the text of the canon and its delimitation from within the Scriptures themselves.

Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 251–252.

For dating of the Muratorian Fragment, see Joseph Verheyden, “The Canon Muratori: A Matter of Dispute,” in The Biblical Canons, ed. Jean-Marie Auwers and H.J. De Jonge, BETL 163 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), 487–556.

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.6. Cf. Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, 119.

Cf. Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, 204–205.

On Irenaeus and the four-Gospels canon, see Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, 155. He concludes that “for Irenaeus the Gospel canon is closed and its text is holy.” A similar statement made by Origen is recorded by Eusebius in Hist. eccl. 6.25.3–14.

Nomina sacra as arguably appearing in original quotations have been placed in uppercase.

Paul Blowers, “The Regula Fidei and the Narrative Character of Early Christian Faith,” ProEccl 6 (1997), 212.

Blowers, “Regula Fidei,” 210. Cf. Tomas Bokedal, The Formation and Significance of the Christian Biblical Canon: A Study in Text, Ritual and Interpretation (London: T&T Clark, 2014), 287.

Karlmann Beyschlag, Grundriß der Dogmengeschichte, vol. 1 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1982), 169–170.

Johannes Kunze, Glaubensregel, Heilige Schrift und Taufbekenntnis: Untersuchungen über die dogmatische Autorität, ihr Werden und ihre Geschichte, vornehmlich in der alten Kirche (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1899), 100–127.

Kurt Aland, Das Problem des neutestamentlichen Kanons (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 11; cf. Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (London: SCM, 1992), 31–32, 67; and Blowers, “Regula Fidei,” 199.

Robert W. Wall, “Reading the Bible from within Our Traditions,” in Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology, ed. Joel B. Green and Max Turner (Grand Rapid: Eerdmans, 2000), 101.

Bengt Hägglund, “Die Bedeutung der ‘regula fidei’ als Grundlage theologischer Aussagen,” ST 12 (1958): 17; quoted from Bokedal, Formation and Significance, 287.

The seven points below are based on Tomas Bokedal, “The Rule of Faith: Tracing Its Origins,” JTI 7 (2013): 244–245; and Bokedal, “The-Rule-of-Faith Pattern as Emergent Biblical Theology,” Theo 7 (2015): 57–75.

Colin H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 46. See further Bokedal, Formation and Significance, 83–123.

On Irenaeus’s probable use of NS, see P.Oxy. 405, which contains portions of Haer. 3.9.2–3. The manuscript was produced in the late second to early third century, just a few years after Irenaeus wrote Adversus Haereses. For examples of NS in Justin Martyr, see British Library Add MS 82951.

For an introduction to NS, see Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 95–134; and, for a discussion of the 15 to 17 standard NS—Ἰησοῦς, Χριστός, κύριος, θεός, πνεῦμα/πνευματικός, σταυρός/σταυρόω, πατήρ, ἄνθρωπος, υἱός, Ἰσραήλ, Ἰερουσαλήμ, οὐρανός, σωτήρ, Δαυείδ and μήτηρ—see Tomas Bokedal, “Notes on the Nomina Sacra and Biblical Interpretation,” in Beyond Biblical Theologies, ed. H. Assel, S. Beyerle and C. Böttrich, WUNT 295 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 263–295; reprinted in Tomas Bokedal, Christ the Center: How the Rule of Faith, the Nomina Sacra, and Numerical Patterns Shape the Canon (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2023).

In other words (and corresponding to points 1, 3 and 7 above), there is a direct link regarding word emphasis, word configurations/groupings, and textual structuring between the Scriptures in terms of the key textual position obtained by the NS word-group, on the one hand, and creedal-narrative regula fidei formulations, on the other.

Roberts and Bokedal suggest a pre-70 date, and Hurtado a date no later than the late first century. See Tomas Bokedal, “But for Me, the Scriptures are Jesus Christ (Ι̅Ϲ̅ Χ̅Ϲ̅; Ign. Phld. 8.2): Creedal Text-Coding and the Early Scribal System of Nomina Sacra,” in Studies on the Paratextual Features of Early New Testament Manuscripts: Texts and Editions of the New Testament, ed. Stanley E. Porter, Chris S. Stevens, and David I. Yoon, TENTS 16 (Leiden: Brill, 2023), 89–122.

Bokedal, Formation and Significance, 90, and 83–123.

As Casper J. Labuschagne’s explains, “The divine name number 17 can of course be explained as the sum of the digits of the numbers 10, 5, 6 and 5 (1 + 0+5 + 6+5 = 17), but it is also possible that 17 is the numerical value of a conjectured ʾahweh, ‮אהוה‬‎, which is to ʾehyeh, ‮אהיה‬‎, ‘I am’ (Exod 3:14), as yahweh, ‮יהוה‬‎, is to yihyeh, ‮יהיה‬‎, ‘he is’: 17 = ʾ h w h, ‮יהוה‬‎ = 1 + 5+6 + 5.” Casper J. Labuschagne, “General Introduction to Logotechnical Analysis (Rev.)”, 4. This article may be accessed at http://www.labuschagne.nl./aspects.pdf. For Johannine emphasis on the number 17, see also Richard J. Bauckham, “The 153 Fish and the Unity of the Fourth Gospel,” Neot 36 (2002): 82–85.

Unless otherwise indicated, the figures that follow are taken from the Accordance 13 digital version of the Tyndale House Greek New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), LXX Rahlfs (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006), LXX Göttingen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1931–2006), and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1977 and 1997); hereafter THGNT, LXXR, LXXG, and BHS, respectively.

For similar numerological explorations, see Bokedal, Christ the Center, 219–242; Bokedal, “Scriptures”; Bauckham, “The 153 Fish”; and Crispin Fletcher-Louis, Jesus Monotheism, vol. 1 of Christological Origins: The Emerging Consensus and Beyond (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015), 39–49.

Accordance searches on the form θεός ⟨and⟩ Χριστός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα are employed for these word-combination searches based on occurrences in individual verses. As alternatives to verse as textual scope, I will below make use of clause, sentence, and THGNT paragraph as textual scope—as per the early manuscript tradition.

For a fuller treatment of Triune NS configurations, see Bokedal, Christ the Center, 137–164.

θεός 6×, υἱός 6×, πνεῦμα 5× = 17× (search in Accordance 13 on the form θεός ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα; all three words occur in each of the verses included in the count).

Corresponding figure for θεός ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα in 1 Clem. is 24× and for θεο* ⟨and⟩ χρι* ⟨and⟩ πνε* 24× (for the Greek alphabetical number 24, see below).

As for the New Testament configuration εἷς/εἰς ⟨and⟩ καί ⟨and⟩ τρεῖς (εἷς 13×, εἰς 10×, και 37×, τρεῖς 17×), the number 13 may be a numerological reference to the Hebrew word for one, echad, ‮אֶחָד‬‎ (occurring 13× in Zechariah and 1 Chronicles, respectively), which has the numerical value 13 (aleph (1)+chet (8)+dalet (4)= 13). Adding 13 (representing God’s oneness) to 26 (representing God’s Name) results in 39 (“God is one”), which may be numerologically indicated by the 39 Old Testament books, and by the following configurations: θεός ⟨and⟩ Χριστός ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα 17× in Romans, 39× in the Pauline corpus; Ἰησοῦς ⟨and⟩ Χριστός ⟨and⟩ υἱός ⟨and⟩ θεός appear 39× in the New Testament.

On the presumed basis of John 20:31 and the NS of Ἰησοῦς, Χριστός, υἱός and θεός, the Majority Text seems to have boosted these figures, featuring the following Accordance 13 results for ι* ⟨and⟩ χ* ⟨and⟩ υ* ⟨and⟩ θ*: 240 appearances in the New Testament [10 × 24] (Textfamily 35)/234× [9 × 26] (Byzantine Textform 2005)/238× [14 × 17] (Ecumenical Patriarchal Text 1904/1912; cf. the acronym ΙΧΘΥϹ; see further Bokedal, Christ the Center, 6, 231 n. 39, 363 n. 2, 374 n. 36, and 376 n. 34).

The corresponding figure for Gospels+Acts is 48× [2 × 24].

The corresponding results for σύ ⟨and⟩ εἰμί ⟨and⟩ Χριστός include seventeen appearances in Romans, seventeen in Luke, and twenty-six in Luke-Acts.

Corresponding figures for αὐτός ⟨and⟩ δικαιοσύνη include the following: seventeen appearances in the Synoptic Gospels/four Gospels, eighty-eight total appearances in the New Testament canon [4 × 22], twenty-four in Gospels+Acts, twenty-four in Romans.

Cf. Irénée de Lyon, Contre les heresies 3, Book 3/1, Sources chrétiennes 210/211, ed. and trans. Adelin Rousseau and Louis Doutreleau (Paris: Cerf, 1974), 126–130; Book 3/2, 104–108.

Ignatius of Antioch (or his scribe), ca. 110 CE, arguably made use of NS contractions. A fifth-century papyrus containing Ignatius’s letters includes Θ̅Ϲ̅, Θ̅Υ̅, Θ̅Ω̅, Θ̅Ν̅, Ι̅Ϲ̅, Ι̅Υ̅, Κ̅Υ̅, Κ̅Ω̅, Κ̅Ν̅, Π̅Ρ̅Ι̅, Π̅Ν̅Α̅, Χ̅Ϲ̅ and Χ̅Υ̅ (Smyrn. 3.3–12.1); Kurt Aland, Repertorium der griechischen christlichen Papyri, II: Kirchenväter—Papyri, Teil 1: Beschreibungen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995).

Greek original of Epideixis no longer extant. For comparison, the Creed of Nicaea (N; the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) includes seventeen terms from the NS word-group. There is one occurrence of ἄνθρωπος (τοὺς ἀνθρώπους) excluded from the count.

J.P. Smith, trans., Irenaeus: Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (New York: Paulist, 1952), 51.

Translated by Michael Holmes, modified. For 1–2 Clement we may notice the following figures: εις ⟨and⟩ θεός (73 + 17) + εις ⟨and⟩ Χριστός (38 + 2)= 130 [5 × 26]; and εις ⟨and⟩ θεός (73 + 17) + εις ⟨and⟩ Χριστός (38 + 2) + εις ⟨and⟩ πνεῦμα (26 + 0)= 156 [6 × 26].

Mark Edwards, Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church (Farnam, Surrey: Ashgate, 2009), 40.

Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007) (modified).

Edmon Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 87.

See http://www.csntm.org/Manuscript

See http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net/en/manuscript.aspx

See http://www.csntm.org/Manuscript for images of the manuscripts.

For similar examples, cf. ἀποθνῄσκω and ἀνίστημι below. See further Bokedal, “Scriptures.”

Furthermore, Ἰησοῦς Χριστός 88× [4 × 22] in Corpus Paulinum, 44× [2 × 22] in Praxapostolos; and Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς 22× in 1–2 Timothy (THGNT).

Furthermore, the following NS lemmas in the New Testament: χρι* 540× [20 × 27]; ιησ* 912× [38 × 24]; κυρ* 744× [31 × 24]; *πν* 486× [18 × 27]; *σωτ* 81× [3 × 27]; *πατ* 584× [22 × 22]; *πα* 4560× [2 × 10 × 24]; *μητ* 154× [7 × 22]; and μη* 1408× [2 × 32 × 22].

See further Bokedal, “Scriptures.”

Acrostics are found also in Ps 9–10; 25; 37; 145 and elsewhere in the Jewish Scriptures.

Origen, in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.25; Athanasius, Ep. fest. 39; see further Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture, 86 n. 67.

Josephus does not explicitly connect the number 22 with the alphabet as do several early church teachers. See Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 60 n. 12.

Cf. Timothy H. Lim, The Formation of the Jewish Canon, ABRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 40–41: “Jerome considered the twenty-two-book canon to be the count of the majority (‘by most people’); the twenty-four-book enumeration is a variant enumerated by ‘some.’ He also seems to know a twenty-seven-book count when he states that there are five letters of the Hebrew alphabet that are ‘double letters’ (kaph, mem, nun, peh, and tsadeh) that change shape depending on whether they are written at the beginning and in the middle (medial) or at the end (final). The canonical implication is that Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Jeremiah with Kinoth (or Lamentations) are reckoned as double, thus increasing the total to twenty-seven.”

Cf. Bokedal, “Canon/Scripture,” 46–48.

Edmon Gallagher summarizes the early Christian consensus view regarding the alphabetical 22: “The delimitation of the Old Testament by the 22 books ‘according to the Hebrews’ extends through (nearly) all of the Greek canon lists of the first four centuries, whether the number was mentioned or not.” Hebrew Scriptures, 92.

Gallagher, Hebrew Scriptures, 92. Cf. Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, 214–215. The Muratorian Canon, too, may have contained twenty-two books, depending on the number of Johannine epistles (two) and apocalypses (one) included. Thanks to Benjamin Laird for bringing Canon Muratori to my attention in this connection.

Augustine’s Old Testament canon corresponds to the contemporary list approved at Hippo and the canon list issued by Innocent I. This Old Testament canon list was later approved by the Council of Trent in 1546. Cf. Gallagher and Meade, Biblical Canon Lists, 225.

We may also notice the altogether 260 chapters [10 × 26] in the New Testament as a potential reference to the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton.

The paragraph count here includes book titles, as the superscription and the subscription are counted as one paragraph each. As the editors of the THGNT explain, “Paragraphs are informed by manuscripts, in particular by those from the fifth century or earlier.” THGNT, 512.

See http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net/en/. In addition to the 484 columns [22 × 22] devoted to the Gospels, Codex Sinaiticus contains 578 [2 × 17 × 17] columns of the text of the remaining canonical writings. The number 578 is a multiple of 17 (a perfect square: 2 × 17², with a probable reference to one of the numeric values associated with the Tetragrammaton).

By applying such canonical reasoning to the New Testament portion of Codex Sinaiticus, the four Gospels (484 columns [22 × 22]) appear as a distinct major canonical/codicological unit and the rest of the New Testament (578 columns [2 × 17 × 17]; Pauline corpus, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Revelation) as a second major codicological unit (excluding Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas).

See Gallagher, Hebrew Scriptures, 87.

The probability for these figures for ἐγώ in individual New Testament writings to occur in THGNT—if it assumed that they occur randomly—is ca. 0.013 percent, or one in a hundred (for statistical calculation, see Bokedal, Christ the Center, 202 n. 28). Corresponding LXXR figures for ἐγώ: Genesis 850× [50 × 17], Numbers 220× [10 × 22], Judges 289× [17 × 17], Ruth 52× [2 × 26], 1 Samuel 450× [2 × 15 × 15], 1–2 Chronicles 312× [12 × 26], Nehemiah 187× [11 × 17], Esther 88× [4 × 22], etc.

Furthermore, John 130× [5 × 26], Acts 44× [2 × 22], Gospels+Acts 237×/243× [9 × 27] (NA28), Praxapostolos 49× [7 × 7]/51× [3 × 17] (NA28), Romans 17× and 1 Corinthians 22×, Pauline corpus 85× [5 × 17].

Furthermore, Praxapostolos 66× [3 × 22], Philippians 24×, and Revelation 30× [2 × 15].

Furthermore, the four Gospels 105× [7 × 15], John 39×, and Synoptic Gospels 66× [3 × 22].

Furthermore, Synoptic Gospels 15×, John 30× [2 × 15], and the four Gospels 45× [3 × 15].

Furthermore, Mark 26×, Synoptic Gospels 105 [7 × 15], and Acts/Praxapostolos 34× [2 × 17].

Furthermore, Luke-Acts 20×/17× (NA28), Gospels+Acts 76×/72× [3 × 24], and Pauline corpus 17×.

Furthermore, Synoptic Gospels 15×, John 27×, Gospels+Acts 45× [3 × 15], 1–2 Corinthians 17×, Pauline corpus 26×. That is, when frequencies at 9 or above are included in the count, we get 100 percent predefined “perfect” arithmetic figures. Elsewhere, I have referred to these two groups of multiples (15/17/26 and 22/24/27) as Name-related Numerals (NrN). Similar high percentages of NrN for ἐγώ feature above.

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The New Testament Canon in Contemporary Research

Series: Texts and Editions for New Testament Study, Volume: 21

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004751071

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 10 Mar 2026

Subjects
- Biblical Studies

Front Matter

Part 1 The Formation of the Canon

Part 2 The Components of the Canon

Part 3 The Witnesses of the Canon

Back Matter

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Chapter 4 The Rule of Faith and the Formation of the New Testament Canon

Abstract

1 Regula Fidei as Canon Criterion

2 Linking the Scriptures to the Regula Fidei: Narrative, Name Theology, Divine Acts

3 The Rule of Faith Pattern in Irenaeus’s Against Heresies

4 The Nomina Sacra as “Embryonic Creeds”

5 NS Frequencies Occurring as 17- and 26-Multiples in the New Testament Canon and Beyond

5.1 NS Configurations Involving ὄνομα

5.2 Triune NS Configurations25

5.3 Dyadic/Christological NS Configurations

5.4 NS Configurations Involving θεός, κύριος and οὐρανός

5.5 NS Configurations Involving Χριστός and Ἰησοῦς

5.6 NS Configurations Involving πνεῦμα

5.7 Christ-Creed and Creed-Related Configurations

5.8 NS Configurations Involving ἄνθρωπος

6 NS Word-Group Patterns in Irenaeus: Connecting Regula Fidei and Scripture

7 The Ecclesiastical Rule: Balancing Jewish Scripture with Apostolic Scripture

8 Early Bible Arithmetic: Expressing the Divine through Numbers

9 Alphabetical-Numerical Shaping of New Testament Codices

10 Alphabetical-Numerical Configuring of New Testament Word-Frequencies

Table 4.1

11 The Alphabetical Completeness Numbers 22, 24, and 27: Further Implications

12 Triune and Christological NS Configurations in Basil the Great, Athanasius, and the New Testament

12.1 Basil the Great, on the Holy Spirit (Migne, accordance 13)

12.2 Athanasius (Migne, accordance 13)

12.3 New Testament NS Configurations (Embracing Four Canonical Sub-Units)

12.4 New Testament Configurations of ἐγώ, λέγω, πιστεύω and Other Words

Conclusions

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The New Testament Canon in Contemporary Research

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5.2 Triune NS Configurations²⁵