Search for a command to run...
As everyone knows, Canon Muratori is a list of New Testament books that was found by Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672–1750) in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and is contained in a codex dating from the eighth or possibly the seventh century, which belonged originally to Columban's Monastery at Bobbio. The list of New Testament books is part of this codex, which also contains a collection of tracts and creeds that appeared between the second and fifth centuries and that seem to have been collected and transcribed in the eighth (or seventh) century. The fragment on the canon is just that, since the beginning is lost, and the text ends abruptly, showing that it was copied from a mutilated and presumably ancient exemplar. There are also some bits of the Muratorian canon that were found in four eleventh- or twelfth century Latin manuscripts of St. Paul's epistles at Monte Cassino. And it has been shown that the compiler of the prologue in which these occur cannot have used the Milan manuscript. The fact that he was working from an independent source indicates that the poor Latin of the Milan text was not that of the original author. A Greek original was suggested by Muratori when he first published the list in 1740; his suggestion has received wide support, though some have argued for a Latin original. Muratori assigned the list to Caius, a presbyter in Rome, but others have suggested Papias, Hegesippus of Rome, Rhodon, Melito of Sardis, and others.