The Living Tradition An Orthodox Archive of the Church Fathers and Early Church

Anonymous or pseudonymous author

The anonymous author of the Muratorian Fragment

Also known as the Muratorian Canon; the anonymous canon list

The Muratorian Fragment is a damaged Latin list of accepted Christian writings. Its author is unknown, its date is contested, and older editions print it under the wrong name.

  • Disputed authorshipThe attribution of a work is contested, or is known to be a scholarly convention. A work's authorship and the Church's reception of it are two separate questions.
  • Disputed historyHistorians genuinely disagree. The page gives the range the evidence supports rather than choosing the most striking version.
  • Historical consensusBroadly agreed among historians working from the surviving evidence. Consensus can shift when the evidence or the method changes.

Primary evidence verified Content last reviewed 2026-08-29

What still needs checking (1)
  • Add tier D scholarship setting out the case for the late-second-century and the fourth-century datings.

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Dates
date contested — Commonly placed in the late second century; a substantial body of scholarship argues for a fourth-century date. The question is genuinely open.
Region
Probably Rome or Italy
Language of composition
Latin

Life

The fragment survives in a single eighth-century manuscript, in poor Latin that is probably a translation from Greek. It begins mid-sentence and ends mid-sentence. It is named after Ludovico Antonio Muratori, who published it in 1740.

It lists writings the author accepts, comments on several, and rejects others by name. It is the earliest surviving list of its kind if the traditional dating is right.

Works

Generally accepted as authentic

Disputed, spurious or lost

  • The attribution to Caius of Rome — A conjecture, not evidence.

Theological and spiritual contribution

The fragment is a major witness in the canon story because it shows a Christian community sorting its books: accepting, commenting, and refusing. It accepts four Gospels, Acts, thirteen Pauline letters, Jude, two letters of John, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Apocalypse of John, mentions an Apocalypse of Peter that some will not have read in church, and says the Shepherd of Hermas may be read privately but not among the prophets or the apostles.

What it does not mention is as interesting as what it does. Absence from a damaged list is not evidence of rejection, and this is one of the places where the temptation to over-read a source is strongest.

Controversy and reception

The date is the central dispute. The traditional dating rests on the fragment s remark that Hermas wrote very recently, in our own times, while his brother Pius was bishop of Rome. Others read the Latin differently, or treat the fragment as a fourth-century Eastern list translated into Latin. This site presents the fragment as an important witness of contested date, and does not use it to prove a second-century canon.

  • The Shepherd of Hermas

    A long Roman apocalypse of visions, commandments and parables, widely read in the early Church and in some places read publicly. It was not received into the canon of Scripture.

    Father or writer

  • How Scripture was formed

    A gradual ecclesial process, not a single decision — and certainly not one taken at Nicaea.

    Theme

  • The Muratorian Fragment

    A damaged, anonymous Latin list of accepted writings — the earliest of its kind if the traditional dating holds, which is disputed.

    Canon-of-Scripture witness

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Sources for this page

  1. Tier C Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (eds.) Fragments of Caius, Muratorian Fragment translated edition of primary texts Archived as printed, with a warning about the attribution. Source record

Tiers are explained in the methodology. No page on this site has been reviewed or approved by any bishop, priest, synod or seminary.