The canonical function of Acts

de David E. Smith (undifferentiated)

The book of Acts was recognized as canonical throughout most of the Catholic Christian world by the early third century. Its canonization was due largely to its linking of the Old Testament with the ministries of Jesus, the Jerusalem apostles, Paul, and the "bishops" of Ephesus. In this way it functioned as a unifier of the developing Biblical canon and provided justification for episcopal hermeneutical authority.