Canon

Canon, a word originally Greek, connected with kanna, a 'cane or reed,' and (like the Hebrew gāneh) signifying a straight staff used as a measuring-rod, is applied in various arts and sciences to what serves for a rule or standard. From this general sense, which it bears—e.g. in Galatians, vi. 16, the word by the middle of the 3d century had come to mean the type of Christian doctrine recognised as orthodox by the Catholic Church, and afterwards was particularly employed to designate collectively the Scriptures which were accepted by the Christian church as the standard or rule of faith (see BIBLE and APOCRYPHA). The first instances of the latter meaning are found in the 59th canon of the Council of Laodicea (363 A.D.), and in the Epistola festalis of Athanasius. Hence arose the use of the word to signify a list (e.g. that of the clergy at the Council of Nicaea in 325), and in this sense it is still used to denote the catalogue or register of Catholic saints. The use of the plural form to denote church precepts occurs about 300, and it begins to be specially transferred to the decrees of church councils about the middle of the 4th century (see CANON LAW). The same word is used to designate the fixed form of prayer said by the priests of the Roman Catholic and Greek churches before, at, and after the consecration of the Host.