Council of Laodicea

Background

Laodicea was a city in the region of Phrygia in Asia Minor, in what is now western Turkey. The church in this city appears in the New Testament in Colossians 4:16 and Revelation 3:14–22, and it is one of the seven churches of Asia addressed in the Book of Revelation.

After the Roman Empire granted legal recognition to Christianity in the fourth century, the church grew rapidly. In the process it needed to settle practical questions such as the order of worship, the qualifications of the clergy, and the procedure for receiving those returning from heresy. During the same period the Eastern church was embroiled in the Arian controversy, and regional councils (synods) of bishops met frequently in various areas to establish regulations. The Council of Laodicea was one such regional council. It was not an ecumenical council representing the church of the entire empire, as was the Council of Nicaea.

Proceedings

The exact year of the council is unknown. It is commonly dated to around 363–364, though scholars have proposed various dates between 343 and 381. Clergy from various parts of Asia Minor are reported to have attended. No minutes of the council survive; only its canons have been preserved. The number of canons is fifty-nine or sixty, depending on the manuscript. Their principal contents are as follows.

• Reception of heretics: The council established procedures for receiving those returning from groups such as the Novatianists and the so-called Quartodecimans, who observed a different date for Easter. Those returning from the Phrygians, that is, Montanism, were to be baptized again.
• Sunday and the Sabbath: Canon 29 directs that Christians should not rest on the Saturday Sabbath as the Jews do but should work on that day, and should instead honor the Lord's Day by resting. Canon 16, meanwhile, provides that the Gospels be read on the Sabbath along with the other Scriptures.
• Worship and devotional life: The council forbade holding separate assemblies that invoke angels (Canon 35) and prohibited clergy from practicing magic or astrology or making amulets (Canon 36). It also directed that weddings and birthday celebrations not be held during Lent.
• Reading of Scripture: Canon 59 directs that privately composed psalms and noncanonical books not be read in church, but only the canonical books. Canon 60 provides a list of the books of the Old and New Testaments. Because this canon is absent from some Latin and Syriac manuscripts, however, many scholars regard it as a later addition.

Results and Influence

The canons of this council were transmitted in the canonical collections of the Eastern church, and the Council in Trullo of 692 is reported to have ratified them. Thus, although it was only a regional council, it influenced later canon law.

The list in Canon 60 is frequently cited in discussions of the formation of the canon. Its Old Testament list omits most of the books that Protestants today classify as the Apocrypha, but it includes Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah together with the Book of Jeremiah. Its New Testament list omits the Book of Revelation. This is interpreted as evidence that part of the Eastern church at the time was hesitant about the canonicity of Revelation.

Assessment

In Korea, the council is mentioned chiefly in the debate over the Sabbath and the Lord's Day.

• Claims of Sabbath-keeping groups: The Seventh-day Adventist Church, the World Mission Society Church of God, and others appeal to Canon 29. They argue that Sunday observance was institutionalized by ecclesiastical authority in place of the biblical Sabbath.
• Response of Sunday-keeping denominations: Most denominations that observe the Lord's Day, such as Presbyterian and Methodist churches, and most scholars take a different view. They maintain that, as seen in Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:2, Revelation 1:10, and the writings of the second-century Church Fathers, worship on the first day of the week was established long before this council. Accordingly, they hold that the council did not create Sunday observance but issued regional regulations codifying an existing practice. They also point out that the council included provisions, such as Canon 16, requiring Scripture to be read on Saturday as well.

In the study of the history of the canon, whether Canon 60 belonged to the original canons remains disputed. For this reason, the council is more often treated not as a council that fixed the canon but as one of several sources illustrating how the fourth-century Eastern church understood the canon.