Muratorian fragment

Last page of the Canon Muratori, as published by Tregelles in 1868

The Muratorian fragment, also known as the Muratorian Canon (Latin: Canon Muratori), is a copy of perhaps the oldest known list of most of the books of the New Testament. The fragment, consisting of 85 lines, is a Latin manuscript bound in a roughly 8th-century codex from the library of Columbanus's monastery at Bobbio Abbey; it contains features suggesting it is a translation from a Greek original written in the late 2nd century (c. 170–200). Other scholars suggest it might have been originally written as late as the 4th century, although this is not the consensus opinion. Both the degraded condition of the manuscript and the poor Latin in which it was written have made it difficult to translate. The beginning of the fragment is missing, and it ends abruptly. The fragment consists of all that remains of a section of a list of all the works that were accepted as canonical by the churches known to its original compiler.