Parable of the Good Samaritan which they belong." Samaritans appear elsewhere in the Gospels and Book of Acts. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus heals ten lepers and only the Samaritan among them thanks him (), although depicts Jesus receiving a hostile reception in Samaria. Luke's favorable treatment of Samaritans is in line with Luke's favorable treatment of the weak and of outcasts, generally. In John, Jesus has an extended dialogue with a Samaritan woman, and many Samaritans come to believe in him. In Matthew, however, Jesus instructs his disciples not to preach in or Samaritan cities (). In the Gospels, generally, "though the Jews
Development of the New Testament canon somewhat similar to the twenty-seven-book NT canon, which included four gospels and argued against objections to them. Thus, while there was a good measure of debate in the Early Church over the New Testament canon, the major writings are claimed to have been accepted by almost all Christians by the middle of the 3rd century. In his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, gave a list of the books that would become the twenty-seven-book NT canon, and he used the word "canonized" ( "kanonizomena") in regard to them. The first council that accepted the present canon of the