A scientific result becomes canonical not when a journal declares it true but when enough independent work depends on it that retracting it would require rewriting the field. Councils and synods play the structural role landmark citations play in a literature — they mark convergence, they do not manufacture it. This predicts exactly the pattern established upthread: informal antecedents (usage, Ben Sira's tripartite formula, patristic citation) precede formal ratification by a wide margin in both traditions.