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RE: The ancient patristic writings provides evidence of a universally accepted canon long before Constantine or any council of bishops.

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Also, LONG BEFORE CONSTANTINE AND THE COUNCIL OF NICEA...

The apostle Peter himself acknowledges that Paul’s writings his epistles) were SCRIPTURE. That’s CENTURIES before Constantine and Nicea.

See 2 Peter 3:15,16

“Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:15,16).

This statement of Peter tells us several things. They include the following.

First there were a number of Paul’s letters that were circulating since Peter speaks of his “letters.” While he does not give the exact number of these letters they were circulating as a group.

Second, these writings of Paul were well known by Peter and the other believers. The fact that he could speak of these letters to his audience in this way assumes that they were familiar with them.

Third, Peter placed these writings of Paul on the same level as the Old Testament Scripture. He used the Greek word graphe to refer to Paul’s writings. This Greek word is used fifty-one times in the New Testament and it refers to the Old Testament writings in every other occurrence. Consequently Scripture was a technical term that the New Testament used to refer to God’s divinely authoritative writings.

Also, Paul Quotes Luke As Scripture ( AGAIN CENTURIES BEFORE CONSTANTINE AND NICEA ).

When Paul wrote to Timothy he quoted a passage from Luke as Scripture.

For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads the grain,’ and, ‘the laborer is worthy of his wages’ (1 Timothy 5:18).

The first verse quoted is from Deuteronomy 25:4. However the second is a quotation of one of our Lord’s statements recorded by Luke: “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (Luke 10:7). This saying is not found in the Old Testament. Paul uses the exact same Greek words that Luke used. Consequently it seems that Paul knew of Luke’s gospel at this time and considered it Scripture. Paul quotes Luke on the same level as Moses. This implied equivalence.

So, The New Testament itself is quoted as Scripture twice. Paul quotes a saying of Jesus from Luke’s gospel and calls it Scripture.

In addition, Peter acknowledges the writings of Paul were considered to be Holy Scripture. This shows that the idea of adding new Scripture, apart from the Old Testament, was already occurring in the early years of the church.

The “universally” accepted canon were canons as in multiple. There were multiple versions of the various scriptures and most were not universally accepted. Most of the writings and scriptures of the time were rejected by the council of Nicea and the version the council approved was heavily influenced by the need for Constantine to bring together the various sects and and beliefs into a creed that could serve to unite his growing empire. Again, anything touched by the hand of man, even the apostle’s letters, were shaped by situational politics and individual point of view of the writers. Even today, many denominations profess their interpretations of scripture, old and new. The scriptures should be taken as providing lessons and insights into God and not necessarily as the infallible word of God. Put your faith in the message of the scriptures and not on the literal infallibility of a set of documents shaped by mans interpretations of God’s message.

"The worker is worthy of his pay" is found in almost the same words in both Luke 10.7 and Matthew 10.10. That the phrase also appears in I Timothy 5.18 doesn't necessarily mean that Paul has read Luke--it could be known from oral tradition, or from the written collection of Jesus' sayings that many scholars argue for (to explain the many resemblances between Matthew and Luke when they have material that is not also in Mark).

II Peter is the most controversial book of the New Testament as to authenticity (whether it was actually written by the Apostle Peter or by someone else, between 100 and 150, using the name of Peter). Already Origen refers to the doubts about authenticity. The Wikipedia article on Second Peter has a lot of footnotes--the first one takes you to an article on bible.org which outlines all the arguments for and against authenticity (that writer accepts it as authentic).