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in part;' for, if all the parts which were ever questioned in our gospels, were given up, it would not affect the miraculous origin of the religion in the smallest degree: e. g.

Cerinthus is said by Epiphanius to have received the gospel of Matthew, but not entire. What the omissions were does not appear. The common opinion, that he rejected the two first chapters, seems to have been a mistake. It is agreed, however, by all who have given any account of Cerinthus, that he taught that the Holy Ghost (whether he meant by that name a person or a power) descended upon Jesus at his baptism; that Jesus from this time performed many miracles, and that he appeared after his death. He must have retained therefore the essential parts of the history.

Of all the ancient heretics the most extraordinary was Marcion. One of his tenets was the rejection of the Old Testament, as proceeding from an inferior and imperfect deity; and in pursuance of this hypothesis, he erased from the Now, and that, as it should seem, without entering into any critical reasons, every passage which recognized the Jewish Scriptures. He spared not a text which contradicted his opin.. ion. It is reasonable to believe that Marcion treated books as he treated texts: yet this rash and wild controversialist published a recension, or chastised edition, of St. Luke's gospel, containing the leading facss, and all which is necessary to authenticate the religion. This example affords proof, that there were always some points, and those the main points, which neither wildness nor rashness, neither the furyof opposition nor the intemperance of controversy, would venture to call in question. There is no reason to believe that Marcion, though full of resentment against the Catholic Christians, ever charged them with forging their books. The Gospel of St. Matthew, the Epistle to the Hebrews, with those of St. Peter and St. James, as well as the Old Testament in general (he said), were writings not for Christians but for Jews.' This declaration shows the ground upon which

1 Lard. vol. ix. ed. 1788, p. 322.

Ibid. sect. ii. c. x. Also Michael. vol. i. c. i. sect. xviii.

'I have transcribed this sentence from Michaelis (p. 38), who has not, however, referred to the authority upon which he attributes these words to Marcion.

Marcion proceeded in his mutilation of the scriptures, viz., his dislike of the passages of the books. Marcion flourished about the year 130.

Dr. Lardner, in his General Review, sums up this head of evidence in the following words: Noetus, Paul of Samosata, Sabellius, Marcellus, Photinus, the Novatians, Donatists, Manicheans,' Priscillianists, beside Artemon, the Audians, the Arians, and divers others, all received most or all the same books of the New Testament which the Catholics received; and agreed in a like respect for them as writ by apostles, or their disciples and companions.'2

SECTION VIII.

The four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of St. Paul, the first Epistle of John, and the first of Peter, were received without doubt by those who doubted concerning the other books which are included in our present Canon.

I STATE this proposition, because, if made out, it shows that the authenticity of their books was a subject amongst the early Christians of consideration and inquiry; and that, where there was cause of doubt, they did doubt; a circumstance which strengthens very much their testimony to such books as were received by them with full acquiescence.

I. Jerome, in his account of Caius, who was probably a presbyter of Rome, and who flourished near the year 200, records of him, that reckoning up only thirteen epistles of Paul, he says the fourteenth, which is inscribed to the Hebrews, is not his; and then Jerome adds, ' With the Romans to this day it is not looked upon as Paul's.' This agrees in the main with the account given by Eusebius of the same ancient author and his work; except that Eusebius delivers his own remark in more guarded terms, And indeed to this very time, by

This must be with an exception, however, of Faustus, who lived so late as the year 384.

a Lard. vol. xii. p. 12.-Dr. Lardner's future inquiries supplied him with many

other instances.

some of the Romans, this epistle is not thought to be the apostle's."

II. Origen, about twenty years after Caius, quoting the epistle to the Hebrews, observes that some might dispute the authority of that epistle, and therefore proceeds to quote to the same point, as undoubted books of scripture, the Gospel of St. Matthew, the Acts of the Apostles, and Paul's first Epistle to the Thessalonians. And in another place, this author speaks of the Epistle to the Hebrews thus:-The account come down to us is various, some saying that Clement, who was bishop of Rome, wrote this epistle; others, that it was Luke, the same who writ the Gospel and the Acts.' Speaking also in the same paragraph of Peter, 'Peter [says he] has left one epistle, acknowledged; let it be granted likewise that he wrote a second, for it is doubted of.' And of John, 'He has also left one epistle, of a very few lines; grant also a second and a third, for all do not allow these to be genuine.' Now let it be noted, that Origen, who thus discriminates, and thus confesses his own doubts, and the doubts which subsisted in his time, expressly witnesses concerning the four gospels, that they alone are received without dispute by the whole church of God under heaven.' 3

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III. Dionysius of Alexandria, in the year 247, doubts concerning the Book of Revelation, whether it was written by St. John; states the grounds of his doubt; represents the diversity of opinion concerning it, in his own time, and before his time." Yet the same Dionysius uses and collates the four gospels, in a manner which shows that he entertained not the smallest suspicion of their authority, and in a manner also which shows that they, and they alone, were received as authentic histories of Christ.5

IV. But this section may be said to have been framed on purpose to introduce to the reader two remarkable passages, extant in Eusebius's ecclesiastical history. The first passage opens with these words-'Let us observe the writings of the apostle John which are uncontradicted; and first of all must be mentioned, as acknowledged of all, the gospel according to him,

1 Lard. vol. iii. p. 240. 2 Ibid. p. 246. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 670.

Ibid. vol. iii. p. 234. • Ibid. p. 661.

well known to all the churches under heaven.' The author then proceeds to relate the occasions of writing the gospels, and the reasons for placing St. John's the last, manifestly speaking of all the four as parallel in their authority, and in the certainty of their original.' The second passage is taken from a chapter, the title of which is, 'Of the Scriptures universally acknowledged, and of those that are not such.' Eusebius begins his enumeration in the following manner:- In the first place are to be ranked the sacred four Gospels, then the book of the Acts of the Apostles: after that are to be reckoned the Epistles of Paul. In the next place, that called the first Epistle of John, and the Epistle of Peter, are to be esteemed authentic. After this is to be placed, if it be thought fit, the Revelation of John, about which we shall observe the different opinions at proper seasons. Of the controverted, but yet well known, or approved by the most, are that called the Epistle of James, and that of Jude, and the second of Peter, and the second and third of John, whether they are written by the evangelist, or another of the same name.' He then proceeds to reckon up five others, not in our Canon, which he calls in one place spurious, in another controverted, meaning, as appears to me, nearly the same thing by these two words.3

It is manifest from this passage, that the four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles, (the parts of scripture with which our concern principally lies) were acknowledged without dispute, even by those who raised objections, or entertained doubts, about some other parts of the same collection. But the passage proves something more than this. The author was extremely conversant in the writings of Christians, which had been published from the commencement of the institution to his own time; and it was from these writings that he drew his knowledge of the character and reception of the books in question. That Eusebius recurred to this medium of information, and that he

'Lard. vol. viii. p. 90.

Ibid. vol. viii. p. 89.

That Eusebius could not intend, by the word rendered 'spurious,' what we at present mean by it, is evident from a clause in this very chapter, where, speaking of the Gospels of Peter and Thomas, and Matthias and some others, he says, 'They are not so much as to be reckoned among the spurious, but are to be rejected as altogether absurd and impious.'-Vol. viii. p. 98.

had examined with attention this species of proof, is shown, first, by a passage in the very chapter we are quoting, in which, speaking of the books which he calls spurious, 'None [he says] of the ecclesiastical writers, in the succession of the apostles,.. have vouchsafed to make any mention of them in their writings;' and secondly, by another passage of the same work, wherein, speaking of the first epistle of Peter, 'This [he says] the presbyters of ancient times have quoted in their writings as undoubtedly genuine;' and then speaking of some other writings bearing the name of Peter, 'We know [he says] that they have not been delivered down to us in the number of catholic writings, forasmuch as no ecclesiastical writer of the ancients, or of our times, has made use of testimonies out of them.' 'But in the progress of this history,' the author proceeds, we shall make it our business to show, together with the successions from the apostles, what ecclesiastical writers, in every age, have used such writings as these which are contradicted, and what they have said with regard to the scriptures received in the New Testament, and acknowledged by all, and with regard to those which are not such.'2

After this it is reasonable to believe, that, when Eusebius states the four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles, as uncontradicted, uncontested, and acknowledged by all; and when he places them in opposition, not only to those which were spurious in our sense of that term, but to those which were controverted, and even to those which were well known and approved by many, yet doubted of by some; he represents not only the sense of his own age, but the result of the evidence which the writings of prior ages, from the apostles' time to his own, had furnished to his inquiries. The opinion of Eusebius and his contemporaries appears to have been founded upon the testimony of writers whom they then called ancient: and we may observe, that such of the works of these writers as have come down to our times, entirely confirm the judgment, and support the distinction which Eusebius proposes. The books which he calls 'books universally acknowledged,' are in fact

1 Lard. vol. viii. p. 99.

2 Ibid. p. 111.

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