the Sacred Scriptures what may afford him satisfaction." He then quotes immediately Paul's Epistle to Timothy, and afterwards many books of the New Testament. This preface to the quotations carries in it a marked distinction between the Scriptures and other books. IV. "Our assertions and discourses," saith Origen," "are unworthy of credit; we must receive the Scriptures as witnesses." After treating of the duty of prayer, he proceeds with his argument thus: "What we have said, may be proved from the Divine Scriptures." In his books against Celsus, we find this passage: "That our religion teaches us to seek after wisdom, shall be shown, both out of the ancient Jewish Scriptures, which we also use, and out of those written since Jesus, which are believed in the Churches to be Divine." These expressions afford abundant evidence of the peculiar and exclusive authority which the Scriptures possessed. V. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, whose age lies close to that of Origen, earnestly exhorts Christian teachers, in all doubtful cases, "to go back to the fountain; and, if the truth has in any case been shaken, to recur to the Gospels • Lardner, Cred., vol. iii. pp. 287, 288, 289. 1 Ibid., vol. iv. p. 840. and apostolic writings." "The precepts of the Gospel," says he in another place, "are nothing less than authoritative Divine lessons, the foundations of our hope, the supports of our faith, the guides of our way, the safeguards of our course to Heaven." 2 VI. Novatus, a Roman, contemporary with Cyprian, appeals to the Scriptures, as the authority by which all errors were to be repelled, and disputes decided. "That Christ is not only man, but God also, is proved by the sacred authority of the Divine Writings." "The Divine Scripture easily detects and confutes the frauds of heretics." "It is not by the fault of the heavenly Scriptures, which never deceive." Stronger assertions than these could not be used. VII. At the distance of twenty years from the writer last cited, Anatolius,3 a learned Alexandrian, and bishop of Laodicea, speaking of the rule for keeping Easter, a question at that day agitated with much earnestness, says of those whom he opposed, "They can by no means prove their point by the authority of the Divine Scripture VIII. The Arians, who sprang up about fifty years after this, argued strenuously against the 2 Lardner, Cred., vol. v. p. 102. Ibid., p. 146. use of the words consubstantial, and essence, and like phrases, "because they were not in Scripture."4 And in the same strain, one of their advocates opens a conference with Augustine, after the following manner: "If you say what is reasonable, I must submit. If you allege anything from the Divine Scriptures, which are common to both, I must hear. But unscriptural expressions (quæ extra Scripturam sunt) deserve no regard." Athanasius, the great antagonist of Arianism, after having enumerated the books of the Old and New Testament, adds, "These are the fountains of salvation, that he who thirsts may be satisfied with the oracles contained in them. In these alone the doctrine of salvation is proclaimed. Let no man add to them, or take anything from them."5 6 IX. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, who wrote about twenty years after the appearance of Arianism, uses these remarkable words: "Concerning the Divine and holy mysteries of faith, not the least article ought to be delivered without the Divine Scriptures." We are assured that Cyril's Scriptures were the same as ours, for he Lardner, Cred., vol. vii. pp. 283, 284. Ibid., vol. viii. p. 276. has left us a catalogue of the books included under that name. X. Epiphanius, twenty years after Cyril, challenged the Arians, and the followers of Origen, "to produce any passage of the Old and New Testament favouring their sentiments." XI. Pœbadius, a Gallic bishop, who lived about thirty years after the council of Nice, testifies, that "the bishops of that council first consulted the sacred volumes, and then declared their faith."8 XII. Basil, bishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, contemporary with Epiphanius, says, "that hearers instructed in the Scriptures ought to examine what is said by their teachers, and to embrace what is agreeable to the Scriptures, and to reject what is otherwise."9 XIII. Ephraim, the Syrian, a celebrated writer of the same times, bears this conclusive testimony to the proposition which forms the subject of our present chapter:-"The truth written in the Sacred Volume of the Gospel is a perfect rule. Nothing can be taken from it, nor added to it, without great guilt." XIV. If we add Jerome to these, it is only for the evidence which he affords of the judg 7 Lardner, Cred., vol. viii. p. 314. • Ibid., p. 124. Ibid., vol. ix. p. 52. 1 Ibid., p. 202. ment of preceding ages. Jerome observes, concerning the quotations of ancient Christian writers, that is, of writers who were ancient in the year 400, that they made a distinction between books; some they quoted as of authority, and others not: which observation relates to the books of Scripture, compared with other writings, apocryphal or heathen.2 SECTION III. THE SCRIPTURES WERE, IN VERY EARLY TIMES, COLLECTED INTO A DISTINCT VOLUME. I. IGNATIUS, who was bishop of Antioch within forty years after the Ascension, and who had lived and conversed with the Apostles, speaks of the Gospel and of the Apostles in terms which render it very probable that he meant by the Gospel, the book or volume of the Gospels, and by the Apostles, the book or volume of their Epistles. His words in one place are,3 "Fleeing to the Gospel as the flesh of Jesus, and to the Apostles as the presbytery of the Church:" that is, as Le Clerc interprets them, "in order to Lardner, Cred., vol. x. pp. 123, 124. Ibid., part ii. vol. i. p. 180. |