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heathen legend (known to Herodotus) as a practical proof of the truth of man's resurrection from the dead, what confidence can we place in his capacity to determine what should be the contents of an infallible Bible?

Tertullian adopts a nearly similar canon; but, if we accept him as a competent and trustworthy compiler of infallible Scripture, we must also receive at his hands the Book of Enoch as the inspired autogram of that patriarch, or the miraculously restored version of Noah.1

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Of all the ante-Nicene Fathers, Origen (254 A.D.) applied the greatest ability and industry to the study of Christian literature in a spirit of rational criticism; and his evidence establishes general corruption in the text of the Evangelists. It is obvious,' he states, that the difference between the copies is considerable, partly from the conclusions of individual scribes, partly from the impious audacity of some in correcting what is written, partly also from those who add or remove what seems good to them in the work of correction.' This language obviously fails to assure Christianity of the possession of an infallible New Testament.

2

Origen honestly endeavoured to classify Christian literature in the order of merit, a form of criticism unsuggestive of faith in divine inspiration; and as he wavered in opinion respecting the authenticity of books some of which are accepted and others rejected by modern Christianity, it was evidently an open question in the third century as to what really constituted the contents of the New Testament.

So far the Christian Fathers had not published any specific list of the books meeting their approval; and

1 On Female Dress, iii.

2

Orig. In Matt, xv. 14,

their canonical conclusions are only to be inferred from their works. But when the Emperor Constantine (about 330 A.D.) recognised the importance of identifying a definite selection of Christian literature with the Catholic Church, he applied to the ecclesiastical historian, Eusebius, for a complete collection of authentic works.

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Eusebius, in his ecclesiastical history, assigns the first place to the four Gospels, fourteen epistles of Paul, 1 John, and 1 Peter. These he calls óμodoyoúμeva— generally received; but adds, there are some who include the Gospel to the Hebrews, with which converted Jews are particularly pleased. It also should not be concealed that some have rejected the epistle to the Hebrews as not the work of Paul.' Among disputed booksἀντιλεγούμενα— although well known and approved by many'-he places the epistles of James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John; and classes among spurious works (vóla) the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Revelations of Peter, and the Revelation of John-the latter qualified with the remark, if it should appear right, as some reject, whilst others consider it genuine.' 1

Thus, when Christianity was taken in hand by the temporal power, in the fourth century, with the view of establishing a Catholic Church, its primitive literature was dependent for attestation on a Roman philosopher who had never heard of the Gospel of John or the epistles of Paul- an Alexandrian presbyter who believed in the Phoenix, a Gallican bishop who discovered the fourth Gospel in the last quarter of the second century, and a Punic presbyter who accepted the Book of Enoch as antediluvian, and

1 Hist. Eccl. iii. 25.

eventually drifted into the ascetic mysticism of Montanus, who believed himself to be the Paraclete. Where, therefore, was the infallible evidence of the Apostolic Succession supposed to have existed at Rome from Peter to the latest of the Popes? We answer-waiting evolution through the imaginative piety of later generations. And as we see Eusebius seeking in doubt and perplexity for apostolic records which had no existence, and accepting doubtful versions through hazy traditions and contemporary credulity, we can understand the ecclesiastical phenomena of Nicæa, where antagonistic bishops assembled at the bidding of a Roman Emperor, not to discuss the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, but to affirm, through a victorious majority, the foregone conclusions of doctrinal mysticism unknown to the primitive School of Galilee.

In the next century we find Augustine and Jerome still perplexed with the problem of Bible-making, and disclosing the absence of any higher authority for the canon of Scripture than arbitrary traditions and ecclesiastical usage, which virtually meant nothing more than that time had granted prescriptive rights to the credulous conclusions of the ante-Nicene Fathers.

The Evangelists accordingly emerged from the impenetrable shadow of the first century with doubtful dates, conjectural authorship, and varying versions. We hold no record of the fluctuations of Christian opinion. during the long interval of oral traditions; and when narrative and discourses assume the form of manuscript, not one of which has reached us with an earlier date than the fourth century, we possess no guarantee against the revisions and interpolations of successive scribes,

more easily influenced by legendary traditions than by the rational conclusions of impartial criticism.

The fluctuations of early Christian opinion may be forcibly illustrated through the orthodox dates of Matthew and John (about A.D. 60 and 90). If, in the brief interval of thirty years, the unassuming Son of Man had been transformed into the mysterious Logos of heathen philosophy, and the simplicity of the Sermon on the Mount into the obscure mysticism of the dialogue with Nicodemus,2 how may not the fluctuations of oral tradition, from the Crucifixion to the publication of Matthew, have changed the contents of that Gospel from what they would have been if written immediately after the death of Jesus?

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught a simple morality directly appealing to the natural faculties of his auditors, and a beneficent religion throwing wide open the gates of the kingdom of heaven, to all desirous of entering in absolute freedom from dogmatic tests. But in the unsatisfactory discourses of John, mystical problems supersede moral obligations; and we can imagine Nicodemus returning from his visit to Jesus, perplexed by the discouraging dogma of predestination, and the bewildering theory of a second birth, muttering as he goes- I have come in the hope of seeing a great prophet prepared to illuminate all which Moses has left in darkness; but, alas! the darkness is now even more profound. He condemns those who do not come to the light: I have come, and am scornfully dismissed without one luminous ray. He tells me I must be born again; and when I humbly ask how this strange thing can be, he reproaches

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me for ignorance of mysteries unheard by me before. It is not in Moses, nor in the Prophets, nor in the traditions of Israel: how therefore could I know these strange doctrines?' Thus Nicodemus departs. He might have been Saul of Tarsus, and, if thus disdainfully dismissed, the future Apostle would have been lost to Christianity.

Eusebius, alluding to the difference in the contents of John and the first three Gospels, accounts for the discrepancy by representing that the fourth Gospel records events in the life of Jesus antecedent to the narrative of the other Evangelists. This theory is based on the statement of John that the changing of water into wine at the marriage in Cana of Galilee was the first miracle, and occurred whilst John was baptising in Enon, whereas the other Evangelists begin their narrative after the Baptist had been cast into prison-a view favoured by orthodox chronology as registered in the margins of our Bibles, according to which the dialogue with Nicodemus preceded the Sermon on the Mount by twelve months. If, therefore, that eminent Pharisee had been present at the later discourse, he would have learned, with as great amazement as we ourselves, how marvellous a change had occurred in the views of the Master, after John had been cast into prison.

We again read of Jesus preaching the same mysticism to the multitude as to Nicodemus, with the result of losing many disciples.2 Are we, therefore, to infer that failure warned him to make the complete change of programme indicated in the Sermon on the Mount? Whatever theory of dates may, however, be accepted by

1 Hist. Ecccl. iii. 24.

2 John vi.

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