THIS THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE CANON IS, MOREOVER, WARRANTED BY THE MOST AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCH.

30. In thus dividing the canon of the New Testament into three distinct parts, we would by no means be understood as_ considering the Divine authority of some of its books more certain than that of the others. We shall, by and by, prove that, though under a purely historical point of view, the evidence in favour of all of them is not the same; our belief in the Divine authority of them all is established in one and the same manner, and on the surest grounds. We readily, however, adopt this threefold division, both in conformity with the facts of ecclesiastical history, and for the purpose of proceeding more methodically in the historical demonstration of the canonicity of the New Testament scriptures.

SECTION FIRST.

THREE ANTE-NICENE CATALOGUES.

31. To warrant this threefold distinction, ecclesiastical literature supplies, in addition to numerous testimonies of the fathers, three ancient catalogues of the Scriptures, not indeed all identical, but all serving to establish the distinction in question. All three are anterior to the famous Council of Nice. The first of these goes back to about the period of the death of John; that is, to the end of the first, or beginning of the second century; the second, to the beginning of the third century; and the last, to the beginning of the fourth. The first is derived from the ancient Syriac version of the New Testament, called the Peshito.¹ The second is furnished by Origen, and that twice; once directly, in a Homily on Joshua;² and again indirectly, in the quotations which Eusebius makes from Origen’s commentaries on Matthew, John, and the Epistle to the Hebrews.³ The third is given by Eusebius himself, in 324, in the third book of “Ecclesiastical History.”

These, then, are the only trustworthy catalogues, anterior to the Council of Nice, that have reached us. We do not here reckon either the catalogue contained in the apocryphal productions called the Apostolic Canons, nor the anonymous Roman catalogue, for which we are indebted to the discoveries made, in 1788, by Muratori in the Ambrosian library at Milan, and usually called the Muratori document.⁴ It is a deeply-mutilated fragment; the date and the author of which are entirely unknown. Defective at the beginning, defective again towards the end, it exists only in the form of a Latin translation, singularly barbarous and strangely inaccurate. Librariorwm imperitia, .... incuria atque ignorantia, . . . . scripturam saturavit atque feedavit, says Muratori himself. In a word, the document (which, moreover, gives us nearly the same canon as the Peshito) is too imperfect to enable us to determine doubtful points connected with the history of the canon; but as it may otherwise be of great use towards establishing the authenticity of our Scriptures, we shall again direct special attention to it in Book II.⁵

SECTION SECOND,

PESHITO CATALOGUE.⁶

32. The Peshito is of all versions of the New Testament the most ancient, the most celebrated, and the most valued. It has been known in Europe only since the year 1552, on the occasion of Moses of Mardin being sent on a deputation from the Patriarch of the Maronites to Pope Julius III. Michaelis, who, with many other eminent scholars, considers it of the first century, or, at the latest, of the second, pronounces it the best of all known versions in regard to ease of expression, elegance, and fidelity. All who have studied it admire the good sense, the erudition, the independence, and the accuracy of the translators. As to its — antiquity, every body will admit that the Aramæan-speaking. Christians must have early furnished themselves with the Scriptures in their own language. They were, in fact, the first to receive the gospel: their churches were very numerous, not only in Syria, but on the banks of the Euphrates and of the Tigris, in the Adiabene and the Osroene territories, at Edessa, Nisibe, and Carrhe; and their literature was then in a high state of advancement.

The scriptures of the New Testament must then have been very early translated by them into the language spoken by the primitive Church, the language spoken also by Jesus Christ himself. We accordingly find, in the history of Eusebius, traces of its being already usual in those parts to read and quote the Syriac scriptures of the New Testament. In speaking of the famous Hegesippus, the most ancient ecclesiastical historian, Eusebius, to prove to us that Hegesippus was undoubtedly an Israelitish Christian, remarks, that he took his quotations from the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and from the Syriac Gospel, (ἐκ τε τοῦ καθ’ Εβραίους Εὐωγγελίου καὶ τοῦ Συριακοῦ.) This Hegesippus, whose writings are lost, but who had narrated in five books the history of the Church, under the title of ‘A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles,’ was, Eusebius: tells us, nearly a contemporary of the Apostles, (ἐπὶ τῆς πρώτης τῶν Ἀποστόλων γενόμενος διαδοχῆς) — “for he lived,” says he, “under Hadrian, (from 117 to 138,) and also under Anicetus, (from 157 to 168.)” Accordingly, Jerome, in his “List of Ecclesiastical Writers,” places him before Justin Martyr, who was born in 103, and died in 167. These facts prove the high antiquity of the Peshito version.

Various other circumstances furnish additional evidence on the same point. The Syrian Christians, from the earliest period to the present time, have, with one accord, gone so far as to maintain that the Peshito was the original of the New Testament. They found their assertion on the alleged fact, that their language was that of the apostles and the earliest Christians in Jerusalem, where congregations, on being formed, were distinguished into Hellenic and Hebrew, (or Aramæan;) and that also of the churches founded among the Eastern Jews, especially in Babylonia and the Osroene territory, where a Syriac Old Testament had existed for centuries. All the fathers, as is well known, maintain that Matthew's Gospel was first published in Aramæan; though it is more probable that Matthew put forth, at the same time, a twofold original of his Gospel, the one in Greek, and the other in Aramæan, At least it is certain, that from the age of the apostles, wherever any one of the three Aramæan dialects was spoken, Aramæan versions of the various books of the New Testament were in circulation.

Edessa, where Aramæan literature had long been cultivated with great ardour, and where the apostle Thaddæus (as Eusebius informs⁷ us) preached the Christian faith with so splendid success, is frequently mentioned as the place that gave birth to the Peshito. It had become, so early as the second century, the seat of an important Christian school; it was called “the holy city,” on account of its unswerving zeal for the Christian faith; and even Eusebius states, “that from the success of Thaddæus, till the time at which he wrote, (324 — εἰς ἔτι τὸ νῦν ἐξ ἐκείνου,) the inhabitants of Edessa (ἦ πᾶσα τῶν Ἐδεσσηνῶν πόλις) ’ had continued to shew their attachment to the name of Christ.”

What further serves to establish the venerable antiquity of this version is the fact of its being unanimously used by the various sects into which the Syrian Christians are divided — Nestorians, Jacobites, Romanists, all employ it in their respective services. Although, according to Wiseman, there are as many as twelve Syriac versions of the Old Testament, and three of the New, none of these has ever supplanted the Peshito in the services of the Church. It must, therefore, have been adopted universally before the appearance of these various sects.

33. This version contains the whole of our canon, with the exception merely of the Apocalypse and the four small and later epistles of Jude, Peter, and John.

Such, then, was the canon of the Syrian churches at the beginning of the second century, or, rather, at the end of the first. “The Peshito,” says Adler, “is found, at the present day, under two forms of manuscripts; some in ancient Syriac characters, and others (of Indian origin) in Nestorian characters. All these manuscripts now exhibit the same canon.”

34. Two circumstances connected with these manuscripts are very important: —

(1.) The absence of every non-canonical book, though in the East, from the commencement of the second century, many such began to be published under false apostolic titles.

(2.) The arrangement of the sacred books is in all of them the same as that of the best and most ancient Greek manuscripts. First we have the four Gospels, according to their invariable order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; then the Acts of the Apostles; then the Catholic epistles; and, lastly, the fourteen epistles of Paul, in the usual order, Romans, Corinthians (1, 2), Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians (1, 2), Timotheus (1, 2), Titus, Philemon, Hebrews.⁸

35. We can easily understand why the two small epistles of John, written at so late a date, and at so great a distance from Babylonia, should not be comprehended in the Peshito. In regard to the Apocalypse, it could not, as we shall afterwards see, form a part of it, as it was published at Ephesus, on the shores of the Ægean, about the end of the first century, or beginning of the second, that is, after the ‘Peshito, or, at least, very shortly before that version was published in the East. John did not see his visions in Patmos till about the end of the reign of Domitian, as Trenzeus so distinctly informs us; so that, at the earliest reckoning, the publication of the Apocalypse could only have taken place during the last four years of the first century, or the commencement of the second. What proves very clearly that the absence of the Apocalypse in the Peshito is owing solely to the earlier publication of the latter, is the fact that the Syrian churches, far from rejecting it, when it afterwards reached them, quoted it as a book of Divine authority. Dr Thiersch, who considers the Peshito posterior in date to the publication of the Apocalypse, is convinced that version originally contained this sacred book. “We cannot,” says he, “have any doubt on this point, after the researches of Hug. Otherwise, how could Ephrem have had a Syriac Apocalypse? It must, further, be remarked, that if the Peshito did not contain the Apocalypse, it contained the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Epistle of James; as these two epistles, though late and almost posthumous, must have been both published before the martyrdom of Paul; and would, naturally, be more quickly received by the Syrian churches, to which they were directly communicated, than by the churches of the Gentiles.

36. From these facts it follows, that this most ancient of all existing catalogues of the New Testament scriptures, — this document which so nearly reaches the days of the apostles, that it seems contemporaneous with the last years of John, — warrants our dividing the canon of New Testament scriptures into two or into three parts; the first containing the twenty books always and everywhere received by every section of the Christian Church; the second, two books never controverted by the Arameean-speaking Christians in Palestine, Syria, the Adiabene, Mesopotamia, the Osroene; the third, five other books, whose title to rank in the list of the oracles of God was not yet admitted by the Aramean churches during the early part of the second century.

SECTION THIRD.

ORIGEN’S CATALOGUE.

37. Passing from the commencement of the second century to the commencement of the third, we come to a period in the Church’s history rendered illustrious by the great teachers then raised up almost simultaneously, in provinces of the empire the most remote from each other: Tertullian in Africa; Irenaeus in Gaul; Hippolytus in Arabia and at Rome; Clement, who closed his career in Egypt when Origen was there beginning his; and soon afterwards, Gregory in the kingdom of Pontus, and Cyprian at Carthage. This remarkable period supplies us with a second catalogue, and that from the hands of the great Origen.

Before examining its contents, it is important to point out the high value of Origen’s testimony in reference to the canon of Scripture, derived from the character, piety, erudition, and prodigious labours of that extraordinary man.

38. Origen, in spite of certain doctrinal errors into which his piety was drawn by his genius, was one of the greatest luminaries of Christian antiquity, from his marvellous erudition, his skill in the sacred languages, his veneration for the Scriptures, his indefatigable ardour in Biblical researches, his perspicuity in expounding Holy Writ, as well as from the uniform purity of his life, his. faithfulness in confessing Jesus Christ, and his holy firmness amid persecution. Though his doctrinal views on some points are of in-. ferior value, his historical and literary testimony is of the greatest weight on the present question. His labours, in fact, were Herculean. No teacher ever made equal exertions for the collation, exposition, and circulation of the Holy Scriptures. Born in 185, he was martyred at the age of sixty-eight, in 253. He was distinguished for his attainments when hardly eighteen years old. Becoming an instructor of the catechumens at Alexandria, he was soon afterwards, in spite of his youth, appointed successor to his master, the famous Clement of Alexandria, in the catechetical chair of that city. Such was the renown he speedily acquired by his lectures, that the most illustrious of the heathens flocked to hear him; and the emperor Alexander, pagan as he was, and his mother Mamma, being in Syria, and eager to have the privilege of hearing him, sent a military escort to conduct him from Antioch to Alexandria. At the age of eighteen he had visited Rome; and after his return to Alexandria commenced his vast labours on the Scriptures. He was, however, obliged to leave Egypt in the year 233, and take refuge, first at Caesarea in Palestine, and subsequently at Caesarea in Cappadocia. “So intense,” says Eusebius, “was his unremitting ardour in Biblical researches, (τοσαύτη τῶν θείων λόγων ἀπηκριβωμένη ἐξέτασις,) that he was at pains to procure the most authentic (πρωτοτύπους) copies in the possession of Jews, as well as the editions of the Septuagint version, and of the translations executed respectively by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. He determined to write commentaries on the whole scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.” Epiphanius, Eusebius, and Jerome inform us, that he actually did write commentaries on all the books of Scripture. “He had always short-hand writers, (ταχτξγράφοι) to the number of seven, within his call, when he was dictating; he relieved them, one after the other, at stated intervals. He had also, at the same time, an equal number of copyists, (βιβλιοσράφοι.) as well as young persons of the female sex, skilled in caligraphy, who wrote under his direction. The piety of a friend, converted. through his instrumentality, supplied all the necessary funds, and enabled him to devote himself with, inexpressible zeal to the study of the Divine oracles, and the composition of his commentaries.”

The amount of his labours on the Scriptures seems more than human; and it was not without reason that antiquity called him, “the man with bowels of brass,” and “the man of adamant,” (χαλκέντερος — adamantius.) Thus, though even in the time of Eusebius, only a hundred years after his death, a great portion of his works were already lost, and though many portions more have perished since the age of Eusebius, the collection, published by Huet,⁹ of his exegetical writings still extant, consists of two folio volumes; while the whole of his extant works, edited by Delarue,¹⁰ consist of four folio volumes. Without referring either to his famous Hexapla, or to his immense labours on the Old Testament, we may convey some notion of his labours on the New, by repeating, after Eusebius and Cave, the list merely of his Exegetical Works, (ἐξηνητικῶν,) of his Scholia, (or collections of brief notes,) and of his Homilies, (or more popular tracts,) on record.

On the Gospel of John, a commentary in thirty-two volumes, the earlier written in the year 222, and the later in 237; besides a large number of homilies, of which there remain only two.

On Matthew, in 244, a commentary in twenty-five books, besides scholia, and numerous homilies.

On Mark, dissertations, of which he himself speaks elsewhere, but which have been all lost.

On Luke, five volumes, besides thirty-nine homilies, which Jerome has preserved in Latin.

On the Acts, homilies.

On the Epistle to the Romans, a commentary in twenty volumes, part of which Ruffinus has preserved to us in his Latin translation.

On the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and on the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, a commentary in several books.

On the Epistle to the Galatians, five volumes, besides dissertations and scholia.

On the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, and on the Epistle to Titus, exegetical discourses, of which Jerome and Pamphylus have preserved to us a portion.

On the Epistle to the Hebrews, a commentary, homilies, and exegetical discourses.;

Lastly, on the Apocalypse, an exposition, which he himself mentions in his thirtieth dissertation on Matthew, but of which no other trace is known to exist.

To justify the importance we attach to Origen’s testimony in the history of the canon, it would be necessary to enter into details to shew, from the labours of one man, with what ardour, at so early a period as a century after the death of John, the churches studied the scriptures of the New Testament; it would be necessary to convey an adequate idea of the immensity of the Biblical labours of this great man, achieved 103 years before the Council of Nice.

39. Origen furnishes us with two catalogues of the books that were regarded in his time as canonical. The first of these catalogues is directly given us in the eighth of his homilies, on the book of Joshua, (as preserved to us in the Latin translation by Ruffinus;) the other is derived from references and quotations contained in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, a “work 100 years after the time of Origen.¹¹

40. We shall first examine the direct testimony of Origen, expressed incidentally in his commentary on the book of Joshua. It will be seen that he there gives our present canon entire, without the omission or addition of a single book.

Alluding to the trumpets, at the sound of which the walls of Jericho fell, he says: — ‘‘ When our Lord Jesus Christ came in the flesh, (He whose advent Jesus the son of Nun prefigured,) He made His apostles walk as priests, bearing the trumpets of the grand and heavenly doctrine of the preached word. It was Matthew who, in his Gospel, first sounded the sacerdotal clarion. Then Mark, then Luke, then John, each in succession blew his trumpet. After them Peter bursts forth with the two trumpets of his epistles, (Petrus etiam duabus epistolarum suarum personat tubis.) Then comes James, and then Jude. Then comes John, to send forth, in addition to his previous blasts, fresh sounds of his trumpet by his epistles and Apocalypse (addit nihilominus atque et Joannes tuba canere per epistolas suas et Apocalypsin;) and so also does Luke, in putting forth his Acts of the Apostles. Last comes, in his turn, he who said, (1 Cor. iv. 9,) ‘I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last’ When he awoke the thunders of his trumpets by his fourteen epistles, (et in quatuordecim epistolarum suarum culminans tubis,) he overturned from their very foundations the walls of Jericho, — all the war-engines of idolatry, all the tenets of false philosophy.”

This direct testimony of Origen comprehends, as we have seen, all the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, without excepting even one; but his evidence is, notwithstanding, by no means at variance with the historical distinction we have adopted in reference to certain books of the canon. All these books, as we have stated after Eusebius, were received by most people, (πλεῖστοις.) All of them, as we have just seen, were received by Origen. The twenty books of the first canon had never been called in question in the churches of God, as they have never been since that time. Neither do the two books of our second-first canon appear to have been called in question during the early part of the century, at the commencement of Origen’s literary career. They were now soon to be attacked, the one in the East and the other in the West; and we shall perceive in the second form of Origen’s testimony, which has been preserved to us, that though he himself received the Second Epistle of Peter, and the two brief epistles of John, some of his contemporaries, however, for some time hesitated to admit their Divine authority.

41. The second form of Origen’s testimony is as follows: — It is not presented to us directly by that great man himself, but by Eusebius, who (in the fourth book of his “Ecclesiastical History,” ch. xxv.,) states that he took it from the works of Origen, specifying the first of his books on the Gospel of Matthew, the fifth book of his exegetical discourses on the Gospel of John, and one of his homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews.

“Origen,” he says, “faithful to the canon of the Church, (τὸν ἐκκλησιαστικὸν φυλάττων κανόνα,) testifies that there are only four Gospels. He says: ‘This I have received from tradition regarding the four Gospels, which alone have been universally and unanimously recognised in the Church of God all over the earth,” (ἃ καὶ μόνα ἀναντιβρητά ἐστιν ἐν τῇ ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ Θεοῦ.) Then, after speaking of these Gospels, he carefully distinguishes the First Epistle of Peter, as uncontroverted, (ὁμολογουμένην) from the second, in regard to which some entertained doubts, (ἐστιν καὶ δευτέραν ἀμφιβάλλεται εγάρ,)¹² though he himself still maintained the canonicity of all the books of Scripture. In the same way he is at pains to state, respecting the two brief epistles of John, that all do not regard them as genuine, (ἐπεὶ οὐ πάντες φασὶ (γνησίους εἶναι.)

As to the Apocalypse, it was, in Origen’s time, still uncontroverted; and in mentioning it he makes no allusion to its having been ever called in question. In regard to the Epistle to the Hebrews, he gives no intimation that anybody doubted its canonicity; he merely remarks that, owing to the elegance of its style, some doubted, not its canonicity, (this is specially deserving of attention,) but its being a production of Paul's. He does not*express on this point any decided opinion of his own, but he is at pains to add, that “if any church receives it as an epistle of Paul, it ought to be held in honour even on that very account, (αὕτη εὐδοκιμείσθω καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ ·) for it was not on light grounds (οὐ γὰρ εἰκῆ) that the early Church had handed it down as a production of Paul’s, (οἱ ἀρχαῖοι ἄνδρες ὡς Παύλου αὔτὴν παραδεδώκασι,)”

42, It thus distinctly follows from the indirect as well as from the direct testimony of Origen, that our historical division of the canon is duly warranted.

We again briefly review Origen’s testimony: —

(1.) That great man received the canon exactly as we have it at the present day.

(2.) All the churches continued unanimously to receive, as at all times, the twenty books of the first canon.

(3.) They still received, likewise, the two books of the second-first canon.

(4.) Some doubted the canonicity of the Second Epistle of Peter and of the two brief epistles of John.

(5.) Origen, according to Eusebius, makes no mention of any opposition made, in his time, to the Epistle of James, or to that of Jude. Neither does he expressly say, indeed, that he himself admitted the divine authority of these epistles; but this is a manifest inadvertence of Eusebius, as Origen, in different parts of his works, mentions the Epistle of Jude more than fifteen times, and distinctly calls it a divine Scripture.¹³

(6.) Lastly, some, on account of the elegancy of the style, doubted Paul’s authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews; its canonicity had never yet been called in question,

SECTION FOURTH.

THE CATALOGUE OF EUSEBIUS.

43. As the “Ecclesiastical History” of Eusebius, published in the early part of the fourth century, and before the Council of Nice, is going to furnish us with our third catalogue of the books of the New Testament, we think it indispensable to review, with attention, the life and merits of its author.

This illustrious bishop has been justly styled the “father or founder of ecclesiastical history.” He is not only the most ancient, but the only historian of the primitive Church. The work of Hegesippus, a hundred years earlier, consists merely of detached narratives, (μερικὰς δηγήσεις,)¹⁴ recording the more or less uncertain traditions of apostolic days. Eusebius, on the contrary, collecting all the documents of the preceding ages, and consulting innumerable writings, had determined to exhibit, in ten books, a consecutive view of the labours, sufferings, and successes of the Church, from the days of Jesus Christ to the fall of Licinius, in 8324. He made a special point to give, as he proceeded, a particular account of the writings (now lost) of the Church’s early teachers. Valesius, (Henri de Valois,) in the preface to his beautiful edition of the principal ancient ecclesiastical historians, remarks that none of the ecclesiastical historians whom his example raised up has entered on the field he had gone over, but, on the contrary, all of them, by commencing their narratives at the point where he had closed his, appear to have wished to leave entire the glory his work had acquired.

Accordingly, the ten books of Eusebius will ever remain the great repertory where ecclesiastical writers will go to find whatever is known, in connexion with their subject, regarding the first three centuries; and whoever would obtain from this source an accurate account of the early vicissitudes of the Church, or of the history of the canon, must have Eusebius lying constantly on his table. Had the work of Eusebius been lost, like so many. others, our means of becoming acquainted with Christian anti-quities, though, as it is, far from ample, would have been limited in the extreme; a circumstance, to which we shall have occasion to revert, being the scantiness of authentic documents relating to the apostolic age and the first half of the second century. After setting aside, as is necessary to do, the Pastor of Hermas, the Apostolic Constitutions, and the spurious Epistles of Barnabas, of Ignatius, and of Clement, very little indeed remains. The whole amount consists of five or six authentic epistles of Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp, with accounts of their martyrdom, and the beautiful anonymous letter addressed to Diognetus.

Many other works of Eusebius, written, for the most part, before his “Ecclesiastical History,” are still extant. There are his “Evangelical Preparation,” in fifteen books, written in the year 815; his “Evangelical Demonstration,” in twenty books, (of which there remain only ten,) written about the same period; his valuable “Chronicle,” the original of which is lost, but an Armenian version of which was discovered during the last century; his “Defence of Origen;” his “Life (or Panegyric) of Constantine;” his “History of the Martyrs of Palestine,” and a commentary on various parts of Scripture. The most important, however, of all his writings will always be his “Ecclesiastical History.” No man could have been better qualified than this learned bishop for such an undertaking. Born about the year 270, he became in 315 bishop of that Caesarea in Palestine where his accomplished friend Pamphilus, successor to Origen, had taught, and where he had recently been martyred. Eusebius, both a scholar and a courtier, was highly esteemed by the Emperor Constantine, who frequently invited him to the imperial table, as well as did him the honour of becoming his epistolary correspondent. Eusebius had access to the state archives, as well as to the rich libraries established at Caesarea by Pamphilus, and at Jerusalem by the bishop Alexander. All those works, now lost to our scholars, are only known to them by the fragments quoted by Eusebius. The important writings of Aristion, Quadratus, Aristides, Hegesippus, Papias, Meliton, Apollonius, had all passed through his hands, so that his decisions respecting the Scriptures were formed with the aid of sources no longer in existence. Eusebius, moreover, by his brilliant endowments, as well as by his rank, exercised a high influence in the Church. He had even been offered the Patriarchate of Antioch, which he had the wisdom to decline. In the famous Council of Nice, we find him on the right of Constantine’s golden throne, and occupying the first place among the bishops. Many of the letters that prince addressed to him are still extant; and-there is one among them we cannot refrain from quoting, as it relates to the canon. “Dear brother,” (Ἀδελφὲ ἀγαπητέ.) said the emperor, “I intrust to your prudence the task of having fifty copies (σωμάτια) of the divine Scriptures (τῶν θείων δηλαδὴ γραφῶν) copied on precious parchment, and in the way you may deem best fitted for the use of the Church and the solemn lessons from the Divine word, (παρὰ, τῆς τῶν θείων ἀναγνωσμάτων ἐπισκευῆς.) You will employ for this purpose persons the most skilled in the art of caligraphy; and, to accelerate the work, letters of our clemency have been addressed to the government treasurer, and two public carriages have been put at your disposal.”

If, by one of those unforeseen occurrences that Divine Goodness from time to time accords to the Church, one of these manuscripts, more ancient than any at present known, were suddenly brought to light, as were but of late the palaces of Nineveh, or the papyri in the Egyptian tombs, how precious a prize to sacred literature would the relic prove!

Eusebius, then, viewed as a witness who lived at the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth, possesses all the literary qualifications we could desire; but, before we begin to examine him, we must remember that in other respects his sentiments and character are not always so worthy of confidence as his learning.

As to his literary attainments, they are freely acknowledged, even by his most severe detractors.¹⁵ Jerome calls him a man of great learning, (vir doctissimus;)¹⁶ but he immediately adds, “I do not, however, say he was sound in the catholic faith, though very learned,” (doctissimum,; dixi, non catholicum.) “Whom could you find,” he says further, “more intelligent, more learned, more eloquent, than Eusebius, that abettor of Origen?”¹⁷ “We admit his erudition,” (πολυμαθίαν) says Antipater of Botsra; “but we combat his doctrinal views.”¹⁸ “If,” says Scaliger, “by learned is to be understood one who has read a great deal, we cannot refuse to Eusebius that appellation; but if true learning implies judgment, combined with an extensive knowledge of books, we must reserve the title for others.” “That he was most extensively acquainted with books,” (πολυίστωρ,) says Antipater, elsewhere, “and familiar with everything in the whole range of ancient literature, I most readily grant; for, having imperial resources at his command, it was easy for him to procure whatever he required.”

It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that, while we place the fullest reliance in Eusebius’s erudition, we should regard his judgment and religious character with more reserve.¹⁹ During imperial persecutions some doubts had been entertained regarding the stability of his faith, The times were evil; and the philosophy of the latter half of the third century had cast a shade over his belief, as it had over that of so many others, and prepared followers for the impious views of Arius. This heresiarch, who was born about the same time as Eusebius, (270,) had been spreading his poison since the year 312; and had found among the bishops of the time a host of accomplices. Eusebius was one of them. He’ publicly defended the Arian cause against the bishop of Alexandria; and even became, subsequently, one of Athanasius’s persecutors. When, at the Council of Tyre, (in 335,) the bishop Potamon, who had had one of his eyes torn out for the faith, saw him take his seat as one of the judges of that great ‘servant of God, he was unable to restrain his indignation. “Is it fitting in you, Eusebius,” he exclaimed, while bursting into tears, “to sit there to judge the innocent Athanasius? Who could endure such a sight? Tell me, were we not both thrown into prison during the persecution? How did it happen that you came out of it safe and sound, whilst I lost an eye for maintaining the truth, unless it was that you sacrificed to idols, or promised to do so?”

The manner in which Eusebius expressed himself on doctrinal points became, it is true, very different after the Council of Nice; but the times were changed. “Doubts were entertained regarding his sincerity,” says the historian Socrates.²⁰ Accordingly he was called the “double-tongued,” (δίγλωσσος) — as he had never ceased to shew himself a friend to the Arians and an enemy to the orthodox.

Whatever may have been his real convictions, his work will always be of inestimable value to the history of the canon. We even think that his bias against certain doctrines, and the philosophic and latitudinarian turn of his mind, in making him lean to the merely human side of the question, render him, perhaps, a witness of greater weight in any inquiry like the present, as has been said of the historian Josephus, and of the historian Gibbon, respecting the fulfilment of prophecy.

44, Eusebius, in the twenty-fifth chapter of the third book of his history, states with great precision what, according to him, was the opinion of all ancient ecclesiastical writers as to the canon. To give more precision to his statement, he divides the Scriptures into books recognised and books controverted — (into ὁμολογούμενα, and ἀντιλεγόμενω) As, however, the invaluable chapter to which we refer is the starting-point of nearly all the works that have been written on the canon, it is of importance that, before proceeding further, we should distinctly explain what Eusebius exactly means by these two expressions.

Were we to attend merely to the etymology and ordinary use of the words, we might imagine that by ὁμολογούμενα, Eusebius wishes to denote books recognised in some portion or other of the churches of God; and that by ἀντιλεγόμενα, he wishes to express simply books not recognised, This, however, is not his meaning. He employs these distinctive terms without any reference to the extent, more or less universal, of the recognition of these sacred books by the churches of God.

Accordingly, in the mouth of Eusebius, the ὁμολογούμενα are “the Scriptures universally, unrestrictedly, and uniformly recognised from the first as Divine by all churches and all ecclesiastical writers.” It is in this sense, also, that he is to be understood as employing the expression, ratified or sanctioned books, (κυρωτέον,) — catholic or universal books — testamental, (ἐνδιάθηκα,) contained in the collection forming the New Testament — uncontroverted, (ἀναμφίλεκτα,) — unquestioned, (ἀναυτίῤῥητα.)

On the other hand, controverted books (άντιλενγόμενα) far from signifying, in the phraseology of Eusebius, books not recognised, (as the etymology might seem to indicate,) denote books which, though recognised by most churches, (γνωρίμων δ' οὖν ὅμως τοῖς πόλλοις,) though recognised also by most ecclesiastical writers, (ὅμως δὲ παρὰ, πλείστοις τῶν ἐκκλησιαστικῶν γσγυωσκομένοις,) were not recognised by all churches, and by all ecclesiastical writers; or, at least, were not universally recognised without certain restrictions or some hesitation.

45. Those books of Holy Scripture which Eusebius places in the first of these divisions, that is, among the ὁμολογούμενα,, “because,” as he says, “all ancient teachers and the ancient churches had uniformily regarded them as divine,” are not merely the twenty books that form our first canon, but also the two books which constitute our second-first canon; so that, according to Eusebius rightly understood, the class of ὁμολογούμενα, comprehends the thirty-five thirty-sixths of the New Testament.

The reader will naturally desire to have in view the precise expressions used by Eusebius, The chapter to which we now refer, is entitled, “Of the Divine scriptures which are uncontroverted, (ὁμολοψύμενα) and of those which are not.” He begins by saying, “It is proper here to recapitulate what we have stated regarding the books of the New Testament. We must place first the holy quaternion of the Gospels, (τὴν ἆκγίαν τῶν  εὐαγγελίων τετρακτύν,) and after them the Acts of the Apostles. After this last must be inserted in the list the Epistles of Paul; then that Epistle of John which is called the first, (τὴν φερομένην Ἰωάννου τετρακτύν,) and we must, in like manner, admit as divine the Epistle of Peter, (καὶ ὁμοίως τὴν Πέτρου κυρωτέον ἐπιστολήν.) Then should be inserted, if thought proper, the Apocalypse of John (ἐπὶ τούτου τακτέον, εἶ γὲ φανείη, τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν Ἰωάννου,) about which we shall, in due order, state our opinion.” “These, then, are the uncontroverted books, (καὶ ταῦτα μὲν ἐν ὁμολογουμένοις.”)

46. The scriptures which Eusebius ranks in the second class, that of ἀντιλεγόμενα, are the five brief and late epistles — the Second of Peter, those of James and Jude, and the last two of John. “These scriptures which have been controverted,” says he, “though received by most people, and recognised by most ecclesiastical writers, (ὁμοίως δὲ παρὰ πλείστοις τῶν ἐκκλησιαστικῶν γνγνωσκομένας,) and publicly read, along with the other catholic epistles, in most churches, (μετὰ τῶν λοιπῶν ἐν πλείσταις δεδημοσιευμὲνας ἐκκλησίαις) have experienced some opposition, and are less quoted by ancient writers.”

47. Apart from these twenty-seven books of the New Testament, apart even from the controverted books, (ἀντιλεγόμενα,) Eusebius classes those works which are to be rejected, and which he calls spurious, (νόθα) At the same time he distinguished this third class into two sorts. The first comprehending such as were harmless, or even instructive, but had been improperly attributed to apostles, or companions of apostles, as the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apostolic Constitutions. The second consisted of spurious (νόθα) works that were heretical and mischievous, which he calls absurd and impious, (ἅτοπα καὶ δυσσεβῆ) — such as the gospels of Peter, Thomas, Matthias, the Acts of Andrew, of John, and of other apostles.

“We see,” says Dr Thiersch,²¹ “by this minute distinction established by Eusebius, but which we could not. have inferred either from the etymology of the terms or the tenor of the sub- > ject, how clear and definite was the judgment of the Church at that time, as well as the judgment of Eusebius, regarding the limits of the canon — limits which afterwards became laws of the Church.”

48. Eusebius, inserting the Epistle to the Hebrews in the class of uncontroverted books, though aware of certain doubts regarding it that had been raised at Rome so early as the time of Caius, that is, during the first half of the third century, (as we shall explain in the sequel,) did so because he knew that, from the days of the apostles, it had been uniformly received by all the Greek and Oriental churches. He is at pains to intimate that the fourteen epistles of Paul are well known and unquestionable, (Τοῦ δὲ Παύλου πρόδηλοι καὶ σαφεῖς αἱ δεκατέσσαρες) — but he adds, that it would not be right to overlook the fact that some persons (τινές) had rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews on the ground of the Roman Church’s having controverted Paul’s authorship of that epistle. The persons (cwés) to whom Eusebius here alludes were evidently Greeks; but neither their opinion nor even that of the Roman Church had exerted any influence on the churches of Greece and the East; and the learned historian shews that, notwithstanding such doubts, the epistle was, in his estimation, clearly and unquestionably canonical.

As to the Apocalypse, it may at first seem strange that he does not class it with the controverted books, (ἀντιλεγόμενον) as he speaks of it as deemed by some of Divine authority, and by others spurious. But as the Apocalypse had never, till the time of Dionysius of Alexandria, (about the middle of the third century, ) been controverted in the Hast, where, on the contrary, it had always been regarded as of Divine authority; and as, on the other hand, Dionysius vehemently maintained that it was the work of an ordinary presbyter of the name of John, and, consequentiy, spurious; the controversy being still at its height while Eusebius was writing his history, he could not, before the close of the discussion, place it among the ἀντιλεγόμενα. All parties agreed in excluding the Apocalypse from the class of ἀντιλεγόμενα but some insisted that it should be declared of Divine authority, while others maintained it should be pronounced spurious.

The Apocalypse was uncontroverted during the second century, and even till the middle of the third, at which time the party spirit that characterised the philosophic theology of Alexandria, during its contest with the antique millenarian theory, ventured to call in question the authority of that book. This opposition produced hesitation in the minds of the Greek theologians. Eusebius did not remain neutral in this doctrinal controversy; but this did not prevent him from stating the historical points of the question with a faithfulness worthy of respect.

49, We briefly sum up the substance of what we have said to account for Eusebius’s having classed the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse among the uncontroverted scriptures: —

(1.) These two books had been from the first, and during two centuries, received as of Divine authority by all the churches, both of the East and of the West.

(2.) Subsequently one of these books, the Epistle to the Hebrews, had been always received in the churches of the East, and the other, the Apocalypse, had always continued to be received in the churches of the West.

(3.) When, afterwards, doubts were for a time raised against the Apocalypse in the East, and against the Epistle to the Hebrews in the West, no ancient testimony against either of these books was ever produced, and the only objections brought against them related to alleged incongruities of doctrine and of style, as might be the case at the present day.;

We shall afterwards examine the subject of ἀντιλεγόμενα more in detail; our object at present being merely to describe the catalogue of Eusebius.

50. In taking this historian, then, as so many other writers have done, for our starting point in establishing the Divine canonicity of the whole New Testament, and in taking our stand with this learned bishop in the year 324, (six months before the Council of Nice,) we may say that we select the very moment in history when the objections brought against these two books had reached the culminating point. It would be impossible, then, to give a more precise statement of these objections than we do in expressing them under this form. Our threefold division is more rigorous even than that of Eusebius; for, instead of classing, as he does, © the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse among the uncontroverted books, we assign them a separate position, as they did not attain the rank of uncontroverted, in the unrestricted sense in which the term is employed by Eusebius, till the middle of the third century. In ascending beyond the time of Eusebius, we find the objections gradually diminishing towards this source, and in descending from his time we find them diminishing still more rapidly. The great Origen, who lived before him, received, as we have stated, the entire canon; and never heard of any hesitation among his contemporaries except in reference to the eighty-ninth part of the New Testament.²² The great Athanasius, only twenty-six years younger than Eusebius, received our canon entire, and, in concluding his list of New Testament scriptures, says, “'These books are the fountains of salvation, (ταῦτα πηγαὶ τοῦ σωτηρίου.) Let no one add to them anything, or take anything from them, (μηδεὶς τούτοις ἐπιβαλλέτω, μηδὲ τούτων ἀφαιρείσθω τι).'”²³ The famous Council of Laodicea,²⁴ held only twenty-nine years after that of Nice, received in its catalogue, without one exception, (as we shall by and by see,) all the five brief and late epistles which form our second canon.²⁵

We have, then, fully demonstrated that our division of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament into three canons, historically distinct, responds to the most rigorous requirements of sacred criticism, and represents, with the strictest precision, the historical reception of the various books of which that part of Holy Scripture is composed: Twenty books universally, uniformly, and unanimously received from the commencement. Then, two books also received uniformly and universally from ‘their appearance till the middle of the third century, at which time various objections in reference to them began to be raised in some churches, and for a century and a half; yet these objections to their canonicity were not historical, but merely critical. Lastly, five small epistles received by the great bulk of Christendom, though controverted in some churches till the Council of Nice.

1) That is, the Simple, — that which gives the natural or literal sense.

2) Hom. 8. Opp. xii., p. 410: Latin translation by Ruffinus.

3) Rusebius, Hist. Eccl., vi, c. 25.

4) Muratori, Antiq. Italicæ, vol. iii, p. 854.

5) See Propp. 193-198.

6) On this version may be consulted, — 1. Adler, N. T. Vers. Syriacæ, Copenh. 1789. 2. Hug, Introduct., p. 62. 3. Dr Wiseman, Hore Syriacæ, Rome, 1828. 4, Wickelhaus, De N. T. Vers. Syriaca Peschito, Halle, 1850. 5. W. Cureton, Remains of a very ancient Recension of the Four Gospels in Syriac, London, 1858.

7) Hist. Eccl., ii., p. 1.

8) This connects it with the Greek Testament. In the Latin versions anterior to Jerome, who brought back to the original Greek standard the Western texts, the order of the four Gospels had been transposed, as may still be seen in the Codex Beze at Cambridge. In his preface to Pope Damasus, Jerome shews to what extent in his time the alterations had been carried in the Latin copies of the Gospels. See Berger de Xivrey, “Etudes sur le Texte du N. T.,” Paris, 1856.

9) Rouen, 1668, with a Latin translation,

10) Paris, 1759.

11) Hist. Eccl., book vi., 25.

12) See on this our 841st and following propp.

13) See Book iv. of this work, art. on Jude, prop. 385.

14) This is the expression of Eusebius, (Eccl. Hist., book i., chap. i.)

15) See Valesius, “Veterum Testimonia,” under the head “Eusebius,”

16) Book ii, against Rufinus.

17) Ep. 65,

18) Book i., in reply to Eusebius’s “Defence of Origen.”

19) We shall afterwards have to complain of the prejudiced manner in which he speaks of Jude and the Apocalypse.

20) Hist. Eccl., book i., chap. 23.

21) Versuch zur Vorstellung des hist, Standpunets für die Critic der N. T. Schr,

22) Eighty-nine verses (the Second Epistle of Peter and the last two epistles of John) out of 7959.

23) In his Festal Epist. xxxix., vol. ii., p. 961. Edit. Bened.

24) It represented the different provinces of Asia, and was ratified by the Fourth General Council of Constantinople, by the General Council ef Chalcedon, and by the imperial law of Justinian, The Code of the Church Universal fixes it in 364,

25) See Canons lix, and lx. (prop, 88.)