Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924074477377 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 924 074 477 377 (^ /{/'q^^^^c^ "yK-^.-«-9 /- - / tnj/ THE BAMPTON LECTURES FOR MDCCCXCIII Works by the same Author. Crown 8vo. ^s. THE ORACLES OF GOD : Nine Lectures on the Nature and Extent of Biblical Inspiration and the Special Significance of the Old Testament Scriptures at the Present Time. Crown 8vo. 2s. (sd. TWO PRESENT-DAY QUESTIONS. L Biblical Criticism. II. The Social Movement. Sermons preached before the Unirersity of Cambridge on Ascension Day and the Sunday after Ascension Day, 1892. Xon5on an& ffiew ]3orfe LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. INSPIRATION EIGHT LECTURES ON THE EARLY HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION Being the Bampton Lectures for i8^j W. SAN DAY, M.A., D.D., LL.D. DEAN Ireland's professor of exegesis FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD SECOND EDITION ^OttiOtt LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST 16th STREET 1894 \^AU rights reserved'\ O;cfoit» HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY OEcdesiae a^aiori anglicanae SCILICET OMNIBUS QUI EX GENTE ANGLORUM ORIUNDI QUOCUMQUE SUB NOMINE CHRISTUM EX ANIMQ COLUNT ET VENERANTUR Ccclesiae a^aiori anglicanae CUI ET MINOREM ILLAM CUIUS IPSE SACRA FERO ET FILIUS AUDIO DUCEM ET QUASI SIGNIFERUM ESSE VELLEM (Scclesiae agaiori anglicanae QUAM INTER SPEM ET SOLLICITUDINEM SED SPE MAIORI QUAM SOLLICITUDINE SINGULARI AMORE PROSECUTUS SUM ET PROSEQUOR HAS CONTIONES QUALESCUMQUE DEDICO PRECATUS UT SIBI SE NGN IMPAREM PRAESTET SED ANTIQUA PIETATE NULLATENUS REMISSA AD NOVA MUNERA, NOVAM RERUM CONDITIONEM DEO ADIUVANTE SE FORTITER ET FELICITER ACCINGAT EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, CANON OF SALISBURY. " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the " Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of " Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the "said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and " purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and "appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ox- " ford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, " issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, "and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the re- " mainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Ser- " mons, to be established for ever in the said University, and " to be performed in the manner following : " I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in "Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads "of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining "to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the " morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity "Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Ox- " ford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent " Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. viii EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTON S WILL. " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture "Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following " Subjects— to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and "to confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine "authority of the holy Scriptures— upon the authority of "the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and " practice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our " Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the " Holy Ghost— upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as " comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec- "ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months " after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the " Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of '' every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of " Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; •' and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the " revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the " Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be " paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. "Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quali- " fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath " taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the " two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the "same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Ser- " mons twice." PREFACE The Bampton Lectures are preached before an audience which has some parallels in this country and America, but few, if any, upon the Continent. It is a rare thing for the Continental theologian to be brought into such direct contact with the class of highly trained and intelligent laity who are engaged in the teaching of secular literature and science. We may count it as one of the happiest of English tradi- tions, and in fact as the main compensation for the backwardness of much of our theology proper, that this class has never ceased to take an active interest in all mattery connected with religion. It is ready to listen even to what are practically monographs on theological subjects ; and many of the best volumes which the series has produced have been more or less of this nature. The present lectures can lay no claim to the char- acter of a monograph. Their aim has been rather to furnish a general view which shall cover as far as possible the data, at once new and old, which go X Preface. to determine the conception which thoughtful men would form of the Bible. If it is thought that this is to attempt too much, and that a satisfactory treatment of all parts of the subject was not possible within the compass of eight lectures, the writer can only assent to the criticism. It seemed however to be more important that the subject should be presented, if only in outline, as a fairly complete and coherent whole, than to work out in detail any one of the parts. That can be done afterwards ; and in fact it is being done every day. Another drawback has been the limited time which is allowed for the preparation of the lectures. Be- tween the election of the Bampton Lecturer and the delivery of his first lecture is an interval of at most ten months. For one who holds, as the present writer does, a double office with double duties, this interval is curtailed still further. In his case nearly three months more had to be deducted for illness, a loss which however was largely made up to him by the kind indulgence of his College. For the timely relief thus accorded to him he cannot be too grateful. All this time books came pouring from the press at a rate with which it was difficult to keep pace. Many of them were of high value, and of some he wishes that he could have made a more extended use. He hopes that his obligations in various direc- tions will have been sufficiently acknowledged. But he ought perhaps to single out in particular the Preface. xi Introductions of Driver and Cornill to the Old Testament and the third edition of Holtzmann's Introduction to the New, with the works on the Canon by Ryle, Buhl, and Wildeboer in the one case, and by Zahn and Harnack in the other. In one instance he fears that he has done less than justice. The main reference to Dr. E. Konig in Lecture III consists in part of criticism ; and this makes it all the more incumbent upon the writer to say that the lead- ing idea of this lecture, and indeed one of the leading ideas of the whole book, is to the best of his belief derived ultimately from Dr. Konig. It is becoming almost a commonplace to say that our conception of what the Bible is should be drawn in the first instance from what the Biblical writers say of themselves. This idea took a strong hold of the writer some years ago, as he believes indirectly rather than directly through the emphatic statement of it by Dr. Konig. Yet when he came to read the Offenbarungsbegriff des A. T., along with its independence and ability he could not help being struck by what seemed to be an element of arbitrariness and exaggeration. This however has been a diminishing quantity in later books by the same author, notably in his recent Introduction to the Old Testament, which he wishes had reached him a little earlier. The writer is conscious of having criticized most freely (especially in Lecture I) some of those for whom he has the highest respect. This applies particularly xii Preface. to some of the German scholars whose names de- servedly carry the greatest weight in England. There are none to whom he is himself more indebted ; but he does not wish them to impose upon his countrymen by the weight of authority views which do not seem to be borne out by the evidence. The parts of these lectures which relate to the Old Testament should be taken with the qualification expressed on p. 1 1 9 f. The writer cannot speak in this part so much at first hand as he can in the case of the New. If, in spite of this, the result seems to work out somewhat more positively in the former case than in the latter, this is due in part to the clear-cut form in which modern critical theories relat- ing to the Old Testament are presented. Perhaps also it would be true to say that in recent years stronger work upon the whole has been done upon the Old Testament than upon the New. In view of this body of Old Testament criticism the writer's own position is tentative and provisional. He does not think that the great revolution which seems to be expected in some quarters, from the Tell- el-Amarna tablets or otherwise, is probable ; at the same time his impression is that the criticism of the near future is likely to be more conservative in its tendency than it has been, or at least to do fuller justice to the positive data than it has done. In regard to the New Testament he has tried to state the case as objectively as possible. He has thus Preface. xiii been led rather to understate than to overstate the results which seem to him to have been attained so far. But he believes that there is much still to be done ; and he hopes most from the spirit which is not impatient for 'results,' which does not suppress or slur over difficulties in the critical view any more than in the traditional, which lays its plans broadly, and is determined to make good the lesser steps before it attempts the greater. Besides his large debt to books the writer is also under obligations to friends who have done him the kindness to read through the proofs as they were passing through the press. He owes much to the criticisms and suggestions which he has received in this way, especially from Dr. Plummer, Mr. Lock, and Mr. A. C, Headlam. He wishes that his book were better than it is ; but he can truly say that in writing it he has gained for himself a deepened and a strengthened hold on the principles to which he has given imperfect expression. The Synopsis of Contents was issued separately at the time of the delivery of the lectures, and has been allowed to retain the form given to it for that purpose. Marchfield, Oxford, August, 1893. SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS LECTURE I. THE HISTORIC CANON. ESTIMATE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BY THE EARLY CHURCH. Subject and method of the proposed inquiry. Two lectures to be devoted to analysis of main points in the conception of the Canon ; the succeeding five to an attempt to sketch constructively the pro- cess by which that conception was reached ; the last to retrospect and summary. pp. 1-4. Idea of a Canon extended from O. T. to N. T. Two landmarks in the history of the N. T. Canon, about 400 a.d. and 200 a.d. pp. 4-6. I. Contents ofN. T. (i) c. 400 a.d. Practically the same as our own over the greater part of Christendom. This result very partially due to Synodical decisions (African Synods of 393, 397, 419 [Council of Laodicea c. 363], Trullan Council of 692) ; far more in the West to the influence of the Vulgate, in the East to that of leading Churchmen (Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Amphilochius, Gregory Nazianzen). Only considerable exception the Syrian Church which recognised no more than three (two) Epp. Cath. and rejected Apoc. These books wanting in Peshitto, but added in later Syriac Versions. pp. 6-12. Contents of N. T. (2) c. 200 a.d. : approximate date of Muratorian Fragment. Solid nucleus of four Gospels, thirteen Epp. Paul., Acts. Divergent views on this subject. It is questioned (i) that the Four Gospels were everywhere accepted ; (ii) that Epp. Paul, stood on an equal footing with Gospels and O. T. ; (iii) that Acts formed part of the collection. In each case with but slight real support from the evidence. pp. 12-23. Writings struggling for admission to the Canon : i Pet., i Jo. all but fixed— Heb., Jac, Apoc— 2 [3] Jo., Jud., 2 Pet. . . .pp. 23-26. Writings which obtain a partial footing but are dislodged : Evv., sec. Heb., sec. Aegypt., sec. Pet. — Epp. Clem., Barn. — DidacM, Pastor — Leucian Acts, Predicatio Petri, Acta Paul, et Thecl., &c. — Apoc. Pet. pp. 26-28. xvi Synopsis of Contents. II. Properties ascribed to the Canonical Books. The N. T. is (i) a sacred book ; (2) on the same footing with O. T.— a proposition ques- tioned but true ; (3) inspired by the Holy Spirit, or bearing the authority of Christ ; (4) this inspiration is even ' verbal ' and extends to facts as well as doctrines ; (5) it carries with it a sort of perfection, completeness, infallibility; (6) the N. T. Scriptures are appealed to as {a) the rule of faith, {b) the rule of conduct ; (7) they are interpreted allegorically like a sacred book, and complaints are made of perverse interpretation pp. 28-42. Yet along with this high doctrine there are occasional traces of (i) the recognition of degrees of inspiration ; (2) a natural account of the origin of certain books (e.^. the Gospels) pp. 42-47. III. Criteria by which books were admitted to the New Testament. (i) Apostolic origin ; (2) reception by the Churches ; (3) conformity to established doctrine ; (4) conformity to recognised history ; (5) rnj'stical significance of numbers. .... pp. 47-58. Note A. — The Canons of the Quinisextine Council, of Carthage, and of Laodicea. pp. 59-61. Note B. — Harnack's Theory of the Growth of the New Testament Canon. . pp. 61-63. Note C. — Debateable Points relating to the Alogi. . . pp. 64-65. Note D. — The use of the New Testament by Clement of Alexandria. pp. 65-69. LECTURE II, THE HISTORIC CANON. ESTIMATE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. The critical period in the history of the Bible is the forming of Canon of O. T. Our first clear view of an O. T. Canon is obtained in the century which follows the Birth of Christ. For this we have Philo, N. T., Josephus, supplemented by the Talmud. . pp.70-72. I. Properties ascribed to O. T. in these writings. O. T. (i) is a sacred book ; (2) is inspired by God— difference in this respect between Philo and Josephus ; (3) has a normative value ; (4) is interpreted allegori- cally ; (5) prophetically determines the course of future events ; (6) has a minute perfection which implies, at least in the case of Philo, an inspiration that might be called ' verbal.' , , pp. 72-90. II. Contents of O. T. Many other religious books of Jewish origin in circulation during first century besides the Canonical. Distinction between so-called Palestinian and Alexandrian Canon not so much Synopsis of Contents. xvli geographical as between popular and learned or official usage. Both Philo and Josephus have wide views of the range of inspiration and yet treat the Canonical Books only as authoritative. So too in N. T., though there are traces of acquaintance with Apocrypha. With Josephus and the Rabbis of the end of first century the Canon is really complete. There is however still some hesitation as to certain books, especially Cant., Eccles., Esther. . . . pp. 90-98. Divisions of Jewish Canon point back to circumstances of its origin. Traceable from soon after 132 b. c, and correspond to so many stages in the formation of the Canon : (i) the Law, 444 B.C.; (2) the Pro- phets, probably in third century B.C.; (3) the Hagiographa or Kethubim, c. 100 B.c pp. 98-105. III. Criteria by which books were admitted to the Canon. History of the word 'Apocrypha': (i) milder Jewish sense, =not read in public ; (ii) stronger sense, increasingly common in Christian circles, = ' heretical.' Discussions in the Jewish Schools mainly concerned with fitness of books for public reading. In Philo, Josephus and the Talmud the leading positive principle was Prophecy. The closing of the Canon supposed to coincide with cessation of prophecy. Sym- bolism of numbers as applied to O. T. . . . pp. 105-115. Before entering on larger inquiry it is right to explain the attitude adopted to the criticism of O. T. The critical theories come with great force, though they seem open to qualification in certain direc- tions. They are assumed here hypothetically and provisioniiUy, as a minimum. The data which they supply for a doctrine of inspiration cannot well be less and may be more. Leading points in the critical position. pp. 1 15-122. Note A. — On the Date of the Formation of the Jewish Canon, p. 123. LECTURE III. THE GENESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. THE PROPHETIC AND HISTORICAL BOOKS. Belief in Inspiration postulates belief in a Personal, or in Hebrew phrase, ' Living ' God. Granted such a God, and it is not strange that He should put Himself in communication with man. pp. 124-128. I. The Prophets. The prophetical inspiration is typical of all inspi- ration, and is the form in which its working can be most easily traced. Yet the Hebrew prophets are not without large analogies in other religions. Examples from the Books of Samuel and Judges. The prophetic order. Prophecy as a profession, with professional failings ; half-hearted prophets and false prophets. . . . pp. 128-135. b xviii Synopsis of Contents. A comparative glimpse of the religion of a kindred race supplied by the Moabite Stone. This has much in common with the religion of Israel, but it has its dark side, human sacrifice and consecrated licentiousness. The problem is, How did the prophetic religion escape this immixture of evil ? Most easily answered by what we call Inspiration, i. e. the hypothetical cause of that which is distinctive and superior in the religion of the Bible. . . . PP- I35~i4°- There is a 'purpose of God according to selection ' (Rom. ix. ii): among nations, Israel ; in Israel, the prophetic order ; among the prophetic order, the higher prophets are chosen to be organs of revelation. Yet the lower prophets, and even the so-called 'false prophets,' also had their function PP- I4°"i43- Characteristics of the higher prophecy. The prophets only in a secondary degree statesmen or social reformers ; before all things preachers of religion PP- I43~i45' Whence did they derive their authority ? They claimed to speak in the name of God. We believe this claim to be true ; that in a real objective sense, God did cause the prophets to say what He willed should be said. . pp. 145-147. For these reasons : (1) the strong assurance of the prophets themselves, and the clear testimony as to their own consciousness which their writings reveal to us ; (2) the general recognition of the claim by their contemporaries ; (3) the remarkable consistency in so long a line of prophets, not easily compatible with hallucination ; (4) the difficulty of accounting for the prophets' teaching as the product of ordinary causes, whether in (i) the prophets themselves, (ii) their race, (iii) the constitution of the human mind ; (5) by the immense permanent significance and value of the prophetic teaching. pp. 147-155. II. The Historical Books: called by the Jews 'The Former Pro- phets.' The earlier historians of Israel for the most part prophets. To understand the way in which they worked we must get rid of modern associations, and remember (i) that Hebrew history-writing is as a rule anonymous and involved no idea of literary property; (2) that it was carried on not so much by individuals as by successions of individuals often belonging to the same school or order ; (3) that the histories were propagated by single copies which each possessor might enlarge or annotate pp. 155-160. Where lies the inspiration, of the Historical Books? Double function of the historian, to narrate and to interpret. Hebrew narrative varies in value : it has some special merits, but also some defects. The inspiration lies rather in the interpretation of the Divine purpose running through the history. . . pp. 160-165. Note A. — Modern Prophets pp. 166-167. Synopsis of Contents. xix LECTURE IV. THE GENESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. THE LAW AND THE HAGIOGRAPHA. I. The Law. Different estimate of the Law at different periods : (i) with the Jews ; (2) in N. T. ; (3) by modern criticism. But though from the critical point of view it may be better to start from the Prophets, the work of Moses is prior both in time and in importance, pp. 168-173. In the Law as it has come down to us there are three elements : (i) an element derived from Moses himself, indeterminate in detail but fundamental; and the development of this (2) by prophets, (3) by priests. The cultus not to be undervalued. Though a temporary system, it secured the devoted attachment of many psalmists, and embodied principles which find their final realization in Christianity. It was also a safeguard to the revelation. . . . pp. 173-188. II. The Hagiographa. Inspiration of the writers of these books not primary like that of lawgivers and prophets, but mediate and secondary. Expressive of the intense hold which the principles implanted by lawgivers and prophets took on other classes. A pro- phetic nation. pp. 188-191. The Psabns. Date of the Psalter important, but as yet sub judice. Made up of a number of smaller collections ; analogous to our hymn- books. Prophetic element in Psalter : perhaps more literary than strictly prophetic, but an instance of the ay in which different forms of inspiration shade off into each other. Permanent signi- ficance of Psalter as the classical expression of religious emotion. pp. 191-199. The Wisdom-Literature. The ' wise men ' as a class by the side of prophets and priests. Proverbs, like the Psalter, highly composite ; made up of collections which contain the contributions of many minds : cc. xxv-xxix probably earliest, and cc. i. 7-ix latest, at least of main divisions. We thus get an ascending scale of doctrine. The Wisdom-teaching in its basis common to Israel with surrounding nations, esp. Edom. Shrewd observations oh life. These with Heb. centre more and more in religion, and at last rise from detached comments on conduct and morals to a comprehensive view of Divine Wisdom as seen in the creation and ordering of the world : a con- ception momentous in its influence upon later theology, the foundation of the Christian doctrine of the Logos. . . . pp. 199-204. Job. Struggles with a problem — the sufferings of the righteous — to which it does not give a complete solution. Still marks a great advance. Full of deep lessons which are not the less prompted by b2 XX Synopsis of Contents. God because they are reached in natural sequence. The central impulse comes from that vital grasp upon God and religion which marks the presence and energy of the Spirit. . . pp. 204-207. Ecdesiastes. Pessimism, but religious pessimism. Well that such a book should be included in the Canon. The saving clauses in Ecdesiastes psychologically probable and not interpolations. pp. 208-211. Song of Songs. As now understood, an idyll of faithful human love, and nothing more. Not quoted in N. T. or inspired in any sense in which the word has been hitherto used. Still a Providential purpose may have been served by its inclusion in the Canon. Another proof of the catholicity of Scripture. And the associations which have gathered round its language justify to some extent its mystical ap- plication pp. 211-212. Esther. The most doubtful book in the Canon : Jewish rather than Christian ; like Cant, not quoted in N. T. Gained its place mainly by acquiescence in Jewish usage pp. 212-214. Daniel. The use of ancient names became common in later Jewish literature : an innocent device (cp. esp. Eccles.) growing out of (i) the absence of any idea of literary property, (ii) prophetic instinct seeking to clothe itself with authority in a non-prophetic age. Daniel is not to be taken as history, but that it had a really prophetic character is proved by its influence upon Christianity. . . . pp. 214-220. Note A. — The Pre-Mosaic History in the Pentateuch. pp. 221-222. Note B. — The Religious Value of the Book of Esther. pp. 222-223. Note C. — The Origin and Character of Pseudonymous Literature among the Jews pp. 224-225. LECTURE V. THE GROWTH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A COLLECTION OF SACRED BOOKS. I. Transition from Oral Teaching to Written. This transition, how- ever momentous in its consequences, made no dilference in the essential character of the teaching : it was just as authoritative before as after pp. 226-227. When did the transition take place ? On the critical view, (i) for the Prophets, with Amos and Hosea, c. 750 b.c; (ii) for the Law, with Deuteronomy, c. 621 b.c pp. 227-228. 1. For Prophecy the date assigned may perhaps be accepted, though much prophetic writing in the form of history had preceded, and though there is nothing tentative about the earliest written prophecy either as literature or as religious teaching. pp. 228-231. Synopsis of Contents. xxi 2. For the Law there is really a chain of connected events : behind Pent, is Deut. ; behind Deut. the Book of the Covenant ; behind the Book of the Covenant the historic tradition of Sinai preserved in twofold form and pointing far backwards. The idea which underlies the Canon is present from the first. pp. 231-236. II. Transmission and Collecting of Sacred Books. Transmission of legal writings comparatively regular, through priests ; that of pro- phetic writings more precarious, through disciples. Gradual growth of reading public. The synagogues. Concurrence of causes which led to fully formed Canon, of Law (444 b.c), of Prophets (third century b.c.) pp. 236-247. Collection of Kethubim : (i) of Wisdom Books ; (ii) of Psalter. Remaining books probably added by 100 b.c. The work of scribes. pp. 247-253. III. Final Determination of O. T. Canon. Principles followed in this. Consciousness of cessation of prophecy. Criteria applied somewhat vague. Probable reasons for inclusion and exclusion of particular books pp. 253-257. The Canon of history and the Canon of doctrine practically identical : a common bond among Christians. Some Deutero- canonical Books (Ecclus., Wisd.) make a claim, which may be allowed, for a certain degree of secondary inspiration. pp. 257-262. IV. Conception of Inspiration associated with the Canon. That a laxer view of inspiration prevailed at first, appears not only from such claims as these, but also from the state of the text of the LXX Version. The interpolations in this (many of them included in our Apocrypha) show with what freedom it was treated. pp. 262-263. As the Canon is more clearly defined the view of inspiration becomes stricter. Attributes which originally belonged to certain books, or parts of books, extended to the whole O. T. Idea of plenary or verbal inspiration derived from Law and Prophecy. Attributes of prophets speaking or writing prophetically assumed to exist where they are not writing prophetically. Need of distinctions. pp. 263-269. Note A. — The inferior Limit for the Date of the Psalter, pp. 270-273. Note B. — The use of the term Deuterocanonical in the Roman Church. pp. 273-276. LECTURE VI. THE GENESIS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. I. The Gospels, i. Their Composition. A starting-point supplied by Luke i. 1-4, written probably 75-80 a, d. Presupposes much xxii Synopsis of Contents. previous collecting of materials, oral and written. Did these include our First and Second Gospels J Evidence of Papias. pp. 277-281. The Synoptic problem extremely complicated and difificult, and has not yet reached a solution. It may, however, be safely afifirmed that the mass of Synoptic material is older than 70 a.d. Because of (i) the number of allusions to a state of things which came to an end at or before that date ; (ii) the compact and consistent character of the terminology of the Gospels, almost unaffected by later develop- ments ; (iii) direct indications of the date of composition as not far on either side the Fall of Jerusalem pp. 281-293. Peculiar conditions under which the earliest forms of Gospel were written and copied. Signs of great activity on each side of the year 70. Functions of editor and copyist confused. Freedom in the handling of the text. Number of early interpolations. pp. 294-298. 2. Early History, 80-140 a. d. Freedom in treatment of text con- tinues. Origin of Western Text. Phenomena of quotations in Apostolic Fathers. How accounted for. Catechizing. Prominence given to ' Words of the Lord.' pp. 298-304. From c. 125 a.d. the Four Gospels begin to stand out. (i) Evidence of Tatian, c. 165-170. (ii) Heracleon's commentary on the Fourth Gospel. Use of this Gospel by Valentinians and probably by Basilides. (iii) Supposed trace of Four Gospels in Hermas. (iv) Use of Four Gospels in Ev. Pet. probable, though marked by freedom characteristic of the period pp. 304-314. 3. Period 140-200 a. d. Use of Canonical Gospels becomes more exclusive. Influence of public reading. At first the Canonical Gospels were primarily histories, though religious histories ; but towards the end of this period they are treated more as Sacred Books. The potentiality of this is contained in the name ' Gospels.' But St. Luke's preface has all the character of a history : the sacredness is derived from the subject-matter. . . pp. 315-318. II. The Acts. Naturally goes with Third Gospel. Here too the main questions are still open. Criticism of the Acts has been almost entirely in German hands, and has some special defects. An unreal standard applied pp. 318-320. Four charges made against the author : (i) that he did not under- stand the antagonisms of the Apostolic age ; (ii) that his statements conflict with Epp. Paul. ; (iii) that the Acts of St. Peter are artificially balanced against the Acts of St. Paul; (iv) that the differences between St. Paul and the other Apostles are minimized. Much exag- geration in all of these, and even where true they do not detract seriously from the value of the book as history. . pp. 320-329. Acts certainly composite like the Gospels, and the first step must be to discriminate sources. Valuable data supplied by Prof. Ramsay. pp. 329-330. Synopsis of Contents. xxiii LECTURE VII THE GENESIS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. THE EPISTLES AND APOCALYPSE. The Apostolic age a great manifestation of tiie supernatural. The outpouring of the Spirit a reality of which the evidence meets us everywhere. It has left a permanent deposit in the N. T. PP- 331-334- 1. The Epistles, i. Their Origin. The Epistles arose naturally out of the wants of the newly founded Gentile Churches. There was some precedent for giving to such writings a theological character. This was largely developed by St. Paul. Epistles attributed to him probably all genuine pp. 334-343. Epp. Cath. formed upon this model. An argument against the early date often assigned to Ep. Jac. Bearing of Prof. Ramsay's researches on i Pet. Genuineness of 2 Pet. very doubtful ; but also doubted in early Church. Effect of this upon the Canon. PP- 344-350- 2. Their Inspiration. St. Paul strongly claims what we call in- spiration (Gal. i. 11-17, I Cor. ii. &c.). Yet his inspiration consistent with individual characteristics and some weaknesses : it has degrees. Other Apostles wrote with full authority. ... pp. 350-359. 3. Their Early History. Reading of Epp. in public worship. Collection of Epp. Paul, before 117 a.d. On same level with other books by end of century. From the first invested with all the personal authority of Apostles pp. 359-369. II. The Apocalypse. Recent theories which ascribe a composite origin to this book seem to be giving way to a reaction in favour of its unity. Question of date still outstanding : a. d. 69 or 95 ? Many points in the problem wait solution pp. 369-374. Apocalypse a prophetic work, and claims the full measure of prophetic inspiration. This is not inconsistent with the fact that some of the symbolism in which it is clothed has proved to be transitory pp. 375-378. Note A. — A new Theory of the Origin of the Catholic Epistles. PP- 379-382. Note B. — On the Genuineness of 2 St. Peter, . , pp. 382-385. Note C.— The Claim to Inspiration in certain passages oj the Apostolic Fathers! p. 386. Note D. — Early Patristic Comments on i Cor. vii. 10, 12, 25, 40. PP- 387-390- xxiv Synopsis of Contents. LECTURE VIII. RETROSPECT AND RESULTS. TRADITIONAL AND INDUCTIVE THEORIES OF INSPIRATION COMPARED. I. Two competing theories of inspiration : (i) the traditional ; (2) the inductive or critical. The inspiration implied by the latter quite as real and quite as fundamental as that implied by the former. It is possible to trace the links by which the one has passed into the other. pp. 391-401. II. Yet the measure of inspiration is not only the consciousness of the persons inspired. We must add to this the proofs of a Higher Providence at work in the Bible. This is apparent (i) in the impulse which led to the committal of prophetic utterances to writing, and the way in which the occasional letters of Apostles supply a basis for Christian theology ; (ii) in the course of Messianic Prophecy ; (iii) in that ordering of things by which certain books or parts of books are capable of application by analogy in senses which did not originally belong to them pp. 402-406. III. How far did our Lord sanction either view? There are two classes of passages : (i) some showing supreme insight into and sovereign command over the principles of revelation ; (ii) others in which the current view is allowed to pass unchallenged. pp. 406-414. But apart from any deeper explanation which may be given of these, (i) there is in Revelation what may be called a Law of Par- simony, by which no revelation is given to any age but such as is suited to its wants and capacity, and this law governs the teaching of our Lord Himself; (ii) we must expect to find some analogy between the method of God and of Christ in revelation and in the ordinary government of the world. It is a law of the Divine action that intellectual truth comes late in time. There is a chain of natural connexion between the operation of the Eternal Word, the character of the Incarnate Word, and the constitution of the Written Word. Vindication of the argument from analogy . . . pp. 414-431. Note Pi..— On St. Matthew xii. 40 and St. John x. 35. pp. 432-433, APPENDIX. Chronological Table of Data for the History of the Canon. PP- 435 -455- Index pp. 456-464. LECTURE I. THE HISTORIC CANON. ESTIMATE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BY THE EARLY CHURCH. ' Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, foi reproof, for correction, for instruction, which is in righteousness.' I Tim. iii. i6. My subject is our Christian Bible. I propose to ask, and to do what in me lies to answer, the question. What it is which gives our Bible its hold and authority over us, and how the conception of that authority grew and took shape in the Christian consciousness. We must recognise the fact that a change has come over the current way of thinking on this subject of the authority of the Bible. The maxim that the Bible must be studied ' like any other book' has been applied. For good or for evil, the investigations to which it has given rise are in full swing, and it would be hopeless to attempt to stop them, even if it were right to do so. Truth has this advantage, that any method that is really sound in itself can only help to confirm it. It was a natural reaction which caused the first throwing open of the gates to perfectly free and unfettered inquiry to lead, or seem to lead, to some- L 2 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. what extreme consequences. As at the close of the Middle Ages there was a rush of the human spirit, long confined in what were felt to be narrow channels, in the direction of Naturalism in all its forms; so now again that there is a new removing of barriers, we cannot be surprised if the current sets through them strongly, and, as at first sight it may seem, destructively. We know now, I think it may be said, the utmost limits to which destruction can go. It is impossible for any theory that can be started in the future to be more thoroughly Naturalistic than many of those which we have already before us. But again there is beginning to be a certain reaction, a certain re- constructing of the old edifice upon newer lines. When once it was decided that the Bible was to be examined like any other book, it lay near at hand to assume that it must be like any other book ; and this assumption has consciously or unconsciously influenced many of those who have taken up the study of it. And yet it is, to say the least, pre- mature. It is better to let the Bible tell its own story, without forcing either way. Let us by all means study it if we will like any other book, but do not let us beg the question that it must be wholly like any other book, that there is nothing in it dis- tinctive and unique. Let us give a fair and patient hearing to the facts as they come before us, whether they be old or whether they be new. In order to do this in regard to the Bible, it is necessary, as in most other inquiries of a like kind, Subject and Method proposed. 3 not only to go straight to the origins and form such conceptions as we are able about them, but also to see what conceptions were formed as a matter of fact in the period immediately subsequent to them. In order to determine how much of our present ideas is valid the first thing to be done is to trace them back to their roots. The authority of the Bible is derived from what is commonly called its ' Inspiration.' This then is the subject for our more immediate consideration. I pro- pose that we should examine together the history of this doctrine during its really formative period, with a view to ascertaining how far it rests upon a permanent basis apart from tradition. The formative period of which I speak may be said roughly to close about the year 400 a.d. The modifications which the doctrine has undergone since that date are of minor importance, until we come to our own time, when it is thrown again into the crucible, with what result remains to be seen. I have thought that it would be conducive to clearness and soundness of procedure if I were to endeavour to combine in these lectures the analytic method with the synthetic ; first starting from our terminus the year 400, and setting out very briefly some of the landmarks which meet us as we work our way backwards to the origins; and then conversely beginning with the origins and seeking to work forwards with more of an attempt at construction. I believe that two lectures will be found enough for B 3 4 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. the first half of this process, which will deal mainly with facts and avoid for the most part all that is speculative and controversial in the interpretation of those facts. The next five lectures will be devoted to the attempt to follow the genesis of the doctrine ; and the last lecture will naturally take the form of retrospect and summary. In both cases the distinction of Old and New Testament makes a dividing line of itself. When we approach the question of the Canon of the New Testament we have to remember that the conception of a Canon was not a new one. There was a Canon of the Old Testament before there could be a Canon of the New. The process of the forming of a Canon of the New Testament is really the process by which the writings of the New Testament came to be placed on the same footing with those of the Old. It may be true that the Canon of the Old Testament was not complete until the first century of our era. That is one of the questions on which we shall have to touch ; but it is really a question of detail, and of subordinate detail. We only have to look at the way in which the Old Testament is quoted and used in the New Testa- ment to see at once that the conception of a Canon was already there — not tentative and struggling, but fully formed and universally accepted in all tliose circles out of which the New Testament itself sprang. Whether Ecclesiastes or the Song of Songs or Esther were rightly included in the Canon might be, Subject and Method proposed. s and no doubt was, an open question. But that did not in the least affect the great mass of the books, the Pentateuch, or the Prophets, or the Psalms. The authority ascribed to these books in the New- Testament could not well be higher : nor could, upon the face of it, a more exalted dignity be sought for the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists than that they should be placed upon the same level with them. The whole question as to the nature and kind of authority claimed for the books of either Testament will occupy us later. All that it is well to bear in mind at starting when we begin, as we are for the moment doing, from what is really the end of the process, is that so far as the New Testament was concerned the idea of a Canon was not a new idea. In the case of the Old Testament it was a new idea. The mould itself had to be formed as well as the body of writings to be fitted in the mould. In the case of the New Testament the mould, the fully formed conception, was already in existence, and the only question was, what writings should be put into it and why they should be put there. The unsatisfactory character of the method which we are now pursuing would be apparent at once, if it were meant to be the dominant method of our inquiry. What we want is to realize to ourselves imaginatively the genetic process by which the conception of a Canon grew, and the conception of certain writings as belong- ing to it. For the present we take the results of this process for granted. Only for the sake of clearness and in order to have certain fixed points well set before 6 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. our minds, we start with the cut and dry notion of a Canon and Canonical Books, and we seek to mark out some of the saHent features in its history. In so doing, we may endeavour (I) to note some of the main landmarks of growth and change in regard to the extent of the New Testament Canon; (II) to ascertain what was meant by the Canon, or, in other words, what special properties were ascribed to the books included in it ; (III) to discover the grounds on which some books were included in it, and others not. I. Roughly and broadly speaking, there are two main stages in the history of the New Testament Canon. By the year 400 we may regard the New Testament as practically fixed in the form in which we now have it. It was not fixed in any strict sense. No oecumenical council had as yet pronounced upon its limits. In fact we may say that at no time was such a decision ever pronounced at all effectively. It is true that the Quinisextine or Trullan Council of 692, Itself recognised only by the Greeks and not by the Latins, sanctioned in a wholesale way the Acts of two local Synods, one of which (that of Carthage in 419^) actually ^ The Synod of Carthage of 419 is the last of a series of African Councils over which hangs some little obscurity. At the first, which was held at Hippo in 393, St. Augustine was present as presbyter ; at the second and third, which were held at Carthage under the presidency of Aurelius, bishop of that city, he was present as bishop ; in all three he was probably the moving spirit. Each of the later councils ratified the canons of the earlier. At one or other of them a canon was passed prohibiting the reading of any but canonical books The New Testament about 400 a.d. 7 contained and the other (that of Laodlcea about the year 363 ^) was supposed at the date of the Trullan Council to contain lists of the sacred books, and that it sanctioned also the so-called Apostolic Canons which contain a list, and no less than three lists pat forward by leading Fathers. But the lists in question are not identical^. The lists of Athanasius and the Council of Carthage include, while those of Gregory Nazianzen, Amphilochius of Iconium ^, and the Council of Laodicea omit, the Apocalypse ; and Amphilochius speaks doubtfully about the four smaller Catholic Epistles. The Apostolic Canons are still more di- vergent, not only omitting the Apocalypse, but adding the two Epistles of Clement. No attempt is made to harmonize these discrepancies. But really synodical decisions had less to do with the final constitution of the New Testament Canon than the drift of circumstances set in motion by indi- (f/ praeter scripiuras canonicas nihil in ecclesia legatur sub nomine divinarum scripturarurri), and a list of these was given, but it is not quite certain at which. Augustine refers (Ep. Ixiv. 3 ad Quinh'anum) to a decision on the subject of the Canon at the Council of 397, but his language would be satisfied if this was not a new decision, but an old one repeated and ratified. On the whole subject see especially Zahn, Gesch. d. Neutest. Kanons, ii. 246 ff. ^ On the date of this Synod see especially Westcott, Canon, p. 432, ed. 5; Zahn, ii. 194-196. '^ See Additional Note A: The Canons of the Quinisextine Council, of Carthage, and of Laodicea. ' Dr. Westcott refers the lists of Gregory and Amphilochius to the influence of Eusebius (Bible in the Church, p. 167). He would make the omission of the Apocalypse the characteristic distinction between the Canon of Constantinople derived from Eusebius and that of Alexandria (Ibid. p. 165). 8 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. vidua! leaders of the Church, The Synod of Carthage doubtless had an authority which was not confined to Africa. Provision was made that its resolutions should be communicated to Boniface, the contemporary bishop of Rome ; and the fact of its being, along with Sardica, the only Western Council mentioned in the Trullan Canon shows that it carried especial weight. Still the West owes the form of its New Testament probably more to the gradual predominance of the Vulgate. By degrees Jerome's version drove out all others. And this version embodied the tradition of the East; so that East and West fell happily into line together^. And when we turn to the Eastern Canon itself, there we see individual influence at work rather than any corporate action. The Canon as we have it arose through the agreement of a few leading au- thorities. The growth of controversy had turned men's minds to the standard of final appeal, and accordingly most of the great Church leaders in the fourth century put forth Canons. Those of Atha- nasius and Epiphanius agree exactly with our own not only in contents but in the order of the books. Those of Cyril of Jerusalem and Gregory Nazi- anzen differ from it only by the omission of the Apocalypse. Of all these lists that of Cyril of Jerusalem is the earliest. And it is natural to connect this with the fact that in all alike the group of Catholic Epistles ' The Carthaginian list however differed from Jerome's only in the order of the books. The New Testament about 400 a.d. 9 is headed by the Epistle of St. James. In no Church would it be so likely to have that place assigned to it as in the Church of Jerusalem. So that we are tempted to conjecture that the Catholic Epistles were first brought together as a complete group in that Church ^. If we were inclined to pursue the conjecture a step further, we might go on to connect it with the library which Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, had founded there in the pre- ceding century ^ The founding of this library fell just at that critical moment when the sacred books were being transferred from the smaller rolls of papyrus, which seldom held more than a single work, to the larger codices of vellum shaped like our present books, in which it was usual to com- bine a number of cognate texts and where they soon acquired a definite order. The only considerable exception to the unanimity which reigned as a whole throughout the East was the Church of Syria. By Syria is meant especially the regions stretching to the N., N.E., and N.W. of Antioch, for the tradition of Palestine is wholly Greek. The characteristic features of the Syrian Canon are the recognition of three only of the Catholic Epistles, St. James, i St. Peter, and i St. John, and the rejection of the Apocalypse. This is ^ Cf. Sludia Biblica, iii. 253. "^ There is reason to think that the great libraries {e.g. of Pamphilus at Caesarea, of Cassiodorus at Vivarium, of Benedict Biscop at Wear- mouth and Jarrow, of Egbert at York, and Alcuin at Tours, &c.) had an effect on the course of literary history which should be more closely investigated. 10 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. the Canon of Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Severi- anus of Gabala\ Theodore of Mopsuestia and his follower Junilius go a step further and reject also the Epistle of St. James. The limits to the pre- valence of the Syrian Canon westwards are well marked by Amphilochius of Iconium, who mentions both traditions without deciding between them so far as the Catholic Epistles are concerned, but asserting that the majority of suffrages are against the Apoca- lypse. But in the Syrian Church, as in the Latin-speaking Churches, the most potent influence, so far as general oisage was concerned, was no doubt the vernacular version, commonly called the Peshitto, which held the field wherever Syriac was spoken, just as Je- rome's version did in the West. The Peshitto from the first contained only three Catholic Epistles, St. James, i St. Peter, and i St. John. It has recently been proved, chiefly by the researches of Dr. Gwynn of Dublin ^, that the four remaining Epistles, and we may now perhaps add the Apocalypse, were first in- cluded in the so-called Philoxenian version of the year 508, which served as the basis for a further revision by Thomas of Harkel (or Heraclea in Cyrrhesticd), known as the Harclean version in 616. But by this time the Syrian Church was broken up into three ^ Ap. Cosmas Indicopleustes (Zahn, Gesch. d. K. ii. 23). " Transactions of Roy. Irish Acad. xxy'A. ^. 288 ff.; Hermaihena, J 890, p. 281 ff. ; arts. ' Polycarpus ' and ' Thomas Harklensis' in Bid. Chr.Biog. iv. 432 f., loi 7-1020; and for the Apocalypse, letter in the Academy, June 18, 1892. The New Testament about 400 a.d. h mutually antagonistic bodies ; and as the versions in question were both Monophysite in their origin, and in the first instance perhaps intended for private rather than for public use, their circulation must have been limited. As late as the middle of the sixth century the merchant-theologian Cosmas Indicopleustes refers to the usage of the Syrian Church as recog- nising only three Epistles; and far down into the Middle Ages the list of the Nestorian bishop Ebed Jesu does not exceed this number. What this means is just that the usage of a Church is determined by its Bible, and the Syriac Bible happens to have been translated just at that stage in the history of the local Canon when three only of the Catholic Epistles had an established footing, while the rest were still outside though beginning to knock for admittance. The end of the fourth century was a time of con- solidation and ratification of existing usages. But along with the ratification of books which had made good their title there was a corresponding elimina- tion of others which were not so fortunate. Here again the fourth century, or at least the latter half of it, was not the real period of struggle. It did little more than register results already secured. A scholar like Jerome might study apocryphal works, but rather as literary curiosities than as claimants for a place in the Canon. And the noble volumes (like Codd. Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus) which have come down to us from the fourth and fifth centuries might still give a lingering harbourage to books no 12 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. longer recognised; but this was only because they were copied from older originals and so perpetuated the conditions of a bygone time. We may now turn the page and glance at the more stirring movements of that elder time. Once more we take a rough date, the year 200 a.d. This is approximately the date of the so-called Muratorian Fragment, the oldest list of the Books of the New Testament, which if not exactly typical or normal is not far removed from the general usage. This usage, we may say, had a solid nucleus — the four Gospels, the Acts, and thirteen Epistles of St. Paul. To these we might add for the greater part of Christendom, though the evidence does not quite permit us to say for the whole, i St. Peter and I St. John. Let us pause for a moment on this solid nucleus before we proceed to speak of other books the position of which was more tentative. We are con- fronted at the outset by conflicting views. One of the most energetic and original of living theologians has recently put forward the contention that the Canon as such, so far as there was a Canon, sprang suddenly into existence about the year 170. In the time of Justin {c. 150 a.d.) it is non-existent. In the time of Irenaeus, thirty years later, it is in full strength. Therefore it must have grown up in the interval. And in fact the formation of a Canon at that date was one of a series of deliberate measures taken by the allied Churches of Asia Minor and The New Testament about 200 a.d. 13 Rome to check the inroads of Gnosticism or Mon- tanism ^. Such is the theory: and there is probably this amount of truth in it, viz. that the controversies with these sects did bring out into clearer consciousness the idea of a New Testament Canon, and did lead to greater stress being laid upon it. It is indeed the chief weapon with which Irenaeus and Tertullian fight their battle. But to suppose that there was any great and sudden change between Justin and Irenaeus is to draw an inference from the writings of Justin which they certainly will not bear. We have from Justin two treatises, both of the nature of apologies, one ad- dressed to the pagan emperors, the other directed to the points at issue with the Jews. In neither of these was it at all likely that he would appeal to Christian books as authoritative in the sense which we call canonical. If his Compendium (Syntagma) against Heresies, or the treatise against Marcion, had come down to us, we might have had a very different state of things. But Justin had hardly any contemporaries whose writings are now extant ; so that for the period 140-175 A. p. we have in reality extremely little evidence. But this absence of. evidence must not be confused with negation of the facts for which evidence is sought. It is just here, as so often (I cannot but think) in what is called the critical school, that Harnack makes his mistake. Because we suddenly find traces of a Canon, say from about 1 75 a. d. ^ See Additional Note B : Harnack' s Theory of the Growth of the N. T. Canon. 1 4 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. onwards, it by no means follows that its origin was'' really sudden. On the contrary, when we go back beyond the gap and look at the literature, which though still far from copious is a little more copious, in the so-called Sub- Apostolic Age, ranging from about 95 to 140 a.d., we find a state of things which really points forward to that in the last quarter of the century. Development there is, but continuous development, development in a straight line. The break in the evidence involves no corresponding break in the facts. For proof we may appeal both to the Gospels and to the Pauline Epistles. It is true that upon these Harnack largely rests his case; but in regard to neither are his contentions really tenable. It is extra- ordinary how much a very short period of time has added to the evidence that our present collection of four Gospels, singled out from among the rest, goes back, not as had been very commonly maintained to the year + 1 70, but a full generation earlier. The different items of the evidence may differ somewhat in cogency, but they converge in a way to make a case of great strength. I shall have occasion to return to this point in a later lecture, and therefore will not enlarge upon it here. The main argument against the validity of the fourfold Canon of the Gospels is derived from the Alogi, a party whose name, given them of course by opponents (Epiphanius, or possibly Hippolytus), is a punning play upon their rejection of the Gospel of the Logos, along with the other Johannine writings, or at The New Testament about 200 a.d. ig least the Apocalypse. This party was so small that Dr. Salmon believes it to be reducible to the single person of the Roman writer Caius ^. That perhaps is hardly probable : but it was in any case a party which consisted of a few educated and critically minded persons ; it took no root, and gained no popular following. In the first instance it would seem that the opinion had its rise in the reaction at once against Gnostic speculation and Montanistic enthusiasm. The Gnostics and the Montanists both appealed to the Fourth Gospel; and a short method of cutting away the ground from under them was to deny the authority of the Gospel. But the opposition to the Johannean writings was not based on any divergent tradition or ecclesiastical usage, but only upon such prima facie critical difficulties as might be put forward to-day ^. These can weigh but little against the general consent of the rest of Christendom. Thus much however the instance of the Alogi does go to prove — not that the Canon of the Gospels did not exist, but that it was maintained in a less exclusive and dogmatic spirit than it was sub- sequently. For it does not appear that they were excluded from the orthodox communion as Marcion and Valentinus were. This is the main difference between the year 400 and the year 200. At both ^ Hermatliena, 1892, p. 185. Against this view see Zahn, Gesch. d. K. ii. 1021 f. ' Our knowledge of these difficulties is derived from Epiphanius, Haer. Ii. 1 6 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. dates there were but four Gospels acknowledged as authoritative; but whereas at the later date no one would have thought of questioning any one of the four, or if he had done so would at once have put himself outside the pale of Catholic Christianity, at the earlier date it was still possible for persons other- wise orthodox to raise a doubt as to whether a particular book had been received by the Church on sufificient grounds ^. Along with this difference there went another : the use of other Gospels — and indeed we may say, speaking of the Canon generally — of other writings, than the Canonical. An illustration of this is supplied by an incident in the history of the document, a portion of which has been so lately and so unexpectedly recovered, the Gospel of Peter. Serapion, bishop of Antioch from about 190 to 209, found this Gospel in use among the Christians of Rhossus, and at first was disposed to tolerate it, until it was proved to him that it contained heretical (Docetic) doctrine. Apart from this he had been willing to let it be read as a narrative of the Gospel story. At the same time it does not at all follow that he regarded apocryphal writings as on the same footing with Canonical. He makes this clear at the outset of his letter, which Eusebius has preserved ^ ' We, brethren,' he writes, ' receive Peter and the other Apostles as Christ Himself, but the forgeries ' See Additional Note C: Debaieable Points relating to the Alogi. = H. E. vi. 12. The New Testament about 200 a.d. 17 current in his name we reject, knowing what they are, for none such have been handed down to us.' The use of extra-canonical works was doubtless freer in some Churches than in others, and especially in Alexandria as compared with the Churches of the West. Conspicuous examples are afforded by the Homily attributed to Clement of Rome and by the writings of his namesake of Alexandria. But the Alexandrian Clement was heir to the large-hearted traditions of Philo, and it is perhaps hardly right to treat him as an average specimen of the Church to which he belonged. His are the only writings which are certainly Alexandrian of this date, and there is always danger in arguing from isolated cases. The Book of the Acts is one of those for which direct evidence does not begin until the last quarter of the second century, so that we have no proof of its acceptance: before that date. But as soon as the stream of Christian literature begins to run more copiously we have full and exphcit testimony to it ; in Gaul from Irenaeus and the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, in Italy from the Muratorian Fragment, in Africa from Tertullian, and in Egypt from Clement of Alexandria ^ Everywhere it is treated as a book ^ It is urged that Clement of Alexandria used the Acta Johannis of Leucius, the 'Paradoses' of Matthias, and the Predicatio Petri in- differently with the canonical Acts (Harnack, N. T. um 200, p. 51). So might Serapion too have used the Gospel of Peter, if he had not found in it heretical doctrine ; but it would not follow that he placed it on a level with the canonical Gospels. And in like manner Clement himself refers to the Gospel according to the Egyptians, but expressly distinguishing it from the Four Gospels. If any conflict of testimony C i8 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. the position of which is established. There is nothing to hint that it was but newly won*. It was indeed difificult to dissociate it, on the one hand from the Gospel of St. Luke and on the other hand from the Epistles of St. Paul. The most natural supposition would be that it circulated in the first instance along with the Gospel. Both were not only by the same author but addressed to the same individual, so that they were in the first instance probably made public together. But the Gospel and the Acts are so like in their historical character that the authority which attached to the one would pass over to the other ^. Still less possible is it to think of the Pauline Epistles as but just recognised as the last quarter had arisen, he might have made his estimate of the apocryphal Acts plainer. But on the whole question of Clement's treatment of the Canonical Scriptures see Additional Note, ' Harnack indeed declares that ' there can be no doubt that the flourish of trumpets with which the Western Fathers accompany the book is to be regarded as the overture (Einfiihrungsmusik) which introduces it into the Church collection ' (A^. T. urn 200, p. 53). I have read through the passages to which appeal is specially made (Tert. De Praescript. 22, 23; Adv. Marc. i. 20; iv. 2-5; v. 1-3; IxtTi. Adv . Haer. lib. iii), and have entirely failed to detect anything of the kind. On the contrary, the way in which the reference is made seems to me to be in all cases perfectly easy and natural, not made with any view to glorify the Acts, but in prosecution of the main argument on the lines laid down by both writers, that of an appeal to acknow- ledged ' Scriptures.' In referring to those who do not receive the Book of the Acts (Praescr. 22) TertuUian probably alludes to Marcion, but for himself it is as much an established authority as the Gospels. '^ I strongly suspect that the Gospels and Acts were translated into Latin at the same time and by the same hand ; but as the proof of this is not quite complete, I do not press the point. The New Testament about 200 a.d. 19 of the second century began. About the year 140 Marcion the Gnostic put forward his collection of ten of St. Paul's Epistles. He omitted the three Pastorals (i and 2 Timothy, and Titus), which were questioned, as we shall see, by others besides himself, not on the ground that they were not St. Paul's, but in all probability because they were addressed to private individuals, and therefore did not seem so suited for a 'Bible' as the letters addressed to Churches'. But it is not merely an assumption of his opponents that the Catholic collection was older than Marcion's. This appears partly from the titles to. the Epistles where the general agreement is thrown into relief by the variant ' To the Laodiceans ' for ' To the Ephe- sians^'; partly also from the fact that the type of text which he had before him was certainly not that of the original but a secondary text elsewhere current ; and lastly from the equal certainty that passages which he is known to have omitted were no later interpolations but part of the genuine letters as they left the hand of St. Paul ^ The inference thus drawn from Marcion's 'Attoo-toXikou, as he called it, is confirmed by the use of the Epistles which ' This is clearly the ground of the apologetic language of the Muratorian Fragment, and a like objection is implied by Tertullian, Adv. Marc. v. 2 1 ; compare Jerome, Praef. ad Ep. Philon. (Zahn, ii. 999), Theod. Mops, in Epp. Paul. ii. 259 (ed. Swete). ^ Zahn thinks that Marcion found ■nphs 'Ecpcaiovs in his copy and altered it on critical grounds to jrpoy Aaohmas, Dr. Hort that he had npbs AaoSiKcai before him, but in any case Marcion's collection was already provided with titles. ' For details see Zahn, Gesch. d. K. i. 633 fF. C 3 20 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. is made by Ignatius, and still more in the letter of Polycarp to the Philippians ^- It is maintained that the Pauline Epistles, though generally accepted towards the end of the century, were on a lower level of authority than the Gospels and the Old Testament. Of the latter we shall have occasion to speak presently. But in both instances the inference is again wrongly drawn from the facts. There may be an element of truth in Harnack's assertion that the term 'Scripture' is applied less freely to the Epistles than to the Gospels, and less to both than the Old Testament, though a larger induction would be necessary to make it good^. But in any case this would be only a natural sur- vival of old-established usage, and would prove nothing as to a deliberate difference of estimate. We shall see presently what evidence there is for regarding the Old Testament and the New as on the same footing. Two arguments in particular are brought forward to prove the inferior position of the Pauline Epistles. One of these, taken from the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs (i8o a.d.), turns largely upon a mistranslation ^ And the use which is ' See Lecture VII, p. 362 inf. ^ N. T. urn 200, p. 36 flf. The first idea may be dismissed. Harnack, as usual, quotes the De Aleatoribus as Victor's, but it is almost certainly later ; see Miodoriski's edition (Eriangen und Leipzig, 1 889), Wolfflin in ArchivfUr lat. Lexikographie, v. 487 ff. ; Haussleiter in Theol. Liieraiurblatt, 1889, cols. 41 ff., 49 ff., 225 ff. ; Class. Rev. iii. (1889) 127, &c. ' Harnack's reasoning is based on the Greek Text of the Acts published by Usener in 1881. Since that date a Latin Text has The New Testament about 200 a.d. 21 made of Clement of Alexandria is also untenable^. It is quite possible to refine too much and in the wrong place. And where the evidence is too scanty to admit of any deductions at all it is better simply to say so than to strain the little that there is ^ been discovered (see the Cambridge Texts and Studies, i. io6 ff.) which many hold to be the original of which the Greek is a translation. Waiving that point, for I am not sure that both are not contempo- raneous and of equal authority, I still cannot admit Harnack's infer- ence. The martyrs are asked what they have in their case {Quae sunt Tes in capsa Vestfa ? "OTroTat npayiiare'lai rots vfierepots dnoKeivTtu cTKeveaiv ;). They answer, ' [Our] books and the Epistles of Paul, a [the] righteous [holy] man ' {Libri et epistulae Pauli virijusti ; Ai Kaff fjims /3(/3Xa( Koi irpoatwiTovrois entaroKai IlavXov toC dcri'ov dvSpos). Har- nack {JV. T. um 200, p. 38) lays stress on Toirots (jrpbs iiri tovtois) as in agreement with a-Kfienv ; but it should clearly be combined with the prepositions as an adverbial phrase — ' besides,' ' in addition.' The separation of the ^i^Xoi and the tVto-ToXai does perhaps mark an early stage in the history of the New Testament as a collection ; but there is more significance in the fact that both are contained in the same case (capsa sing., interpreting the ambiguous o-mmj). The epithets given to St. Paul show the estimation in which his writings would be held. ' See Additional Note D : 7^e use of the New Testament by Clement of Alexandria. * This is not I think an unfair comment on Harnack's treatment of the evidence relating to the Church of Antioch and Syria (Dogmen- gesch. i. 284 f. ed. i, 319 f. ed. 2). He adds apologetically, 'Es konnte nun allerdings gewagt erscheinen, auf Grund des durftigen Materiales, welches Theophilus liefert . . . den Schluss zu ziehen,' &c. Certainly such' a procedure is 'gewagt,' and the reasons alleged do not justify it. But where the master states his case with some qualifi- cation, the disciple follows and states it baldly as if it were all admitted truth. Here are some sentences from Dr. Karl Miiller's Kirchengeschichie (Freiburg i. B. 1892), an able work, which however in the earlier chapters treads too closely in the steps of Harnack. In regard to the Gospels : ' Vielmehr haben andere Asiaten . . . kiinftig 2 2 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. But indeed the whole case for the sudden emer- gence (' plotzliches Auftauchen') of the Canon only needs to be stated to refute itself. Let us take Harnack's own words : ' And yet the collection of writings for Irenaeus and TertuUian is closed; it is already thrown in the teeth of the heretics that this or the other book is not recognised by them ; their Bibles are measured by the standard of the Church collection as the elder, and this is already employed just like the Old Testament. The assumption of the inspiration of the books, their harmonistic interpre- tation, the conception of their absolute sufficiency on every question which can arise and in regard to every event which they relate, the right of com- bining passages ad libitum, the assumption that nur noch die vier, heute kanonischen, Evangelien zulassen -woUen, alle anderen Darstellungen des Evangeliums ausgeschlossen. Im iibrigen Morgenland ist dies noch nicht geschehen, wohl aber in Rom und im Abendland iiberhaupt' (p. 84). If stress is laid upon the negative side of this proposition, it may be just covered by the case of Serapion; otherwise Clement of Alexandria is the only evidence for the whole of the East — a writer as to whom it is doubtful whether his witness extends beyond himself I Then as to the Epistles : ' Sie galten nicht als ypa^i) ' [How does Dr. Muller know this ? They were ypa(^r] for Marcion], 'wurden vielleicht auch nicht regelmassig im Gottesdienst vcrlesen ' [Possibly, but again where ir the evidence ?] ' und sind da wo sie benutzt werden, entweder unter dem Namen ihrer Verfasser oder iiberhaupt nicht citirt ' [What of Ignatius, Poly- carp, and 2 Clement ?]. Again : ' eine dritte Klasse von heiligen Schriften entsteht " Die Apostel." Sie verrat die Neuheit ihres Ursprunges dadurch, dass man sie auch in grossen Gemeinden der " Schrift " und dem Herrn zunachst noch nicht gleichwertig achtet (so noch Bischof Viktor (?) von Rom in De AUaioribus urn i9o(?); Martyrer von Scili in Numidien, 180).' Surely we may double the two notes of interrogation, and add a third to the martyrs of Scili ! The New Testament about 200 a.d. 23 nothing in the Scriptures is indifferent, and finally allegorical exegesis, are the immediate result of canonization, the proof of which is present from the first ^.' It is an advantage to have to deal with a writer who has so complete and thorough a know- ledge of his subject. But he asks us to believe that all this is a stidden product, accomplished within the manhood of Irenaeus himself, and without his betraying the slightest consciousness of it! Such changes — and to this writer they are all changes — are not really wrought in a day. We have spoken so far only of the solid nucleus of accepted writings. Outside these there were the two other groups, on the one hand of writings which were working their way to eventual recognition, and on the other of those which, beginning with a certain measure of acceptance, finally lost it and were excluded from the Canon. It is remarkable that some of the books omitted in the Muratorian list were among those which enjoyed the earliest attestation as writings. The Epistle to the Hebrews is quoted in what is probably the earliest extra-canonical work still within the limits of the first century (i Clement). The Apocalypse is not only referred to very early, having been apparently commented on by Papias ^ but is one of the first books to be quoted with the name of its author ^ And the Epistle of St. James appears to have left ^ Dogmengesch. i. 276, ed. i. ^ The express statements of Andreas and Arethas of Caesarea more than outweigh the silence of Eusebius. ' Justin, Dial. c. Tryph. 81. 24 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. traces of itself in Clement of Rome, the Didachd, and Hermas^ This proves that the books in ques- tion at least go back to the Apostolic age, if that age is measured by the lifetime of St. John. But after enjoying — two of them at least — a considerable amount of popularity at this early date, they seem to suffer a sort of eclipse : Hebrews apparently from the doubt as to its authorship ; the Apocalypse from the opposition among the more cultured Christians to the Millenarian views which it was thought to foster ; the Epistle of St. James more probably from the peculiar circumstances of its original destination and early transmission. All three books, except In so far as Hebrews was attributed to St. Paul or included among his writings, had the disadvantage of circulating singly and not under the safeguard of a collection. Hebrews was saved by the value set upon it by the scholars of Alexandria ^ ; the Apocalypse by the loyalty of the ' See the instances newly collected by Dr. J. B. Mayor, The Epistle of St. James, p. 1. ff. Dr. Mayor's lists are put together with great care, but they seem to me to err on the side of excess. I could not feel sure that all even of the passages marked with asterisks were really allusions to the Epistle. . ^ Overbeck {Zur Gesch. d. Kanons, Chemnitz, 1880, pp. 12-17) has the perverse ingenuity to maintain that Hebrews originally began with a paragraph of salutation containing the name of the writer, but that this was deliberately amputated and the concluding verses (xiii. 22-25) added, to make it pass for St. Paul's. If it were so, we might ask, why did not the redactor boldly substitute St. Paul's name for that which he found? And why did he proceed in the one case by subtraction, in the other by addition ? Further, the amputation, if it took place, must have taken place very early ; for Tertullian knows the Epistle as the work of Barnabas (and the name of Barnabas would have served the purpose as well as that of St. Paul), and The New Testament about 200 a.d. 25 West ; and the Epistle of St. James by the attach- ment of certain Churches in the East, especially as we may believe that of Jerusalem. . As to the two smaller Epistles of St. John, it is somewhat curious that for a time we find traces of the Second only, without the Third ^ This may how- ever be only accident. When the Third Epistle joined the Second both were naturally accepted to- gether. Some hesitation there probably was on account of their diminutive size, the seeming unim- portance of their contents, and the ambiguous charac- ter of their address, which might be only to a private person. The like objection appears to have been taken to the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul. Traces of Clement of Alexandria has a story derived from his teacher, Pan- taenus, already treating the Epistle as St. Paul's (Eus. H. E. vi. 14). This would throw back the mutilation to a date when I should not imagine that Overbeck would allow that there was any thought of a Canon at all. It is significant that Harnack (Dogmengesch. i. 279 n. ed. i, 312 ed. 2) refers to Overbeck's essay as if it had settled the matter once for all. This is the way in which myths get currency, like the other myth about ' Victor, De Aleatoribus! It is impossible not to be struck by Harnack's great powers, but he sorely needs to learn to weigh degrees of probability and not to build upon pure conjecture as if it were certain. As to the opening of the Epistle, we may remember that these early Christian Epistles hover between the idea of a letter and a homily ; so> much so that a writing (2 Clement) which is clearly a homily almost from the first took rank as an Epistle. The writer of Hebrews frankly gave his work the homiletic form. ' So in Irenaeus, the Muratorian Fragment (apparently), in the debates of the Council of Carthage {Senteni. Episc.) of the year 256, and also, so far as we can be quite certain, in Clement of Alexandria : see Slud. Bibl. iii. 250 f. ; Harnack, N. T. um 200, p. 55 ff., &q. 26 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. controversy on this point are perceptible in the Muratorian Fragment. The doubts however in both cases were overruled. The Epistle of St. Jude has good attestation in proportion to its importance, in the Muratorian list, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria. 2 St. Peter has, as is well known, the scantiest support of any book in the New Testament Canon. The evidence for it begins with Origen ^ who however expressly mentions that it was doubted. But fresh light has been thrown upon this Epistle by the newly dis- covered Apocalypse of Peter, the significance of which we shall attempt to estimate later. There are many indications that at the end of the second century the claims of these various writings were being weighed and considered. The Muratorian list is one of such indications ; Tertullian's comparison of Hebrews and the Shepherd of Hermas is another^ ; still more his striking statement about the synods at which the latter work was formally rejected ^ Then again Clement of Alexandria, followed by Origen, on ' Coincidences with the Epistle have been pointed out in writings earlier than Origen. Probably the strongest is the group of passages Barn. xv. 4, Justin, Dial. 81, Iren. Adv. Haer. v. 23. 2, 28. 3, which contain the idea of 2 Pet. iii. 8 fila ij/iepa irapa Kvpia as x'^'o "ij. Clearly this was a common idea among the early Christians, but the passage in 2 St. Peter may be one expression of it and not the source. See below, p. 381. ' De Pudic. 20. ' De Pudic. 1 o : Sed cederem tibi si scriptura Pastor is, quae sola moechos amat, divino instrumento tneruisset incidi, si non ab omni concilia eccksiarum eliam vestrarum inler apocrypha et falsa judicaretur, adulter a et inde palrona sociorum. The New Testament about 200 a.d. 27 the Epistle to the Hebrews ; the many discussions on the Apocalypse ; and Hippolytus' defence both of it and of the Gospel of St. John. The end of the second century is the true turning-point in the history of the Canon. We are rightly reminded ^ that the forming of the Canon was not only a process of collection and accretion, but even more a process of reduction and contraction. What a number of works circulated among the Churches of the second century all en- joying a greater or less degree of authority, only to lose it ! In the way of Gospels, those according to the Hebrews, according to the Egyptians, according to Peter : in the way of Acts, the so-called ' Travels ' (nepioSoi) of Apostles, ascribed by Photius to Leucius Charinus^, the Preaching of Peter, the Acts of Paul, the original form of the Acts of Paul and Thecla : in the way of Epistles, i and 2 Clement, Barnabas ; an allegory like the Shepherd of Hermas ; a manual like the DidacM ; an Apocalypse like that of Peter. Truly it may be said that here too the last was first and the first last. Several of these works had a circulation and popularity considerably in excess of that of some of the books now included in the Canon. It is certainly a wonderful feat on the part of the early Church to have by degrees sifted out this mass of literature; and still more wonderful that it should not have discarded, at least so far as the New Testament is concerned, one single work which after- generations have found cause to look back upon with ' By Harnack, N. T. um 200, p. iii. " Biblioth. 114 (p. 90, ed. Bekker). 28 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. any regret. Most valuable, no doubt, many of them maybe for enabling us to reconstruct the history of the times, but there is not one which at this moment we should say possessed a real claim to be invested with the authority of the Canon. II. We are now brought face to face with our second question, What was it that the Church de- termined by declaring certain books to be Canonical ? It decided that they were possessed of certain special properties or attributes, and we now have to inquire what those attributes were \ It was agreed upon all hands that the Scriptures were in some sense 'divine.' From the first moment that we possess Christian literature of any volume expressions which imply this abound. The term ' holy Scriptures ' (a-i dyiat ypacpaCj followed by a quotation from St. John begins with Theophilus of Antioch {c. i8i a.d.)^ ; ' sacred writings ' (iepa ypdfifiaTa) of the New Testament with Clement of Alexandria ^, who also uses al (Si^Xoi at ayiai * ; ' sacred books ' (lipal pi^Xoi) with Origen *. The ' divine word ' (6 OeTos Xoyos), introducing a quotation from St. Paul, ' In what follows use has been made of the collection of Tes/i- monia in Routh, Rell. Sacr. v. 235-253, and occasionably of references in Zahn and Harnack; compare also the very ample materials in Bp. Westcott's Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, Appendix B. " Ad Autol. ii. 22. ' Strom, i. 20. § 98; ii. ii.§ 48. Note also the expanded phrase, Upa yap as a\i]6S>t, to if/)o7roto0i'Ta icai BeonotowTa ypafi/iara {Protrept 9- § 87). * Faed. iii. 12. § 97. » J)e Princ. iv. 9. Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 29 is found in Theophilus of Antioch ^ ; ' the divine Scriptures ' {ypa^al Oeiai, at OeTai ypa^ai), apparently about this date the commonest of all expressions, begins (for the New Testament) with Clement of Alexandria ; vpa^v OeLKrj occurs in an anonymous writer quoted by Kusebius, ai ypacpal toD OeoD in a fragment of Caius ^ ; Oei'a. irapdSocns belongs to Clement of Alexandria ^ ; df^ ■iTeL6ap)(eiv, as an equiva- lent for 'obeying the Scriptures,' to Hippolytus*; Dei voces, Scriptura divina, divimtm instrumenium, divina literatura, sacrosanctus siihis are phrases of Tertullian's ; divini fontes, divina magisteria, prae- cepta divina, divina et sancta traditio are characteristic of Cyprian : another word which is rather frequent in the Latinity of Cyprian's time is deifiais (scripturae deificae, &c.), probably only in the sense of ' divine ' ^ ; sancta et adorabilia scripturarum verba " Is a phrase which shows the reverence with which the Scriptures were regarded. Cyprian defines the Scriptures as ilia quae Dett-s loquitur."^; and Tertullian sums up the authority to which the Christian appeals, Dei est scriptura, Dei est natura, Dei est disciplina ; quicquid contrarium est istis, Dei non est *. ' Ad Auiol. iii. 14. "^ H. E. V. 28. 13, iii. 28. 2. ' Strom, vii. 16. § 103. * Cmlra Noet. 6. ° Miodonski on De Aleat. p. lo'/ ; RSnsch, Semas. Beilrdge, ii. 8 ; otherwise Westcott, Canon, p. 413. « Lucius, bishop of Thebeste, at the Council of Carthage in 256 (Sentent. Episc. § 31). ' AdFortun. 4. ' De Virg. Vel. 16. 30 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. The Scriptures of the New Testament are placed by the end of the second century entirely on the same footing with those of the Old. This is admitted on all hands for the West^for Irenaeus and Tertullian and the Muratorian Fragment (which equates ' pro- phets and apostles,' besides in its whole tenor im- plying for the New Testament the full prerogatives of Scripture), for Hippolytus, Cyprian and Novatian. It is allowed^ that when Melito made a special journey in the East to ascertain the exact number and order of the ' books of the Old Testament ' (ra r^y iraXaid^ Sia- drJKTis ISi^Xia) he presupposes a like collection of books of the New Testament. Origen seeks to establish his teaching by testimonies from what Christians ' be- lieve to be the divine Scriptures, as well of that which is called the Old Testament as of that which is called the New ^.' And even more expressly he says that it was the same Spirit proceeding from the one God who determined the elder revelation and that of the Gospels and Apostles '. A doubt however is raised about Clement of Alexandria. He repeatedly combines or contrasts the New Testament or Cove- nant with the Old ; but there is of course a certain ambiguity in these phrases. It may be the two dis- pensations which are coordinated with each other, or it may be the writings belonging to the dispensations, ' -2". g. by Harnack {Dogmengesck. i. 275, n. 2, ed. i ; p. 308, n. 2, ed. 2). 2 DePrincip. iv. i {=Philocal. i ; Lommatzsch, xxi. 485 f. ; xxv. i). ' Ibid. 16 (Lommatzsch, xxi. 509 : these references give Origen's own words, and not merely the Latin of Rufinus). Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 31 not the two Covenants but the two Testaments. This ambiguity applies to some of the passages in Clement, but by no means to all : there are some in which the idea of the dispensation seems to pass into that of the written documents, and others in which the reference to these documents is clear. And apart from that, there is abundant evidence to show that Clement really assigned to the New Testament an authority equal to that of the Old ^ That which gives to the Scriptures this authori- tative and sacred character is more particularly the fact that they are inspired by the Holy Spirit. This too we find declared in set terms and evidently implied all through the Christian literature from the beginning of the last quarter of the second cen- tury onwards. The epithet wvev/iaTocpopoi applied to New Testament writers occurs twice in Theophilus of Antioch ^ (181 a.d.) : in the first place he expressly includes among the irvev/iaTocjyopoi the Apostle St. John, proceeding to quote the first verses of his Gospel, and in the second he affirms that the writings of Prophets and Evangelists agree ' because all the rrvfv- fiaro^opoi have spoken by one Spirit of God.' Irenaeus speaks of the Apostles after they had been clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit descending upon ^ See Additional Note D, p. 65 f. ^ Ad Autol. ii. 22 ; iii. 12. There is also a very strong passage in which, with reference primarily to the prophets of the Old Testament, he explains what is contained in this term Trvev/iaTotjiopoi : 04 8i tov Seov apdpamoiy nvevp^aro^opoi IlvfvfiaTos dylov Kai 7rpo(l>iJTat yevofLfVoij vtt avTov TOV Qeov efini/evtrOevTes Koi , ao^itrOevTes iyivovro 6eo5l5aKTQt Kai Strioi KOI SlKMOt (ii. 9), 32 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. them from on high as being fully assured about all things and possessing perfect knowledge ^ ; he also describes the Gospels as, in spite of their fourfold form, being ' held together by one Spirit ^' In like manner the Muratorian Fragment speaks of the lead- ing facts of the Lord's life as declared in them 'by one sovereign Spirit ' {uno ac principali * Spiritu de- claraia). TertuUian describes the Sacred Writers as having their minds .' flooded' (inundatos) with the Holy Spirit*. Clement of Alexandria refers a saying of St. Paul's (i Cor. iii. 2) to the Holy Spirit in the Apostle ' using mystically the voice of the Lord ^ ' ; and he describes St. John as led to the composition of his Gospel ' under the afflatus of the Spirit ' {Ilvev- fiaTL Oeocpoprjdevra) *. Origen defines the process of inspiration still more elaborately : he says that ' the Sacred Books are not the works of men,' but that they ' were written by inspiration [ei iirnrvoiasj of the Holy Spirit, at the will of the Father of All, through Jesus ^ Adv. Haer. iii. i. i : de omnibus adimphli sunt (clearly = eVXijpo- ^npifii]v fiaKfipiav ajrotrToKav. D 34 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. the Son Himself i, Origen assumes that the true sense or mind of the Gospels is really the mind of Christ 2. And a later writer quoted by Jerome takes up St. Paul's phrase 'Christ speaking in me' (2 Cor. xiii. 3) as a mode of expressing the process of inspiration ». The Epistles of St. Paul prepare us for the equivalence of the two phrases, ' Christ speaking in me ' and ' the Spirit of Christ speaking in me.' Those who used them no doubt meant exactly the same thing. Testimonies to the general doctrine of inspiration may be multiplied to almost any extent; but there are some which go. further and point to an inspiration which might be described as ' verbal.' Nor does this idea come in tentatively and by degrees, but almost from the very first. Both Irenaeus and Tertullian regard Inspiration as determining the choice of par- ticular words and phrases. For instance, Irenaeus in view of the Gnostic separation between the man Jesus and the aeon Christus, the descent of which they postponed until the Baptism, says that the Holy Spirit, foreseeing these corruptions of the truth and guarding against their fraudulent dealing, said by the mouth of Matthew, ' Now the birth of Christ was on this wise */ This is the more noticeable, because the ' Adv. Haer. iv. 7. 2 : Qui . . . adventum Christi prophetaveruni, revelatiomm acceperunt ab ipso Filio. Compare iv. 15. i. ''■ De Princ. iv. lo ; Lomm. xxi. 499. ' Comm. in Ep. ad Philem. prol. * Adv. Haer. iii. 16. 2 : praevidens Spirilus Sanctus depravatores et praemuniens contra frauduhntiam eorum per Matihaeum ait, Christi autem generatio sic erat. Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 35 reading which Irenaeus assumes, though very possibly and perhaps probably the right one, is not now found in a single Greek MS. And in like manner Ter- tuUian speaks of the Holy Spirit as foreseeing that some would claim unlimited licence for bishops, and therefore laying down that they were to be the hus- bands of only one wife ' ; and in more places than one he speaks of the 'foresight' {^providentia) of the Holy Spirit cutting away the ground from heretics ^- TertuUian, like Irenaeus, quite adopts the formula of St. Matthew and other New Testament writers as to the Spirit of God speaking ' through ' the human author. Origen, adopting another phrase from St. Matthew's Gospel, expresses his belief that ' there is not one jot or one tittle but is charged with divine lessons ^' Inspiration may attach even to a number. Thus the author of Computus de Puscha, a contem- porary of Cyprian's, refers St. Paul's estimate of the length of the period of the Judges expressly to the teaching of the Holy Spirit*. And as inspiration is here invoked on a question of numbers, so elsewhere in regard to the facts of history ; Moses was indebted to the teaching of the Holy Spirit for the older history from the Creation to the times of Abraham, and in like manner it was He who informed the Evangelists of the wondrous sign which happened at * De Monog. 12. ° Dejejun. ig; Adv. Marc. v. 7. ^ Comm. in Ev. Matt. xvi. 12 ; Lomm. iv. 39 : tym \>iv olv Iwra kv r\ filav Kipauxv ov nuTTfiio KevrjV fivai Belav lUiBrifidrav. * De Pasch. Comp. 1 1 : Secundum Fault b. apostoli sermonem, qui Spiriiu Domini edoclus retulit eos implesse annos ccccl. D 3 36 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. the Baptism \ The four Canonical Evangelists were not like others who attempted to write Gospel narra- tives, they really wrote them at the prompting of the Holy Spirit ^ Dionysius of Alexandria says that ' the Holy Spirit, imparted severally to the Evangelists, describes the whole mind of our Saviour by the words of each^.' And Archelaus, bishop of Caschara in Mesopotamia, makes the Holy Spirit vouch for the accuracy of a saying ascribed to our Lord in the Gospel of St. Matthew*. We cannot wonder if this high doctrine sometimes takes the form of asserting the absolute perfection and infallibility of the Scriptures. We saw that Irenaeus attributes to the Apostles ' perfect know- ledge ^' Elsewhere he is still more explicit, asserting that the Scriptures must needs be ' perfect, as having been spoken by the Word of God and His ' Contra Cels. i. 44 ; Lomm. xviii. 83 f. : *AXXos S' w tk t'moi, on ov TTiivTes Tov Irjaov TJKOvtrav ravra dnj-yovjiei/ov ol dvaypdylravres to Tepi Tov et&ovs T^s TTcptiTTepas kol Tijs (^ ovpdvov v irpoi^rfrmv TO p.iv avaTUTOi Koi TTaKaioTara Kara Tr^v €7Ti7rvoiav H^v dno Tov &€ov fiaOovTav, * Homil. I. in Luc. ° Migne, Patrol. Graec. x. 1389 : TA oJi/ Uvtvpa t6 Syiov els Tois tiayyeXtCTat KaTavip.r)6iV, Trjv ndaav ToO SaTTJpos rjjiav &id6eu elprjfievav ij yeyevtjiiivav, ^ Lommatzsch, v. 28: suspicor aut err or em esse scripturae \Scrip- iurae, Lommatzsch, which is surely wrong] et pro Zacharia positum Jeremiam, aut esse aliquatn secretam Jeremiae scripturam, in qua scrihitur. ^ Demonst. Evang. x ; ed. Migne, iv. 745. Scd utalur ista defensione cut placet: mihi autem cur non placeat, haec caussa est, quia et plures codices habent Jeremiae nomen, et qui diligentius in Graecis exemplaribus consideraverunt, in antiquis Graecis ita se perhibent invenisse: et nulla fuit caussa cur adder etur hoc nomen, ut mendositas fieret ; cur autem de nonnullis codicibus toller etur fuit utique caussa ut audax imperitia faceret, cum turbaretur quaestione quod hoc testimonium apud Jeremiam non inveniretur. Criteria applied to the New Testament. 47 the prophets, so that sayings of Zechariah might be claimed by Jeremiah and vice versa ^. Jerome has not only heard of but seen an apocryphal work of Jeremiah in which the words quoted occur : he does not however adopt that solution, but simply remarks that the passage is not in Jeremiah but ex- presses the sense of a place in Zechariah ^, The Breviarium in Psalmos, which is printed with the works of Jerome 3, treats together of St. Matt. xiii. 35 (with the reading ' Isaiah') and xxvii. 9, and ends with the frank avowal of a mistake, but apparently on the part of the scribes not of the Evangelist, in both places ( Videtis ergo quia et hie error fuit sicut ibi). III. But now we have reached the third and last of our main questions. We have traced backwards the process by which the New Testament received its present dimensions, and we have endeavoured to define what was understood by the New Testament as a Sacred Volume. It remains for us to ask by what criteria the several books were admitted to their place in that volume, or in other words what were taken to be the tests of the presence or absence of inspiration. The general test which determined the place of a book in the New Testament was no douht Apostoliciiy. ^ De Cons. Evang. iii. 29, 30; ed. Benedict, iii. 2. 114 f. ^ Comm. in Ev. Matt, ad loc. ; ed. Migne, vii. 213; ed. Vallarsi, ii. 228. ' Ed. Migne, vii. 1108. 48 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. When the writer ofthe Muratorian Fragment declares against the admission of the Shepherd of Hermas into the Canon, he does so on the ground that it is too recent, and that it cannot have a place 'among the Prophets whose number is complete, nor yet among the Apostles in these latter days.' As ' the Prophets ' here stand for the Old Testament, so ' the Apostles ' are practically equivalent to the New '. This agrees with the whole tendency of the age in which the Fragmentist was writing. As there grew up round the Church in the second century a crowd of tentative theories for the explanation of the universe into which Christianity was worked with more or less of modification, and as among Christians who were unaffected by these external theories different shades of doctrine began to prevail, it was necessary to fix upon some standard by which competing views might be judged and verified. It was natural that this standard should be sought in the teaching of the Apostles as the best interpretation of the mind of Christ Himself. 'We walk,' says TertuUian, ' by that rule which the Church has handed down from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, and Christ from God ^.' There was a double guarantee for this tradition, the written Word and the historic continuity of the Apostolic Churches. The heretics, according to the argument which Tertul- lian wields with so much forensic skill, were really debarred from appealing to the Scriptures because ^ So Kuhn, ad loc. " De Praescr. Haeret. 37. Compare Serapion as quoted above, P- 33- Criteria applied to the New Testament. 49 they stood outside the Churches which were the proper guardians of those Scriptures. Tertullian claims to be himself ' heir to the Apostles ' by his loyalty to the faith which they had bequeathed. The Apostles had disinherited and repudiated the heretics who were not true to that faith but struck out new ways of thinking of their own. Before Tertullian Irenaeus had taken up substantially the same ground. He too lays down that the ' plan of our salvation ' (dispositionem salutis nostrae) had only become known through those who first preached the Gospel and then handed it on to us in the Scriptures ^ With these the oral tradition transmitted through suc- cessors of the Apostles is wholly consonant^. The double tradition, written and oral, is a storehouse of truth which the Apostles have formed from which every one may take as he will ^. The preaching and the writings Of the Apostles along with those of the Prophets and the teaching of the Lord supply the premises for his argument*. And even Clement of Alexandria adopts a similar line of reasoning. He appeals to the Scriptures as carrying with them the authority of the Prophets in the Old Testament, and of the Lord and the Apostles in the New * ; and he too, like Tertullian, claimed first that the tradition derived from the Apostles is one and the same, and secondly that it proves its truth by its priority to the heresies ^ But this tendency to appeal to the authority of the ' Adv. Haer. iii. i. i. ' Ibid. 3. x. ^ Ibid. 4. I. •* Ibid. ii. 35. 4. " Strom, vii. 16. §§ pg, 97. ' Ibid. §§ 106, iqS; 50 1. The New Testament in the Early Church. Apostles can really be traced much further back, in fact to the confines of the New Testament itself. The now famous Didachd is put forward in the name of the Twelve Apostles. Ignatius would ' have recourse to the Gospel as the flesh of Christ, and to the Apostles as the presbytery ' (or ' governing body ') ' of the Church 1.' Clement of Rome refers the Corinthians to the Epistle which the blessed Apostle Paul wrote to them under the influence of the Spirit {^vfv]iaTiK5>i) 2. And Justin, though he is not writing for Christians and therefore does not need to lay stress on the point, yet calls the Gospels ' Memoirs of the Apostles,' and is careful to note that the Apocalypse is the work of an Apostle *. We observe however that in the Muratorian Frag- ment there is still a healthy feeling that the authority of the Apostles is not merely of the nature of dogmatic assertion. In all that he says about the Historical Books the writer insists on the personal qualification of the authors either as eye-witnesses, or as careful historians *. The Fragmentist takes his stand on the position of the Canon in his own day, and it is that position of which he gives an account. But the idea of Aposto- licity did not exactly cover the contents of that Canon." Three of the Historical Books just mentioned were not by Apostles. And in the debates relating to the • AdPhilad. 5. » Ad Cor. 47. i. ' Apol. i. 66, 67 ; Dial. c. Tryph. 88, 161, 103, 104, 106; and for the Apocalypse, Dial. 81. * See above, p. 45. Criteria applied to the New Testament. 51 Epistle to the Hebrews the same difficulty was evi- dently felt. There were two ways out of it. One was to regard the works in question, if not directly Apostolic, as vouched for by Apostles ; the Gospel of St. Mark going back virtually to St. Peter, the writings of St. Luke to St. Paul, and the Epistle to the Hebrews deriving its substance, if not its actual words, from the same Apostle. This expedient was adopted very early 1. The other was to lay stress, not so much on Apostolic authorship as on reception by the Churches. This was a parallel line of argument all through the history of the Canon. Reception by the Churches clearly admitted of degrees ^, and reception by the Apostolic Churches took the next place as an argu- ment to certainly Apostolic origin. In the later stages of the history ecclesiastical usage proved decisive. It is the principle which runs through the Canon of Origen, and after Origen still more distinctly through that of Eusebius. St. Augustine lays it down very ' TertuUian, Adv. Marc. iv. 5 : Marcus quod edidit evangelium Petri affirmatur, cujus interpres Marcus. Nam el Lucae digestum Paulo ad- scrilere solent. Cf. for St. Mark, Eus. Demonstr. Evang. iii. 5 (ed. Migne, iv. 217): for St. Luke, Iren. Adv. Haer. iii. r. i, 14. i ; Tert. Adv. Marc. iv. 2 ; Orig. ap. Eus. H. E. vi. 25. 6, Eus. himself quoting common report, H. E. ii. 4. 8, &c. TertuUian takes a rather different line in regard to Ep. to Hebrews. He places it a step, but only a single step, below the writings of the Apostles : Volo tamen ex redun- dantia alicujus etiam comitis apostolorum testimonium superducere, idoneum confirmari de proximo jure discipUnam magistrorum. Ex tat et Bar- nabae titulus. ad Hebraeos, a Deo satis auciorati viri, Sfc. {De Pudic. 20). ° TertuUian uses the comparative receptior apud ecclesias of the Epistle to the Hebrews as compared with the Shepherd of Hermas (fie Pudic. 20, as above). E 2 62 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. explicitly. ' In regard to the Canonical Scriptures let him follow the authority of as many as possible of the Catholic Churches, among which of course are those which are of Apostolic foundation or were thought worthy to have Epistles addressed to them. He will therefore follow this rule as to the Canonical Scriptures, to prefer those which are accepted by all the Catholic Churches to those which are not accepted by some ; and among those which are not accepted by all to prefer those which the greater and more important Churches accept to those which are supported by fewer Churches or those of less authority ^' Jerome supplements this, with a scholar's instinct basing his individual opinion more upon the verdict of eminent and ancient authors. Writing with something of the freedom of private correspondence, he says that ' it does not matter who is the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, as in any case it is the work of a Church-writer {ecclesiastici viri) and is constantly read in the Churches ^.' As the Latin Churches reject Hebrews so the Greek Churches reject the Apocalypse, but Jerome himself accepts both on the ground that they are quoted by ancient writers as canonical. I do not know that there is any instance in which Apostolic authorship is so expressly abandoned as a necessary condition of Canonicity. We have at the same time brought out another factor which also runs through the whole of ' De Doct. Christ, ii. 8. § 12. > " Nihil inleresse cujus sit, quum ecclesiastici viri sit, et quotidie eccksiarum lectione celebretur (Ep. cxxix. ad Dardanum ; ed. Migne, i. 1 103; ed. Vallarsi, i. 971). Criteria applied to the New Testament. 53 tne history, the influence of leading individuals, whether of bishops or scholars, in determining the usage of the Churches. It is in this way that Irenaeus appeals to the ' presbyters,' that Clement appeals to Pantaenus ^ and Origen to the dp\aioi dvSpes ^, and that Eusebius also rests his judgment on that of leading Churchmen (0/ eKKXTjo-iaa-TiKoi) ^. The further back we go the more weight such individual opinions doubtless possessed. The usage of particular Churches would be determined, especially at the earliest and most critical stage, by those of its members who carried the greatest weight whether invested with formal authority or not, but especially when invested with such authority, or at least through the direct intervention of those who possessed it*. The judgment- of individuals would thus pass into and be lost in the judgment of the Society ; and the combined judgment of these societies would be the verdict of the Catholic Church. The whole process was checked at each step by an active and jealous sense of what was Catholic in doctrine. Just as under the Old Covenant the message of a prophet was to be tested not merely by the success of his predictions but by the agree- ment of the substance of his prophecy with the funda- > Ap.'EM%.H.E. vi. 14. ^ Ibid. 25. ' Ibtd. iii. 25. * Instances in which learning was on one side and episcopal authority on the other would be Origen and Demetrius at Alexandria, or Hippolytus and Zephyrinus with his successor Callistus at Rome; but there would be many other examples of the opposite state of things where the bishop took the advice of his leading presbyters. 54 /. The New Testament in the Early Church. mentals of Israel's religion, so also under the New Covenant it is clear that writings which came with any claim to be considered canonical were judged by the nature of their contents. The Muratorian Frag- mentist will not have 'gall mixed with honey.' He rejects with decision the works of the heretics ; just as Irenaeus and Tertullian and writers as far back as Agrippa Castor in the time of Hadrian reject them\ It is often objected that this is an argu- ment in a circle, because the Scriptures are used to establish Church doctrine, and then Church doctrine is used — not as the only test but as one of the tests — to determine what is Scripture. But there is not really a petitio principii here any more than there was in the testing of a prophet's message. There was enough New Testament Scripture, as there was enough Old Testament teaching, established on a firm and unshakeable basis to be used as a standard in judging of the rest. There were writings as to the authorship of which the early Church had not a shadow of doubt, and those writings continued to speak with the same personal weight with which their living authors had spoken. Here was a fixed standard to which doubtful writings could be referred. On the strength of it was drawn up before the middle of the second century that short summary of Christian Doctrine which formed the basis of what is known to us as ' the Apostles' Creed.' And round the out- skirts of this there grew up a larger Church con- sciousness, fed and nurtured upon the unquestioned ' Eus. H. E. iv. 7. 6, 7. Criteria applied to the New Testament. 55 documents, which became itself a touchstone to decide what was the ' analogy of the faith.' I do not say that it was an infallible touchstone. I only say that it was one which did exist, and which was applied by the men of those days according to the best of their lights, and without any clear logical fallacy. The standard thus obtained worked in two direc- tions. On the one hand it excluded any writing which did not satisfy it in regard to doctrine ; and on the other hand it also excluded, or had a tendency to exclude, any writing which clashed with those already received in matters of history. This was the objection brought by the Alogi against the Gospel of St. John ^. It gave force to the charge brought by Apollinaris against the Quartodecimans that by their practice they made the Gospels conflict with one another^. And Origen treats it as a principle ac- cepted by most if not by all that the Gospels cannot disagree. There remains one more test which the ancients applied, and of which it is all the more incumbent on me to speak, because it has been the subject of much ridicule and has helped perhaps more than anything to bring the work of the early Canon-makers into dis- credit. I refer to the use of numbers, of which we have conspicuous examples in Irenaeus and the Muratorian ' Epiph. Haer. li. 4 : ov a-v/icpavei ra avTov /SijSXia Tott Xoittois aTTOOToAolf. " Chron. Pasch. i. p. 13 (ed. Dindorf). Comm. in Ev. Matt. xvi. la (LommatZSch, iv. 36) : 'O \t.hi oZv rij ioropiq ^iX.5 TrapurrdiKVOs, Kai /iq ^