•CM I CD ICO

•CD

CO

Gbc 3 tcrnational ftbcolooicnl Xib

EDITED BY

CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.I).,

Profesr oj Theological Encyclopedia an./ Symbolics, Union Theologies Seminary, AYrw York:

TE LATE STEWART I). F. SALMOND, D.D.,

Prhicipa ind Processor of Systematic Theology and A'<"f Testament Exeg United l>'ree Church College, Aberdeen.

CAN-N AND TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMEN'

BY CASPAR RKXE GREGORY, D.D., LL.D.

|ntonaii0nal

TINDER THE EDITOKSHI1' OF

THE KEY. CHAELES A. BKIGGS, D.D., D.LITT.,

Professor of Theological Encyclopcedia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York ;

THE LATE REV. STEWART D. F. SALMOND, D.D.,

Principal, and Professor of Systematic Theology and New Testament Exegesis, United Free Church College, Aberdeen.

This Library is designed to cover the ivhole field of Christian Theology. Each volutne is to be complete in itself, while, at the same time, it ivill form part of a carefully planned whole. It is intended to form a Series of Text-Books for Students of Theology. The Authors will be scholars of recognised reputation in the several branches of study assigned to them. They will be associated with each other and with the, Editors in the effort to provide a series of volumes which may adequately represent the present condition of investigation.

FIFTEEN VOLUMES OF THE SERIES ARE NOW READY, viz. :— Literature of

An Introduction to the the Old Testament.

Christian Ethics.

Apologetics.

History of Christian Doctrine.

A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age.

Christian Institutions.

The Christian Pastor.

The Theology of the New Testament.

The Ancient Catholic Church.

Old Testament History.

The Theology of the Old Testament.

By S. R. DRIVER, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. {Seventh Edition. 125.

By NEWMAN SMYTH, D.D., Pastor of the First Congregational Church, New Haven, Conn. [Third Edition. los. 6d.

By the late A. B. BRUCE, D.D., sometime Professor of New Testament Exegesis, Free Church College, Glasgow.

[Third Edition. IDS. 6d.

By G. P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D., Emeritus- Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

[Second Edition. 125.

By ARTHUR CUSHMAN McGiFFERT, Ph.D., D.D., Professor of Church History, Union Theological Seminary, New York. [izs.

By A. V. G. ALLEN, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Episcopal Theo logical School, Cambridge, Mass. [125.

By WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D., LL.D., Pastor of Congregational Church, Colum bus, Ohio. [IDS. 6d.

By the late GEORGE B. STEVENS, D.D., LL.D., sometime Professor of Systematic Theology in Yale University, U.S.A.

[Second Edition. 125.

By the late ROBERT RAINY, D.D., some time Principal of the New College, Edin burgh. [l2S.

By H. P. SMITH, D.D., Professor of Old Testament Literature and History of Religions, Meadville, Pa., U.S.A. [125.

By the late A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D. Edited by the late Principal SALMOND, D.D. [izs.

Jniemafttmal CJreafogitul ^ibrarg — continued.

Doctrine of Salvation.

The Reformation.

Vol. I. — In Germany.

Vol. II. — In Lands beyond Germany.

Canon and Text of the New Testament.

By the late GEORGE B. STEVENS, D.D., LL.D., sometime Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University. [125.

ByT. M. LINDSAY, D.D., Principal of the United Free Church College, Glasgow.

[Two Vols., IDS. 6d. each.

By CASPAR RENE GREGORY, D.D., LL.D., Professor in the University of Leipzig.

[I2S.

VOLUMES IN PREPARATION :—

Theological Encyclopaedia.

Canon and Text of the Old Testament.

Contemporary History of the Old Testa ment.

An Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament.

The Life of Christ.

Contemporary History of the New Testa ment.

Biblical Archeology. The Early Latin Church.

Later Latin Church.

The Greek and Oriental Churches.

Christian Symbolics.

Philosophy of Religion.

The History of Religions. Doctrine of God.

Doctrine of Christ.

Doctrine of Man.

The Doctrine of the Christian Life.

Rabbinical Literature.

By C. A. BRIGGS, D.D., D.Litt., Professor of Theological Encyclopaedia and Sym bolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

By F. CRAWFORD BURKITT, D.D., Norrisian Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge.

By FRANCIS BROWN, D.D., D.Litt., Pro fessor of Hebrew and Cognate Languages, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

By JAMES MOFFATT, D.D., United Free Church, Broughty-Ferry, Scotland.

By WILLIAM SANDAY, D.D., LL.D., Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.

By FRANK C. PORTER, Ph.D., D.D., Yale

University, New Haven, Conn. By G. BUCHANAN GRAY, D.D., Professor

of Hebrew, Mansfield College, Oxford. By CHARLES BIGG, D.D., Regius Professor

of Church History, and Canon of Christ

Church, Oxford.

By E. W. WATSON, M.A., Professor of Church History, King's College, London.

By W. F. ADENEY, D.D., Principal of Lancashire College, Manchester.

By C. A. BRIGGS, D.D., D.Litt., Professor of Theological Encyclopaedia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

By ROBERT FLINT, D.D., LL.D., Emeritus Professor of Divinity, University of Edin burgh.

By GEORGE F. MOORE, D.D., LL.D., Pro fessor in Harvard University.

By WILLIAM N. CLARKE, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Hamilton Theo logical Seminary, N.Y.

By H. R. MACKINTOSH, Ph.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, The New College Edinburgh.

By WILLIAM P. PATERSON, D.D., Pro fessor of Divinity, University of Edinburgh.

By W. ADAMS BROWN, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

By S. SCHECHTER, M.A., President of the Jewish Theological Seminary, N.Y.

EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.

International ftbeolooical library

EDITED BY

CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D.,

Professor of Theological Encyclopedia and Symbolics, Union TJieological Seminary, Ne"M York '

THE LATE STEWART D. F. SALMOND, D.D.,

Principal, and Professor of Systematic Theology and New Testament Exegesis, United Free Church College, Aberdeen.

CANON AND TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

BY CASPAR RENE GREGORY, D.D., LL.D.

INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY

CANON AND TEXT

OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT

BY

CASPAR RENfi GREGORY

EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET

1907

J.320

GJ4-

. 2

Printed by MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED

FOR

T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND co. LIMITED

NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNKR's SONS

TO

MY OLD FRIEND

JOHN KEMP

OF LINCOLN'S INN BARRISTER AT LAW

IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF MUCH

HELP AND SYMPATHY

CANON AND TEXT

PAGES

A GENERAL VIEW . . . . . 1-3

CANON 5-295

Introduction ...... 7-42

A. The word Canon, pp. 15-20; — B. The Jewish Canon, pp. 20-26 ; — C. Intercommunication, pp. 26-31 ; — D. Book-Making, pp. 32-36 ; — E. What we seek, pp. 36-42

I. THE APOSTOLIC AGE: 33-90(100). . . 43-54

II. THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE: 90-160 . . 55-110

III. THE AGE OF IREN^US : 160-200 . . . 111-217

Witnesses, pp. 111-159; — Possibilities of Tradition, pp. 159-162 ; — Testimony to each book, pp. 162-212; — Books read in church, pp. 213-216

IV. THE AGE OF ORIGEN : 200-300 . . . 218-255

Books in the New Testament, pp. 219-234 ; — Books near the New Testament, pp. 234-255

V. THE AGE OF EUSEBIUS : 300-370 . . . 256-272

VI. THE AGE OF THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA :

370-700 . . 273-295

TEXT . 297-528

I. PAPYRUS ... . 299-316

II. PARCHMENT 317-328

III. LARGE LETTER GREEK MANUSCRIPTS . 329-369

Sinaiticus, p. 329 ; Vaticanus, p. 343

IV. SMALL LETTER GREEK MANUSCRIPTS . 370-383 V. LESSON-BOOKS ..... 384-393

VI. TRANSLATIONS ..... 394-418 Syriac, p. 396; Coptic, p. 403 ; Latin, p. 407

VII. CHURCH WRITERS ..... 419-436 Second Century, p. 430; Third Century, p. 431; Fourth Century, p. 432

VIII. PRINTED EDITIONS ..... 437-466 Complutensian, p. 439 ; Erasmus, p. 440 ; Estienne, p. 441 ; Mill, p. 445 ; Bengel, p. 447 ; Wettstein, p. 447 ; Harwood, p. 449 ; Lachmann, p. 452 ; Tischendorf, p. 455 ; Tregelles, p. 460 ; Westcott and Hort, p. 463

IX. THE EXTERNALS OF THE TEXT . . 467-478

Order of Books, p. 467 ; Harmony of Gospels, p. 470 ; Euthalius, p. 472 ; Verses, p. 474

X. EARLY HISTORY OF TEXT . . . 479-528

Classes of Text, p. 480 ; Original Text, p. 483 ;

Re-WTrought Text, p. 486; Polished Text, p. 491;

Syrian Revisions, p. 494 ; Official Text, p. 500 ; Interesting Passages, pp. 508-526

THE CANON AND THE TEXT

OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

A GENERAL VIEW.

THE consideration of the canon and the text of the New Testament forms a preface to the study of what is called intro duction. It is true that these two topics have sometimes of late years been remanded to the close of introduction, have been treated in a somewhat perfunctory way, and have been threatened with exclusion from the field. The earlier habit of joining them together and placing them at the front was much more correct. Now and then they were termed as a whole " general introduc tion." The rest of introduction, the criticism of the contents of the books in and for themselves, was then called "special introduction." The use of these names does not seem to me to be necessary. The introduction to the study of the New Testament is made up of three criticisms, of the critical treatment of three things.

The criticism of the canon tells us with what writings we have to deal, affords us the needed insight into the circumstances which accompanied the origin of these writings, and examines not only the favourable judgment passed upon these writings by Christianity, but also the adverse judgment that fell to the lot 1 of other in a certain measure similar writings. This first criticism then rounds off the field for the New Testament student. Other writings he may touch upon by way of illustration. He need treat in detail of no others. It is true that a few scholars have

2 THE CANON AND THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

thrust into the introduction to the New Testament a series of other books not belonging to the New Testament, and that a collection of such books was issued under the title of the " New Testament outside of the received canon." This proceeding is to my mind unnecessary, unwise, and contrary to the rules of scientific research. It produces confusion and relieves no difficulty.

The second criticism is the criticism of the text. The - criticism of the canon settled upon large lines, drew a circle around, the object of study. If we take a given book in hand we know from the criticism of the canon all that we need to know of its external fate, and we know that it is a due object of our attention. But upon opening it, or during our work upon it, we may find that a certain section in it, possibly a section that has excited our interest and has led us to much expense of time and labour, — we may find that this section is really not a proper and genuine part of the book in question. Further, even if the book mooted contained no complete paragraph that was spurious, it would be possible that difficulties, and that of a serious nature, arise from a cause similar to the one just mentioned. We might form a certain conception of an important passage and base upon this conception a historical conclusion, a dogmatical theory, or an important theme in a sermon, only to learn at a later date that a phrase or a word which was vital to our point was not a part of the true text of the passage, that it had been the result of an unintentional or even of an intentional transformation, substitution, or addition long centuries ago. It is the criticism of the text alone that can save us from such trouble. The criticism of the text, if we may play upon the words, must do intensively that which the criticism of the canon does extensively; the canon touches the exterior, the text the interior. It must delve into the libraries, turn the leaves of the manuscripts, and determine for us what words and combinations of words make up each of the books to which we have to turn. Is the state of the text at any point uncertain, this criticism tells us about it, and gives us the materials for forming a judgment for urselves.

The third criticism is the criticism of the contents of the books. It finds its way clear so soon as the two previous criticisms have done their work, It proceeds then to examine

(p.

A GENERAL VIEW 3

in detail all questions that affect the contents of the books. It is not exegesis, although, as in both of the other criticisms, the exercise of exegetical keenness will be necessary at every step. It would be hard to combat the declaration that the most searching, profound, and complete exegesis is of the greatest assistance to the work of the criticism of the contents. Yet the two are distinct, and the criticism of the contents must theoretically and practically precede exegesis proper, however certain it is that after completing the criticism of the contents and passing on to and completing the exegesis of the books, the scholar will return to all three of the introductory criticisms and modify the judgments there passed. It is the interweaving of all life. In the present work we have to do solely with the first two criticisms.

THE CANON

OF

THE NEW TESTAMENT

7

THE CANON.

INTRODUCTION.

THE first duty of a scholar is to secure a clear view of his aim in taking up a given subject. In the case of a large number of the writings which treat of the right that the New Testament books have to a place in that collection, this duty has so far as I can see been neglected. The discussions touching the proper contents of the New Testament have been dominated by the word canon. This word has, it may be imperceptibly, come to determine the course of the inquiry. The general supposition is that a canon exists. It is in approaching the subject taken for granted as a thing long ago proved, or so certainly and well known as to need no proof, that a certain canon was settled upon at a very early date in the history of the Christian Church. And the word canon in connection with this view means a sharply defined and unalterable collection made, put together, decided upon by general Church authority under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The long held theory of the inspiration of every word in the books of the Bible needed as an accompani ment an inspired selection of the inspired books. For the purposes, then, of the inquiring scholar the canon of the New Testament is the book or the collection of the books of the New Testament, and that of the New Testament precisely in the extent and within the limits of the one that we use to-day.

From this starting-point it has been the custom to enter upon the " history " of the canon. The canon is presupposed as something that of right exists and is beyond all doubt. All then that is to be done is to trace the various steps that led in the early age of the Church to its formation and determination or authorisation, that is to say, it is only necessary to write the

-

8 THE CANON

history of the canon, as though we should speak of the history of the Church or of the history of Greece. If in examining the subject one thing or another seem uncertain or not clear, it is no matter. That is a mere accident of history. The canon exists, that is plain, whether we know or do not know when and why, according to what rules and regulations, and by whom it was formed. The inquiry then serves merely to determine the question of more or of less in the contents of the canon, or of more or less in the testimony to the existence and contents of the canon. These things are all very well ; they are right, and are of weight in clearing up the whole field. Nevertheless this is not the right aim, not the right way to put the question. The reason why it has done less mischief than it otherwise might have done, is that the larger number of the books of the New Testament were from a very early period beyond all doubt in the possession of and were diligently used by many Christians.

That way of opening the case was wrong. The first thing to be done is to determine whether or not there is a canon. For the moment we may here hold fast to the current use of the expression. The first duty of the inquirer in this field is to determine whether or not there existed at an early period in the history of the Christian Church a positively official and authorised collection of books that was acknowledged by the whole of Christendom, that was everywhere and in precisely the same manner constituted and certain, and that corresponded exactly to the New Testament now generally in use in Western Europe ,and in America. Compare the case with that of the word doctrine or dogma. A dogma is a doctrinal statement that has been officially, ecclesiastically defined, that has been determined upon by a general council of the Church. Were it not open to view that such official definitions are in our hands, the first aim of the dogmatician would be to inquire whether there were any dogmas in existence. We have now to ask, whether or not there is a canon of the New Testament. Our first aim is not the history of the canon, but the criticism of the canon. Should it be objected that we cannot criticise a thing that does not exist, the reply to this just observation is, that the criticism of the canon, in case a canon does not exist, resolves itself into the criticism of the statements about a presupposed canon, statements that have been rife for a long while. We have, on

INTRODUCTION 9

the one hand, to examine the traditionally accepted statements

and declarations bearing upon the origin or the original existence

of the books of the New Testament and upon the process by

which they were gathered together into one collection. On the

other hand, we have to seek in the surroundings of the early

Church, in the early Church in so far as it occupied itself with

the earliest books, in the early Church as the guardian of the

earliest books, — we have to seek for signs of the combination

of, the putting together of, the uniting of, two or more books in

such a way that they were to remain together as forming a

special and definite volume of a more or less normative character

for the use of Christians and the Church. We say of Christians

and of the Church. The two are not of necessity the same. It ^ p

would be quite possible to think of the combining into one

volume of various books which would be interesting and useful

and even adapted to build up a Christian character, and which, '

therefore, would be desirable for Christians, which nevertheless

would not be suited in the least for the public services of the

Church. We shall see later that it was possible for some writings

to be upon the boundary between these two classes, between the

books for Christians in their private life and the books for use in /

church.

Should any one fear that it must be totally impossible to give a due answer to the question as to the existence of a canon before the whole field has been carefully examined, the difficulty or the impossibility must at once be conceded. As a matter of fact, however, the difficulty is hardly more than an apparent, or a theoretical, or a momentary one. For if we proceed upon the supposition that no canon is to be presupposed, that we are not to determine that there is a canon until we discover it in the course of our inquiry, the difficulty will be only apparent or theoretical. Our researches upon the lines already pointed out will continue unhampered, either until a canon offers itself to view, or until, having reached the present without detecting signs of a canon, we conclude that none ever existed. The answer to the question must come forth from the threads of the discussion. It is indifferent at what point. In so far as the fear alluded to proceeds from a solicitude for the dearly cherished canon of tradition, the difficulty may prove to be but /"i temporary. For the current assumption is, that the canon is

10 THE CANON

there almost from the first, that the books of the New Testament can scarcely be conceived of as all in existence for an appreciable space of time before the swift arm of ecclesiastical power and forethought gathered them from the four winds 'of heaven and sealed them in the official volume. Should we, then, in the •" earliest periods of the history of the Church find that the assumed canon fails to present itself to our view, there will, it is true, be a certain shock to be borne by those who have thus far held to the existence of the canon. But that will pass quickly by and leave a calm mind for the treatment of the succeeding periods.

In one case or another a question might emerge from the discussion that would perplex the inquiring mind. Should the testimony for a given book seem either to be weak in general or to offer special and peculiar reasons for uncertainty, the query would at once arise, whether it have had, and whether it still to-day continue to have or cease to have, a right to hold the place it actually occupies in the New Testament volume. Such doubt might even find a proper place in consideration of the rules which were either clearly seen to be, or which have long been traditionally assumed to be, the rules of the early Christians for accepting or for rejecting books. In such a case it would not be absolutely necessary to think of a false judgment, of a false subjective conception, on the part of the Christians of that day, of facts or of circumstances that stood and stand in fully the same manner at the command of the Christians then and of Christians to-day. For it is altogether conceivable that a scholar to-day should be able to gain a wider and more compre hensive view of the circumstances of that early time, as well as greater clearness and greater depth of insight into the mental movements of the period, than a Christian scholar of that very time could have secured. It may be possible or necessary to say that the decision at that time would have been ren dered in another sense if the judges had known what we now know.

This question would in outward practice take the form of asking, whether or not we intend to-day either to limit or to extend the number of the books in the New Testament, whether, for example, we should like to leave out the Epistle of James because Luther did not like it, or the Revelation because it

INTRODUCTION 1 1

is too dream-like, or the Epistle to the Hebrews because it is not from Paul's mouth, or the Second Epistle of Peter because it was so little known at the first, or the Acts of the Apostles partly because it is not mentioned until a late date, partly because it offers to us a great many puzzling questions, or the Fourth Gospel because it does not say : " I, John the son of Zebedee, write this present book and place my seal upon it, which shall remain visible to every man to all eternity." Do we really purpose to ask the Bible societies to publish the New Testament without one or the other of these books? This question wilU strike younger men as very strange. It will seem less singular to the older ones who remember the apocryphal books of the Old Testament in our common Bibles. These books had for centuries in many circles maintained their place beside, among, the books of the Old Testament. The Protestant Church looked askance at some of them, condemned them all, and put them out of the Bibles in common use, so that to-day it is not easy for any but scholars to find access to them. It was scarcely well-advised to turn those books out of the sacred volume ; for they offered not only much valuable historical matter, but as well religious writings suited to elevate the soul. They went far to bridge over the gulf between the Old and the New Testa ment. From this — to return to the practical question just put — it will at once be apparent to every one that we do not cherish the wish to reduce the number of the books of the New Testament.

The companion thought is just as possible. It may be -\ necessary to ask, whether after due consideration of the circumstances it may become our duty to say that other writings ^ -X besides those that are found in our New Testament to-day are to be declared worthy to have a place in it. Perhaps some one may succeed in proving that if the Christians of that day had had our knowledge touching a given book they would have received it as a proper part of the New Testament collection. This thought may assume the form, that we are in a position to declare that a certain book, which in some circles was then regarded as either belonging to the New Testament or as being fully equal to the writings of the New Testament, would certainly also on the part of the authoritative or ruling circles of the time have met with a more favourable reception and have

12 THE CANON

been placed among the books of the New Testament had those high circles had our present knowledge with respect to the book in question. But we have no desire to increase directly the number of the books in our New Testament or to add to it as a second volume the so-called " New Testament outside of the received canon."

Lest any one should be led by these observations to suppose that it is our purpose to turn the whole of the New Testament upside down, or at least to make it appear that the greater part of it is of doubtful value, we hasten to state that we have no such intention, and that we regard anything of that kind as scientifically impossible. The books of the New Testament are in general to be recognised as from an early date the normative writings of the rising Christian Church. It is not easy to see upon what ground a man could take his stand, who should set out to prove, let us say, that only one Gospel or only one letter of Paul's was genuine, or even that not a single New Testament book was genuine. In that case Christianity must have developed itself from a cell or a convolution in the brain of a Gnostic of the second century, and also have unfolded itself by a backward motion into the books of the so-called New Testament. But, if the Church were prepared ^o accept this, we may be sure that some one would at once call the existence of that Gnostic, or of any and every Gnostic, in ques tion. It is, then, not our purpose either to declare or to prove that the New Testament is not genuine.

People, however, often treat the Bible, and in particular the New Testament, as if they were fetish worshippers. They refer to the books, to the paragraphs, to the sentences, and to the words with a species of holy fear. They refuse to allow the least portion of it to be called in question. They consider a free, a paraphrastic use of its sentences to be something profane. They hold that the words of the New Testament are to be reproduced, quoted, used with the most painful accuracy ,</ ^precisely as they stand upon the sacred page. They think \T\ I that anything else, any free use of the words, any shortening or / lengthening of the sentences, falls under the terrible curse --^ pronounced in the Revelation of John at the close of its prophecies. It may readily be granted that the general thought

INTRODUCTION 13

of those verses may in special cases find a fitting application within a limited circle, in order to keep thoughtless men from a trifling use of these books and of their words. As a curse, the words should be remanded to the time and the circle of the author of that particular book. It is never desirable, never admissible to use the truth and the words of the truth as a means of frightening the ignorant, and as little should we try to protect the words of the truth by a bugbear. The truth suffers, it is true, under every impure application of its contents, and as well under every less careful observance of, or every twisted and untrue use of, the form of its contents. The writings of the New Testament are not to be treated with levity. But they are just as little to be used in a mysterious way to frighten people.

It will be our duty here first of all to examine the somewhat kaleidoscopic word canon, since we shall otherwise stumble at every step in tracing its use in profane and ecclesiastical history. After that it will be advisable to cast a glance at the way in which the Jews treated their sacred books. The Jews | stood as patterns to a certain degree for the men who gathered the books of the New Testament together, seeing that at the first these books were brought into close connection with the books of the Old Testament. As a matter of course no Jewish '1 authority can have had a hand in the collection of the Christian books. Yet we must seek in Jewish circles for a clue to the '"" thoughts that guided the Christian collectors. The question Q*4 as to the freedom of travel and the ease or difficulty of com- - munication between different parts of the known world of that ^ day, or of the Roman Empire with its surroundings, might seem f**"** at the first blush to lie far aside from our inquiry. If I do not err, it really has much weight for our researches, and we shall devote a few moments to it. It will also be apparent to every one that we must give some attention in advance to the I ^ way in which books were written, given to the public, and V* \ reproduced in the early centuries of our era. These four points : \l V* thecanon, the Je^shjcanon, intercommunication in the Roman (^ Empire, and Tioollrnakingj complete the necessary preparation ' for the work before us. We shall then describe briefly what - it is to which we have to direct our attention in entering

14 THE CANON

upon the examination of the early history and literature of the Church.

In the criticism of the canon itself, it would be most fortunate if we could, as is desirable in every treatment of historical matter, build our foundation or lay out the course of our researches concomitantly, not only according to time, but also according to place. Since that is, alas ! impossible, it would be a good thing to pass through the whole field of this criticism twice, discussing everything the first time according to the succession of the years and centuries, and the second time according to the contemporaneous conditions in the several divisions of the growing Church, in the Churches of the different countries, peoples, and tongues. This would, however, exceed the limits of our space, and we shall therefore have to content ourselves with treating our subject according to time. We shall speak of six periods. The distinction of these periods is to a large extent not severely necessary, but it is convenient.

The first period extends from the yearj$o to 90 after Christ, and may be termed the period of the Apostles. In it the most of the books with which we have to do were written. The second period, from 90 to 160. places before our eyes the earlier use of the books that are in the New Testament, and the gathering them together into groups, preparing for their com bination into a single whole. This period is, as a matter of fact, by far the most important period in the course of our discussion. For it is during these years of this post-apostolic period that these books pass from a common to a sacred use. The third period, from 160 to 200, we may call the period of Irenaeus. Here the Old Catholic Church is on a firm footing, and the life in several of the great national divisions of the Church begins to be more open and more confident. The fourth period, from 200 to 300, bears the stamp of the giant Origen, but bringsT~with it many a valiant man, not least Dionysius of Alexandria and Tertullian of Carthage. The fifth period, from 300 to 370, the period of Eusebius, sees the opening of the series of great councils in the Council of Nice in ,32 5. Eusebius himself, the quoter of the earlier literature of the Church, has done a vast deal for the definition of the canon. The sixth period, from 370 to 700, bears the name of the much

INTRODUCTION—^. THE WORD CANON 15

defamed scholar, the great theologian Theodore of Mopsuestia, and brings us into the work of Jerome and of Augustine. By that time the treatment of the books of the New Testament has become to such a degree uniform in the different parts of the Church, or has, in case of the variation of some communities from the general rule, attained such a stability, that it is no longer necessary to follow it up in detail. Should a canon not be determined upon before the close of that period, should a given book not have won for itself a clear recognition by that time, there is but little likelihood that the one or the other ever will come to pass.

A. THE WORD CANON.

The word canon seems to spring from a Hebrew root, unless ^> indeed this should be one of the roots that extend across the yr*' bounds of the classes of languages and may claim a universal authority. The Hebrew verb " kana " means to stand a thing up straight, and then takes the subsidiary meanings of creating or founding, and of gaining or buying. The first or main sense leads to the Hebrew noun " kane " that at first means a reed. Of course such a reed was for a man without wood at hand an excellent measuring-rod, and the word was applied to that too; and it was taken horizontally also and used for the rod of a pair of scales, and then for the scales themselves. In Greek we find the word " kanna " used for a reed and for things made by weaving reeds together, and the word "kanon " for any straight stick like a yard- jstick or the scale beam. In Homer the latter word was used for the two pieces of wood that were laid crosswise to keep the leather shield well rounded out. The word " kanon" which we then write canon in English, found favour in the eyes of the Greek, and / passed from the sense of a measuring-rod to be used for a plumb- j line or for a level, or a ruler, for anything that was a measure or j a rule for other things. It entered the mental sphere and there j | it also stood for a rule, for an order that told a man what was ' >

right or what he had to do. In sculpture a statue modelled by L ' Polycleitos was called a canon, for it was so nearly perfect that it was acknowledged as a rule for the proportions of a beautiful human body. In music the monochord was called a canon, seeing

1 6 THE CANON

that all the further relations of tones were determined from it as a basis. We call the ancient Greek writers classics, because they are supposed to be patterns or models in more ways than one ; the grammarians in Alexandria called them the canon. And these same grammarians called their rules for declensions and conjugations and syntax canons. In chronology the canons were the great dates which were known or assumed to be certain and firm. The periods in between were then calculated from these main dates. The word was thus very varied in its application ; it might mean a table of contents, it might mean an important principle.

rA favourite use of the word was for a measure, a definition, an order, a command, a law. Euripides speaks of the canon of good, Aeschines of the canon of what is just. Philo speaks of / Joshua as a canon, as we might say, an ideal for subsequent leaders Before the time of Christ I do not know that it was applied to religion, but it was applied in morals. Other words were often used by preference for positive laws and ordinances, and canon was used for a law or a command that only existed in the conception of the mind or for an ideal rule.

Christians found good use for such a word. Paul used it in / ^ the sixth chapter of Galatians and the sixteenth verse, where after "^ • / speaking of the worthlessness of circumcision and of non- circumcision and the worth of a new creation, he added : mercy be upon all those that walk according to this canon. And in the tenth chapter of Second Corinthians, verses thirteen to sixteen, he alluded to the measure of the canon, to our canon, and to a foreign canon. Our good women of to-day will not admire the phrase used in the letter of the Church at Rome to the Church at Corinth, the so-called letter of Clement, which speaks (i. 3) of the women " who are under the canon of obedience." The same, letter also says (7. 2): "Let us quit, then, the empty and vain cares and pass on to the glorious and honourable canon of our tradition." And in still a third sentence of it (41. i) we find the words : " without going out beyond the set canon of his due service." Hegesippus (Bus. H. E. 3. 32) speaks of people "who try to corrupt the sound canon of the saving preaching " or of the proclamation of salvation. The author of the Clementine books finds the " canon of the Church " in that in which all Jews agree with each other, for he conceives of the Church merely

INTRODUCTION—^. THE WORD CANON 17

as a spiritual Judaism. The Christian Church began to feel its union in a more distinct manner than at the first, and the Old Catholic Church began to crystallise during the second century. The Christianity of this movement was a development, but a development backwards, for, like the author just mentioned, it found its basis in the Old Testament. Christianity was no longer with Paul free from the law. It had put itself again under the law, even though with manifold modifications. For this Christianity our word was applied in a general sense; the ecclesiastical canon was the token of the union of the Old and the New Testament. Clement of Alexandria (Str. 6. 15) called "the ecclesiastical canon the harmony and symphony of both law and prophets with the covenant or the testament given when the Lord was here," while in another passage (6. n) he refers to the "musical ecclesiastical harmony of law and prophets, — - joined also with apostles, with the gospel." He also speaks of the canon of the truth. Elsewhere (7. 16) he speaks of those who like heretics " steal the canon of the Church." Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus, in writing to Victor of Rome appealed to the witness of men who followed after the canon of the faith. Origen, Clement's pupil, refers (de Pr. 4. 9) to the canon " of the heavenly Church of Jesus Christ according to the succession of the apostles." He still thinks of the canon as something which lies more in the idea; the ecclesiastical proclamation or preaching was, on the contrary, something actual.

Little by little the word canon came to be used in the Church^ for a concrete thing, for a definite and certain decision. This is v in one way a return to the origin, only that it is no longer a foot- rule or a spirit-level, but an ecclesiastical determination. It was about the middle of the third century that Cornelius, the bishop of Rome, wrote to Fabian, the bishop of Antioch, about Novatus, and complained (Eus. H. E. 6. 43) that, after being baptized when he was ill, he had not done what, " according to the canon of the Church," was necessary. Firmilian seems to have the word canon in mind shortly after the middle of the third century, when he writes (Cypr. Ep. 75) about a woman who imitated a baptism so well " that nothing seemed to vary from the ecclesi astical rule " ; he probably would have used the word canon if he had been writing in Greek instead of in Latin. In the year 266 a synod at Antioch (Mansi, i. 1033), in referring to Paul of 2

1 8 THE CANON

Samosata, declared one of his doctrines to be " foreign to the ecclesiastical canon"; the synod used the cautious expression " we think it to be," but added : " and all the Catholic Churches agree with us." The edicts of Constantine after 311 made the conception of Christianity upon which the Catholic and Apostolic Church was based, that is to say, the ecclesiastical canon of the Catholics, a recognised religion. Had it been a religion with a visible god, its god would then have had a right to a place in the Pantheon at Rome. Thus the ecclesiastical canon, the canon of the Church, had become a set phrase to denote the rule of the Church, the custom and general doctrine of the Church. Often merely the word canon was used. The Synod of Ancyra in the year 315 referred to it as the canon, and so did the Council of Nice in 325 repeatedly. The plural appears to view first about I the beginning of the fourth century. Perhaps in the year 306 ' Peter, the bishop of Alexandria, in writing of repentance calls the conclusions canons, and Eusebius speaks of Philo as having the canons of the Church. At first the decisions of councils were ; I'' called dogmas, but towards the middle of the fourth century, in .fthe year 341 at Antioch, they also came to be called canons. ^ / Thus far, as we have seen, the word has not been applied, in the writings which are preserved to us, to the books of Scripture. It ^ would, however, appear that about the year 350 it gradually ^ came to be applied to them, but we do not know precisely at what moment or where or by whom. It has been assumed that this application might well be carried back as far as the time of Diocletian, and to an imperial edict of the year 303 that ordered the Christian Scriptures to be burned ; but we have not the least foundation for such a theory. Felix, the official charged with the duty of caring for religion, and of preventing the worship and spread of religions that were not recognised by the State, said to the Bishop Paul : " Bring me the scriptures of the law," and Caecilian wrote in 303 to Felix and alluded to the scriptures of the law. But this expression is so properly and .so naturally suggested by the Old Testament and Jewish use of the word law, as to make it totally improper to argue that the word law here is s canon. Much less does it seem to me to be admissible, until we f receive evidence that is not now known, to attribute the use of J the cognate words canonical and canonise in connection with the \ Scriptures to Origen. It is by no means certain that the word was

•

INTRODUCTION—^. THE WORD CANON 19

not used earlier than I have suggested, but it is well to move cautiously. The first application of the term to Scripture that is thus far known is not direct, in the word canon, but indirect in cognate words like those just named. The fifty-ninth canon (Mansi, ii. 574) of the Synod at Laodicea of about the year 363 ^ determines that "private psalms should not be read in the churches, nor uncanonised books, but only the canonical [books] of the New and Old Testament." And in the year 367, when J Athanasius wrote the yearly letter (Ep. Fest. 39) announcing to the Church the due calculation of the day upon which Easter -\ would fall, he said : " I thought it well ... to put down in .* order the canonised books of which we not only have learned \ from tradition but also believe [upon the evidence of our *< own hearts?] that they are divine." Here we have nothing to do with the general contents of Athanasius' statement or of the canon of the Synod of Laodicea, but only with the technical term. Both use these terms canonical or canonise in such a way as to show that they were in common use, or had been so much used as ..to be generally understood. It may be granted that even if a reader of the festal letter did not happen to have met with the word before, he would have been able to gather its meaning from this letter itself without the least difficulty. Nevertheless, I suppose that it had been used before quite aside from the Synod of Laodicea, and there fore I attribute its rise in this sense to the middle of the century. Having reached this use of the word for the Scriptures, we must ask in what sense they, the books of the Bible, were called canonical, for the word has two meanings that look in opposite directions. A given thing might be canonical because something had been done^fo it, that is to say, because it had been put into the canon, or it might be canonical because it had in and of itself a certain normative character. A clergyman was called canonical because he had been canonised, or in other words, not because he had been a saint and had been declared to be a saint, but because he had been written down in the list, the canon, let us say, the table of contents of the given bishopric. And he was also, though probably only later, called canonical because he was one of those who were bound to live according to a certain rule or canon. What was the case with a book of the Bible? It seems to me to be likely, in spite of the fact that we have no

20 THE CANON

direct testimony to the custom as a custom, that Christian j scholars and bishops before the time of Eusebius were in the habit of making lists of the books that they included in the Scriptures. There is one such list, containing some of the books of the New Testament, of which we have a fragment in the Muratorian leaves, and it may be as early as the year 170. Aside from that, the only list known to us by name before the time of Eusebius is one containing the books of the Old Testament which Melito, the bishop of Sardes in the third and fourth quarters of the second century, says that he had made ; he had gone to the East for the purpose of studying scripture history, and made the list of the Old Testament books after he had learned

fall about them. It may then well be the case that at least in some places the books of the New Testament were called canonical because they had been added to such a list, were found in such lists. Were any one in doubt about a given book, he could beg the bishop to tell him whether or not it stood in the list or canon. The use of the word in this sense does not in any way preclude its having been used in the other sense. It is in every way probable that the books of the Old Testament at first, f and then later also the books of the New Testament at an early s? I date, came to be called canonical in the sense that they contain ( that which is fitted to serve as a measure for all else, and in particular for the determination of faith and conduct. It was in connection with both meanings, but especially with the latter, that the thought of a totally finished and closed up collection of I books was attached to the word, and that this thus limited series lof writings was called the canon as the only external and visible »rule of truth. Clement of Alexandria had mentioned the canon (of the truth without binding it up with the Scriptures. Two centuries later Isidore of Pelusium referred to " the canon of the truth, the divine Scriptures."

B. THE JEWISH CANON

In order to secure a wide basis for comparison, it would be of interest to the Christian student, if space allowed, to look at other religions and ask what sacred books they have, and in what way these books were determined to be sacred. The

INTRODUCTION— B. THE JEWISH CANON 21

Brahmans have four Vedas, the Rigveda, the Samaveda, the Yajurveda, and the Atharvaveda, as well as supplementary parts called Brahmanas. The canonical works are the first three Vedas with their sections of the supplement. These were given by divine revelation and are therefore called "hearing"; God spoke and men listened. Other books are mere traditions, and are called "memory "as remembered tradition. The Rigveda, containing ten books with 1017 hymns, is supposed to date between 4000 and 2500 before Christ. Many Brahmans hold that the Vedas were pre-existent in the mind of deity, and therefore explain away all references to history and all human elements.

The canon of the Buddhists is different in different places. The canon of the northern Buddhists appears to have been determined upon in their fourth council at Cashmere in the year 78 after Christ, or four hundred and two years after the death of Buddha. If we turn to the late centre of Buddhism in Tibet, where it found acceptance in the second quarter of the seventh century after Christ, we find a canon of 104 volumes containing 1083 books; this is named Kanjur. The Tanjur supplements it with 225 (not canonical) volumes of commentary and profane matter. The collection of the canonical books is so holy that sacrifices made to it are accounted very meritorious.

In Egypt we find the Book of the Dead, which might almost be called a handbook or a guide-book for departed spirits, containing the needed information about the gods and the future world. It is called the canon of the Egyptians ; but there is no great clearness in reference to the book in general, and its canonicity in particular. We know even less about the Hermetical Books, which are attributed to the god Thoth or Hermes Trismegistos. Clement of Alexandria counted forty-two of them, but Seleucus in lamblichus speaks of 20,000, and Manetho of 36,525. It may be that these large numbers apply to the lines contained in the books; in that case the great difference between the numbers would be intelligible.

Rome honoured the Sibylline books. After the destruction, the burning, of the Capitol in the year 83 before Christ, the State ordered the books of the fates that were in private hands to be gathered together in order to replace the old books that had perished. Copies of the books were sought for all around, and

22 THE CANON

especially in Asia Minor. It is said that above two thousand of these private books were on examination rejected and burned as worthless imitations. The renewed volumes were placed in the temple of the Palatine Apollo, and unfortunately ruthlessly burned by Stilicho in the fifth century. Here the notions of inspiration and canonicity do not seem to be strongly marked.

The Persian Avesta, as we have it to-day, offers a mere fragment of the original work, and does not seem to be sur rounded by a special halo of inspiration. The first part, called Jasna or Prayers, contains, among other matter, five Gathas or hymns, which are directly attributed to Zarathustra himself, who lived more than six centuries before Christ.

The Koran is supposed to be a product or an embodiment of the Divine Being, and only pure and believing men are to be allowed to touch it. It is uncreated. It lay on a table beside the throne of God written on a single scroll. In the night Alkadar of the month Ramadan Gabriel let it down into the lowest heaven, and it was imparted to Mohammed bit by bit according to necessity. Mohammed caused his secretary to write it down ; and he kept it, not in any special order, in a box. Later it was edited, rewrought into the shape in which we have it now.

Before we leave the realm of myth and uncertainty it may be well to recall the statement of the Talmud, that the law of Moses almost equals the divine wisdom, and that it was created nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the creation of the world, or a thousand generations before Moses.

According to the Jewish tradition, the law, the Tora, was written by Moses himself, even the last eight verses about his death. Some thought that it was put by God directly into the hands of Moses, and that either all at once or book by book. Among the Jews, questions as to the canonicity, or let us say as to the authenticity, and authority of one book or another have been much discussed, less, however, for the purpose of laying aside the book suspected, and more for the greater glory of the successfully defended book. A curious form of the debate is to be found in the question whether the book treated of soiled the hands. If it did, it was canonical. If not, not. This point is said to have originated in the time of the ark, and

INTRODUCTION— B. THE JEWISH CANON 23

to have been devised, that is to say, the declaration that the canonical writings soiled the hands was devised to prevent people and prevent priests from freely handling the copy of the law kept in the ark.

Three classes of men attached especially to the law, the Sofrim or bookmen or scribes or the Scripture students, the lawyers, and the teachers of the law, the rabbis. Quotations from the Scriptures were introduced by the formula: "It is said," or, " It is written." So soon as the Jews, but that was at a late day, observed that the copying of the law led to errors, they instituted a critical treatment of the text, trying to compel accuracy of copying. They counted the lines, the words, and the letters, and they cast aside a sheet upon which a mistake had been made.

We may assume that some written documents were in the hands of the Israelites from the time of Moses, but we can in no way define them. They doubtless included especially laws, and then as an accompaniment traditions. When, however, we speak of the Israelites, it does not follow that all existing documents were to be found on one spot, and in the hands of one librarian or keeper of archives. It is a matter of course that the persons first to care for, to write, and keep such documents were the heads of families and the priests. Whether they were of a directly legal character like laws and ordinances, and deeds of gift or purchase, or whether they were of a more historical description like accounts of the original ages of the tribes, or of humanity, the recital of travel and of wars, and, above all, the birth lists of the great families,— it is a matter of course that the persons who had these would be the sheiks, the old men, the tribal heads. In many cases such a man in authority will have had his priest, who will at the same time have been a scribe, as a proper guardian of these treasures. In other cases the sheik will have been his own priest and his own keeper of the rolls. The documents will then have been largely local and of a limited general value. But it will have been a thing of common knowledge that one or two centres, I name Shiloh as a likely one, were possessed of particularly good collections. To these the more intelligent will have applied for copies of given writings, and the less well educated for informa tion about their history, their family, and their rights. It is

r

24 THE CANON

clear that in Hosea's day, in the eighth century before Christ, many laws held to be divine were known, even though he does not make it clear to us just what laws these were. And the Second Book of Kings shows the high authority conceded to the law at the time of Josiah, in the last quarter of the seventh century, in spite of the fact that the previous disappearance of the law, that the thought of its having been forgotten and having needed to be found again, gives a shock to those who would fain believe that the priests and all the laws were active and in force in all their vigour and extent from the time of Moses onward. We may date the authoritative acceptance of the five books of the law, or if anyone prefers to put it differently, the renewed acceptance, or the first clearly defined acceptance of that whole law, at the time of Ezra, about the middle of the fifth century before Christ. The "front" and the "back" pro phets, or the historical books and the great prophetical works, may have been determined upon soon after that time, although it is suggested that they were not really of full authority before the second century before Christ. We do not know about it ; nothing gives us a fixed date. The same is true for the third part of the Hebrew Bible. Book after book in it seems to have been taken up by the authorities, who now can have been none other than the scribes and lawyers in Jerusalem. Whether the process was one of conscious canonising or authorisation from the first for these books, or whether at first the writings were merely collected and preserved rather than authorised, it would be hard to say. The latter seems probable. So far as can be determined, no new book was added after the time of the Maccabees. But various books seem to have been called in question as late even as the first century after Christ.

We have as a result of this process, in describing which I have used the word canon and its cognates in the current sense, an Old Testament in three parts : Law, Prophets, Writings. The third part received then in Greek the name " Holy Writings." It is important for us at this point, in view of the close con nection between the Old Testament and the New Testament, to ask : What is the definiteness and surety of the work of making or settling the canon of the Old Testament? This question is of all the greater interest because the time of the commonly assumed determination of the canon of the New Testament is

INTRODUCTION—/?. THE JEWISH CANON 25

not separated by any very great interval from the last of the dates above mentioned. Even in our rapid survey of the field — and a more detailed inquiry would only have made the uncer tainties more palpable — every one at once perceives that the authoritative declarations as to the divine origin of the books leave much to be desired for those who are accustomed to hear the canon of the Old Testament referred to as if it were as firm as a rock in its foundations. We do, it is true, find a massive declaration for the acceptance of the law, in part in the seventh century, in part and finally in the fifth century before Christ. Yet even in that case we are not absolutely sure of the precise contents of the law, not absolutely sure even for Ezra, probable as it is that he had all or nearly all our Pentateuch. And then what a gap opens between the period of Moses, the lawgiver, and the time of Ezra, or even of Josiah. If we assume that Moses lived about the year 1500, and that Ezra led the exiles back to Palestine about the year 458 before Christ, a thousand years had passed between. But leave that point. For the second part, the Prophets, we have no such word of a definite authoritative proclamation as to its or their authenticity and dominating value. And for the third part, there is not only no word of an official declaration, but there is also every sign and token of a merely casual, gradual taking up into use of one book after another. It would be desirable, were it possible, to inquire closely into the special sense in which each book was accepted, and what the amount of divine authority was, that the men accepting it attributed to it. That is not possible. The so-called canon of the Old Testament is anything but a carefully prepared, chosen, and guarded collection in its first state. If, however, any one should be inclined on that account to find fault with the Jews, we must remember that they not only were in the work of "canonising" and of guarding their sacred books in those early times far superior to all other known peoples, but that they at a later date and up to the present have proved themselves to be unsurpassed, unequalled preservers of tradition written and unwritten. The Christian Church owes them in this respect a great debt.

The glimpse at other sacred volumes aside from the Bible has shown us that our collection of holy books is more concise, better rounded off, and, we might almost venture to say in

26 THE CANON

advance of our present inquiry, better accredited than any others, save the Koran. But it has also made it plain to us that it has not been the custom of men in general to "canonise" their sacred books by a set public announcement ; that sacred books have, on the contrary, usually found recognition at first only in limited circles, and have afterwards gradually but almost imperceptibly or unnoticed passed into the use of the religious community of the country. It will be necessary to bear this in mind when we come to examine the testimony for the divine or ecclesiastical authority of the books of the New Testament.

C. INTERCOMMUNICATION IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

It would be difficult to discuss intelligently the question of the spread and general acceptance of the books of the New Testament among the Christians of the various lands and provinces, without referring to the possibilities of travel then and there. Probably the majority of modern people who turn their thoughts back to the Roman Empire in the time of the apostles, think of those countries and their inhabitants as to a large extent unable to communicate easily and rapidly with each other, and they would be much surprised to learn that aside from railroads, steamers, and the electric telegraph, there would be little to say in favour of European means of communication, that a Roman in Greece or Asia Minor or Egypt would have been able to travel as well as most of the Europeans who lived before the year 1837. It is to be granted that at that time journeys to China, South Africa, and North America were not customary. But no one wished to go to these then unknown or all but unknown regions. Nowadays people are proud to think that they can travel or have travelled all over the world. At that time many people travelled pretty much all over the world that was then known. At the time of Christ the known world was little more than the Roman Empire. We might describe it as the shores of the Mediterranean, if we should take the northern shores to include the inland provinces adjacent to the provinces directly on the seaboard. That would carry us to the Atlantic Ocean across Gaul, to the Black Sea across Asia Minor, and to the Red Sea across Egypt.

INTRODUCTION— C. INTERCOMMUNICATION 2/

The ease of intercourse depended in a large measure upon the ships of the Mediterranean. If the sailors then disliked winter voyages between October and March, there are not a few people to-day who avoid the sea during those months even when they can find luxurious steamers to carry them. With the ships that they used they were able to sail very fairly. For the voyage from Puteoli to Alexandria only twelve days were necessary ; and if the wind were good, a ship could sail from Corinth to Alexandria in five days. The journey from Rome to Carthage could be made in two ways, either directly from Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, and that was a trifle over 300 miles or with a good wind three days,— or by land 350 miles to Rhegium (Reggio), across the strait an hour and a half to Messana, around Sicily to Lilybaum (to-day Marsala), and then with a ship in twenty-four hours to Carthage, that would be 673 miles in all. From Carthage to Alexandria by land was 1221 miles. The direct journey to the East led by land to Brundusium (Brindisi), from which a ship could reach Dyrrachium in a day or a day and a half. From Dyrrachium the road passed through Heraclea, Edessa, Pella, Thessalonica, Philippi, and on to Byzantium (now Constantinople), in all 947 miles. Starting in the same way and turning south to Athens the journey would be 761 miles. If the traveller had the Asiatic side in view he could in Thrace go to Gallipoli and in an hour cross over to Lampsacus, the starting-point for Antioch in Syria. From Antioch he could go east to the Euphrates or south to Alexandria. From Rome to Antioch was 1529 miles, from Rome to the Euphrates 1592 miles, from Rome to Alexandria 2169 miles. If a traveller chose, he could go all the way to Byzantium by land, going north and around by Aquileia, which makes 1218 miles for the trip. On the west from Rome to Spain, to Gades was 1398 miles.

The shipping came later to be, if it was not at the time of which we have to speak, to a great extent in the hands of certain companies, although not named as Cunarders or Hamburg- Americans. The freight ships were by no means very small, and they carried large cargoes of grain with the most punctual regularity. From Spain they brought the beautiful and spirited Spanish horses for the public games ; these horses were so well known that the different species were at once distinguished by the

28 THE CANON

Romans, who adjusted their wagers accordingly. We must of necessity suppose that the freight ships also carried people, the people who had time, and especially those who had not money to pay for better ships. Paul's journey as a prisoner from Caesarea to Rome gives us a good example of a freight and passenger boat, and shows us how the winter affected the voyage and the voyagers. The quick and, of course, dearer passenger carrying trade was served by lightly built ships, and these fast ships will have certainly been often more adventurous than the freight ships, and have hugged the land less. Particular attention seems to have been paid to the ships that acted as ferries or transfer boats on the great lines of travel, since they were necessary to the use of the roads. For example, from Brundusium to Dyrrachium, from Gallipoli to Lampsacus, from Rhegium to Messana. It is likely that frequent vessels passed from the western coast of Asia Minor towards the north-west, keeping east of Akte (to-day Mount Athos), and reaching behind Thasos, the harbour of Neapolis, which was only 15 miles from Philippi.

Everyone has heard of the Roman roads. Beginning at Rome, they stretched through the whole empire. In a newly conquered land a Roman commander or civil governor hastened to lay out and to order the work on the roads that would be adapted to give the troops easy access to all parts of the country, and to allow of the utilising of the products of the different districts. Traces, remains, of such roads are to be seen to-day at many places from Scotland to Africa. Augustus had the whole empire measured by Greek geometers or civil engineers, and erected in the Forum at Rome the central pillar from which the miles were counted off to the most remote regions. Gaius Gracchus, 123 before Christ, was the first one to bring forward a law to set milestones at every thousand paces. The principal distances were given on the pillar itself. Besides that, Augustus caused a map of the world to be made and hung up in a public place, a map based on those measurements and on Agrippa's commentaries on them. Guide-books or lists of the places, and stations, and distances on the roads were prepared later; there may very well at once have been copies made for the chief roads. Greece is said to have been less carefully provided with roads, probably owing in part to the difficulty of making roads among the mountains, in part to the fact that the inhabitants in general

INTRODUCTION— C. INTERCOMMUNICATION 29

caused no great trouble,— while Corinth and Athens were easily to be reached, — and in part to the circumstance that the sea was so near at hand that the roads were less necessary.

The travel on these roads, as on our roads to-day, was of four kinds, on wheels, in sedan-chairs or litters, on beasts, and on foot. Seeing that the roads were in the first instance made for the benefit of the government, the officials of every degree had the preference on the roads. They often acted brutally and barbarously in compelling the inhabitants to let them have their horses and oxen to draw waggons, and in urging these animals to greater speed ; and special orders were issued for bidding all such acts. Under given circumstances, travellers, and especially those in the public service, went very swiftly, changing^ horses at every station. Caesar rode from Rome to the Rhone in his four-wheeled travelling carriage in about eight days, making 77 miles a day. In his two- wheeled light carriage he made 97 miles a day. The public post from Antioch to Constantinople in the fourth century went, including stops, in about six days, about 4 miles an hour. Private persons used, according to their means, private carriages, or rode on horses, mules, or asses, or went on foot. There were societies that let out carriages or riding horses just as to-day. The foot traveller was more independent on the road than anyone save the public officials.

Not infrequently do we hear modern travel spoken of as if it were an entirely new invention. It is presupposed that in the times of which we are now treating, the population was almost exclusively man after man tied close to the one spot on which he had been born. This conception of the case falls wide of the mark. A very large number of people were often under way, and many were never long at rest. We have had occasion to refer more than once to officials journeying. The condition of the Roman Empire, the methods by which the lands and districts were governed and were kept in order and were defended, required a constant flow of soldiers, of officers, of officials of every rank hither and thither. These persons had, so far as their station entitled them to use horses and carriages, the use of the imperial post, which was forbidden to private persons. They had therefore also the precedence in the often clashing claims for relays at the stations, and in the choice of accommoda-

30 THE CANON ;.

tion at the inns. It is scarcely necessary to urge that high officials also often had a considerable staff of assistants or a numerous household as a travelling accompaniment. If these were weighty travellers they found a balance in the other extreme, in the actors and players who passed from place to place to afford the people diversion ; doubtless they sometimes associated themselves closely with the higher and wealthier officials, lighten ing by their arts the cares of office, or amusing and thus occupy ing the thoughts of the populace and making them more content with the government. Precisely as to-day, countless invalids sought health far from home at baths, at healing springs, in milder or in cooler climes, and that not merely the wealthy, but also many a poor man. Rich Romans made excursions to their possessions in Gaul, in Spain, in Africa, and sometimes took a crowd of friends with them as well as a host of servants. Others travelled to see the peculiarities or the beauties of foreign peoples and foreign landscapes. Some went to consult oracles. Work men went in numbers hither and thither, now driven like the wandering apprentice by the thirst for further knowledge of the secrets of their handiwork, now sent out by the rich at Rome or sent for by the rich abroad to ply their skilful arts in city houses or Country houses in the provinces or in distant lands. Manufacturers, if we may use the term for those who rose above the level of the mere workman, also went from place to place, sometimes on compulsion, like Priscilla and Aquila who had to leave Rome, sometimes of their own will, to wit the journey which we may presuppose that Prisca and Aquila made previously to Rome, and their journey from Corinth to Ephesus. They were doubtless part makers and part sellers of tent cloth from camels' hair. Paul's own case is like that of the workmen, and he may at Corinth really have worked for Prisca and Aquila. It is not at all unlikely that he answered, or that he would have answered, an inquisitive policeman on reaching Corinth, that the purpose of his coming was to work at his trade in the bazaar. Reference to his mission would have been as unintelligible as it would have been suspicious in reply to such an official. Of course, merchants travelled. Many of them went with their goods on ships, others will have travelled by land, carrying their boxes and bales on waggons, on beasts, or on the backs of their slaves. An inscrip tion tells us of a merchant in Hierapolis who travelled from

INTRODUCTION— C. INTERCOMMUNICATION 31

Asia Minor to Italy seventy-two times. And learning will have caused many a journey. Teachers went hither and thither to gather new classes of pupils, themselves gaining in wisdom by their new experiences. And students sought at Alexandria, at Athens, at Antioch, at Tarsus, or at Rome itself the teachers needed for their special subjects. Paul went to sit at the feet of Gamaliel at Jerusalem, and when he later went to Tarsus, his birthplace, again, it is likely that he visited the university.

The things shipped from and to a land afford an insight into an important part of its relations to other lands, and show how easily or with how much difficulty men and writings could pass from one country to the other. It will suffice to limit ourselves to Palestine, for that is our centre. Tunny-fish were brought thither from Spain, and Egyptian fish also, I suppose from the Nile. Persia supplied certain nuts. Beans and lentils came from Egypt. Grits were sent from Cilicia, Paul's province. Greece sent squashes. The Egyptians sent mustard. Edom was the source for vinegar. Bithynia furnished cheese. Media was the brewery for beer. Babylon sent sauces. Greece and Italy sent hyssop, it is said; — why this plant was sought from afar I do not know ; perhaps it was a particular species. Cotton came from India. So much for the imports. A word as to the exports of this little country. The Lake of Tiberias produced salted and pickled fish ; the town Tarichese was the " Pickelries." ^* Galilee was celebrated for its linen. And Judea supplied wool and woollen goods; Jerusalem had its sheep market and its wool market.

This brief review makes it plain that the period before us is"? one of continual movement in all directions. For the spread of v^ Christianity and for the subsequent widespread scattering abroad^ of, and the universal acceptance of the cherished literature of the '

early Christians, this journeying and sending of men and of goods from one end of the empire to the other could not but be of the greatest importance. Quite aside from the actual travel and the actual traffic, the mental attitude of men was one of calm consideration of, and not of suspicion or flashing hatred towards, all that came from another country.

v-

32 THE CANON

D. BOOKMAKING OF OLD.

In considering the fates and fortunes of books, it is important to ask how they were made. Here we may touch upon a few points bearing more upon the criticism of the canon. Other points will come up in connection with the criticism of the text. In many cases those who speak of the books of the New Testament pay little regard to this matter. They discuss it almost as if they thought that books were then produced, multiplied, bought and sold much as they are to-day. This is the less blameworthy from the circumstance that the history of these things has thus far been much neglected, and that the sources for the history in Greek circles are still largely a thing of conjecture, not well- known and carefully studied documents. We know much more about Latin than about Greek bookmaking. Our information touching Greek work in this line must be searched for in the byways and hedges of ancient Greek literature, in chance observations made in some important historical or theological or philosophical writings, and in the bindings and on the fly-leaves of old books. Bearing in view the difficulty of finding the materials for a judgment, we shall not be surprised to learn that opinions upon this topic go to one of two extremes. Some seem to suppose that books at that time, and especially among the Christians, could only be made, this is to say, written, with great difficulty and at large expense. They think of books at that day as exceedingly rare and dear. Others swing the pendulum to the opposite point, and declare that books were then as plenty as grass in the East ; the figure would perhaps be near the truth for one who should reflect upon the meagre herbage of those dry regions. Applying this to Christians and to the books of the New Testament, we are on the one hand liable to hear that these books were seldom in the hands of any but the wealthy and were at no time existent in great numbers, or on the other hand that families, to say nothing of Churches, — that families and individual Christians were in a position to get and keep and use freely the sacred writings.

Nothing would be more dangerous than a too free generali sation here. Time and place varied the circumstances. Time came into play, for the Christians were at first largely poor and largely or often viewed with distrust and dislike by their

INTRODUCTION—/?. BOOKMAKING 33

neighbours, and would therefore not be in a position to have books made for them easily. At a later date, when more and more people gathered around the preachers and the Christian Churches grew apace, when the Christians began to be drawn more from the better educated classes and to have a wider acquaintance with literature and a greater facility in literary methods, and when they had secured for themselves from their heathen surroundings rather respectful tolerance or even admira tion than ill-confidence and disdain, they certainly could and undoubtedly did order and use more books. That the place, however, must be considered is a matter of course. That is true even to-day in spite of all printing presses and publishing houses. In large cities, and in particular in cities like Antioch, Tarsus, Alexandria, in which many scholars taught and learned, studied and wrote, books could be easily and quickly gotten. And in such cities, among scholars of various climes, tongues, opinions, religions, and habits, scribes would busy themselves less with, an inquisitorial consideration of their customers, and be at once ready to copy any sheet, any book placed in their hands. In the provinces, in small towns and villages, in out of the way places it must have been usually difficult, very often impossible, to get books, impossible to have them made. That does not imply that people there could neither write nor read, ignorant indeed of these arts as the majority of them may have been. But there was a difference between writing a private letter or a business letter and a bill, and writing a book. The difference Was similar to that found to-day between the usual writers in private life and in business circles, and the art-writers who prepare beautiful diplomas and testimonials for anniversaries.

In large towns the methods for the multiplication of writings that were used for profane books often could be and probably sometimes were applied to the books of the New Testament, and that especially as time progressed during the third and the opening fourth century. We have no exact information upon this point, and we are therefore left to conjecture. I am inclined to think that the usual bookmaking methods were seldom used by Christians. It does not seem to me to be likely that a heathen bookseller would, as a rule, apply himself with any great interest to the multiplication of Christian writings. The reasons that lead me to this conclusion are the following : 3

34 THE CANON

(a) It is worth while to cast a glance at the general position of the Christians. It is true that antique life, modified by the climate of those southern lands, was to a far greater extent than life in northern Europe to-day spent before the eyes of other and often strange men. The Italian in Naples carrying on his trade on the sidewalk, or in a shed, or booth, or room opening with its whole front upon the street, is a fair type of the Eastern tradesman. In consequence, the life of the Christians in the East was to a large measure a public life, a life seen and known of men. But they were nevertheless for long decades in many places not openly acknowledged and recognised as Christians. Here and there, doubtless often, they met with tolerance and forbearance or even good treatment from the hands of their neighbours and of the authorities of the district, town, or city. That, however, cannot screen the fact that they will in general have found it prudent and often strictly necessary to keep the signs of their faith in the background, not to allow them to attract open notice

•»•' when it was possible to avoid doing so. For this reason, then, Christians will in many places have refrained from applying to heathen scribes to copy the books of the New Testament.

(b) The last phrase brings an important point. It would not be impossible that a scribe should become a Christian. But we may be sure that, as a rule, directly in connection with their daily bread, — remember, we have to do with book scribes not with everyday letter writers, — they will have been, and have been inclined to remain, heathen. Their work was the copying of heathen books. They copied for a living, it is true, and may often have not hesitated to take up Christian books. Never theless, they may well have preferred the heathen books that they knew and liked, especially if they were writers of " known " and not in general of " new " books. Then, too, the Christians may have hesitated to let heathen scribes copy the writings because they were so much prized by them, may have hesitated to place them before the eyes and in the hands of men who would despise and scoff at these precious books. And this hesitancy will not seldom have been rendered greater by the fear that these scribes could for lewd gain denounce them to the authorities as the possessors of forbidden books, and give over the books into the hands of their enemies.

(f) It must, in connection with the last sentence, be borne

INTRODUCTION—/). BOOKMAKING 35

in mind that although these books were sacred books, books held in particular honour by a certain number of men, they were in those days not in the least public books. These two considerations were of moment, in particular, before the close of the first quarter of the fourth century. Let us pass beyond that date.

(d) After the greater influx of members in the early years of the fourth century, there probably were enough self-denying Christians at command who were able to write a book hand, and therefore to copy the Christian books. It is to be re gretted that Eusebius, who caused fifty large manuscripts of the Bible to be copied for, at the command of, the Emperor Constantine, does not tell us to what scribes he entrusted the work. Had he been in Constantinople, in Constantine's town as they then began to name it, we should have turned our eyes to the regular book trade. For it is very likely that with the accession of Christianity to the throne many a public scribe, many a bookseller would have been led to embrace it, to take upon him the name that was no longer a badge of disgrace, but had become a claim to preferment. In Caesarea the case is different. It was, it is true, a large city, and would have had at least some public scribes. But we must remember that we have positive knowledge of Christian scholar ship here. Caesarea had long been a centre of interest for Christian theologians, and had about a century before sheltered the great Origen within its walls. He received there his ordina tion as presbyter, and when the fanatical Bishop of Alexandria attacked him, he settled in Caesarea and gathered many pupils around him. These Christians had a large library there, and we have in various manuscripts references to books in that library. Putting these things together, it seems fair to suppose that Eusebius had in his town Christian scholars at command, and Christian scribes, to write the fifty sacred volumes. Should any one say that the size of the probable school and the cultivation of the Christians there probably rendered the work of these Christian scribes a thoroughly well-appointed and business-like institution, not very different from and not inferior to the establishments of profane booksellers, I shall at once concede the point. If I am not mistaken, that is precisely the reason why Constantine ordered the books for his proud capital in that

36 THE CANON

distant town in Palestine. He had doubtless made inquiries, and had learned that Eusebius not only had in the library of his deceased bosom friend Pamphilos, whose name he had added to his own, the finest known copies, the most accurately written copies, of the Bible, but that he also had at his command in his neighbourhood, and probably within the precincts of his episcopal residence, of the houses and grounds attached to his own palace, the best scribes that were to be found in all that region. If these surmises come near to the truth, that large book order on the part of the emperor is likely to have made that scriptorial establishment, that book-house, still more celebrated, and to have led to other orders of a less imposing extent. That is, so far as I can recall, the only case in early times in which we hear so directly about the making of Christian books, and therefore, to return to our point respecting the matter in general, we can only say that we have no knowledge of any business man, of any bookseller who occupied himself especially with making Bibles or New Testaments or single books out of the New Testament. Perhaps some scholar will one day find in an old manuscript new information on this subject.

Whatever may have been the real facts in earlier days, however near our guesses may come to the true state of the case, we know certainly that at a later date the copying of the books of the New Testament was a part of the work of ecclesiastics and of monks. Of the many, many volumes which contain a de scription of the position of the scribe who copied them, by far the larger number were from the classes named. In a great number of manuscripts the scribe is said to be just upon the point of becoming a monk. This remark is found so often that I am inclined to think that frequently it must have been the rule for a novice who was at the end of his probation and was approaching his tonsure as monk, to copy a part of the Bible, certain books of the New Testament, as a token of his proficiency in external letters and of his devotion to the sacred volume.

E. WHAT WE SEEK.

Setting aside for the moment our preliminary considerations touching the existence of a canon, it is pertinent at this point

INTRODUCTION— E. WHAT WE SEEK 37

to try to define in detail what we must seek for. We are about """) to enter upon the field of early Christian history. What do we \ wish to look for in this field? We are not concerned now to 3 examine the piety of the members of the various rising Christian societies. We are not going to ask in what rooms they held their meetings. We are not intending to find out how they appointed their leaders. All these things, and a great many other things in themselves equally weighty and interesting, must now remain untouched. Three objects call for our attention.

We must in applying ourselves to a view of the early Church, \ inquire for traces of the existence of the books that we have \ in our New Testament to-day. It is the existence that is first ' to be sought for, some sign that the given book is, and if possible that it is at a given place. In advance an ignorant man might take it for granted that no book could possibly be used by the Church without having been previously or at the time in question made the object of a rigid examination, and without a minute having been entered into the documents of the Church with regard to the said book. But the Christians of that day were not so critically inclined as that would indicate. At the very first there are no tokens of anything of that kind. In con sequence we must be content with less clear evidence. We must search in the literature of the Church — we should search just as eagerly in profane literature if there were anything to be found in it — for signs that these books have been used even without their having been alluded to by name. A later treatise might show or seem to show by the things spoken of in it that the author of it had read some book now in the New Testament. He might lean towards or lean upon the material given in it. In some cases it might be possible to show by his style that he had used the said book. It is unnecessary to press the warning not to judge too hastily in a matter like this. The differences between use and non-use are sometimes extremely hard to be detected. A second stage in this inquiry after the existence of the books is the search for quotations from them, j quotations giving their very words but not mentioning their names. Here the thing seems to be and really is much clearer. Yet even here great caution is needed, since sentences some times appear to be similar to each other or practically identical, which prove on closer examination to have no direct connection

38 THE CANON

with each other. The words may be from a third, a previous

writing, or they may be a saying that was long current in various

circles before the words with which we compare them were

written. The third and satisfactory stage of the search after

/proofs of the existence of the books, is the search for direct

I mention of the books by name. A mention by name, particularly

v if it be accompanied by a clear quotation from the text of the

book, is the best evidence that we can ask for. Of course, we should be on our guard lest the name should be an interpolation by a later writer who had been led or misled by the real or only apparent quotation. It is plain that these three stages in the inquiry for tokens of the existence of the books are not to be conceived of as only possible of separate consecutive examination, looking in each single book first for the one and then for the other stage. In taking up a later book we may find first of all the third and highest stage of the evidence. We should, however, in spite of that examine the whole document, seeking as well for the other two less important stages as corroborative evidence.

The second object for attention, proved or conceded the existence of the books, is the search for signs of an ^especial \ valuation of these books on the part of Christians, and,_if^thajt_ may be distinguished, on the part of authorised or authoritative Christians, men of a certain eminence. Here we may place five kinds of evidence before our minds. The first kind would be the discovery that these books of the New Testament or that any one of them is in literary use preferred to other books not in our New Testament. We might find, for example, that they in case of quotation were particularly emphasised, that they were more frequently mentioned and treated with greater respect than other books, that they were spoken of as if they might claim for themselves a special authority. Here we are again, as we were at the first stage of the previous inquiry, looking for something that may perhaps sometimes be rather felt than directly seen, may lie in a turn of a sentence and not in a direct statement. The second kind of evidence is that which in some way shows that theslTTDOoks were settled upon as worthy of, or were designated directly for, being read by Christians in private life for their instruction, for theiredification, or for their comfort and consolation. The third kind of evidence is that which

¥

'

INTRODUCTION— £. WHAT WE SEEK 39

proves their designation for public use in church. The weight of the evidence for this point must be characterised more closely. The difference between books for private reading and those for public use will be plain by a moment's comparison with books of to-day. To take an extreme example, it would be quite conceivable that a clergyman should recommend to a parishioner to read a certain novel of a specifically Christian tendency ; it would not be conceivable that he should read this novel before the congregation. There is nothing double-tongued or hypo critical in this. The clergyman knows, on the one hand, that the person advised is capable of judging aright of the contents of the book, whilst he could not know who might hear and misunderstand it in the public assembly. But, on the other hand, he also knows that the Church by ancient custom admits no such literature to a place in the services. The fourth kind of evidence is that which places these books upon the same level as the books of the Old Testament. The importance of this point is clear. The books of the Old Testament — we are not able to say precisely which ones book for book — were accepted by the early Christians as in a peculiar way given by God to the Jews and through them to the Church. They were accepted as the one authoritative collection of documents revealing to men the mind of God. It must here be expressly stated that we have not the least indication that the early Christians were in any way inclined to inquire closely into the origin and authority of the religious books in their hands. Their attitude towards certain books not a part of the Old Testament proper goes to show either that the Old Testament was then scarcely clearly defined in its third division, or that the Christians freely used other books as equal to those in that third division. But this concession does not in the least alter the value of the point we have now in view. It is for us of the greatest moment if we can show that, or when we can show that, a book was considered as on a par with the books of the Old Testament. The fifth and last kind of evidence is that which directly calls these books Canonical or declared them to be among the number of the canonised books. Just what that may mean is a topic for later consideration after we have reached that point.

At the first glance it might seem as if that were all that we had to do, as if no further steps were necessary to place the

40 THE CANON

books of the New Testament upon their proper and firm basis of clear history, always supposing that we succeeded in finding the best of the evidences just described. But this is not all. If we stopped at this point the favorers and furtherers of what they call " the New Testament outside of the received canon " might come to us and claim that these books were in possession of precisely the same evidence as that which we have discovered in the case of the New Testament books. Now we have indeed said at the outset that the books just referred to have no proper place in New Testament introduction, and that still holds good. But it is in no way possible to avoid an inquiry calculated directly either to confirm or to annul the claim of these other writings to be a part of the New Testament. This leads, then, to the third object that claims our attention. We have sought after signs of a special valuation of the books of the New Testament. Are signs of such, of an equal, valuation to be fou^for any other writings belonging to the early period of Christianity? And if tokens of certain such signs can be pointed out for other writings, have we other evidence, tokens of an opposite character which force the conclusion that these writings are nevertheless finally not to be considered as equal in authority to those of the New Testament ? Here we have to ask about other books, then, the same questions as before, touching the way in which they/j are quoted, whether they are named for private reading or for / public services, and whether they are placed in conjunction with the Old Testament. Should we find that some of the ques-' tions must be answered in the affirmative, we must then inquire whether the given books were in any way thereafter so treated as to show that these previous signs were not of a general and authoritative value. We may find that they were definitely distinguished by official statement from the books of the New Testament. The fact that they must be thus put aside places clearly before our eyes how very near they must have been to the New Testament. No one would need to say that Homer was not a part of the New Testament. We may find that they are termed apocryphal. That word was originally one of respect. It pointed to a book containing a secret doctrine but aToff)T

I 7 one, a matter that was too hard, too deep, too high for the common run of men, something that was only adapted to the

• initiated. As time went on the Christians came to a clearer

INTRODUCTION—/?. WHAT WE SEEK 4!

vision, and formed the opinion that these books, supposed to be so peculiarly valuable, were in reality much less valuable than the books of the Church that were not apocryphal. Therefore they used the word apocryphal at that later day as a term for books that were not what they purported to be, were not genuine, were not in the least as good as the publicly known and used writings. It will be our duty to examine the case carefully, and to decide whether or not we can approve of what they did.

These three inquiries exhaust in general our task in regard to the early ages of the Church. In pursuit of them we must endeavour as far as possible to distinguish between different times and as well between different places. Four warnings may be useful. The first is that we must strive not to mistake the nature of the given section of history and confuse earlier con ditions with those of a later date. Imagine anyone's supposing that Schopenhauer's writings were as eagerly read and as much the object of public approval in the year 1819, when his great work was issued, as they became towards the year 1860, after Frauenstadt had urged them upon public notice. The second is that we must not let earlier conditions be made doubtful and less clear by statements made about them at a later date. Our means of judging of a period removed from the vision of an ancient writer are often better than his. The third warning prevents our incautiously making the conditions and circum stances in one country a certain measure for the conditions and circumstances in other countries. What is true of Egypt at a given time need not be true of Italy at the same time. Conceive of a writer in the future who should presuppose, in drawing historical conclusions, that the internal conditions in Spain were the same as those in Germany in the year 1907, that the workmen were equally intelligent and equally successful in securing their rights, and that the upper classes were equally free from the domination of the Roman Catholic clergy. The fourth draws a similar line within much narrower limits, and forbids us to suppose that the circumstances in out of the way places and districts are the same as in the large cities. For all our post-offices and telegraph, this remains largely true even to-day. There are small towns, sometimes curiously enough quite near to large cities, that preserve to-day many of their old characteristics. Such differences were in ancient times in the

42 THE CANON

lands that we have in view often extremely great. There was often a gulf of race and speech, and therefore of character, education, and customs, fixed between the city and the villages around it.

If that is the, course before us for the earlier ages, in which by far the greater part of our task has to be performed, the later periods will demand of us an account of the varying or unvarying consistency with which they keep to or depart from the decisions of their predecessors. It will perhaps sometimes be necessary for us to ask whether given nations or societies have from the first held to that which they at the present suppose that they have ever believed and cherished.

43

I.

THE APOSTOLIC AGE.

33-90 (100).

WHEN \ve approach the age of the apostles we must lay aside for the moment modern ways of thinking, and strive to put ourselves beside the first Christians as they went in and out of the temple and Jerusalem and Nazareth and Capernaum. It is hard for us to reduce ourselves to the simplicity of the time, of the places, of the country, of the circumstances in which this little but growing society found itself. For us, that was all the enthusiastic opening of the movement that was later to fill and possess the world of that day. For them, for those incipient Christians, there was, it is true, a certain outlook of a coming glory. But the death of their leader and the doubt and hesita tion, the little faith of many of the brethren dampened and clogged the flight of their thoughts. The glad thought of the trumpet sounding at midnight the return of their Jesus, a return upon the clouds of light in the majesty of a king by the grace of God, a return that would herald them to the rest of the world as the favourites and confidential friends of this universal sovereign, — this glad thought must before the lapse of many years have given place to a quiet resignation, or at most to a modest and longing wishfulness. Like the Thessalonians, they saw one and another of their number recede into the darkness of the tomb, though all of them were men who had counted upon the open vision of that triumphant entry. They had thought that they had a draft on sight, not one payable in two thousand or ten thousand years. They were simple-minded people. What did they think about the writings of the New Testament when they were placed before their eyes? Let us consider the case.

We regard the word as of pre-eminent importance. We have

44 THE CANON

not heard Jesus speak. Nor do we know anyone who has heard Him. Neither our fathers nor our grandfathers wandered with Him over the hills of Galilee. For us the written word is of great weight ; and of right, for it is beyond price. But there is something still more important than the written word. Did we wish, as some people unfortunately often do, to limit the sayings and the deeds, the events in those years of the Church's infancy, to what we find written down in the New Testament, as if it were a precise chronicle of all that the Christians experienced, we should go astray. And we should err still more widely if we refused to accept any testimony as to the written word in the New Testament which we cannot read in so many sentences in ecclesiastical authors. The Christian Church is more than a book. Jesus was more than a word. Jesus, the Logos, the Word, was the Life, and the Church is a living society, a living fellowship. There is something sublime in such a fellowship that passes through the ages in a living tradition. Our connection with Jesus, which reaches now over more than eighteen hundred years, does not rest upon the fact that He wrote something down, which one man and another, one after another has read and / believed until this very day. So far as we know, He left no i writings, no notes behind Him. We do not read that He ever

told anyone to take down His words so as to give them to others .in white and black. We are not told that He ever wrote or dictated even a letter. He lived and He spoke. Christianity began with the joining of heart to heart. Eye looked into eye. The living voice struck upon the living ear. And it is precisely such a uniting of personalities, such an action of man on man, that ever since Jesus spoke has effected the unceasing renewal of Christianity. Christianity has not grown to be what it is, has not maintained itself and enlarged itself, by reason of books being read, no, not even by reason of the Bible's being read from generation to generation. How many millions of the Christians of past days could not read ! How many to-day cannot read ! Christianity is first of all a life and has been passed along as life, has been lived, livingly presented from age to age. The Christian, whether a clergyman or a layman, has sought with his heart after the hearts of his fellow-men. A mother has whispered the word to her child, a friend has spoken it in the ear of his friend, a preacher has proclaimed it to his

THE APOSTOLIC AGE 45

hearers, and the child, the friend, the hearers have believed and become Christians. Christianity is an uninterrupted life.

These considerations have certain practical consequences for the inquiries in the criticism of the canon. It is certain that the ( leaders of the Church, the more prominent men particularly in \ the earliest ages, wrote very few books. Our researches will \ probably show us that most of the books of the New Testament were written at an early date. But it is not in the least to be

reasonably presupposed or expected that the Christians in the /$% that should convey to us what we wish to know about the r"

years that immediately followed spent their time in writing books

criticism of the canon. It was a period of tradition by word of ^~ mouth. It was not tradition by book and eye, but tradition by mouth and ear, that occupied the minds of those Christians in their unresting, untiring efforts to spread the words of Jesus and the story of His work. We sometimes hear complaints about the scantiness of the literature that has been preserved to us, that are uttered as if those early days of the Church had been days of prolific literary activity, as if an exuberant literature had existed which has been lost. Nothing of the kind was, so far as we can see, the case. On the contrary, but little in comparison was written. But this circumstance — and that is the point of these remarks — cannot be turned into a good reason for doubting the existence and use of the books of the New Testament at that time. It was a time of busy proclamation of the gospel, and a time at which the near end — in spite of all disappointed hopes — was still looked for. Literary events, literary processes, literary activity were far from their thoughts. The members of the Christian Churches, of the little circles that were here and there linking themselves together in the bond of fellowship, were to a great extent poor and uneducated. The larger part of the first Christians were neither in a position to buy nor able to read books. They were in the habit of hearing, not of reading, news that was of interest to them. They had no newspapers to allure them from their unlettered state.

The Christians were, however, not all ill-educated. Their leaders will doubtless in most cases have been able to read and write. It might be supposed then that these leaders were eager furtherers of Christian literary effort. We have no indications that that was the case, and a little reflection, combined with what

46 THE CANON

has been already said about the making known of the good tidings, will I think, lead to the conclusion that books and literature were among the things farthest from their thoughts. For we must not forget that these leaders were not trained officials, not even trained as officials in general, let alone literature. They had not been recruited from the number of the head men of the Jews. They were taken from the rank and file. And in especial they were not scribes and lawyers, not used to dealing day by day with books, with the Jewish book of books, the Law. If they could read a passage in the synagogue and say a few words about it, that would be the utmost that could be required or asked of them.

Just at this point, having reminded ourselves of the fact that

neither the common run of Christians nor those who had by age

or social standing or some personal quality been placed in a

position of a certain trifling authority had any special literary

inclinations, it will be pertinent to reflect for an instant upon the

uncritical disposition of the age. This was not a peculiarly

Christian failing. Men such as those we have just glanced at

could not be expected to examine cautiously and precisely every

grain of evidence for books presented for Christian use. It

would be very strange if they thought of such a thing, But the

whole world of that day was credulous to a high degree. Clement

of Rome, and even Tacitus in a way, appear to have half-believed

the myth of the phcenix, and the majority of the people were

ready to believe the most improbable stories. I have spoken of

(that age as being credulous. I might have said that all men,

/ with very few exceptions, are credulous. Men are credulous to-

/ day. People of birth and education go to inane but cunning

' spiritists and fortune-tellers. And the poor of all countries

devour eagerly the wildest fancies of a lying messenger. To

return : the age with which we have to deal and the persons with

| whom we have especially to do was not and were not critically

*' inclined. We must keep this in mind when we reflect upon

their acceptance and approval of writings that may happen to

have been offered for their consideration.

If anyone had asked a Palestinian Jewish Christian in the year, let us say, 35 in what language a book meant for the use of Christians should be written, I have little doubt that he would have replied : " In Aramaic," although he might have called it

THE APOSTOLIC AGE 47

Hebrew or Syriac in a slovenly way of speaking. The sacred books were indeed in good Hebrew, we might call it classical ; and if the man questioned should have entertained the thought that the books referred to should be equivalent to the books of the Old Testament, he would, of course, have replied that they must be in classical Hebrew. Even to-day in Arabic-speaking countries the Arabic Christians wish the Scriptures read to them and the sermons preached to them to be in classical Arabic, even though the sermons, in fact, fall far short of any due classical standards. The Western scholars who sometimes are surprised by this fact and demur at it, should reflect that a Billingsgate fishwoman, a London omnibus-driver, a Berlin cab-driver, and a New York street arab would all alike be surprised, and I scarcely think pleased, to hear the Scriptures read and sermons preached in the jargon that they daily use. The Aramaic which Jesus spoke was not from the east, not a product in Palestine of the return from the exile in Babylon, but from the north, an im portation made probably during the first half of the second century before Christ. It is likely that the same answer would have been given by some Christians even at a later date. Nevertheless we have every reason to believe that a large number of the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine understood and spoke Greek long before the time of Christ. The Aramaic population was encircled by and, if the expression be not contra dictory, at least sparsely permeated by Greek-speaking inhabitants. The seacoast was chiefly Greek. Joppa, now Jaffa, where the Jews of the south touched the coast, was the scene of the Greek myth of Perseus and Andromeda. Caesarea was Greek. Ptolemais or Akka was, like several cities on the other, the eastern side of Palestine, a Hellenistic city, and they all had been in existence for centuries. As for literature, Ascalon produced four Stoic philosophers. The Epicurean Philodemus was from Gadara, and so was the Cynic Menippos. Civil officials and military officers were stationed here and there. Heathen plays were well known, there being a theatre and amphitheatre at Jerusalem, a theatre, an amphitheatre, and a hippodrome at Jericho, a stadium at Tiberias, and a hippodrome at Taricheae, the Pickelries. Add to that the movements of Greek-speaking traders and workmen. Consider, further, the proselytes, the synagogues of the Libertines, the Cyreneans, the Alexandrians, and the Cilicians named in

48 THE CANON

Acts. From all this hasty glimpse we see that Greek must have been in Palestine a very well-known language. The effect of the Greek elements, just alluded to, upon the Aramaic-speaking population can only be duly appreciated by taking into view the small extent of the country and the resultant compulsion the Arameans were under to meet and deal with Greeks. From Jericho to Joppa itself was not two days for a fast traveller. It is interesting to observe that the military governor, the colonel, in the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of Acts, is surprised to find that Paul, whom he had taken for a wild Egyptian, can speak Greek, while in a reverse direction it is clear that the mob is surprised to hear him speak Aramaic. The interesting thing is that the mob had evidently expected to understand him, even I if he had spoken Greek. So soon as Christianity began to I address itself to the Greek-speaking Jews outside of Palestine, f the first thought of any author of a letter or of a book designed for general circulation will have been to write it in Greek. For that language would reach almost all Jews, even in Palestine, saving a certain part of the poorer classes.

The Jews who heard Jesus and believed on Him, will at the first moment not have dreamed of the production of a literature, of a series of books for their own particular use and benefit. Then and long after that, probably so long as the temple continued to stand, they remained good Jews and did their duty, observed the rites due from them as Jews. If anyone had asked after their sacred books they would have pointed to the Old Testament without a thought that anything more could be desired. They had heard Jesus. They continued to be Jews in union with Jesus. They were fully satisfied with the Scriptures which they possessed. No one had asked Jesus to write a continuation of the Old Testament. What could be desired? Should a new law be drawn up ? Jesus had declared that the old law should outlast the heavens. Should a new prophetical book be added ? Jesus had announced the close of the prophecy: "until John." As time passed by there came, however, two literary movements, one in gathering at least fragments of the words of Jesus, the other in the supplying of certain needs of the Christians by means of letters from the apostles or other Christian leaders; but neither of these movements had at the first moment a trace of an intention to continue, to complete, or to supplement

THE APOSTOLIC AGE 49

the sacred books of the Jews which were also the sacred books IA of the Christians. The earliest Christian authors did not for an // instant suppose that they were writing sacred books.

If we go back in thought to these years in which the Christians are gradually growing more and more numerous, in which the many who had been in Jerusalem at that great Whitsunday were being multiplied not only in Palestine but also far and wide throughout the Roman Empire, we must be cautious in assuming for them too large a number of adherents at the first moment. Eastern people are poor counters, and easily exceed the facts with their tens and hundreds and thousands. The Churches were small gatherings, chiefly of not very well educated men and women. These Churches were not on the lookout for books. They had among them men who had seen and heard Jesus, or at least His apostles, the Twelve. Some of the Churches really had members of the inner circle, of those Twelve, among them It could not be otherwise, for the Twelve neither died nor were killed all at once at the time of the death of Stephen. Even at the

time at which Paul wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians and

that was probably in the year 53 — it is clear that no Gospels were known to him. He says in that letter (i Cor. i53), speaking of his preaching, that he had passed on to the Corinthians, when he first went among them, that which he had received, namely, that Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and so on. He does not say that he had read this, but that he had received it and that is here that he had heard it. Ananias and others had told him about it. As little does he tell them to take up the Gospels in their hands and see for themselves whether his doctrine agrees with the books. It seems to me that this altogether does away with the opinion formed by some, that Paul spent his time in Damascus and Arabia immediately after his conversion in reading a Gospel written by Matthew. We have, then, no reason to suppose that Paul or the Corinthians, and therefore as little to suppose that Peter or the Christians at Jerusalem and Antioch,, had in the year 53 Gospels before them. It would, however, be| quite possible that somewhere about that time one and anothei Christian had begun to think of using his pen in a limited way.

Before inquiring what these possible writers probably would have written, I must touch upon one other matter, which I prefer to mention here, instead of giving it in connection with the Jewish 4

THE CANON

canon, because it will throw light upon the circumstances of the earlier Christian societies. We saw above that the Jews had sacred writings in three parts — Law, Prophets, Writings. It is, I think, important to emphasise the fact that we are by no means authorised to suppose that every Jewish synagogue had all the books of all three of these parts, of course in the third part all the books that at any given time belonged to this part. It is very easy to-day to buy an Old Testament and a New Testament and both may be in one volume. At that day the whole of the Old Testament filled several rolls of different sizes, and I feel sure that many a village synagogue will have been glad of the possession of the Law and the Prophets, and have not been able to buy all the other rolls. The Psalms they will probably have had. Even if anyone should hesitate to agree with me on this point in respect to the smaller Jewish synagogues, I think no one will fail to con cede, that when we turn to the few Christians who at the first here and there separated themselves as Christians, for the purpose of having Christian worship, from the synagogues in their town or village, we must not think of them as able to have the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. I say separated, it would perhaps be better for at least many places to say : were forced to leave the synagogues. In time the little circle will liave~succe^o!eo!~in getting at least certain parts of the Old Testament for liturgical purposes, but it may often have been a long while before that was possible. Where they were still allowed to go to the synagogue they will still have continued to go to it on Saturday, bn the Sabbath, and then have had their own special Christian Services on the Lord's Day, on Sunday. It was this that led, I 'suppose, in the early Church, and I doubt not at an exceedingly early date, to Christian services on Saturday or the Sabbath,— we must quit the pernicious habit of calling the Lord's Day by the Jewish name for Saturday, — services that were only secondary to the Sunday services. It was this that led to the determination not only of Sunday but also of Sabbath Gospel lessons, and the two series are still to be found in the lesson books of the older Churches. To return to our point, the early Christian societies will often not have had all the books of the Old Testament at their command, and will therefore have had still less inclination to look beyond that for new books. What they heard about Jesus they heard from the living voice of the wandering preachers

THE APOSTOLIC AGE 51

who were called apostles, and that was fresh, varied, interesting, something quite different from the rolls of the synagogue. It is a strange thought for us : Christians who had no written Gospels. / ' To think_that Paul the great apostle probably never saw a written Gospel ! He had heard the gospel, not read it ; heard it from Christians in Damascus, seen it in heavenly visions, not read it. What a preacher he must have been for all his weakness ! But he had not a sign of a commentary out of which to draw his sermons, much less ready-made skeletons of sermons, and not even a written text.

The words of Jesus and the story of Jesus' work were then \ the great thing. That was what men cared to hear. And when » a Christian sharpened his reed pen and dipped it in the ink and began to write on a piece of papyrus, he probably first wrote down some of the words of Jesus. What would the curiosity-mongers give for that pen and for that first piece of papyrus with the first words of Jesus that were written down for future reading ? One Christian may have written down a parable which had especially pleased him. Another will have told with his pen of a miracle of Jesus. Another may have let his memory and his pen dwell upon a journey made with Jesus, from Nazareth to Tiberias, from Jerusalem to Jericho. Later other parables, miracles, and journeys will have been added. More than one such frail and fleeting little papyrus roll will have been written upon, of many of which we have never heard a word and of which we shall never see a line. Some wrote in Aramaic, probably the most of them at the first, for the most of the hearers of Jesus will have been Arameans. Is it not strange that the Twelve did not write down the words of Jesus ? But perhaps they did without our hearing of it. It is likely that one of them in particular wrote quite a book. That was Matthew. We shall hear more about it later. He doubtless wrote a book that contained a great many of Jesus' words, and told in between in scattered sentences what Jesus did as He went about Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

It was probably Paul who first wrote one of the longer books of the New Testament. But he did not begin with the very largest WeTcfo not know when he began to write, and we do not know whether we have his first writings or not. One thing we are sure of — we have not all that he wrote. He began by trying to comfort and reassure the Christians in the little Church at

THE CANON

Thessalonica, perhaps in the year 48. And then he wrote to the Corinthians in the year it may be 53, and then to the Romans it may be in the year 54, and then to the Galatians, and so on. It is not entirely beyond the pale of possibility that Peter and that James the brother of Jesus wrote such a letter before Paul wrote to the Thessalonians. So far as we can judge from the very little that the books of the New Testament tell us about Paul, he stopped preaching and stopped writing letters and went to heaven about the year 64, and that book of Matthew that was referred to above may easily have been written somewhere about that time.

Matthew's Aramaic book, or the Aramaic book about Jesus in Galilee, whether Matthew wrote it or not, must before more than a year or two had passed, perhaps before more than a month or two had passed, have been translated into Greek. Now that the book was before the Christians' eyes, they will have wondered that no one had thought to write it at an earlier day. That book did not tell about the passion. The passion did not belong to Galilee. Before long it became clear that the Christians needed a more complete account of the words and deeds of Jesus. This j need John Mark the Jerusalemite, the cousin of Barnabas, the | friend of Paul and of Peter, seems to have felt and tried to supply I in our second Gospel, written perhaps about the year 69. Some one else, we have not the most remote idea who it may have been, took up the story a few years later and wrote our first Gospel. Still later Luke wrote the third Gospel and the book of Acts. It was not till nearly the end of the century that the Fourth Gospel appeared.

We are at the close of the apostolic age. We see the numerous little Churches, that is to say, companies of Christians, scattered over the Roman Empire, meeting from week to week in private houses and exhorting one another to a firm faith, a good life, and a living hope. A number of books have been written that these Christians find particularly valuable. Part of them look a little like histories, part of them are simply letters, one of them is a book of dreams. But for all these writings the thing which holds the attention of the Christian Churches is still the living word, the weekly sermon, if the given Church be so for tunate as to have a preacher every week.

So far as we can see, there is as yet no collection of Christian

THE APOSTOLIC AGE 53

books. That must soon come. We have nearly closed the first century. The apostolic age laps over on to the post-apostolic age. It closes about the year 100, but the post-apostolic age / x begins about the year 90. The reason for this double boundary \ ••' lies in the wish to include in the former age the Fourth Gospel and \ in the latter age the letter of the Church at Rome to the Church ^

a^Corinth, the. letter called Clement's of Rome.

Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in his second letter, 2 Thess. 215, that they should stand firm, and that they should hold fast ^.^ to the traditions that they had been taught either by word of : \ mouth or by a letter from him. That was the signature of the V" early age of the Church. It will still follow us into the second \r

period. But a new principle is preparing, or the foundation is being laid for a new principle, that will recognise a crystallisation of the traditions. The enthusiasm of the simple Christian brethren of the first years is to fade into a cool and steady service under a new law and a new hierarchy. The living voice of the preacher, of the apostle hastening from place to place, is to give way to the words read from a written page and to uncertain comments thereupon.

Between the years in which the first books of the New Testament were written and the close of the apostolic period about a half a century had elapsed, which would be for us as far as from 1860 to to-day. During that time the books of the New Testament were probably most of them written. Before we leave this age, we should ask whether we can find any signs of what might be called self-consciousness in these writings of the New Testament. That is to say, we know of, or suspect the existence of but one book, outside of the books of the New Testament, that was probably or possibly written during this period. And there fore when we ask if there are any signs at this time of the exist- i ence of these books, it amounts to much the same as asking (' whether these books give any tokens of noticing their own exist ence, any tokens of a knowledge of any Christian literature. The passage already alluded to, in which Paul refers to the traditions which the Thessalonians received by word or from his letter, is scarcely more than a shadow of self-consciousness of these writings, since he there is speaking so thoroughly practically, and not in the least claiming book value and permanent value for his letter. But the phrase, the sentence, is nevertheless well worth

54 THE CANON

•remark, for in fact there lies at the back of this command to them

, Ithe thought that what he has written to them is normative or that

yhis letter is normative. The opening of the third chapter of the

Second Epistle of Peter with its reference to the First Epistle and

to the command of the apostles, and then the words about Paul

and his Epistles, I pass over here because I do not think that this

Epistle belongs to this age. Luke at the beginning of his Gospel

mentions many other attempts at Gospels. That may refer in part

to various private attempts such as we have already spoken of.

It undoubtedly refers, if I mistake not, to the book of Matthew,

the Aramaic one that was translated into Greek, and also to the

Gospel of Mark, and it is possible although not very likely that it

) has in view, only by hearsay, our Gospel according to Matthew

, and the Gospel to the Hebrews. In no case is the word " many "

here to be taken in the sense of a very large number, so that we

should think of twenty or fifty Gospels. Many means more or

' less according to the thing spoken of, and here a half a dozen

would be an abundant number. The one book mentioned a

^moment ago as possibly belonging to this period but not found

I in the New Testament is the Gospel of the Hebrews or to the

• Hebrews. We know, however, very little about it. It may very

well be that Aramaic book by Matthew, in which case it is in the

main or perhaps entirely to be found in our synoptic Gospels. It

may be something quite different. It will probably come to light

some day in Egypt or in Armenia or in Syria, and then we shall

know more about it.

55

II.

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE. 90-160.

IN passing over to the age after that of the apostles, we need first of all to form for ourselves some conception of the way in which the Christians looked at the books which they found in their hands. We are interested to know, or at least to try to fancy, what they thought of them and why they kept them. It has been to such an extent the habit in the Christian Church to throw a cloud of glory about these books, that it is difficult to bring our minds down to what it is likely were the hard facts of the case. The guidance and care of the Holy Spirit has been emphasised so strongly that we must needs suppose that each book was from its day of writing definitely marked as a future member of the illustrious company, and was most scrupulously, we might say masoretically, guarded and transmitted to our day. We know, however, now that this has not been the course of things. If we turn back to the early days, we may calmly say \ that it is in every way probable that one or another letter of the apostles, that would humanly speaking have, or seem to have, afforded us as much instruction, comfort, and help as certain i Epistles in the New Testament, has simply been lost. The early Christians had no thought of history, no thought of an earthly ' future. They were soon to cut loose from all their surroundings. Why should they then save up books, or rather save up letters. They had read and heard the given letter. That was all. They knew what was in it. No more was needed. Why keep the letter ? Precisely the opposite may now and then have happened, namely that a little Church read a letter to pieces ; unrolled the papyrus and rolled it up again until it fell apart, and that with out setting about copying it so as to keep it in a new form. The letters that the apostles wrote to them were not " Bible." They

56 THE CANON

were the letters of their favourite preachers. Some members of \ the Church were enthusiastic about the apostle, others were not, /others liked another apostle or another preacher very much better. The very man in the little community who because of his better education came to have charge of a letter received might be a friend of some other preacher, and therefore neglect the letter of an apostle. In the case of the Epistles which we still possess, some were surely kept with the greatest care, read duly by the members of the Church, read in occasional meetings, lent to neighbouring Churches, copied off for distant Churches,' and copied off for themselves as soon as they began to grow old and were threatened with decay. No one will have given a thought to the original the moment that a new copy was done.

The Gospels were different. They were not sent to Churches or to anybody else. No one got one unless he ordered it. And they did not convey to the reader merely the words of an apostle, but the words and deeds of Jesus. During the apostolic age there will not have been so very many copies of the Gospels made. For the Churches were poor, and books from which to copy may not have been anywhere near. Most of all, they then had the wandering preachers who told them about Jesus, and therefore the written Gospels were the less necessary.

Certainly, however, these writings came to be read in the public meetings. The word public has for this primitive time, it is true, a strange sense, since the groups were often so very small, and were always in private houses; but it was nevertheless within the limits of the case and as the forerunner of the later services in Church edifices, a public reading, not the reading of

^ one man for himself or for his room mate or for his family but the reading of a book before a duly collected group of men and women. We must consider carefully this early reading of books in the Christian assemblies. If I am not mistaken, we shall in it see the process of authorisation of books from the first to the

ivlast step.

Going back to the beginning, to the first time that a letter from an apostle, let us say Paul, was received by a Church let us say Thessalonica, we can imagine the stir it will have made The little group will have been complete; no one will have stayed at

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— SCRIPTURE IN CHURCH 57

home that evening. The letter was eagerly read and eagerly heard, and then they probably talked it over with each other. They perhaps read it again the next night and the next. The Church at Bercea and other Churches, possibly as far as Philippi, may have borrowed it or asked for copies of it, although we do not suppose that at this early moment the borrowing and copying were so common as they soon came to be. Gradually the letter will have been in a measure laid aside. The members of the company knew it almost by heart. The second letter may have reached them. That this letter was in any way secret, will not have entered their minds. The same thing happened in the other Churches that received letters from apostles. As time went on, as one apostle and then another passed away, some Churches here and there with a member or two who had a special liking for books or for documents, probably got all the letters they could reach copied for them and then kept them together, reading them as occasion might offer, either from beginning to end, or the particular part of the letter which appealed or applied to the moment.

During all this time, and doubtless well on into the second century at least in many districts, the word was still preached in the passing flight of the wandering preachers, the apostles. Little by little it will have become known that the Gospels had been written. These Gospels will at first have been circulated in the immediate neighbourhood of the place in which each was written, and then have soon struck the great lines, if they were not already on one of them, and have reached Rome and Jerusalem and Alexandria. Wherever a Gospel was received, Christians will have compared its tenor with that which they had heard by word of mouth. But for a while the living voice of the evangelis ing preacher will have been preferred to the dead letter in the book. Many Churches will for a long while have had no Gospel or only one Gospel, and only after much waiting have gotten more. Church after Church, group after group of Christians had then a Gospel and an Epistle or two, a few Epistles. The tendency of the intercourse between the Churches was towards an increase in the collection of books ; now one now another new one was added by friends to the old and treasured store of rolls. It is totally impossible to give any accurate idea of the rapidity of the accretion, totally impossible to say when it was that a number of

58 THE CANON

Churches secured all four Gospels and the greater part of the Epistles. Each one must make his own estimate. I am inclined to think that about the close of the first century or in the first twenty years of the second century — that is indefinite enough — the four Gospels were brought together in some places. The last Gospel to be written, the Fourth Gospel, must have been at once accepted, and that if I am not mistaken as the work of John from the Twelve, and have had great success.

Let us turn to the worship, the public worship of the Christians. It need only be mentioned in passing that there was nothing like a regular order of services that prevailed all over, in Palestine as well as in Spain. There will have been every description of order of exercises, from the silence of the Quakers of to-day to the more elaborate liturgy or order which we shall now mention. I am persuaded that the ordinary services consisted of four parts, comprising (a) that which men offered, said, laid before God; (b) that which God said to men; (c) that which a man said to men ; and (d) a meal, the love- feast, closing with the breaking of bread, the Lord's Supper. The division (a), man to God, will have consisted of prayer, free if possible, often probably with much out of the Psalms, and, after the prayer, a hymn or a psalm. The division (b\ God to men, will have consisted originally of the Scripture reading, and that, of course, from and only from the Old Testament. The division (c), man to men, contained the sermon or an address of some kind, an exhortation. This must have been in general the point at which the gospel was preached, at which the life, deeds, and words of Jesus were brought before the hearers. Then followed part four. Remember, I am not pretending to say that the order of services from instant to instant must have been (a) (b) (c) (d}. All I am contending for is, that the services con sisted of these four parts, of these four thoughts, if anyone prefers the expression, and that all that occurred during the course of the service, in whatever order, belonged under one head or another out of the four, and that anything new that might be introduced must vindicate for itself a place in some one of the four divisions. Now it is evident that the reading of letters from apostles, and, when the Gospels were there, the reading of the Gospels, must have taken place under the third part or (c\ for that was all : "Man to Men." No one will object to the definition of this division for

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— PUBLIC WORSHIP 59

the Epistles, and every one will grant that the Gospels also belong here, so soon as I call attention to the fact that the traditions concerning Jesus always must have been given under this heading. No one had at that time thought of calling the Gospels or the Epistles a part of Holy Writ ; the Old Testament was that. The Gospels were the written sermon, that is to say, the story of Jesus written down instead of merely being on the lips. The Epistles were an exhortation in writing. Whether the Christians at the beginning used the Jewish Parashahs and Haphtarahs, the old sections for the law and the prophets, or some new divisions of their own, does not concern us. All that we have to settle is that ^\ originally in the Christian Church the part (b\ God to man, con- sisted solely of Old Testament lessons.

It was, if I do not err, during the post-apostolic age that this was changed, that the contents of the part (b) came to be enlarged. That can scarcely have come about in any other way than the following. The Gospels and the Epistles, such of each as the Churches had, were read gradually more and more regularly. The living tradition on the lips of wandering preachers or of more stationary clergymen, lost day by day in freshness as the years passed on and the age of the apostles receded into a dim distance. At last it became clear, at first it may be in one Church and little by little then in others, that the new writings had a meaning for Christian life which the books of the Old Testament did not possess. Were the Old Testament books authoritative, then must these also be authoritative. Did God speak through the old books, then must it be His voice that was heard in the new books. Thus it came about that the Gospels and the Epistles passed from the third part of the services to the second part. The word of God to men was to be found as well in them as in the Old Testament. In the third part of the services the sermon remained. Sometimes a bishop's letter, sometimes a letter from another Church was added in that place. That was : Man to Men.

It can scarcely have been at that time, but at a later date, which we are thus far not able to determine, that the Old Testament lessons were almost entirely excluded from the services of the Church on Sabbaths and on Sundays. Aside from a few, comparatively few, lessons on special days, they were remanded to the week days of the great fast, of Lent.

60 THE CANON

Before we really enter upon the examination of the literature of this period, it is desirable to say a word or two about doctrine, even if we are in the present inquiry not concerned with doctrinal

^questions. In discussing early Christian writings, objections are often raised touching the character, the genuineness, or the value of the testimony of a book because of an alleged one- sidedness in it. This objection takes in by far the greater number of cases the form of disparaging or distrusting or disowning what is alleged to be Pauline. It is declared or assumed that the ground story of the Christian Church was Petrine, and that only a peculiar connection with Paul personally or with his writings, and only a distinct aversion to Peter and as well an antagonistic attitude towards the old mother centre at Jerusalem can possibly lead, during the prefatory years to the Old Catholic Church, to any sentences or paragraphs or whole books that seem to agree with the views of the Apostle to the Gentiles. This is not the place to discuss this question, yet it appears to me to be important to emphasise at this point the opinion that I personally hold. It is my impression that the story of Paul's arrest at Jerusalem, while carrying out in the temple a vow suggested to him by the leaders of that one centre, thoroughly disposes of the notion that there existed any difference of doctrine between them that could conflict with the love that they will at Jerusalem have entertained for the man who kept bringing to them the gifts that he had got for them from the largely heathen-Christian Churches abroad. Further, it is to be considered that Paul was the only one who had with a facile pen

/"spread out on broad lines a conception of Christian views as to salvation and as to life. The conclusion that I draw from this is, that this Pauline Christianity was, if I may so speak, the only Christianity of the time immediately preceding his death. Nevertheless, no one at that uncritical period will have thought of its being peculiarly Pauline. It was Christianity, and that was the end of the matter.

At the outset it is well for us to consider what we may justly look for in the books of this time that will be of use to us in proving the existence and defining the authoritative character of the writings of the New Testament. To put the extreme case, some critics seem to look for such a completeness of reference as the only due and acceptable testimony to the presence and

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— QUOTATIONS 6l

valuation of the New Testament, that a writer of the post- apostolic age could only have met their demands by writing his own thoughts on the margin of a copy of the entire New Testament, Matthew to Revelation, prefacing his work : " Citing as in duty bound the whole of this sacred volume, I proceed to discuss ..." Others are apparently surprised to find that any author fails to name or at least quote most accurately every solitary book in the New Testament, and they find the lack of both for any book a sure sign that the missing book was not then in existence or not then known to the writer. So far from that does the everyday literary habit diverge, that we must on the con trary be profoundly grateful when an early writer mentions any one of the books by name, and find great satisfaction and security even if he does not mention the name, if he offer us sentences which, even if rewrought with editorial licence, clearly point to the said book as their source. We should never forget that these writers did not write for the purpose of giving us proofs of the authority of the New Testament books. How many Christian essays might be found to-day that on ten or on thirty pages contain few or no quotations from the New Testament, and no mention of the author of a New Testament book ! And that leads me to emphasise the circumstance, that we must keep the thought of a direct quotation in many places in all our researches very much in reserve. If we do this we shall also hesitate to blame a writer for careless quotation, and be slow to suppose that slightly altered phrases point to other books or other texts than those which we have in hand.

It would be fitting to speak of three degrees of references to books. In the first and lowest degree the reference is to the speaker or writer, at least often, a latent, a sub-conscious, an unconscious reference. He has, at some time or other, read the book in question, and a phrase has pleased him, has fastened itself in his brain. Now that he comes to speak or to write upon the topic, this sentence appears on the surface. It is not clear to him whence it comes. Perhaps it does not even occur to him that the words are not his own. The words are, after all, not exactly the same as in the book referred to. Some of them are his. The phrase has a new cast. But for the man who knows the source the thing is plain. This kind of citing may grow so distant or so shadowy as to be little

62 THE CANON

more than an allusion. In the second degree the act of quoting may become quite clear to the writer. He may, however, at the instant not know precisely whence he has drawn the words or precisely what the original sentence is. He knows fully enough to make with the phrase the point that he has in mind, and he writes the words down without an instant's hesitation. He is not trying to quote, he is trying to express himself. It is totally indifferent to him whether the quotation be exact or not. Let us put it on high ground. The other author has had a divine thought, and has uttered it. He has the same thought, and he utters it too. To whom the words belong, no one cares. The /^. f third degree is that in which the writer goes to the book and / copies the precise words down with painful accuracy, and names the book and the passage. We must always be thankful for what we thus get, for the insight into the earlier writings.

This post-apostolic age opens with a book that excites our in terest and calls for our admiration. It is a letter, but not a letter .-of one man to another. The Church of God that is living in this t foreign world at the city of Rome, writes to the Church of God living in this foreign world at the city of Corinth. The Church itself could not in its corporate character seize a pen or even dictate a letter. Tradition tells us that a Christian named Clement wrote it. A certain halo encircles him. He is said by some to have been from a Jewish, by others from a heathen family ; he is fabled to have had imperial connections; he is claimed as a follower of Peter and as a follower of Paul ; he is the representative of law, of the specifically Roman characteristic, in the growing Church, and a number of writings gathered around his name, claiming for themselves his authority. There is no very good reason for doubting that he had himself heard the apostles, at least the two great apostles. This letter is probably from his pen. Someone in Rome wrote it, and we are bound to accept him till a better suggestion can be made. So far as appears, it was written.about the year 95. The writer, in oTHer to Have teen set to do this task, is to be supposed to be one of the older men in the'Roman society. He may have been fifty or sixty years old. If only fifty, he will have been about twenty years old when Paul suffered martyrdom; if he were sixty, he will have been thirty. The Roman Church claims him among her first bishops, and I do not doubt that he was the most prominent or influential man in that

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— CLEMENT OF ROME 63

Church in his day, little as I suppose that anyone up to that \i time in that Church had received the title of bishop. Indeed this . seems to me to be made plain by the letter itself. All in all, little I : as we know about him in detail, and much as was attached to his name by the fertile fancy of his admirers, he must have been an exceptionally strong and good man. His letter is an extremely valuable document. It is well written, and contains some beautiful passages. Further high opinion of Clement's literary J powers is found in the fact that, as Origen relates, he was con sidered by some to be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

The value of the testimony of Clement in this letter is enhanced by the fact that he is writing in the name of the Christians at Rome and to the Christians at Corinth. This causes his words to pass for both of these Churches. He knows about the Church at Corinth, and refers to their Church lessons, as we shall see. His letter shows no tokens of a bias towards one apostle or another, no inclination to use but a single series of the books of the New Testament. His language is that of the educated Greek Christian. Certain words were probably sug gested to his mind by passages in the New Testament, now in Peter, now in Paul, now in John. We might say that various paragraphs or sentences seemed to be coloured by the cast of mind shown in New Testament writings, were it not that the style is so good and so vigorous that we have the feeling that the [ , author in treating the points in question has of himself risen to 1 I the level of the authors who, in the New Testament, dealt with \ the same thoughts. In his exquisite chapter (ch. 49) on love he touches Proverbs, but through the medium of First Peter : " Love covereth a multitude of sins " ; and at the same time he reminds us of James. With his plea for subjection to other Christians he coincides with Titus and First Peter and Ephesians. When he refers to what is pleasing, good, and acceptable, before Him that made us, he reminds us of First Timothy, though he may simply be using a common form of speech.

Again he writes (ch. 46) : " Or have we not one God and one Christ, and one spirit of grace shed upon us, and one calling in Christ ? " That is one of the cases of the use of words without direct quotation. Undoubtedly it was Ephesians and First Cor inthians that led him to use these words, but no one of the passages in those letters would have fitted in precisely. In just

64 THE CANON

the same manner he uses (ch. 35) Paul's words from the latter part of the first chapter of Romans : " Casting away from our selves all unrighteousness and lawlessness, avarice, strifes, both malice and deceit, both whisperings and backbitings, hatred of God, pride, and insolence, both vainglory and inhospitality. For those who do these things are hated of God ; and not only those doing them, but also those agreeing to them." How absurd it would be for any one to say that that was a new text for the passage in Romans ! When Clement quotes (ch. 34), " Eye hath not seen," and so on, it is probably taken from First Corinthians. It is, at any rate, not drawn directly from Isaiah. Perhaps it comes from the Revelation of Elias, but we do not know. The most pleasing allusion to the Epistles is to that very Epistle to '' the Corinthians. Clement says (ch. 47) : "Take up the Epistles of Saint Paul the apostle. What did he first write to you at the beginning of the gospel ? In truth, he wrote to you spirit ually both about himself and Cephas and Apollos, because even then there were parties among you." That is very good indeed. Observe how he calls Paul's message a gospel. Perhaps the thought may arise, that Clement only treated the Epistles in this free way, and that because he knew the apostles, had known them personally. Not at all. He quotes, and that clearly from memory, and mixes up into one, two passages from Matthew, one of which is also found in Mark and Luke. It is not another text, it is a free quotation, introduced by the words (ch. 46) : " Remember the words of Jesus our Lord : for He said : Woe to that man. It would have been better for him not to have been born than to offend one of My elect ; it would have been better for him to have been bound round with a millstone and have been sunk into the sea than to offend one of My little ones." In another place he makes a thorough combination of various verses from Matthew, partly found also in Luke. He introduces the passage thus (ch. 13): "Especially remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, which he uttered while teaching meekness and long-suffering." It was indeed "re membering," but not accurately. Clement continues : " For he spoke thus: Be merciful, that ye may be mercifully treated; forgive, that ye may be forgiven. As ye do, so will be done to you. As ye give, so shall be given to you. As ye judge, so shall ye be judged. As ye show mildness, so shall ye be mildly

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE—CLEMENT OF ROME 65

treated. With what measure ye mete, with it shall be measured for you." He then calls that a command and orders. The most interesting thing about Clement is his close acquaintance with the Epistle to the Hebrews. If we could only know all about it that he knew. He uses its words, sometimes he quotes the Old Testament with its help, sometimes he follows its order of thought, sometimes he changes the thought round. It was said a moment ago that Clement was suggested by someone before Origen as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The man tvho proposed that was doubtless impelled by the contemplation of this free and intimate use of that Epistle. But we have no reason to suppose that Clement wrote it. He knew the Epistle well and he liked it amazingly, as every Christian and every lover of brilliant writing should love it. Do we find in this letter any traces of other writings that seem to have been of the same character as the New Testament books? No. There are several allusions to passages that we cannot verify, some of them at least closely attached to an "it is written," but they are probably from apocryphal books. One is, for instance, attached to a passage from Exodus, another to a verse from the Psalms, although the context of the passages exhibits nothing of the kind.

What have we gained from this early work of a Christian who was in a position to know all that was going on in the Roman Empire and in the Christian Churches, who had in his hands at Rome the threads that ran out through the provinces, who stood in correspondence with the chief Church in Greece? I hope that no one will say that we have gained but little, that Clement should have said more about the books of the New Testament. We stand with him at the close of the first period and at the opening of the second period. He may almost be said to belong to both. It is impossible at that time that he should think of making a list of the books of the New Testament for us. And it would be absurd for us to think that he only knew of such of these books as he named or quoted. We can only look for two great general topics that his letter may present to us in a way to satisfy 'our desire for literary testimony. One is. negative,, the other positive. The negative proposition which his letter might be suited- to prove, or to favour so far as it goes, is that there were for him at the time of writing the letter no other writings

~

66 THE CANON

aside from those of our New Testament that he needed to or cared to quote. It is to be conceded that he might have known of a dozen without quoting them, just as he failed to quote the greater part of the New Testament books. Yet, nevertheless, the fact is that he does not show signs of knowing of other books that are Christian and of acknowledged value, and this is worth a great deal. We must not forget that Clement's Christian literature mirrors itself not merely in the few direct quotations. It lies back of his way of thinking, his way of putting things, and back of his language. Nothing in all this points to other writings of the given kind.

According to the theories which represent his time as one that overflowed with evangelical and epistolary literature, that would lead us to assume the existence of twenty or fifty Gospels and numerous letters, it would have been almost im possible for him to have written so much, so long a letter, without quoting here and there or betraying in passing a know ledge of the contents of Gospels and letters that are unknown to us. It is only necessary to remark, by the bye, that the unknown books which were quoted a few times all seem to have been such as belonged to the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. A negative is difficult of proof. The phenomenon here named /"proves nothing mathematically. But it goes to show that in the / nineties of that first century other writings than ours were not held to be as valuable as ours were held to be. That is a very important point for the consideration of the criticism before us. The stream of Christian tradition is just forming, and it is in this respect what a defender of the high value of the present New Testament would wish it to be. If Clement does that for us negatively, he may also do much for us positively. It is possible that he shows direct acquaintance with James, FirslTPeter, JLirst Timothy, and Titus, although the quotations in view do not absolutely force this conclusion. He knows the Epistle to the Romans, to his own Church, and the Epistle to the Corinthians, to whom also he is writing, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, rjerTectly well, and he quotes our Gospels more than once. Above and beyond this his thoughts and his language, his sentences and his words, show in many places the influence of the books with which we are concerned. Thus Clement supports positively the existence of our New Testament. He does not mention all the

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— SIMON MAGUS 67

books, but there are few that he does not seem to know. Again, we assert that the stream of tradition at this initial point is all that we could expect it to be. It can be claimed as full evidence I for Matthew, Romans, First Corinthians, and Hebrews, and it j \ fits in with the authenticity of the most of the other books. It ' disappoints no just expectations.

Clement was a member of a well-known Church, a member in good and regular standing. He might be called orthodox. There existed, however, even at that time men who combated Christianity or special forms of Christianity. In part they were old opponents of the apostles, or the successors of such opponents. They represented in many diverse shadings a Judaism that busied itself seriously with Christianity, and endeavoured to enforce the law among Christians; and this phase of Judaism seems to have had its foundation in Ebionism. Another type had some roots reaching back before the birth of Christ to Philo. Philo, the Therapeutae, and the Essenes "^ were inclined to combine Judaism and Greek philosophy. Philo's way of starting was the, to him satisfactory, proof that all the valuable contents of that philosophy were borrowed from Moses. So soon then as Christianity began to spread, this Philonian movement became, or branched off into, what may be called Gnostic Ebionism or Ebionitic Gnosticism. In a genuine Jewish manner, this type also laid stress upon the law. A third type of the movements against orthodox Christianity, if we may use the modern term in passing, was found in a Gnos ticism that proceeded from heathenism and was connected with the Samaritan astrologian from Gittae. This Simon Magus, who may be found in the eighth chapter of Acts, "must have been a man of some importance. Though we know little directly about him, we can trace the influence of his activity for a long while. He might be called a match for or a contrast to Clement. ~ Clement became the typical Churchman in the traditions of the V jecond century, and Simon was the typical heretic or opponent \ of Christianity. A book called the Great Declaration is attributed to Simon, but may be the work of one of his pupils.

We owe almost all our knowledge of these and many other heretics of the post-apostolic age to an anti-heretical book called the Philosophumena, that was probably written by Hippolytus of Rorne3 or rather Bishop of Portus, towards the close of the

68 THE CANON

first quarter of the third century. It is true that the quotations from the heretical writings are alleged to have been furnished to Hippolytus by some assistant, and not to be accurate or not to be precisely what they purport to be. It is not likely that they were manufactured out of the whole cloth. If they be not exactly from each of the sources to which they are severally attributed, they may have been extracted by a labour-hating hand from a single book or from one or two heretical books that were easy of reach. In the case of Simon, the quotations are

/probably right. A curious but telling proof for the existence "' of approved and much read Christian books is found in the fact that Simon or his pupils went to work to write books in the name of Christ and of the apostles in order to deceive Christians. Simon's book quotes from Matthew or Luke the axe at the root of the tree, from Luke the erring sheep, from John the being born of blood, and from First Corinthians the not being judged with the world. Of course, he quotes in an off-hand way. Freedom in the use of the words lay nearer for him than for Clement. If his pupil Menander wrote that book, these remarks would apply to him. Otherwise we know nothing of this Menander's views, since a reference to him in Irenaeus which has been connected with Second Timothy is entirely too vague to be of use.

One of the Jewish opponents or heretics was Cerinthus, apparently by origin a highly educated Egyptian Jew who was fabled to have been — or was it true? — variously in person an opponent of the apostles. Irenseus' story that John rushed out of a public bath on seeing Cerinthus in it, crying that the roof might fall in on such a man, looks like a true story. Later tradition said that the roof did fall and kill Cerinthus. However that may be, Cerinthus knew and used at least the genealogy in Matthew and quoted from that Gospel that it was enough for the disciple to be as his master. The

/chief interest in Cerinthus attaches to Revelation. Although he was taken to be a special antagonist of John's and of Paul's, — because Paul belittled the law, — and to have opposed the / genealogy in Matthew to the opening words of John's Gospel, he appears to have occupied himself particularly with Revelation. Cerinthus' apocalyptic dreams and fancies were rewarded by the attribution to him first of the book of Revelation itself

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— BASILIDES 69

and then much later of the Gospel and the Epistles of John. This was criticism run wild. The connection of the Jew with the Revelation fits into the newer theory of the original Jewish basis for Revelation. But the upshot of the matter is that the Revelation is thrown back to a very early date.

We may mention here in passing two heresies or sects, one of which was partly the other almost wholly of Jewish extraction. The Snake Worshippers, also called Ophites and Naassenes, are perhaps the first sect that called itself Gnostic. They claimed to~~Kave gotten their doctrine from Mariamne, who got it from James the brother of Jesus. They quote or allude to Matthew, Luke, John, Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Ephesians, and Galatians, possibly also to Hebrews and Revelation. They also refer to the Gospel to the Egyptians and to the Gospel of Thomas. This was the Christian modification of an old, a heathen, belief. Their opposition to John places them on the list of those who prove the existence of the Fourth Gospel. The other sect is that of the Ebionites, who say that Matthew wrote a Hebrew Gospel. They seem to have used apocryphal acts of the apostles.

Another heretic named Basilides, from Alexandria, is quoted directly and fully by Hippolytus. He was a pupil of Menander's, and lived, so far as we can judge from the accounts, soon after the beginning of the second century. He wrote twenty-four books on the Gospel. It is clear that he accepts in general the books of the New Testament. He ap pears to know Matthew, and he quotes Luke, John, Romans, First Corinthians, Ephesians, and Colossians. He may have alluded to First Timothy, and have quoted First Peter. Now it is extremely strange that this heretic at that early date should do what no one had done before him, according to our literature, namely, quote the books of the New Testament precisely in the same way as the books of the Old Testament. For example (y22) : " And this is that which is spoken in the Gospels, He was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." He quotes (725) from Romans : "as it is written," (y20) from First Corinthians : " about which the Scripture saith," from Ephesians : "as is written," from Luke : "that which was spoken," and (f27) from John : "the Saviour saying." It seems very hard to believe that that was written in the opening years of the second century.

70 THE CANON

It has been suggested that he, the heretic, would be more likely to emphasise the scriptural character of the new books than a Christian, who would assume it silently; but I cannot see the least reason for such a plea. Since I know of no grounds upon which I could assert it likely that a Christian of a later day inserted the words mentioned, it seems to me to be the best thing to suppose that Basilides wrote this himself. But I insist upon it then, first, that we must remember that the life and activity of such a teacher is not likely to have been confined within a very few years ; and second, that Basilides, if he did not write this book later, say than in the year 130, may himself have at a still later date modified the form of quotation according to the then prevailing custom of Christians. Without I these formulas, Basilides confirms in general our New Testament / by exact quotations, supposing that the manuscripts are correct. j With these formulas he advances the question of the authority -' of the books a long way. Were he of Jewish descent, had he, as some sentences touching him would seem to intimate, Jewish connections and therefore habits, the use of " as it is written," and of "the scripture saith," would be the more natural for him, would glide more easily from his pen. But precisely for a Jew or for a friend of the Jews, it would be less likely that he should think of applying to these new books the formulas that belonged to the sacred books of the Jews. In connection with Basilides, it is important to mention a contemporary of his named Agrippa Castor. We know very little about him, but one thing marks him agreeably for us. He is the first man, so far as we know, who in a set book defended the Gospels against a heretic, in his defence of them against Basilides. He is thought to have been a Jew.

These scattered opponents of Christians or of the gathering !' Church have offered us no signs of other Gospels than those that we have already considered, and as little do they point to other Epistles than those in the New Testament.

Clement was in Rome, towards the West, and was combined with Corinth. The next step leads us to the East, to the second capital of the Roman Empire, to Antioch in Syria. This city held the first place in Christianity after Jerusalem itself. It was Antioch in which the great missionaries Paul and Barnabas sought their foothold for their journeys. And Peter must have

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— IGNATI

spent much time there. It was a city not only of wealth and power, but also of learning, and its university was only second to that at Athens. Ignatius was the bishop there about the begin ning of the second century. His death as martyr appears to have taken place after the year 107 and before the year 117. He wrote seven letters, so it is alleged, on his way to martyrdom at Rome,— seven letters addressed to the Ephesians, the Magncsians, the Trallians, the Romans, the Philadelphians, the Smyrnaeans, and to Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna. An extended form of these letters is a piece of work from the fourth century. The shorter forms seem to be genuine. Should they be proved not to be from the hand or brain of Ignatius himself, — this has not yet been proved, — they would remain a very early and interesting monument of Christian literature. They afford what we might call a duly developed continuation of the Pastoral Epistles, and represent or place before our eyes a condition of affairs in the Churches which would appear to be the due sequence to that portrayed in those letters of Paul.

One of the things which strikes one strangely in his letter to ~~tLJ~+

that both for the general Church, the Church through the world,

the Smyrnaeans is his use of the word catholic for the Church, and

and for the special, single Church as of the universally accepted type. This objection to the authenticity of this and therefore of all the letters is to be met in two ways. In the first place, some one must have begun the use of these words that is current at a later time, and that some one may have been Ignatius at this early period, however few applications of the term we may find in the immediately succeeding literature, which had but little occasion to use it ; but it is used in more limited sense by the Smyrnaeans in their letter to the Philomelians. And, in the second place, nothing would be easier than to suppose that the word was in each of the six places in which it occurs an interpolation by a later hand. It seems to me that the word fits in well where it stands, and that it agrees with the style of the writer, but it might easily have crept into the text from marginal glosses in one of the early manuscripts.

It agrees with the style of the writer, and particularly with the circumstances under which the letters were written, that quotations are a rare thing, that they are short, and that they are evidently from memory. For our purpose it is

72 THE CANON

enough to observe that the author clearly knows our New Testament in general. The Gospels of Matthew and John appear to have been either his favourites or the ones better known to him. He knew the Epistles of Paul well. But at one point he is supposed to quote from an apocryphal book or from an other wise unknown Gospel. He writes (Smyr. 3) : « And when he came to those around Peter, he said to them : Take, touch Me, and see that I am not a bodiless spirit." It may very well be from the Gospel of Peter, his teaching, or his preaching, or from the Gospel to the Hebrews as a parallel to the passage in Luke. The word "take" is odd at that place. That is enough. It is ) interesting and beautiful to read in the letter to the Philadelphians the words (ch. 8) : " For me Jesus Christ is archives." This same letter gives us for the first time the word Christianism as a parallel to Judaism. It was appropriate that Christianity should get its name from the city in which the word Christian was coined. Ignatius, if genuine, agrees well with the stream that we conceive to have flowed forth from the first century. If the letters be not genuine, they give the same testimony for a period a trifle later, perhaps at or soon after the middle of the second century.

An interesting piece of testimony to the Gospels must be men tioned here. Eusebius quotes in his Church History (3, 39) words that Papias drew from a presbyter called John, who probably lived about the turn of the century. This John says that Mark wrote his Gospel according to what he heard from Peter, and that Matthew wrote "Words" or "Sayings" in Hebrew, which means in Aramaic. This must be examined closely. It reads : " And this the presbyter said : Mark the interpreter of Peter wrote down accurately, yet not in order, so far as he [Peter] told what was said or done by the Christ. For he did not hear the Lord, nor was he a disciple of His, but afterwards as I said of Peter, who used to give lessons according as it was necessary, but not as if he were making a collection in order of the Lord's words, so that Mark made no mistake in thus writing down some things as he remembered them. For he took care of one thing, and that was, not to leave out anything he heard or to give anything in it in a wrong way." This presbyter named John probably lived at Ephesus at the same time that the Apostle John was passing his last years there. He calls Mark the interpreter of Peter. He might have said private secretary. The word

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— POLYCARP 73

interpreter, however, need not be limited to the literary services here discussed, but may, if we consider the circumstances, have a further interest for us, quite aside from the story about Mark's Gospel. Peter the Aramaic Palestinian probably spoke some Greek in Galilee and Judea, but as an older man in the foreign capital it was doubtless desirable for him to have a younger man at hand to do any interpreting that was necessary. Whether that has anything to do with the Greek of First Peter, is a question for another place. What I have written " [Peter] told " may also be rendered " [Mark] remembered " ; the sense remains the same ; in each case Peter tells and Mark remembers. The giving of lessons, as I have written it, is, of course, his teaching, telling, explaining what Jesus said or did. That Peter did according as occasion offered, according to the needs of the occasion, or we may say, of the listeners. The reference to Matthew is as follows : " Matthew then wrote the sayings in Hebrew dialect, and each one translated them as he was able." The way in which Eusebius puts this makes it look as if this too came from that presbyter John. For my part, I have no doubt that these Aramaic sayings were the book that, after it was translated into Greek, became the chief source for Mark, and then for the writer of the first Gospel and for Luke.

Perhaps we may attach to the year 117 tentatively a few

pages from the letter to Diognetus, which has by some been

supposed to have been addressed to Marcus Aurelius' tutor

Diognetus ; we have here in mind the so-called first part of that

letter; the second part is a totally different thing, perhaps

thirty years later in date. This may be from Greece. We know

little about it, but we see in it our stream of New Testament

rr tradition, not in quotations, but in the whole contents. It places (^

\l Paul's Epistles and John's Gospel clearly before us in its subjects ,

* and in its phrases and in its words.

When referring to Ignatius, I named his letter to jPolycarp. Let us turn to him. Polycarp was probably born in trie year 69, five years after Paul's martyrdom ; and he himself was burned at Smyrna, where he was bishop, on February 23rd, 155. The stadion in which he was burned is still to rJe* Seen' on trie hill south of the city. He wrote a letter to the Philippians, Paul's beloved Philippians, in Macedonia, just after the martyrdom of Ignatius. Now I wish to lay special stress upon this Polycarp.

74 THE CANON

r To use a figure that must not be forced, he is the keystone of ) the arch that supports the history of Christianity, and therefore of the books of the New Testament, from the time of the apostles to the close of the second century. To begin with, as was said, he appears to have been born about 69, and to have been converted by one of the apostles, perhaps by John, whose disciple he probably was. Irenseus, bishop at Lyons, who was born in Asia Minor, of whom we have to speak later, saw Polycarp when a boy. Irenseus it is who tells us that he was a pupil of John and bishop at Smyrna. To complete the matter, the Church at Philomelion in Phrygia asked the Church in Smyrna to tell them about the martyrs of that year — the year in which Polycarp was burned, and we actually have in our hands the account written by the Church of Smyrna for the Philomelians and for all Christians. Every Christian should know Polycarp's j answer (ch. 9) to the governor's demand before the multitude j in the stadion. The governor had tried to get him to swear by the emperor, but in vain. He cried out again : " Swear, and I release you. Revile Christ!" Polycarp said: " Eighty and six years do I serve Him, and He has never done me wrong. And how can I blaspheme my king that saved me ? " It was a long fight. The governor did not wish to burn the old man who had willingly come up to the stadion to declare his faith. But soon the smoke of his fire curled up out of the stadion and was seen from the city and from afar upon that gulf, calling upon heaven and earth to witness to the death of a Christian. That is the keystone : A pupil of John, known to Irenaeus, at Rome to discuss with the Bishop Anicetus the Easter question, proclaimed by his Church at his death.

A few words then about his letter to the Philippians. They and Ignatius too had asked him to send to them the letters of Ignatius, and he refers to their having sent their letters — or the one letter that they had received from Ignatius? — to him to be forwarded to Syria. In closing (ch. 13) he says that he sends with this letter the letters that Ignatius had sent to Smyrna: "and others as many as we had in our hands." That is an excellent example of what was said above about the inter course between the Churches. Think of these few lines : Polycarp's surroundings connect Antioch in Syria where Ignatius was bishop, Smyrna where he himself was bishop, Philippi in

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— DIDACHE 75

Macedonia to which he wrote, Philomelion in Phrygia to which his Church wrote about him, Rome where he conferred with Anicetus, and Lyons where Irenaeus who had seen him died about 202. And this man connects through Irenseus alone the Apostle John who saw Jesus with the beginning of the third century. There may have been a dozen Christians besides who knew him, and who carried his traditions on to the third century. What did this Polycarp know about the books of the New Testament? His letter is full of the New Testament. It is plain that he had in his hands the Gospel of Matthew, and he probably had all four Gospels ; he had all the Epistles of Paul, he had First Peter and First John, and he had that letter of Clement of Rome. I have no doubt that he refers to Acts in his first chapter. That he did not set about giving precise quotations is due to the habit of his time and to his way of writing. He is, if I may say so, saturated with Peter, but he is also Pauline to a very high degree. We shall not meet with a second Polycarp, but we do not need a second.

The next book that we have to look at is a new one. It is the Teaching of the Apostles, and was only discovered a few years ago. It may be dated in the form in which we have it about the year 120. It is, however, without doubt in part much older than that. One main source, or main part of it, is not Jewish Christian, but out and out Jewish in its origin. For this Teaching the Old Testament alone is Scripture. It contains over twenty allusions to New Testament books, or short quotations, of which a number are what we may call a free reproduction of Matthew. Three or four quotations seem to be a combination of Matthew and Luke. It shows no traces of a definitely other Gospel. It is in many thoughts and phrases much like John, but it does not quote him. One very interesting point has respect to the Lord's Prayer. Though we have little knowledge of the everyday life of the first Christians, we may feel sure that they were in the habit of using that prayer daily. The Jews had their " Hear, O Israel " ; and John the Baptist gave his disciples a form of prayer ; and precisely this latter instance led the disciples of Jesus to ask Him for a prayer, and brought forth from His lips this one. Now it looks as if the writer of the Teaching, or as if some scribe in copying it off, had not drawn the prayer from the text of Matthew, but had written it

?6 THE CANON

down as he remembered it from his own daily use of it. It will be observed that we cannot prove this, yet it seems to be likely that the various readings came from that source. We shall later find a peculiarity in this prayer in Tertullian, that perhaps was caused in the same manner. The older, originally Jewish opening part, the Two Ways, contains no direct quotation from the Old Testament, but the second, newer part gives us two, from Zechariah and Malachi. One is introduced by the formula, "as was spoken," and the other by the words, "For this is the (offering) named by the Lord." Four times we find in the second part mention of the Gospel with words drawn perhaps from Matthew. It is, however, possible that these quotations are a later addition. They are characterised twice: "as ye have in the Gospel " (to which " of our Lord " is once added), once: "as the Lord commanded in the Gospel," and once: " according to the dogma of the Gospel." Once we read (ch. 9) : "About this the Lord hath said, Give not the holy thing to the dogs." But if we do not find direct quotations,, we find plenty of sense and sentences that must have come from Matthew and Luke and John, and Paul's Epistles, and First Peter.

The writer knows the majority of our New Testament books, and uses their words as freely as if he knew them well from begin ning to end. Of course he knows books that he does not happen to quote. He is busy with the thoughts and not with the duty of quoting all the books for the benefit of the criticism of the canon. The testimony of this Teaching is all the more valuable because it is such a convenient Christian handbook. It certainly was then used very widely, and it passed largely into later, more extended writings of the same general character. The question may present itself to some minds, how it comes to pass that here as elsewhere thus far, the words of the Gospel to so great an extent seem to be those or nearly those of the Gospel according to Matthew. I will say in advance that it does net occur to me to suppose that none of these early writers had written Gospels, that their allusions or similarities are due alone to oral tradition. But why so often from Matthew, so seldom from Mark and Luke? A definite answer is impossible. But we may reflect in the first place that even to-day many people read more of Matthew than of the other two. To-day its position at the opening of the volume makes it easier to reach.

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— BARNABAS 77

In the second place, there is much in it that attracts the mind. The rich and full Sermon on the Mount, that the author com bined for himself, draws all eyes to Matthew. Think, too, of the groups of miracles and parables. Think of the majestic effect of the : " This was done because it was written," and the impressive fulfilment of prophecy. The great preference of commentators for Matthew depends doubtless partly on its initial position, but these other thoughts will have been of moment. In manuscripts we sometimes find Matthew with a full commentary, [John with a full one], Luke with a commentary on passages not already treated in Matthew, and Mark with no commentary, or but a very short one, because its matter is found in Matthew and Luke.

Barnabas the apostle, but not one of the Twelve, is one of the most striking figures in the early days of Christianity. He stands out before us as the man who started Paul upon the great mission journeys, who said to him : Come with me. From Cyprus, long at Jerusalem, much at Antioch, no small traveller, he must have had a wide view of Christianity. He died, it may be, early in the sixties, before Paul. It would seem very appropriate that he should write a book of some kind for the Christians. Have we one from him? Perhaps so. But the book that bears his name, the so-called letter of Barnabas, is not from his pen. Sometimes it has been attributed to him, but wrongly. IQ connection with it, the question as to its having a right to a place in the New Testament, if it were really from Barnabas, has been mooted. For myself I do not doubt at all j that it would have been one of the books of the New Testament \ if he had written it. BuMthis statement must be accompanied by the remark that if he had written it, it would have been another, a different book. I do not mean to say that everything that an apostle penned would belong to the New Testament. A book by Matthew about the custom-houses in Palestine would not have been a part of the New Testament, whether written before or after his becoming an apostle. Just as little would a letter of Paul's about tent-cloth that had been ordered and woven have been added to his thirteen Epistles. At the same time, in spite of all I have previously said, we have no reason to suppose that the apostles were extremely inclined to write a number of books. And I doubt not that the most of what any

78 THE CANON

of them wrote after their joining Jesus, will have had some connection with Him and His word and works and the life of the Christians.

This letter of Barnabas is a work of the second century; perhaps it was written about the year 130, and at Alexandria. The temple had been long destroyed. Christians had begun at that place, at the place where the writer lived, at least to give up the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, and to confine themselves to the Lord's Day. The letter is full of the Old Testament, but it is the Old Testament, on the one hand allegorised, on the other misunderstood, ill appreciated, run down. He, the unknown author, is on the lookout for odd and striking things. He agrees to the old tradition given by Suidas as Etrurian, which counts six periods of a thousand years each before the Creation, and six of the same length after the Creation. The notion pleases him that Abraham's family of three hundred and eighteen prefigured the name of Jesus and the figure of the cross, because in Greek the number eighteen gives the letters "Je" for Jesus, and the number three hundred the letter T, which is clearly the cross. If he could only have known that the first general council at Nice two hundred years later was going to be attended by three hundred and eighteen Fathers, his happiness would certainly have been much greater. Barnabas has two quotations from Matthew. The sentences quoted are so short, and are of such an easy kind to be remembered, that the oral tradition might be supposed to have passed them directly on to Barnabas, were it not that in the one case he directly writes: < " as is written," and thus shows that he knows of written Gospels. This application of the phrase, "it is written," which is the technical way of quoting the sacred books of the Old Testament, may be the earliest case of this use of the New Testament books

''• as Scripture. In one place (ch. 711) he quotes words of Jesus that we have not in our Gospels. He has been telling about the goat of the day of atonement, and that the reddened wool was to be put upon a thorn-bush when the goat was driven out into the wilderness. This he declares to be a figure for the Church in reference to Jesus, seeing that if any one tries to get the wool

. he will suffer from the thorns, and must be under stress to become the master of the wool. "Thus," he says, "they who wish to see me, and to attain to my kingdom, must be under

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— VALENTINUS 79

stress and suffering to take me." But these words may well be simply a combination of the author's and not be drawn from an unknown Gospel. They remind us of Paul's words in Acts on reaching Derbe, after being stoned and left for dead at Lystra. This letter has passages which remind us of Paul and of John. The written books are, however, still of less account than the tradition by word of mouth.

During the first half of the second century an Egyptian named Valentinus applied himself to the question of the origin of all things, anoTtEe sequence of the universe. He worked out an elaborate system of spiritual powers, starting from the original source of all things and running through thirty eons. From the last eon, the Mother, came Christ and a shadow. The latter produced the Creator and the devil, with their human races. Jesus then came as the fruit of all thirty eons, in a merely apparent body, and took the spiritual people, the children of the Mother, and the Mother herself into the spiritual kingdom. He alleged that his doctrine was connected with Paul through Theodas. The quotations of his writings that we have are scanty, and some of them are not of undoubted authority. ,Yet he is a witness for the body of the New Testament books. His whole system, the beings that he uses, or rather their names, are drawn from the Gospel of John. His first three names, after the original source of all things, are Mmd, the Father, and Truth ; and the following four are Word, Life, Man, Church. Of course, those are good words in common use ; but their use in this way by a Christian points, I think, unmistakably to John's Gospel. But we have in the case of Valentinus a witness of high authority and credibility, namely Tertullian, and he says that Valentinus appeared to use the whole New Testament as then known. He did, it is true, or Tertullian thought so, alter the text, but he did not reject one book and another. Perhaps Valentinus only used a different text from Tertullian. In Clement of Alexandria we find a reference to Valentinus that looks interesting for the criticism of the canon. Clement makes Valentinus distinguish^ between what was written in the public books and what was I written in the Church. That looks like a distinction between books that everybody, Jew and Gentile, might read, and books that only Christians were permitted to read. But we have no clue to the exact meaning of his words. Three of the books of

SO THE CANON

the New Testament — Luke, John, and First Corinthians — are referred to by him.

From one of the pupils of Valentinus, Ptolemaeus, we have a number of fragments which contain quotations from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Romans, First Corinthians, Galatians, Ephes- ians, and Colossians. We find, besides these fragments that Irenseus has kept for us, in Epiphanius an interesting letter written by Ptolemseus to a Christian woman named Flora ; and he refers in it to Matthew, John, Romans, First Corinthians, and Ephes- ians. Irenaeus storms at the Valentinians because they wrote a new Gospel called the Gospel of Truth ; and Epiphanius tells of two other Gospels written by Gnostics, the Gospel of Eve and the Gospel of Perfection. Should we call these apocryphal Gospels if we had them in our hands, and place them beside the Gospel of the Infancy and the Gospel of Thomas, for example ? I very much doubt it. I do not suppose that these Gospels offered an account of the life and works of Jesus and the apostles. They were probably more or less fantastic representations of the doctrines of the special Gnostic sects, the Gospel of Truth of the Valentinian sect, from which they proceeded. We have directly from the Valentinian school most important testimony, not only to the existence, but also to the high value of the Gospels which are in the New Testament; for Heracleon, a near friend of Valentinus', wrote upon the Gospels. Perhaps he wrote a commentary to one or all of them, perhaps he commented particular passages that seemed to him to be more interesting. We cannot tell. Origen quotes his comments on John ; and Clement of Alexandria mentions a comment of his on a passage in Luke. And the quotations give references to Matthew, Romans, First Corinthians, and Second Timothy. All that shows that these branches of Christianity held to the main books of the New Testament. Nothing shows that they dreamed of putting their books upon a level with the books that became afterwards a part of our New Testament. Heracleon quoted the Preaching of Peter, but we do not know that he considered it scripture. One branch of the followers of Valen tinus, the pupils of a Syrian named Mark, are said to have written, to have forged Gospels, but they went back, so far as we can see, only to our four Gospels, not to any unknown or apocryphal Gospels.

THE POST- APOSTOLIC AGE— MARCION 8 1

We must now turn to a man who claims a great deal of attention. His name is Marcion. His father was the Bishop . of Sinope on the coast of Paphlagonia. He is in every way the J^ most active and influential man, bearing tFe~ "name' of Christian, beFween Paul and Oqgen. The position of the Christian Church towards the Scriptures of the Old Testament seemed to him to be totally false. He quarrelled with his father and went to Rome. At Rome he quarrelled with the Church and left it. Pplycarp called him "Satan's firstborn." In spite of all difficulties he set about founding a Church of his own about the year 144, and he succeeded. Churches of his sect were to be found in Syria as late as the fifth century. The thing that interests us about Marcion in the criticism of the canon is the L fact that he set to work to make a New Testament for himself. TriaTis to say, not that he wrote the books, but that he decided upon them, passed judgment upon their merits, their value, their right to a place in a Christian collection. Here we find in fact, so far as the authority of this Church founder could be said to determine anything duly, a canon. Here for the first time in the history of the Christian Church a clear cut, definitely rounded oft New Testament' "offers itself to view. He was led in "His" selection of the books by his opinions about the course of history. The usual supposition that the God of the Old Testament and the Messiah of the Old Testament were the God and the Christ of the Christians was wildly wrong. The God who made the world was the Demiurge ; he was just, in a way, but only just, not good. He was in the Old Testament hardhearted and cruel and bloodthirsty. Jesus let Himself be called the Messiah simply to fit in with the thoughts of the people. He was not the son of a virgin, because that was impossible. He simply came down from heaven and afterwards went back to heaven. Of course, then, Marcion cast the Old Testament aside. A Jewish Gospel like Matthew was nothing / for him. Why John did not suit him it is hard to say ; probably "K ^ the author was too Jewish for him, and besides it joined Jesus directly with the creation of the bad Demiurge's world. He chose for himself the Pauline Gospel according to Luke, and omitted from it what his unerring eye knew to be from the wrong sphere, the sphere of the Demiurge. Acts had too much of Peter in it. The Epistle to the Hebrews, it is hardly necessary 6

82 THE CANON

to say, was altogether impossible. The Pastoral Epistles were probably too local.

In the end, then, his New Testament, we may say his Bible, consists of the Gospel part or the Gospel of Luke, and of the Apostle part or the ten Epistles of Paul; he called Ephesians the Epistle to the Laodiceans. His Gospel began perhaps with these words : "In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, in the times of Pilate, Jesus descended into Capernaum, a city of Galilee." Therewith he had disposed of all birth accounts and genealogical tables. Towards the close the Crucifixion must have been omitted. And the identification of the person of Jesus may have been joined directly to the thought that He really was an " appearance," a " spirit." His Apostle began with Galatians, after which the Epistles to the Corinthians, Romans, and Thessalonians followed. Then came the Epistle to the Ephesians, but named Laodiceans. Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon finished the book. What would the Church have been if this headstrong man had succeeded in carrying out his plans, if that were our whole New Testament ? Doubtless Marcion was moved by lofty thoughts. It was certainly nobler to condemn the bloodthirstiness that Israel attributed to its God than to condone it. But his influence, though it held out long, did at last fade away. It seems likely that many of the Christians in his Churches, partly from indiffer ence or from ignorance out of mere accident, came, as years passed by, to use other books of the general New Testament of the Church. The whole Marcionitic movement has its great value for the criticism of the canon in its testimony, which is undoubtable, to the mass of the New Testament books. Marcion's books were a selection from the books of the Church. In the second place, it shows with the clearness_of_dayjight that up to that moment no canon had been determined upon by the general Church. And, in the third place, it shows how tenaciously the Christians clung Jqjwhaf bQo"£TlhsyJha^_when the stormy and vigorously generalled Marcionitic movement, - v with its arraignment of the remaining books, succeeded after all m" making no lasting impression upon the general conTeTTtlTof trie New Testament.

If any title for a book destined for Christians could be appropriate, it is that of the Shepherd. Jesus called Himself

THE rOST-APOSTOLIC AGE— HERMAS 83

the good Shepherd. A brother of Pius, the bishop of Rome, wrote it. Pius was bishop probably about from 141 to 157! A threefold tradition says that his brother wrote the Shepherd while Pius was in the chair. It contains eight visions, twelve commands, and nine parables communicated to him by the Church and the Shepherd. The tenth parable is the closing section of the book, and contains the rules given to Hermas how to order his life from henceforth. It will be at once clear that a dream-book of this kind cannot be expected to contain quantities of quotations from sheerly practical writings like the Gospels and the Epistles in general. I suppose that people seldom quote in dreams. The ecstatic condition makes the writer all in all, without books. From the contents of the whole composition it seems plain that the author knew at least one of our synoptic Gospels ; the knowledge of all three is not to be proved from the text. For myself, I do not doubt that all three Gospels, all four Gospels, were well known at Rome before that time. This author had no mission to speak of them in detail. It seems certain that he knew the Epistle to the Ephesians. The other Pauline Epistles do not come to the front. Some things remind us of Hebrews, but we need not press the similarity. The Epistle of James is discernible partly in its matter, in the thoughts and things mentioned in it, and partly i in the words used. Of course, the book of Revelation fitted best 1 of all into Hermas' ideas.

He is one of the organisers of the renewal of the Old Testament, and of the law in the Old Catholic Church that is beginning to knit together. But it is not the more open Jewish manner with the notion that the Church is merely Judaism perfected. It is a Christianity that takes to itself serried legal forms. This kind of Christianity cannot be called Mosaic, but it is just the kind of Christianity that must commend itself to a mind that had been brought up under severely Jewish influences. We should not, however, fail to observe where we stand. If I do not err, the reason for the growth of this kind of religion then and there is to be sought, not in the Old Testament and not in Ebionitic fancies of the movers, but in the spirit of the people in which the new religion lia(L_1!ow been present for nearly a century. To dispose of Ebionism, it was the tendency of this spirit that led the movers

84 THE CANON

to Ebionitic thoughts, not Ebionitic teaching which warped them from a description of Christianity that lay nearer to their hearts. The early Christianity at Rome was by the time of the Epistle to the Romans of a heathen Christian cast. It could not at that time be well other than Greek. It remained Greek in language even beyond the time with which we are now dealing. But as years passed by the Roman element grew stronger and began to think for itself. The soul of Rome was law. And that law, that sense of law and for law, must needs be impressed upon the form that Christianity finally assumed in the eternal city. The growth of the Old Catholic Church is not merely to be charged to a general human perversity, and its leaning towards the Old Testament is not alone a token of a new life in Jewish- Christian circles in the second century, and its centring and vast strength in Rome was not solely the consequence of the enormous influence of the capital of the world. The crystallisa tion of this Church was the necessary consequence of the action of the spirit of the Roman people upon the Christian Church. For those Christians, little as they overcast the whole sphere to reach such a conclusion, the new form of Christianity was not one of the retrograde steps, returning to the used-up bottles of the Old Testament, but a step forward. It was not a Judaising, but a Romanising of Christianity. It was not conceived of as a limiting of Christianity, much as it would block heresy, but as a development and opening out of its capabilities.

At the close of the second vision we have a chance to see how a good book would then be started on its way in the Church. The elder woman, the Church, asks Hermas whether he has already communicated to the elders a book that he had borrowed from her to copy off. When he replied No, she says that it is all right, she wishes to add something : " When, then, I shall finish all these words, they shall be made known by thee to all the elect." The process was to begin with the making two copies, so that three books should be available : " Thou shalt write, then, two little books, — that is to say, two copies, — and thou shalt send one to Clement and one to Grapte. Clement will then send out to the cities outside, for that is charged upon him. And Grapte will put in mind the widows and the orphans. You, however, will read it in this city with the elders who stand at the head of the Church." Is not that a pretty window looking in upon

THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE— HERMAS 85

the literary habit in Christian Rome ? In the rest of the visions the Church bids him again and again to " tell " the saints what she says. The word of mouth is still powerful. But in the commandments the Shepherd who takes charge of him again enjoins him repeatedly to write. Thoroughly Pauline is (Vis. 3, 8) the putting Faith at the head of the seven women who bear the tower, the Church : " The first one of them, the one clasping her hands, is called Faith. By this one the elect of God are saved. The next one, the one girt up and holding herself firmly, is called Self-mastery. This is the daughter of Faith." Later follow, each the daughter of the preceding : Self-Mastery, Sim plicity, Purity, Holiness, Understanding (or Insight), and Love. " Of these, then, the works are pure and holy and divine." In the ninth parable (ch. 15) the Shepherd calls them virgins, and there are twelve of them : " The first Faith, and the second Self- mastery, and the third Power, and the fourth Long-suffering, and the others standing in the midst of these have the names : Simplicity, Purity, Chastity, Cheerfulness, Truth, Insight, Con cord, Love. The one who bears these names and the name of the son of God will be able to enter into the kingdom of God." The Christianity that this beautiful dream depicts is from the beginning to the end a Christianity that lives upon our New Testament and not on books of which we know nothing.

We have a sermon, a homily, written soon after Hermas, and at Rome. It is even barely possible that the Clement whom Hermas above mentions wrote it. We cannot tell. It would have been in that case all the more easy for it to be attributed, as it was for centuries, to the same Clement as the one who wrote the good letter from the Church at Rome to the Church at Corinth. Curiously enough this sermon gives several quotations that do not agree with our Gospels. Undoubtedly it is possible in one or two passages that the writer merely gives the words at haphazard from memory, as has been done even in modern sermons. In other cases the author probably had a Gospel that we