YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of GEORGE WATSON COLE The International Theological Library EDITORS' PREFACE THEOLOGY has made great and rapid advances in recent years. New lines of investigation have been opened up, fresh light has been cast upon many subjects of the deepest interest, and the historical method has been applied with important results. This has prepared the way for a Library of Theological Science, and has created the demand for it. It has also made it at once opportune and practicable now to se cure the services of specialists in the different depart ments of Theology, and to associate them in an enter prise which will furnish a record of Theological inquiry up to date. This Library is designed to cover the whole field of Christian Theology. Each volume is to be complete in itself, while, at the same time, it will form part of a carefully planned whole. One of the Editors is to pre pare a volume of Theological Encyclopsedia which will give the history and literature of each department, as well as of Theology as a whole. The International Theological Library The Library is intended to forii a series of Text- Books fbr Students of Theology. The Authors, therefore, aim at conciseness and com pactness of statement. At the same time, they have in view that large and increasing class of students, in other departments of inquiry, who desire to have a systematic and thorough exposition of Theological Science. Tech nical raatters will therefore be thrown into the form of notes, and the text will be made as readable and attract ive as possible. The Library is international and interconfessional. It will be conducted in a catholic spirit, and in the interests of Theology as a science. Its aim will be to give full and impartial statements both of the results of Theological Science and of the questions which are still at issue in the different departments. The Authors will be scholars of recognized reputation in the several branches of study assigned to them. They wiU 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 investi gation, and indicate the way for further progress. Charles A. Briggs Stewart D. F. Salmond The International Theological Library ARRANGEMENT OF VOLUMES AND AUTHORS THEOLOGICAL ENCYCLOP/CDIA. By Charles A. Briggs, D.D., D.Litt., Graduate Professor of Theological Encyolopasdia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTA MENT. By S. R. Driver, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Churcli, Oxford. \_Revised a-nd Enlarged Edition. CANON AND TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. By FRANCIS Crawford Burkitt, M.A., Norrisian Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge. OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. By HENRY PRESERVED SMITH, D.D., sometime Professor of Biblical History, Amherst College, Mass. [ffow Ready. CONTEMPORARY HISTORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. By Francis Brown, D.D., LL.D., D.Litt., Professor of Hebrew, Union Theological Seminary, New Yorlc. THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. By A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D,, sometime Professor of Hebrew, New College, Edinburgh, \_No-iu Ready. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OFTHE NEWTESTA» MENT. By Rev. James Moffatt, B,D., Minister United Free Church, Dundonald, Scotland. CANON AND TEXT OF THE N EW TESTAM ENT. By CASPAR Rene Gregory, D,D,, LL.D., Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the University of Leipzig. [^JVo-tv Ready. THE LIFE OF CHRIST. By Wll.LIAM Sanday, D,D., LL.D,, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE. By Arthur C, McGiffert, D.D,, Professor of Church History, Union Theo logical Seminary, New Yorlc. \^Mow Ready. CONTEMPORARY HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By Frank C. Porter, D.D,, Professor of Biblical Theology, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. THEOLOGY OFTHE NEW TESTAMENT. By GEORGE B. STEVENS, D.D., sometime Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. W™ R^'"iy- BIBLICAL ARCH>EOLOGY. By G. BUCHANAN Gray, D.D,, Professor of Hebrew, Mansfield College, Oxford, THE ANCIENT CATHOLIC CHURCH. By ROBERT Rainy, D.D,, LL.D,, sometime Principal of New College, Edinburgh. \N'ow Ready. THE EARLY LATIN CHURCH. By CHARLES BiGG, D.D., Regius Pro fessor of Church History, University of Oxford. The International Theological Library THE LATER LATIN CHURCH. By E. W. Watson, M.A., Professor of Church History, King's College, London. THE GREEK AND ORI ENTAL CH U RCH ES. ByW. F. Ade.N'EY,D.D., Principal of Independent CoUege, Manchester. THE REFORMATION. By T. M. LINDSAY, D.D,, Principal of the United Free College, Glasgow. [,? vols. No-ai Ready. SYMBOLICS. By Charles A. Briggs, D.D., D.Litt,, Graduate Professor of Theological EncyolopEedia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York. HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. By G, P, FiSHER, D,D,, LL,D,, Protessor of Ecclesiastical History, Yale University, New Haven, Conn, [Revised and Enlarged Edition. CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS. By A. V. G. Allen, D.D,, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Protestant Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass. [Now Ready. PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. By ROBERT FLINT, D.D. , LL.D., some time Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS. By George F. Moore, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Harvard University. APOLOGETICS. By A. B. BRUCE, D.D., sometime Professor of New Testament Exegesis, Free Church College, Glasgow. ^Revised and Enlarged Edition. THE DOCTRINE OFGOD. By WILLIAM N. CLARKE, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Hamilton Theological Seminary. TKE DOCTRINE OF MAN. By WILLIAM P, PATERSON, D.D., Professor of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST. By H. R, MACKINTOSH, Ph.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, New College, Edinburgh. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SALVATION. By GEORGE B, STE VENS, D.D., sometime Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University. [ffow Ready. THE DOCTRINE OFTHE CHRISTIAN LIFE. By WlLLIAM ADAMS Brown, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York. CHRISTIAN ETHICS. By NEWMAN Smyth, D.D., Pastor of Congrega tional Church, New Haven. [Revised and Enlarged Edition. THE CHRISTIAN PASTOR AND THE WORKING CHURCH. By Washington Gladden, D.D., Pastor of Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio. [Noio Ready. THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER. [Author to be announced later. RABBINICAL LITERATURE. By S. SCHECHTER, M.A., President of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City. Jllic international t^beological Xibrar^. EDITED BY CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., Graduate Professor qf Tlieological Encyclopedia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminatyy New York ; The late STEWART D. F. SALMOND, D.D., Principal, and Professor of Systematic Ttteology and Ne-w Testament Exegesis, United Free Chu-rctt College, Aberdeen. CANON AND TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By CASPAR RENlfe GREGORY, D.D., LL.D. iNTERNATIONAt, THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY CANON AND TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BY CASPAR REN£ GREGORY NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1907 TO MY OLD FRIEND JOHN KEMP OF LINCOLN'S INN BARRISTER AT LAW IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF MUCH HELP AND SYMPATHY CANON AND TEXT A Gene al 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 . . SS-iio III. THE AGE OF IRENAEUS: 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. TIIE 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 394-4x8 Syriac, p. 396 ; Coptic, p. 403 ; Latin, p. 407 VIL CHURCH WRITERS 419-436 Second Century, p. 430 ; Third Century, p. 43 1 ; 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 QF TEXT . • . . 479-528 Classes of Text, p. 480; Original Text, p. 483; Re-Wrought 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. l^ow 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 circumsta.nces 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 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 difificulty. 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 ourselves. 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 (Jope their work. It proceeds then to examine 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 THE CANON. INTRODUCTION. >TUi^ first duty of a scholar is to secure a clear view of his aim -in-tafeiHgjip^ 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 madep put' together, decided upon by general Church authority under the gmdaince" 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. Tbe 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 Teasoiv 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 fa, 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 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 lipon 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 ansjver Jo 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 temporary. For the current assumption is, that the canon is ID 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. 5b.Quld_ we,_then,_in the earliest periods of the histgty^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 farji&ld 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 tht 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 will 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 j well-advised to turn those books out of the sacred volume ; for i they offered not only much valuable historical matter, but as well religious writings suited to elevate the soul. They went far I to bridge over the gulf between the Old and the New Testa raent. 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 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 siich 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 I 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 to 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 'v jthat the New Testament is not genuine. L People, however, often treat the Bible, and in particular I the New Testament, as if they were fetish worshippers. They I 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 1 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 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 1 3 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 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 as to the freedom of travel and the ease or difficulty of cora munication between different parts of the known world of that day, or of the Roman Empire with its surroundings, might seem 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 j way in which books were written, given to the public, andl reproduced in the early centuries of our era. These four points : ^ the canon, the Jewish canon, intercommunication in the Roman | Empire, and bookmaking, complete the necessary preparation! for the work before us. We shall then describe briefly what 1 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 ofthe 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 year 30 to 90 after Christ, [ and raay be termed the period of the Apostles. In it the most L of the books with which we have to do were written. The w second period, frora 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 raatter of fact, by far the most important period in the course of our discussion. For it is during these years of this post-apostolie period that these books pass from a common to a sacred use. The third period, from 160 to 200, we may call the period n of Irenseus. Here the Old Catholic Church is on a firm footing, ( and the life in several of the great national divisions of the 1 Church begins to be more open and more confident. The ' fourth period, from 200 to 300, bears the stamp of the giant Origen, but brings with it raany a valiant raan, not least Dionysius of Alexandria and TertuUian of Carthage. The fifth I period, from 300 to 370, the period of Eusebius, sees the opening) of the series of great councils in the Council of Nice in 325. 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 — A. THE WORD CANON IS 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 comraunities 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 tho 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 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 stick or the scale beam. In Homer the latter word vvas 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- line or for a level, or a ruler, for anything that was a measure or a rule for other things. It entered the mental sphere and there 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 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 thera 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. A 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 today will not admire the phrase used in the letter of the Church at Rorae 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 (Eus. 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— .4. THE WORD CANON 1 7 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 raovement was a development, but a development backwards, for, like the author just raentioned, it found its basis in the Old Testaraent. 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 j law and prophets with the covenant or the testament given when I the Lord was here," while in another passage (6. 11) 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 i 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 Roriie, 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 , tbe Church," was necessary. Firmilian seeras to have the word canon in mind shortly after the middle of the third century, when he writes (Cypr. Ep. 75) about a woraan 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 1 8 THE CANON Saraosata, 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 Cathohc 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 I Pantheon at Rome. Thus the ecclesiastical canon, the canon of I the Church, had become a set phrase to denote the rule of the I 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 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 called dograas, but towards the middle of the fourth century, in the year 341 at Antioch, they also came to be called canons. 1 \ 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 iraperial 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 rehgions that were not recognised by the State, said to the Bishop Paul : " Bring rae the scriptures of the law," and Csecilian 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 Testaraent and Jewish use of the word law, as to raake it totally iraproper to argue that the word law here is canon. Much less does it seem to me to be admissible, until we receive evidence that is not now known, to attribute the use of the cognate words canonical and canonise in connection with the Scriptures to Origen. It is by no means certain that the word was INTRODUCTION— v4. THE WORD CANON 19 not used earlier than I have suggested, but . it is well to move cautiously. The first^application of the term jQjScrigture that is f thus far known is not direct7in7he~word"canon, but indirect in/ cognate words like those just named. The fifty-ninth canonl (Mansi, ii. 574) ofthe Synod at Laodicea of about the year 363 [/ determines that "private psalms should not be read in then churches, nor uncanonised books, but only the canonical [books] '' of the New and Old Testament." And in the year 367, when 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 coramon 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 to it, that is to say, because it had been put into I the canon, or it might be canonical because it had in and of itself / a certain normative character. A clergyraan 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 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 sorae 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-J,7o. Aside ^omthatTtKeonly list known to us by name before the tirae 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 all 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, and then later also the books of the New Testament at an early 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 totially finished and closed up collection of books was attached to the word, and that this thus limited series of 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 raeritorious. 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 I 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, araong other raatter, five Gathas or hyrans, 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 I 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 hiraself, even the last eight verses about his death. Sorae 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 handUng 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 treatraent of the text, trying to compel C. accuracy of copying. They counted the lines, the words, and ] the letters, and they cast aside a sheet upon which a raistake had been made. We may assume that some written documents were in fhe 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 accompaniraent 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 raatter 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 sarae 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 Umited 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 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 beheve 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. Sb 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 aftier 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— fi. 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 raade 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 accustoraed 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 st^te. If, however, any one should be incUned 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 raeans 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 traveUed pretty much all over the world that was then known. At the time of Christ the known world was little raore 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 INTROX)UCTION— C. INTERCOMMUNICATION 27 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 PuteoU 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 Rorae 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 railes 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 railes 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 aU the way to Byzantium by land, going north and around by Aquileia, which makes 1 2 18 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 corapanies, 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 Rorae 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 ofthe roads. For example, from Brundusium to Dyrrachium, from Gaflipoli 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 govemor 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. Csesar rode from Rome to the Rhone in his four-wheeled traveUing carriage in about eight days, making 77 miles a day. In his two-wheeled Ught carriage he made 97 railes a day. The public post from Antioch to Constantinople in the fourth century went, including stops, in about six days, about 4 railes 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 raan 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 neyer 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 accompaniraent. 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 horae at baths, at healing springs, in milder or in cooler climes, and that not merely the wealthy, but also raany a poor man. Rich Romans made excursions to their possessions in Gaul, in Spain, in Africa, and sometiraes 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 Rorae 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 raade 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 aU unlikely that he answered, or that he would have answered, an inquisitive poUceman on reaching Corinth, that the purpose of his coming was to work at his trade in the bazaar. Reference to his raission would have been as unintelligible as it would have been suspicious in reply to such an official. Of course, raerchants travelled. Many of them went with their goods on ships, others wUl have traveUed 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 3 1 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 Jhe 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 Taricheae 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 Christianity and for the subsequent widespread scattering abroad of, and the universal acceptance of the cherished literafqre of the early Christians, this journeying and sending of men and pf 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 cafm consideration of, and not of suspicion or flashing hatred towards, aU that came from another country. 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 upop the criticism ofthe 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 ¦ carefuUy 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 tirae, 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 Uable 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 famUies and individual Christians were in a position to get and keep and use freely the sacred writings. Nothing would be raore 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— Z>. BOOKMAKING 33 neighbours, and would therefore not be ih 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 raust 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 fdund to-day between the usual writers in private Ufe and in business circles, and the art-writers who prepare beautiful diplomas and testimonials for anniversaries. In large towns the methods for the multipUcation 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 inforraation upon this point, and we are therefore left to conjecture. I am inclined to think that the usual bookmaking methods were seldora used by Christians. It does not seem to me to be likely that a heathen bookseUer 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 ofthe Eastern tradesman. In consequence, the life of the Christians in the East was to a large measure a public Ufe, a Ufe 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 wiU in general have found it prudent and often strictly necessary to keep the signs of their faith in the background, not to aUow 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. (d) 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 raay weU 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 wiU 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. [c) 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 cefltury, 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 raany 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 waUs. 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 comraand, and Christian scribes, to write the fifty sacred volumes. Should any one say that the size of the probable school and the cultivatioH 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 eraperor is Ukely to have made that scriptoria! 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 recaU, 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 voluraes which contain a de scription of the position of the scribe who copied them, by far the larger nuraber 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 incUned 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. .£. What we Seek. Setting aside for the moment our preliminary considerations touching the existence of a canon, it is pertinent at this point Wl INTRODUCTION— £. WHAT WE SEEK 37 to try to define in detail wh^t 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 examine the piety of the members of the various rising Christian societies. We are not going to ask in what rooms they held their raeetings. We are not intending to find out how they appointed their leaders. All these things, and a great raany 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 \£xistence- of the books that we have in our New Testament to-day^. It is the existence that is first ~to be^ought^for, some sign that the given book is, and if possible that it is at a given place. In advance an ignorant man raight 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 incUned as that would indicate. At the very first there are no tokens of anything of that kind. In con sequence we raust 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 aUuded 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 sorae 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-, 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 practicaUy 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 mention of the books by name. A raention by name, particularly if it be accompanied by a clear quotation frora 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 raisled 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 ChrisHansT'ajidTtfThat may be distinguished, on the part of authorised or authoritative I Christians, men of a certain eminence, -Herejwejnay-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 these books were settled upon as worthy of, or were designated directly for, being read by Christians in private life for their instruction, for their edification, or for their comfort and consolation. The third kind of evidence is that which INTRODUCTION— .E. WHAT WE SEEK 39 proves their designation for public use in church. The weight of the evidence for this point raust be characterised raore closely. The difference between books for private reading and those for pubUc use wiU 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 Testaraent. The importance of this point is clear. The books of the Old Testaraent — 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 reUgious 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 caUs these books canonical or declared them to be among the nuraber 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 seera 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 caU " 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 oFaTspeciar valuation of the books of the New Testament. Are signs of such, of an equal, valuation to be found 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 finaUy 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 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 raust 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 Horaer 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 a lofty 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 41 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 bejisefuL The first is that we must strive not to mistake tTie 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 becarae towards the year 1860, after Frauenstadt had urgfid them upon public notice. The second is that we must not let earlier conditions be raade 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 circurastances 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 equaUy intelligent and equally successful in securing their rights, and that the upper classes were equally free from the domination of the Roman CathoUc 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 THE APOSTOLIC AGE. 33-90 (100), When we approach the age of the apostles we must lay aside for the moment raodern 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 simpUcity of the tirae, 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 Ught 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 raen who had counted upon the open vision of that triuraphant entry. They had thought that they had a draft on sight, not one payable in two thousand or ten thousand years. They were siraple-rainded people. What did they think about the writings of the New Testaraent 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 raore important than the written word. Did we wish, as some people unfortunately often do, to Umit 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 stUl 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 raore 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 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 raan, 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 frora 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-raen. 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 chUd, the friend, the hearers have beUeved 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 raore prorainent men particularly in the earUest 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 years that immediately followed spent their time in writing books that should convey to us what we wish to know about the 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 StiU 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 eaget furtherers of Christian Uterary 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 raaking known of the good tidings, will I think, lead to the conclusion that books and '.iterature 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 faUing. 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 aU 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 incUned. 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 raight call it classical ; and if the raan 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 my th 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 Uterature, Ascalon ptoduced 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 j is that the mob had evidently expected to understand him, even if he had spoken Greek. So soon as Christianity began to address itself to the Greek-speaking Jews outside of Palestine, 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 alraost all Jews, even in Palestine, saving a certain part of the poorer classes. The Jews who heard Jesus and believed on Hira, 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 arid 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 ^ of the Christians. The earUest Christian authors did not for an 'j 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 Jerusalera 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 thera too large a nuraber of adherents at the first moment. Eastern people are poor counters, and easUy 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 raen 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 kiUed aU at once at the time of the death of Stephen. Even at the tirae 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 I known to him. He says in that letter (i Cor. 15^), 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 teU 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 another 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 50 THE CANON canon, because it wUl 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 roUs of different sizes, and I feel sure that many a village synagogue wUl have been glad ofthe 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 wUl fail to con cede, that when we turn to the few Christians who at the first here and there separated themselves as Christians, forthe purpose of having Christian worship, from the synagogues in their town or viUage, we rnust 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 have succeeded 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 stiU allowed to go to the synagogue they wiU still have continued to go to it on Saturday, on 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 deterraination not only of Sunday but also of Sabbath Gospel lessons, and the two series are stiU to be found in the lesson books of the older Churches. To return to our point, the early Christian societies wUl often not have had all the books of the Old Testament at their command, and wiU 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 5 1 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 aU 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 whjch 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 wUl 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 We do 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 littie Church at 52 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 possibUity 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 GaUlee, 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 earUer day. That book did not tell about the passion. The passion did not belong to Galilee, Before long it becarae clear that the Christians needed a raore complete account of the words and deeds of Jesus. This , need John Mark the Jerusaleraite, the cousin of Barnabas, the X friend of Paul and of Peter, seeras to have felt and tried to supply y 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, StUl later Luke wrote the third Gospel and the book of Acts. It ^ was not tUl 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 thera look a little like histories, part of them are simply letters, one r of them is a book of dreams. But for all these writings the thing ^ which holds the attention of the Christian Churches is stiU 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 coUection 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 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 at Corinth, the letter caUed Clement's of Rome, Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in his second letter, 2 Thess, 2I*, 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 early age of the Church, It wiU stiU follow us into the second period. But a new principle is preparing, or the foundation is being laid for a new principle, that wiU recognise a crystalUsation 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 froiri 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 i860 to to-day. During that time the books of the New Testament were probably raost of them written. Before we leave this age, we should ask whether we can find any signs of what might be caUed self-consciousness in these writirigs of the New Testament That is to say, we know of, or suspeqt 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 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 practicaUy, and not in the least claiming book value and permanent value for his letter. Bat the phrase, the sentence, is nevertheless weU worth 54 THE CANON remark, fbr in fact there lies at the back of this command to them the thought that what he has written to them is normative or that his 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 comraand 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 in the New Testament is the Gospel of the Hebrews or to the Hebrews. We know, however, very Uttle 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 wiU probably come to light some day in Egypt or in Armenia or in Syria, and then we shall know more about it 55 IL 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 eraphasised 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 corapany, 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 tum 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 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 rauch better. The very raan in the little community who because of his better education came to have charge of a letter received raight be a friend of sorae 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 apostoUc 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 carae to be read in the public raeetings. The word public has for this primitive time, it is true, a strange sense, since the groups were often so very small, and were alwayfe 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 raust 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 last step. Going back to the beginning, to the first time that a letter frora an apostie, let us say Paul, was received by a Church, let us say Thessalonica,, we ca-n imagine the stir it will have made. The littie 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 raoment the borrowing and copying were so comraon as they soon came to be. Gradually the letter wiU 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 weU 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 Uttle it will have becorae known that the Gospels had been written. These Gospels will at first have been circulated in the imraediate 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 wiU have been preferred to the dead letter in the book. Many Churches will for a long whUe 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 coUection of books ; now one now another new one was added by friends to the old and treasured store of roUs. It is totally impossible to give any accurate idea of the rapidity of the accretion, totaUy impossible to say when it was that a number of 5 8 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 Uke a regular order of services that prevaUed 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 bfiibre 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, wiU 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, wiU have consisted originaUy of the Scripture reading, and that, of course, from and only from the Old Testament The division [c), raan 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 ofthe 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 aposties, and, when the Gospels were there, the reading of the Gospels, must have taken place under the third part or (r, In approaching thus the year 200, what have we before us in the way of clear use of the books of the New Testament? We have in advance presupposed that the most of them were in existence, and where we do not hear of anything to the contrary, anything that excludes their early existence and proves their later composition, we go upon the theory that they are in use. Nevertheless, what do we positively and directiy know about THE AGE OF IREN^US— MATTHEW 1 63 their use before the year 185, before Irenaeus' great work? Let us take up the books. The Gospel according to Matthew was quoted apparently in the Great Declaration written by Simon Magus or by some close pupU of his. Hippolytus (6. 16) gives the words thus : " For somewhere near, he says, is the axe to the roots of the tree. Every tree, he says, not bearing good fruit, is cut down and cast into the fire." No one will be surprised that he quoted loosely. We have seen how loosely good Christians quoted, and Siraon Magus could not be expected to be raore careful than they. For the foUowers of Cerinthus, and it doubt less holds good also for Cerinthus himself, Epiphanius tells us (28. 5) directly that they used this Gospel. He says : " For they use the Gospel according to Matthew in part and not the whole of it, because of the birth list according to the flesh " ; and again (30. 14): "For Cerinthus and Carpocrates using for themselves, it is true, the same Gospel, prove from the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew by the birth list that the Christ was of the seed of Joseph and Mary." He may weU have had a Gospel with a different reading in the first chapter of Matthew. The Ophites also used this Gospel. "This, they say, is what is spoken (Hippolytus, 5. 8 ; p. 160 [113]) : Every tree not making good fruit is cut down and cast into fire. For these fruits, they say, are only the reasonable, the living men, who come in through the third gate." From the seventh chapter they quote (5. 8 ; p. 160 [114]): "This, they say, is what he saith: Cast not that which is holy to the dogs, nor the pearls' to the swine, saying that the words about swine and dogs are the intercourse of a woman with a raan." And again from the same chapter, turning the words around in iriemory (5. 8; p. 166 [116]): "About these things, they say, the Saviour spoke expressly : That narrow and strait is the way leading to life, and few are those entering in to it ; but broad and roomy is the way that leads to destruction, and many are they that pass through by it." And stUl frora the same chapter (5, 8; p. 158 [112]) "And again, they say, the Saviour said: Not everyone saying to me. Lord, Lord, shaU enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he that doeth the wiU of My Father which is in the heavens." They give (5. 8 ; p. 160 [i 13]) the parable of the Sower from the thirteenth chapter just as anybody might quote it from meraory : " And this, they i64 THE CANON say, is what is spoken : The one sowing went forth to sow. And some fell by the wayside and was trodden down, and some on rocky ground, and sprang up, they say, and because it had no depth withered away and died. And some fell, they say, on good and fit ground, and made fruit, one a hundred, another sixty, another thirty. He that hath ears, they say, to hear, let him hear." One of their quotations brings a quite intelligible loose combination or confusing of two verses in the same thir teenth chapter. It is a capital specimen of a wUd quotation (5. 8; p. 152 [108]) : "This, they say, is the kingdom of heaven lying within you like a treasure, like leaven hid in three measures of meal." Just of the same kind is the following from the twenty-third chapter (5. 8; p. 158 [112]) : "This, they say, is that which was spoken : Ye are whitened tombs, filled, they say, within with dead bones, because the living raan is not in you," And there upon they recur to the twenty-seventh chapter : " And again, they say, the dead shall go forth frora the graves, that is to say, the spiritual, not the fleshly ones, being born again frora the earthly bodies.'' The Sethians quote from the tenth chapter (5. 21 ; p. 212 [146]) : "This is, they say, that which is spoken: I came not to cast peace upon the earth, but a sword." Basilides knew this Gospel. It is the merest chance that the little we have from him touches Matthew, just touches it. He was speaking of everything having its own time (7. 27; p. 376 [243]), and mentioned thereat : " the wise men who beheld the star." How easily could he have failed to use that example, or could Hippolytus have failed to quote the five words ! The so-called letter of Barnabas uses, as was mentioned above, the technical phrase " it is written " for a quotation from this Gospel (ch. 4) : " Let us give heed, lest, as it is written, we should be found : Many are caUed, but few are chosen." These words might have been^ yes, they may have been a comraon proverb in the time of Jesus, and the author of this letter could have quoted them as a well- known everyday proverb. But he does not do that. He quotes them as scripture, and doubtless has Matthew in view. When he writes (ch. 19) : " Thou shalt not approach unto prayer with an evU conscience," he may have the words of Jesus in Matthew in his mind, but it is not necessary that he should. His words (ch. 19): " Thou shalt not hesitate to give, nor when thou givest shalt thou THE AGE OF IREN^US— MATTHE-W 1 65 murmur ; but thou shalt know who is the good payer back of the reward," looks very much like a reference to the sixth chapter of Matthew. He quotes Matthew, but takes a curious view of the apostles when he writes (ch. 5) : "And when He chose His own disciples, who were going to preach His gospel, they being beyond all sin the most lawless ones, that He might show that He did not come to caU righteous but sinners, then He raanifested Himself to be a Son of God." One of his short suraming-ups (ch. 7) seems to have Matthew's account of the trial before Pilate as a basis : "And they shall say : Is not this the one whom we once crucified, deriding and piercing and spitting (upon Him)? In truth this was the one who then said that He Himself was a Son of God." We have very Uttie of what Valentinus wrote, and neverthe less Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 2. 20. 114) has, as men say, happened to save up for us a beautiful passage frora hira which gives us a few words from Matthew. Valentinus quotes and then coraraents upon the thought. I give his first sentence and then a later sentence which appears to show us what his text was here, what reading he had : " And one is good, whose revelation was openly through the Son ; and through Him alone could the heart become clean, every evil spirit being thrust out of the heart , , , In this raanner also the heart so long as it does not reach wisdora, being irapure, being the dwelling-place of many demons ; but when the only good Father turns His eyes upon it, it is made holy and beams with light; and he is blessed who has such a heart, for he shall see God." Is not that beautiful ? And it tells us that Valentinus knew and valued Matthew. Epiphanius (33. 8) has given us sorae quotations frora Ptolemaeus, Valentinus' disciple, including a letter written to a Christian woman naraed Flora ; and in this he shows clearly that he uses Matthew. Ptolemaeus is explaining the state of the Law to Flora : " Thus, therefore, also the law confessed to be God's is divided into three parts, on the one hand into that which was fulfiUed by the Saviour ; for the word : Thou shalt not kiU, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not swear falsely, is com prised in the neither being angry, nor lusting after, nor swearing. And it is divided into that which is finaUy done away with. For the word : Eye for eye and tooth for tooth, being woven about with unrighteousness and having itself something of unrighteous- X66 THE CANON ness, was annulled by the Saviour by the opposites. And the opposites annul each other : For I say unto you. Resist not evil at all. But if any one strike thee upon the cheek, turn to him also the other cheek.'' There we have both a quotation from Matthew and a suraraary based upon Matthew. And the same text that we found above in Valentinus is used again by Ptolemaeus in this letter, saying : " And if the perfect God is good according to His own nature, as He is, — for the Saviour declared to us that one alone is the good God, His own Father, — then the one of the opposite nature is characterised not only as bad, but also as wicked in unrighteousness." For another of Valentinus' pupils, the very little known Heracleon, we have in Origen's commentary (13. 59) on John a pair of sentences that point to Matthew. In one he uses the phrase : " Supposing that both body and soul are destroyed in hell." In the other: "He thinks that the destruction of the men of the Demiurge is raade plain in the words : The sons of the kingdom shaU go out into outer darkness." Among the many who indulged in the fancies of Valentinus' system was a man named Mark, apparently a Syrian, and his foUowers, who were caUed Marcosians. They are said to have written spurious Gospels, Yet it is plain that they used and treasured highly our fouf Gospels, For Matthew we may take the foUowing which Irenaeus brings from thera (i, 20. 2) : "And to the one saying to Him : Good teacher. He confessed the truly good God, saying : Why dost thou caU Me good ? One is good, the Father in the heavens. And they say that the heavens are now called the Eons." Again Irenaeus writes : " And because He did not answer to those who said to Him : With what authority doest Thou this ? but confounded them by His return question, they explain that He by so speaking showed that the Father was un utterable." Then Irenaeus places before us their use of the treasured verses in the eleventh chapter : " And again saying : Come to Me, aU ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And learn of Me, (they say) that He announced the Father of the truth. For what they did not know, they said, this He promised to teach them. . . . And as the highest point and the crown of their theory they bring the following : I confess Thee, Father, Lord of the heavens and of the earth, that Thou hast hidden (these things) from the wise and prudent, and hast THE AGE OF IREN.^US— MATTHEW 1 67 revealed them to babes. Thus, O Father, because grace was granted Me before Thee. All things were given over to Me by My Father. And no one knows the Father except the Son, and the Son except the Father, and to whomsoever the Son may reveal Him." This, as Irenaeus then explains, they apply to their notion that the God of the Old Testament had not the least in coramon with the good God of the New Testament : " In these words they say that He shows most clearly that the Father of truth whom they have also discovered, was never known to anyone before His coming. And they wish to insist upon it that the Maker and Creator was ever known of all men, and that the Lord spoke these words of the Father who was unknown to all, whom they set forth." They, base thus their main theory on the Gospel according to Matthew in this point, in which they undoubtedly followed in the footsteps of Valentinus. And we see, in spite of all that is said about other Gospels, that these, are their real Gospels, these are their foundation and tower. We have already shown above that Justin Martyr appears to have known the Gospel according to Matthew, To make assurance doubly sure, we find in the Dialogue with Trypho the second chapter of Matthew used and discussed more than once. He impresses it upon the Jew that Herod got his information from the Jewish presbyters (ch, 78) : " For also this King Herod learning from the elders of your people, the wise men then coming to him from Arabia and saying that they knew from a star that appeared in the heaven that a king was born in your country, and we are come to worship him," Justin continues the story at length, combining it with Isaiah. It is in connection with this that he speaks, as given above, of Herod's slaying aU the boys in Bethlehem. More than twenty chapters later (ch. 102) he returns to this chapter again. Here he again reverts to the journey into Egypt, and offers a possible objection : " And if anyone should say to us : Could not God have rather slain Herod ? I reply : Could not God at the beginning have taken away the serpent that it should not exist, instead of saying : I wUl put enmity between him and the woraan, and his seed and her seed ? Could He not at once have created a raultitude of men?" And he again reverts to this a chapter later (ch. 103). Then he gives the etynology of Satan frora sata, an apostate, and nas, a serpent — Satanas, and continues : " For this devil also at the sarae time 1 68 THE CANON that He went up from the river Jordan, the voice having said to Him : Thou art My Son, I to-day have begotten Thee, in the memoirs of the apostles it is written, coming up to Him also tempted Him so far as to say to Him : Worship me, and that Christ answered him : Go behind Me, Satan, the Lord thy God shalt thou worship, and Hira alone shalt thou serve." Again he writes (ch. 105) : "For also urging on His disciples to surpass the raethod of life of the Pharisees, and if not that they should understand that they will not be saved, that He said, this is written in the raeraoirs : Except your righteousness abound above the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens.'' At another place he writes (ch. 107) : "And that He was going to rise on the third day after being crucified, it is written in the memoirs that men from your race " — that is to say, Jews, like Trypho — " disputing with Him said : Show us a sign. And He answered to them : An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign, and a sign shall not be given unto them " — unto the people of that generation — " save the sign of Jonah." In the fragment on the Resurrection (ch. 2), Justin quotes Matthew: " The Saviour having said : They neither raarry nor are given in marriage, but shall be like angels in the heaven." Of course he quotes here as elsewhere loosely. We have already seen what Papias says about the work of Matthew in writing the Sayings of the Lord in Hebrew. I am inclined to suppose, as I have already explained, that that refers to the book which lies at the basis of the three synoptic Gospels. It may be that Papias as well as Eusebius, supposed that Hebrew book to have been accurately translated in and to be precisely our Matthew. The knowledge of Hebrew was not so widespread as to compel us to suppose that the assumption that the Hebrew book agreed with our Matthew was correct Nothing indicates in the least that Papias did not have and hold and treasure our four Gospels. As for Athenagoras, he quotes Matthew loosely, possibly bringing in a word or two from Luke. He writes (ch. 11): " What then are the words on which we have been brought up ? I say unto you : Love your eneraies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who persecute you, so that ye may be sons of your Father in the heavens, who causes His sun to rise on the evil and good, and rains upon just and unjust" One of his sumraaries THE AGE OF IREN.