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398 lation of Peter: and moreover that which is called the Epistle of Barnabas, and that named the Doctrines of the Apostles: and moreover, as I said, the Revelation of John (if you think good), which some, as I have said, do reject, but others allow of, and admit among those books which are received as unquestionable and undoubted.'

Eusebius, though he will not admit the Apocalypse even into the controverted list, but gives permission to call it spurious, yet qualifies his permission in a manner which almost annihilates the distinctive force of 🇬🇷, and gives the book a claim to rank (if you think good, again) in the controverted list. And this is the impression received by the mind of Lardner, who gives Eusebius fully and fairly, but when he sums up, considers his author as admitting the Apocalypse into the second list. A stick may easily be found to beat the father of ecclesiastical history. There are whole faggots in writers as opposite as Baronius and Gibbon, who are perhaps his two most celebrated sons. But we can hardly imagine him totally misrepresenting the state of opinion of those for whom and among whom he wrote. The usual plan, that of making an author take the views of his reader, is more easy in his case than in that of any other writer: for, as the riddle says, he is You-see-by-us; and to this reading of his name he has often been subjected. Dr. Nathaniel Lardner, who, though heterodox in doctrine, tries hard to be orthodox as to the Canon, is 'sometimes apt to think' that the list should be collected and divided as in Eusebius. He would have no one of the controverted books to be allowed, by itself, to establish any doctrine. Even without going so far, a due use of early opinion and long continued discussion would perhaps prevent rational people from being induced by those who have the double Vahu to place the Apocalypse above the Gospels, which all the Bivahuites do in effect, and some are said to have done in express words. But my especial purpose is to point out that an easy way of getting rid of 665 out of 666 of the mystics is to require them to establish the Apocalypse before they begin. See if they even know so much as that there is a crowd of testimonies for and against, running through the first four centuries, which makes this book the most difficult of the whole Canon. Try this method, and you will escape beautiful, as the French say. Dean Alford, in vol. iv. p. 8. of his New Testament, gives an elaborate handling of this question. He concludes by saying that he cannot venture to refuse his consent to the tradition that the Apostle is the author. This modified adherence, or non-nonadherence, pretty well represents