Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/20

xvi believed by certain persons to be divine; but they are mentioned only by way of warning and caution. The most remarkable example of the kind, perhaps, is the list which commonly passes under the name of Gelasius, who was bishop of Rome in 492 to 496. A synod is said to have been held at Rome, in which seventy bishops agreed to certain catalogues of books. The first catalogue comprises the books of the Old and New Testament. The second catalogue is of books not to be regarded as canonical or of Divine authority. Among these are some which still exist. The genuineness of this remarkable document has been denied, but, whether genuine or a forgery, it may fairly claim to represent the character and position of the writings enumerated towards the year 500 after Christ.

Some modern writers have, like Archbishop Wake, greatly overvalued some books which never even pretended to form part of Holy Scripture. The learned, but illogical, Whiston also would have admitted into the New Testament some of the most notorious forgeries.

Towards the close of the seventeenth century some unguarded expressions of Toland, in his life of Milton, were laid hold of by Dr. Blackhall as the