Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/18

8 it freely as a text-book of gnosis, without recognizing it as the his torical work of an apostle. It is pretty certain that he employed an extra-canonical gospel, perhaps the so-called gospel of the Hebrews. He had also the older Acts of Pilate. Paul s epistles nre never mentioned, though he doubtless knew them. Having little sympathy with Paulinism he attached his belief to the primi tive apostles. The Apocalypse, 1 Peter, and 1 John he esteemed highly ; the epistle to the Hebrews and the Acts he treated in the same way as the Pauline writings. Justin s canon, as far as divine authority and inspiration are concerned, was the Old Testament. Ho was merely on the threshold of a divine canon made up of primitive Christian writings, attaching no exclusive sanctity to those he used, because they were not to him the only source of doc trine. Even of the Apocalypse he says, &quot;A man among us named John, &c. , wrote it.&quot; In his time none of the gospels had been canonized, not even the synoptists, if, indeed, he knew them all. Oral tradition was the chief fountain of Christian knowledge, as it had been for a century. In his opinion this tradition was embodied in writing ; but the documents in which he looked for all that related to Christ were not the gospels alone. Others he used freely, not looking upon any as inspired. Though lessons out of the gospels (some of our present ones and others), as also out of the prophets, were read in assemblies on the first day of the week, the act of converting the Christian writings into Scripture was posterior; for the mere reading of a gospel in churches on Sunday does not prove that it was considered divinely authoritative ; and the use of the epistles, which formed the second and less valued part of the collection, must still have been limited.}}

The conception of a catholic canon was realized about the same time as that of a catholic church. One hundred and seventy years from the coming of Christ elapsed before the collection assumed a form that carried with it the idea of holy and inspired. The way in which it was done was by raising the apostolic writings higher and higher till they were of equal authority with the Old Testament, so that the church might have a rule of appeal. The Old Testa ment was not brought down to the New ; the New was raised to the Old. It is clear that the earliest church fathers did not use the books of the New Testament as sacred documents clothed with divine authority, but fol lowed for the most part, afc least till the middle of the second century, apostolic tradition orally transmitted. They were not solicitous about a canon circumscribed within certain limits. In the second half, then, of the second century there was a canon of the New Testament consisting of two parts called the gospel (TO euayye Atov) and the apostle (6 aTrocr- roXos). The first was complete, containing the four gospels alone; the second, which was incomplete, contained the Acts of the Apostles and epistles, i.e., thirteen letters of Paul, one of Peter, one of John, and the Revelation. How and where this canon originated is uncertain. Its birth place may have been Asia Minor, like Marcion s ; but it may have grown about the same time in Asia Minor, Alex andria, and Western Africa. At all events, Irenaeus, Cle ment of Alexandria, and Tertullian speak ,of its two parts ; and the three agree in recognizing its existence.

