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indeed the name of critic) and who offered no reason for his determination. What St. Jerome fays of him intimates this, and is befide founded in good sense; speaking of him and Bafilides, "if they had affigned any rea"fons," fays he, "why they did not reckon "these epiftles," viz. the first and second to Timothy and the epiftle to Titus," to be "the apostle's, we would have endeavoured "to have answered them, and perhaps

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might have fatisfied the reader; but when

they take upon them, by their own au

thority, to pronounce one epiftle to be "Paul's, and another not, they can only be "replied to in the fame manner*." Let it be remembered, however, that Marcion received ten of thefe epiftles. His authority therefore, even if his credit had been better than it is, forms a very fmall exception to the uniformity of the evidence. Of Bafilides we know ftill lefs than we do of Marcion. The fame obfervation however belongs to him, viz. that his objection, as far as appears from this paffage of St. Jerome, was con

* Lardner, vol. xiv. p. 458.

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fined

fined to the three private epiftles. Yet is this the only opinion which can be faid to disturb the confent of the two firft centuries of the Chriftian æra; for as to Tatian, who is reported by Jerome alone to have rejected fome of St. Paul's epiftles, the extravagant or rather delirious notions into which he fell, take away all weight and credit. from his judgment. If, indeed, Jerome's account of this circumftance be correct; for it appears from much older writers than Jerome, that Tatian owned and used many of thefe epiftles*.

II. They, who in thofe ages difputed about fo many other points, agreed in acknowledging the fcriptures now before us. Contending fects appealed to them in their controverfies with equal and unreserved fubmiffion. When they were urged by one fide, however they might be interpreted or mifinterpreted by the other, their authority was not queftioned: "Reliqui omnes," fays Irenæus, fpeaking of Marcion, "falfo fci"entiæ nomine inflati, fcripturas quidem

I

*Lardner, vol. i. p. 313.

"confi

"confitentur, interpretationes vero con"vertunt*."

III. When the genuineness of fome other writings which were in circulation, and even of a few which are now received into the canon, was contefted, these were never called into difpute. Whatever was the objection, or whether, in truth, there ever was any real objection to the authenticity of the second epistle of Peter, the second and third of John, the epiftle of James, or that of Jude, or to the book of the Revelations of St. John, the doubts that appear to have been entertained concerning them, exceedingly ftrengthen the force of the teftimony as to thofe writings, about which there was no doubt; because it shows, that the matter was a fubject, amongst the early Christians, of examination and difcuffion; and that, where there was any room to doubt, they did doubt.

What Eufebius hath left upon the subject is directly to the purpose of this obfervation. Eufebius, it is well known, di

* Iren. advers. Hær. quoted by Lardner, vol. xv. P. 425.

vided the ecclcfiaftical writings which were extant in his time into three claffes; the avaντiρрητα, unсcontradicted," as he calls them in one chapter; or " fcriptures uni

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verfally acknowledged," as he calls them in another; the controverted, yet well "known and approved by many;" and "the fpurious." What were the fhades of difference in the books of the fecond, or in thofe of the third clafs; or what it was precifely that he meant by the term fpurious, it is not neceffary in this place to enquire. It is fufficient for us to find, 'that the thirteen epiftles of St. Paul are placed by him in the first class without any fort of hesitation or doubt.

It is farther alfo to be collected from the chapter in which this diftinction is laid down, that the method made ufe of by Eufebius, and by the Chriftians of his time, viz. the clofe of the third century, in judging concerning the facred authority of any books, was to enquire after and confider the teftimony of those who lived near the age of the apoftles*.

* Lardner, vol. viii. p. 106.

IV. That

IV. That no ancient writing, which is attefted as thefe epiftles are, hath had its authenticity difproved, or is in fact queftioned. The controverfies which have been moved concerning suspected writings, as the epiftles, for inftance, of Phalaris, or the eighteen epiftles of Cicero, begin by fhowing that this atteftation is wanting. That being proved, the queftion is thrown back upon internal marks of fpurioufnefs or authenticity; and in these the dispute is occupied. In which difputes it is to be obferved, that the contested writings are commonly attacked by arguments drawn from fome oppofition which they betray to “au"thentic history," to "true epiftles," to "the "real fentiments or circumftances of the au"thor whom they perfonate*;" which au thentic hiftory, which true epiftles, which real fentiments themfelves, are no other than ancient documents, whofe early existence and reception can be proved, in the manner in which the writings before us

* See the tracts written in the controverfy between Tunstal and Middleton upon certain suspected epiftles afcribed to Cicero..

are

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