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give this as a sound and authorized conclusion, but as such an one as may perhaps have satisfied the mind of Dionysius, who certainly found a great stumbling-block in the style and manner of the Apocalypse, and yet appears by his profession, and by his practice, to have received it as an inspired book.

I have extended my observations, I fear, to an unwarranted length, in this attempt to reconcile the opinions of Dionysius. But I was moved to it by a desire to do justice to a character which stands deservedly high in Ecclesiastical History; to exculpate an eminent Christian Father, from the charge of setting an example, under which the late Mr. Gibbon might have sheltered his artful, disingenuous, and insulting attack upon the Christian religion. shall return to my subject; first remarking on the external evidence collected from Dionysius, that whatever notion may obtain concerning his private opinions, it is at least clear, from his testimony, that the Apocalypse was generally received in his time, and in high estimation with those Christians whom Dionysius himself revered.

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"After the age of Dionysius," says our author*, "the number of ecclesiastical writers, "who quote the Apocalypse as a divine work, especially of the members of the Latin Church, begins to increase. But as they are of less

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* P. 484.

"importance

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"importance than the more ancient writers, and "I have little or nothing to remark on their "quotations, I shall content myself with barely

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" mentioning their names, and referring to Lardner, by whom their quotations are collected *. Little more, indeed, can be done; to the weight of evidence already produced, not much can now be added; nor can it be deemed to diminish from it, if some writers of account in later times, influenced perhaps by the arguments advanced by Dionysius and by others, concerning the internal, have been backward to admit the external evidence for the Apocalypse.

This book was received, as of sacred authority, in the times of Dionysius, by Cyprian, and by the African Churches; by the Presbyters and others of the Church of Rome, who corresponded with Cyprian; by divers Latin authors whose history is abstracted by Lardner ; by the anonymous author of a work against the Novatians; by the Novatians themselves; by Commodian; by Victorinus, who wrote a commentary upon it; by the author of the poem against the Marcionites; by Methodius, who also commented upon it; by the Manichæans ; by the later Arnobius; by the Donatists; and by Lactantius.

All these evidences in favour of the Apocalypse are admitted by Michaelis, who expresses no doubt concerning any of them, excepting

*See Lardner's Cred. Gosp. Hist. part ii. vol. ii. p. 777, &c.

the

the Manichæans, whose evidence, in another passage, he seems to allow *.

We now come to the testimony of EUSEBIUS, which may deserve a more particular attention. To this valuable collector of Ecclesiastical History (which would otherwise have perished), we are indebted for many important testimonies of ancient authors in favour of the Apocalypse, which have already been produced. And by him we have been informed of all the objections which were made to it, by Caius and Dionysius, which seem to have had a considerable influence upon the learned Christians of Eusebius's age, and to have occasioned some doubt among them, whether they should receive the Apocalypse into their catalogue of undoubted books of Holy Writ, or place it among those of less authority. Eusebius represents the matter as in debate, and not yet determined, at the time he wrote his Ecclesiastical History. He promises further information when the matter shall be settled by the testimony of the ancients; but it does not appear that he ever gave it.

We may be enabled to form some notion of the nature of this debate concerning the Apocalypse, by attending to what Eusebius has delivered upon the subject. He has distributed into four classes all the books pretending to

*P. 521.

a place

a place in the sacred canon of the New Testament *.

1. The Oμoysμevol, Avaμpiñenfor, books universally read, and admitted to be genuine.

2. Αντιλεγομένοι, Όμως Γνώριμοι Τοις Πολλοις, books objected to by some, yet acknowledged by the many, by the greater part of the Church.

3. Nofo, spurious, or apocryphal books, whose authenticity, or whose divine inspiration, was denied by the Church, but which might be usefully read, as containing pious thoughts, and no bad doctrine.

4. Books published by heretics, which no Father of the Church has deigned to support with his external evidence, and which have no support of internal evidence, being discordant from the apostolical writings, both as to matter and

manner.

Eusebius places the Apocalypse in the first, and also in the third class; but as it cannot belong to both, so, in placing it in each of these classes, he adds, & Paven, "if it should so seem 'proper." It was to stand in one of these classes, when the question concerning its pretensions should be determined. Hence may be then so far set

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inferred, that the question was tled in the mind of Eusebius, that it must belong either to the first or third class, and by no means to the second or fourth. It was not then esteemed, with the books of the fourth class, a

*H. E. lib. iii. c. 25.

forgery

forgery of the heretics; it was not the work of Cerinthus. From this silly notion of it, first started by the Alogi, it was now fairly delivered. The quotations of the early Fathers, as well as internal evidence arising from the book, which is contradictory to the tenets of Cerinthus, and affords support to no heresy, had saved it from this class.

Nor it was it to be placed in the second class; with the Epistles of James, Jude, &c. books, which a considerable part of the Christian world had not received, though they were generally acknowledged to be of divine authority. This determination, excluding the Apocalypse from the second class, seems to import, that the Apocalypse, until the times of Eusebius, was almost universally received by the Church. The doubts concerning it had arisen only in the minds of a few learned critics, who, from an examination of the style and other internal marks, were induced to contend that it was not the work of Saint John. If it should be determined to be John's work, it was then to be referred to the same class with his Gospel and first Epistle. If it were found not to be written by that Apostle, it was yet allowed to be the work of some other pious apostolical John, and then, as it could not be placed in the first class, with the writings of the Apostles, it was to be consigned to the same class with the writings of apostolical men; with the Epistle of Barnabas,

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