A Source Book for Ancient Church History. Joseph Cullen Ayer

founded by preaching to them, both viva voce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by epistles. If this is so, it is evident that all doctrine which agrees with those apostolic churches, the wombs and origins of the faith, must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing what the churches received from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, Christ from God. There remains, therefore, for us to show whether our doctrine, the rule of which we have given above [v. infra, § 29, c], agrees with the tradition of the Apostles, and likewise whether the others come from deceit. We hold fast to the apostolic churches, because in none is there a different doctrine; this is the witness of the truth.

      (c) Tertullian, De Præscriptione, 36. (MSL, 2:58.)

       It should be noted that the appeal to apostolic churches is to any and all such, and is accordingly just so much the stronger in the [pg 116] controversy in which it was brought forward. The argument, whenever it occurs, does not turn upon the infallibility of any one see or church as such. That point is not touched. Such a turn to the argument would have weakened the force of the appeal in the dispute with the Gnostics, however powerfully it might be used in other controversies.

      Come, now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, if you would apply it to the business of your salvation, run over the apostolic churches, in which the very thrones of the Apostles are still pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authentic writings are read, uttering the voice and representing the face of each of them severally. Achaia is very near you, in which you find Corinth. Since you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi; there, too, you have the Thessalonians. Since you are able to cross to Asia, you get Ephesus. Since, moreover, you are close upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very authority of Apostles themselves. How happy is that church, on which Apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! Where Peter endures a passion like his Lord's; where Paul wins a crown in a death like John's; where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island exile! See what she has learned, what taught; what fellowship she has had with even our churches in Africa! One Lord God does she acknowledge, the Creator of the universe, and Christ Jesus born of the Virgin Mary, the Son of God the Creator; and the resurrection of the flesh; the law and the prophets she unites in one volume with the writings of Evangelists and Apostles, from which she drinks in her faith. This she seals with the water of baptism, arrays with the Holy Ghost, feeds with the eucharist, cheers with martyrdom, and against such a discipline thus maintained she admits no gainsayer.

      [pg 117]

      § 28. The Canon or the Authoritative New Testament Writings

      The Gnostics used in support of their doctrines writings which they attributed to the Apostles, thus having a direct apostolic witness to these doctrines. This they did in imitation of the Church's practice of using apostolic writings for edification and instruction. Marcion drew up a list of books which were alone to be regarded as authoritative among his followers [v. supra, § 23, a]. The point to be made by the champions of the faith of the great body of Christians was that only those books could be legitimately used in support of Christian doctrine which could claim actual apostolic origin and had been used continuously in the Church. As a fact, the books to which they appealed had been in use generation after generation, but the Gnostic works were unknown until a comparatively recent time and were too closely connected with only the founders of a sect to deserve credence. It was a simple literary argument and appeal to tangible evidence. The list of books regarded as authoritative constituted the Canon of Scripture. The state of the Canon in the second half of the second century, especially in the West, is shown in the following extracts.

       Additional source material: See Preuschen, Analecta, II, Tübingen, 1910; Tatian, Diatessaron, ANF, IX; The Gospel of Peter, ibid.

      (a) The Muratorian Fragment. Text, B. F. Westcott, A General Survey of the History of the Canon of the New Testament, seventh ed., Cambridge, 1896. Appendix C; Kirch, n. 134; Preuschen, Analecta, II, 27. Cf. Mirbt, n. 20.

       The earliest list of canonical books of the New Testament was found by L. A. Muratori in 1740 in a MS. of the eighth century. It lacks beginning and end. It belongs to the middle or the second half of the second century. It cannot with certainty be attributed to any known person. The obscure Latin text is probably a translation from the Greek. The fragment begins with what appears to be an account of St. Mark's Gospel.

      [pg 118]

      … but at some he was present, and so he set them down.

      The third book of the gospels, that according to Luke. Luke, the physician, compiled it in his own name in order, when, after the ascension of Christ, Paul had taken him to be with him like a student of law. Yet neither did he see the Lord in the flesh; and he, too, as he was able to ascertain events, so set them down. So he began his story from the birth of John.

      The fourth of the gospels is John's, one of the disciples. When exhorted by his fellow-disciples and bishops, he said, “Fast with me this day for three days; and what may be revealed to any of us, let us relate to one another.” The same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the Apostles, that John was to write all things in his own name, and they were all to certify.

      And therefore, though various elements are taught in the several books of the gospels, yet it makes no difference to the faith of the believers, since by one guiding Spirit all things are declared in all of them concerning the nativity, the passion, the resurrection, the conversation with His disciples, and His two comings, the first in lowliness and contempt, which has come to pass, the second glorious with royal power, which is to come.

      What marvel, therefore, if John so firmly sets forth each statement in his epistles, too, saying of himself: “What we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears and our hands have handled, these things we have written to you”? For so he declares himself to be not an eye-witness and a hearer only, but also a writer of all the marvels of the Lord in order.

      The acts, however, of all the Apostles are written in one book. Luke puts it shortly, “to the most excellent Theophilus,” that the several things were done in his own presence, as he also plainly shows by leaving out the passion of Peter, and also the departure of Paul from the city [i.e., Rome] on his journey to Spain.

      [pg 119]

      The epistles, however, of Paul make themselves plain to those who wish to understand what epistles were sent by him, and from what place and for what cause. He wrote at some length, first of all, to the Corinthians, forbidding schisms and heresies; next to the Galatians, forbidding circumcision; then to the Romans, impressing on them the plan of the Scriptures, and also that Christ is the first principle of them, concerning which severally it is necessary for us to discuss, since the blessed Apostle Paul himself, following the order of his predecessor John, writes only by name to seven churches in the following order: to the Corinthians a first, to the Ephesians a second, to the Philippians a third, to the Colossians a fourth, to the Galatians a fifth, to the Thessalonians a sixth, to the Romans a seventh; and yet, although for the sake of admonition there is a second to the Corinthians and to the Thessalonians, but one Church is recognized as being spread over the entire world. For John, too, in the Apocalypse, though he writes to seven churches, yet speaks to all. Howbeit to Philemon one, to Titus one, and to Timothy two were put in writing from personal inclination and attachment, to be in honor, however, with the Catholic Church for the ordering of the ecclesiastical mode of life. There is current, also, one to the Laodiceans, another to the Alexandrians, [both] forged in Paul's name to suit a heresy of Marcion, and several others, which cannot be received into the Catholic Church; for it is not fitting that gall be mixed with honey.

      The Epistle of Jude, no doubt, and the couple bearing the name of John are accepted in the Catholic [Church], and the Wisdom written by the friends of Solomon in his honor. The Apocalypse, also, of John and of Peter only we receive; which some of us will not have read in the Church. But the Shepherd was written quite lately in our times by Hermas, while his brother Pius, the bishop, was sitting in the chair of the church of the city of Rome; and therefore it ought to be read, indeed, but it cannot to the end of time be publicly