with the person of Christ would be contact with his apostles, men who had seen him, sat at his feet, and received the Word of life.

The interval between Christ as a living teacher and the records of his life and doctrine was brief, and that interval was full of verbal testimony. The doctrines of Christ were promulgated at once: justification by faith, the forgiveness of sins in his name and by his merit, and the resurrection of the dead (Acts 4. 2). There were writings that gave some account of Jesus before the gospels or epistles, and though not the writing of the apostles they contained truth and served a good purpose. Saint Luke alludes to them in the prologue to his gospel. Those writings needed an evangelist who possessed a selective inspiration to set in order the things delivered by eyewitnesses.

After these came these books of the New Testament, which have been judged by a rule or standard and assigned a place in the canon of Holy Scripture:

These are the books of the New Testament which the Church receives and accounts canonical. What is the standard by which they have been judged?

The primitive Church deemed the canonicity of any writing to be determined by the fact that it was written either by an apostle of Christ or by his dictation. Christ had promised the apostles special guidance in this matter, and the fact that they themselves wrote was regarded as proof that what they had written was inspired by the Holy Spirit. "These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John 14. 25, 26). "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come" (John 16. 12, 13).

This is a promise of divine quickening of memory in regard to what Jesus had said while upon earth and of new revelations in regard to the kingdom of God. In the prosecution of their work the apostles claimed to have received the fulfillment of the promises, and to speak under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and they anathematized any who should preach another gospel: "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. . . . As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1. 9-12). "For this cause also thank we God without

ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe" (1 Thess. 2. 13).

It was the policy of Saint Paul to found churches in the great centers of population and commerce, that from these the gospel might be spread in all directions. To these new-founded churches his epistles were addressed, but designed also for other churches contiguous to them: "And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea" (Col. 4. 16).

The Epistle to the Galatians was addressed to "the churches of Galatia" (Gal. 1. 2); not to one church, but to all the churches in the province. In this way the important churches came early to possess the authenticated books. Each church had a canon of sacred books of its own, which was gradually enlarged by mutual exchange and a more intimate knowledge of Church literature in distant countries.

The gospel had spread over a wide area, and churches had been founded in Asia, Africa, and Europe before the end of the apostolic age. In that age the Church of Christ was united; part was not arrayed against part. One spirit animated the whole. An indication of wide fraternity is given in the salutations in Paul's epistles.

For the first three centuries the Christians were subjected to severe persecutions, and often had to worship in secret places, and could not have a general assembly for the comparison of views or for the establishment of a general canon. It is likely they did not feel the need of such a canon for some time after the death of the apostles. But as Christianity spread into different countries and among people of different tongues it became

necessary that some knowledge should be obtained of the books that were read in the congregations.

The general canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, was a growth; it was not made up suddenly as soon as the latest New Testament writer died. Each book, even the most venerable, had to acquire its standing by years of use; not by the decision of men, but little by little, by God the Controller of minds and ages.

The first authority by which books were admitted was that of the individuals or the local churches to which they were addressed, who knew them to be genuine writings of the apostles and evangelists. At that time the Christians were few in number and widely scattered, with limited facilities for communication. The word "church" was applied to a company of believers great or small. Paul addressed one epistle to Philemon "and to the church in thy house." Tertullian thought "three were sufficient to make a church," and a bishop's diocese was no larger than a modern parish. "The bishop had but one altar or communion table in his whole diocese, at which his whole flock received the sacrament from him." To such churches, some large, some small, Paul's epistles were addressed. They were in their care, and a few were in the hands of individuals. Each church knew the history of the Scriptures it possessed. The canon was not determined by any council or collective body. A book was not decreed canonical in any formal way; it was admitted by the tacit consent, first of individual churches, then of all the churches having knowledge of it. Judgment was rendered upon the evidence of history and contents. When the testimony was unanimous, or generally concurred in, the book was deemed canonical; if otherwise, it was rejected.

1 Lord King, Primitive Church, p. 16.

The churches to which the books had found their way were independent, and would give undoubted testimony to the copies sent by them to other churches. A book appearing of a later date or without name, no matter what its quality, was rejected or held in doubt. It was the aggregate of the accepted books which constituted the New Testament canon, as found and recorded by later Church Councils. There were some disputed books which gradually won their way to general acceptance, and it is believed that the final judgment in each case was correct, and that their genuineness can be satisfactorily established both from external and internal evidence. "Indeed, the early Christians had such means of knowing the truth, and exercised so much care and judgment in settling the canon of the New Testament, that no writing which was pronounced by them genuine has been found to be spurious, nor any genuine which they rejected." Bishop Horne says, "We receive the books of the New Testament as the genuine works of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter, and Jude, for the same reason that we receive the writings of Xenophon, of Cæsar, and Tacitus; namely, because we have the uninterrupted testimony of ages to their genuineness, and we have no reason to suspect imposition."2

Individual writers from the apostles down quoted from the books of the New Testament long before any general catalogue of them had been made. Peter quoted Paul: "Even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things" (2 Pet. 3. 15, 16). Polycarp (A. D. 80-166), a contemporary of the apostle John, cites many passages from Matthew, Luke, Paul, Peter, and John. Irenæus mentions

1 Tomline, vol. i, p. 235.

Introduction, vol. i, p. 71.