§ 1. How did the Church arrive at a second authoritative Canon in addition to the Old Testament?

From the standpoint of the Apostolic Epoch it would be perfectly intelligible if the Church, in regard to written authorities, had decided to be satisfied with the possession of the Old Testament. I need not trouble to prove this. We should, however, have been to a certain extent prepared if, as time went on, the Church had added some other writings to this book to which it held fast. Indeed, in the first century, even among the Jews, the Old Testament was not yet quite rigidly closed, its third division was still in a somewhat fluid condition, and, above all, in the Dispersion, among the Greek-speaking Jews, side by side with the Scriptures of the Palestinian collection, there were in circulation numerous sacred writings in Greek of which a considerable number became gradually and quite naturally attached to the authoritative collection. It would therefore have been in no sense surprising, nor would it have been regarded as extraordinary, if from the Christian side some new edifying works had been added to this collection. This actually happened here and there with Apocalypses; indeed, attempts were even made to smuggle new chapters and verses into some of the ancient books of the Canon.See my Altchristl. Lit.-Gesch., 1, S. 849 ff.; ii. 1, S. 560–589; Texte u. Unters., Bd. 39, Hft. 1, S. 69 ff. That round about the year A.D. 200 Tertullian wished to add Enoch to the Old Testament is well known, and the reasons he gives are very instructive. See Sitzungsber., 1914, S. 310 f. In this fashion Christians might have proceeded in yet bolder style, without doing anything unusual, and so might have been able to satisfy requirements which were not met, or not completely met, by the Old Testament. Lastly, judging from the standpoint of the Apostolic Age, we should not have been surprised if in the near future the Old Testament had been rejected or set aside by the Gentile Churches. When the word had gone forth that one should know nothing else than Christ Crucified and Risen, when it was taught that the Law was abolished and that all had become new, the step was very near to recognise the Gospel of Christ, and nothing else. “I believe nothing that I do not find in the Gospel” (Ignat., Phil., 8)—what object then was served by the Old Testament? That the Apostle who taught all this nevertheless himself accepted the Old Testament offered no special difficulty. Gentile Christians knew very well that the Apostle, who to Jews became a Jew, for his own person and out of regard to the Jews, had clung to many things that were not meant to be accepted by others or need no longer be accepted. For all these possibilities (the Old Testament alone; an enriched Old Testament; no Old Testament) we should thus have been prepared; but we should have been absolutely unprepared for that which actually happened—a second authoritative collection. How did this come about? It is true indeed that the fact that an Old Testament existed had the most important part in the suggestion and creation of a New Testament; and yet for decades of years the Old Testament was the greatest hindrance to such a creation, more especially because the Old Testament in a very complete and masterly way was subjected to Christian interpretation,St Paul himself offered a rich collection of such Christian interpretations, although he, as a rule, allowed to the Law its literal sense. and so Christians already possessed in it a foundation document for that new thing which they had experienced. Still, far down beneath the movements of the time, a more sure preparation was being made for that which was to come, namely the New Testament, than for all the other possibilities. These had their strength in forces which lay on the surface; but under the surface a new spirit was working from the beginning, and was striving to come to light.

Here three questions present themselves: (A) What motives led to the creation of the New Testament? (B) Whence came the authority that was necessary for such a creation? (C) Supposing the necessity of a New Testament, how did it actually come into being?

(A) Here a series of motives increasing in importance were at work; but it was the last of these that demanded a new written authority side by side with the Old Testament (and this without abandonment of the same).

(1) The earliest motive force, one that had been at work from the beginning of the Apostolic Age, was the supreme reverence in which the words and teaching of Christ Jesus were held. I have purposely used the expression “supreme reverence,” for in the ideas of those days inspiration and authority had their degrees. Not only were the spirits of the prophets subject to the prophets, but there were recognised degrees of higher and highest in their utterances. Now there can be no doubt that for the circle of disciples the Word of Jesus represented the highest degree. He Himself had often introduced His message with the words “I am come” (i.e. to do something which had not yet been done), or, “But I say unto you” (in opposition to something that had been hitherto said). This claim received its complete recognition among the disciples in the unswerving conviction that the words and directions of Jesus formed the supreme rule of life. Thus side by side with the writings of the Old Testament appeared the Word of “the Lord,” and not only so, but in the formula γραφαὶ καὶ ὁ κύριος(The Scriptures and the Lord.) I cannot be persuaded that “the Lord” as a title of Jesus was first conceived on Gentile-Christian soil. The idea of “Messiah” simply includes that of “Lord.” The formula “The Scriptures and the Lord” has manifold attestation direct as well as indirect in the Apostolic and post-Apostolic epoch. the two terms were not only of equal authority, but the second unwritten term received a stronger accent than the first that had literary form. We may therefore say that in this formula we have the nucleus of the New Testament. But even in the Apostolic Age and among the Palestinian communities it had become interchangeable with the formula αἱ γραφαὶ καὶ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον(The Scriptures and the Gospel.) for in the “Good News” was comprised what the Messiah had said, taught, and revealed.It is a waste of time to discuss which of the two formulæ, αἱ γραφαὶ καὶ ὁ κύριος or αἱ γραφαὶ καὶ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, is the earlier. Concerning “evangelium” and the earliest history of the conception, I refer to my book Entstehung und Entwickelung der Kirchenverfassung (1910), S. 199-239, especially S. 224 ff. These two almost identical formulæ, though they do not as yet distinguish the followers of Jesus from ideal Judaism, nevertheless mark a breach with Judaism as it actually existed.We must cry halt for a moment, for the historian of the New Testament in order to gain a more exact conception of what actually happened must survey what might have happened. If the motive here described could have had free course, undisturbed by other motives, we should have expected that a collection of authoritative sayings of Jesus loosely compiled or in more connected form, and at the most enriched by some eschatological elements, would have taken its place beside the Old Testament. And for a time this is what actually happened both in the case of the looser and more connected forms. In the compilation Q that lies behind the Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke we have an example of the looser form, and in the Christian version of “The Two Ways” of the more connected form. The latter work, in the form which it has received in the “Didache,” is especially interesting, because in it an attempt is made to base not only the ethics but also the most important institutions of the Christian communities (such as Baptism, Prayer, Fasting, the Eucharist, the rules of life, etc.) upon sayings of Jesus, and thus to give the whole Christian position an “evangelical” foundation, so that it should not depend on the Old Testament as its sole written authority. Lastly, this ancient Didache, in so far as it claims to be both “Teaching of the Lord” and “Teaching of the Apostles,” (Διδαχὴ κυρὶου διὰ τῶν ιβ´ ἀποστόλων) also implies that relative identification of Christ and the Apostles which, as we shall see, was the most essential condition of the origin of the New Testament. Thus without exaggeration we may say that Q (in its earliest form), as well as the old Didache, aim in their own fashion at being a New Testament or “the New Testament.” It was not outside the limits of possibility that Christendom should have produced as its “New Testament,” nothing except a work like the “Didache” side by side with the Old Testament (and the Gospels). How nearly this happened we may judge from the important fact that, even after the New Testament was created, the production of works like the Didache, based upon the authority of the Lord and the Apostles (Constitutions, Canons, etc.), continued up to the fifth and sixth centuries. The motive which led to this authoritative literature is thus older than those which led to the New Testament. When we take up works like the “Apostolic Canons” we should remember that we are dealing with rivals of the New Testament, in idea more ancient and venerable than the New Testament itself, in spite of their wild and audacious development of that idea.

§ 2. Why is it that the New Testament also contains other books beside the Gospels, and appears as a compilation with two divisions (“Evangelium” and “Apostolus”)?

In the foregoing section hints have been given which prepare for the answering of this question; but the problem has not yet been set in clear light. How great it is must be realised by everyone who reflects only for a moment. In the New Testament letters which serve momentary and particular needs are set on a level of equal value with the Gospels; what is merely personal with what is of universal import; the Apostles with Christ; their work with His work! In a compilation which is invested with Divine authority we must read: “Drink a little wine for thy stomach’s sake,” and “my cloak I left at Troas.” Side by side with the words of Divine mercy and loving-kindness in the Gospels we meet with outbreaks of passionate personal strife in the Epistles; side by side with the stories of the Passion and Resurrection, the dry notes of the diary of a missionary journey!

He who would show how two absolutely disparate entities have yet come together can only solve the problem if he can prove that they form the extreme wings of a complex whole that is governed by an idea. The idea in question here is the idea of Tradition. One of the great problems which has silently dominated the inner history of the Church for centuries is the problem, “Scripture and Tradition.” In the compilation of the New Testament this problem already, to a certain extent, found a solution; indeed, properly speaking, the strivings and conflicts that have taken place since this solution, i.e. since the creation of the New Testament, are all of them only of secondary import. The main battle was long since fought and decided in favour of Tradition when the New Testament was compiled and in the very fact of its compilation; but, unfortunately, historians have not yet generally recognised this truth. The New Testament itself, when compared with what Jesus purposed, said, and was, is already a tradition which overlies and obscures. When then we speak to-day of the antagonism and conflict between Scripture and Tradition, the tradition in question is a second tradition.

The compilation of the New Testament out of the “Gospels,” with their Apostolic titles and the “Apostolus,” is clearly the expression of two convictions: (A) that in a certain sense the Apostles are equal to Christ in that they, being chosen not only to be His witnesses, but also dispensers of His power, are His continuation; and (B) that the attestation of a revelation is not less important than its content. When did these convictions make their appearance? How and under what circumstances did they attach themselves to books? How was it that under their influence the Acts of the Apostles came to be accepted into the Canon, and that such strong preference was given to St Paul?

(A) Sceptical critics of the Synoptic Gospels have thought it necessary to disintegrate with special stringency the tradition concerning the relationship between our Lord and His twelve Disciples.According to the delusive canon, which, unfortunately, so many scholars of to-day follow in the criticism of the Gospels, that passages which can also have sprung from developments of the Apostolic and later ages must therefore have so sprung. For example: Jesus speaks of future persecutions; such persecutions actually occurred; hence these sayings have been constructed ex eventu and do not belong to Him. Albert Schweitzer does well to protest strongly against such a method. Indeed even the number twelve, and with it every special reference to “chosen” disciples, is objected to. In my opinion, criticism is here running on false lines. Sayings like: Ἐγω διατίθεμαι ὑμῖν, καθὼς διέθετό μοι ὁ πατήρ μου βασιλείαν, ἵνα ἔσθητε καὶ πίνητε ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέξης μου ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ μου, καὶ καθῆσθε ἐπὶ θρόνων τὰς δώδεκα φυλὰς κρίνοντες τοῦ Ἰσραήλ (St Luke xxii. 29 f.);Notice the Jewish horizon of this saying. or Ὁ δεχόμενος ὑμας ἐμὲ δέχεται, καὶ ὁ ἐμὲ δεχόμενος δέχεται τὸν ἀποστείλαντά με (St Matt. x. 40), the fundamental thought of which is found both in St Mark and in Q, cannot but be accepted as essentially trustworthy.

There also appears to be no special reason to doubt that Jesus during His lifetime sent out twelve disciples on a mission in Palestine and that they actually undertook this mission and returned to Him again. All in all, sayings of Jesus must have existed that referred to the disciples as sent out on the mission, and that offered them the prospect of the highest authority and of even Messianic powers when the “Kingdom” was established. On this supposition alone can we explain the authority of the Twelve in the Church.

For the Twelve, after our Lord had departed from them and was glorified, played in reality an insignificant rôle. This is only intelligible on the assumption that an express command of Jesus to begin a mission in grand style after His death did not exist. As a matter of fact the Twelve remained in Jerusalem and, apart from awaiting the time when they would take up their office in the coming Kingdom, the building up of the Church in Jerusalem, of which task they were moreover soon relieved by James the Lord’s brother, remained the sole object of their existence. We have no certain knowledge that any one of them, except St Peter and St John, ever went on mission; but there is no doubt that their authority as the Twelve remained firmly established, because they were regarded as the confidants of Jesus and as the future judges at the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom.It is not here our business to investigate whether the commission to the Twelve to forgive sins, to “bind and loose,” is to be traced back to Jesus Himself, or whether the story was first conceived at a later date. But it is certain that, just as the unhistoric command to go forth into all the world (Matt. xxviii. 19) belongs to the tradition that had taken form in Palestine, so also the conception of the Apostles as being dispensers of forgiving power or of the “Spirit” has the same place of origin. The sacramental power assigned to the Twelve, and their “knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven,” whencesoever these ideas derived, were certainly of highest importance for the supreme veneration in which they were held by the Gentile Churches, who set the Twelve so near to the Lord and at last united them with Him in the New Testament. There is, however, no doubt that these ideas proceeded from Palestine.

The recognition of the lofty status of the Twelve, an authority that was at first naturally bound up with that of the Mother Church in Jerusalem, went forth with St Paul and the other missionaries into the Gentile world. These spoke of the Twelve Apostles as of authorities for all that they in common brought with them from the motherland of the new movement, and also in part for that which they themselves built on that foundation. And so now appeared that strange phenomenon—the “Twelve Apostles” as the court of highest instance and of fundamental authority. Soon also the belief took shape that Christ had committed the continuation and expansion of His work to the Twelve once for all, and so completely, that every real mission is subordinate to them and receives from them its content and authority.Indeed at an early date the general conception was that the mission to the world had been actually completed by the Apostles—for the end was near and before it could come the Gospel must have been preached everywhere—and that present missions were only an aftergleaning. The Roman Church writes about A.D. 95: “The Apostles were made evangelists to us by the Lord Christ (mark well: ‘the Apostles,’ not Peter and Paul); Jesus the Christ was sent by God. Thus Christ is from God and the Apostles from Christ. He and they came into being in harmony from the will of God.”1 Clem. 42. Since the end of the first century the Apostles already seemed to the Gentile Church like a multiplication of the Christ.This conception must have been the more acceptable to Gentile Christians seeing that Christ Himself had not come to them. Legends of missions undertaken by Apostles soon came to be invented; none dared to invent one for Christ (yet one must remember the Abgar legend). The Church is built upon them as a foundation: in the New Jerusalem the twelve foundation stones of the city wall bear the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.Rev. xxi. 14. If one spoke of the commands of Christ, one added the Apostles.Polycarp ad Phil., vi. 3: καθὼς αὐτὸς ἐνετείλατο καὶ οἱ εὐαγγελισάμενοι ἡμᾶς ἀπόστολοι. What Serapion says at the beginning of the third century (Euseb., H.E., vi. 12, 3): ἡμεῖς καὶ Πέτρον καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀπόστόλους ἀποδεχόμεθα ὡς Χριστόν,(We receive both Peter and the other Apostles as Christ.) could certainly have been also said a hundred years earlier. Already, in Gal. iv. 14, we read: ἐδέξασθέ με ὡς Χριστόν Ιησοῦν. “The choice and sending out of the Apostles (after the Resurrection)” found its way even into the Rules of Faith,Ascens. Isaiæ, iii. 13, ed. Dillmann. and we may say that simply by an accident of history it did not find a place in the ancient Roman Symbol. Passages from prophecy were alleged as foretelling it just as in the case of main incidents in the life of Jesus Himself.Justin, Apol., i. 39; Aristides, Apol., 2. Writers in Asia Minor, Rome, and Egypt (before A.D. 160) unite in their testimony on this point, and even the Gnostics shared in part this conception.Jude 17; 2 Peter iii. 2; 1 Clem. 42; Barnab. v. 9; viii. 3; Didache, the title (Διδαχὴ κυρίου διὰ τῶν ιβ´ ἀποστόλων!); Hermas, Vis. iii. 5, Sim., ix. 15, 16, 17, 25; Gospel of Peter; Apocalypse of Peter; Prædic. Petri in Clemens Alex., Strom., vi. 6, 48; Ignat., ad Trall., 3; ad Rom., 4; ad Philad., 5; Papias; Polyc.; Aristides; Justin in many places; inferences from the great work of Irenæus; from the works of Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria; Valentinians (Ptolemy). Everywhere the form in which the appeal to the Apostles, as the College of the Twelve, is couched proves that the idea in question was axiomatic. In my Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 1⁴, S. 179-184, and elsewhere, I have more fully investigated the origin and the significance of this court of appeal, second to and yet one with Christ, which now at once became the vessel that received “Tradition” into itself.

Tradition always means the need of the present appealing to the authority of the past. In this case, however, an additional multitude of ideal and historical elements came into play.He who wishes to know more about these elements must above all read Tertullian’s treatise, De Præsc. Heret. “Ecclesia,” and the idealised Apostoli are the central ideas of this treatise, and in them Jesus Christ is as it were enshrined. How could one then carry on with Gospels only as Holy Scripture! Without the addition of the second part to the new Canon there was no authentic document for the Church. “Qui acta apostolorum non receperunt,” exclaims Tertullian, chap. xxii., “nec spiritus sancti esse possunt, (ut) qui necdum spiritum sanctum possunt agnoscere discentibus missum, sed nec ecclesiam se dicant defendere, qui quando et quibus incunabulis institutum est hoc corpus probare non habent.” The Holy Spirit and the Apostles became correlative conceptions, with the consequence that the Scriptures of the New Testament were indifferently regarded as composed by the Holy Spirit or the Apostles. Moreover the conflict with the Gnostics and the Marcionites must have thrust the absolute authority of the Twelve Apostles more and more into the foreground as against the claim of these opponents to a secret tradition, or their preference for one particular Apostle. Where one spoke of the Lord or of the Gospel, one might without irreverence add the Apostles, even in the case of the Gospels, since these took the place of the Word of the Lord. The formula, “The Books and the Apostles,” is first met with in the so-called Second Epistle of Clement (chap. xiv. 2): οὐκ οἴομαι ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν ὅτι τὰ βιβλία καὶ οἰ ἀπόστολοι τὴν ἐκκλησίαν οὐ νῦν εἶναι ἀλλἀ ἄνωθεν (λέγουσιν).(I do not suppose that you are ignorant that the Books and the Apostles [say] that the Church is not of this world but from above.) If τὰ βιβλία means the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the Gospels, then we have here a formula already very similar to that of the Scilitan martyrs (“libri et epistolæ Pauli viri justi,” vide infra), and the same is the case if τὰ βιβλία means only the Gospels. If, however, by τὰ βιβλία the Old Testament alone is meant, then the Gospels and the Apostolus are included in the one term οἱ ἀπόστολοι, and this is the terminology that is also found in the Muratorian Fragment (lines 79 f.). But even if the author is supposed to be referring here to oral utterances of the Apostles—which is not probable because he seems to have a passage of Ephesians in his eye—the fact still remains that now “the Apostles” are placed in the same close connection with “the Scriptures” as some decades previously “the Scriptures” with “the Lord.” Actual writings of the Twelve Apostles must have been sought for with ever more yearning and longing eyes. But were they to be found? One had indeed two Epistles of John, an Apocalypse of John, one of Peter, an Epistle of Jude that could be regarded as Apostolic (vide Tertullian, De Cultu, i. 3), and perhaps an Epistle of Peter. Little, indeed, and moreover of purely individual import; and besides we do not know whether these writings were anywhere to be found collected together before A.D. 180. What one must have and had not was a book in which the acts and the teaching of all the Twelve Apostles were described. We can understand that, under these circumstances, notice was attracted by the book that, among all existing books, approached closest to this ideal—namely the Acts of the Apostles. But there is no evidence that this happened before about A.D. 175. We must therefore for the moment leave this book out of consideration. Thus there remained in fact only the Pauline Epistles: they were collected and were in circulation in many of the Churches. No doubt when one spoke of the “Apostolus” in the first three-quarters of the second century, one had these works especially, perhaps exclusively, in one’s eye.

But how far could the Lord be said to continue Himself in St Paul? This Apostle was certainly not of the number of the Twelve Apostles! To answer this question fully it would be necessary to take a wide outlook and to describe the history of the relation of St Paul to the original Apostles and the strict Jewish Christians. But it is sufficient to point out that the position which St Paul claimed and acquired in the Apostolic Age, and authenticated by his work, was one that allowed the Churches no vacillation and no compromise in their judgment. Here, indeed, it was true that “He that is not with me is against me.” One was compelled either to acknowledge Paul as an Apostle of equal rank with the Twelve or to reject him as an interloper. And yet now—after he had long been recognised and after his epistles had increased in importance, because they alone gave clear expression to the theory of the New Covenant, which more and more gained ground—his equality with the Twelve seemed to be again in question; for, seeing that he was not an eye-witness of the life of the Lord, he could not testify to the facts of His history and His nature. In addition, the confident appeal of the Marcionites and Gnostics to the Apostle must have made Churchmen nervous.Tertullian actually permits himself to speak of St Paul naturally ironically as “apostolus hereticorum.” But the custom of public reading of the Pauline Epistles was already far too widely spread and the prestige of the “righteous,” the “good” Apostle, the “vas electionis” was already too firmly established to receive any real shock. Besides, it was possible to legitimise Paul by means of the Twelve Apostles as they were legitimised by Christ. They had indeed recognised him as an Apostle! Such legitimisation was by no means in the sense of St Paul himself; but this point was left out of consideration. According to the theory of succession, universally accepted at that time, he to whom office was delegated was of equal authority with him that conferred the office. Thus the equation held good: God = Christ = the Twelve Apostles = Paul. But where was to be found documentary evidence of Paul’s legitimisation by the Twelve? In the Epistle to the Galatians; but that was not enough; the chapter in question could even be understood otherwise, and, besides, testimony which one gives to oneself is not trustworthy.Tertullian, De Præscrip., 23: “Possum et hic acta apostolorum repudiantibus dicere: prius est ut ostendatis quis iste Paulus et quid ante apostolum, et quomodo apostolus, quatenus et alias (sell. hæretici) ad quæstiones plurimum eo utantur. Neque enim si ipse se apostolum de persecutore profitetur, sufficit unicuique examinate credenti, quando nec dominus ipse de se testimonium dixerit.” The required testimony stood in the Acts of the Apostles. This fact lent the book incomparable value; there was none like it, for, without it, the “Apostle” Paul with his epistles, regarded from the standpoint of strict tradition, was left in the air; while founded upon this book his epistles were “Apostolical” in the strictest sense of the word, and he himself stood as near to Christ as did the Twelve.

(B) We have already passed on to the subject of Attestation. In the history of any of the higher religions, of those at least which depend upon demonstration and proof, there comes a moment—and that soon—when attestation becomes as important as content. If the adherents of a “new” religion present its content as identical with that of original religion, all that they have to do is simply to disperse the obscurity into which original religion has fallen among men. If, then, the new religion contains doctrinal statements that are adapted to this purpose, it is only necessary to prove their trustworthiness and all is accomplished. Such was the method of the Apologists when face to face with the heathen: their chief task was to prove the trustworthiness of the prophets who accompanied history with a long chain of witness. If the demonstration proved irrefutable, the religion was justified. Soon the same method came to the front in internal controversies among Christians. When once the history of the Kurios Christus, His Divinity and Humanity, came to occupy the centre of interest—and this already happened in the Apostolic Age—everything depended upon attestation; for the content of the message was by no means so strange to the heathen. It was not the essence of the message, “the manifested God,” that they felt to be “folly,” but its accidents, and that the “Mythus” was not to be regarded as merely symbolic, but as actual history. All attestation of historical facts is carried out by an unbroken chain of παραδιδόναι (on the part of those who are authorised) and of παραλαμβάνεσθαι. Following up the chain, the Twelve Apostles and no others could rank as the ultimate authorities for the tradition! If the content of the tradition became a matter of controversy it was necessary to find one’s way back to them, just as in the case of the message concerning God the Creator it was necessary to find one’s way to Abraham, Noah, and Adam. If it was necessary in the latter case to prove that Homer and the other Greeks were “later,” and therefore without authority, so here one must prove the same of the Gnostic teachers together with the supposed Apostolic authorities to which they appealed. With this intention, Papias made earnest and exclusive inquiry after what the Twelve Apostles had said (apart from the Gospels) concerning Christ,Euseb., H.E., iii. 39. These inquiries, however, do not appear to have been very fruitful, and their results seem to have been of very questionable value. and Justin presented the Gospels, even to his heathen readers—thus not to Gnostics—as memorabilia of the ApostlesIn many passages. To the Jews he presented the Johannine Apocalypse, not as the work of a Christian prophet, but as the work of an Apostle of Christ (Dial., 81).; as indeed Papias before him doubtless assigned the highest value to this character of the Gospels upon which he based his great work concerning Christ. Gospels, there-fore, which bore the name of an Apostle or a disciple of the ApostlesTert., De Præsc., 32: “Sicut apostoli non diversa inter se docuisserin, ita apostolici non contraria apostolis edidissent”; Advers. Marc., iv. 2, 5: “Nobis fidem ex apostolis Ioannes et Matthæus insinuant, ex apostolicis Lucas et Marcus instaurant, iisdem regulis exorsi . . . Marcus quod edidit (evangelium) Petri adfirmetur, cuius interpres Marcus. Nam et Lucæ digestum Paulo adscribere solent. Capit magistrorum videri quæ discipuli promulgarint.” acquired a new attribute: they were not only “Scriptures of the Lord,” but also “Apostolic Scriptures,” and gradually it came to be as important that they were the latter as it was that they were the former. If, however, the Gospels as Apostolic writings became so important because of their attesting power, it follows that every Apostolic writing must have become important because it could “give attestation.” Accordingly Epistles and Apocalypses, if they were Apostolic, appear in a new light. Not only their rich and various content and their aim gave them a considerable value, but they acquired a yet higher value from their origin as Apostolic works. We know that in Rome at the end of the second century all the writings of the New Testament were subsumed under the one title “Apostoli,” just as the Scriptures of the Old Testament were simply called “prophetæ” (vide supra the Muratorian Fragment) ; indeed that, perhaps, at the time of the Second Epistle of Clement, “Apostles” was already the designation for both Epistles and Gospels. When, however, this simple distinction between the new and the old collection, expressed in the term “Prophetæ-Apostoli,”In spite of the distinction “Prophetæ-Apostoli,” it was still assumed that the Apostles had also the prophetic character as an addition to the Apostolate; but so far as I know they are never simply called “Prophets.” had once been worked out and thoroughly settled by the Montanist controversy, then first the “Apostolic” shone forth in full glory; indeed even the words of the Lord appear now only as jewels in the monstrance of the traditio et doctrina apostolica which included all—even Gospels with the Kurios—and, in itself, expressed all that God after the time of the Old Testament had granted to mankind. The division of the new collection into two parts is secondary when compared with its unity; but this unity bears on its forefront the title “the Apostles,” not “the Lord.” What a swing round!

(C) But must not the formal addition of the Pauline Epistles, as they stood and as they were read, to the growing new Canon have presented continual difficulties? When we consider much of their content we may well suppose that this was so. Did they then come into the Canon faute de mieux or because, under the dominance of the idea of the Apostolic, ever growing in importance, the custom of public reading insensibly attached them to the Canon? Neither of these explanations is in my opinion sufficient, rather we must again take into account the canonical collections of Marcion and the Gnostics. We have already had recourse to these in answering the question how a second Canon arose in the Church. Now we must inquire whether they were not also of influence in the division of this second Canon into two parts and in determining the important position that St Paul occupies in it.

Marcion’s Canon was twofold: it comprised the Gospels and ten Pauline Epistles. The twofold paradox of the New Testament of the Church that it is twofold, and that the Pauline Epistles form so large a part of the second division, is thus foreshadowed in Marcion’s Canon. But it is also foreshadowed in the Valentinian Canon, as we may conclude from Ptolemy’s letter to Flora.There is no certain ground for the assumption that the Valentinians possessed any other writings in their Canon besides Gospels and Pauline Epistles. As for the Acts of the Apostles, Tertullian (De Præsc., 22), says that the heretics rejected it. In those heretical circles the reverence for St Paul was almost boundless. Origen tells us that according to the Marcionites St Paul sat on the right hand of Christ in heaven—as Christ sits on the right hand of the Father. Marcionites, among whom the Johannine Gospel had partly come into favour, or some other heretics, declared that he was the promised Paraclete.Orig., in Lucam Hom., 25 (iii. p. 962b): “Denique in tantam quidem dilectionis audaciam proruperunt Marcionitæ, ut nova quædam et inaudita super Paulo monstra confingerent. Aiunt enim, hoc quod scriptum est, sedere a dextris salvatoris et sinistris de Paulo et de Marcione dici, quod Paulus sedet a dextris, Marcion sedet a sinistris. Porro alii legentes: ‘Mittam vobis advocatum spiritum veritatis’ nolunt intelligere tertiam personam a patre et filio, sed apostolum Paulum.” It was, moreover, Marcion himself that, according to Esnik, taught that Christ had twice descended from Heaven; the first time to suffer and to die, the second time to call Paul and to reveal first to him the significance of His death.Esnik (vide my Lehrbuch d. Dogmengeschichte, 1⁴, S. 304): “Then the second time Jesus descended in the form of His Godhead to the Lord of created things (the Demiurge) and held judgment with him concerning His death. . . . Then He left him and caught up Paul and showed him the price, and sent him to preach concerning the price for which we were bought, and that all that believe in Jesus are bought back from this righteous (God) to the good (God).” Thus Paul was the first to reveal the secret of redemption, not Jesus Himself. The bipartite division of the new Canon into “Gospel and Paul” was accordingly for Marcion a matter of course.

Could this fact have influenced the great Churches? I believe that we may well assume that it did. Were the great Churches to lag behind the heretics in reverence for St Paul? This would have meant, as things lay—i.e. it must be either one thing or the other—the surrender to them of Paul. But it appears that we also have external evidence for our assumption. We have indeed long known that Marcionite readings found their way into the ecclesiastical text of the Pauline Epistles, but now for seven years we have known that Churches actually accepted the Marcionite prefaces to the Pauline Epistles! De Bruyne has made one of the finest discoveries of later days in proving that those prefaces, which we read first in Codex Fuldensis and then in numbers of later manuscripts, are Marcionite, and that the Churches had not noticed the cloven hoof.“Prologues bibliques d’origine Marcionite” (Rev. Bénéd., 1907, Januar., p. 1-16), also Theol. Ztg., 1907, No. 5. Vide the copy of the prefaces in our first Appendix. But this proves only the influence of the text! No, it shows the influence of the Marcionite collection of the epistles upon the formation of the ecclesiastical collection. Are we then to suppose that it had no influence upon the idea of the collection itself as set side by side with the Gospels? Surely we may assume that this influence upon the formation of the collection goes back to a very early period. Does not this lead us back to the time of the origin of the ecclesiastical Canon? But, even if we are sceptical in regard to this piece of external testimony, it still remains true as we previously stated that what was an accomplished fact with the Marcionites and the Valentinians could not have remained without significance for the Churches.

There is, besides, another point to be considered. It is true that the speculation advanced by the author of the Muratorian FragmentAnd, we may say, countless others after him.—that Paul like John, in that he wrote letters to seven Churches, wrote really to one, thus to the universal Church—was certainly first imagined at a time when the Epistles had already found their place in the Canon, and when it was wished to justify the inclusion there of such occasional writings.If St Paul had happened to write to three or ten Churches instead of to seven, we may be certain that the Universal Church would have been found to have been suggested by the number. But the idea, “Apostolus ad omnes scripsit dum ad quosdam,”Tert., Advers. Marc., v. 17. is naturally much earlier in date. It must have made its appearance wherever men had learned to value the edifying power of the Epistles. The “catholicity” of the Epistles was clear from many passages that they contained; and even if there had been fewer passages whose general ecclesiastical importance was not of itself conspicuous and needed no artificial light, yet the Apostolus belongs to the Ecclesia and the Ecclesia to the Apostolus! When once the concept and title Apostle had been given to St Paul it could only be a question of time when his writings, whatever they contained, would be formally elevated to the plane of “ecclesiastical” Scripture. That herein the real service, which some of his Epistles had always contributed and still continued to contribute to the cause of Church order, played a certain rôle is shown by the quaint little note of the Muratorian Fragment in reference to St Paul’s Epistles to particular persons: “In ordinatione ecclesiasticæ disciplinæ sanctificatw sunt.”

But St Paul could never be “the Apostolus.” He could not give direct testimony; and certain objectionable elements, presented by the particular and occasional character and peculiarities of his Epistles and hindering their formal canonisation, remained a difficulty.As was felt even in the fourth and fifth centuries by the more sober theologians of the Antiochean school. This is the reason why, only twenty years before Tertullian’s famous statement concerning the Bible of the Roman Church—and therefore also of the African Church—(“Ecclesia Romana legem et prophetas cum evangelicis et apostolicis litteris miscit;Cf. De Baptism, 15: “Tam ex domini evangelio quam ex apostoli litteris.” It has been even conjectured that the bipartite division of the Old Testament (“Lex et Prophetae”) influenced the similar division of the New Testament; but this cannot be proved nor is it even probable, seeing that the bipartite division can be fully explained otherwise, and that the relation of “Evangelium” and “Apostolus” can be compared with that of “Law” and “Prophets” only in one aspect, while in others the parallel fails. inde potat fidem,” De Præsc., 36), African Christians, laymen, as it seems, answered the question: “Quae sunt res in capsa vestra?” with the words: “Libri et epistulæ Pauli viri iusti.” We learn that at this time in Africa the Epistles of St Paul had a place beside the sacred collection, but that the last step, by which they became fully identified with the γραφαί, had not yet been taken. Here we actually see into the process of growth of the New Testament, and that directly before its final close.The very peculiar formula of Tertullian: “Instrumenta divinarum rerum et sanctorum Christianorum” (De Præsc., 40), seems to give us another glimpse into the growth of the new Canon. But we cannot be sure what Tertullian means by “instrumenta sanctorum Christianorum.” The distinction between the “Scriptures” and Paul is still found in the controversial work of the Roman Caius (about A.D. 200).

The Pauline Epistles, because they were widely read, at the very beginning came as it were into Court with the claim to be constituents of the New Testament that was to be; but it was only after a slow process that they won a place beside the Canonical Scriptures, and only because of this slow process were they able to obtain and maintain a place in the Canon and finally to form its second division. But in this second division there also stood, as we learn from Irenæus, the Muratorian Fragment and Tertullian—about A.D. 180-200—that is, as soon as the Second Canon was in existence—at least 5 (6) other works: The Acts of the Apostles, two Johannine epistles, Revelation, the Epistle of Jude, and perhaps 1 Peter.1 Concerning the last five works, we may be sure that wherever they were in circulation they would at once have been added to the new Canon as apostolic works in the strict sense of the word. Search was evidently

Polycarp, in his epistle, uses this work but does not quote it, treating it just as he does 1 Clement, while he deals otherwise with the Pauline Epistles. It is wanting in the Muratorian Fragment, and Tertullian in his earlier works does not quote it (yet it is different with Irenæus). The questions therefore arise whether Peter was regarded as the author of the work, and whether it belonged to the most ancient form of the Canon. I therefore neglect it. We may, however, assume that the Apocalypse of Peter belonged at first to the Canon, but that in Rome very soon it was objected to (vide the Muratorian Fragment. More will be said below concerning this question and the case of the Shepherd of Hermas). made for such writings, which were indeed just the kind of works that were needed for the second division of the Canon; and, therefore, even a little fugitive piece like the Epistle of Jude was accepted seeing that one could regard its author as an Apostle.Tertullian expressly gives him the title (De Cultu, i. 3 “[Scriptura) Enoch apud Judam apostolum testimonium possidet”). How unfortunate that so few works of the Twelve Apostles could be found and then each only giving the testimony of one Apostle! Where could a book be found that gave the testimony of all the Apostles and reproduced their teaching? The Acts of the Apostles was at once seized upon. We have already (p. 53) spoken of this book; we shall now consider it in greater detail. It did not, indeed, offer all that could be wished in accordance with the idea that governed the development of the new Canon, yet what it offered was of extraordinary importance. It stood forth as the grand fundamental document of what was primitive and apostolic and of the testimony which was now all important. From the standpoint of the early Catholic time it possessed the following advantages:

1. It was the work of that Luke who, by his work that stood in the Canon of the Gospels, was already recognised as “vir apostolicus” and a Canonical author.It is true that this is not brought out in the title which was given to the book. But Irenæus, the Muratorian Fragment, and Tertullian lay emphasis upon this point. Reflection upon the content of the book was the more important element in the composition of the title.

Yet we can trace these titles back to the middle of the second century. This fact and the similarity of their form make it certain that they proceed from the person who first brought together these four books and bound them in one. Consequently this did not happen (as in the case of the Acts) when the twofold New Testament took form, but at an earlier date.If it had happened shortly before the year A.D. 200 we may well conjecture that care would have been taken that in the titles St Mark should appear as the Gospel of Peter, St Luke as the Gospel of Paul.

In the Manuscripts the common title for all four Gospels is “The Gospel.” The compiler did not unintentionally not repeat the word “Gospel” in the title to each individual Gospel. They were intended in combination to present “The Gospel”; none of them had the right by itself to be called “The Gospel.” Still less might one speak of the Gospel “of Matthew,” etc; for the word Evangelium had its own self-evident genitive, “Jesu Christi.”

Nor, on the other hand, may we take these titles “according to Matthew,” etc., as if by them the compiler would imply that these books were not composed by Matthew, etc., but were only indirectly dependent upon these men. No one in antiquity understood the titles in this way. The matter becomes quite clear when we consider the titles of the apocryphal Gospels: The Gospel of Peter professes to be written by St Peter, for St Peter speaks in the first person, and yet this Gospel bears the title: “The Gospel according to Peter.” The titles Κατὰ Ματθαῖον, etc., mean “The Gospel according to Matthew’s own description,” etc., not “The Gospel according to Matthew’s tradition,” etc.There were also gospels called καθ᾽ Ἑβραίους and κατ᾽ Ἀιγυπτίους. Here κατά can only mean “according to the use of” or something similar. We do not know the origin of these terms. But it seems that they are connected with one another—that in Egypt the gospel used by Jewish Christians had the one name and the gospel used by Gentile Christians had the other.

The character and the similarity of the titles shows that the four books were intended to be regarded as one work in fourfold presentation. Irenæus so conceives it when he speaks of the “four-formed” Gospel,iii. 11. 8. and the view finds especially clear expression in the Muratorian Fragment, the author of which with circumstantiality, but most significantly, writes: “The third book of the Gospel according to Luke,” “The fourth book of the Gospel according to John.” The compiler of these four books thus judged them not as works important in the first place (or even at all) because of their authors, nor even as works each of which by itself fulfilled the object which each had in view—for then he would not have given us four of them—nor even as “Gospels” (as if there could have been several Gospels), but as books which together presented the Gospel. In them was contained all that could be known and was to be known about the Gospel.

This condition of things can be traced back for Asia Minor to the time of Irenæus’ earliest youth, i.e. to just before the middle of the second century. Irenæus has no conception that the written Gospel ever existed otherwise than in this form; indeed he ascribes its fourfold form to a Divine dispensation which answered to the dispensation of Nature, and which was already foreshadowed in the Old Testament.iii. 11. 8; iii. 1.

Nor is it by pure accident that through the testimony of Irenæus we are able to say that in Asia Minor this condition of things existed before the middle of the second century; for as I have shown in my Chronologie, i. S. 589 ff., 681-701, it is most probable that the compilation of our four Gospels took place in Asia Minor, and that from thence the εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον(Fourfold Gospel.) started on its victorious course in connection with the anti-Gnostic controversies, and in some few decades established itself in most of the provincial Churches.

We know that long before the middle of the second century, in fact, already at the time of John the Presbyter, there was much discussion concerning the Four Gospels, which were confronted and compared with one another, and that in these discussions John himself played an authoritative part. These discussions turned, in the first place, upon questions of completeness and the correct order of events in the respective Gospels, and also upon questions as to whether the authors were eye-witnesses, and whether in their works they had given a duly lofty expression to the nature of Christ.The evidence—all pointing to Asia Minor—is found in Papias, Clement of Alexandria, the Muratorian Fragment, Hippolytus—Epiphanius (Alogi), and Euseb., H.E., iii. 24. As usually happens in such controversies, some took up an exclusive standpoint and accepted only the Johannine Gospel or, on the other hand, only the Synoptic Gospels (or even only one of these?), alleging that the other Gospels had no authority, and even attempting to convict them of heresy. The result of these discussions and controversies was that neither the Synoptics nor “John” were dispensed with, but that they were all set together in one compilation in the way that has been above mentioned.This meant, whether it was intended or not, that chief prestige was assigned to the fourth Gospel; for this Gospel could, indeed, be rejected, but once accepted its superiority was therewith silently admitted. With this Gospel—and here I agree with Overbeck in the work quoted above—it was a case of “Thou shalt have none other gods but me.” We may at the same time allow that its author—like the Presbyter in regard to Mark—could respect the other Gospels as right worthy performances, and could even champion them from this point of view; but he certainly did not wish to see them at his aide. (Jülicher Einl.⁵, S. 465, says that St John did not mean to replace St Matthew and St Luke. Certainly, he had quite different aims in writing his book; but did he intend that his book should be placed side by side with those Gospels? And may it not be that the purpose to supplant them is not obvious in his work because it was assumed as a matter of course?). Again the third Gospel also was intended to be the Gospel, and Eusebius (who certainly knew Greek!) is surely right when he understands from the prologue that St Luke was not satisfied with his predecessors, and so not even with St Mark, and regarded their works as rather presumptuous (H.E., iii. 24, 15). Further, the formal style of the introduction to St Mark shows that the author meant this work to be the story, not one among many stories. Finally, both these Gospels, in spite of the high claims they make for themselves, do not anywhere show that they were intended for public reading; while St Matthew evidently was from the first so intended. I have no doubt that the two other Synoptic Gospels obtained the rank and dignity of works to be read in the Church, just because they were associated with St Matthew (vide my Neue Unters. zur Apostelgeschichte, 1911, S. 94). The compilation was thus evidently a compromise, not between Jewish and Gentile Christians—this controversy did not even come into consideration—but between usages and conflicting traditions in the chief Churches of Asia Minor, especially Ephesus, concerning Gospels to be read at public worship, traditions that originated in perhaps Achaia (St Luke), in Palestine (St Matthew), in Rome (St Mark), and in Asia Minor itself (St John).Just as we must in this connection completely disregard the earlier controversy between Jewish and Gentile Christians, so also we must reject the hypothesis that any one, except Marcion, ever noticed theological differences between the Synoptic Gospels. A controversy, however, certainly existed in Asia Minor between these and the Johannine Gospel as to whether they depended upon eye-witnesses, and concerning the correctness and theological content of their records. I would just remark that owing to the meeting together of several Gospels in one neighbourhood the Churches for a time were led to exercise a kind of historical criticism upon them (concerning such points as the completeness, the correctness of the order of events, the conception of the Person of Christ); and that, accordingly, for a few decades, the Church in Asia Minor adopted an attitude towards the Gospels which she never allowed herself to adopt in the following centuries.

The compromise took place under the sign of the Johannine Gospel. Those who would have this late book read in the Churches of Asia Minor carried their point against the “Alogi”; but as they were not able to abolish the earlier tradition in regard to public lection there arose the difficulty of a plurality of Gospels. If it had been a question of only two Gospels the difficulty would have been great enough, it could scarcely have been increased when it was a question of three or four. Indeed, we may conjecture that the situation created by the success of the fourth Gospel made it possible for all three Synoptics to remain as Gospel books of the Church side by side with the Johannine Gospel, instead of, perhaps, St Matthew only, or only St Mark and St Luke; and for existing usages, apart from that of the Johannine Gospel, to be tolerated rather than repressed.

But at the time that this fourfold work was compiled, did its author really mean it to be the last word, or was it to be regarded as only provisional? In my Reden und Aufsätzen (ii. S. 239 ff.) I have given some reasons for regarding the latter alternative as very probable. Jülicher (loc. cit.) is of contrary opinion, and asserts that “there was no more need that one should object to four Gospels than to thirteen Pauline Epistles, or to parallel accounts of incidents in Old Testament history. The differences were not felt, one only rejoiced at the confirmation which each new evangelist afforded to the other, and in the last resort one had recourse to the obvious theory that the later evangelist completed the record of the earlier. Naturally every small sect had its one Gospel; just as naturally in the Catholic Church spread over three continents different books for a time divided this prestige, and then settled down peacefully together.”

In my opinion these remarks of Jülicher do not reflect the feelings and circumstances of that period. Is it really true that at that period four Gospels must have been just as unobjectionable as thirteen Pauline Epistles?—to say nothing of the fact that, as is proved by the Muratorian Fragment, even the thirteen Pauline Epistles were not felt to be absolutely unobjectionable. It is surely of the essence of an authoritative history that it should be one and that its prestige should be felt to be in peril if other accounts are set side by side with it.The comparison with double accounts in the Old Testament does not hold good; for we do not know what difficulties they caused during the process of canonisation in the Synagogue. The Church here had no choice; she simply had to accept the Canon with its difficulties. Still more if this history was meant to be read regularly at public worship, alternative readings from other accounts must have led to serious misunderstandings. Jülicher’s comparison with “Epistles” is surely out of place. It was only the special address of the epistles that caused certain difficulties; apart from this there could have been as many epistles as there were psalms without causing any trouble. Neither is it true that no one took offence at the plurality of Gospels or felt the differences in their accounts. Did not the very author of the Muratorian Fragment write: “Licet varia singulis evangeliorum libris principia doceantur, nihil tamen differt credentium fidei, cum uno ac principali spiritu declarata sint in omnibus omnia de nativitate, de passione, de resurrectione, etc.”? This is said in opposition to objections which were founded on the plurality of Gospels in itself and on the differences in their accounts, among which differences one is emphasised as an especially important example! And is not the whole discussion of the question by Irenæus (iii. 11. 9) an apology for four Gospels in face of the natural demand for only one? He also is compelled to make play with the ἑνὶ τνεύματι συνεχόμενον(Held together by one Spirit.) against the τετράμορφον(Fourfold.) (a term which in itself only smooths over the actual difficulty)—an argument which could have given little real satisfaction; and following upon him and the author of the Muratorian Fragment constant attempts were made in the Church to force the troublesome plurality into an artificial unity. “The differences were not felt,” says Jülicher. Surely it is just the contrary: from the two different genealogies of Jesus to the accounts of His appearances after His Resurrection the differences in the Gospels were most acutely felt, and all kinds of attempts were made to harmonise them—think only of Julius Africanus for one! Nor can I find scarcely anywhere evidence that “one rejoiced at the confirmation that the new evangelist afforded to the other.” What “confirmation” was needed by an evangelist who had the name Matthew or Mark? Moreover, “the obvious theory that the later evangelist completed the account of the earlier,” described by Jülicher as a “last resort,” not only contradicted the very idea of a Canonical Gospel, but first made its appearance at a comparatively late date, and certainly did not give pure joy. Finally, I must dissent from the suggestion that “if every small sect had its one Gospel just as naturally in the Catholic Church spread over three continents, different books for a time divided this prestige and then settled down peacefully together.” Here the contrast between “small sect” and “Catholic Church” seems to be incorrectly drawn: on this point the needs of the Catholic Church could not have been other than those of the smallest sect. Moreover, all separated Christian communities (not only small sects) of which we have knowledge, except those that separated themselves from the Catholic Church after the creation of the Canon of four Gospels, had only one Gospel: for instance, the Jewish Christians in Palestine and Egypt, the early Gentile Christians of Egypt, the Marcionite Church throughout the world, the Gnostic Jewish Christians, and those Christians of Asia Minor that rejected the Synoptic Gospels. The plurality of the Gospels was a peculiarity unique in character of which, to judge from the earliest Christian writings that quote “the Gospel” or Gospel material (1 Clement, Didache, etc.), no one then had the slightest conception.

We are therefore quite justified in our inquiry whether the concession that four Gospels were suitable for public lection, made in Asia Minor after stress and controversy, was intended as a final solution of the problem. The Marcan Gospel and the collection of sayings (Q), the author of which was probably the Apostle St Matthew, were followed by our St Luke and St Matthew, which were really “harmonies.” In these two Gospels the two sources are worked up into single books without any regard to the dignity of their authors. Why should not the process have been continued to a further stage of unification, and the concession of four distinct Gospels have been regarded as only provisional? Even if we had no further information the question would not be superfluous; for it is suggested by the previous course of Gospel construction. But we are not without further information. It is true that the supposition, suggested by a series of indications, that so early a writer as Justin had recourse to a Gospel harmony in addition to the separate Gospels, cannot be regarded as sufficiently probable in spite of laborious attempts to prove it; but we know as a fact that Tatian composed a harmony of the four Gospels, and that in the East this work very soon obtained the widest circulation as “The Gospel.” Evidently Tatian composed this work not for private purposes but, as the result shows, in order to replace “the Gospels of the separated.” In these last days, von Soden, senior, and others with him, have asserted that this work must also have played an important rôle in the very early history of the Greco-Latin Churches, seeing that it has had an extraordinary influence upon the text of the Gospels in these Churches; but one can only say that this hypothesis still lacks confirmation. Still so much must be allowed—this book was not intended to be confined only to the Syrian Churches, it was meant to serve the Church as a whole, and in this intention it was not altogether unsuccessful. Again, we hear from St Jerome that Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, also composed a Gospel Harmony (about A.D. 180).Ep. ad Algasiam (i. pp. 860 f. Valtarsi): “Theophilus, Antiochenæ ecolesiæ septimus post Petrum apostolum episcopus, qui quattuor evangelistarum in unum corpus dicta compingens ingenii sui nobis monumenta dimisit, etc.” Unfortunately we have no knowledge of its details; still we may conclude that Theophilus, like Tatian, felt that the arrangement of four Gospels was something that was only provisional.

What, then, hindered the process of combining the four Gospels into one, not only in Asia Minor, but also in the Greco-Latin Churches; so that in spite of all the disadvantages of plurality they still remained distinct? The answer does not seem difficult. Here also the interest was at work that asserted itself so powerfully everywhere in the Church soon after the beginning of the second century—the interest in testimony (vide supra, pp. 54 ff.). This interest—the interest in the Apostolic, in sure and certain tradition—surpassed all other interests and triumphed over all objections. To possess records given by such persons as Matthew and John must have been more important to the Churches in conflict with Gnosticism than any other consideration.In this sense one also spoke of the Διδαχὴ τοῦ κυρίου διὰ τῶν ιβ´ ἀποστόλων and of τῶν ἀποστόλων ὐμῶν ἐντολὴ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ οωτῆρος (2 Pet. iii. 2). We already see this in the case of Justin who, when he composed his apology, had already written at length against heretics. Naturally the Gospels are to him important in the first place because they tell of the Lord; yet they are to him almost as important, because they are “Memorabilia of the Apostles,” and we have every reason to suppose that Papias, a somewhat earlier contemporary of Justin, was of the same opinion; that with him, too, the apostolic names borne by the Gospels, declaring their apostolic origin, formed an instance of highest authority in the controversy with heretics concerning trustworthy knowledge of the person of Christ and of the evangelic history. Interest in testimony to tradition could not now allow the four Gospels to be combined into one; for then the names would have been lost, or at least left uncertain. Hence all efforts in the direction of a Diatessaron had no longer any chance of success; the Church was compelled to abide by the “four” and to see their unity, such as it was, in the spiritus principalis: The Gospel remained “tetramorphon” in the sense of “the separated.”Lietzmann agrees in this view (Wie wurden die B.B. der N.T. heilige Schrift? 1907, S. 67). In principle the same interest as that which led to the formation of the second part of the New Testament (the Apostolus), also perpetuated the collection of four Gospels, so that it never arrived at literary unity. In the name “Apostoli,” which the author of the Muratorian Fragment uses for the whole Canon, this interest finds sharp expression. Not only in the second division of the New Testament, but also in the fact that the Gospel is given in four books, we possess a lasting memorial of the Apostolic tradition that set itself on a level with the word and history of the Lord. This memorial was purchased at great cost, at the cost, indeed, of real sacrifice, for into the bargain came all the difficulties that four separate records must have created for public lection, for the instruction of catechumens, and for exegesis—difficulties which certainly at first must have appeared almost insurmountable.

The question set in the title of this paragraph is then to be answered as follows: The New Testament contains four Gospels and not only one, because at the beginning of the second century these four Gospels met together in Asia Minor (probably in Ephesus), and after controversy and conflict peaceably settled down together. From Asia Minor this arrangement passed to the other Churches.As an indication that St Matthew was as yet little known, or altogether unknown in Rome at the beginning of the second century, we have also a piece of external evidence, though it is not certainly altogether clear, vide the note of Eusebius (pseudo-Eusebius) preserved in Syriac concerning the star of the Magi (Nestle, “Marginalien u. Materialien,” S. 72; cf. my Chronologie, ii. S. 126): “In the second year of the coming of our Lord, under the consulate of Cæsar and Capito, in the month Kanun II., these Magi came from the East and worshipped our Lord. And in the year 430 (1st Oct. 118/9), in the reign of Hadrian, under the consulate of Severus and Fulgus [Fulvius] (A.D. 120), during the episcopate of Xystus, bishop of the city of Rome, this question arose among people who were acquainted with Holy Scripture, and through the efforts of great men in different places this story was sought for and found and written in the language of those who cared for it.” In the background lay the purpose to find some single form in which the Church might present what was contained in the four; but this purpose was very soon crossed by the perception that the four books as works of Matthew and John, of Mark and Luke, acquired in conflict with the false tradition of the Gnostics an importance immeasurable and irreplaceable. Therefore these apostolic works were allowed to remain separate in spite of all the difficulties which were there-by involved; and attempts like that of Tatian to bring the four into one—attempts which were in the line of previous development—found no acceptance in the Church.

§ 1. The New Testament immediately emancipated itself from the conditions of its origin, and claimed to be regarded as simply a gift of the Holy Spirit. It held an independent position side by side with the Rule of Faith; it at once began to influence the development of doctrine, and it became in principle the final court of appeal for the Christian life.

Any collective body of fundamental sacred documents, as soon as it has taken form, stands at once on its own rights. Whatever the circumstances may have been under which it came into existence, however numerous the forces that contributed to its appearance, however slow and difficult the process of its development—from the moment of its birth all is forgotten. This is true also of the New Testament. As soon as it appeared in its Roman form it was practically regarded as a book that had fallen from Heaven: the Holy Spirit had created it and given it to the Church, Lessing (vide supra, p. 19, note 1) was certainly right when he showed that the Rule of Faith is older than the New Testament and had an important part in its creation; but he did not see that, when the New Testament had once come into existence, it immediately renounced its earthly origin and claimed for itself not only a position of equal rank with the Rule of Faith, but in a certain aspect even of superior rank. The daughter at once outgrew the mother, indeed, politely disowned her and set herself in the mother’s place. Complicated and energetic measures had then to be taken—the Catholic Churches invented them and set them in motion—to uphold the authority of the mother as against the daughter, and even then all that could be accomplished was either that the mother and daughter should divide the leadership between them in so far as they chose different provinces (the one rather doctrine the other life), or that they should take the lead alternately (vide infra).

The Apostolic Tradition of Doctrine and the New Testament.—The curve of movement of doctrine and life in the Church since the beginning of the third century became an ellipse with two foci that at one time approached so closely to one another as to seem one, at another time were quite widely separated. While the Apostolic doctrinal Tradition prevented ecclesiastical Christianity from becoming a religion of the book like Islam, the New Testament prevented the “Apostolic Traditions of the Fathers” from becoming the tyrants of the Church, as in later Judaism. The tension between the Apostolic Tradition and the sacred letter of the New Testament proved in the main beneficial to the development of the Church; extremes threatening from the right and the left were thus warded off. No one has yet written the history of the tension and conflict between the spirit and letter of the Bible on one side and the Rule of Faith on the other before the Reformation. It is true that the New Testament itself in principle and construction was in fact “Apostolic Tradition”; yet not only did it very soon represent an earlier tradition as opposed to a later continually developing tradition, but the independent force of its letter and spirit made itself felt more and more—whether to the advantage or disadvantage of development. No one dared to oppose the authority of the Divine Book; no one any more thought of it as tradition. The learned investigations concerning the origin of particular books conducted by a few theologians, from Origen onwards, had simply “antiquarian” significance. The authors themselves scarcely dreamed of making deductions that would affect the dignity of the Book in question. If they did, the Church either took no notice or marked down such scholars as suspect. The attitude of Tertullian and of his lax opponents in Carthage and Rome, who were in absolute agreement with him in the valuation of the New Testament and in the principles of its use, proves that since the beginning of the third century the New Testament stood as ἀπάτωρ ἀμήτωρ in the Church. No one any longer thought of a time when there was as yet no New Testament; scarcely anyone recollected that the Church had created it. Indeed, solemn eulogies of the New Testament as the book of the Holy Spirit were fairly frequently expressed in terms which implied an exclusive relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Book in regard to the Church: all that the Spirit had to say to the Churches He had put into this Book.

The New Testament joins the Rule of Faith in influencing the development of doctrine from the moment that it was fixed in idea. Already in the Adoptianist and Modalistic controversies passages from the New Testament were used as weapons by both sides. In such controversies in the Early Church the influence of the Book was not, however, altogether progressive; much more often it was a hindrance because of the strenuous opposition that it at first offered to almost every unbiblical formula that Dogmatics declared to be necessary. How difficult it was for “Homoousios” to gain acceptance because it was unbiblical! And, on the other hand, how hard for the orthodox was the fight against a biblical formula if from higher interests they felt compelled to reject it! The battles of orthodoxy against ἔκτισεν,(Created.) as used of the Sophia (the Logos), and against the formula πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως,(Firstborn of all creation.) tell us something of these things. And yet isolated biblical phrases found their way into Dogmatics; and more than this, Christological passages like that in Philippians ii. have exercised the deepest influence upon doctrine. Indeed, speaking generally, we may say that though the New Testament did not play the principal part in the battle against heresy, it nevertheless formed the court of final appeal in controversies concerning the Rule of Faith, and never submitted to any tradition, however ancient, that might be opposed to it. Again, whole bodies of doctrine of lesser or greater importance have found their way into Dogmatics simply because they were biblical: the West would never have accepted Augustine’s doctrine of Predestination if it had not had such strong support in Romans ix.–xi. This is, indeed, a particularly famous example, and it would be difficult to find another quite like it; but many less important instances could be adduced.

In matters of Christian life the New Testament at once takes a place of central and ultimate authority. Here there was no need to change the ancient formula πολιτεύεσθαι κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον(To live in accordance with the Gospel.) either in letter or spirit. We do not here inquire how far this inviolable principle of Christian life, to which even the Rule of Faith was scarcely allowed to dictate, was actually realised. It is enough to know that in theory no one dared to disturb the principle that a Christian was to live in accordance with the Gospel or κατὰ τὴν καινὴν διαθήκην(In accordance with the New Testament.) and must be able to appeal to passages of Scripture as an authority for his manner of life. We only notice how soon this led to the rise of Monasticism, and later to other strictly regulated forms of life. On the other hand, the “Lax” also sought justification for their principles and rules in passages from the New Testament. Here very abundant and interesting material is afforded in Tertullian’s treatises. It is the Lax in conflict with a tradition of the Church who ask for the passage of Scripture upon which it is founded. “Ubi scriptum est ne coronemur? . . . expostulant scripturæ patrocinium” (scil. for the prohibition against the wearing of garlands).

Lastly, in the first days of the Church reading for private edification was confined to the Psalms, but after the creation of the New Testament the Gospels also gradually came into use—indeed, even the Pauline Epistles. Without the New Testament this would never have happened. What it meant for the deepening of Christian life and thought, that these were nourished on the New Testament and not on the Psalms alone, there is no need to explain.

§ 4. The New Testament has preserved for us the most valuable portion of primitive Christian literature; yet at the same time it delivered the rest of the earliest works to oblivion, and has limited the transmission of later works.

The first clause of the heading of this paragraph requires no proof. It is by no means certain that the Pauline Epistles would have been handed down to us if as a collection they had not been canonised. The author of the Second Epistle of Peter and Irenæus complain of the difficulties which they contain, indeed they presented a thousand stumbling-blocks to the orthodox teacher, and were exploited in a most irritating way by heretics in opposition to the doctrine of the Church.How troublesome were such expressions as, “The god of this world,” or the doctrines of Predestination and of the Divine hardening of the heart, or the teaching that the Law multiplied transgressions, etc.! Nor was it otherwise with the Johannine Apocalypse: the Canon alone has preserved it from oblivion. Both in form and content it presented most troublesome stumbling-blocks to the Church, more troublesome indeed as time went on. And further, can we be sure that the Acts of the Apostles, from the historical point of view the most valuable work of primitive times—to say nothing of works so small as the Catholic Epistles—would have come down to us if it had not found its way into the new Canon? Even in the third century the Christology of this book would have given grave offence if the fact that the book was Canonical had not barred for ever the question whether it was everywhere orthodox. And what of the Gospels? If it had been possible in the third and fourth centuries to cite them before the Court of the Church, how sadly they would have fared! Even against the Gospel of St John an orthodox judge would have been compelled to admit a heavy catalogue of offences! The Canon, however, settled these questions once and for all. There can be no doubt here: we have to thank the New Testament that we possess these works, that we have in our hands an important and trustworthy account of the beginnings of the Christian religion. We need only reflect for a moment what our knowledge of the beginnings of Christianity would have been if the Church History of Eusebius had been our sole authority—leaving out of account what this work owes to the New Testament—in order to see clearly what it means that twenty-seven early Christian writings have been preserved for us because they were bound together in the New Testament.We not infrequently hear high praise given to the historical “tact” with which the books of the New Testament were selected; “tact,” however, played no part here. If we consider in the first place the Roman Canon at the end of the second century, “tact” resolves itself into a succession of historical necessities which originated in the practice of public lection and in a growing acceptance of the Apostolic-Catholic principle. These explain the acceptance of the four Gospels, of the collection of Pauline Epistles, and, finally, of the Acts of the Apostles. The latter book was accepted not through the exercise of historical “tact,” but because the situation produced an instinctive demand for a book of all the Apostles. Even the reception of four Gospels was determined certainly not by historical “tact,” but most probably could not have been avoided if it were wished to keep together the orthodox Christians of Asia. The Gospels of the Hebrews and of the Egyptians were in favour, we may definitely assume, with relatively small and isolated circles, and the Gospel of Peter was too late in its appearance. Moreover the expansion of the Canon to twenty-seven works, to be regretted by no one (what about 2 Peter?), was not due to the historical “tact” of the Church, but to the apostolic names of the authors of the added books. And it was because Hermas, 1 and 2 Clement, Barnabas, etc., could not satisfy the demand for apostolic origin that they were at last barred from the New Testament.

§ 5. Though the New Testament brought to an end the production of authoritative Christian writings, yet it cleared the way for theological and also for ordinary Christian literary activity.

Whatever authorities might arise in the Church and whatever books might be written after the creation of the New Testament, they could no longer attain to the absolute prestige possessed by the New Testament.We here do not take account of the development of General Councils and of the Papacy. They could be “inspired,” but they could not longer become “canonical” in the sense of the New Testament.Not even the works of Cyprian. Taken all in all, this was a blessing. The literature of enthusiasm now either ceased or was forced to confine itself within the narrow bounds which now restricted its significance and therefore its influence. Naturally the early belief that every Christian who wrote with a view to edification did this by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, now faded away. It was a belief that had placed the primitive Church in positions of terrible perplexity and afflicted conscientious authors with qualms of anxiety as to whether they were not guilty of presumption in taking up the pen. Clement of Alexandria still shows this anxiety—so also the anti-Montanist of Euseb., H.E., v. 16, 3 (vide supra, p. 37). But now this anxiety was no longer felt, and the way was free for the development of theological and ordinary Christian literature. Churchmen could at last with free conscience do what heretics had long done—compose theological treatises, write commentaries, publish edifying stories, and so forth. If only they made up their minds to be “true to Scripture,” and in all due humility to serve the Church, no objection could be taken to their work. Indeed the New Testament itself created a demand for the most important part of this literature, for every sacred document must be explained and must be defended against false interpretations. Hence this form of literary activity became at once a matter of duty, and the corresponding literary productions as “Science of the New Testament,” if we may use the expression, thus as “Bible-Science” at once acquired the freedom of the Church. Thus the New Testament, which as we saw in § 4 exercised in one particular direction a strongly cramping influence upon literature, in another direction promoted it and opened a new path for it. And what was there that did not come within the scope of the science of the Bible! If the Bible was a cosmos, like the universe, it needed for its interpretation simply every form of Science! And so since the beginning of the third century grew up, attached to the New Testament, the multiform Science of the Church, which began to compete with the Science of the Gnostics and drove it out of the field. In company with this there appeared a multitude of ecclesiastical treatises dealing with every possible problem of the Christian life. There was also a development of practical religious literature that raised no claim to stand on a level with the New Testament, but rather extracted from the New Testament the edifying teaching that it offered to the Churches. Lastly, the way was now opened even for a light literature with religious colouring; for the idea of literature was no longer objectionable, and one could make use of it in every direction so long as one paid due homage to the Holy Scriptures. All this had been brought about by the creation of the New Testament!

But, on the other hand, if the Book had not been created, then it is most probable that even the memory of the forces and ideals that bore sway in Gospel history and throughout the Apostolic epoch would have vanished. Of what enormous importance it was that in the present the authentic records of that past time were still read again and again! How mighty has been the influence of the reading of the Gospels upon the character and course of Church history! Think of the part that has been played by the story of the Rich Young Man or the Sermon on the Mount, and of what it meant for the Church—that Augustine, at the critical moment, opened the Epistle to the Romans! Though no one any longer dared to set himself on the level of the New Testament, still this Book, just because as an authoritative collection it was more or less accessible to all, was a continuous source of power that raised the weak men of the present to heights of perfection. What would have happened if, with the Old Testament, we had received the Didache or the Apostolic Canons and Constitutions as a second Canon, instead of the New Testament? Thus here also the New Testament worked in two contrary directions it lowered and also raised the tone! It has blunted the conscience of many—no one can attain to the height of the New Testament, nor need one—and it has also acted as a spur to the conscience. It has guarded Christianity from the rank growth of emotionalism, but it certainly has also repressed many a primitive and vital impulse. How many Christians of note with original Christian experience have as “Bible-believers” entangled themselves in the Book, have suffered themselves to be disturbed, hindered, directed by texts of the Bible, and in consequence have not brought their character and innate gift to perfect development, and have lost their freedom! What mischief has been wrought by the Revelation of John just because it stood in the New Testament! What terrible perplexities of conscience have been brought about by certain sayings of St Paul just because they be-longed to the Canon! And yet, on the other hand, how unspeakable the blessing that has flowed from passages of the Bible which, just because they were canonical, filled men’s hearts with confidence steadfast as a rock!

APPENDIX II (to § 1-4 of Part I)

Forerunners and Rivals of the New Testament

Those collections of authoritative Christian works that, according to early indications in the course of the development of the New Testament, might have come into existence but have not come down to us, call for thorough investigation; here let it suffice to give a list of them accompanied by some words of explanation. Something has already been said about them in the text of this book. I count seven of these embryonic collections:

1. A collection of late Jewish and Christian prophetic-messianic or prophetic-hortatory books inserted in the Old Testament—thus an expanded and corrected Old Testament.

2. A collection of (late Jewish and) Christian prophetic books standing independently side by side with the Old Testament.

3. A simple collection of Sayings of the Lord, like the common source of St Matthew and St Luke (Q), standing side by side with the Old Testament.

4. A written Gospel, or a collection of several Gospels containing the history of the Crucified and Risen Lord, together with His teaching and commands, standing side by side with the Old Testament.

5. A Gospel (or several), with in addition a more or less comprehensive collection of inspired Christian works of the most different character and graded prestige, standing side by side with the Old Testament.

APPENDIX III

The Beginnings of the Conception of an Instrumentum Novissimum; the Hope for the Evangelium Aeternum; the Public Lection, and the quasi-Canonical Recognition, of the Stories of the Martyrs in the Church.

In the first section of his Kanonsgeschichte (Bd. i., S. 3-22) Zahn has tried to show that when Montanism arose in Phrygia the New Testament was already in existence; that the Montanists, however, added to it a third Canon in which a kind of Gospel (the Logia of the Paraclete), analogies to the Pauline Epistles, and an apocalypse were to be found. Zahn’s thesis, in spite of all the learning that has been lavished upon it, is untenable in this form—especially in what concerns the contents of this “Scriptura novissima”—as I have shown in my work, “Das Neutestament um d. J. 200” (1889). It is, however, quite true that the Montanists very soon set up a collection of the Sayings of the Paraclete (spoken by Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla) and assigned to it a status of the highest honour corresponding to the final character of the mission of the Paraclete. Also the conception that the Paraclete stands to the revelation given in Christ and His Apostles as Moses stands to Abraham is earlier than Tertullian, and belongs to earlier Phrygian Montanism; in both cases Grace precedes and is followed after a certain period by the giving of a Law. Seeing, however, that the Revelation in Christ and His Apostles was for the Church represented in a written work, was “Scripture,” it became a problem for Montanist Catholics like Tertullian what status they were now to assign to the prophecy of the Paraclete. In his later treatises Tertullian, in controversy with heretics and psychics, is accustomed always first to argue from the Old Testament and New Testament as “Scripture,” and then to appeal to an oracle of the Paraclete as an instance of the clearest and most conclusive character; but he neither treats nor quotes the collection of oracles as “Scriptura.” He therefore—in spite of his reverence for the sayings of the Paraclete, and although they were embodied in a collection—felt himself compelled to refrain from formally adding them to the “Scriptura.” It was not expedient to create a “third” Testament; for then the importance of the first coming of Christ would have been depreciated in a fashion that would have offended Tertullian’s Christian conscience (the Paraclete belongs to Christ and is sent by Him). But even the natural solution, the adding of the new collection as a second part to the New Testament would have had its own great difficulties; seeing that the New Testament consisted already of two divisions, and that the collection of oracles could neither be included in the Apostolus nor could be treated as a third part of the New Testament (in the former case it would have lost something of its own peculiar significance, even in the latter case this would have been obscured). Accordingly Tertullian seems to have been satisfied with treating the oracles of the Paraclete, taken as separate sayings, as in a formless and indefinite way equal to or even superior to Holy Scripture.

APPENDIX IV

The Use of the New Testament in the Carthaginian (and Roman) Church at the Time of Tertullian

In the works of Tertullian there lies a great body of material from which one may form a judgment as to the use and valuation of the New Testament in the Carthaginian Church. I do not mean the passages in which Tertullian himself makes use of the New Testament, but those passages in which he reports instances where passages from the New Testament were employed as proof-texts against himself by his adversaries the “Lax” or, in his later writings, the “Psychics.” The “Lax” or the “Psychics,” however, formed the majority of the Church, and had probably the body of clergy behind them, so that we thus actually learn the general attitude of the Church towards the New Testament.Tertullian is concerned with the Church in Carthage, but in his latest works also with the Church in Rome, which, led by her bishop, rejects Montanism, champions the practices of the “Lax,” and uses her influence in Carthage. The writings of Tertullian form our sole authority for such information concerning that special period, and herein, too, they have no small value for us. If we did not possess them it would have been at least doubtful whether the attitude of the theological writers towards the New Testament was not in advance of the rest of the Church, and that a quite different view prevailed in the communities. That Tertullian really had the majority of the community against him is clearly shown by De Virg. Vel., i., among other passages, where Tertullian confesses in the first sentence: “Proprium iam negotium passus meæ opinionis,” i.e. I am again left in a minority and must go on fighting.

In collecting the following passages I have used all the works of Tertullian, so far as they contain appropriate material, with the exception of those written against heretics: hence De Præsc. and Scorpiace have been neglected. These works also contain, it is true, objections and deductions made by the community,Tertullian expressly states (De Præsc., 8) that not heretics alone but also “our people” appeal to St Matt. vii. 7 (“Seek and ye shall find”) as a justification for following their impulse to pry into the mysteries of religion. Tertullian declares that the text only refers to the Jews, or, if it also refers to Gentiles (Gentile Christians), it has force only under distinct limitations. but they do not allow of being clearly distinguished from the objections and deductions made by heretics.

The first thing to be stated is that the community already treat the New Testament just in the same way as Tertullian himself, that is, they have the same ideas about the book and therefore apply the same method of interpretation to, and make the same demands upon the book as he. Thus they required that for each regulation in Christian Discipline a text of Scripture must be in existenceDe Spect., 3: “Quorundam fides aut simplicior aut scrupulosior ad hanc abdicationem spectaculorum de scripturis auctoritatem exposcit et se in incertum constituit, quod non significanter neque nominatim denuntietur servis dei abstinentia eiusmodi”; cf. De Spect., 20: “Quam vana, immo desperata argumentatio corum, qui, sine dubio tergiversatione amittendæ voluptatis, obtendunt nullam eius abstinentiæ mentionem specialiter vel localiter in scripturis determinari, qua directo prohibeant eiusmodi conventibus inseri servum dei.” De Cor., 2: “Si ideo dicetur coronari licere, quia non prohibeat scriptura.”—this is, in truth, Tertullian’s own opinion, but when he is in a difficulty he renounces it, and in his later works he falls back upon the Paraclete—thus the silence of Scripture upon any point is most significant, for instance: The Apostles cannot have been baptised,De Bapt., 12. because the Scripture says nothing about it; while Scripture condemns unchastity it does not deny the possibility of forgiveness, therefore we must accept the possibility,De Pud., 18. etc. Again, they agree as to the right of unlimited combination of passages of Scripture: Because in Gal. i. 16, “Flesh and Blood” can be referred to Judaism, so also the “Flesh and Blood” of 1 Cor. xv. 50 can mean Judaism, and the latter passage is therefore to be interpreted: “Judaism cannot inherit the kingdom of God”!De Resurr., 50. Further, it is allowable to take one’s stand upon one single text and from this standpoint to regard all others as if they did not exist, or, in other words, to twist them into harmony. This practice drives Tertullian to desperation (vide, e.g., De Pud., 16: “Sed est hoc solemne perversis et idiotis hæreticis, iam et psychicis universis, alicuius capituli ancipitis occasione adversus exercitum sententiarum instrumenti totius [of the whole Bible] armari”); but how often had he done the same thing!

The following passages of the New Testament are alleged by the community against Tertullian:

St Matt. ii. 1 ff. (De Idol., 9).—Magi appear in the New Testament and are not blamed as such, hence Magic and Astrology are not forbidden to Christians.

APPENDIX V

“Instrumentum” (“Instrumenta”) as a Name for the Bible

Zahn (Gesch. des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, i. 106-111) has published a thorough investigation of the term “Instrumentum” as a title of the Bible; but in my opinion he starts from an incorrect premise, and gives to “Instrumentum,” in connection with the Bible, a significance that is more general than is admissible.

On pages 105 ff., Zahn writes: “Tertullian preferred to render Covenant by ‘Instrumentum.’ (In our investigation) we must start from this fact, incidentally revealed by Tertullian, that it was the prevailing custom among his contemporaries to express by ‘Testamentum’ what he preferred to call ‘Instrumentum.’ There is, accordingly, no doubt that in this as in similar cases Διαθήκη lies behind both terms.” He then discusses “Instrumentum” in ordinary use and its relationship with “Documentum”; he asserts that the term not seldom occurs in Tertullian in its original wider connotation, and in conclusion remarks: “We should do injustice to Tertullian if we suspected that the term ‘Instrumentum’ covers a conception of the significance of the Holy Scripture for the Church that is merely legal. The Holy Scriptures were for him by no means mainly documents that could be produced by the Church in her case against heretics (Zahn refers to De Præsc.); though, as a matter of course, they were authorities of the highest value for the Church.” On page 109 Zahn speaks of the elasticity of the concept “Instrumentum” as applied to Holy Scripture.

Three theses are here brought forward: (1) that “Instrumentum” in Tertullian (and when used elsewhere in the Church) is equivalent to “Testamentum”; (2) that “Instrumentum,” like “Testamentum,” is a translation of Διαθήκη; (3) that in Tertullian it has not only the special significance, “a fundamental document to prove doctrine,” but also a more general significance. All these three theses are in my opinion incorrect, as I shall now proceed to prove.

As for the first thesis, it is true that Tertullian writes (Adv. Marc., iv. 1): “Duos deos dividit, proinde diversos, alterum alterius instrumenti, vel, quod magis usui est dicere, Testamenti.” Here it is of course clear that Tertullian (and others here and there) spoke of “Instrumenta” while the usual term was “Testamenta.” And yet it would be a mistake to assert that “Instrumentum” is an equivalent for “Testamentum.” In cursory speech it can serve as such, but in itself is is not. This is most strikingly clear from the three following passages: in Adv. Prax., 20, Tertullian writes: “Totum instrumentum utriusque testamenti”; in De Monog., 4: “Secedat nunc mentio paracleti ut nostri (the Montanists) alicuius auctoris; evolvamus communia (to us and the ‘Psychics’) instrumenta scripturarum pristinarum (i.e. the Old Testament and New Testament)”; and in De Monog., 7: “Vetera instrumenta legalium scripturarum.” Tertullian thus speaks of the “Instrument of the two Testaments,” and of the “Instrument of the Holy Scriptures.” “Instrumentum” cannot, therefore, be an equivalent for “Testamentum.” This also means that we have already disposed of the second thesis which is in itself highly improbable, for how could anyone have arrived at “Instrumentum” as a translation of Διαθήκη? It is true that very remarkable translations are found in the Old Latin of the Church. Why was not “Fœdus” rather than “Testamentum” used for Διαθήκη? Why was Μυστήριον translated by “Sacramentum,” etc.?—but “Instrumentum” has no connection, or only the slightest, with Διαθήκη. Further, Zahn himself is compelled to confess that in quotations from the Bible Tertullian never translates Διαθήκη by “Instrumentum.” Hence the term “Instrumenta” in reference to the Bible is just as independent of Διαθήκη as are the terms “the Holy Scriptures” or “the Books.” The term, therefore, must have its origin in considerations that have absolutely nothing to do with traditional names for the Bible, but are concerned only with its significance—and, indeed, in considerations that are confined to the Western Church; for, so far as I know, throughout the whole range of the Greek Churches no equivalent for “Instrumentum” existed either in the second century or later.

We now come to Zahn’s third thesis that the name “Instrumenta” for the Holy Scriptures is elastic, even if it approaches “Documenta” in meaning, and is not to be understood merely in a limited legal sense (documents to be produced by the Church against heretics). Here Zahn seems to be justified by the whole work, De Præsc. Hær., in which Catholics are earnestly warned not to appeal to the Holy Scriptures when they dispute with heretics; therefore Tertullian cannot have regarded Holy Scripture as the fundamental document for doctrine. But it has long been recognised that Tertullian has been the very last man to heed his own warning, and that this whole work is a masterpiece of advocacy, a piece of special pleading, where the real heart of the author appears in his exposition of the Church’s Rule of Faith. Now chance has so willed that the only passage in the works of Tertullian, in which “Instrumenta,” as applied to the Bible, is simply and plainly defined as “instrumenta doctrinæ,” should be found in this very treatise, De Præsc. Here we read in chapter 28: “Illic et scripturarum et expositionum adulteratio deputanda est, ubi doctrinæ diversitas invenitur. quibus fuit propositum aliter docendi, eos necessitas coëgit aliter disponendi instrumenta doctrinæ. alias enim non potuissent aliter docere, nisi aliter haberent per quæ docerent. sicut illis non potuisset succedere correptula doctrinæ sine corruptula instrumentorum eius, ita et nobis integritas doctrinæ non competisset sine integritate eorum per quæ doctrina tractatur.” There can be no doubt here: The Holy Scriptures are here called “instrumenta,” because they are fundamental documents, with whose help alone doctrine can be expounded and by which it is proved; “instrumenta” and “per quæ doctrina tractatur” are for Tertullian identical conceptions. Naturally the exposition need not always have a polemical character; rather it is true also for the Church that she must in behalf of her own knowledge prove her doctrine “per instrumenta Scripturarum” ; so that the idea of a document is always implied in such proof. The Holy Scriptures are called “Instrumenta,” because they are for the Church the decisive documents for the exposition and the proof of her doctrine.

A survey of the passages in which Tertullian uses “instrumentum” will establish my position more clearly.

Naturally not a few cases also occur in Tertullian of the use of the word in a quite general sense. For instance he writes:

De Resurr., 63.—“Anima habet instrumentum, habet cultum, habet mancipium suum carnem.”

Apol., 17.—“Tota moles ista (the world) cum omni instrumento elementorum.”

Ad Uxor., 1.—“Continentia ad instrumentum æternitatis (pertinet).”

De Cor., 8.—“Communia instrumenta exhibitionis (vitæ) humanæ.”

Again it is found in connection with the Conception “Literature” in general, and here it acquires the idea of a declarative and authoritative document:

De Idol., 10.—“Litteratura instrumentum est ad omnem vitam.”

Apol., 19.—“Multis instrumentis adsidendum est, reserenda antiquissimarum etiam gentium archiva”—here the close relationship of “instrumenta” and “archiva” is noteworthy.

Apol., 10.—“Si conscientia inficias ieret, de suis antiquitatum instrumentis revincetur.”

De Cor., 7 (The question is concerning the origin of garlands).—“Litteræ ad hoc sæculares necessariæ; de suis enim instrumentis sæcularia probari necesse est.”

De Spect., 5 (The question is concerning the origin of the games, this must be investigated)—“de instrumentis ethnicalium litterarum.”

De Testim., 1.—The works of philosophers and poets are the “proprium instrumentum” of the heathen from which their teachings are known.

APPENDIX VI

A Short Statement and Criticism of the Results of Zahn’s Investigations into the Origin of the New Testament.

Following upon his great work, Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, of more than 2000 pages, Zahn has published in his Grundriss der Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, a short summary of the results of his investigations. On page 13 we find the sentence: “Unless there had been occasions for uncertainty as to the limits of the Bible (the New Testament) there would have been no history of the Canon.” After this bold statement it must appear that, according to Zahn, the New Testament—like dogma for the Catholic Church—came into existence from the moment at which its latest book was published, and that there is such a thing as the “history” of the New Testament only, “because the Christian works that were used for public lection were not from the first absolutely the same in all orthodox communities,” “because, even in one and the same community, variations in this practice lasted for quite a long time,” and lastly, “because the conception of what should be regularly read at public worship had not been clearly defined,” in so far as all kinds of works were read publicly that did not belong to the Canon. Finally, “Even among works inherited from the Apostolic age, differences, in respect of the frequency and regularity of their use in public worship, must have existed according as they were more or less suitable for religious instruction.”

There is still need of a short discussion of the results of Zahn’s criticism, because these results are often developed in a way against which the author himself must feel inclined to enter an energetic protest. We hear everywhere that Zahn, the most learned of the critics, has proved that the New Testament came into existence so early as the end of the Apostolic age, about the year A.D. 100; and that so-called critics of far inferior learning place the origin of the New Testament about a century later. Against such a position we would establish the following points:

1. The first part of Zahn’s larger work, as well as his Grundriss, ought not to bear the title History of the Canon of the New Testament, but History of the public and private use of works that were afterwards united in the New Testament; in the second part also the question of public lection is very much to the front. The right to be read publicly and the right to be included in the Canon are jumbled together by Zahn as if they were identical, though he himself admits (vide supra) that the conception of what should be regularly read at public worship “had not been clearly defined.” It is, indeed, quite true, that every work that was “Canonical” (in the sense of the Old Testament) was also read publicly, but the converse statement is simply inadmissible. Public lection was certainly a most important preliminary condition for the canonising of a book (in many cases, however, it was a consequence), but it was by no means the sole condition. I mean that because a book was read at public worship it is far from following that it had, therefore, the same dignity as the Old Testament. But this is the very point In so far, therefore, as Zahn, dealing with the earliest history of the “Canon of the New Testament,” confines himself, and must confine himself, exclusively to proving the existence of certain smaller collections of books now in the New Testament and the fact that they were read publicly, his work is simply not a history of the Canon of the New Testament, but—even if all his investigations are correct and to the point—a history of the earliest public and private use of certain books. Moreover, it hangs together with this unjustifiable identification of public lection and Canon that Zahn, in his larger work, thinks that he may neglect all other aspects of the history of the origin of the New Testament. The most learned authority on the second century in his discussion of this question makes really no use of his knowledge of the opinions and controversies, of the problems great and small, that agitated the Christendom of those days. Hundreds of details in the history of that period are brought forward and investigated thoroughly and comprehensively, but the growing New Testament is never brought into connection with the living history of the Church—not at all because the author was unable to do this, but because he believes that it is not necessary—public lection alone is sufficient and decisive.

2. In the Grundriss, Zahn has divided the early history of “the Canon of the New Testament” into three sections: “The New Testament about A.D. 170-220”; “The New Testament about A.D. 140–170”; “Earliest Traces of, and the Origin of, Collections of Apostolic works.”

The third section (i.e. the one dealing with the earliest period) ends (p. 40) with the following statement: ” Many questions referring to the origin of the New Testament will always remain without a certain answer. Yet it may be regarded as certain that about the years A.D. 80–110, both the ‘fourfold’ Gospel and the corpus of thirteen Pauline Epistles were in existence, and had been introduced into public worship along the whole line from Antioch to Rome, and that these two collections which form the most important part of the New Testament were from the first surrounded in public worship and in the estimation of the communities by a larger or smaller circle of Christian works that, like the two collections, seemed suitable for reading at public worship with a view to the religious instruction of the communities.” Here, indeed, much more is asserted than can be proved and than Zahn himself has proved; for I cannot see—even on the basis of Zahn’s own investigations — what justification there is for going back to a date so early as A.D. 80, nor can I discover the evidence for “the whole line from Antioch to Rome,” nor the authorities upon which Zahn rests his statement that the public reading of the Gospels and of the Pauline Epistles at that period is alike certain; indeed, I believe that Zahn himself, on closer reflection, would substitute the years A.D. 110–130 for A.D. 80–110 as more appropriate for what he asserts. However, supposing that he is justified in what he claims, what, after all, is proved thereby? Surely no more than this, that in some, perhaps in several, communities, public lections from the four Gospels and the Pauline Epistles were the custom. It is well that Zahn himself has refrained in this connection from letting his pen write the word New Testament, and it is also good that he has guarded himself from naming the Christian works, apart from the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles, that were publicly read at that time. He only asserts that at that time already other works were so honoured, and to this assertion no objection can be raised. Seeing now that he preserves absolute silence concerning the years A.D. 110-140, we must assume that during that period absolutely no change took place in the conditions that are supposed to have already existed between A.D. 80 and 110—this means that, according to Zahn, we cannot prove that a New Testament, set on the same level as the Old Testament, existed during the period before A.D. 140. The four Gospels were read publicly, the Pauline Epistles were read publicly, some other works were read publicly—that is all.

But Zahn does assert the existence of the New Testament, at all events, for the period A.D. 140-170. This section of his work bears the title: “The New Testament about A.D. 140-170,” and he probably thinks also of certain deductions that can be made, not without justification, for the former period, though he does not enter into them. The evidence, however, that the New Testament was in existence in the Church during that generation is exclusively based upon the Bible of Marcion, the Bible of the Valentinians, and the writings of the Apostles in Justin. Here we would make the following observations: (1) in reference to Marcion it is, of course, as good as certain that he dealt as a critic with the four Gospels of the Church; but all other questions—whether he knew of the Pastoral Epistles, whether he criticised the Acts of the Apostles or the Apocalypse, etc.—must unfortunately remain unanswered. As for the main question, however, whether he knew of, or assumes the existence of, a written New Testament of the Church in any sense whatever, in this case an affirmatory answer is most improbable, because if this were so he would have been compelled to make a direct attack upon the New Testament of the Church, and if such an attack had been made we should have heard of it from Tertullian. Marcion, on the contrary, treats the Catholic Church as one that “follows the Testament of the Creator-God,” and directs the full force of his attack against this Testament and against the falsification of the Gospel and of the Pauline Epistles by the original Apostles and the writers of the Gospels. He would necessarily have dealt with the two Testaments of the Catholic Church if the Church had already possessed a New Testament. His polemic would necessarily have been much less simple if he had been opposed to a Church which, by possessing a New Testament side by side with the Old Testament, had ipso facto placed the latter under the shelter of the former. In fact Marcion’s position towards the Catholic Church is intelligible, in the full force of its simplicity, only under the supposition that the Church had not yet in her hand any “litera scripta Novi Testamenti.” (2) In reference to the Valentinian school Zahn asserts that: “The New Testament, which from the productions of the most important Gnostic School of about A.D. 140 in all its ramifications, we learn to have been the common possession of the Church, was identical with the New Testament of about A.D. 200;” but in order to arrive at such a result the truth of many incorrect equations must be assumed. It is not necessary here to discuss all these; we would, however, just make only the following remarks: In the first place we must neglect all the information derived from the Fathers of about A.D. 200 who assert or assume the identity of the New Testament of the Valentinians with that of the Church, for it is a well-known fact that the Valentinians both kept in touch with the Church and also conformed outwardly to the progressive development of the times in things ecclesiastical (“communem fidem adfirmant”). Next we must give special prominence to Ptolemy’s words (Ep. ad Floram., 1, 9): “We shall prove our statement (concerning the Godhead, the Old Testament, etc.) from the Words of our Saviour; for with their help it is alone possible to arrive without stumbling at the understanding of reality.”τῶν ῥηθησομένων ἡμῖν τὰς ἀποδείξεις ἐκ τῶν τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμὼν λόγων παριστῶντες, δί ὧν μόνον ἔστιν ἀπταίστως ἐπὶ τὴν κατάληψιν τῶν ὄντων ὁδηγεῖσθαι. Thus, according to Ptolemy, who like all Valentinians adopted a critical attitude towards the Old Testament, the Word of the Lord is the sole court of final appeal. His practice is actually in accordance with this belief, and he derives the Word of the Lord from the Gospels. The testimony of “the disciples of Jesus and of the Apostles” (vide chap. iv. 5, etc.) occupies only a secondary place in his regard; for him it has clearly no independent, but only a derivative, authority (as it, and so far as it coincides with the Words of the Saviour); he quotes only Epistles of St Paul and statements of John, the Apostle and Evangelist. Lastly, he takes account of the ἀποστολικὴ παράδοσις, ἣν ἐκ διαδοχῆς καὶ ἡμεῖς παρειλήφαμεν (chap. v. 10). Therefore in the case of Ptolemy we cannot speak of a New Testament, because he evidently does not possess or know of a collection in which Gospels and Apostolic Epistles stand on one level. All that we learn elsewhere of the ancient Valentinian School and of Valentinus himself fits in with what we learn from Ptolemy. Their high reverence for, and their use of the Pauline Epistles never justify the equation: “Epistulæ (i.e. Paulus)= Evangelia.” I cannot see, as Zahn asserts, that “clear traces” of the Acts, 1 and 2 Peter, and Hebrews are to be found among the Valentinians; but even if that were so, there would still remain the question what value Valentinus and his school ascribed to these works. Summing up, we may say that Valentinus and his earlier followers set up in place of the Old Testament as their highest court of appeal the Word of the Lord contained in the Gospels, with which they associated, as a secondary authority, the Pauline Epistles and their own secret Apostolic tradition. Among them nothing like the New Testament, so far as structure is concerned, was as yet in existence. Arguing, then, from this to what then obtained in the Church, we can only say: The Church at that time possessed the Canon of the Four Gospels, and read side by side with it the collection of Pauline Epistles. This, however, does not carry us very far in Zahn’s direction.

3. According to Zahn, Justin is a witness to the New Testament for (a) he places the Ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων on the same level with the “Writings of the Prophets”; “as, however, the whole Old Testament, is intended to be included under the latter title, so also the name Ἀπομν. τ. ἀποστ. by no means excludes other Christian writings”; (b) Justin knows the Johannine Apocalypse as a work of the Apostle John and as a genuine product of Christian Prophecy;Zahn adds (p. 34): “It is self-evident that the Apocalypse, in accordance with its own demand, was repeatedly read aloud in the assemblies of the communities that so accepted it.” (c) “Justin as an apologist had no occasion to mention other Apostolic works in the same way as the Apocalypse; but we find that his religious ideas and form of expression are affected by his diligent reading, of the following works: Rom., 1 Cor., Gal., Eph., (Phil.?), Col., 2 Thess., (Titus, 1 Tim.?), Heb., 1 Pet., (James?), Acts, and Didache.” Against these statements we would assert that (α) the statement that the expression Ἀπομν. τ. ἀποστ. does not exclude other Christian writings is only correct if we at once add that it also does not include them. I will not waste words here, for the thesis is as inadmissible as the argument by which it is based on the clause, “The whole Old Testament is intended to be included under the Writings of the Prophets.” Are then Συγγράμματα and Ἀπομνημονεύματα the same? Can we subsume the Pauline Epistles or the Acts of the Apostles under Ἀπομνημονεύματα? (β) The fact that Justin knows of the Apocalypse and knows of it as a book of public lection—though, indeed, be does say this in so many words—has nothing to do with the question of the New Testament so long as we do not know whether this book was placed on a level with the Gospels at the time of Justin. If the Apocalypse stood by itself, like many other Jewish and Christian Apocalypses at that time, Justin’s notice does not come into consideration for the history of the New Testament in the strict sense of the term. (γ) Justin’s views and expressions may have been influenced by many early Christian writings, traces of which Zahn believes that he has found; yet Zahn himself does not venture to assert that Justin regarded these as canonical; Zahn leaves this conclusion to the reader. However, a reader who carefully studies the Dialogue with Trypho is not only not able to draw such a conclusion, but is rather compelled to regard the opposite as proved. Zahn, indeed, asserts that Justin, as an apologist, had no occasion to express himself concerning the canonical prestige of Apostolic works ; but the case is otherwise: Justin, with an enormous expense of labour in collection of passages, seeks to deduce a New Testament (or the New Testament) from the Old Testament, and from the Old Testament to prove its existence. He could not do otherwise in controversy with a Jew. But why does he not do what, for instance, Tertullian does dozens of times in reference to the Collection of Sayings of the Paraclete, which was not recognised by his opponents in the Church? Why does he not once at least say: “We Christians possess a New Testament in form of litera scripta”? The reserve which he here adopts is simply unintelligible if a New Testament was in existence in the Church. It was simply not in existence! Justin knows the new Covenant as a fact that had its litera scripta only in the Old Testament. He says nothing about the New Testament, not only because he is an apologist, but because no New Testament stood at his disposal; he never speaks even of the Gospels as “New Testament,” and if he had done so there is nothing to show that for Justin other early Christian writings stood upon the same high level as the Gospels. The grounds for the assertion that Justin presupposes the New Testament are as unsound as in the cases of Marcion and Valentinus.

Lastly, in the section dealing with the New Testament of about A.D. 170-220, Zahn investigates the changes that the already existing New Testament experienced during that period. Here, however, as a kind of headline, we find the sentence (p. 15): “The New Testament at that time was far from being something clearly defined.” In fact as we read the many detailed discussions here and in the parallel sections of the larger work, we not seldom forget that we are supposed to be dealing with certain discrepancies in a work already created; rather we have the impression that we have before us something that is just coming into being. Hence there is comparatively little here that provokes controversy, and, indeed, it may be regarded a matter of indifference whether we describe the tremendous changes, which Zahn himself allows to have taken place between A.D. 170 and 220, as the “Origin” of the New Testament out of previous stages of existence, or as the “development” of something that was already in existence, but was as yet unborn. Zahn himself, however, allows, so far as I see, that the name “New Testament” first makes its appearance during this period.

Zahn himself will not have us speak in set words of the “New Testament” until about A.D. 130 or 140; he asserts its existence for the following generation (even if the name is absent); but on the one hand the proofs for the latter thesis do not hold good, and on the other hand he himself allows that the New Testament about A.D. 170 was still an unfinished work, and in any case that nowhere in the Church did it appear as something clearly defined. There is no question, therefore, of a difference of one hundred years between Zahn and the other critics, but of a much smaller space of time, which would contract still more closely if Zahn would bring himself to take as punctum saliens not the public lection of the separate works, but the setting of a new collection of sacred writings on a level with the Old Testament.

With these remarks I am far from wishing to renew a controversy that years ago was carried on between Zahn and myself with only too much strong feeling; but seeing that an accurate and scientifically balanced account of the character of the controversy has not been drawn up, and seeing especially that the actual results of Zahn’s work are exploited in favour of an entirely unscientific point of view, it seemed to me necessary, in these studies of the origin of the New Testament, to set the facts in a clear light.