ORAL PREACHING WAS, OF NECESSITY, BY SOME YEARS ANTERIOR TO WRITTEN PREACHING, OR THE GIFT OF NEW SCRIPTURES.

24. Iv was fitting that the apostles should, for some years, preach by word of mouth, before commencing the New Testament canon; as it was necessary that, — before adding new inspired writings to the Sacred Volume, the continuation of which had been interrupted for four centuries, — they should be able to intrust their deposit to living churches spread over the whole civilised world. It was, accordingly, indispensable that an intelligent and believing people of God should first be gathered, either from the Gentiles or from the Jews. This was essential, especially for two reasons: — First, that it might distinctly appear that the religion of Jesus Christ, far from being at variance with Moses and the prophets, was, on the contrary, founded on what their inspired writings had revealed; and, secondly, that when the divine epistles which were to form the commencement of the New Testament canon appeared, there might be a people prepared to receive, preserve, and transmit them. It was requisite there should be pious and truly converted men, formed into churches, to whom narratives and letters should be addressed, and who should successively receive these new scriptures, and attest their authenticity, either by reading them in their solemn assemblies every Sabbath or every Lord’s day, (and Justin Martyr testifies that this was actually done;¹) or by preserving their original texts in their houses of prayer, (as, according to the testimony of Tertullian, they did.) Thus was the written word faithfully transmitted, from age to age, to all the churches of God,

1) First Apology, 67.