SOME OTHER CATALOGUES, ALLEGED TO BE OF THE FOURTH CENTURY, AND AGREEING WITH OUR CANON, ARE APOCRYPHAL OR SPURIOUS.

78. BESIDES these nine catalogues of the fathers of the fourth century, three others are quoted. We have not given an account of these; because they do not possess a sufficient claim to our confidence, one being doubtful and the others forged.

In the same way, in Chapter VI, when treating of the second century, we have not mentioned the apocryphal book of Apostolic Canons,¹ which pretends to give, in the name of the apostles, “to all the clergy and laity (σεβάσμια καὶ ὥγια) a list of the secret and holy books (πᾶσι κληρικοῖς καὶ λαῑκοῖς) of the Old and the New Testament,” and which specifies the fourteen epistles of Paul and the seven other apostolic epistles. In the present chapter, in which we treat of the fourth century, we refrain from mentioning the three catalogues respectively attributed to Pope Innocent I., to Pope Damasus, and to Amphilochius, as we regard the last as doubtful and the two others as spurious.

The same remark applies also to the catalogue pretended to be of the fifth century, and ascribed to Pope Gelasius, but of which not the slightest mention occurs in historical documents previous to the time of Isidorus Mercator, in the ninth century.

SECTION I.

CATALOGUE OF INNOCENT I.

79. Pope Innocent I. (bishop of Rome in 402) is represented as having published, towards the end of the fourth, or the beginning of the fifth century, a list of the books contained in the Canon of Scripture. This pretended list entirely agrees, as to the New Testament, with that of our churches; but, as to the Old, it was drawn up for the purpose of sanctioning the Apocrypha.

It is to be found in the pretended Epistle to Exuperus,² bishop: of Toulouse. That epistle, however, says William Cave,³ ought, for the following reasons, to be regarded as entirely spurious — 1. The barbarism of its style, incompatible with the supposition of its being a production of the age of Innocent I. 2. The absurd adaptations it contains of Holy Scripture. 3. Its doctrinal errors, which were unquestionably unknown till a later period. 4. Very gross historical anachronisms. 5. Its mention of rites which had not yet been introduced into the Christian Church. Besides, the falsity of this pretended document is sufficiently proved by the fact that the Council of Carthage, entertaining some doubts in relation to the canon, resolved to consult Pope Boniface on the subject, who was raised to the Papal chair only sixteen years after Innocent I. This obviously implies that Innocent had not settled the canon. Moreover, as Bishop Cosin remarks, no mention was ever made of the epistle in question for three hundred years from the death of Innocent; and it was never stated that this epistle contained a catalogue of inspired books till a hundred years after its appearance!

80. The ancient Church was long governed by what was called “The Universal Code of Canons;” a code which was afterwards ratified by the Emperor Justinian. It consisted of two hundred and seven canons, enacted by four general councils and five provincial. The canons were arranged in a precise order, that their number might neither be increased nor diminished. This continued to be the case till the time of Dionysius the Younger, abbot of Rome, who died in 540. Dionysius undertook to translate the code from Greek into Latin, but had the hardihood to introduce numerous alterations, all in favour of the Papacy. He omitted, for example, the eight canons of the Council of Ephesus, a large portion of the last canon of Laodicea, the last three canons Constantinople, the last two of Chalcedon, and he added a great number of canons unknown to the Christian Church. Yet, let us remark that, with all these alterations, there appeared no decretal epistle of a pope; so that, for a hundred years, even the Roman Code contained no trace of an Epistle of Innocent. It was not till 200 years after Dionysius the Little, and 300 after Innocent, that an abridgement of the Canons, (Breviarum Canonum,) drawn up in 689 by Cresconius, an African bishop, added to the Code of Dionysius the Little the decretal epistles of six popes, and among these an Epistle to Exuperus. Even then this pretended Epistle of Innocent did not as yet contain his pretended catalogue. It was not till a hundred years after Cresconius, or 400 years after Innocent I, that Isidorus Mercator, in the year 800, published his Collection of Decretals, — “such a collection,” says Cosin, “as no honest man could bring himself to use; and it remained without effect till Pope Leo IV. (in 850) and Pope Nicholas, (in 860,) perceiving the advantage they might derive from these false decretals, promulgated them as law.”

We enter into these details here merely to avoid the necessity of recurring to them when we shall have occasion subsequently to speak of the False Decretals, and the pernicious use which was made of them in the Apocrypha question.

SECTION II.

CATALOGUE OF DAMASCUS.

81. For the same reasons as the preceding we refrain from mentioning, in connexion with the fourth century, the pretended catalogue of Damasus,⁴ contained in a decree (De Explanatione Fidei) said to have been passed under that Pope in a council at Rome, between 366 and 384. That catalogue, agreeing, as to the New Testament, with that of our churches, is introduced in these terms: — “Nunc vero de Scripturis Divinis agendum est, quid universalis Catholica Ecclesia teneat et quid vitart debeat.” We regard it as spurious, like that of Innocent, as it is now well ascertained that all the decretals professing to be anterior to Pope Syricus (from 384 to 398) are to be classed among the False Decretals, which no one, even in the Roman camp, any longer dares to uphold.

SECTION III.

CATALOGUE OF AMPHILOCHIUS.⁵

82. Lastly, as to the catalogue in Greek verse, usually published among the works of Gregory the Divine, (under the title of Iambe ad Seleuwcum,) and often ascribed to Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium about the year 380, and of which we have already spoken, (Thesis 61,) we regard it as, at least, apocryphal, if not spurious. Neither its date, nor its author, nor its history, is accurately known. It abounds in metrical faults, and there is no sufficient reason for believing that Amphilochius was its author. We possess no authentic work of that bishop so as to be able to institute a comparison. Many have even been inclined to ascribe it to Gregory of Nazianzus, as if these Iambics presented to us a second and a poetic expression of his mind on the canon. Whatever is to be concluded regarding the author and origin of this apocryphal catalogue, it comprehends in the true canon of the inspired Scriptures all the twenty-seven books of the New Testament; but adds that some erroneously (ov« eb AéyovTas) reject the Epistle to the Hebrews, while others do not receive the brief epistles of John and Jude, and that a still greater number of persons do not receive the Apocalypse. After having specified all our twenty-seven books, and only these, the writer concludes thus: —

Οὗτος ἀψευδέστος
Κανῶν ἀν εἴη τῶν θεοπνεύστων Γραφῶν.

“Let such be held as the true canon of inspired Scriptures.”

1) In number 85. Athanasius (Festal Epist. xxxix.) called the collection ἡ διδαχὴ των ἀποστόλων. The book, at first small, was gradually enlarged. See Patres. Apost. Cotelerii, i, pp. 458, 485, edit. Amst.

2) Third edit., Paris, 1671; vol. ii, p. 1256.

3) Hist. Lit., i, p. 379.

4) See Credner, Geschichte des Kanons, iv., pp. 187-196.

5) This is the Amphilochius who, in order to obtain from Theodosius the long-refused decree against the Arians, presented himself one day before the emperor without offering any homage to his son, Arcadius, who sate on a throne beside him. “You are displeased at my irreverence, and with reason. But what must the eternal Father, the King of kings, think of those who refuse to honour His only Son, and who blaspheme His holy name?” — Sozomen, bk. vii., chap. ix.