FIRST GREAT HISTORICAL FACT — THE COMPLETE AND UNVARYING : UNANIMITY OF THE CHURCHES,

109. THE simple review, contained in Book First, of all the authentic catalogues bequeathed to science by the early ages of the Church, must vividly strike every attentive inquirer.

Fourteen catalogues, at least, have been furnished us by the three centuries immediately succeeding the death of the apostles. We say at least, because to these might be added two others, known as the catalogue of Amphilochius and the Muratori document.¹ All these, taken together, constitute the concurrent testimony of the most learned and the most venerable men both of the East and of the West. This testimony, too, is not, on their part, a mere expression of individual conviction, but a public utterance of the mind of the Christian community. It is a unanimous recognition of a great historical fact, a fact uncontested and uncontestable — the witness of all the Churches in the world regarding the first canon. Such, we say, is the voice of all preceding ages, the voice of the whole Christian people, from the days of the apostles — a voice invariably precise, clear, and unhesitating. We have listened to all the traditions of ancient times to ascertain whether even one discordant sound might reach us from within the compass of the ancient Church, and we have been able to perceive none. We have looked across the expanse of ages to descry aught that might warrant even the slightest doubt, and the eye has not discovered, from the one extremity of the vast horizon to the other, even the most minute speck of contradiction, much less any “cloud, even of the size of a man’s hand.”

And what sort of witnesses to attest to us the mind of their age were an Origen, a Eusebius, an Athanasius, a Cyril, a Gregory of Nazianzus, a Jerome, an Epiphanius, an Augustin? Did ever witnesses exist that had better means of information, were more competent to judge, more worthy of credence? They occupied the most elevated positions; they were spread over all parts of the known world, and at great distances from each other. Some of them were on the banks of the Euphrates or of the Nile, or of the Save or the Rhone; others were on the coasts of the African Syrtis, or on those of the Euxine. Who more worthy of credence? They had nearly all suffered for the gospel; nearly all had hearts so imbued with so fervent a love for the Holy Scriptures, that they had shewn themselves willing to die in their defence. All of them were so sincere and so fearless in their inquiries as to announce without reserve all they knew. They spontaneously inform us that, besides the homologoumena, there are five brief epistles of a later date than the rest, which, though received by most people, were doubted by some; while, as to the other twenty books, they tell us that no hesitation regarding any of them had ever been heard of in any church in the world. Were there ever witnesses more discerning or better acquainted with the facts of the case? They were all men of learning; all profoundly versed in the Scriptures; all had travelled for the interests of the Word of God, both in the East and in the West. They had visited Rome and Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem; they had met in the councils; and they all possessed so extensive and accurate an acquaintance with Christian antiquity that, in this respect, modern scholars are but children in comparison. What a witness, for instance, at the commencement of the fourth century, or end of the third, was a Eusebius, who, in order to draw up, in 324, his history of the origin and progress of Christianity, made himself master of the whole field of ancient literature; ransacked the libraries collected at Caesarea by Pamphilus, and at Alexandria by Alexander; and read all the writings, now lost, of Aristion, Quadratus, Aristides, Hegesippus, Papias, Tatian, and Melito, of which modern scholars hardly know anything except through Origen. What a witness, likewise, a hundred years before Eusebius, was an Origen, “he of brazen entrails,” as he has been called, who, from the end of the second century, devoted all the energies of his genius to scriptural researches, and who had been himself a disciple of Clement of Alexandria, whose birth was only forty years later than the death of the apostle John.

110. From this imposing evidence may be drawn the following four conclusions: —

1st. Where so large a number of persons, so well informed, so sincere, and so unshackled, tell us from all parts of the world, that, after having carefully studied the history of the churches of God, from the days of the apostles, they were not able to discover among Christian communities, till the beginning of the third century, the slightest difference of opinion regarding the authority of all the books of the first canon; we must admit that all antiquity does not present to us a single historical fact so completely established as this unvarying unanimity of the churches.

2d. This unanimity is so complete as to exclude the very possibility that a single book of the homologoumena would have obtained such recognition had it not been originally received during the lives of the apostles, and under their sanction.

3d. It would, in like manner, have been absolutely impossible, after the death of the apostles, for so many thousand churches, spread over all the earth, to have immediately consented to receive into their canon any additional book, even had that book been previously received by a large portion of the churches on the best evidence of its apostolic authenticity, as was afterwards the case with the antilegomena. Such a book could never have obtained reception in so many thousand churches in Egypt, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Greece, Spain, Africa, Italy, and Gaul, without encountering for a long time scruples, opposition, and reservations, the sound of which would have reached the ears of such men as Origen, Cyril, Athanasius, and Eusebius.

4th. If such a posthumous reception into all the churches on earth has been accomplished in regard to the antilegomena, so as to silence all opposition, this fact, in the highest degree improbable till it actually took place, can only be humanly accounted for by the overflowing evidence that these books, though late in being universally received, were found to possess in their favour.

111. But if, shortly after the death of the apostles, an attempt had been made to interpolate the primitive canon of twenty-two books communicated to all contemporaneous churches by the apostles themselves, and to effect the posthumous insertion of some additional book; it is impossible to admit that such additional book, though recognised by most of the churches, could have been at once unanimously received to the ends of the earth. The very supposition is such as no man in his senses could entertain. It would, if possible, be still more absurd to imagine that such a book could, after the death of the apostles, have obtained universal admission into the canon, even in churches the most independent of each other, without resistance, without discussion, without objection, and without delay; and all this in such a manner as to leave no trace to indicate that any resistance or objection had ever been made. To fancy that in such a manner an additional book could have found admission into the list of apostolic writings, and even have the same rank assigned it, would be pushing our hypothesis beyond all the limits of possibility.

Yet it is necessary to admit all this, if the primitive recognition of the twenty-two homologoumena did not take place before the decease of the apostles, and during their active ministry.

112. It is thus established by irresistible historic evidence that not one of the homologoumena was received into the canon after the death of the apostles,

1) See our Propositions, 31, 61, 78, 82, and 191-196.