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writings of the NT held in the last two or three decades of the 2nd cent. in the common view of the chief Churches of Christendom, and approxi- mately, at least, of the Church throughout the Roman Empire, i.e. of by far the larger part of the Church, is a more remarkable fact than any recollections, however clear, of particular men could be. In certain respects there has come a change in the manner of regarding these writings since the middle, not to say the beginning, of the century. The line of distinction is more sharply drawn than before it was, between the writings which could be rightly reckoned apostolic and all others. Controversy with Gnosticism had had its effect. Writings of more or less decidedly heretical tendencies had been put forth under the names of apostles. The Church was compelled to be watchful. A certain vividness and emphasis may also be noticed in the manner in which Irenzus, for instance, asserts the fourfold completeness of the evangelic testimony. The perception of the uniqueness of the four records has been rendered more precise, and with this there has also come a fuller sense of the distinct value of the contri- bution made by each, and of the richness of their harmony when combined. And as the notion of a Canon of NT Scriptures is becoming more definite (the name is not used), the authority of those books, which were beyond question and on all hands allowed to have a right to a place in it, is enhanced. But the amount of the change that has taken place may easily be exaggerated. The appearance of abruptness which it has, when we compare earlier documents with the works of this time, is certainly due to our want of information. The voice of the Church at the end of the 2nd cent. in respect to the writings of the NT is simply the full utterance of a conviction which has long been virtually held. Irenzeus so evidently believes himself to be defending the immemorial faith and tradition of the Church, that he could not have been conscious of any alteration, within his own experience, in such an important matter as the apostolic authority attributed to the chief NT writings. Moreover, such a hold as they had manifestly obtained could not, in the nature of things, have been acquired recently and at a bound in that generation.
We have seen how large a measure of agreement there was upon the subject on the part of a number of eminent Churches. Putting aside that of N. Africa, which was of later origin than the rest, these were all founded in the Apostolic Age itself, with the possible exception of Alexandria, which must have arisen at least in the generation im- mediately following. And though these Churches are all situated within the Greco-Roman world, they exhibit widely different characteristics and thorough independence. No one of them could dictate to the rest; no one of them exercised over the rest an influence so dominant that its example would be silently followed. Rome would not have readily yielded to Asia Minor, nor Asia Minor to Rome, on such a matter as the Scriptures which they had been accustomed to acknowledge; nor would either of these have yielded to Antioch or Alexandria. Nor was unanimity brought about through discussions and conferences. Differences on other subjects appear and are debated, but not on this. It should be observed, also, that the authority which the writings of the NT possessed was not based, as we in our day might be inclined to imagine, ‘on a judgment of the Church, either formal or implied, as to their surpassing moral and spiritual power, their inspiration. It rested on the belief that the writings in question were authentic embodiments of the witness and teaching of the apostles. This was the point testified to by
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a number of independent and mutually confirma- tory lines of tradition, maintained in communities which were bound by strong sanctions to be faithful to that which they had received from the past. These communities, too, had a continuous cor- porate life that reached back to the first age of the Church, or its confines; and at the time we are considering they were still separated from it only by two or three generations. It is difficult to imagine that a belief thus guaranteed could have been substantially erroneous, even though it does not become apparent to us in its full strength for a century after the death of most of the apostles. And the more indirect indications from the inter- vening generations, though they are, owing to various causes, less distinct than we could wish, make for the same conclusion.
(2) Writings whose position continued to be for a time doubtful.—Before this epoch is left, a few words must be said on the amount of recognition then in divers quarters accorded to other writings, besides those above mentioned, which (a) were eventually included in the NT, as well as to some which (4) did not obtain a place there.
(a) And first as to the Apocalypse. So far as the sources of evidence which come before us up to the beginning of the 3rd cent. are concerned, there would be no sufficient ground for placing it in a different category from those whose position was already fully assured. Ireneus, Tertullian, Clement, Hippolytus, all regarded it as a genuine work of the Apostle John, and Can. Mur. includes it as such. It continued, moreover, always to be recognized as Scripture in the Western Church, and on the whole this seems to have been the view throughout of the Church of Alexandria. We know, however, that at a later time it was not received as canonical in Syria and Asia Minor, and this so generally as to point to a long-stand- ing difference of usage in those regions, though from what cause the difference arose we do not know. In this respect chiefly the testimony to it differs from that to the writings called ‘acknow- ledged.’