nocent, with the elect thou shalt be elect, and with the froward thou shalt be froward" (Psa. xviii, 26; very loosely). — Bar. 7: Ceremonies are quoted from "the prophet" which are only to be found in tradition. (Comp. Justin. Dial. c. Tryph. n. 40 ; Tertul. adv. Jitd. c. xiv ; adv. Mare, iii, 7.) Our conclusions from these facts are: 1st. It is wholly incredible that these citations have been made from any apocryphal books of the N. T. now in existence. Very few of them have been traced with any plausibility to such sources, and these have quite as much resemblance to the genu- ine as to the apocryphal books. 2d. And yet there is no sufficient evidence that these fathers copied from the MSS. of the N. T. The citations absolutely literal are very few and brief, and of the nature of proverbs or maxims, which could not be readily forgotten or varied. (E. g., 1 Cor. ii, 9 ; Q. Clem. 34*: Matt, vii, 1 ; Qu. Tol. 2: Mark xiv, 38; Qu. Pol. 7: 1 Pet. iii, 9; Qu. Pol. 2.) Citations are expressly made only from Matt., Luke, 1 Cor., and Eph. ; and only sixt}' out of fome one hundred apparent references are close imita- tions. Sd. But the O. T. is quoted quite as carelessly, in many instances, as the New. Very few books of the O. T. are expressly named. The few literal quo- tations from the O. T. are also of the nature of prov- erbs. (E. g., Prov. v, 5 ; Qu. Clem. 30 : Prov. x, 12 ; Qu. Clem. 49.) More false citations from the O. T. are made than from the New ; and all these were, of course, mere blunders, while there must have been "words of the Lord" well known in these times not recorded in the Gospels, as we learn from John xxi, 25. St. Paul himself quotes from these in one instance (Acts xx, 35). In fact, the citations of the fathers from the O. T. are not more inexact than those of the N. T. writers. Our Lord himself often varies, both in synonyms, arrangement, and construction, from the Sept., giving only the sentiment. 4th. In a few in- stances the O. T. is unquestionably quoted through the medium of the New. Passages wholly differing both from the Hcb. and the Sept. are reproduced with surj rising accuracy. Important additions to texts are made from the N. T., and the whole designated as "Scripture." This argument is unanswerable. Such citations must have been made from the N. T. 5th. Therefore the conjecture that the books of the N. T. were not known to these fathers, and perhaps not in existence in their time, cannot be entertained by any candid mind. With the possible exception of 2 Pet., Jude, and 2 and 3 John, to which few, if any allusions are made, and no certain references, all the 1 ooks of the present canon are quoted or referred to repeatedly, and often very accurately. The direct testimony to the epistles of Paul are all the more valuable because they are given incidentally, and for a wholly different purpose. A few years later, about A.D. 1 50, when the authority of the apostolic writings began to be called in question, a list of them, nearly complete, is given in the Muratorian Fragment. They could not have been challenged nor rivalled by apocryphas in the age of the apostolic fathers. These writers must have pos- sessed the books of our present canon, or nearly all of them ; but they seldom, if ever, turned to them at the moment of writing. They could cite from the N. T., as they unquestionablj' did from the Old, with suffi- cient accuracy for their purpose, merely from recol- lection. The unrolling of immense parchments, even if they carried them, was a useless trouble in hurried writing, amid the pressure of missionary journeys. If Strauss had made a candid examination of these facts, it is doubtful whether he would have found it to his purpose to make the following admission : "It would undoubtedly be an argument of decisive weight in fa- vor of the credibility of the. biblical history could it be shown that it was written by eye-witnesses, or even by persons nearly contemporaneous with the events narrated." (Leben Jesn, i, ij 13. )
The Christian Ilemanbrancer (xliv, 407) undertakes
APOSTOLICAL KING
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to show that many of the citations in the ap. fathers, apparently from Scripture, are from the oldest Litur- gies. On the use to be made of the apostolical fathers in the history of Christian doctrine, see Dorner, D >c- trine of the Person of Christ, period i, ch. i; on their value for the history of the church, sec Schaff, History of the Christian Church, § 117; Presscns6, Hist. d. trois Prem. Siecles, vol. i ; Mosheim, Commentaries, i, 200 sq. ; Elliott, Delineation of Romanism, bk. i, ch. iii ; Hase, Church History, 7th ed. § 39. See also Hagen- bach, History of Doctrines, § 20 ; Reuss, Histoire du Canon, ch. ii ; Conybeare, Hampton Lecture, 1839 ; Hil- genfeld, Die app. VV., Untersuchungen, etc. (Halle, 1853); Clarke, Succession of Sacred Literature, vol. i; Lechler, Apostol. und nachapostol. Zdtalter, Stuttgardt, 1857; Bunsen, ChristianUy and Mankind, vols, v and vi ; Freppel, Les Peres A post-cliques (Paris, 1859) ; Don- aldson. Crit. Hist, of Christ. Life and Doctiine from the Death of the Apostles to the Xicene Council (vol. i. I,ond. 1865); Illgen, Zeits.ftr die hist. Theol. (18GG, Heft, i); and the prolegomena to the editions named below. The best editions are : 1. By Cotelerius, SS. Patrum, qui tem- poralis apostolicis floruerunt, Opera (Paris, 1G72, 2 vols. fol. ; a new edition by Clericus, Amsterdam, 1721, 2 vols. fol.). Cotelerius added to his edition the Pseudo- Clementines and the Yindicice Jonatiana by Pearson. 2. By the Oratorian Gallandius, in his Bibliotheca Vete- rum Patrum ; 3. By Russell (Lond. 1746). 4. By Jacob- son (2 vols. Oxf. 1838, 2d ed. 1840, 8vo). This edition does not contain the epistle of Barnabas, the epistle to Diognetus, and the Pastor Hernias. 5. Reithmayr (R. C.) Patrum Apostol. Epistolce (Monach. 1814, 8vo). 6. ilefele (R. C), Patrum Apostol. Opera (Tubing. 1839, 4th ed. 1855, 8vo). 7. Dressel, Patrum Apostol. Opera (Leipz. 1863, 2d ed. 8vo) ; it includes the Greek Pastor Hernias, and the Epistle of Barnabas from Tischen- dorf 's Sinaitic Codex. There is also an English version of the Ap. Fathers (not according to the latest texts) by Wake (latest ed. Oxf. 1841, 12mo). See Fathers.