lately discovered in the closet of some celebrated library. We have adhered to this view of the subject. External evidence of every kind has been removed out of sight; and our endeavours have been employed to collect the indications of truth and authenticity, which appeared to exist in the writings themselves, and to result from a comparison of their different parts. It is not however necessary to continue this supposition longer. The testimony which other remains of cotemporary, or the monuments of adjoining ages afford to the reception, notoriety, and public estimation of a book, forms no doubt the first proof of its genuineness. And in no books whatever is this proof more complete, than in those at present under our consideration. The inquiries of learned men, and, above all, of the excellent Lardner, who never overstates a point of evidence, and whose fidelity in citing his authorities has in no one instance been impeached, have established, concerning these writings, the following propositions :

I. That in the age immediately posterior to that in which St. Paul lived, his letters were publicly read and acknowledged.

Some of them are quoted or alluded to by almost every Christian writer that followed, by Clement of Rome, by Hermas, by Ignatius, by Polycarp, disciples or cotemporaries of the apostles; by Justin Martyr, by the churches of Gaul, by Irenæus, by Athenagoras, by Theophilus, by Clement of Alexandria, by Hermias, by Tertullian, who occupied the succeeding age. Now when we find a book quoted or referred to by an ancient author, we are entitled to conclude, that it was read and received in the age and country in which that author lived. And this

conclusion does not, in any degree, rest upon the judgment or character of the author making such reference. Proceeding by this rule, we have, concerning the first Epistle to the Corinthians in particular, within forty years after the epistle was written, evidence, not only of its being extant at Corinth, but of its being known and read at Rome. Clement, bishop of that city, writing to the church of Corinth, uses these words: "Take into your hands the epistle of the blessed Paul the apostle. What did he at first write unto you in the beginning of the gospel? Verily he did by the spirit admonish you concerning himself and Cephas and Apollos, because that even then you did form parties."* This was written at a time when probably some must have been living at Corinth, who remembered St. Paul's ministry there, and the receipt of the epistle. The testimony is still more valuable, as it shows that the epistles were preserved in the churches to which they were sent, and that they were spread and propagated from them to the rest of the Christian community. Agreeably to which natural mode and order of their publication, Tertullian, a century afterwards, for proof of the integrity and genuineness of the apostolic writings, bids, "any one, who is willing to exercise his curiosity profitably in the business of their salvation, to visit the apostolical churches, in which their very authentic letters are recited, ipsæ authenticæ literæ eorum recitantur." Then he goes on: "Is Achaia near you? You have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi, you have Thessalonica. If you can go to Asia, you have Ephesus;

* See Lardner, vol. xii. p. 22.

but if you are near to Italy, you have Rome."* I adduce this passage to show, that the distinct churches or Christian societies, to which St. Paul's epistles were sent, subsisted for some ages afterwards; that his several epistles were all along respectively read in those churches; that Christians at large received them from those churches, and appealed to those churches for their original and authenticity.

Arguing in like manner from citations and allusions, we have, within the space of a hundred and fifty years from the time that the first of St. Paul's epistles was written, proofs of almost all of them being read, in Palestine, Syria, the countries of Asia Minor, in Egypt, in that part of Africa which used the Latin tongue, in Greece, Italy, and Gaul. † I do not mean simply to assert, that, within the space of a hundred and fifty years, St. Paul's epistles were read in those countries, for I believe that they were read and circulated from the beginning; but that proofs of their being so read occur within that period. And when it is considered how few of the primitive Christians wrote, and of what is written how much is lost, we are to account it extraordinary, or rather as a sure proof of the extensiveness of the reputation of these writings, and of the general respect in which they were held, that so many testimonies, and of such antiquity, are still extant. "In the remaining works of Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, there are perhaps more and larger quotations of the small volume of the New Testament, than of all the works of Cicero, in the writings of all characters for

Lardner, vol. ii. p. 598.

+ See Lardner's Recapitulation, vol. xii. p. 53.

several ages.
We must add, that the epistles of
Paul come in for their full share of this observation ;
and that all the thirteen epistles, except that to
Philemon, which is not quoted by Irenæus or
Clement, and which probably escaped notice merely
by its brevity, are severally cited, and expressly recog-
nised as St. Paul's, by each of these Christian writers.
The Ebionites, an early, though inconsiderable
Christian sect, rejected St. Paul and his epistles;†
that is, they rejected these epistles, not because they
were not, but because they were St. Paul's; and
because, adhering to the obligation of the Jewish law,
they chose to dispute his doctrine and authority.
Their suffrage as to the genuineness of the epistles
does not contradict that of other Christians. Mar-
cion, an heretical writer in the former part of the
second century, is said by Tertullian to have rejected
three of the epistles which we now receive, viz., the
two Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus. It
appears to me not improbable, that Marcion might
make some such distinction as this, that no apostolic
epistle was to be admitted which was not read or
attested by the church to which it.was sent ; for it is
remarkable that, together with these epistles to
private persons, he rejected also the catholic epistles.
Now the catholic epistles and the epistles to private
persons agree in the circumstance of wanting this
particular species of attestation. Marcion, it seems,
acknowledged the Epistle to Philemon, and is
upbraided for his inconsistency in doing so by Ter-
tullian, who asks, "why, when he received a letter
written to a single person, he should refuse two to

* Vide Lardner's Recapitulation, vol. xii. p. 53.
† Lardner, vol. ii. p. 808.

Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 455.

Timothy and one to Titus composed upon the affairs of the church?" This passage so far favours our account of Marcion's objection, as it shows that the objection was supposed by Tertullian to have been founded in something which belonged to the nature of a private letter.

Nothing of the works of Marcion remains. Probably he was, after all, a rash, arbitrary, licentious critic (if he deserved indeed the name of critic), and who offered no reason for his determination. What St. Jerome says of him intimates this, and is beside founded in good sense; speaking of him and Basilides, "if they had assigned any reasons," says he, "why they did not reckon these epistles," viz., the first and second to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus,

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to be the apostle's, we would have endeavoured to have answered them, and perhaps might have satisfied the reader; but when they take upon them, by their own authority, to pronounce one epistle to be Paul's, and another not, they can only be replied to in the same manner."* Let it be remembered, however, that Marcion received ten of these epistles. His authority therefore, even if his credit had been better than it is, forms a very small exception to the uniformity of the evidence. Of Basilides we know still less than we do of Marcion. The same observation however belongs to him, viz., that his objection, as far as appears from this passage of St. Jerome, was confined to the three private epistles. Yet is this the only opinion which can be said to disturb the consent of the two first centuries of the Christian æra; for as to Tatian, who is reported by Jerome alone to have rejected some of St. Paul's epistles, the extravagant *Lardner, vol. xiv. p. 458.