sayed to adulterate the Lord's writings also"— a practice that pervaded all literary ranks.
Apostolic Ascending the stream we find Polycarp's Epistle (150-166) crowded with sentences and phrases now incorporated in the New Testament, hut without any indica tion of their source, with no name of an author, with no hint of inspired or canonic character.
Of the other Apostolic Fathers, Clemens Romanus, Ignatius, Hermas, Barnabas and the Teaching, none have any idea of canon or au thoritative scriptures besides the Old Testament, though they use many New Testament phrases and sentences apparently drawn from the com mon stock of religious feeling and expression. In Barnabas' Epistle (iv, 14) we read, "lest, as it is written, (Many called but few chosen,' we he found.* The five words agree exactly with Matt. xx, 16, but they are there also a proverb, whence quoted we cannot say. It seems certain that Barnabas (119?) is not cit ing Matthew as Scripture. It is common enough for him to quote from Scripture or prophets what we do not find therein.
Collections.—But while the notion of Canon first takes form in Irenmus and Tertul lian, we may be sure there had been much earlier collections of Christian writings. Of one such we hear definitely, that of Marcion, who came to Rome a little before 140, having 10 Pauline Epistles and one Pauline Gospel, the relation of which to our present °Accord ing to Luke* has been a theme of elaborate discussion. Tertullian and the Catholics held it was a mutilation of their Lucan Gospel; un fortunately the Marcionite reply has not reached us. With respect to the Epistles the case is similar, but in any event the example of Marcion seems to have been widely followed and to have precipitated a battle of the books, whose echoes resound through the pages of Irenxus, Tertullian and others. The Gnostics were indeed the first scientific theologians of the new faith, copious writers, religious philoso phers, keen-witted expositors, if too often law less in allegory. They were the teachers of the most illustrious Church Fathers, such as Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen; with the former,— in whom °the modern theologian is disappointed to find very little of what he deems characteristically Christian,* "Perfect Gnostic' means "perfect Christian,* and Origen was a close student of the Gnostic Herakleon's Com mentary on a John's Gospel (170?). Basilides was perhaps the deepest thinker, Valentinus the most constructive, as well as conservative, of the whole school. As these vigorous exponents of the Gnosis entered the fray armed with numerous collections of writings, among them certain forms of our present Synoptics as well as the Fourth Gospel, it became necessary for Catholic champions to meet them on even terms, with counter-arrays of authoritative writings, of the instrumento of Ter tulhan. From this desperate and long-fought battle the Canon of the New Testament has emerged, in proof that °Strife is Father of All.* To discuss the questions, What were the earliest contents of these documents? and, How were the Gnostic and the Catholic forms related to each other?, would carry us much too far afield, into the region of Christian Origins; but we may be sure that the extant forms are all developments of similar though simpler primitive forms that grew up under endless revision and re-revision through suc cessive generations, each new growth displacing the preceding like leaves of the forest, so that from the short and pithy oracles that Polycarp and Justin love to cite, we pass over by a devious path into the continuous discourse of the Gospel of John :— though one must not think all the earlier forms were short; some long ones have doubtless been shortened and fitted with finer point and brighter polish.* Authorship and It is not strange then that the query as to the date and author ship of many New Testament Scriptures should not be answerable in simple or positive terms, for they have not dates and authors in the ordinary sense of these words, having been molded gradually under many hands into their present forms. If date and author of a certain verse were proved ever so clearly, it would de cide nothing as to the verses before or after. During those early centuries the Spirit, whether Catholic or Gnostic, was weaving and unweav ing ceaselessly at the loom of speech, and the New Testament is the perfected garment, the fruit of its toil.*
The Non-Canonics.—But it must not be for a moment supposed that the finally rejected writings (however inferior to the Canonics) in any of their forms or stages are worthless or to be despised. On the contrary, their virtue is often exceeding great, the light they shed on the whole genetic process most welcome and even invaluable. They are like intermediate and collateral forms in fossils, without which the familiar types could not be understood. Again, it is absurd to suppose that the Gnostic variants were in general mere corruptions of an elder uncorrupted text. They were rather the honest expressions of another and often of an earlier consciousness. A single example of extreme importance may make this clear. In Matt. xi, 27 (Luke x, 22) are the weighty words: °no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither knoweth any the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to re veal.* So it stands in Matthew, Luke and Mark, says Irenzus (IV, II), but he charges that they who wish to be experter tha,n Apostles write it thus: °No one knew the Father save the Son, nor the Son save the Father, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal*; and at first the charge sounds plausible, since the former seems more natural. But Ireitieus him self in Book I, 13, gives the Gnostk form with out protest and argues therefrom; and again in Book II, 4 he quotes the same as his own in the Gnostic form (with only knows for knew), and again (Book II, 18) he quotes twice the Gnostic °No one knew the Father,* uncomplain ing. Thus it appears that in Books I and II he makes no objection to the Gnostic form but sanctions it by his own use, seeming to know no other; which is confirmed by the fact that when he requotes the passage in Book IV, xi, 5 he not only fives hut repeats and emphasizes the Gnostic orm °shall have revealed)) (re veloverit), instead of the orthodox °shall have willed to reVeal* (voluerit ...revelare). Hence the vehement churchnian and heresy-hunter Harvey admits in a note (II, 162) : °It is re markable that this text, having been quoted cor rectly at page 158, the translator now not only uses the single verb revelaverit, but says point edly that it was so written by the venerable author. It is probable therefore that the previous passage has been made to harmonize with the received text by a later hand.* The Gnostic Form Orden—When now we recall that in a Syriac Fragrnent (XVI) Irenzus himself again quotes the verse and again in the Gnostic order of words with the °single verb,* declaring °Our Lord said: None knows the Father save the Son nor the Son save the Father and to whomsoever the Son shall have revealed)); moreover that Justin quotes the passage first (Ap. I, 63) exactly in' the Gnostic form, and afterward (Di. 100) again in the same form, with only knew changed to knows, and that Eusebius ((Hist. Eccles.' I, 2) again confirms the Gnostic order of words, as well as still other Fathers, it seems that Har vey's ((probablex' must be changed to certain, that the Gnostic was the older form, which Irenzus along with Justin accepted at first, but which afterward it was found wise to °har monize* with Church doctrine by changing it into the °received text.* That this elder form agreed with the Gnostic in giving knew and not knows is now clearly shown independently by both Harnack ('Sprilche u. Reden Jesu,) pp. 189ff., 1907) and E. Norden (cAgnostos Theos,) pp. 279ff. 1913). An °elder form,* not a better, and by no means the eldest, which was doubtless muc.h simpler. Wellhansen has per ceived that the clause °no one knows the Son save only the Father)) is °a very old interpola tion. It is a corollary, must therefore not stand in the first place and can nevertheless not be put in the second* (D. Ev. Mt., p. 58). Thc whole passage (Matt. xi, 25-30, Luke x, 210, among the most famous and important ever written, reaches far badc of our Gospels or even our era;* in (Ecce Deus' (p. 118) it is called athe great Gnostic Hymn,* and again (p. 166), °these rhythmical and almost metrical verses)" are °tilt voice of Wisdom,* and two years later, in 1913, Norden proved as much by a profound analysis ((Agnostos Theos,) 277 308), and this conception is now adopted by Bacon in (Christianity Old and New' (1914) : °there is placed in the mouth of Jesus a typical Hymn of Wisdomp (p. 164).