Century

(1) Use of the Gospels.—The so-called Ep. of Barnabas—Critics have referred the com- position of this work to various dates between A.D. 70 and 130. Though it contains references to contemporary events, they are obscure. To notice only some of the more recent views, Lightfoot (Clem. Rom. ii. p. 505 ff.) has explained the allusions in a way that would bring the time of composition within the reign of Vespasian, 7.e. before A.D. 79. Ramsay (Church in the Roman Empire, p. 307) has adopted Lightfoot’s theory | with some modification, but not so as to affect | the date. Harnack, however, in his recent work, has made a yery ingenious suggestion for over- coming some of the chief difficulties; and his view seems, on the whole, the most tenable. NEW TESTAMENT CANON According to him, the little treatise in its present form was produced in A.D. 130 or 131 (Chronol. i. p. 427). This writing affords what appears to be the earliest instance of the citation from a book of NT as Scripture. ‘The words πολλοὶ κλητοὶ ὀλίγοι δὲ ἐκλεκτοί are introduced (iv. end) with the formula ὡς γέγραπται. These words are not known to occur except in Mt 2214. There are also several other indications in the Ep. of Barn. of acquaintance with that Gospel. ‘The parallelisms with Mt’s account of the Trial and Crucifixion of Our Lord are striking (vii.). Again, words found in Mt 918 (though also in Mk 217, Lk 5%) are used in ν. A saying of Christ is also quoted as such, which bears a resemblance to that in Mt 2016, though it is differently applied (vi. 13). The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. — Dates ranging from A.D. 90-165 have been assigned for the composition of this work, the recovery of which in our generation has created so much interest. Unhappily, the indications available for forming an opinion as to the date are almost entirely such as are connected with the state of Church organization and life reflected in it, and on the history of these very diverse views prevail. It must further be observed that it may have emanated from some portion of the Church where movement had been slow, or whose customs had always been peculiar. ‘There are expressions in it which betoken the habits of a rural district. On the whole, it may be most prudent to take it as belonging to the period which we are now con- sidering, while at the same time we forbear to treat it as illustrative of the mind and practice of the Church generally within any narrow limits of time. In respect to the use of the Gospels, it seems to represent a slight advance upon the There is language, more dis- Apostolic Fathers. tinct than that of the passage of Ignatius above referred to, which suggests the idea that the Gospel existed in a written form (Did. xv. 3, 4—as ἔχετε ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν, and comp. viii. 2 and xi. 3). The citations are only of words of Christ, and introduced as what the Lord said; but they are more abundant, and, although not given entirely as in our Gospels, they appear on examina- tion to be still more plainly combinations of phrases from both Mt and Lk. Such compilations there are at Did. i. 2-5 [Mt 2257.89 (or Mk 1230. 81. or Lk 2027); Lk 6%. 82. 88.856 (Mt 54-4); Mt 53°42? and Lk 6”-®; Mt 5%]; and at Did. xvi. [Mt 25'3, Lk 12%-#, Mt 241911 etc. etc.]. The former of these is a collection of precepts on our duty to God and our neighbour, the latter on the duty of watching for the Coming of Christ. There are, besides, other citations or parallels at Did. vii. (Mt 281%), viii. 2 (Mt 65:8), ix. 5 (Mt 7°), xiii, (Mt 101°). The Shepherd of Hermas.—The Muratorian fragment on the Canon (6. A.D. 200, see below) contains a statement that the Shepherd was written during the episcopate of Pius (bishop of Rome, A.D. 140-155), by a brother of his named Hermas. Recent investigations have added to the import- ance of this statement, which could not in any case have been lightly set aside, for they have shown that it may probably have been taken from a list of bishops drawn up c. A.D. 170 in the time of Soter (Harnack, Chronol.i. p. 192). On the other hand, in the work itself ( Vis. ii. 4. 8) there is a reference to Clement, which, if understood literally, must imply that he was still alive; and he died long before the beginning of the episcopate of Pius (A.D. 140). Zahn (Der Hirt des Hermas, p. 70 ff. and Salmon (art. Hermas’ in Dict. of Christian NEW TESTAMENT CANON = 533 c. A.D. 100. While Lightfoot and Westcott treat the allusion to Clement as part of the fictitious setting of the work, and rely on the testimony of the Muratorian fragment, Harnack endeavours to reconcile in a measure the two views. He sup- poses that the work, though all by one author, was not all composed at one time, and that it was finally put forth A.p. 140 (Chronol. i. p. 257 ff.). As the Shepherd is a collection of revelations and instructions given by an angelic guide, it would not have been in character that it should contain express quotations, and there are not any in it from OT any more than from NT. But parallels showing acquaintance with NT writings are not wanting. Sim. v. 2 appears to be an adaptation of the parable of the Vineyard (Mk 1218... In Sim. ix. 12 we are rather forcibly reminded of Jn 10% and 14°, in ix. 16 of Jn 35, and in ix, 24 of Jn 115, The Fragments of Papias.—There cannot be any very serious differences of opinion as to the approxi- mate time at which Papias put forth the work from which some few fragments have been preserved to us. He had conversed with men of an older gene- ration than his own who could give first-hand information as to what the oral teaching of several of the apostles was (Euseb. ΜῈ iii. 39). ITrenzeus (adv. Her. ν. 33.4) seems to have been mistaken in supposing that he had himself seen and heard John the Evangelist (Euseb. U.c.); but he may have been a contemporary, if not an actual hearer, of Aristion and ‘the Elder John,’ ‘disciples of the Lord’ (ib.). He must therefore have been born before, most likely some few years before, the end of the 1st cent. The time when he had oppor- tunities of collecting the information referred to may probably have been several years before he wrote the work of which Eusebius has given us an account, largely in Papias’ own words. But at latest the publication of this work cannot have fallen much after A.D. 150, and may more reason- ably be supposed to have taken place somewhat earlier. When, further, we consider the character of his work, we can have no hesitation in saying that his testimony (so far as its general effect is concerned) is to be connected with the first half of the century. The title itself of his work, Aoylwy κυριακῶν ἐξηγήσεις, ‘Expositions of Dominical Oracles,’ is interesting and important. In view of those habits of thought of the time upon which we have already commented, we may best take ‘ Dominical Oracles’ to mean passages of Our Lord’s teaching. These, as is clear from his own language in the portion of his prologue preserved to us by Eusebius, Papias took from some documentary source or sources; but for the illustration of them he availed himself of all that he had been able to glean from independent tradition. As Harnack observes, ‘he distinguishes the matter orally delivered, even so far as it con- tained portions of evangelical history, in a marked manner from the matter which he expounds’ (Chronol. i. 690, n. 1). This fact, then, that written records supplied the basis for his com- ment, or the pegs on which he hung the more or less trustworthy additional narratives or state- ments that he had collected, lends special interest to the inquiry whether he knew and used our Gospels or any of them. We need not hesitate to claim his account, which he gives on the authority of ‘the Elder’—appar- ently, from the context in Eusebius, the Elder John—of the composition of a Gospel by Mark, as referring to a work at least substantially the same as our Second Gospel. It has been urged, indeed, that the observation contained in this fragment, Biography), on the ground of this passage as well | whether it is the Elder’s or Papias’ own, that Mark as of features in the work which they think point | did not arrange his matter ‘in order,’ is not ap- to an early age, suppose it to have been composed | propriate to our Mark, which is not less orderly in 534 NEW TESTAMENT CANON point of arrangement than the other Gospels. But this objection seems clearly unsubstantial, and is now generally admitted to be so. The criticism implied in Papias’ words may have been simply a fanciful and mistaken one. Or, again, Mark's arrangement may have been assumed to be wrong wherever it differed from that of either our First or (see below) our Fourth Gospel, which are connected with the names of those who were followers of the Lord during His earthly life, which Mark was not. Some comparison of this kind seems to be implied in the words of Papias’ frag- ment itself. (See, further, art. MARK, p. 244). The questions as to the right interpretation of the fragment of Papias (i).) on a writing by Matthew are more serious. Critics of more than_one school have seen in the words, Ματθαῖος μὲν οὖν τὰ λόγια cuveypdvaro, a description of a Collection of Dis- courses and Sayings which has (it may be) been em- bodied in our First Gospel, but which was in many respects a different work. Against this view it has been urged that λόγια does not mean ‘discourses,’ but ‘oracles,’ and that in the NT itself it is applied to the OT. These arguments, however, somewhat miss their mark. For it does not seem likely that the term should have been applied to a writing of the NT as such, so early as the time of Papias, and still less of his informant, if this, as is prob- able, was the same ‘Elder’ whom he reports in the case of Mark’s work. Nor could ra λόγια in that sense have been suitably used of a single writing, though it would be natural as a descrip- tion of the Lord’s teaching. The statement, how- ever, which we are considering consists only of one brief sentence ; we do not know what the con- text may have been. And whatever inferences it may be fair to draw from Papias’ expressions as to the history of the composition of our First Gospel, we may gather that, at least when he wrote, a work existed which was generally recognized as a Greek representative of a Hebrew writing by the Apostle Matthew. And it is hard to imagine that this could have been any other work than that which a generation later, or less, was certainly known in the Church, as it is still, as the Gospel acc. to Mt. A substitution of one book for another could not have been effected in so short a time. (Comp. Harnack, Chronol. i. p. 693). See, further, art. MATTHEW (GOSPEL OF). Eusebius makes the following statement at the end of his section on Papias: ‘The same (writer) has made use of testimonies from the former Ep. of Jn and from that of Peter likewise. He has, moreover, also set forth another narrative, con- cerning ‘a woman charged before the Lord with many sins, which the Gospel acc. to the Hebrews contains.’ Use of the First Ep. of Jn indirectly affords evidence, as we have already had occasion to remark, of the existence and circulation of the Gospel according to John. It must not be assumed, indeed, on the ground of this notice, that Papias attributed these works to the apostle; but we may at least feel sure that he said nothing plainly inconsistent with this view of their authorship: if he had done so, Eusebius could not have failed to mention it, more especially as he was not in sympathy with some of this writer’s opinions. Something more as to Papias’ use of the Johan- nine writings may, it would seem, be learned from Ireneus. The latter, in language that recalls Papias’ prologue preserved in Eusebius, re- peatedly adduces the testimony of ‘the elders’ who had seen and heard John, the disciple of the Lord, or again, in another place, ‘who were dis- ciples of apostles’; and when we examine the passages in which he refers to them and quotes their sayings, we find that their character is just such as we might expect it to be if they were NEW TESTAMENT CANON derived from Papias’ Exegeses, in view, on the one hand, of its aim as described by the author him- self, and of his chiliastic predilections [adv. Her. y. 5.1; 30. 1; 33.4]. In one of these places (vy. 33. 4) Ireneeus, after alluding to the elders, proceeds to quote from Papias’ book by name. Now, among the passages which may with probability be regarded as extracts, more or less exact, from Papias, there is one in which a saying of the Lord, recorded in Jn 14%, and not in any other Gospel, is quoted and commented on (adv. Her. v. 36. 1); there is another relating to the number of the Beast in the Apocalypse (ib. 30. 1). To conclude: the evidence as to Papias, though it is much more scanty than we should like, and though it is in part obscure, tends to show that he derived the ‘Oracles of the Lord,’ which he made his starting-point, from our Gospels and not from any other source, and that he knew at least the Gospels ace. to Mt, Mk, and Jn. The so-called Second Ep. of Clement.—This work is of considerable interest in connexion with the history of the Canon, more especially as to the use of Apocryphal Gospels and the position accorded to them in relation to our Gospels. Its date is consequently important. Hilgenfeld (Nov. Test. extr. Can. p. xxxvili 1.) and Harnack (Patres Apostolici, pp. xci, xcii) took the view that it was the Epistle sent by Soter to Corinth, ¢. A.D. 170 (Euseb. HE iv. 23). But since the recovery of this work in an unmutilated form, through Bryennios’ discovery in 1875, it has become evident that it is not a Letter at all but a Homily, and its identifica- tion with the communication of Soter ought no longer to be regarded as tenable (see Lightfoot, Clem. Rom. ii. p. 194 ff.; Harnack, however, still adheres to the identification, Chronol. i. pp. 440-450). The character of the work in general, it may be added, is favourable to an earlier date. It may most reasonably be taken as illustrating the state of things in respect to the recognition of the New ‘Testament Scriptures, c. A.D. 140, or perhaps somewhat before this. We will next briefly notice the recently recovered Apology of Aristides, an example of a class of Christian writings which has even given a name in Church history to an age—that occupying the middle portion of the 2nd cent. This one appears to have been addressed not as Eusebius says (HE iv. 3) to Hadrian, but to Antoninus Pius (Emp. 138-161); but it probably belongs to the earlier rather than the latter part of his reign (comp. J. R. Harris, Texts and Studies, i. p. 8, and Harnack, Chronol. i. pp. 271-273). The special character of compositions of this kind, like that of others, and even more than that of some others, must be remembered in order that the effect of the evidence supplied by them in regard to the Canon may be fairly judged of. The argument and purpose of the greater part of the Apology of Aristides did not afford opportunities for quoting from Christian documents. It contains, however, one passage which illustrates in an interesting manner a time of transition when memories of the oral delivery of . the Gospel were linked with a growing dependence upon a written form of it. (See tr. of Syriac in Texts and Studies, 1. i. p. 36). We pass to the writings of a far greater ‘apolo- gist,’ Justin Martyr, and we may confine our attention to the three extant works bearing his name, which are by common consent admitted to be genuine—his First and Second Apologies and Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Recent investi- gations, beginning with those of Volkmar, Theol. Jahrb. von Baur τι. Zeller, 1855, and of Hort, Journ. of Philol., 1857, have served to show that the First Apology should be placed a little later than it commonly used to be, and that the Second NEW TESTAMENT CANON Apology was written soon after the First. The Dialogue was written after the Apologies, but how long after cannot be determined. We shall not be far wrong if we say that all three writings were composed c. A.D. 150. The Apologies were written in Rome, as was also probably the Dialogue, though it may be inferred from the latter (c. i.) that Justin was teaching as a Christian philosopher in Ephesus soon after A.D. 135. He was the most eminent Christian of his generation, while he writes, not as one who is putting forward his own views, but who is representing and defending the faith and practice of the Church; and he well knew what they were in at least two of its chief centres. Now, Justin twice in his First Apology and many times in the Dialogue describes the main authori- ties for the Life and Teaching of Christ as ‘the Memoirs of the Apostles’ or simply ‘ the Memoirs.’ We have to ask whether by this name he intended at least principally our Gospels, whether he recog- nized all these, and whether they held a place in his estimation which no other accounts of the whole or a portion of the Lord’s Life and Teaching shared. His use of the term itself just referred to affords no ground for doubting that he has the Gospels which we acknowledge in his mind. It is probable that the name ‘Gospels’ was only be- ginning in that generation to be applied to the writings which contained the Gospel even among Christians, and he was addressing those who were not Christians. It would be natural for him to employ some term which would be to them more easy of comprehension and more expressive. The course he adopts in this case has an exact parallel in his treatment of other Christian terms, e.g. Baptism and the Eucharist (First Apol. 1xi. and Ixvi.). In First Apol. Ixvi., after using the word ‘Memoirs,’ he adds, ‘ which are called Gospels.’ And this, it may be observed in passing, is the earliest instance of the application of the name ‘Gospels’ to the books. Justin himself commonly writes of ‘the Gospel’ in the manner which we have observed to be customary in the writings of his predecessors and elder contemporaries. ΤῸ pro- ceed: in one place he characterizes ‘ the Memoirs’ with special fulness as ‘composed by the Apostles and those who followed them.’ The suitabilitv of this twofold description to our Gospels wit be noticed, and it gains in point from the circam- stance that in the context he preserves one trait which is peculiar to St. Luke’s account of the Agony in the Garden (Dial. ciii.). In another place he refers to a fact, mentioned only by St. Mark, as contained in Peter’s Memoirs (see, further, below). Again, he speaks of the doctrine of the Person of Christ, which he defines in part in terms peculiar to Jn, as derived from ‘the Memoirs.’ Further, in five of the cases in which Justin distinctly quotes from evangelic writings, using the formula γέγραπται, he agrees almost verbally with Mt or Lk. (For these and for a discussion of the remain- ing two, comp. Westcott, Canon, p. 130 ff., and Sanday, Gospels in the Second Century, p. 88 ff.). For the most part, however, Justin does not adhere closely to the words of any one evangelist in his accounts of and references to the facts of the Lord’s Life and His Teaching. He gives the sub- stance of their narratives, and to a certain extent combines what is found in different Gospels. In doing this he acted in accordance with the very natural tendency of which we have already seen examples in early Christian writings. Moreover, it is quite obviously his purpose in a considerable portion of his First Apology to give a summary of the evangelic history and of some chief points in Christ’s teaching for the enlightenment of heathen readers. And not less obviously in a large part οἱ NEW TESTAMENT CANON 535 the Dialogue he is rapidly reviewing the facts, which was all that was required, in connexion with an argument from the fulfilment of prophecy. This being so, it was to be expected that he should avail himself now of one, now of another Gospel, and should be satisfied with giving what he con- ceived to be their general meaning and purport. With the object he had in view, he would often find it sufficient to rely upon his memory of their narra- tives. And, indeed, even his quotations from the OT are marked to a considerable extent by the same characteristics of combination and compression, and want of minute accuracy. Nevertheless, the general character of the representation which Justin gives of the evangelic history, and which he derives, as he repeatedly indicates, from records which were acknowledged in the Church to have apostolic authority—its contents, with compara- tively slight exceptions, its main outline, the style of the language, and many of the actual words— are those of our Gospels. The features of the Synoptics are, indeed, more fully and directly reproduced than those of the Fourth Gospel, though there are striking coincidences with special points in it also; while it is most natural to sup- pose that the conception of Christ as the Logos, which holds a prominent place in Justin’s works, was derived by him from the same source, although he develops it in part in his own way, in accord- ance with philosophical ideas that were familiar to hin. In his summaries of or allusions to the Gospel history, Justin introduces a limited amount of matter—a certain number of touches and incidents —not found in our Gospels. From the presence of this element it has been argued that he did not use our Gospels. But to reason thus is to defy every principle of sound criticism. For there is no evidence that any other work or works existed which could have supplied him with the bulk of his facts about the life and teaching of Christ, together with the language in which he relates them, besides our Gospels. Moreover, that these were already in existence, and that he must have had opportunities of becoming acquainted with them, is certain, as will more clearly appear from facts to be considered presently. It is now, indeed, admitted by critics of more than one school that the first three Gospels ranked among Justin's principal authorities, and that the fourth was known to him. The chief questions still sub lite are (a) to what extent he used other records in addition to our canonical ones, and whether he regarded any of them as possessed of apostolic authority ; and (δ) whether there was a difference between his attitude to the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics. (a) The question of the source or sources whence Justin drew what we may for convenience briefly call the ‘apocryphal’ matter in his accounts of the Gospel history has received new and special interest from the recovery, since 1892, of a fragment of the so-called *‘ Gospel of Peter’ (see The Akhmim Frag- ment, or the Apocryphal Gospel of St. Peter, by H. B. Swete). In some points in which Justin diverges from the canonical Gospels he is found to coincide with ‘Peter.’ The importance of the inquiry whether Justin used ‘Peter’ is greatly increased by the fact that, if he did, it must in all probability have been the work which he describes as ‘Peter’s Memoirs’ (Dial. cvi.), and he must have given it an equal, if not a pre-eminent, place among the authorities for the Gospel history. The use of ‘ Peter’ by Justin is maintained by Harnack (Bruchstiick des Evangeliums und der Apokalypse des Petrus, 2nd ed. p. 37 ff.), and is accepted by Sanday (Jnspiration, pp. 805, 310) ; but against it see Swete, 1.6. pp. xxxili-xxxv. Swete’s argument NEW TESTAMENT CANON 536 may also be greatly strengthened by observing the contrasts between Justin and ‘ Peter.’ It is certain that the former has been but slightly influenced by the latter on the whole, and it is difficult to | understand how, if he knew the book and regarded | it as the work of the chief of the apostles, which it claims to be, his use of it should have been so limited. In Justin’s age information concerning the Gospel history was gleaned not only from tradi- tion, but also from documents other than our Gospels, less unsuspectingly than came to be the case a generation or so later. We have seen an example of this in the so-called Second Ep. of Clement ; we learn also from Eusebius (ΜῈ iv. 22) that Hegesippus, the contemporary of Justin, made some quotations from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Justin's practice illustrates the same attitude of mind. With the matter supplied by our Gospels, he weaves in traits which he has probably derived from such sources, though we are unable to say from which of them he obtained most, or whether indeed he made special use of any one. There is, however, no reason to think that any work of the nature of a Gospel, other than ours, held practically the same position as they did for Justin, or for the Church of his time. (b) Some critics who admit the cogency of the evidence that Justin was acquainted with the Fourth Gospel, yet maintain that he clearly did not place it on the same level as the Synoptics (see Keim, Jesus of Naz. i. p. 186 ff.; Holtzmann, Fini. p. 479). The only ground for supposing this is that he makes more sparing use of it. But there was good reason for this difference. In view of the persons addressed both in the Apology and in the Dialogue, and also the tenor of the arguments in these works, it was natural that he should have fewer quotations from and parallels with it than the others. Before leaving this quarter of the century we must touch upon the question of the use of the Gospels by Gnostic heretics. In discussing it we shall be taken back even to the earlier part of the time. It has, however, been reserved till this point, both on account of the different relation to the Christian faith of the persons to be considered, mas because the evidence is of a more indirect ind. Basileides had begun to teach at Alexandria in the reign of Hadrian. He was the author of a work in 24 books entitled Expositions of the Gospel, from which we have a few extracts in extant works of Clem. Alex. One of these seems like a portion of a comment on a passage of Mt. There are two others, which may be comments on sayings of our Lord taken from Lk and Jn respectively (Zahn, Kanon, i. pp. 766, 767). The possibility of coming to any fuller conclusion as to the use of the Gospels by Basileides must depend on the estimate formed of the account of Basileides and his school given by Hippolytus, and of the citations which it includes. Some have supposed Hippolytus to have been misled when he took the work from which he quotes as a product even of the school of Basileides (e.g. Zahn, ib. 765). But the result of a comparison with the extracts in Clem. Alex. is strongly in favour of the view that the treatise used by Hippolytus gave a genuine exposition of Basileidean doctrine (see Hort’s art. ‘ Basileides’ in Dict. of Christian Biog.). Whether it was the Exzegetica or some other work is more questionable. That the quotations are from Basil- eides himself, at least in some cases, and those the most important for our present purpose, is the most natural view of Hippolytus’ language (cf. Westcott, Canon, p. 297 n., and Hort, J.c.). The theories expounded bear the marks of great meta- NEW TESTAMENT CANON physical power ; and if the writer from whom they are taken, partly in his own words, was not Basil- | eides himself, he may probably have been Isidore, Basileides’ eminent son and disciple, whom Hip- polytus names along with his father. Even in this case we should haye to do here with a writing com- posed not much later than, if so late as, the middle of the 2nd cent. It undoubtedly appeals to the Fourth Gospel as to an authority (Hippol. Har. vii. 22). Valentinus, who was a younger contemporary of Basileides, need not now detain us. We know nothing of the employment he made of books of the NI’, except as it may be inferred from the practice of his school in the next generation. On the other hand, of the treatment of the NT Scriptures by Marcion, who flourished c. A.D. 140, we know much from Tertullian’s Contra Marcionem. Beyond all reasonable doubt, the Gospel which he made for himself and his sect was a mutilated form of Lk. And it may be observed that in select- ing it, even though he found it necessary thus to adapt it to his own purpose, he did homage to the authority which it had acquired. An examina- tion of the peculiarities of the text used by Marcion seems also to show that the text of the Gospel had already in his generation a history (see Sanday, Gospels in Second Cent. p. 231 ff.). From a man and his writings we turn to a move- ment. Montanism arose in Phrygia not long after the middle, and it spread remarkably during the remainder, of the 2nd cent. ; it found tendencies and needs favourable to it in various parts of the Church. In the present connexion it is important only from the fact that its insistence on the promise of the coming of the Spirit, designated as the Paraclete, is a sign of the influence of the Gospel according to John. (2) Other writings of NT.—A few points only need be noticed. We learn from Tertullian’s treatise against Marcion that this heretic acknow- ledged 10 Epp. of St. Paul. It was natural, and yet important as a step in the formation of the Canon, that the Epp. of this great apostle should be regarded collectively, and we have in Marcion’s case the first clear sign of such a view of them. ‘There is, it may be added, no reason to think that Marcion in rejecting, as he did, the 3 Pastoral Epp. was actuated by any other motive than a dogmatic one. In a passage of Justin we have a noteworthy instance of another kind —the earliest reference by name toa NT writing. The work so cited is the Apocalypse, its authorship by John the Apostle being mentioned (Dial. 1xxxi.). For the rest, it will suffice under this head to notice parallelisms which are striking, and which prove the use of writings not otherwise abundantly attested. Those in Hermas with Ep. of James are specially remarkable (Hermas, Vis. It. ii. 7, 1V. ii. Os MM. I. 8. 4), Vi. 75 WI ΤΟΥΣ eA vi. 3; Sim. ΥἹ. 1. 1, VII. vi.4). Again, those with Acts in Justin seem clear (Apol. i. 40 ; Dial. xvi. and lii.). The statement, which we have already had occasion to refer to, may also here be recalled, that Papias ‘made use of testimonies from the former Ep. of Jn, and likewise from that of Peter’ (Eus. HE iii. 39). iii, THIRD QUARTER OF SECOND CENTURY.— (1) Gospels. — Tatian.—Through a succession of remarkable literary discoveries in recent years con- troversy has practically been closed in respect to the general character of Tatian’s Diatessaron. Wemay not fully have recovered its original form, but it can no longer be seriously doubted that substantially it was a harmony of our Four Gospels (see Zahn, Forsch. Pt. 1, Kan. i. pp. 387-422, ii. 580-556 ; Lightit., Essays on Sup. Rel., 1889, pp. 272-288 ; NEW TESTAMENT CANON S. Hemphill, The Diatessaron of Tatian; and Hill, The Earliest Gospel Harmony). In more than one respect Tatian is a valuable link between the middle and the last quarter of the century, supplying evidence in regard to the history of the Canon for a period, the remains of which are specially scanty. His Diatessaron, while it is an example of the working of that tendency to dwell on the common result of the testimony of different witnesses, which we have seen to be characteristic of the first two or three generations, is also the first distinct indication of the fact, which is so emphatically asserted a little later, that there were four records whose authority was unique. (2) His Apology shows traces of acquaintance with various writings of the NT, but for the most part there is in it the absence of express citation which is commonly to be observed in works of the same class. In one place, however, some words from the prologue to Jn are introduced as ‘that which has been said’ (xiii.). iv. THE LAST UARTER OF THE SECOND