ecclesiastical, and apocryphal, signifying by the second of these titles what the high Anglicans in our days are compelled to do by the third. Yet, nevertheless, he admits Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremias, as also two books of Esdras, but which they are is not clear. Esther is plainly excluded altogether; nor is the Epistle of St. James enumerated: yet it would seem, nevertheless, to have once been in the text, from the presence of the word #Tа as applied to the Catholic Epistles.*

VIII. The Synopsis, or Perfect View of Scripture, found in the works of this venerable champion of orthodoxy, has been denied to be a genuine production of his own pen by some, and has been proved to be such by others. We are disposed to fall in with the latter party, in the good company of Cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine; nor has there been any doubt of its antiquity, whatever there may have been of its authenticity. The Athanasian Synopsis makes no scruple whatever in considering as divinely inspired Scripture that Book of Esdras which the Church of Rome, as well as the Church of England, deems apocryphal. Its second book of Esdras comprises the Anglican Ezra and Nehemiah, both in one; and therefore it is probable, in the highest degree, we should say, that the same must have been the case with regard to these pieces as mentioned in the Paschal Epistle. It also places in the sacred canon the three additions to the Book of Daniel, and omits Esther in toto, just as Melito does. It observes with admirable coolness, that some persons "have said that Esther had a place in the Hebrew canon ;" whilst in fact it was no other than an ecclesiastical narrative! Why is not one individual opinion as good or valid as another?

IX. These speculations were not in every case peculiar to the east; for we discover the saintly bishop of Poictiers to have been disposed the same way. It must be remembered, that no council of Carthage or Rome had yet pronounced any decision; nor is it likely that any voice from Laodicea, even if it had spoken, which is adhuc sub judice, could have reached the heart of Gaul, A. D. 350. In fact, however, the Laodicean Synod was probably much later. St. Hilary, at all events, acknowledged his pre

*Vide locum in Operib. St. Athanas.

ference for the Hebrew Verity; yet he received upon his list, the Epistle of Jeremias, whatever that was: and then adds, "Quibusdam autem visum est additis Tobia et Judith, 24 libros, secundum numerum Græcarum literarum connumerare!" (Prol. Explan. in Psalmos.) He only enumerates the Old Testament. Tertullian and others tell us, that the number xxiv. was to be made up, that it. might correspond to the twenty-four elders, and the four times six wings of the mystical living creatures in the ineffable visions of Isaias and the Apocalypse!

X. St. Cyril of Jerusalem prepared his catalogue on the basis of Josephus, as might have been expected perhaps, before any authoritative judgment had been promulgated, from the associations of his local position. Yet he admits Baruch, and excludes the Revelation. The disputed books he considered ecclesiastical, and to be held in the highest respect, short only of that due to the OCOTVEVOTELα. He listened to Laodicea.'

θεοπνευστεία.

XI. St. Epiphanius gives only the Old Testament, in which he follows to a certain extent the contracted or eastern canon, but particularly adding Baruch; although, as he mentions, it was not included in the ark of the covenant, nor among the sacred records of the Hebrews. Yet to these, he implies, it was added in course of time notwithstanding, and through the Septuagint circulated as Scripture over the world, together with the Wisdom of Sirach and Solomon.* We may observe further, that, from the way in which both he and St. Cyril mention the Books of Esdras, they might, for aught appearing to the contrary, have fallen into precisely the same error with that of the Athanasian Synopsis. This, indeed should be kept in recollection throughout other cases also, where the circumstances are the same.

XII. St. Gregory Nazianzen totally leaves out Esther from the Old, and the Apocalypse from the New Testament; and his notice of Wisdom elsewhere is well known. His verses were very popular.

XIII. St. Amphilochius, metropolitan of Iconium, exactly follows St. Gregory Nazianzen in his omission of Esther, but faintly observing, that by some persons it was

Oper. St. Epiphan. De Mensur. et Ponder. cap. iv. Tom. ii. p. 161: Advers. Hæres, Tom. i. lib. i. pp. 19-21: lib. iii. hær. 76. p. 941. Edit. 1682.

added to the calendar. The two books of Esdras are also so mentioned as quite to admit the possibility, if not the probability, of the first being that one which is rejected by the establishment, as well as ourselves. About the Apocalypse, his own rejection of it would seem plain. "Some approve it," he says, "but the majority pronounce it spurious!" His enumeration of the Catholic Epistles proceeds in a tone not a little unsatisfactory: "Some account that seven should be received," he observes; "others only three;" doubting, we presume, the canonicity of the Second Epistle of St. Peter, the Second and Third of St. John, and that either of St. Jude or St. James. None of the other disputed books are mentioned: for where the name "Wisdom" occurs we cannot but attribute it to the Proverbs. Compare this passage in St. Amphilochius with the Παροιμίαι ή και Σοφία, in Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. lib. iv, cap. 26, and the note of Valesius. The poetical metropolitan of Iconium concludes his Greek Iambics to Seleucus with this rather strong announcement, which may help to illustrate what the mere private judgment of the very best men may end in,—

ετος άψευδέστατος

Κάνων αν εἴη των θεοπνεύστων γραφων

XIV. Philaster of Brescia, a bishop who attended the Council of Aquileia, and who wrote against heresies, with great distinctness professes to found his calendar, as to principle, upon a correct foundation,-namely, upon the Statutum est ab apostolis et eorum successoribus; and as he published his work before the Third Council of Carthage, he had no scruple in omitting all the questioned portions of Scripture, and considering amongst those books forbidden to be read in the church even the Revelation of St. John. He also reproaches certain heretics for using the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach; as well as others for doubting about the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, although he himself enumerates but thirteen Epistles of St. Paul. It must further not be forgotten, that, whilst he deemed the Apocalypse non in Ecclesia Catholicâ legi, he received it in his own mind as inspiration; for, after denouncing the Chiliasts, he adds: "Post hos sunt hæretici, qui evangelium secundum Joannem et Apocalypsim ipsius non accipiunt, et cum non intelligunt virtutem Scripturæ, nec desiderant discere, in hæresi per

manent pereuntes, ut etiam Cerinthi hæretici audeant dicere Apocalypsim non esse beati Joannis Evangelistæ.' His work perplexed St. Augustine, as it has done others; nor can his testimony either way go for very much. He died about A. D. 387.

Now, if much is to be made out of these fourteen individual and unsanctioned catalogues, not one of them being supported by Councils, we must observe, that several comprehend some of the disputed books, that several omit or reject books that are not now disputed even by the Anglican Church,-that several of them canonize what is on all hands admitted to be apocryphal,-that scarcely any two of them agree together, and that out of eleven of them including the New Testament, a positive majority omit or reject the Apocalypse! If it be thought, that we might have added the testimony of St. Basil to that of St. Gregory Nazianzen, although he gives no direct calendar; yet, on the other hand, St. Gregory Nyssenus* must have taken up his position also, who rejected, or at least slurred over, the Revelation of St. John; in which he was supported by the Syriac version and Canon, the Laodicean Fathers, the celebrated Caius of Rome, Dionysius of Alexandria, and a multitude of his nameless contemporaries; to say nothing of the very ancient Stichometria, mentioned by Pearson and Fabricius, or of James of Edessa, Severian of Gabbala, and Gregory

*He classes it among the apocryphal writings, ev àокpúpois. (Opp. Tom. ii. p. 44.) There is a difference of opinion among the critics as to the sense in which the word is used. But without insisting on the view of Heinsius, who leans upon the ordinary signification of the word, we are fully justified in at least regarding his voice as doubtful.

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The evidence of Dionysius establishes the fact that there were many before his time who rejected it. He inclines to the opinion that it is the work of some holy and inspired man," and will not even "deny that the author was called John;" yet he clearly avows his belief that it is not to be attributed to the " Apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, who is the author of the gospel, and of the general (Catholic) epistle [it is worthy of note that he speaks but of one epistle] which bears his name." Even on the general question of the reception of Revelations into the canon, the most he says is that he will not venture [ek av Toλuýoa] to set this book aside. See Euseb. Eccles Hist. vii. 25. English translation, p. 272-3.

Bar-Hebræus. If Scripture is to stand or fall upon the verdict of private witnesses, what is to become of the last and most awful portion of the canon? What, in such case, must we do with one of the Epistles of St. Peter, with two, if not the three of St. John, with those of St. James and St. Jude, or with that to the Hebrews? The principle of private judgment will be found an ecclesiastical dryrot, eating invisibly, yet fatally, into the very core and heart of the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. Our Anglican brethren in the Establishment must surely now see the inconsistency, to which in a former page we alluded, of their favourite article on "The books about which there has never been any doubt in the Church:" since it cannot hold water on both sides. To ourselves it appears leaky as the pitchers of the Danaides,-full of holes throughout! Alas! for the destiny of those pious and worthy divines, who may hope for, but who will never obtain-at least, until they leave their present position-the golden vessels of a sanctuary, where all vessels are consecrated ones, and where the instrumentality is perfect because it is holy.

But we must hasten forward to St. Jerome, the grand tower of strength to our opponents, who on this occasion alone usher in his great name with a flourish of trumpets; for we need hardly observe, that, on all other points, he would have handled them as severely as he did Jovinian and Vigilantius. It must again be remembered, that no decision, beyond that at Laodicea, had been as yet pronounced upon the canon of Scripture. St. Jerome, with the strength of a giant, has bequeathed enough to posterity to show how entirely he would have submitted to any further decree of the Church Catholic, in the spirit of a docile child. Recollecting his letter to St. Damasus, had he only known of that from Innocent the First to Exuperius, or the still later judgment of Pope Gelasius, there would have been with him a truce to controversy. With the powers of an intellectual Samson, and perchance a touch of his roughness, he laboured for the Hebrew Verity as the cherished object of his life. It is, however, quite conceivable, that rumours from Rome may have reached his ears; although, probably, about the Third Council of Carthage (more especially if its authentic date, as some have thought, were A. D. 419, instead of A. D. 397.) he could have heard nothing. Intelligence was