598 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



defined by similar means. " Antiquity " may include any num- 

 ber of centuries, great or small; and whether "antiquity" is to 

 comprise the Council of Trent, or to stop a little beyond that of 

 Nicsea, or come to an end in the time of Irenseus, or in that of 

 Justin Martyr, are knotty questions which can be decided, if at 

 all, only by those critical methods which the signataries treat so 

 cavalierly. And yet the decision of these questions is fundament- 

 al, for as the limits of the canonical Scriptures vary, so may the 

 dogmas deducted from them require modification. Christianity 

 is one thing, if the fourth Gospel, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the 

 pastoral Epistles, and the Apocalypse are canonical and (by the 

 hypothesis) infallibly true ; and another thing, if they are not. 

 As I have already said, whoso defines the canon defines the 

 creed. 



Now it is quite certain with respect to some of these books, 

 such as the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the 

 Eastern and the Western Church differed in opinion for centu- 

 ries ; and yet neither the one branch nor the other can have con- 

 sidered its judgment infallible, since they eventually agreed to a 

 transaction, by which each gave up its objection to the book pa- 

 tronized by the other. Moreover, the " fathers " argue (in a more 

 or less rational manner) about the canonicity of this or that book, 

 and are by no means above producing evidence, internal and ex- 

 ternal, in favor of the opinions they advocate. In fact, imperfect 

 as their conceptions of scientific method may be, they not infre- 

 quently used it to the best of their ability. Thus it would appear 

 that though Science, like Nature, may be driven out with a fork, 

 ecclesiastical or other, yet she surely comes back again. The ap- 

 peal to " antiquity " is, in fact, an appeal to science, first, to define 

 what antiquity is ; secondly, to determine what " antiquity," so 

 defined, says about canonicity ; thirdly, to prove that canonicity 

 means infallibility. And when science, largely in the shape of 

 the abhorred " criticism," has done this, and has shown that " an- 

 tiquity " used her own methods, however clumsily and imperfectly, 

 she naturally turns round upon the appealers to "antiquity," and 

 demands that they should show cause why, in these days, science 

 should not resume the work they did so imperfectly, and carry it 

 out efficiently. 



But no such cause can be shown. If " antiquity " permitted 

 Eusebius, Origen, Tertullian, Irenseus, to argue for the reception 

 of this book into the canon and the rejection of that, upon rational 

 grounds, "antiquity" admitted the whole principle of modern 

 criticism. If Irenseus produces ridiculous reasons for limiting 

 the Gospels to four, it was open to any one else to produce good 

 reasons (if he had them) for cutting them down to three, or in- 

 creasing them to five. If the Eastern branch of the Church had 



