I PROLOGUE 27 



Grant that it is "the traditionary testimony of 

 the Church" which guarantees the canonicity of 

 each and all of the books of the Old and New 

 Testaments. Grant also that canonicity means 

 infallibility; yet, according to the thirty-eight, 

 this " traditionary testimony " has to be " ascer- 

 tained and verified by appeal to antiquity." But 

 " ascertainment and verification " are purely 

 intellectual processes, which must be conducted 

 according to the strict rules of scientific investiga- 

 tion, or be self-convicted of worthlessness. More- 

 over, before we can set about the appeal to 

 " antiquity/' the exact sense of that usefully 

 vague term must be defined by similar means. 

 " Antiquity " may include any number of centu- 

 ries, great or small ; and whether " antiquity " is 

 to comprise the Council of Trent, or to stop a 

 little beyond that of Nicsea, or to come to an 

 end in the time of Irenaeus, 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 funda- 

 mental, for as the limits of the canonical scrip- 

 tures vary, so may the dogmas deduced from 

 them require modification. Christianity is one 

 thing, if the fourth Gospel, the Epistle to the 

 Hebrews, the pastoral Epistles, and the Apo- 

 calypse are canonical and (by the hypothesis) in- 

 fallibly true ; and ^another thing, if they are not. 



