30 PROLOGUE 1 



of "antiquity/ they, like their famous Hindoo 

 analogue, have been content to look no further ; 

 and have thereby been spared the horror of dis- 

 covering that the tortoise rests on a grievously 

 fragile construction, to a great extent the work of 

 that very intellectual operation which they anathe- 

 matise and repudiate. 



Moreover, there is another point to be considered. 

 It is of course true that a Christian Church 

 (whether the Christian Church, or not, depends on 

 the connotation of the definite article) existed 

 before the Christian scriptures ; and that the in- 

 fallibility of these depends upon the infalli- 

 bility of the judgment of the persons who 

 selected the books of which they are composed, 

 out of the mass of literature current among the 

 early Christians. The logical acumen of Augustine 

 showed him that the authority of the Gospel he 

 preached must rest on that of the Church to 

 which he belonged. 1 But it is no less true that 

 the Hebrew and the Septuagint versions of most, 

 if not all, of the Old Testament books existed be- 

 fore the birth of Jesus of Nazareth ; and that their 

 divine authority is presupposed by, and therefore 

 can hardly depend upon, the religious body con- 

 stituted by his disciples. As everybody knows, 

 the very conception of a "Christ" is purely 



1 Ego vero evangelic non crederem, nisi ecclesise Catholics 

 me commoveret auctoritas. Contra Epistolam Manichcei, 

 cap. v. 



