EXPOSITION OF THE ARGUMENT. II 



the genuineness of the writings, and the reality of the trana- 

 actions. For as no advertency is sufficient to guard against 

 slips and contradictions, when circumstances arc multipHed, 

 and when they are hable to be detected by contemporary 

 accounts equally circumstantial, an impostor, I should ex- 

 pect, would either have avoided particulars entirely, content- 

 *ng himself with doctrinal discussions, moral precepts, and 

 general reflections ;^ or if, for the sake of imitating St. Paul's 

 style, he should have thought it necessary to intersperse his 

 composition with names and circumstances, he would have 

 placed them out of the reach of comparison with the history. 

 And I am confirmed in this opinion by the inspection of two 

 attempts to counterfeit St. Paul's epistles, which have come 

 down to us; and the only attempts, of which we have any 

 knowledge, that are at all deserving of regard. One of these 

 is an epistle to the Laodiceans, extant in Latin, and preserv- 

 ed by Fabricius in his collection of apocryphal scriptures. 

 The other purports to be an epistle of St. Paul to the Corin- 

 thians, in answer to an epistle from the Corinthians to him. 

 This was translated by Scroderus from a copy in the Arme- 

 nian language, which had been sent to W. Whiston, and 

 was afterwards, from a more perfect copy procured at Aleppo, 

 published by his sons, as an appendix to their edition oi 

 Moses Chorenensis. No Greek copy exists of either : they 

 are not only not supported by ancient testimony, but they 



* This, however, must not be misunderstood. A person writing 

 to his friends, and upon a subject in which tlie transactions of his own 

 life were concerned, would probably be led in the course of his letter, 

 especially if it were a long one, to refer to passages found in his his- 

 tory. A person addressing an epistle to the public at large, or under 

 the form of an epistle delivering a discourse upon some speculative 

 argument, would not, it is probable, meet with an occasion of allud- 

 ing to the circumstances of his life at all: he might, or he might notj 

 th5 chance on either side is nearly equal. This is the situation of the 

 catholic epistles. Although, therefore, the presence of these allusions 

 and agreements be a valuable accession to the arguments by which 

 the authenticity of a letter is maintamed, yet the want of them cer 

 tairJy foiins no positive objection. 



