208 KORM PAULINA. 



Basilides we know still less than we do of Marcion. Tho 

 same observation, however, belongs to him, namely, that his 

 objection, as far as appears from this passage of St. Jerome, 

 was confined to the three private epistles. Yet is this the 

 only opinion which can be said to disturb the consent of the 

 first two centuries of the Christian era ; for as to Tatian, who 

 is reported by Jerome alone to have rejected some of St. 

 Paul's epistles, the extravagant or rather delirious notions 

 into which he fell, take away all weight and credit from his 

 judgment. If, indeed, Jerome's account of this circumstance 

 be correct ; for it appears from much older writers than Je- 

 rome, that Tatian owned and used many of these epistles.* 



II. They who in those ages disputed about so many 

 other points, agreed in acknowledging tlie Scriptures now 

 before us. Contending sects appealed to them in their con- 

 troversies, with equal and unreserved submission. AYhen 

 they were urged by one side, however they might be inter- 

 preted or misinterpreted by the other, their authority wa? 

 not questioned. '' Reliqui omnes,'' says Irenaeus, speaking 

 of Marcion, "faUo scienticB oiomine inflati, Scripturaii 

 quidem confitentur, interpretationes vero convertunt."-f 



III. When the genuineness of some other writings which 

 were in circulation, and even of a fev/ v/hich are now re- 

 ceived into the canon, was contested, these were never called 

 into dispute. "Whatever was the objection, or whether in 

 truth there ever was any real objection to the authenticity 

 of the second epistle of Peter, the second and third of John, 

 the epistle of James, or that of Jude, or to the book of the 

 Revelation of St. John, the doubts that appear to have been 

 €:ntertained concerning them exceedingly strengthen the force 

 of the testimony as to those writings about which there wag 

 no doubt ; because it shows, that the matter was a subject, 



* Lardner, vol. 1, p. 313. 



t Iren. adver.s. Hser. quoted by Lardner, vol, 15, p. 425. " All iws 

 rest, inflatod with a false pretence of knowledge, racogtiize the Scrip 

 lures, but wrest their interpretation." 



