320 THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. 



manuscripts of the first three centuries by the 318 

 bishops who assembled at the Council of Nicsea in 327. 

 The entire list of gospels numbered forty ; the canonical 

 list contains four. As the contending and mutually 

 abusive bishops could not agree about the choice, they 

 determined to leave the selection to a miracle. They 

 put all the books (according to the Synodicon of 

 Pappus) together underneath the altar, and prayed 

 that the apocryphal books, of human origin, might 

 remain there, and the genuine, inspired books might 

 be miraculously placed on the table of the Lord. And 

 that, says tradition, really occurred ! The three 

 synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke— all 

 written after them, not by them, at the beginning of 

 the second century) and the very different fourth 

 gospel (ostensibly " after " John, written about the 

 middle of the second century) leaped on the table, and 

 were thenceforth recognized as the inspired (with their 

 thousand mutual contradictions) foundations of Chris- 

 tian doctrine. If any modern "unbeliever" finds 

 this story of the " leap of the sacred books " incredible, 

 we must remind him that it is just as credible as the 

 table-turning and spirit-rapping that are believed to 

 take place to-day by millions of educated people ; and 

 that hundreds of millions of Christians believe just 

 as implicitly in their personal immortality, their 

 " resurrection from the dead," and the Trinity of 

 G-jd — dogmas that contradict pure reason no more 

 and no less than that miraculous bound of the gospel 

 manuscripts. 



The most important sources after the gospels are 

 the fourteen separate (and generally forged) epistles 

 of Paul. The genuine Pauline epistles (three in 

 number, according to recent criticism — to the Komans, 



