presented to the Town Council by Mr. Haynes, the clergyman of the neighbouring parish of Thrussington. It is probably of the 14th century, but was most likely copied with three or four others from a manuscript of great antiquity, inasmuch as it agrees with them in removing the story of the woman taken in adultery from the beginning of the 8th chapter of John to the end of the 21st chapter of Luke.

It may probably be asked how near does the oldest written copy of the New Testament in existence come to the time of the Apostles? In answering this question we are compelled to say that a space of little less than three centuries separates the lost autographs of Apostles and Evangelists from the oldest copies we have. This may

seem a wide distance, but the fact is, there is nothing really so satisfactory even as this in any other department of literature. Take for example the case of the great worldpoet Homer. There are fragments of the Iliad probably belonging to the fifth or sixth centuries, but there is no complete copy of his two great poems earlier than the thirteenth century, that is, two thousand years from the time of the poet himself. It should never be forgotten that the written copies of the Greek Scriptures far exceed in age and number those of all the classical writings of antiquity put together. In the case of more than one very important classical book there is only a single copy in existence before the age of printing, while there are probably two thousand manuscripts of the New Testament older than the tenth century.

(2) If we have not the actual manuscripts written by Apostles and Evangelists, have we the actual books? In other words, can we satisfactorily bridge over the three hundred years between the oldest manuscript of the New Testament and the death of the last of the Apostles.

Let us go back carefully step by step, and see how far the ground is solid beneath our feet. Nobody doubts, to begin with, that we have the same Bible which was in use

at the time of the Reformation, because both Protestant and Catholic agree in that in whatever else they may differ. This takes us with certainty three hundred and fifty years from our time. Again, it is eight hundred years since the separation of the Greek and Latin Churches, and there can have been no change made since then, for both Churches, though anathematizing each other, accept the same Scriptures. In like manner, taking the controversies between the East and West up to the time of the Council of Nicæa, it would have been simply impossible for both these Churches, incessantly watching each other as they were, to have agreed together to fabricate books, and if one had done it alone, this would have given an easy victory to its opponent. There has been a long line of theologians, commentators, and preachers writing on these books to the middle of the fourth century, which makes it as certain as any earthly thing can be that we use the same Bible which was in use then. But what about the previous two hundred and fifty years? Well, about one hundred and forty years earlier still there lived and wrote the great Christian scholar, Origen of Alexandria. His works remain to us in four large folio volumes. He was born A.D. 185, and therefore probably wrote about A.D. 220. He speaks of the four Gospels as being received by the whole Church which is under heaven. He mentions the Acts of the Apostles as written by Luke, speaks in a general manner of Paul's Epistles, and cites every one of them in his writings. But this is not all. Dr. Tregelles, whose authority in such matters no one can question, says-" We can in Origen's extant writings alone-I speak this from actual knowledge. and examination-find cited at least two-thirds of the New Testament." Fifty years beyond Origen's time brings us to Irenæus, who was Bishop of Lyons from A.D. 177.

Up to this point there is practically no dispute. All sides are agreed that the great Church Writers who flourished towards the end of the second century-Irenæus, Clement

of Alexandria, and Tertullian-not only recognised the Gospels as the compositions of the persons whose names they bear, but they referred to them as writings of Canonical Authority, quite as much as we do at the present day. As far back, therefore, as the year A.D. 177 we are in open daylight. But this leaves an interval of not less than one hundred and fifty years to bridge over since our Lord's ministry, and one hundred and twenty years since the supposed publication of the Gospels. How is this to be done?

It is admittedly certain I have said that Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria had the same Bible we have. It must be noted that they were in districts wide apart, one at Lyons in the south of France, the other in the north of Africa. The Church at Lyons was probably founded by teachers from Asia Minor. Be that as it may, the man who was Bishop of Lyons before Irenæus, and with whom Irenæus was associated as Presbyter, was Pothinus, an old man of ninety years of age, who died as a martyr A.D. 177. He was associated with the generation of the Apostle John, and must have been born before the books of the New Testament were all written. Moreover, even Irenæus his successor could remember Polycarp the disciple of St. John. Writing to Florinus, when he himself was an old man, he says— "I remember the events of those times much better than those of recent occurrence. I can tell the very place where the beloved Polycarp was accustomed to sit and discourse, and his personal appearance and his familiar intercourse with John which he was accustomed to speak of and with others that had seen the Lord. How also he used to relate their discourses and what things he had heard from them concerning the Lord, also concerning His miracles, His doctrine all these in consistency with the Holy Scriptures were told by Polycarp, as he had received them from the eye-witnesses of the doctrine of salvation."

Thus these two men who it is admitted used the same Bible we do were connected by links close and personal

with the Apostolic Age itself. It is hardly likely that fabricated books could have come into use in their time without their being able to detect them of their own knowledge. If Polycarp was taught by John, and Irenæus by Polycarp, it is very probable that Irenæus is on safe ground when he speaks of the tradition of the Apostles by which the Canon of Scripture was determined.

Let us now pass over to Alexandria where Clement is using the same Bible as that used by Irenæus. He was trained by Pantanus whom Photius distinctly states was a hearer of the Apostles. But before he met with Pantænus Clement had studied in Greece and Italy and various parts of the East under various masters from Cole-Syria, from Egypt, and from Assyria, and also under a Hebrew in Palestine. "And these men," he writes, "preserving the true tradition of the blessed teaching directly from Peter and James, from John and Paul, the holy Apostles, the son receiving it from father (but few are they who are like their fathers), came by God's Providence even to us, to deposit among us those seeds [of truth] which were derived from their Ancestors and the Apostles." Both these men therefore who it is admitted used the Bible we have now were well qualified by tradition to judge as to whether the New Testament books were likely to have come from the times of the Apostles themselves.

Having cited one witness from Lyons and another from Alexandria, let us cite a third from Rome. This third witness shall be nearer to the Apostles' time by forty or fifty years than the other two. Justin Martyr is a man whose testimony is of some consequence to our enquiry. He was born about A.D. 103 at Flavia Neapolis, the ancient Sichem in Samaria, where his family had been settled for two generations. Grown up to manhood he set forth in search of truth in the philosophic schools. But over and over again his search seemed baffled. It was at that time, when "in his folly," as he says, "he hoped soon to attain a clear vision

of God"-that seeking calm and retirement by the sea-shore, he met an aged man, meek and venerable, who led him at length from Plato to Christ, from metaphysics to faith. "Pray before all things" were the last words of this new master, "that the gates of light be opened to you; for [the truths of revelation] are not comprehensible by the eye or mind of man, unless God and His Christ give him understanding." "Immediately a fire was kindled in my soul," says Justin, "and I was possessed with a love for the prophets and those men who are Christ's friends. And as I discussed his arguments with myself I found Christianity to be the only philosophy that is sure and suited to man's wants." Other influences tended in the same direction. Elsewhere he says "I was once an admirer of the doctrines of Plato; and I heard the Christians abused. But when I saw them meet death and all that is accounted terrible among men, without dismay, I knew it to be impossible that they should be living in sin and lust. I despised the opinions of the multitude. I glory in being a Christian, and take every pains to prove myself worthy of my calling."

This man thus brought into the Christian fold became a zealous propagandist of the Christian faith both by tongue and pen. In the public walk at Ephesus he held a discussion with the Jew Trypho, proving from the Old Testament that Jesus. was the Christ. At Rome he is said to have established a school where he endeavoured to satisfy the doubts of Greeks. Of the writings which now bear his name two apologies and the dialogue with Trypho are genuine beyond all doubt, and it is upon these we shall rely for testimony concerning the Scriptures in the early part of the second century.

Modern critics seem pretty generally to place the two apologies in the years 147-150 A.D. Supposing that Justin wrote these two books then, and assuming that his recollection and testimony may be held good for thirty years earlier, what he says brings us very far on our way to the days of John the last of the Apostles, the date of whose death is variously