4
THE HISTORY OF THE CANON
from an examination of the records of the ante-Nicene Church, as long as they are compared with what might be expected at present, appear meagre and inadequate ; but in relation to their proper sources they are singularly fertile. This will be seen more clearly from the examination of one or two particulars, which bear directly upon the formation and proof of the Canon.
i. The Formation of the Canon was impeded byI. It cannot be denied that the Canon was fixed gradually. The condition of society and the internal relations of the Church presented obstacles to the immediate and absolute determination of the question, which are disregarded now, only because they have ceased to exist. The tradition which represents St John as fixing the contents of the New Testament betrays the spirit of a later age[1].
(1) defective means of communication,1. It is almost impossible for any one whose ideas of communication are suggested by the railway and the printing-press to understand how far mere material hinderances must have prevented a speedy and unanimous settlement of the Canon. The means of intercourse were slow and precarious. The multiplication of manuscripts in remote provinces was tedious and costly[2]. The common meeting-point of Christians was destroyed by the fall of Jerusalem, and from that time national Churches- ↑ This tradition rests upon a misunderstanding of what Eusebius says of the relation of St John's Gospel to the former three (Hist. Eccl. III. 24; cf. VI. 14. Hieron. De Virr. Ill. 9). The earliest trace of the narrative of Eusebius occurs in the Muratorian fragment (see App. C).
- ↑ This fact however has been frequently exaggerated. The circulation of the New Testament Scriptures was probably far greater than is commonly supposed. Mr Norton has made some interesting calculations, which tend to shew that as many as 60,000 copies of the Gospels were circulated among Christians at the end of the second century. Genuineness of the Gospels, I. pp. 28—34 (Ed. 2, 1847). Whether the data on which this conclusion rests are sound or not, it is certain that the production of large and cheap editions of books at Rome was usual. Compare W. A. Schmidt, Geschichte der Denk- und Glaubensfreiheit im ersten Jahrhundert...des Christenthums (Berlin, 1847), c. v.
