But if St. Paul's own confidence in the revelations vouchsafed to him was moral, not positive; subjective, not objective; the perception of a divine glory, not blind submission to portents; does it not follow that any confidence which he generates in us must be of the same kind? The difference between this kind of confidence and that which by an abuse of the passage in Galatians (i. 11, 12) is demanded from us is plain. When St. Paul says concerning the risen Lord: "last of all he was seen of me also;" every one who believes the apostle to have been an honest man and to have uttered these words, takes his word for the fact, however it may be explained. We may not understand the precise nature of the manifestation, nor even try to explain it. All we know is that the form of the Lord Jesus was made visible to him, and we take his word for that. In this we allow him the authority which belongs to every honest witness who testifies of a matter which he alone knows. There is not necessarily required any sympathy with him, or agreement with his opinions. All that such authority touches is the bare fact. Similarly when St. Paul speaks of his visions and revelations in a state of trance; we believe that he had such experiences simply on his authority. But when we are commanded on this account to receive as infallible truth every word he uttered, we ask how he distinguished heavenly suggestions from spiritual delusions or national and individual peculiarities? As we have seen, the only possible answer is that he did so by spiritual discernment,

a gift in which he insists that all Christians ought to share. Here, then, the simple and direct action of authority is out of place. So far as we really and heartily accept his revelations we can only do so because we, like him, feel that they are congruous with "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." This is the only acceptance that he cared for when on earth. And could he now speak from heaven he would not depart from the spirit in which he wrote to the Philippians, "if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you; nevertheless whereto, we have already attained let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing."

In conclusion let me say, what ought perhaps to have been said before, that the inferences from Gal. i. 11, 12, on which I have commented, are obviously founded on a total misunderstanding of the passage. For the sake of the argument, and to allow such inferences the strongest conceivable ground, I have spoken as though I accepted the interpretation. But to any one who considers that the young man Saul was no stranger in Jerusalem, and that he had a persecutor's interest in making himself acquainted with everything in Christianity which was repulsive to the Jews, that is, with all the salient points of its history and doctrine, it will be perfectly plain that St. Paul did not and could not mean to tell the Galatians that he had received from heaven his information of Christian facts. What then did he

mean? In chap. ii. 2 he tells us that in visiting Jerusalem he communicated to the other apostles "that gospel" which he preached among the Gentiles. Now certainly he did not declare among the Gentiles any other facts than those preached at Jerusalem. What he means then by "that gospel" is that aspect of saving truth in its freedom from Mosaism, which was specially adapted to the Gentiles, and which he was divinely commissioned to preach to them. But whatever is meant by "that gospel" in chap. ii. is certainly also signified by "the gospel which was preached of me," (i. 11). And when he says that he "neither received it of man, neither was taught it, but by revelation of Jesus Christ," he clearly means that the free non-Mosaic Gospel which he proclaimed came to him when he was in Arabia or Damascus, in solitary communion with the Spirit of the Lord Jesus; while he maintains that his commission to declare it was quite as divine as that of Peter and James to preach a gospel suited to the circumcision. Farther, as St. Paul deeply felt how essential to the yet undeveloped glory of "the ministration of the Spirit" was this freedom from the letter, we can well understand the vehemence with which he denounced those who would have entangled the Galatians again in the yoke of bondage. On this certainly the more reasonable-interpretation of the passage, its entire agreement with the purport of this note needs no farther remark.

NOTE F.

Eusebius on the Canon.

To readers not well acquainted with the range of testimony on which the existing Canon of the New Testament depends, it might appear that what I have said on p. 113 about Eusebius is scarcely consistent with what is afterwards asserted on p. 134 concerning the Christian Scriptures. But let us distinguish clearly between two conceivable views of the New Testament, and the consistency of the two passages will I hope be clear. One view then tends to regard the Canon as a standard clearly, nay even miraculously defined, from the time when the latest book now found in it was completed; and as containing the only law of the Church, from the death of the last of the Apostles. According to this view, Christian tradition and opinion ought always to have been ruled by the Canon, and never the Canon by tradition or opinion. Against such an idea the words of Eusebius alone are a very serious and even fatal objection. Another view holds that the books of the Canon were gradually separated from a number of others through the operation of Christian tradition and opinion, i.e. the voice of the Church; and were honoured in proportion to the increasing reverence felt for their apostolic or quasi-apostolic authors. On this view the Canon may have remained comparatively unsettled for centuries without any general doubt being necessarily

thrown on the authorship of the collection; and at the same time the question which should have most interest for us is not so much what authority belongs to the Canon as a whole, but rather what evidence is there for the authorship of the different books? This is the view which is implied in the present Lectures.

Premising these remarks, let me sum up the testimony of Eusebius,* and its bearing. Amongst the acknowledged books he places the four Gospels, the Acts, the fourteen-or to speak more exactly-thirteen epistles of St. Paul, (mentioning a doubt only about that to the Hebrews,†) the first Epistles of Peter and of John. In the second class, or those doubtful, he places (the Epistle to the Hebrews,) the second of Peter, those of James, and Jude, and the second and third of John. About the Apocalypse he hesitates considerably indeed the classification is altogether somewhat uncertain; but after mentioning the Revelation doubtfully in the two former classes he seems finally inclined to resign it to the third, or that of the rejected and spurious.

Such a passage serves very well to illustrate what has been said about the mode of regarding the scriptures in early Christian times. So far as it goes however it confirms our belief in the apostolic authorship of the

* H. E. iii. 3, 24, 25.

† ὅτι γε μὴν τινὲς ἠθετήκασι τὴν πρὸς Εβραίους πρὸς τῆς Ῥωμαίων ἐκ κλησίας ὡς μὴ Παύλου οὖσαν αὐτὴν ἀντιλέγεσθαι φήσαντες οὐ δίκαιον ἀγνοεῖν. "That however some have rejected the (Epistle) to the Hebrews, and have alleged an objection to it on the part of the Roman Church, as not being written by Paul, it were not right to ignore."-H. E. iii. 2.