SECTION III

Summary

The Scriptures were in very early times collected into a distinct volume.

Ignatius, who was bishop of Antioch within forty years after the Ascension, and who had lived and conversed with the apostles, speaks of the Gospel and of the apostles in terms which render it very probable that he meant by the Gospel, the book or volume of the Gospels, and by the Apostles, the book or volume of their Epistles. His words in one place are, “Fleeing to the Gospel as the flesh of Jesus, and to the apostles as the presbytery of the church;” that is, as Le Clerc interprets them, “in order to understand the will of God, he fled to the Gospels, which he believed no less than if Christ in the flesh had been speaking to him; and to the writings of the apostles, whom he esteemed as the presbytery of the whole Christian church.” It must be observed, that about eighty years after this, we have direct proof, in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, that these two names, “Gospel,” and “Apostles” were the names by which the writings of the New Testament, and the division of these writings, were usually expressed.

Another passage from Ignatius is the following:—“But the Gospel has somewhat in it more excellent, the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, his passion and resurrection.”