In order to this I shall have to examine the external
evidence for the Canon of the New Testament--so far, that is, as the
Four Gospels are concerned.
In doing this I shall not take the usual method of tracing the evidence
for the various books in question downwards from the Apostolic time--the
reader will find this treated exhaustively in "Dr. Westcott on the
Canon"--but I shall trace it upwards, beginning at a time at which there
cannot be the smallest doubt that the New Testament was exactly the same
as that which we now possess.
For this purpose I shall take the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius as
the starting-point. The reader is, of course, aware that he is the
earliest ecclesiastical writer whose history has come down to us, the
historians who wrote before his time being principally known to us
through fragments preserved in his book. He was born of Christian
parents about the year A.D. 270, and died about 340. He probably wrote
his history about or before the year 325.
The reader, though he may not have read his history, will be aware, from
the quotations from it in "Supernatural Religion," that Eusebius
carefully investigated the history of the Canon of Scripture, and also
the succession of ecclesiastical writers.
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