reader to the following examples, without indeed being able to
enter on the proof here (see my edition of the "Teaching of the
Apostles" p. 106 ff). (1) The Gospel of Luke seems not to have been
known to Marcion under this name, and to have been called so only at a
later date. (2) The canonical Gospels of Matthew and Mark do not claim,
through their content, to originate with these men; they were regarded
as apostolic at a later period. (3) The so-called Epistle of Barnabas
was first attributed to the Apostle Barnabas by tradition. (4) The
Apocalypse of Hermas was first connected with an apostolic Hermas by
tradition (Rom. XVI. 14). (5) The same thing took place with regard to
the first Epistle of Clement (Philipp, IV. 3). (6) The Epistle to the
Hebrews, originally the writing of an unknown author or of Barnabas, was
transformed into a writing of the Apostle Paul (Overbeck zur Gesch. des
Kanons, 1880), or given out to be such. (7) The Epistle of James,
originally the communication of an early Christian prophet, or a
collection of ancient holy addresses, first seems to have received the
name of James in tradition. (8) The first Epistle of Peter, which
originally appears to have been written by an unknown follower of Paul,
first received its present name from tradition. The same thing perhaps
holds good of the Epistle of Jude. Tradition was similarly at work, even
at a later period, as may for example be recognised by the
transformation of the epistle "de virginitate" into two writings by
Clement. The critics of early Christian literature have created for
themselves insoluble problems by misunderstanding the work of tradition.
Instead of asking whether the tradition is reliable, they always wrestle
with the dilemma "genuine or spurious", and can prove neither.]

[Footnote 93: As regards its aim and contents, this book is furthest
removed from the claim to be a portion of a collection of Holy
Scriptures. Accordingly, so far as we know, its reception into the canon
has no preliminary history.]

[Footnote 94: People were compelled by internal and external evidence
(recognition of their apostolicity; example of the Gnostics) to accept
the epistles of Paul. But, from the Catholic point of view, a canon
which comprised only the four Gospels and the Pauline Epistles, would
have been at best an edifice of two wings without the central structure,
and therefore incomplete and uninhabitable. The actual novelty was the
bold insertio