weight
with the former, and the latter either did not recognise them or else
interpreted them by different rules. Even the offer of several of the
Fathers to refute the Marcionites from their own canon must by no means
be attributed to an uncertainty on their part with regard to the
authority of the ecclesiastical canon of Scripture. We need merely add
that the extraordinary difficulty originally felt by Christians in
conceiving the Pauline Epistles, for instance, to be analogous and equal
in value to Genesis or the prophets occasionally appears in the
terminology even in the third century, in so far as the term "divine
writings" continues to be more frequently applied to the Old Testament
than to certain parts of the New.]

[Footnote 129: Tertullian, in de corona 3, makes his Catholic opponent
say: "Etiam in traditionis obtentu exigenda est auctoritas scripta."]

[Footnote 130: Hatch, Organisation of the early Christian Church, 1883.
Harnack, Die Lehre der zwoelf Apostel, 1884. Sohm, Kirchenrecht, Vol. I.
1892.]

[Footnote 131: Marcion was the only one who did not claim to prove his
Christianity from traditions inasmuch as he rather put it in opposition
to tradition. This disclaimer of Marcion is in keeping with his
renunciation of apologetic proof, whilst, conversely, in the Church the
apologetic proof, and the proof from tradition adduced against the
heretics, were closely related. In the one case the truth of
Christianity was proved by showing that it is the oldest religion, and
in the other the truth of ecclesiastical Christianity was established
from the thesis that it is the oldest Christianity, viz., that of the
Apostles.]

[Footnote 132: See Tertullian, de praescr. 20, 21, 32.]

[Footnote 133: This theory is maintained by Irenaeus and Tertullian, and
is as old as the association of the [Greek: hagia ekklesia] and the
[Greek: pneuma hagion]. Just for that reason the distinction they make
between Churches founded by the Apostles and those of later origin is of
chief value to themselves in their arguments against heretics. This
distinction, it may be remarked, is clearly expressed in Tertullian
alone. Here, for example, it is of importance that the Church of
Carthage derives its "authority" from that of Rome (de praescr. 36).]

[Footnote 134: Tertull., de praescr. 32 (see p. 19). Iren., III. 2. 2:
"Cum autem ad eam iterum traditionem, quae est ab apostolis, quae per
successiones presbyterorum in ecclesiis