t the uncanonical writings were not alleged
as of authority, that the heretics _did_ appeal to gospels other than
the canonical. Marcion, for instance, maintained a Gospel varying from
the recognised one, while the Ebionites contended that their Hebrew
Gospel was the only true one. Eusebius further tells us of books
"adduced by the heretics under the name of the Apostles, such, viz., as
compose the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthew, and others beside
them, or such as contain the Acts of the Apostles, by Andrew and John,
and others" ("Eccles. Hist," bk. iii., ch. 25. See also ante p. 246). It
is hard to believe that Paley was so grossly ignorant as to know nothing
of these facts; did he then deliberately state what he knew to be
utterly untrue? His last "mark" does not touch our position, as the
commentaries, etc., are too late to be valuable as evidence for the
alleged superiority of the canonical writings during the first two
centuries. The other section of Paley's argument, that "when the
Scriptures [a very vague word] are quoted, or alluded to, they are
quoted with peculiar respect, as books _sui generis_" is met by the
details given above as to the fashion in which the Fathers referred to
the writings now called uncanonical, and by the evidence adduced in this
section we may fairly claim to have proved that, so far as external
testimony goes, _there is nothing to distinguish the canonical from the
apocryphal writings_.

But there is another class of evidence relied upon by Christians,
wherewith they seek to build up an impassable barrier between their
sacred books and the dangerous uncanonical Scriptures, namely, the
intrinsic difference between them, the dignity of the one, and the
puerility of the other. Of the uncanonical Gospels Dr. Ellicott writes:
"Their real demerits, their mendacities, their absurdities, their
coarseness, the barbarities of their style, and the inconsequence of
their narratives, have never been excused or condoned" ("Cambridge
Essays," for 1856, p. 153, as quoted in introduction of "The Apocryphal
Gospels," by B.H. Cowper, p. x. Ed. 1867). "We know before we read them
that they are weak, silly, and profitless--that they are despicable
monuments even of religious fiction" (Ibid, p. xlvii). How far are such
harsh expressions consonant with fact? It is true that many of the tales
related are absurd, but are they more absurd than the tales related in
the canonical Gospels? One story, repeate