om St Mark's, was the
great storehouse of materials for his purpose [172:2]. I do not however
think that this is the right explanation. It supposes that only [Greek:
logoi] ('discourses' or 'sayings') could be called [Greek: logia]
('oracles'); but usage does not warrant this restriction. Thus we are
expressly told that the Scriptures recognized by Ephraem, Patriarch of
Antioch (about A.D. 525-545), consisted of 'the Old Testament and the
Oracles of the Lord ([Greek: ta kuriaka logia]) and the Preachings of
the Apostles' [172:3]. Here we have the very same expression which
occurs in Papias; and it is obviously employed as a synonyme for the
Gospels. Our author does not mention this close parallel, but he alleges
that 'however much the signification [of the expression 'the oracles,'
[Greek: ta logia]] became afterwards extended, it was not then at all
applied to doings as well as sayings'; and again, that 'there is no
linguistic precedent for straining the expression, used at that period,
to mean anything beyond a collection of sayings of Jesus which were
oracular or divine [173:1].' This objection, if it has any force, must
involve one or both of these two assumptions; _first_, that books which
were regarded as Scripture could not at this early date be called
oracles, unless they were occupied entirely with divine sayings;
_secondly_, that the Gospel of St Matthew in particular could not at
this time be regarded as Scripture. Both assumptions alike are
contradicted by facts.

The first is refuted by a large number of examples. St Paul, for
instance, describes it as the special privilege of the Jews, that they
had the keeping of the 'oracles of God' (Rom. iii. 2). Can we suppose
that he meant anything else but the Old Testament Scriptures by this
expression? Is it possible that he would exclude the books of Genesis,
of Joshua, of Samuel and Kings, or only include such fragments of them
as professed to give the direct sayings of God? Would he, or would he
not, comprise under the term the account of the creation and fall (1
Cor. xi. 8 sq), of the wanderings in the wilderness (1 Cor. x. 1 sq), of
Sarah and Hagar (Gal. iv. 21 sq)? Does not the main part of his argument
in the very next chapter (Rom. iv.) depend much more on the narrative of
God's dealings than of His words? Again, when the author of the Epistle
to the Hebrews refers to 'the first principles of the oracles of God'
(v. 12), his meaning is explained by his prac