e of faith, and which themselves become a rule that
measures forgeries and finds them wanting. The Church set these
genuine books apart as having their origin in inspiration which came
from God. They were all either written by the apostles or by men who
were trained by the apostles, and thus they contain a unique account of
the sayings of the Lord Jesus and the teaching of those who received
their commission from Him. They are therefore documents to which the
Church can refer, as a final court of appeal, in all questions of faith
and conduct.

It was only by degrees that the Church realized the importance of
placing all these twenty-seven books in the canon. This was finally
done in the western Churches of Christendom in A.D. 382, by a Council
held at Rome.[1]

The disciples first endeavoured to collect the sayings of our Lord and
the record of His life. Thus the four Gospels constitute the first
layer of the New Testament canon. The canon of our four Gospels
existed by A.D. 150, as is shown by Hermas and Justin Martyr.

The next layer of the canon consists of the thirteen Epistles of St.
Paul and the Acts. To these the Epistle to the Hebrews was generally
attached in the east, though not in the west. This layer of the canon
was universally recognized towards the close of the 2nd century, and
perhaps some years earlier, for the books composing it were used and
quoted throughout the 2nd century.

The third layer of the canon gained its place more slowly. It consists
of what are called the "Catholic Epistles," viz. those of St. James,
St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude, together with the Revelation or
Apocalypse of St. John.

A crowd of works circulated among the Christians of the {4} and
century, including some forged Gospels and Apocalypses, the Epistle of
St. Clement, Bishop of Rome, written about A.D. 95, and the allegory
known as the _Shepherd_ of Hermas, written about A.D. 140. Several of
these works appear to have enjoyed a popularity in excess of that which
attached to some of the books now included in the canon. Nevertheless
they were rejected when they were examined. It was not merely a
wonderful intellectual feat on the part of the Church to have sifted
out this mass of literature; it was an action in which the Christian
cannot fail to see the hand of God.

One question remains to be asked after drawing this small sketch of the
history of the canon. Why is it that for several generations the