which make up the rest of Cotelerius's collection, (and are indeed all that still remain under the names of those Fathers of which we are now speaking) that can with good grounds be relied upon as the genuine products of these holy men. Let us see in the last place, whether any of those discourses which have been sent abroad under the names of some others of the Apostolical Fathers, may deserve to be received by us, as coming truly from them.

27. And here I shall in the first place take it for granted, that what those who are usually the most fond of such spurious pieces, (1 mean the writers of the church of Rome) have yet almost unanimously rejected as false and counterfeit, may securely be laid aside by us, without any farther inquiry into the condition of them. Such are the history of the life, miracles, and assumption of St. John; pretended to have been written by Prochorus his disciple, and one of the seven Deacons, chosen by the church of Jerusalem,* the histo- * Acts vi ries of St. Peter and St. Paul, said to have been written by Linus, one of the first Bishops of Rome: the lives of the Apostles, ascribed to Abdias, Bishop of Babylon, and supposed to have been written by him in the Hebrew tongue the epistles of St. Martial, who is said to have been one of the 70 disciples appointed by our Saviour, and one of the first preachers of the Gospel in France. These are all so evidently spurious, that even Natalis Alexander himself was ashamed to undertake #Eccles. the defence of them; and not only he but all the other tom. 1. p. 95, writers of the same church, Baronius, Bellarmine, Six- 115. tus Senensis, Possevine, Espencæus, Bisciola, Labbe, &c. have freely acknowledged the little credit that is to be given to them.

28. But two pieces there are which Alexander is still unwilling to part with; though he cannot deny but that the most learned men, even of his own communion,

Hist. i.

Vid. Na

tal. Alex.

109. Labbe

Eccles. tom. 1. p. 3, &c.

have at last agreed in the rejecting of them. And those are, the passion of St. Andrew, written (as is pretended) by the Presbyters of Achaia; and the works set out under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite.

29. As for the former of these, I confess there have not been wanting many from the 8th century downwards, who have undertaken the defence of it. Etherius y mentioned it about the year 788. Remegius after: 1. tom. 1. p. Peter Damian, Lanfranc, and St. Bernard, still later. de Script. And in this last age Baronius, Bellarmine, Labbe, and a few others, have yet more endeavoured to establish its * Nouvelle authority. But then, as Du Pin well observes, we tom. i. p. 47, do not find that the ancients knew of any acts of St. Andrew in particular; nor are the acts we now have, quoted by any before the time of Etherius before mentioned. And yet how they could have escaped the search of the primitive Fathers, had they been extant in their days, it is hard to imagine.

Biblioth.

48.

30. But much less is the credit that ought to be given to the pretended works of Dionysius the Areopagite; which as Alexander a confesses, two very great vol. i. p. 136. critics b of his own communion, to have denied to have Labbe de been written by that holy man; so has a third very

a Natal. Alex. i.

Script. tom.

i. in Diony

He might

several

sio. late given such reasons to shew that the writings, now have added extant under his name, could not have been composed others; see by him, as ought to satisfy every considering person of Bellarm. de their imposture. For not to say any thing of what oc• Du Pin curs every where in those discourses, utterly disagreealioth. tom. i. ble to the state of the church in the time that Dionysius

Script. p. 56.

Novelle Bib

p. 90.

lived can it be imagined that if such considerable books as these had been written by him, none of the ancients of the first four centuries should have heard any thing of them? or shall we say that they did know of them, as well as the Fathers that lived after, and yet made no mention of them, though they had so often oc

casion to have done it, as Eusebius and St. Jerome had
not to name any others.

31. In short, one of the first times that we hear of
them, is in the dispute between the Severians and Ca-
tholics about the year 532, when the former produced
them in favour of their errors, and the latter rejected
them as books utterly unknown to all antiquity, and
therefore not worthy to be received by them.

32. It is therefore much to be wondered, that after so many arguments as have been brought to prove how little right these treatises have to such a primitive antiquity; nevertheless, not only Natalis Alexander, but a man of much better judgment, I mean Emanuel Schel

Hist lit. giv.

• Vindic. Ignat. parti. e.

Loc. supr.

Pearson. loc.

strat, d the late learned keeper of the Vatican library, a Vid. Cave
should still undertake the defence of them. When they p. 177.
were written, or by what author, is very uncertain: but
as Bishop Pearsone supposes them to have been first set
forth about the latter end of Eusebius' life; so Dr. Cavef 10.
conjectures, that the elder Apollinarius may very proba- cit.
bly have been the author of them. Others there are g Daille apud
who place them yet later, and suspect Pope Gregory the supr. cit.
great to have had a hand in the forgery. And indeed
the arguments which our very learned Mr. Dodwell ha Dodwell de
brings to prove that they were originally written by one Laicor. cap.
of the Roman Church, are not without their just 389.
weight. But whatever becomes of this, thus much is
certain, that these books were not written before the
middle of the 4th century, and therefore are without the
compass of the present undertaking.

33. And now having taken such a view as was ne-
cessary for the present design, of all those other pieces
which have been obtruded upon the world for Apostoli-
cal writings, besides what is either here collected, or has
been before published in the sacred books of the New
Testament; I suppose I may with good grounds con-
clude, that the little I have now put together, is all that

Sacerdot.

viii. ii. p.

:

can with any certainty be depended upon, of the most primitive Fathers and therefore that from these, next to the Holy Scriptures, we must be content to draw the best account we can of the doctrine and discipline of the church, for the first hundred years after the death of Christ.

A DISCOURSE

CONCERNING

THE AUTHORITY OF THE FOREGOING TREATISES,
AND THE DEFERENCE THAT OUGHT TO BE PAID
TO THEM UPON THE ACCOUNT OF IT.

This is shown from the following considerations:-1. That the au thors of them were contemporary with the Apostles, and instruct ed by them. 2. They were men of an eminent character in the church; and therefore such as could not be ignorant of what was taught in it. 3. They were very careful to preserve the doctrine of Christ in its purity, and to oppose such as went about to corrupt it. 4. They were men not only of a perfect piety, but of great courage and constancy; and therefore such as cannot be suspect. ed to have had any design to prevaricate in this matter. 5. They were endued with a large portion of the Holy Spirit, and as such, could hardly err in what they delivered as a necessary part of the Gospel of Christ. And 6. Their writings were approved by the church in those days, which could not be mistaken in its approbation of them.

But secondly: The foregoing collection pretends to a just esteem, not only upon the account of its perfection, as it is an entire collection of what remains to us of the Apostolical Fathers, but yet much more from the respect that is due to the authors themselves, whose writings are here put together.

2. If first, we consider them as the contemporaries of the holy Apostles, some of them bred up under our Saviour Christ himself, and the rest instructed by those great men whom he commissioned to go forth and preach to all the world, i and endued with an extraor-xxviii. 19. dinary assistance of his blessed spirit for doing it :k we * Luke xxiv. cannot doubt but that what they deliver to us, must be, 8. Acts i.

i Matt.

Mark xvi. 15.

49; Acts. i.