This Father of the Church appears to me to have thought, that he was doing no injury to the Apocalypse, by assigning it to another author, instead of St. John, to "some holy and heavenly inspired man.". So far, at least, he might fairly think, that he was defending the book, by taking away the foundation of those objections to it, which arose from the dissimilarity of its style from that of St. John's. And perhaps he might reason, that as the Apocalypse is not evangelical history, it may not necessarily require the evidence of an eye-witness of our Lord's life; that as it is not a book revealing doctrines and rules of conduct, it may not be necessarily confined to the pen of an Apostle; but that some other holy martyr, some apostolical man, (for the time of its date implied so much,) might, like Daniel, or other Prophets of the Old Testament, be selected by the Spirit, to convey these visions to the Church. I do not

unequal to the defence of it. He says, that Dionysius has assigned reasons for his not venturing to reject the Apocalypse, which are wholly devoid of importance. They did not appear such to Dionysius, nor will they, I think, to the generality of Christian readers. 1. "He did not reject it, because many of the brethren held it in the highest esteem." Now, surely, this is a reason which must be allowed to have considerable weight on the mind of a modest and sensible man. The pupils of Irenæus, of Tertullian, of Hippolytus, and of Origen, were still living. They had been taught by their masters, and by the general tradition of the Church, to consider the Apocalypse as a book of divine authority: and they resisted the new-fashioned notions, derived from the Alogi or Caius, who ascribed it to Cerinthus, da ons zealously. Dionysius was modest, and had a due deference to the opinions of such men, and he censures obliquely those who, in his time as in ours, delighted to run counter to the received opinions of the Church.

2. The other reason, which Dionysius assigns for not rejecting the Apocalypse, and which our author deems also weak and unimportant, is in answer to those who rejected it, because it was difficult to be understood. But Dionysius answers, that, "He, for his part, does not reject what he does not under"stand: that, not being able to understand the Apocalypse, he supposes it to "contain a sublimer sense than his faculties can reach; and to become, "therefore, the object of his faith, rather than of his understanding; and "that his wonder and admiration are in proportion to his ignorance." Now VOL. IV.-No. II.

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give this as a sound and authorized conclusion, but as such an one as may perhaps have satisfied the mind of Dionysius, who certainly found a great stumbling-block in the style and manner of the Apocalypse, and yet appears, by his profession, and by his practice, to have received it as an inspired book.

I have extended my observations, I fear, to an unwarranted length, in this attempt to reconcile the opinions of Dionysius. But I was moved to it by a desire to do justice to a character which stands deservedly high in Ecclesiastical History; to exculpate an eminent Christian Father, from the charge of setting an example, under which the late Mr. Gibbon might have sheltered his artful, disingenuous, and insulting attack upon the Christian religion.

shall return to my subject; first remarking on the external evidence collected from Dionysius, that whatever notion may obtain concerning his private opinions, it is at least clear, from his testimony, that

this argument, which may be accounted weak, and, (from such a man as Dionysius,) insulting, supposing him not to believe the divine inspiration of the book, will be found to carry with it a considerable force and efficacy, if we suppose him to believe it. Try it, by an application of it to other difficult parts of Scripture; to the unfulfilled Prophecies of Isaiah, Ezekiel, or Daniel. Shall we reject these, and deny their divine inspiration, because we do not understand them? Far otherwise. They have been delivered to us by our Christian ancestors, as of sacred authority; they are strongly supported by external evidence. We must wait the time of their completion with pious awe and patience. We may not be able to understand them; we may wonder, but we cannot reject. Would the Jews, who lived before our Saviour's time, have been justified in rejecting the dark and ænigmatical, and, to appearance, contradictory prophecies, which represented him as a triumphal king and conqueror, despised of men, &c. merely because they did not understand them? This argument of Dionysius is not, therefore, "wholly devoid of importance." It was that which influenced all the Fathers of the Church; who, although they understood not the Apocalypse, received it on its external evidence, with pious veneration, and delivered it to succeeding times. And it is our duty to follow their example, modestly and diligently to interpret what we can, and to deliver the remainder to be fulfilled and interpreted in future ages.

the Apocalypse was generally received in his time, and in high estimation with those Christians whom Dionysius himself revered.

"After the age of Dionysius," says our author*, "the number of ecclesiastical writers, who quote "the Apocalypse as a divine work, especially of the "members of the Latin Church, begins to increase. "But as they are of less importance than the more "ancient writers, and I have little or nothing to re"mark on their quotations, I shall content myself "with barely mentioning their names, and referring "to Lardner, by whom their quotations are collect"edt."

Little more, indeed, can be done; to the weight of evidence already produced, not much can now be added; nor can it be deemed to diminish from it, if some writers of account in later times, influenced perhaps by the arguments advanced by Dionysius and by others, concerning the internal, have been backward to admit the external evidence for the Apocalypse.

This book was received, as of sacred authority, in the times of Dionysius, by Cyprian, and by the African Churches; by the Presbyters and others of the Church of Rome, who corresponded with Cyprian; by divers Latin authors whose history is abstracted by Lardner; by the anonymous author of a work against the Novatians; by the Novatians themselves; by Commodian; by Victorinus, who wrote a commentary upon it; by the author of the poem against the Marcionites; by Methodius, who also commented upon it; by the Manichæans; by the later Arnobius; by the Donatists; and by Lactantius.

All these evidences in favour of the Apocalypse are admitted by Michaelis, who expresses no doubt

* P. 484.

+ See Lardner's Cred. Gosp. Hist. part í. vol. ii, p. 777, &c.

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concerning any of them, excepting the Manichæns, whose evidence, in another passage, he seems to allow*.

We now come to the testimony of EUSEBIUS, which may deserve a more particular attention. To this valuable collector of Ecclesiastical History, (which would otherwise have perished,) we are indebted for many important testimonies of ancient authors in favour of the Apocalypse, which have already been produced. And by him we have been informed of all the objections which were made to it, by Caius and Dionysius, which seem to have had a considerable influence upon the learned Christians of Eusebius's age, and to have occasioned some doubt among them, whether they should receive the Apocalypse into their catalogue of undoubted books of Holy Writ, or place it among those of less authority. Eusebius represents the matter as in debate, and not yet determined, at the time he wrote his Ecclesiastical History. He promises further information, when the matter shall be settled by the testimony of the ancients; but it does not appear that he ever gave it.

We may be enabled to form some notion of the nature of this debate concerning the Apocalypse, by attending to what Eusebius has delivered upon the subject. He has distributed into four classes all the books pretending to a place in the sacred canon of the New Testamentt.

1. The Oy, Avaiλex, books universally read, and admitted to be genuine.

2. Αντιλεγόμενοι, Όμως Γνώριμοι Τοις Πολλοις, books objected to by some, yet acknowledged by the many, by the greater part of the Church.

3. Noo, spurious, or apocryphal books, whose authenticity, or whose divine inspiration, was denied by

the Church, but which might be usefully read, as containing pious thoughts, and no bad doctrine.

4. Books published by heretics, which no Father of the Church has deigned to support with his external evidence, and which have no support of internal evidence, being discordant from the apostolical writings, both as to matter and manner.

Eusebius places the Apocalypse in the first, and also in the third class; but as it cannot belong to both, so, in placing it in each of these classes, he adds, a paru, "if it should so seem proper.' It was to stand in one of these classes, when the question concerning its pretensions should be determined. Hence may be inferred, that the question was then so far settled in the mind of Eusebius, that it must belong either to the first or third class, and by no means to the second or fourth. It was not then esteemed, with the books of the fourth class, a forgery of the heretics; it was not the work of Cerinthus. From this silly notion of it, first started by the Alogi, it was now fairly delivered. The quotations of the early Fathers, as well as internal evidence arising from the book, which is contradictory to the tenets of Cerinthus, and affords support to no heresy, had

saved it from this class.

Nor was it to be placed in the second class; with the Epistles of James, Jude, &c. books which a considerable part of the Christian world had not received, though they were generally acknowledged to be of divine authority. This determination, excluding the Apocalypse from the second class, seems to import, that the Apocalypse, until the times of Eusebius, was almost universally received by the Church. The doubts concerning it had arisen only in the minds of a few learned critics, who, from an examination of the style and other internal marks, were induced to contend that it was not the work of Saint John.

If it should be determined to be John's