mention is made of the Acts, which are attributed to Luke.  Then follow thirteen Epistles of St. Paul by name.  Two Epistles professing to be addressed to the Laodiceans and Alexandrines are dismissed as forged in the interests of the heresy of Marcion.  The Epistle of Jude and two that bear the superscription of John are admitted.  Likewise the two Apocalypses of John and Peter. [No mention is made, it will be seen, of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of that of James, of I and II Peter, and of III John.] [Endnote 264:1]

The Pastor of Hermas, a work of recent date, may be read but not published in the Church before the people, and cannot be included either in the number of the prophets or apostles.

On the other hand nothing at all can be received of Arsinous, Valentinus, or Miltiades; neither the new Marcionite book of Psalms, which with Basilides and the Asian founder of the Cataphryges (or the founder of the Asian Cataphryges, i.e.  Montanus) is rejected.

The importance of this will be seen at a glance.  The chief question is here again in regard to the date, which must be determined from the document itself.  A sufficiently clear indication seems to be given in the language used respecting the Pastor of Hermas.  This work is said to have been composed ’very lately in our times, Pius the brother of the writer occupying the episcopal chair of the Roman Church.’  The episcopate of Pius is dated from 142-157 A.D., so that 157 A.D. may be taken as the starting-point from which we have to reckon the interval implied by the words ‘very recently in our times’ (nuperrime temporibus nostris).  Taking these words in their natural sense, I should think that the furthest limit they would fairly admit of would be a generation, or say thirty years, after the death of Pius (for even in taking a date such as this we are obliged to assume that the Pastor was published only just before the death of that bishop).  The most probable construction seems to be that the unknown author meant that the Pastor of Hermas was composed within his own memory.  Volkmar is doubtless right in saying [Endnote 265:1] that he meant to distinguish the work in question from the writings of the Prophets and Apostles, but still the double use of the words ‘nuperrime’ and ‘temporibus nostris’ plainly indicate something more definite than merely ‘our post-apostolic time.’  If this had been the sense we should have had some such word as ‘recentius’ instead of ‘nuperrime.’  The argument of ’Supernatural Religion’ [Endnote 265:2], that ’in supposing that the writer may have appropriately used the phrase thirty or forty years after the time of Pius so much licence is taken that there is absolutely no reason why a still greater interval may not be allowed,’ is clearly playing fast and loose with language, and doing so for no good reason; for the only ground for assigning a later date is that the earlier one is inconvenient for the critic’s theory.  The other indications