well as their true interpretation.  Heretical teachers arose who sowed in the Christian church the seeds of gnosticism.  Of these some, as Marcion, rejected on dogmatical grounds a portion of the apostolic writings, and mutilated those which they retained; others, as Valentinus, sought by fanciful principles of interpretation to explain away their true meaning.  Chap. 2, No. 12.  The reaction upon the churches was immediate and effectual.  They set themselves at once to define and defend the true apostolic writings as well against Marcion’s false and mutilated canon, if canon it may be called, as against the false interpretations of Valentinus, Heracleon and others.  The occasion had now come for the recognition of a New Testament canon cooerdinate in authority with that of the Old Testament, and from this time onward we find the idea of such a canon clearly developed in the writings of the church fathers.  What aided essentially in this work was the execution, about this time, of versions of the New Testament books, such as the Old Latin and Syriac; for the authors of these versions must of necessity have brought together the writings, which, in their judgment, proceeded from the apostles and their companions.

6.  We find, accordingly, when the age of the early church fathers opens, about A.D. 170, a clearly recognized canon—­sometimes described in two parts, the gospels and the apostles—­which is placed on a level with that of the Old Testament as the inspired word of God, and cited in common with it as the Scriptures, the divine Scriptures, the Scriptures of the Lord, etc.  Both canons are mentioned together as The entire Scriptures both prophetical and evangelical; The prophets, the gospel, and the blessed apostles; the law and the prophets, with the evangelical and apostolical writings; the Old and the New Testament; the entire instrument of each Testament, etc. Irenaeus, against heresies, 2. 46; 5. 20; Letter to Florinus in Eusebius’ Hist.  Eccl., 5. 20:  Clement of Alexandria, Strom., 7, p. 757; Tertullian, against heretics, chap. 30. 36:  against Marcion, 4. 6, etc.  The canon was not, however, completed in its present form; for the right of certain books—­the so-called antilegomena, chap. 6. 6.—­to a place in it remained for a considerable time an open question, which, in its application to particular books was answered differently in the East and the West.  See chap. 6.  On the other hand, certain writings of the apostolic fathers (as the so-called epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians), being read in certain of the early churches, found their way into some codices of the New Testament.  Chap. 6, No. 4.