" In his books against Celsus we find this
passage: "That our religion teaches us to seek after wisdom, shall be
shown, both out of the ancient Jewish Scriptures which we also use, and
out of those written since Jesus, which are believed in the churches to
be divine." These expressions afford abundant evidence of the peculiar
and exclusive authority which the Scriptures possessed.
V. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, (Lardner, Cred. vol. vi. p. 840.) whose
age lies close to that of Origen, earnestly exhorts Christian teachers,
in all doubtful cases, "to go back to the fountain; and, if the truth
has in any case been shaken, to recur to the Gospels and apostolic
writings."--"The precepts of the Gospel," says he in another place, "are
nothing less than authoritative divine lessons, the foundations of our
hope, the supports of our faith, the guides of our way, the safeguards
of our course to heaven."
VI. Novatus, (Lardner, Cred. vol. v. p. 102.) a Roman contemporary with
Cyprian, appeals to the Scriptures, as the authority by which all
errors were to be repelled, and disputes decided.
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