(Lardner, Cred. vol. x. pp. 123-124.)
SECTION III.
The Scriptures were in very early times collected into a distinct
volume.
Ignatius, who was bishop of Antioch within forty years after the
Ascension, and who had lived and conversed with the apostles, speaks of
the Gospel and of the apostles in terms which render it very probable
that he meant by the Gospel the book or volume of the Gospels, and by
the apostles the book or volume of their Epistles. His words in one
place are, (Lardner, Cred. part ii. vol. i. p. 180.) "Fleeing to the
Gospel as the flesh of Jesus, and to the apostles as the presbytery of
the church;" that is, as Le Clere interprets them, "in order to
understand the will of God, he fled to the Gospels, which he believed no
less than if Christ in the flesh had been speaking to him; and to the
writings of the apostles, whom he esteemed as the presbytery of the
whole Christian church." It must be observed, that about eighty years
after this we have direct proof, in the writings of Clement of
Alexandria, (Lardner, Cred. part ii. vol. ii. p. 516.) that these two
names, "Gospel," and "Apostles," were the names by which the writings of
the New Testament, and the division of these writings, were usually
expressed.
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