" (Lardner,
vol. iii. p. 240.)
II. Origen, about twenty years after Caius, quoting the Epistle to the
Hebrews, observes that some might dispute the authority of that epistle;
and therefore proceeds to quote to the same point, as undoubted books of
Scripture, the Gospel of Saint Matthew, the Acts of the Apostles, and
Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians. (Lardner, vol. iii. p. 246.)
and in another place, this author speaks of the Epistle to the Hebrews
thus: "The account come down to us is various; some saying that Clement
who was bishop of Rome, wrote this epistle; others, that it was Luke,
the same who wrote the Gospel and the Acts." Speaking also, in the same
paragraph, of Peter, "Peter," says he, "has left one epistle,
acknowledged; let it be granted likewise that he wrote a second, for it
is doubted of." And of John, "He has also left one epistle, of a very
few lines; grant also a second and a third, for all do not allow them to
be genuine." Now let it be noted, that Origen, who thus discriminates,
and thus confesses his own doubts and the doubts which subsisted in his
time, expressly witnesses concerning the four Gospels, "that they alone
are received without dispute by the whole church of God under heaven.
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