v., chap. viii.). "The
Pastor of Hermas is another work which very nearly secured permanent
canonical rank with the writings of the New Testament. It was quoted as
Holy Scripture by the Fathers, and held to be divinely inspired, and it
was publicly read in the churches. It has place with the Epistle of
Barnabas in the Sinaitic Codex, after the canonical books"
("Supernatural Religion," vol. i., p. 261).
The two Epistles of Clement are only "preserved to us in the Codex
Alexandrinus, a MS. assigned by the most competent judges to the second
half of the fifth, or beginning of the sixth century, in which these
Epistles follow the books of the New Testament. The second Epistle ...
thus shares with the first the honour of a canonical position in one of
the most ancient codices of the New Testament" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p.
220). These epistles are, also, amongst those mentioned in the Apostolic
Canons. "Until a comparatively late date this [the first of Clement]
Epistle was quoted as Holy Scripture" (Ibid, p. 222). Origen quotes the
Epistle of Barnabas as Scripture, and calls it a "Catholic Epistle"
(Ibid, p. 237), and this same Father regards the Shepherd of Hermas as
also divinely inspired. (Norton's "Genuineness of the Gospels," vol. i.,
p.
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