# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1856_S208
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Whether Such a One Is to Be Held a Heretic or a Dangerous False Teacher, etc. 208

...canonical writings." Eusebius, Book 3, Chapter 2: "Concerning the Apocalypse, opinion is still divided among many, some approving it, others rejecting it." Book 3, Chapter 39: "It is probable that another John, who is counted among the elders, saw the Revelation which goes under the name of John, if one is unwilling to accept the first John, who is named among the apostles." Irenaeus ascribes it to John the Apostle; so also, in Book 6, Chapter 25, does Origen."

"I have noted these testimonies of the ancients for this reason: not only that the whole catalog of the writings of the New Testament might be known which do not have sufficiently certain, firm, and agreeing testimonies of their authority, but especially so that the reasons might be noted why doubt has arisen concerning them: 1. because among the ancients no sufficiently certain, firm, and agreeing testimonies were found, from the witness of the first apostolic Church, that those books were confirmed by the apostles and commended to the Church; 2. because it was not certainly known from the testimony of the first and ancient Church whether those books were written by those under whose names they were published, but it was held that they had been published by others under the name of the apostles; 3. because some of the elders ascribed some of those books to the apostles, while others contradicted this, so the matter, since it was not beyond doubt certain, has been left in doubt. For this whole controversy depends on the certain, firm, and agreeing testimonies of the first and ancient Church; and where these are lacking, the following Church can no more make doubtful things certain, without clear and sure documents, than it can make true what is false. Against these so evident testimonies of antiquity, the Tridentine Council decrees as follows: if anyone does not accept the entire books, with all their parts, as they are found in the old Latin Vulgate edition, as sacred and canonical, let him be anathema! But whence do they prove and confirm this decree of theirs, against the testimonies of antiquity? Do they produce certain, sure, and evident documents from the testimonies of the first apostolic and ancient Church, that those disputed books have the same certainty and equal authority with the rest, concerning which there has never been any doubt? By no means — for this they cannot do. Instead, they seize this power for themselves, that the Pope, together with his prelates, may bestow canonical authority even on those books, and perhaps on others as well, which they deserve neither of themselves nor from their authors, and which they did not have at the time of the apostles and the primitive Church — as Pighius has asserted. Why then do they not say outright, as it truly is: although it cannot be proved that those books were either written or approved by prophets or by apostles,