Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

286 THE SECOND AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.of the New Testament, as we now possess it, wasnot absolutely completed, it had at least advanceda very great way towards that completion, whichwe have finally attested as of long standing in aCouncil held at Carthage in 397.53. Another result of the gnostic attack wasthe setting forth the tradition of the Faith, seatedand maintained in the apostolic churches, as therule for interpreting Scripture. The Gnostics intwo ways impeached this rule, by claiming a privatetradition of their own, and by interpretingsuch scripture as they chose to«-acknowledge aftertheir own pleasure. Irenceus, Tertullian, and Clementfound an adequate answer to both errors byshowing that the Faith which the Apostles had setforth in their writings could not contradict theFaith which they had established in the Church.These were two sources of the same doctrine; butit is by the permanent connection and interpene-tration of the two that the truth is maintained;and that which holds both together, that whichutters and propagates the truth which they jointlycontain, is the Teaching office, the mouth of theChurch. Hence the force of the appeal in Irenaeusto the succession of the episcopate, and to the divinegift of truth which the Apostles had handeddown therein with their teaching O office. HenceTertullian's exclusion of heretics from the rightto possesscriptures which belong only to the53 " Quia a patribus ista accepimus in ecclesia legenda." n. 47.