Apocryphal New Testament — Historical English Collection

Apocryphal New Testament — Hone/Wake/Jones — Section 4

This council of Nice is one of the most famous and interesting events presented to us in ecclesiastical history ; and yet, what is surprising, scarcely any part of the History of the Church has been unfolded with such negligence, or rather passed over with such rapidity. The ancient writers are neither agreed with respect to the time or place in which it was assembled, the number of those who sat in council, nor the bishop who presided in it. No authentic acts of its famous sentence have been committed to writing, or at least none have been transmitted to our time.* Although it is uncertain whether the books of the New Testament were declared canonical by the Nicene Council, or by some other, or when or by whom they were collected into a volume, it is certainf that they were considered genu- ine and authentic (with a few variations of opinion as to some of them) by the most early Christian v/riters; and that they were selected from various other Gospels and Epistles, the titles of which are mentioned in the works of the Fathers and early historians of the church.J The books that exist, of those not included in the canon, are carefully brought together in the present volume. They naturally assume the title of the Apocryphal New Testament; and he who possesses this and the New Testament, has in the two volumes, a collection of all the historical records * Mosheim, Eccl. Hist., c v. ? 12- f See Table II. at the end of this work. J See Table I. at end. VI relative to Clirist and his Apostles, now in existence, and considered sacred by Christians during the first four cen- turies after his birth.