sort, deserving of the smallest notice, that in a piece of a very few
lines, and so far from succeeding, I mean, from obtaining acceptance and
reputation, or an acceptance an reputation in anywise similar to that
which can be proved to have attended the books of the New Testament,
that it is not so much as mentioned by any writer of the first three
centuries. The learned reader need not be informed that I mean the
epistle of Christ to Abgarus, king of Edessa, found at present in the
work of Eusebius,* as a piece acknowledged by him, though not without
considerable doubt whether the whole passage be not an interpolation, as
it is most certain, that, after the publication of Eusebius's work, this
epistle was universally rejected.+

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* Hist. Eccl. lib. i. c. 15.
+ Augustin, A.D. 895 (De Consens. Evan. c. 34), had heard that the
Pagans pretended to be possessed of an epistle of Christ to Peter and
Paul; but he had never seen it, and appears to doubt of the existence of
any such piece either genuine or spurious. No other ancient writer
mentions it. He also, and he alone, notices, and that in order to condemn
it, an epistle ascribed to Christ by the Manichees, A.D. 270, and a short
hymn attributed to him by the Priscillianists, A.D. 378 (cont. Faust. Man.
Lib xxviii, c,4). The lateness of the writer who notices these things, the
manner in which he notices them, and above all, the silence of every
preceding writer, render them unworthy on of consideration.
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V. If the ascription of the Gospels to their respective authors had been
arbitrary or conjectural, they would have been ascribed to more eminent