so by Tertullian[28], who asks ‘why, when he received a letter written to a single person, he should refuse two to Timothy and one to Titus composed upon the affairs of the church?’ This passage so far favours our account of Marcion’s objection, as it shows that the objection was supposed by Tertullian to have been founded in something, which belonged to the nature of a private letter. “Nothing of the works of Marcion remains. Probably he was, after all, a rash, arbitrary, licentious critic (if he deserved indeed the name of critic,) and who offered no reason for his determination. What St. Jerome says of him intimates this, and is beside founded in good sense: speaking of him and Basilides, ‘If they had assigned any reasons,’ says he, ‘why they did not reckon these epistles,’ _viz._ the first and second to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus, ‘to be the apostle’s, we would have endeavoured to have answered them, and perhaps might have satisfied the reader: but when they take upon them, by their own authority, to pronounce one epistle to be Paul’s, and another not, they can only be replied to in the same manner[29].’ Let it be remembered, however, that Marcion received ten of these epistles. His authority therefore, even if his credit had been better than it is, forms a very small exception to the uniformity of the evidence. Of Basilides we know still less than we do of Marcion. The same observation however belongs to him, _viz._ that his objection, as far as appears from this passage of St. Jerome, was confined to the three private epistles. Yet is this the only opinion which can be said to disturb the consent of the two first centuries of the Christian æra; for as to Tatian, who is reported by Jerome alone to have rejected some of St. Paul’s Epistles, the extravagant or rather delirious notions into which he fell, take away all weight and credit from his judgment. If, indeed, Jerome’s account of this circumstance be correct; for it appears from much older writers than Jerome, that Tatian owned and used many of these epistles[30]. “II. They, who in those ages disputed about so many other points, agreed in acknowledging the Scriptures now before us. Contending sects appealed to them in their controversies with equal and unreserved submission. When they were urged by one side, however they might be interpreted or misinterpreted by the other, their authority was not questioned. ‘Reliqui omnes,’ says Irenæus, speaking of Marcion, ‘falso scientiæ nomine inflati, scripturas quidem confitentur, interpretationes vero convertunt[31].’