"But, supposing a few of these first bishops had taken it into ther heads, having succeeded so well, during a little respite from persecution, in consequence of those troublesome times at the destruction of Jerusalem, as to get appointed to their respective offices, and thinking it would lead greatly to their future success, I say, supposing they had taken it into their heads to write the four gospels and the acts of the apostles themselves, embracing all the traditions, which they knew, of the apostles, dressed up in the figurative style in which those things, even from the first, had been reported, together with many fictions of their own. And that they did write these books in the name of the apostles; who would be likely, or would be able, to contradict them? Or supposing, without any previous concert, some one should have written the gospel of Matthew; another, after having seen it, should write one in the name of Mark; a third, who had seen them both, should write that of Luke, and the acts of the apostles; and a fourth should write that of John.--These, of course, would make their first appearance at different times, and in different parts of the country; or, in other words, in different countries. Some story or other might have been got up, in regard to their first discovery, which should go currently with the common people, and which, after the works were received as canonical, would of course be done away. "As a justification of the above hypothesis (which I am very sensible is not without its difficulties) in addition to what have said in regard to the writings palmed upon Clemens, I will mention the following from Priestly's Ch. Hist. vol. ii. p. 412. It appears to have been a quotation from Sozomen, by Socrates, Lib. vii. chap. 19, p. 307. '_The revelation of Peter_, which is rejected as a spurious book by the ancients, is read once every year in some churches in Palestine on good Friday, which is a religious fast in commemoration of our Lord's sufferings. The book that is called the _revelation of the apostle Paul_, which was unknown to the ancients, is greatly commended by many of the monks. Some say that this book was first found in the reign of Theodosius. For they say that in the house of Paul at Tarsus, there was a marble chest in a subterraneous place, in which this book was deposited, and that it was discovered by a particular revelation.'