III. In a piece ascribed to Hippolytus, (Lardner, Cred. vol. iii. p. 112.) who lived near the same time, the author professes, in giving his correspondent instruction in the things about which he inquires, "to draw out of the sacred-fountain, and to set before him from the Sacred Scriptures what may afford him satisfaction." He then quotes immediately Paul's epistles to Timothy, and afterwards many books of the New Testament. This preface to the quotations carries in it a marked distinction between the Scriptures and other books. IV. "Our assertions and discourses," saith Origen, (Lardner, Cred. vol. iii. pp. 287-289.) "are unworthy of credit; we must receive the Scriptures as witnesses." After treating of the duty of prayer, he proceeds with his argument thus: "What we have said, may be proved from the Divine Scriptures." In his books against Celsus we find this passage: "That our religion teaches us to seek after wisdom, shall be shown, both out of the ancient Jewish Scriptures which we also use, and out of those written since Jesus, which are believed in the churches to be divine." These expressions afford abundant evidence of the peculiar and exclusive authority which the Scriptures possessed. V. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, (Lardner, Cred. vol. vi. p. 840.) whose age lies close to that of Origen, earnestly exhorts Christian teachers, in all doubtful cases, "to go back to the fountain; and, if the truth has in any case been shaken, to recur to the Gospels and apostolic writings."--"The precepts of the Gospel," says he in another place, "are nothing less than authoritative divine lessons, the foundations of our hope, the supports of our faith, the guides of our way, the safeguards of our course to heaven." VI. Novatus, (Lardner, Cred. vol. v. p. 102.) a Roman contemporary with Cyprian, appeals to the Scriptures, as the authority by which all errors were to be repelled, and disputes decided. "That Christ is not only man, but God also, is proved by the sacred authority of the Divine Writings."--"The Divine Scripture easily detects and confutes the frauds of heretics."--"It is not by the fault of the heavenly Scriptures, which never deceive." Stronger assertions than these could not be used. VII. At the distance of twenty years from the writer last cited, Anatolius (Lardner, Cred. vol. v. p. 146.), a learned Alexandrian, and bishop of Laedicea, speaking of the rule for keeping Easter, a question at that day agitated with much earnestness, says of those whom he opposed, "They can by no means prove their point by the authority of the Divine Scripture."