Jeremiah Jones says: "To make testimonies out of forgeries and spurious books to prove the very foundation of the Christian revelation, was a method much practised by some of the Fathers, especially Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Lactantius."--"A New and Full Method of Settling the Canonical Authority of the New Testament," part ii., chap, xxxiv., p. 318, vol. i. 1827. B. H. Cowper, a well-known champion of Christianity, and once editor of the _Journal of Sacred Literature_, confesses in the Introduction to his "Apocryphal Gospels" (p. xxv., 1867): "Ancient invention and industry went even further, and produced sundry scraps about Herod, Veronica, Lentuius, and Abgar, wrote epistles for Christ and his mother, and I know not how much besides. No difficulty stood in the way; ancient documents could easily be appealed to without necessarily existing; spirits could be summoned from the other world by a stroke of the pen, and be made to say anything; sacred names could be written and made a passport to fictions, and so on _ad libitum_." M. Daillé says: "For these forgeries are not new and of yesterday; but the abuse hath been on foot above fourteen hundred years."--"The Right Use of the Fathers," p. 12, 1675. Mosheim mentions a variety of commentaries filled with impostores or fables on our Savior's life and sentiments, "composed soon after his ascent into heaven, by men who, without being bad, perhaps, were superstitious, simple, and piously deceitful. To these were afterwards added other writings falsely accredited to the most holy apostles by fraudulent individuals."--"Institutes of Ecclesiastical History," part iii, chap. ii, sec. 17, p. 65, vol. i. Stubbs's edition, 1863. The same justly-renowned historian declares that "a pernicious maxim which was current in the schools, not only of the Egyptians, the Platonists, and the Pythagoreans, but also of the Jews, was very early recognised by the Christians, and soon found among them numerous patrons--namely, that those who made it their business to deceive with a view of promoting the cause of truth were deserving rather of commendation than censure."--"Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians before the time of Constantino the Great." Second century. sec. 7, pp. 44, 45. R. S. Vidat's translation. 1813.