[Footnote 64: The original of the Apostolic Constitutions has as yet no knowledge of the Apostolic rule of faith in the Western sense.] [Footnote 65: The close of the first homily of Aphraates shows how simple, antique, and original this confession still was in outlying districts at the beginning of the fourth century. On the other hand, there were oriental communities where it was already heavily weighted with theology.] [Footnote 66: Cf. the epistles of Cyprian, especially ep. 69. 70. When Cyprian speaks (69. 7) of one and the same law which is held by the whole Catholic Church, and of one _symbol_ with which she administers baptism (this is the first time we meet with this expression), his words mean far more than the assertion of Irenaeus that the confession expounded by him is the guiding rule in all Churches; for in Cyprian's time the intercourse of most Catholic communities with each other was so regulated that the state of things in each was to some extent really known. Cf. also Novatian, "de trinitate seu de regula fidei," as well as the circular letter of the Synod of Antioch referring to the Metropolitan Paul (Euseb., H. E. VII. 30. 6 ... [Greek: apostas tou kanonos epi kibdela kai notha didagmata meteleluthen]), and the homilies of Aphraates. The closer examination of the last phase in the development of the confession of faith during this epoch, when the apostolic confessions received an interpretation in accordance with the theology of Origen, will be more conveniently left over till the close of our description (see chap. 7 fin).] [Footnote 67: See the histories of the canon by Credner, Reuss, Westcott, Hilgenfeld, Schmiedel, Holtzmann, and Weiss; the latter two, which to some extent supplement each other, are specially instructive. To Weiss belongs the merit of having kept Gospels and Apostles clearly apart in the preliminary history of the canon (see Th. L. Z. 1886. Nr. 24); Zahn, Gesch. des N. Tlichen Kanons, 2 vols, 1888 ff.; Harnack, Das Neue Test. um d. J. 200, 1889; Voigt, Eine verschollene Urkunde des antimontan. Kampfes, 1891, p. 236 ff.; Weizsaecker, Rede bei der akad. Preisvertheilung, 1892. Nov.; Koeppel, Stud. u. Krit. 1891, p. 102 ff; Barth, Neue Jahrbb. f. deutsche Theologie, 1893, p. 56 ff. The following account gives only a few aspects of the case, not a history of the genesis of the canon.] [Footnote 68: "Holy" is not always equivalent to "possessing absolute authority." There are also various stages and degrees of "holy."]