[Footnote 119: The formation of the canon in Alexandria must have had some connection with the same process in Asia Minor and in Rome. This is shown not only by each Church recognising four Gospels, but still more by the admission of thirteen Pauline Epistles. We would see our way more clearly here, if anything certain could be ascertained from the works of Clement, including the Hypotyposes, as to the arrangement of the Holy Scriptures; but the attempt to fix this arrangement is necessarily a dubious one, because Clement's "canon of the New Testament" was not yet finally fixed. It may be compared to a half-finished statue whose bust is already completely chiselled, while the under parts are still embedded in the stone.] [Footnote 120: No greater creative act can be mentioned in the whole history of the Church than the formation of the apostolic collection and the assigning to it of a position of equal rank with the Old Testament.] [Footnote 121: The history of early Christian writings in the Church which were not definitely admitted into the New Testament is instructive on this point. The fate of some of these may be described as tragical. Even when they were not branded as downright forgeries, the writings of the Fathers from the fourth century downwards were far preferred to them.] [Footnote 122: See on this point Overbeck "Abhandlung ueber die Anfange der patristischen Litteratur," l.c., p. 469. Nevertheless, even after the creation of the New Testament canon, theological authorship was an undertaking which was at first regarded as highly dangerous. See the Antimontanist in Euseb., H. E. V. 16. 3: [Greek: dedios kai exeulaboumenos, me pe doxo prin episungraphein e epidiatassesthai to tes tou euangeliou kaines diathekes logo]. We find similar remarks in other old Catholic Fathers (see Clemen. Alex.).] [Footnote 123: But how diverse were the expositions; compare the exegesis of Origen and Tertullian, Scorp. II.] [Footnote 124: On the extent to which the Old Testament had become subordinated to the New and the Prophets to the Apostles, since the end of the second century, see the following passage from Novatian, de trinit. 29: "Unus ergo et idem spiritus qui in prophetis et apostolis, nisi quoniam ibi ad momentum, hic semper. Ceterum ibi non ut semper in illis inesset, hic ut in illis semper maneret, et ibi mediocriter distributus, hic totus effusus, ibi parce datus, hic large commodatus."]