illustrating the state of religious knowledge at that time, and, by analogy, giving a glimpse of the difficulties which beset early Christian literature. We are told by Melito that Onesimus had frequently urged him to give him exact information as to the number and order of the books of the Old Testament, and to have extracts made for him from them concerning the Saviour and the faith. Now it is apparent that Melito, though a Bishop, was not able to give the desired information regarding the number and order of the books of the Old Testament himself, but that he had to make a journey to collect it. If this was the extent of knowledge possessed by the Bishop of Sardis of what was to the Fathers the only Holy Scripture, how ignorant his flock must have been, and how unfitted, both, to form any critical judgment as to the connection of Christianity with the Mosaic dispensation. The formation of a Christian Canon at a period when such ignorance was not only possible but generally prevailed, and when the zeal of believers led to the composition of such a mass of pseudonymic and other literature, in which every consideration of correctness and truth was subordinated to a childish desire for edification, must have been slow indeed and uncertain; and in such an age fortuitous circumstances must have mainly led to the canonization or actual loss of many a work. So far from affording any evidence of the existence of a New Testament Canon, the fragment of Melito only shows the ignorance of the Bishop of Sardis as to the Canon even of the Old Testament. We have not yet finished with Melito in connection with Canon Westcott, however, and it is necessary to follow him further in order fully to appreciate the nature of the evidence for the New Testament Canon, which, in default {177}