_as authors of these writings_, they and the Holy
Spirit became correlative conceptions. This led to the assumption that
the apostolic writings were inspired, that is, in the full and only
intelligible sense attached to the word by the ancients.[104] By this
assumption the Apostles, viewed as _prophets_, received a significance
quite equal to that of Old Testament writers.[105] But, though Irenaeus
and Tertullian placed both parties on a level, they preserved a
distinction between them by basing the whole authority of the New
Testament on its apostolic origin, the concept "apostolic" being much
more comprehensive than that of "prophet." These men, being Apostles,
that is men chosen by Christ himself and entrusted with the proclamation
of the Gospel, have for that reason received the Spirit, and their
writings are filled with the Spirit. To the minds of Western Christians
the primary feature in the collection is its apostolic authorship.[106]
This implies inspiration also, because the Apostles cannot be inferior
to the writers of the Old Testament. For that very reason they could, in
a much more radical way, rid the new collection of everything that was
not apostolic. They even rejected writings which, in their form, plainly
claimed the character of inspiration; and this was evidently done
because they did not attribute to them the degree of authority which, in
their view, only belonged to that which was apostolic.[107] The new
canon of Scripture set up by Irenaeus and Tertullian primarily professes
to be nothing else than a collection of _apostolic_ writings, which, as
such, claim absolute authority.[108] It takes its place beside the
apostolic rule of faith; and by this faithfully preserved possession,
the Church scattered over the world proves herself to be that of the
Apostles.

But we are very far from being able to show that such a rigidly fixed
collection of apostolic writings existed everywhere in the Church about
the year 200. It is indeed continually asserted that the Antiochian and
Alexandrian Churches had at that date a New Testament which, in extent
and authority, essentially coincided with that of the Roman Church; but
this opinion is not well founded. As far as the Church of Antioch is
immediately concerned, the letter of Bishop Serapion (whose episcopate
lasted from about 190 to about 209), given in Eusebius (VI. 12), clearly
shows that Cilicia and probably also Antioch itself as yet possessed no
such th