books of the New Testament Clement
is manifestly influenced by an ecclesiastical tradition, for he
recognises four Gospels and no more because that was the exact number
handed down. This tradition had already applied the name "apostolic" to
most Christian writings which were to be considered as [Greek: graphai],
but it had given the concept "apostolic" a far wider content than
Irenaeus and Tertullian,[118] although it had not been able to include
all the new writings which were regarded as sacred under this idea.
(Hermas). At the time Clement wrote, the Alexandrian _Church_ can
neither have held the principle that all writings of the Apostles must
be read in the Church and form a decisive court of appeal like the Old
Testament, nor have believed that nothing but the Apostolic--using this
word also in its wider sense--has any claim to authority among
Christians. We willingly admit the great degree of freedom and
peculiarity characteristic of Clement, and freely acknowledge the
serious difficulties inseparable from the attempt to ascertain from his
writings what was regarded as possessing standard authority in the
_Church_. Nevertheless it may be assumed with certainty that, at the
time this author wrote, the content of the New Testament canon, or, to
speak more correctly, its reception in the Church and exact attributes
had not yet been finally settled in Alexandria.

The condition of the Alexandrian Church of the time may perhaps be
described as follows: Ecclesiastical custom had attributed an authority
to a great number of early Christian writings without strictly defining
the nature of this authority or making it equal to that of the Old
Testament. Whatever professed to be inspired, or apostolic, or ancient,
or edifying was regarded as the work of the Spirit and therefore as the
Word of God. The prestige of these writings increased in proportion as
Christians became more incapable of producing the like themselves. Not
long before Clement wrote, however, a systematic arrangement of writings
embodying the early Christian tradition had been made in Alexandria
also. But, while in the regions represented by Irenaeus and Tertullian
the canon must have arisen and been adopted all at once, so to speak, it
was a slow process that led to this result in Alexandria. Here also the
principle of apostolicity seems to have been of great importance for the
collectors and editors, but it was otherwise applied than at Rome. A
conservati