the different provinces, mostly in the East,
but later also in the West, Synods in which an understanding was arrived
at on all questions of importance to Christianity, including, e.g., the
extent of the canon.[16]

2. The degree of influence exercised by particular ecclesiastics on the
development of the Church and its doctrines is also obscure and
difficult to determine. As they were compelled to claim the sanction of
tradition for every innovation they introduced, and did in fact do so,
and as every fresh step they took appeared to themselves necessary only
as an explanation, it is in many cases quite impossible to distinguish
between what they received from tradition and what they added to it of
their own. Yet an investigation from the point of view of the historian
of literature shows that Tertullian and Hippolytus were to a great
extent dependent on Irenaeus. What amount of innovation these men
independently contributed can therefore still be ascertained. Both are
men of the second generation. Tertullian is related to Irenaeus pretty
much as Calvin to Luther. This parallel holds good in more than one
respect. First, Tertullian drew up a series of plain dogmatic formulae
which are not found in Irenaeus and which proved of the greatest
importance in succeeding times. Secondly, he did not attain the power,
vividness, and unity of religious intuition which distinguish Irenaeus.
The truth rather is that, just because of his forms, he partly destroyed
the unity of the matter and partly led it into a false path of
development. Thirdly, he everywhere endeavoured to give a conception of
Christianity which represented it as the divine law, whereas in Irenaeus
this idea is overshadowed by the conception of the Gospel as real
redemption. The main problem therefore resolves itself into the question
as to the position of Irenaeus in the history of the Church. To what
extent were his expositions new, to what extent were the standards he
formulated already employed in the Churches, and in which of them? We
cannot form to ourselves a sufficiently vivid picture of the interchange
of Christian writings in the Church after the last quarter of the second
century.[17] Every important work speedily found its way into the
churches of the chief cities in the Empire. The diffusion was not merely
from East to West, though this was the general rule. At the beginning of
the fourth century there was in Caesarea a Greek translation of
Tertulli