HOWARD CROSBY.

116 East 19th, N. Y., _March 14, '81_.

The world still asks, What is Truth? A work has recently been
published entitled, "The Christian Religion to A.D. 200." It is the
fruit of several-years' study of a period upon which the Church has
but little record. It finds no evidence of the existence of the New
Testament in its present form during that time; neither does it find
evidence that the Gospels in their present form date from the lives of
their professed authors. All Biblical scholars acknowledge that the
world possesses no record or tradition of the original manuscripts of
the New Testament, and that to attempt to reestablish the old text is
hopeless. No reference by writers to any part of the New Testament as
authoritative is found earlier than the third century (A.D. 202). The
first collection, or canon, of the New Testament was prepared by the
Synod or Council of Laodicea in the fourth century (A.D. 360). It
entirely omitted the Book of Revelation from the list of sacred works.
This book has met a similar fate from many sources, not being printed
in the Syriac Testament as late as 1562.

Amid this vast discrepancy in regard to the truth of the Scriptures
themselves; with no Hebrew manuscript older than the twelfth century;
with no Greek one older than the fourth; with the acknowledgment by
scholars of 7,000 errors in the Old Testament, and 150,000 in the New;
with assurance that these interpolations and changes have been made by
men in the interest of creeds, we may well believe that the portions
of the Bible quoted against woman's equality are but interpolations of
an unscrupulous priesthood, for the purpose of holding her in
subjection to man.

Amid this conflict of authority over texts of Scripture we have been
taught to believe divinely inspired, destroying our faith in doctrines
heretofore declared essential to salvation, how can we be sure that
the forthcoming version of the Bible from the masculine revisers of
our day will be more trustworthy than those which have been accepted
as of Divine origin in the past?

This chapter is condensed from the writer's forthcoming work,
"WOMAN, CHURCH, AND STATE."

FOOTNOTES:

[178] Maine (Gaius) says of the position of woman under Roman law
before the introduction of Christianity: "The juriconsulists had
evidently at this time assumed the equality of the sexes as a
principle of the code of equity. The situation of th