Besides these passages, in which there is actual evidence of a connexion subsisting between the readings which they contain and Origen, the sceptical character of the Vatican and Sinaitic manuscripts affords a strong proof of the alliance between them and the Origenistic School. It must be borne in mind that Origen was not answerable for all the tenets of the School which bore his name, even perhaps less than Calvin was responsible for all that Calvinists after him have held and taught. Origenistic doctrines came from the blending of philosophy with Christianity in the schools of Alexandria where Origen was the most eminent of the teachers engaged(247).
It is specially remarkable that the Canon of Holy Scripture, which like the Text had met with opposition, was being settled in the later part of the century in which these two manuscripts were produced, or at the beginning of the next. The two questions appear to have met together in Eusebius. His latitudinarian proclivities seem to have led him in his celebrated words(249) to lay undue stress upon the objections felt by some persons to a few of the Books of the New Testament; and cause us therefore not to wonder that he should also have countenanced those who wished without reason to leave out portions of the Text. Now the first occasion, as is well known, when we find all the Books of the New Testament recognized with authority occurred at the Council of Laodicea in 363 A.D., if the passage is genuine(250), which is very doubtful; and the settlement of the Canon which was thus initiated, and was accomplished by about the end of the century, was followed, as was natural, by the settlement of the Text. But inasmuch as the latter involved a large multitude of intricate questions, and corruption had crept in and had acquired a very firm hold, it was long before universal acquiescence finally ensued upon the general acceptance effected in the time of St. Chrysostom. In fact, the Nature of the Divine Word, and the character of the Written Word, were confirmed about the same time:--mainly, in the period when the Nicene Creed was re-asserted at the Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D.; for the Canon of Holy Scripture was fixed and the Orthodox Text gained a supremacy over the Origenistic Text about the same time:--and finally, after the Third Council of Constantinople in 680 A.D., at which the acknowledgement of the Natures of the Son of Man was placed in a position superior to all heresy; for it was then that the Traditional Text began in nearly perfect form to be handed down with scarce any opposition to future ages of the Church.
