Now in expounding the first Psalm he set forth a list of the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament, writing somewhat as follows, word for word: 「But it should not be unknown that the covenant-books, as the Hebrews hand them down, are twenty-two, the same as the number of the letters among them.」
Then, after some words, he goes on to say: 「These are the twenty-two books according to the Hebrews: that which is entitled by us Genesis, but among the Hebrews, from the beginning of the book, Bresith, that is, 『In the beginning』; Exodus, Ouellesmoth, that is, 『These are the names』; Leviticus, Ouikra, 『And he called』; Numbers, Ammesphekodeim; Deuteronomy, Eleaddebareim, 『These are the words』; Joshua the son of Nun, Iosoue ben Noun; Judges, Ruth, among them in one, Saphateim; Of Kingdoms i, ii, among them one, Samuel, 『The called of God』; Of Kingdoms iii, iv, in one, Ouammelch David, that is, 『The kingdom of David』; Chronicles i, ii, in one, Dabreiamein, that is, 『Words of days』; Esdras i, ii, in one, Ezra, that is, 『Helper』; the book of Psalms, Thelleim; Proverbs of Solomon, Meloth; Ecclesiastes, Koelth; Song of Songs, Sir assirim; Isaiah, Iessia; Jeremiah with Lamentations and the Letter, in one, Jeremia; Daniel, Daniel; Ezekiel; Job, Job; Esther, Esther. And outside these are the books of the Maccabees, which are entitled Sarbeth Sabanaiel.」
These things, then, he sets forth in the aforementioned treatise. But in the first of his commentaries on the Gospel according to Matthew, keeping the canon of the Church, he testifies that he knows only four Gospels, writing somewhat as follows:
「. . . as having learnt by tradition concerning the four Gospels, which alone are unquestioned in the Church of God under heaven: that the first to be written was that according to Matthew, who was once a tax-collector but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and who published it for those who came to believe from Judaism, composed as it was in the Hebrew tongue;」
「secondly, that according to Mark, who made it as Peter instructed him, whom also Peter acknowledged as his son in the epistle, declaring through these words: 『She that is in Babylon, elect together with you, salutes you, and so does Mark my son』;」
And in the fifth of his Expositions on the Gospel according to John the same man says this concerning the epistles of the apostles: 「But he who was made sufficient to become a minister of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit, namely Paul, who fully preached the gospel from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum, did not so much as write to all the churches that he taught, but even to those to which he wrote he sent only a few lines.」
「And Peter, on whom the Church of Christ is built, against which the gates of Hades shall not prevail, has left one acknowledged epistle, and, it may be, a second also; for it is doubted.」
「Why need I speak of him who leaned back upon the breast of Jesus, namely John, who has left behind one Gospel, confessing that he could write so many things that not even the world itself could contain them? And he wrote also the Apocalypse, having been commanded to keep silence and not to write the voices of the seven thunders.」
「He has left also an epistle of very few lines, and, it may be, a second and a third too; for not all say that these are genuine. Yet the two of them together are not of many lines.」
Furthermore, concerning the Epistle to the Hebrews he discusses these matters in his Homilies upon it: 「That the character of the diction of the epistle entitled To the Hebrews has not the apostle's rudeness in speech—he who confessed himself rude in speech, that is, in style—but that the epistle is better Greek in the framing of its diction, everyone who is able to judge differences of style would admit.」
「And again, on the other hand, that the thoughts of the epistle are admirable, and not inferior to the acknowledged writings of the apostle—to this also everyone will assent as true who has given attention to the reading of the apostle.」
To these, after other matters, he adds, saying: 「But for my part, if I were to give my opinion, I should say that the thoughts are the apostle's, but the diction and the composition belong to someone who recorded from memory the apostle's teaching, as it were one who made scholia upon the things said by his master. If, therefore, any church holds this epistle as Paul's, let it be commended for this also; for not without reason have the men of old handed it down as Paul's.」
「But who wrote the epistle, in truth God knows. The account that has reached us, however, is—some saying that Clement, who became bishop of the Romans, wrote the epistle; others, that it was Luke, who wrote the Gospel and the Acts.」 But let this matter stand thus.