It is not wonderful, then, if some have ventured to tamper with the Scriptures of the Lord when they have laid their plots against writings that have no such claims as they' [Endnote 242:1].

It must needs be a straining of language to make the Scriptures here refer, as the author of 'Supernatural Religion' seems to do, to the Old Testament.

It is true that Justin lays great stress upon type and prophecy as pointing to Christ, but there is a considerable step between this and calling the whole of the Old Testament 'Scriptures of the Lord.' On the other hand, we can hardly think that Dionysius refers to a complete collection of writings like the New Testament.

It seems most natural to suppose that he is speaking of Gospels--possibly not the canonical alone, and yet, with Irenaeus in our mind's eye, we shall say probably to them.

There is the further reason for this application of the words that Dionysius is known to have written against Marcion--'he defended the canon of the truth' [Endnote 243:1], Eusebius says-- and such 'tampering' as he describes was precisely what Marcion had been guilty of.
* * * * * The reader will judge for himself what is the weight of the kind of evidence produced in this chapter.