Note 136 — Chapter II
Neil Buchanan translation
Footnote 136:
(return)
What is meant here is the imminent danger of taking the several constituent parts of the canon, even for historical investigation, as constituent parts, that is, of explaining one writing by the standard of another and so creating an artificial unity. The contents of any of Paul's epistles, for example, will be presented very differently if it is considered by itself and in the circumstances in which it was written, or if attention is fixed on it as part of a collection whose unity is presupposed.