364; because, in order to guard the churches against spurious epistles and gospels, that Council published a list of those which the apostles did actually write, which thenceforth were generally bound in one volume.
Before that time, the four Gospels were always bound in one volume and called "The Gospel." The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles universally and undoubtedly known to be written by Paul, to the churches of Thessalonica, Galatia, Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, and to Philemon, a well-known resident of that city, and those to Timothy and Titus, missionaries of world-wide celebrity, the First General Epistle of Peter, and the First General Epistle of John, which were at once widely circulated to check prevailing heresies--were bound in another volume and called "The Apostle." The Epistle to the Hebrews, being general, and anonymous, _i.

e._, not bearing the name of any particular church, or person, to whom anybody who merely looked at it could refer for proof of its genuineness, as in the case of the other Epistles--was not so soon known by the European churches to be written by Paul.

The General Epistles of James, Jude, and the Second General Epistle of Peter, lying under the same difficulty, and besides being very disagreeable to easy-going Christians, from their sharp rebukes of hypocrisy, and the Second and Third Epistles of John, from their brevity, and the Revelation of John, being one of the last written of all the books of the New Testament, and the most mysterious--were not so generally known beyond the churches where the originals were deposited, until the other two collections had been formed.

They were accordingly kept as separate books, and sometimes bound up in a third volume of apostolical writings.

Besides these, at the time of the Council of Laodicea, and for a long time before, other books, written by Barnabas, Clement, Polycarp, and other companions and disciples of the apostles, and forged gospels and epistles attributed by heretics to the apostles, were circulated through the churches, and read by Christians.