_CONCLUSION._
An eloquent sentence analysed--Henry Rogers--John Stuart Mill--
Priestley--Paul's admonition to Timothy--The death of apostles
not recorded in writings alleged to have been written long after their
decease--Verdict pronounced before the case is complete--Authority of
Church Councils--The religion of the Bible a spiritual matter,
requiring spiritual discernment--Summary--Peroration 183
_INTRODUCTION_.
"_There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt
of in your philosophy._"
Shakespeare.
"_When we consider further that a gift, extremely precious, came to
us, which, though facilitated, was not necessitated, by what had gone
before, but was due, as far as appearances go, to the peculiar mental
and moral endowments of one man, and that man openly proclaimed that
it did not come from himself, but from God through him, then we are
entitled to say there is nothing so inherently or absolutely
incredible in this supposition as to preclude any one from hoping that
it may perhaps be true._"
John Stuart Mill.
INTRODUCTION.
Nothing in these days is taken for granted. In science, philosophy,
politics, and religion, the foundations of belief are fearlessly
examined, and the facilities for the process are unprecedented.
Criticism has new and improved instruments, and they are extensively
used--often misused. It concerns us especially to know how far our
religious institutions are being affected.
Have devout men, during the three thousand years which history
chronicles, been under a delusion in believing that "there is a spirit
in man, and the Almighty giveth him understanding"?
Is popular Christianity "wide of the truth, and a disfigurement of the
truth," as an eminent writer the other day asserted? Such questions
float in our literature and find their way into our homes and our
sanctuaries.
Although no importance is to be attached to the reckless assertion
that the outworks of Evangelical Religion are in danger, and that the
very citadel itself is not impregnable, it is undoubtedly true that
its modern adversaries--reputable and otherwise--are bold, active, and
skilful, and there is need that its defenders should be alert and
vigilant. It will not do to rely altogether on the defensive lines and
tactics of our predecessors. Each generation has the stronghold
entrusted to its care, and new appliances are, from time to time,
required to resist novel as well as resuscitated modes of assault.
However certain be the ultimate triumph of His cause whose right it is
to reign, the rate of its progress depends upon the faithfulness and
heroism of His servants at their various posts of labour and conflict.
To change the figure. The mirror which reflects Divine truth has to be
preserved and kept bright by human instrumentality. Superstition, in
the murky atmosphere of sacerdotalism, clouds it; by false philosophy
it is liable to be dimmed; while crude science or unsound criticism,
removing the silver lining to make the glass more transparent, makes
it useless. He does well who is able to act as its conservator, and
in some measure cleanse the surface, that obscurity may be removed and
eternal truth discerned.
I am aware that, as a rule, it is not desirable that hostile
literature should be helped into notoriety, and that believers should
be troubled with exploded fallacies and disturbed by arguments against
the truth as it is in Jesus a hundred times answered.
As Robert Hall justly remarks:--"It is degrading to the dignity of a
revelation, established through a succession of ages by indubitable
proofs, to be adverting every moment to the hypothesis of its being an
imposture, and to be inviting every ignorant sophist to wrangle about
the title, when we should be cultivating the possession."
But there are exceptions to every rule, and as I am not addressing a
promiscuous audience, but the members of a society whose rule is to
discuss all subjects without limitation, I venture to think I am
justified in bringing under your notice a recent heterodox book which
is so well written as to be likely to mislead if it be not
neutralized. And the more so, if I can make the author not only answer
himself, but other writers whose anti-Christian arguments are not put
forth anonymously, but with the authority of well-known names and much
reputation in the world of letters and science.
Let me further premise that the Christian is occupying an exceptional
position when he descends to the neutral level of the sceptic to
discuss the internal evidences of Evangelical truth. His usual
privileged abode is more favourable for the survey than the lower
ground, for the light is brighter and the air clearer on the mountain
heights where he is wont to contemplate religious matters, than on the
plain where faith has no temple, and reason, ignoring Divine
influence, operates with the carnal instruments of a negative creed.
To appeal to the spiritual discernment of a disbeliever in Divine
illumination would be like expecting a man who is not of the mystical
craft of the Masonic brotherhood to use the signs (if such there be)
of a Freemason. Yet the argument in defence of the reality of Divine
revelation is not complete without a reference to that "Spirit of
Truth" which Jesus Christ promised to send "to testify of him," and to
"bring all things to the remembrance" of those disciples who were to
"bear witness, because they had been with him from the beginning."[1]
[1] John xv. 26, 27.
A good cause may be injured by injudicious and feeble advocacy, but I
trust I am not presumptuously meddling with a theme which only an
erudite scholar and theologian should deal with. I beg you to bear in
mind, however, that if I or others fail in the contest for truth,
there still will remain the indubitable proofs of Divine revelation in
all their variety and superabundance.
Although the ability, scholarship, and research displayed in this
anti-Christian work are considerable, I doubt if it has really much in
it that is original. The author has only cleverly reproduced and
rearranged the anti-Christian arguments, chiefly German,[2] which are
to be found in the library of the British Museum.
[2] "The works of Strauss, Baur, Schenkel, and Rénan are the great
authorities for the negative criticism of the present day."--_Dr.
Christlieb._
The "Examiner" says, in regard to three-fourths of the work, "It is
neither more nor less than a digest of recent German speculation on
the date and authorship of the Gospels; devoid of originality, and
infected with the verbosity and repetition of the authorities on which
it is based."
In the other notices of the work which have appeared so far, it has, I
think, been somewhat over-estimated.
The "Fortnightly Review" writes of it: "It is not too much to say of
the two volumes before us that they are by far the most decisive,
trenchant, and far-reaching of the direct contributions to theological
controversy that have been made in this generation."
The "Athenæum" says: "The book proceeds from a man of ability, a
scholar, and reasoner, who writes like an earnest seeker after truth,
and knows well all the German and Dutch books relating to the
criticism of the New Testament, as well as the English ones."
The "Westminster Review" asserts that "no more formidable assailant of
orthodoxy could well be imagined."
The "Spectator" designates it a "masterly but prejudiced examination
of the evidences for the antiquity of the Christian Scriptures."
"The Literary World" says: "This is, beyond all question, an important
book. The one grand pervading fault we find with it is its
partisanship. The writer plays the part of special pleader against
what he calls Ecclesiastical Christianity, and fails to represent
what could be said on the other side. It is a partisan production, a
piece of clever, ingenious, plausible, special pleading. The author
has got up his case with marvellous exclusiveness. He makes it an
absolute rule, so far as we perceive, to regard his opponents as
having no case at all."
The quarterly reviews, "Edinburgh," "Quarterly," and "British
Quarterly," have not yet pronounced an opinion on its merits.
My purpose is to show that the author of this anonymous work has not
been successful in accomplishing the two things he has attempted,
viz., to prove the _in_credibility of miracles by--
_First_, a recast of the often-exploded syllogistic fallacies of Hume;
and, _secondly_, by an elimination of the miraculous from the Gospels;
but that he has been successful, without intending it, in showing that
Supernatural Religion rests upon substantial contemporary evidence.
The work consists of three parts. The first is upon miracles, treating
the subject as an abstract question. The second, upon the Synoptic
Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). The third, upon the Fourth Gospel.
And there is a summary of the supposed results of the reasoning and
the investigation. The inference arrived at is premature, for as the
New Testament does not consist only of the four Gospels, but contains
other writings of equal importance, the argument is incomplete, and
the latter will have to be dealt with before our author can reasonably
expect any reader to entertain his anti-miraculous hypothesis. Another
volume is promised, but we may safely venture to anticipate that it
will prove no more formidable than the other great waves of scepticism
which have surged against, but have not undermined, the rock upon
which our faith is built.
CHAPTER I.
_MIRACLES._
_"Seriously to raise this question, whether God can perform miracles,
would be impious if it were not absurd."_
Rousseau.
CHAPTER I.
In the first part of the work the following topics are discussed by
the author:--"Miracles in relation to Christianity and the order of
nature--Reason in relation to the order of nature--The age of
miracles--The permanent stream of miraculous pretension--Miracles in
relation to ignorance and superstition."
In stating the main purpose of his inquiry, he says (p. 8):--"It is
obvious that the reality of miracles is the vital point in the
investigation which we have undertaken." "If the reality of miracles
cannot be established, Christianity loses the only evidence by which
its truth can be sufficiently attested."
He might have dispensed with his arguments against the views of those
who endeavour to bring the miracles of the Bible within the scope of
the laws of nature, and to modify them by explanatory interpretations
so as to satisfy the demands of scientific and philosophical
theologians.
Christianity admits of no such treatment. In its essence it is
superhuman, abnormal, phenomenal, supernatural, though not unnatural.
A series of facts divinely attested, a proclamation of mercy divinely
commissioned, a system of means divinely blessed, is the true
definition of the gospel.
Discussing the antecedent credibility of miracles, our author makes
much of the references in the Bible to the working of miracles by
Satanic as well as Divine agency. "If," says he, "miracles are
superhuman they are not super-Satanic." The answer to this obviously
is, that what was merely a superstitious notion of the Jews, and that
which is taught by Divine authority, are two very different things.
Where in the Bible do we find that God reveals His will by miracles
which are not the manifestations of His own power? Christ points to
the superhuman works that He was doing in His Father's name as
evidence of His mission; and when the Jews suggested that He cast out
devils by Beelzebub, He said, "If Satan cast out Satan he is divided
against himself: how shall his kingdom stand?"[3] The man born blind,
to whom sight was given, said, "If this man were not of God he could
do nothing;"[4] and he said it was "a marvellous thing" that the Jews
did not know _he_ was from God who had wrought the miracle.
[3] Matt. xii. 26.
[4] John ix. 33.
"Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, said to Jesus, Rabbi, we know that
thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles
that thou doest except God be with him."[5] "Some of the Pharisees
said, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day.
Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?"[6]
"Some of the Jews said, Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?"[7]
[5] Ibid. iii. 2.
[6] Ibid. ix. 16.
[7] Ibid. x. 21.
Our author's statement is certainly not supported by the passage
quoted from Deuteronomy xiii. 3, of which he says, "The false miracle
is here attributed to God Himself." The words of that passage are: "If
there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth
thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass,
whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which
thou hast not known, and let us serve them: thou shalt not hearken
unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the
Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the
Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his
voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet,
or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath
spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out
of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to
thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to
walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee." I
transcribe the whole passage, that its plain meaning may be seen, and
you may understand how much reliance is to be placed on our author
when he appears as a Bible commentator. Of course the prophet referred
to is one "pretending to the Divine inspiration and authority of the
prophetic office," and "the dreamer of dreams" one who pretends that
some deity has spoken to him in a dream.
If our author be a Biblical scholar, his scholarship is greatly at
fault in the passage he refers to in Ezekiel xiv. 9: "And if the
prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have
deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and
will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel." According to the
Hebrew language, God is often said to _do_ a thing which He only
suffers or permits. How can God be understood to harden Pharaoh's
heart in any other sense? The character of God is too plainly
described in the Bible to leave any uncertainty on this point.
The passages quoted from the New Testament only _apparently_ support
his statement. He quotes Dr. Mansel in reference to them, and no doubt
his words truly apply where he says, "The supposed miracles are not
true miracles at all, _i.e._, are not the effects of Divine power, but
of human deception or some other agency." The existence and powers of
angels, good and bad, we know little about, because little is
revealed; but it is not the Bible but superstition which teaches that
the fallen spirits have more power than the faithful ones in the
affairs of this world, that Satan is more potent than Gabriel. If we
knew more about the origin of evil, this matter would probably be less
mysterious to our finite intelligence.
Our author describes (vol. i. page 47) what he supposes orthodox
Christianity includes; and among other strange assertions he says that
man was tempted into sin by Satan, "an all-powerful and persistent
enemy of God," thus making the fallen angel an _Almighty_ being.
This matter has an important bearing on the proper exhibition of
religious truth, for the more superstition is intermingled with it,
the more will unbelief be likely to be prevalent. On the one hand,
infidelity engenders superstition, and on the other, superstition
creates aversion to religion. I cannot but think that there is
something wrong in the way in which Christian men, in the pulpit and
elsewhere, often allude to the spirit of evil. He is represented in
Scripture as the "god of this world," but surely that is not to be
understood literally.
Jesus told the Jews that the devil was their father, as their deeds
being evil indicated, who was "a murderer from the beginning, and
abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he
speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the
father of it."[8] As, therefore, the devil is the father of lies, so
are we to understand he is the God of this world. Not in any other
sense. He is potent, but not omnipotent; knowing, but not omniscient;
has his representatives distributed among the scenes of sin and death
in our world, and himself goeth "to and fro in the earth,"[9] but he
is not omnipresent. It is Oriental demonology which teaches that two
equal principles--good and evil--are alike dominant, not "the truth as
it is in Jesus;" Persian superstition, Gnostical heresy, not Divine
revelation.
[8] John viii. 44.
[9] Job i. 7.
The frivolous use of words and matters connected with the spiritual
world and our eternal interests is greatly to be disapproved and
condemned; but surely the mention of Satan is not to be designated as
profane, as if God's holy name were taken in vain. To comment on what
are called profane oaths in such a way is not to enlighten the minds
of the vulgar, but to mystify and conceal the truth of Christianity.
It is one thing to believe that there is in existence the spiritual
being whose evil doings our Saviour's coming into our world
frustrates, whose power is great, whose emissaries are innumerable,
and whose baneful suggestions and influence the Holy Spirit alone can
withstand, and quite another thing to believe that Satan could give
miraculous attestation to a lie, as God did to the truth. If there are
some passages of Scripture that seem to favour this false view, it
behoves us to suspect, having regard to the whole tenour of Scripture
affecting the doctrine, that the correct interpretation has not been
arrived at.
The existence of Satan, and his influence, personal, and by the
legions who fell with him, are of course superhuman ideas, and in the
category of the miraculous; but there is a wide difference between the
most striking sign of his spiritual power and the Divine miracles
wrought to attest the truth. It is God "who alone doeth great
wonders."[10]
[10] Psa. cxxxvi. 14.
"If this man were not of God he could do nothing."[11] "If I do not
the works of my Father, believe me not."[12]
[11] John ix. 33.
[12] Ibid x. 37.
"A miracle is a sign for our faith, to be apprehended in its Divine
intention, though it cannot be comprehended, because it is God's
especial work." When the magicians in the Court of Pharaoh saw the
miracles which Moses wrought, they said, "This is the finger of
God,"[13] which is, and intended to be, the inevitable inference.
They knew that all they could do was a sham, a pretence.
[13] Exod. viii. 19.
Counterfeits are as prominent in the history of our race as any
feature that could be specified, and an imaginary devil is conspicuous
in the category of the spurious. If there had been no real one, the
counterfeit could scarcely have been conceived. He is the father of
lies, and how numerous his progeny! While all else is misrepresented,
parodied, travestied, burlesqued, falsified, belied, it would be
strange if he had escaped. From the Eternal Himself down to the most
insignificant thing that is worth a forgery, what a catalogue may in
an instant be specified! The Divine law with its ceremonial rites, and
the Church with its ordinances; prophets and apostles; gospels and
epistles; science and philosophy; history and biography; and,
assuredly, miracles; in short, all truth--stem, branch, twig, and
leaf--is more or less, and at one time or another, got up
artificially, and the spurious or adulterated article offered, in
competition with the genuine one, to human credulity. This, if it
makes absolute truth difficult to buy, renders the injunction to "sell
it not," when bought, true wisdom. It seems to be, and of course is,
absurd to doubt the genuineness of the currency of a nation because
spurious coins are met with, but I believe that more scepticism is
produced by the consideration of the many religious impostures in the
world than by any other influence. The inference is childish in the
ignorant and unphilosophical in the scholar, but it is often
unconsciously arrived at in many minds as a plain and easy solution of
the question which cannot be evaded--Is Divine revelation a reality?
Our author misrepresents Christianity, and uses the misrepresentation
as an argument against it, as, alas! is only too common. John Stuart
Mill actually says in his essay on Theism (p. 240) that "Christ is
never said to have declared any evidence of His mission (unless His
own interpretations of the prophecies be so considered) except
internal conviction." If Mr. Mill ever read the New Testament through,
he would have found where it is written, "Jesus answered and said unto
them, Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see:
the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel
preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever is not offended in
me." And also the words, "But I have greater witness than that of
John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same
works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent
me."[14] "The Jews came round about him and said, How long dost thou
make us to doubt? If thou be the Messiah, tell us plainly. Jesus
answered, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my
Father's name, they bear witness of me."[15] "Believe me for the very
works' sake."[16]
[14] John v. 36.
[15] Ibid x. 25.
[16] Ibid xiv. 11.
How, in the face of such an authoritative statement why miracles were
wrought by Jesus, can our author assume that they were not intended to
be an appeal to reason, and to be tested by the intelligence and
common sense they appealed to? The miracles were wrought to convince
men that Jesus was the Messiah, and were adapted to that end. Our
author's picture of Divine revelation is very much a conception of his
own, fashioned from isolated portions of Scripture, pseudo-Judaism,
and ecclesiastical representations of Christianity.
He quotes Archbishop Trench, who, in defining the function of a
miracle, says,--"A miracle does not prove the truth of a doctrine or
the divine mission of him that brings it to pass;" and Dr. Arnold, who
says,--"It has always seemed to me that its substance is a most
essential part of its evidence, and that miracles wrought in favour of
what was foolish or wicked would only prove Manicheism:" which
passages of fallible commentators fail to express the distinction
between real miracles and spurious ones. But I ask, Why does he appeal
to what Dr. Trench and Dr. Arnold, or any other commentator says, when
he has before him our Saviour's own words? In arguing against
miracles, it is not competent for him to put his own construction upon
them in violation of the highest authority as to their purpose and
design. I understand his conclusions to be against Christianity--not
against what he is pleased to put in its place. It is in the Fourth
Gospel we find Christ's words, but that book is too important a part
of Divine revelation for any apologist to remain in the field of
discussion and continue the argument if his opponent,--whether he be
Mr. Mill or our author,--insists on assuming that on the Christian
side the question is an open one whether the Fourth Gospel is to be
accepted. The whole of the four Gospels as we have them were read in
all the Christian Churches on the three continents in the middle of
the second century, as our author well knows. He acknowledges that
Irenæus, who wrote about A.D. 180, compared the four Gospels to the
"four columns of the Church over the whole world;" and that in
writings of his which we have, and the genuineness of which no one
questions, there are hundreds of references to the Gospels, the fourth
included. There is no question as to this being the fact at that date.
It is the earlier date that the argument bears upon. The four Gospels
are held together by an inseparable bond in the archives of the
Church, and believers in them assert they will all four stand or fall
together. I can only suppose that it was because Mr. Mill ignored the
Fourth Gospel that he ignored the verses I have quoted.
If an advocate has a weak case in hand, to damage the character of the
witnesses is a well-known mode of proceeding; so our author asks who
are the men who, it is asserted, saw these amazing performances? What
were the intellectual conditions of the age when they occurred? "Did
the Jews at the time of Jesus possess such calmness of judgment and
sobriety of imagination as to inspire us with any confidence in
accounts of marvellous occurrences unwitnessed except by them, and
limited to their time, which contradict all knowledge and all
experience? Were their minds sufficiently enlightened and free from
superstition to warrant our attaching weight to their report of events
of such an astounding nature?" (Vol. i. p. 98.)
The reading of this sentence suggests a comparison between the age he
refers to and the century succeeding Harvey's discovery of the
circulation of the blood, during which our Royal College of Physicians
repudiated the discovery, some of the most eminent of the faculty
writing against it, and creating a prejudice against Harvey by which
his practice suffered considerably; and the scientific period when the
French Academy for a long time rejected the use of quinine,
vaccination, lightning-conductors, the steam-engine, &c.
To weaken the apostolic testimony, there is presented an elaborate
exhibition of the wide-spread belief among the Jews in sorcery,
dreams, portents, and numerous forms of superstition. In what age have
not these been prevalent? Are we free from them in this? If the Divine
communication had been postponed until now, and civilisation could
have attained to its present stage without its influence, would its
reception have been any different? Would the vested interests in
established usages and beliefs have raised no opposition? If there are
in this country, and in this day, thousands who believe, or pretend to
believe, that the priests who are ordained to forgive sins can really
do so, are we in a position to assume any great superiority over the
Jews, Greeks, and Romans of eighteen centuries ago? If the most
manifest and stupendous miracle were wrought to show men the folly of
drunkenness, lying, and other sins, would not the results be just the
same? Some would believe and testify, and others say that the sign,
not being of the precise sort to suit them, was not conclusive. There
must be a coming down from the cross, or something else, to satisfy
them. "If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither would they
believe though one rose from the dead." The testimony of the first
disciples, it is said, is not satisfactory, because they were
uneducated, unscientific, uncritical. Mr. Mill says Paul was the only
exception in the first generation of Christians. I remark that
Matthew, in the position of a receiver of taxes for the Roman
government, though not learned, might be shrewd to detect imposture;
that Thomas was not too credulous; and that as for Paul, if he could not
judge of the value of the testimony of the hundreds of men and women
who told him, or could have told him, what they were eye-witnesses of,
what was his education worth, and what about the miracle in his own
case? Why should it be doubted that the vision to which he refers in
his unquestioned letter to the Galatians really occurred? He therein
tells them (with an asseveration that, in the presence of God, he was
not lying)[17] that he was taught the gospel he preached by the
revelation of Jesus Christ. Whatever may be said about the authority
of the Acts of the Apostles, which relates the particulars of Paul's
miraculous conversion so minutely, we have the evidence of it in
Paul's own letter. Of course he would compare what was revealed to him
with what the eye-witnesses could tell him; and if he could mistake a
sunstroke, a trance, or a state of ecstatic dreaming for a Divine
revelation, his character, judged of by his own writings, is verily
incomprehensible. There is no such other enigma in all history. In his
equally unquestioned letter to the Corinthians he tells them that he
received from the Lord the particulars of the institution of the
Lord's Supper. Of this memorable event Paul had ample opportunities of
comparing what was revealed to him with what the disciples who were
present could tell him; and he was in such intercourse with them, that
the circumstances were highly favourable for an educated man, such as
he was, arriving at the exact and absolute truth of the matter.
[17] 1 Gal. i. 20.
Our author's view of the question is narrowed by his refusing to
acknowledge that mankind is morally depraved by sin.
How a man, with the wickedness of such a city as London daily forced
on his notice, and a knowledge of the history of the race in his
memory, could have penned such a sentence as the following, it is
difficult to conceive. "The whole theory of this abortive design of
creation, with such important efforts to amend it, is emphatically
contradicted by the _glorious perfection and invariability_ of the
order of nature." Can he not see that the degradation and wickedness
of humanity are in striking _contrast_ to the "glorious perfection and
invariability of the order of nature"? He is bound to give some reason
for this anomaly if he will not accept what revelation makes known to
us as the cause.
The abstract question as to the credibility of miracles Paul discussed
in the year 58 at Cæsarea, in the presence of Festus and Agrippa, when
he said, "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that
God should raise the dead?" and it has been dealt with so exhaustively
by Newton, Locke, Butler, Paley, Whateley, Olinthus Gregory, Wardlaw,
Alexander, and a host of other writers, that there is really little
more to be said. The "Fortnightly Review" remarks that the arguments
on both sides are so familiar, that it is not necessary to reproduce
the present author's mode of dealing with this part of the subject.
Matthew Arnold describes it as an attempt to refute Dr. Mozley's
Bampton Lecture on Miracles--"a solid reply to a solid treatise;" but
that to engage in an _à priori_ argument to prove that miracles are
impossible, against an adversary who argues, _à priori_, that they are
possible, is the vainest labour in the world. Now, as Mr. Arnold is as
much a disbeliever in miracles as our author, the worth of his
abstract argument may be taken at Mr. Arnold's estimate, and he says:
"The author of 'Supernatural Religion' asserts again and again that
miracles are contrary to complete induction, but no such law of nature
has been, or can be, established against the Christian miracles,
therefore _a complete induction there is not_."
If the miracle-disbelieving Matthew Arnold does not accept our
author's abstract argument, and since we find Mr. Mill designating
"_two points_" in Hume's celebrated attack as "weak" and "vulnerable,"
I need not linger over this part of the work. I may assume that it is
sufficiently neutralised by men on his own side of the question as
able and learned as himself.
But it is not only Mr. Mill and Mr. Arnold who have recently shown
that Hume's celebrated argument, which our author reproduces and
defends, is not sound. It is satisfactory to know that from Germany,
where so much sceptical criticism has been promulgated, comes now the
most complete and conclusive exposure of the whole anti-Christian
argument. For the proof of this assertion I refer to a work which has
just been translated into English, and issued by Messrs. T. and T.
Clark of Edinburgh, entitled "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief,"[18]
by Theodore Christlieb, D.D., University Preacher and Professor of
Theology at Bonn; a most able, learned, and exhaustive argument on the
whole question, equal to the demands of those who desire to know all
about it, and to whom I earnestly commend the book. He mentions that
the great majority of the representatives of the present scientific
German theology are considered to have essentially decided in favour
of the faith, not only on dogmatical, but also on exegetical and
speculative grounds (p. 289).
[18] A series of apologetic lectures addressed to earnest seekers
after truth.
This is in strong contrast to the assertion of our author (vol. i. p.
27), that "it may broadly be said that English divines alone, at the
present day, maintain the reality and supernatural character of such
phenomena;" and that "the great majority of modern German critics
reject the miraculous altogether, and consider the question as no
longer worthy of discussion."
For the benefit of those who may not have time to read Dr.
Christlieb's work, I will transcribe a few passages bearing on the
abstract argument we are discussing.
"Things moral and spiritual cannot be mathematically demonstrated. He
who said, 'My thoughts are not as your thoughts,' has introduced in
His words and actions a far higher logic than that whose principles
Aristotle laid down." (Preface, p. xi.)
"However much, in other respects, our opponents may differ, they all
agree in the denial of miracles, and unitedly storm this bulwark of
the Christian faith; and in its defence we have to combat them all at
once. But whence this unanimity? Because, with the truth of miracles,
the entire citadel of Christianity stands or falls. For its beginning
is a miracle, its Author is a miracle, its progress depends upon
miracles, and miracles will hereafter be its consummation" (p. 285).
"If the principle of miracles be set aside, then all the heights of
Christianity will be levelled with one stroke, and nought will remain
but a heap of ruins. If we banish the supernatural from the Bible,
there is nothing left us but the covers" (p. 286).
"The negation of miracles leads to the annihilation of all religion"
(p. 286).
"Many are averse to the miraculous through fear of superstition, and
they overlook the sharp discrimination of Scripture between belief and
superstition, between miraculous power and witchcraft. Whereas the
sorcerer pretends to make supernatural powers subservient to _his_
person, the prophet or apostle accounts himself only the instrument of
God. It is God who alone works. The Son Himself seeks through His
works not His own honour, but that of His Father.[19] Notice the
unobtrusiveness of miracles in the holy Scriptures, how Christ sharply
repels the vain curiosity and vulgar thirst of His age for wonders,
and His prohibition of their publication. Compare with these features
the sensational miracles of the Roman and Oriental Churches--images of
saints who sweat blood, nod the head, roll the eyes--or the
Whitsuntide marvels among the Greeks and Armenians at Jerusalem, when
the Holy Ghost lights up candles (but not hearts), and you will
confess that such feats of legerdemain jugglery betray, in their
external pomp and straining after effect, anything but a Divine
origin. A glance at the internal evidences of the truth in miracles,
at their moral and religious character, which reflects and serves not
only the power of God, but also His truth and holiness, and must prove
pre-eminently their Divine origin, will show that it is not a very
difficult task for any one to defend his belief in the biblical
miracles against the charge of superstition" (p. 297).
[19] John viii. 50-54.
"Those foundation-stones for the denial of all miracles which were
laid by Spinoza and Hume, and on which the critics of the present day
still take a defiant stand, have crumbled away piecemeal before our
eyes. Spinoza's axiom, that the 'laws of nature are the only
realisation of the Divine will,' stands or falls with the pantheistic
conception of the Deity--a conception which is not only unworthy of
God and of man, but also contrary to reason. The Source of all freedom
is supposed to have no freedom, but to be immured in His own laws! And
to this Spinoza adds the conclusion: 'If anything could take place in
nature contrary to its laws, God would thereby contradict Himself.' We
have seen that just the converse is true, namely, that if God
performed no miracles, and left the world to itself, He would
contradict Himself; that He must perform miracles in order to maintain
the end for which the world was created, and to bring it to the
destiny which was originally intended. His miraculous action
contradicts not nature and its laws, but the unnatural, which has
entered the world through sin, and counteracts its destructive
consequences in order to restore the life of the world to holy order.
Only those who, like Spinoza, deny the reality of sin and its
destructive power, can question the necessity of the miraculous. The
present condition, not only of the human world, but also of nature,
gives such opinions the lie at every step" (p. 327).
"Hume, in like manner, bases his attack against the miraculous on a
series of false assumptions. First: 'Miracles are violations of the
laws of nature.' This is false, since miracles, far from violating,
serve to re-establish the already violated order of the world, and do
not injure the laws of nature. Second: 'But we learn from experience
that the laws of nature are never violated.' This is false, because we
ourselves immediately interfere with our higher will in the laws of
nature, and interrupt them without their being violated. Third: 'For
miracles we have the questionable testimony of a few persons.' This is
false, because the entire Scriptures are full of miracles, and the
historical testimony for them is unquestionable, since the appearance
of Israel and of the Christian Church is perfectly incomprehensible
without miracles. 'But,' he goes on, 'against them we have universal
experience; therefore this stronger testimony nullifies the weaker and
more questionable.' The pith of Hume's argument, then, is simply this:
Because, according to universal experience, no miracles now take
place, therefore none can ever have occurred. This proposition, in the
first place, involves a begging of the question, since it is not at
all certain that no miracles are performed now-a-days; and, second, it
ignores the fact that different periods are subject to different laws,
and with their varied wants may demand varied kinds of revelatory
action on the part of God. Certainly, the negro who should affirm that
there is no snow, because in his country, according to 'universal
experience,' it never snows, would be committing an absurdity. And no
less illegitimate is it to measure all time by the universal (?)
experience or non-experience of some particular period. Finally, Hume
goes on to demand, as a condition for the credibility of miracles,
that they must be attested by an adequate number of sufficiently
educated and honest persons, who could not be suspected of intentional
deception, and that they should be done in so frequented a spot that
the detection of the illusion would be inevitable. We shall see
further (in Lectures vi. and vii.) that these conditions were all
essentially fulfilled in the case of the New Testament miracles. And
yet, in spite of the evident weakness of Hume's argument, Strauss
would have us believe that Hume's 'Essay on Miracles' is so
universally convincing, that it may be said to have settled the
question ('Leben Jesu,' page 148). The author of the 'Life of Christ'
forgets to mention that Hume has long since been refuted in detail by
the earlier and later English apologists (_e. g._, by Campbell, Adams,
Hay, Price, Douglass, Paley, Whateley, Dwight, Alexander, Wardlaw, and
Pearson), to say nothing of the Germans; but then he knows that only a
very small proportion of his readers is aware of this fact" (p. 328).
"To these objections not even our most modern philosophers have been
able to add really new ones; and as against them all we may
confidently maintain the following truths as the result of our
investigation:--
"The possibility of the miraculous rests upon the uninterrupted
activity of a living God in the world.
"Its necessity arises, on the one hand, from the Divine end and aim
of the world; and on the other, from the disturbance introduced into
its development through sin.
"Therefore, although miracles are supernatural, they are not
unnatural. Far from violating the conditions of life, of nature, or of
humanity, they re-establish the life of the world which has already
been deranged, and initiate the higher order of things for which the
universe was created" (p. 328).
Of Baur, Dr. Christlieb writes:--
"Of all modern opponents of our old faith, the greatest is Dr.
Ferdinand Christian von Baur, Professor of Theology at Tübingen (died
December 2, 1860), one of the greatest, if not the greatest
theological scholar of this century; after Neander, the most notable
historian of the Church, not only in Germany but in the world; the
most indefatigable of investigators, especially as regards the history
of Primitive Christianity, in the elucidation of which he has deserved
well of theology. He stands a head and shoulders above all our modern
opponents of the miraculous.... If human power, human diligence, and
acuteness, could ever bring about the overthrow of our faith, this man
would have accomplished it. But our present theology is daily
becoming more convinced that he was incompetent to this task, and
that, in spite of all his unutterable exertions, he did not succeed in
proving the merely natural origin of Christianity. This is one of the
surest signs that the rock upon which our faith is founded is
absolutely indestructible"[20] (p. 505).
[20] "The Tübingen school, which has somewhat modified the views of
Baur, its founder, has at present its chief seats in Switzerland,
France, and Holland."--_Dr. C._, p. 516.
I must not attempt to give the points of Dr. Christlieb's critique and
refutation of the Tübingen theory, but refer the reader to his
invaluable work.
CHAPTER II.
_THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS._
_"I consider the Gospels decidedly genuine, for they are penetrated by
the reflection of a majesty which proceeded from the Person of Christ;
and this is Divine, if ever Divinity appeared upon earth."_
Goethe.
CHAPTER II.
_THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS_.
CLEMENT OF ROME--THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS--THE PASTOR OF HERMAS.
The argument based on the investigation which is carried on in the
seven hundred pages of the second and third parts of our author's
work, is chiefly the negative one from "silence." He examines with
great minuteness the date, character, and authorship of all the four
Gospels, and refers to all the writings of the early Church for traces
of them; insisting upon the silence of those early writings as being
of as much importance as any "supposed allusions" to the Gospels found
in such authors as Justin Martyr, Clement of Rome, and others who
lived soon after the apostolic age; the result being, in our author's
opinion, unfavourable to the view entertained by orthodox believers.
I demur to his conclusions. I notice a want of fairness in some of his
quotations and in some of his translations, and a want of accuracy in
some of his statements, as well as defects in his reasoning, which I
have no doubt others will comment upon who may review the book. Some
of these defects will appear as I proceed.
When I find him saying, as he does, vol. ii. page 387, "We must,
however, carefully restrict ourselves to the limits of our inquiry,
and resist any temptation to enter upon an exhaustive discussion of
the problem presented by the Fourth Gospel from a more _general_
literary point of view," I expect to find difficulties, which of
course there are and must be, brought into prominence and carped at,
while the general evidence upon which Divine revelation is immovably
based is "carefully" avoided.
The second part, on the Synoptic Gospels, is a long investigation,
extending over five hundred pages, and dealing with three and twenty
works by separate non-biblical authors of the first and second
centuries; and its object is to disprove that they were written solely
by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and to support the hypothesis that those
Gospels were not in existence until long after the times of the
apostles, and, therefore, that they furnish no evidence from
eye-witnesses of the miracles they record.
The third part deals with the Fourth Gospel in a similar manner, and
occupies more than two hundred pages. Our author's inquiry into the
reality of Divine revelation seems, at this point, to involve the
following questions: Does the extant literature of the close of the
first and the beginning of the second century quote from, or allude
to, the three Synoptic Gospels? And if this cannot be answered in the
affirmative, does such silence prove they were not then written; and,
if so, is the conclusion deducible that the miracles recorded are not
credible?
In the preliminary remarks with which he opens the second part, he
says: "When such writers, quoting largely from the Old Testament and
other sources, deal with subjects which would naturally be assisted by
references to our Gospels, and still more so by quoting such works as
authoritative, and yet we find that not only _they do not show any
knowledge of those Gospels_, but actually quote passages from unknown
sources, or sayings of Jesus derived from tradition, the inference
must be that our Gospels were either unknown, or not recognised as
works of any authority at the time." In reference to this sentence I
remark that many of the passages he specifies and examines are _not_
from _unknown sources_, but from the Gospels, because, if not strictly
verbatim, they are in the _sense_ identical, and almost identical in
the language; therefore such quotations are evidence that the Gospels
existed at the time. The insinuation that they are from tradition is
purely conjecture, and altogether improbable, because our Gospels
contain the passages. There is not the slightest reason for looking
away from our gospels, and imagining the quotations to be either from
unknown sources or tradition. This will appear as we proceed. I will
give in his own words the results of his examination of what he
designates "evidence for the Synoptic Gospels," and then follow him
step by step through the journey he takes into early Patristic Church
history.
He says (vol. ii. page 248): "We may now briefly sum up the results of
our examination of the evidence for the Synoptic Gospels. After having
exhausted the literature and the testimony bearing on the point, we
_have not found a single distinct trace of any of those Gospels during
the first century and a half after the death of Jesus_. Only once
during the whole of that period do we find any tradition even that any
one of our Evangelists composed a Gospel at all, and that tradition,
so far from favouring our Synoptics, is fatal to the claims of the
first and second. Papias, about the middle of the second century, on
the occasion to which we refer, records that Matthew composed the
Discourses of the Lord in the Hebrew tongue, a statement which
_totally excludes the claim of our Greek Gospel to apostolic origin_.
Mark, he said, wrote down from the casual preaching of Peter the
sayings and doings of Jesus, but without orderly arrangement, as he
was not himself a follower of the Master, and merely recorded what
fell from the apostle. This description likewise shows that our actual
Second Gospel could not in its present form have been the work of
Mark. There is no other reference during the period to any writing of
Matthew or Mark, and no mention at all of any work ascribed to Luke.
If it be considered that there is any connection between Marcion's
Gospel and our Third Synoptic, any evidence so derived is of an
unfavourable character for that Gospel, as it involves a charge
against it of being interpolated and debased by Jewish elements. Any
argument for the mere existence of our Synoptics, based upon their
supposed rejection by heretical leaders and sects, has the evitable
disadvantage that the very testimony which would show their existence
would oppose their authenticity. There is no evidence of their use by
heretical leaders, however, and no direct reference to them by any
writer, heretical or orthodox, whom we have examined. We need scarcely
add that no reason whatever has been shown for accepting the testimony
of these Gospels as sufficient to establish the reality of miracles
and of a direct Divine revelation." (Here he says, in a foot-note: "A
comparison of the contents of the three Synoptics would have confirmed
the conclusion, but this is not at present necessary, and we must
hasten on.") "It is not pretended that more than one of the Synoptic
Gospels was written by an eye-witness of the miraculous occurrences
reported; and whilst no evidence has been, or can be, produced even of
the historical accuracy of the narratives, no testimony as to the
correctness of the inferences from the external phenomena exists or is
now even conceivable. The discrepancy between the amount of evidence
required and that which is forthcoming, however, is greater than under
the circumstances could have been thought possible."
There is a plausibility, combined with an assumed conclusiveness, in
this summary, which may impose for a moment on those readers of his
book who are not conversant with the question under discussion. They
will be likely to have glanced at the foot-notes indicating the great
number of books referred to, and take it for granted that an author so
learned and painstaking would scarcely have asserted conclusions so
boldly without having found good reasons for them, which, before he
has done, he will adduce and make plain. It is evident, however, that
whatever his reasons may be as a whole, when his promised further
volume has been published, it is quite certain that, so far, his
argument from the silence of early writings, supposing he had
conducted it successfully, combined with his logic on the abstract
question of the credibility of miracles, is not sufficient to justify
his assertion that the testimony of the Gospels is insufficient to
establish the reality of miracles; because the Gospels might have
existed, although no trace of them can be found in the fragments
extant of books written during the few years between the composition
of the Gospels and the period when they were generally acknowledged as
authoritative, and read everywhere in the Christian assemblies on the
Lord's Day, that is, from about A.D. 100 to 150.
The reader will be unwise if he allow himself to be impressed by the
multiplicity of selected witnesses from a selected period, other
evidence being unappealed to. If a hundred of witnesses are, in a
court of justice, produced to swear to the identity of a man, the
impression is created that it cannot but be established. We have
lately seen how from being inevitable is such an outside verdict. The
special pleading of authorship, like that of the Queen's Bench,
startles and impresses for a moment; but after the investigation of
all the facts and circumstances of the case is complete, and the judge
has dissected the evidence, the sophistry is found not to have helped
the side which used it, but has tended to strengthen the other. I
remark, before following our author in his references to the witnesses
he has selected for cross-examination, it is not conceded to him the
right to draw a line where it best suits him in Church history, and
decide the case in the absence of the evidence of witnesses on the
outside of it. He draws such a line in specifying "_the first century
and a half after the death of Christ_." If the probable date of
Christ's birth be the third year before the commencement of the
Christian era, we have this line drawn at A.D. 180, at which point the
second generation of Christians had only just passed away, when direct
tradition had not lost its freshness. While men and women were living
who had heard from eye-witnesses of the events of Christ's life on
earth, the story of His advent, death, resurrection, and ascension,
the books recording the facts for future ages were in a less prominent
position in the Church than immediately afterwards. They were then
read in all the Churches, but commentaries on them and written
references to them were not very numerous; therefore what we can trace
of such before that time is comparatively scanty. But, immediately
afterwards, in the third and fourth generation of Christians, when
there were no men living who could say, My grandfather or my venerable
teacher told me so and so of Christ, and he saw Christ in Galilee
after His resurrection, when there were not less than five hundred of
His disciples assembled, and he was present when He ascended in a
cloud--while such persons were living, the testimony of a book was to
them of lesser weight and importance, for they could say that they had
the truth, not from the written words of a disciple, but from his own
lips. As Irenæus well remembered Polycarp, so might persons living
about the middle of the second century remember the teaching of the
Apostle John. The argument from "silence," applied to the early period
restricted to the year 180, is for this and other reasons far from
being conclusive, while the evidence furnished by such writings as
those of Irenæus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Theophilus of
Antioch, Tatian, Hippolytus, and Origen, who belong to the subsequent
years of the first and the opening of the second century, is much more
important than is indicated by our author. His investigation ignores
to a great extent the circumstantial evidence of this later period. He
says (vol. ii. p. 387) he "must be careful to restrict himself to the
limits of his inquiry," and to avoid the "more general literary point
of view," and he does so restrict himself. If a person really desires
to decipher an obscure antiquarian manuscript or inscription, he does
not say, I must carefully keep to this imperfectly-lighted room, and
not step into broad daylight.
Here is a specimen of the way he draws an inference. In arguing
against the authority of the four Gospels, he says, vol. ii. p. 457,
"No two of them agree even about so simple a matter of fact as the
inscription on the cross." Now the exact words, as given in each
Gospel, are as follows: Matthew gives the inscription in eight
words--"This is Jesus the King of the Jews;" Mark in five words--"The
King of the Jews;" Luke in seven words--"This is the King of the
Jews;" and John in eight words--"Jesus of Nazareth the King of the
Jews."
This needs no comment. Could anything be more natural than such slight
discrepancies? Would four shorthand reporters of the present day have
been more exact?
The first early writer he examines is Clement, Bishop of Rome, who,
towards the close of the first century, wrote an epistle to the
Corinthians. It is attached to the ancient copy of the Scriptures
known as the Codex Alexandrinus, written in the fifth century, and
preserved in the British Museum.
This writer's fame surpassed all others in the first century. His
first Epistle to the Corinthians, written in Greek, is deemed to be
genuine; but, says Dr. Mosheim, "it seems to have been corrupted and
interpolated."
Eusebius assures us it was received by all, and reverenced next to
the Holy Scriptures, and therefore publicly read in the Churches for
some ages, even till his time.[21]
[21] "Cod." cxii. c. 38.
The epistle itself makes no mention of the author's name. It purports
to be addressed by "the Church of God which sojourns at Rome to the
Church of God sojourning at Corinth." But in the Codex Alexandrinus
the title of "The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians" is
added at the end. Internal evidence shows it was written after some
persecution of the Church, either that of Nero, A.D. 64-70, or
Domitian, at the end of the century. The epistle contains these
words:--
"Especially remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, which he spake
teaching gentleness and long-suffering. For thus he said, Be pitiful,
that ye may be pitied; forgive, that it may be forgiven you; as ye do,
so shall it be done to you; as ye give, so shall it be given to you;
as ye judge, so shall it be judged to you; as ye show kindness, shall
kindness be shown to you; with what measure ye mete, with the same it
shall be measured to you."
Our author himself shows that these precepts cannot be mere floating
tradition. He says such "seems impossible" (vol. i. p. 226). They are
evidently the words of Jesus taken from a written source, but he
contends that they are not a quotation from the Sermon on the Mount,
as recorded in the Gospels as we have them, but _from some other
Gospel_ which is not extant. He says: "When the great difference is
considered between the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke, and
still more between these and the passage in Mark, it is easy to
understand that that other Gospel may have contained a version
differing as much from them as they do from each other."
I remark, supposing that Clement had before him all three versions,
which differ from each other, what is more natural than that he should
give the sense without adhering to the exact words of any. Only an
inquirer who has a bias against Christianity would think of disputing
the quotation.
If Epiphanius "clearly wrote without having the Gospel of Luke before
him," as our author states on page 100, and if Tertullian "evidently
quotes that Gospel from memory," as he also says on the same page; why
should it be assumed as a matter of course that Clement had the
writings before him? He also may have quoted from memory.
There is something strangely marvellous about the disappearance of
these imaginary lost records of the Sermon on the Mount. We know that
in the year A.D. 139 Justin Martyr wrote that the "Memoirs of the
Apostles," called "Evangels" (gospels), were read after the prophets
every Lord's Day in the assembly of the Christians. Where were they
then? Were they identical with these memoirs called Gospels? Where
were they about the year A.D. 180, when Irenæus proves that four
Gospels were held in the highest esteem, and were read in all the
Churches; alluding to them as the four columns of the Church, and
comparing them to the four quarters of the world, the four principal
winds, and the four figures of the Cherubim? Where were they when he
says: "So well established _are our Gospels_, that even teachers of
error themselves bear testimony to them: even they rest their
objections on the foundations of the Gospels"?[22] This hypothesis of
our author is certainly going out of the way to find the reason for a
thing. It is to be remembered that what is evidenced by Irenæus, who
wrote about A.D. 180, and was the pupil of Polycarp, is highly
important. Dr. Mosheim says his five books against heresies, the only
writings of his extant, are a splendid monument of antiquity.[23] From
the evidence of Irenæus, it is clear that the four Gospels must have
been occupying a special and authoritative place in the Church some
time before the time he wrote his five books on heresies, about the
year 180. Tischendorf, who knows as much as any man about the
Scripture manuscripts, says: "It is a well-established fact that,
already between A.D. 150 and 200, not only were the Gospels translated
into Latin and Syriac, but also that their number was defined to be
only four, neither more nor less." The Syriac version of the New
Testament called the Peshito, a work of immense value, as the language
is almost identical with that spoken by Christ, a translation
admirably executed, "is generally assigned," says Tischendorf, "to the
end of the second century, though we have not any positive proof to
offer;" and "the Latin version had acquired before this period a
certain public authority." As the man who translated Irenæus's five
books from Greek into Latin follows the Italic version, and as
Tertullian, in the quotation which he makes from the Latin
translation of Irenæus copies that translator, Tischendorf justly
argues that some time must have elapsed between that date when the
translation is known to have been in existence, and the period when
they were first separated from other Church writings, and attained a
prominent and sacred character. Thus we get to the apostolic age for
the origin of all the four Gospels, and there seems to be no interval
of time sufficient to account for our author's primitive Gospels to
have disappeared, leaving no trace of their existence. It is
enormously more probable that the four Gospels alluded to by Irenæus
and Tertullian contained the records from which Clement quoted the
passage of the Sermon on the Mount, than that there were primitive
independent writings which were soon lost, obtaining no recognition
when the separate Gospel manuscripts became associated with the Old
Testament, and were read after them in the Christian assemblies. Our
author says the passage quoted by Clement, referring to the Sermon on
the Mount, is decidedly opposed to "the pretensions made on behalf of
the Synoptics." I do not quite know what "pretensions" he alludes to,
but I am not defending pretensions, either ecclesiastical or
non-ecclesiastical. It is not necessary, in the defence of the
Gospels, to assert that the four Evangelists whose names are attached
to them wrote every word; that they only contain records of what those
disciples were either eye-witnesses of, or, in the case of Mark and
Luke, heard Peter and Paul preach. The formulæ, "according to
Matthew," "according to Mark," "according to Luke," "according to
John," do not imply that, in the most ancient opinion, these recitals
were written from beginning to end by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John.[24] It is enough to know that the writings so far emanated from
those disciples as to justify the titles they bear, and their
reception by the early Church, as the true record of the important
transactions to which they refer. That reception of them was
sufficiently near to the date of their composition to preclude the
probability that the early Christian Church had not the means of
testing their genuineness or historical data, while their internal
evidence is such as to confirm their truthfulness and authority.
[22] "Adv. Hær." iii. 11. 7.
[23] They were written while Eleutherius was Bishop of Rome (A.D. 177
to 193), as is evident from his Catalogue (Lib. iii. c. 3) of the
Bishops of Rome, for Eleutherius is the last of the twelve he
mentions, and was then in possession of that pastorate.
[24] See Rénan, "Life of Jesus," p. 8, cheap edition.
"As to Luke," says Rénan, "doubt is scarcely possible. It is a regular
composition, founded on anterior documents, the work of one man, who
selects, prunes, and combines. The author is certainly the same as
that of the Acts of the Apostles. Now the author of the Acts is a
companion of Paul, a title which applies to Luke exactly. The name of
Lucus (contraction of Lucanus) being very rare, we need not fear one
of those homonyms which cause so many perplexities in questions of
criticism relative to the New Testament. It is beyond doubt that the
author of the Third Gospel and of the Acts was a man of the second
generation, and that is sufficient for our object. The date can be
determined by considerations drawn from the Gospel itself. The
twenty-first chapter, inseparable from the rest of the work, was
certainly written a short time after the destruction of Jerusalem. We
are here upon solid ground, for we are concerned with a work written
entirely by the same hand, and of the most perfect unity. If the
Gospel of Luke is dated, those of Matthew and Mark are dated also; for
it is certain that the Third Gospel is posterior to the first two, and
exhibits the character of a much more advanced composition."
"Every one drew largely on the Gospel tradition then current. The Acts
of the Apostles and the ancient Fathers quote many words of Jesus
which appear authentic, and are not found in the Gospels we possess.
The life of Jesus in the Synoptics rests upon two original
documents--first, the discourses of Jesus collected by Matthew;
second, the collection of anecdotes and personal reminiscences which
Mark wrote from the recollections of Peter. We may say that we have
these two documents still, mixed with accounts from another source, in
the two first Gospels, which bear, not without reason, the name of the
Gospel according to Matthew, and of the Gospel according to Mark. It
was when tradition became weakened, in the second half of the second
century, that the texts bearing the name of the apostles took a
decisive authority, and obtained the force of law."
I have selected these passages from Rénan's "Life of Jesus," as they
bear upon the view of the origin of the Gospels which may be
entertained with consistency by those who accept their authority,
without insisting upon any such pretensions as our author seems to
combat, and which are not necessary for their defence.
I object also to the case being tried upon an indictment which
includes a uniform, plenary, and verbal inspiration. Nor is it, I
submit, necessary to defend the view that the Old and New Testaments
include no words but what are of Divine authority.
I maintain that God has supernaturally revealed His character and His
will in the Bible, but I know not where the hard and fast line is
which separates the human from the superhuman in our versions of these
sacred documents, the general characteristic of which is that they are
inspired productions; that therein "holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost."[25] "Not the words which man's wisdom
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth."[26]
[25] 2 Pet. i. 21.
[26] 1 Cor. ii. 13.
"God at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the
fathers," and having subsequently spoken by His Son, authenticates His
message, which, we cannot doubt, the Holy Spirit inspired the apostles
to record, by a special inspiration, as He did in pre-Christian times.
It is human nature for man to pervert even his best of blessings. Jews
and Christians alike have done so. When we think of the translators of
the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek altering the prophetical dates, to
mislead as to the coming of Messiah, as was done in the Septuagint
Version; of the genealogy of Joseph being fitted into three periods of
fourteen generations each, to square with Jewish notions of numerical
precision and completeness; of the verse in John's first epistle (v.
7) inserted in the text to add strength to the theological phraseology
of a creed; and of the first verses of the eighth chapter of the
Fourth Gospel being left out in several of the most ancient MSS.,
evidently owing to some great authority, such as Eusebius (who was
ordered by Constantine to prepare copies of the Scriptures), having
suppressed them; we cannot but be suspicious that human infirmity and
meddlesomeness have, to some extent, interfered with the transmission
of the Divine oracles. The fountain is undoubtedly pure, but has not
the channel been polluted through which the Divine truths have been
transmitted?
We have next a reference to the "Epistle of Barnabas" and the "Pastor
of Hermas," both of which are attached to that ancient copy of the
Scriptures known as the Codex Sinaiticus, recently found by
Tischendorf, in a monastery in the desert of Sinai, and now preserved
at St. Petersburg. It is the most ancient MS. of the Scriptures we
can refer to, and is supposed to have been written in the fourth
century.
After the New Testament, in this valuable MS., is placed the epistle
ascribed to Barnabas. It is complete. It was written some time between
the year 70 and the close of the first century, and it contains these
words:--"_Let us therefore beware lest we should be found as it is
written, Many are called, few are chosen._" These words certainly
appear to be quoted from the twenty-second chapter of Matthew, but our
author says there is a similar passage in the apocryphal book of
Ezra--"_There be many created, but few shall be saved_," and he asks
us to believe it is quoted from the latter. As we have not the same
bias as he has, we decline, for obvious reasons, to do so, although he
points out that the verse in Matthew is not in the oldest codex.
Unfortunately the one in the British Museum is defective at that part,
but the verse appears in later MSS. He says, had the Epistle of
Barnabas been seriously regarded as a work of the apostle of that
name, it could scarcely have failed to attain canonical rank. If this
be our author's opinion, there was more discrimination used by the men
who decided what writings were admissible into the canon than he has
elsewhere given them credit for. The Epistle of Barnabas also contains
the following important passage:--
"_But when he selected his own apostles, who should preach his gospel,
who were sinners above all sin, in order that he might show that he
came not to call the righteous, but sinners, then he manifested
himself to be the Son of God._"
Our author says that the words "_he came not to call the righteous,
but sinners_," very probably a pious scribe added in the margin, and
they were afterwards included in the text of the epistle.
I remark that this is quite a gratuitous assumption. I see no
probability of anything of the kind, and I agree with Tischendorf, who
asks, "Could any one mistake the words being a quotation from Matt.
ix. 13?" But our author insinuates that this chapter should be
dissected, and the miraculous eliminated. He says the words of Jesus,
"They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick,"
"evidently belong to the oldest tradition of the Gospel;" and he gives
the opinion of Ewald, who ascribed them (ver. 1214), apart from the
remainder of the chapter, originally to the _collection of
discourses_[27] from which, with two intermediate books, he considers
our present Gospel of Matthew was composed.
[27] Spruchsammlung.
These are the sort of conjectures upon which our author builds his
argument. The ninth chapter of Matthew is too full of the miraculous
to be accepted as a whole. It records how Jesus forgave sins, to the
sick gave health, to the blind sight, to the dumb speech, and to the
dead life; all of which is out of keeping with his bias and the German
rationalism with which he has such profound sympathy.
Tischendorf finds a further analogy between the Epistle of Barnabas
and the Gospel of Matthew in the words, "_David prophesied, The Lord
said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy
footstool_;" and inquires, "Could Barnabas so write without the
supposition that his readers had Matt. xxii. 4 before them? and does
not such a supposition likewise infer the actual authority of
Matthew's Gospel?" Because the passage is in the Psalms, our author
ridicules Tischendorf's inference. It is, to say the least, quite as
probable that Barnabas quoted from the Gospel as from the Psalms, and
there is propriety in Tischendorf's opinion and inference.
In designating his argument "rabid" and "preposterous," our author
exposes himself to arrows winged with similar feathers. When he
unwarrantably pretends to _know_ that the earliest records of what
Jesus did and taught did not contain anything but what comports with
the German school of theology which he favours, and which he has done
his best to make familiar to English readers, without exposing himself
personally to the odium which attaches to such opinions in a Christian
community, he has no claim to indulgence from those who examine his
language and animadvert thereupon.
Considering that, according to his own showing, the belief was, at all
events, prevalent in the Christian Church in the middle of the second
century that these writings of the apostles were authentic, and that
he cannot account for their being so esteemed, so soon after the
events occurred to which they refer, as to be universally read in all
the Christian Churches; it is, to say the least, unbecoming in him to
exalt his conjectures into oracles. Other critics, quite as inquiring,
able, and learned, more modestly say, "_The subject presents a variety
of embarrassing circumstances, so that it is difficult to arrive at a
satisfactory conclusion_." He lays himself open to be classified with
those who "_rush in where angels fear to tread_." There is a close
analogy between those who say in their hearts there is no God, and
those who say He has never spoken; and we know what is said in the
Bible of the former.
I will give here a specimen of the way our author quotes to suit his
own argument, and you will see whether the epithet "_preposterous_" is
at all applicable to him.
In showing how much John was opposed to Paul on the question of
Gentile Christians observing Jewish rites, he says, "_Allusion is
undoubtedly made to Paul in the Epistle to the Churches_, in the
Apocalypse;" and, "_It is clear that Paul is referred to in the
address to the Church of Ephesus_." The first passage is Rev. ii. 2,
"_I know thy works and thy patience, ... and how thou hast tried them
which say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them false_;"
implying that John was so opposed to Paul as to deny his being an
apostle, which is grossly improbable.[28] But the full absurdity of
the idea is more manifest in the next quotation from Rev. ii. 14: "But
I have a few things against thee because thou hast there them that
hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a
stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things
sacrificed unto idols," _&c._ It would not have answered his purpose
to finish the sentence, so he stops at the word "idols," and puts
"_&c._" When I mention that the words which are represented by the
"_&c._" are "_and to commit fornication_," you will agree with me,
that not only is the idea of John saying that Paul had taught the
Christians at Pergamos to sin in this respect the climax of absurdity,
but that an author who quotes so unfairly, and reasons so strangely,
is not to be implicitly trusted, nor his conclusions accepted. He has
adopted the erroneous notion of Baur, the late eminent Professor of
Theology at Tübingen, and other German writers, that the difference
between the Jewish and Christian converts, in reference to
circumcision and other Jewish observances, amounted to a party
contest, which caused Paul and Peter and James to be seriously at
variance. Now we know the facts of the temporary disagreement, and
they certainly do not justify such a conclusion. The hypothesis of
such a Pauline and a Petrine contest needs only to be brought into
contact with the letters of Paul, in which he refers frequently to the
Gentile Churches sending help to the Jewish church at Jerusalem, and
it is at once exploded. He tells the Galatians how it was arranged at
Jerusalem, after the matters in dispute had been discussed, that he
and Barnabas, receiving the right hand of fellowship, should go to the
heathen, and James, Peter, and John to the circumcision; only the
latter stipulated that the poor at Jerusalem were to be remembered,
which Paul says, "I was forward to do." And he instructs the
Corinthians in his first epistle as to their collections on the first
day of the week before he came, that their liberality might be ready
to send to the poor saints at Jerusalem. There is here the very
opposite of such extreme hostile and disgraceful party feeling as must
have existed if John could indulge in such language regarding Paul as
our author attributes to him. There were false men, such as Simon the
sorcerer; false apostles, such as Paul alludes to; and corrupters of
morals, such as the Nicolaitanes; so that there is not the slightest
necessity to think of Paul and his dispute about Jewish rites, to make
the words of the Apocalypse intelligible.
[28] Paul was not living when John wrote the Apocalypse.
Clement's letter, written from Rome to the Corinthians, probably about
the year 94 or 95, supplies us with evidence as to the nature of the
difference between Peter and Paul, as well as proves the epistle to be
genuine. He says, "Do take up the writings of the blessed apostle.
What did he say to you in the beginning of the Gospel? Truly, by
Divine Inspiration, he gave you directions concerning himself and
Peter and Apollos, because even then ye were splitting into parties.
But your party spirit at that time had less evil in it, because it was
exercised in favour of apostles of eminent holiness, and of _one_ much
approved of by them. But now consider _who_ they are that have
subverted you. These are shameful things, brethren, very shameful,
that the ancient and flourishing Church of Corinth have quarrelled
with their pastors, from a weak partiality for one or two persons."
Clement contrasts the eminent holy Peter and Paul and Apollos with the
persons who were subverting them, and the latter were undoubtedly the
sort of false apostles that John alludes to in the Apocalypse. The
evidence of the Second Epistle of Peter is not to be set aside because
our author includes it among the questionable writings of the New
Testament; and Peter there speaks of Paul as "our beloved brother, who
according to the wisdom given him hath written unto you."[29] It is
not convenient for such critics to allow the letter to be genuine, on
account of this very passage. But there is ample proof, from internal
evidence, as shown by Dr. Macnight, Dr. Blackwell, and Dr. A. Clarke,
that it is a genuine letter. What a weak case he must have in hand who
has to resort to such means to defend it!
[29] 2 Pet. iii. 15.
The foregone conclusion that miracles are incredible, hampers all the
investigations of these German scholars, and compels them to resort to
all sorts of conjectures and devices to account for things which, on
the basis of Evangelical views, are neither mysterious nor
inharmonious. If it be true of Germany that her ablest theologians are
now exploding such fallacies, the argument of our author is one, the
force of which is expended, a gun brought into the field of battle
when the fight is nearly over. It may do some damage, but cannot
affect materially the issue of the contest. The outspokenness of the
sceptics has roused the believers, and the result, we cannot doubt,
will be for the furtherance of the gospel.
"The natural and spiritual miracles of the sacred narrative are only
the notes of a higher harmony which resound throughout the discords of
earthly history. To our dull sense indeed they may seem disconnected,
but the more we listen the more we perceive a connected law of higher
euphony, now presaging, and finally bringing about the solution of all
dissonance into an eternal harmony. Surely then a believer may look
down with pity upon the spirit of the age and its declaration, that
the harmony of the Kosmos is destroyed by the miracles of the Bible."
(Beyschlag.)
The "Shepherd of Hermas" is next alluded to, but as it is not
pretended that it contains any quotation from, or reference to, any
passage of the Old or New Testament, it is simply a negative witness
in this case. It is found in the Codex Sinaiticus, after the Epistle
of Barnabas. The following is Mosheim's description of the work: "The
book entitled the 'Shepherd of Hermas' (so called because an angel is
the leading character in the drama) was composed in the second
century, by Hermas, the brother of Pius, the Roman bishop. The writer,
if he was indeed sane, deemed it proper to forge dialogues held with
God and angels, in order to insinuate what he regarded as salutary
truths more effectually into the minds of his readers. But his
celestial spirits talk more insipidly than our scavengers and
porters."
What a contrast between the writings of the New Testament and those
left out of the canon does such a book as this "Shepherd of Hermas"
exhibit! Bunsen thus alludes to it: "That good but dull novel which
Niebuhr used to say he pitied the Athenian Christians for being
obliged to hear read in their meetings." "From the very dawn of
Catholic literature, beginning with 'Hermas the Shepherd,' it had been
the object of the Christian writers to render the Greek and Roman
mind, by degrees, independent of the heathen philosophers, and to
create a Catholic literature and library, more particularly for the
use of children and catechumens."[30]
[30] "Hippolytus and his Age," vol. i., 315.
Failing to distinguish between what was intended to be true, what was
meant to be fiction, and what was fraudulently spurious, theologians
have often been misled, and important doctrines have been thereby
perverted.
CHAPTER III.
_THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS--CONTINUED._
_"I cannot dispense with miracles as historical explanations of
certain indubitable historical facts. I do not find that they make
rents in history, but by their aid alone am I able to get over its
gaping chasms."_
_Rothe._
CHAPTER III.
_THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS--CONTINUED._
THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS--THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP--JUSTIN
MARTYR--HEGESIPPUS--PAPIAS--THE CLEMENTINES--THE EPISTLE TO
DIOGNETUS.
Next our author examines quotations in "the Epistles of Ignatius,"
though he says they really appertain to a very much later period, for
they are "all pronounced, by a _large mass of critics, spurious
compositions_." He suffered martyrdom, it is said, on the 20th December,
A.D. 115, when he was condemned to be cast to wild beasts in the
amphitheatre, not at Rome, but at Antioch, in consequence of the
fanatical excitement produced by the earthquake which took place on
the thirteenth of that month.[31] If any of his fifteen letters, says
our author, could be accepted as genuine, the references to them
might be important. Dr. Mosheim says his whole epistles are extremely
dubious. The shorter of the two version of Ignatius is, however,
generally allowed to be genuine. Tischendorf says "its genuineness is
now generally admitted." In it we find, "What would a man be profited
if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" which of
course is a quotation from Matt. xvi. 26.
[31] While Trajan was on his Parthian expedition, and spent the winter
at Antioch. (See Davidson's "Introduction to the New Testament," p.
370.)
The next document mentioned is the Epistle of Polycarp to the
Philippians, who, Irenæus says, was in his youth a disciple of the
Apostle John. He was Bishop of Smyrna, and ended his life by
martyrdom, A.D. 167. Irenæus knew Polycarp personally. It is said that
the epistle was written before A.D. 120. Our author ascribes it to a
later date, and says that there are potent reasons for considering it
spurious. As, however, Irenæus, Polycarp's disciple, believed it to be
genuine, we shall take the liberty of differing from our author, and
of believing it to be so. The epistle contains the following:
"Remembering what the Lord said, teaching: Judge not, that ye be not
judged; forgive, and it shall be forgiven you; be pitiful, that ye may
be pitied; with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you
again; and that blessed are the poor, and those that are persecuted
for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God." Also:
"Beseeching in our prayers the all-seeing God not to lead us into
temptation, as the Lord said, The spirit indeed is willing, but the
flesh is weak." Also: "If, therefore, we pray the Lord that he may
forgive us, we ought also ourselves to forgive."
Our author demurs to these being quotations from our Gospels, and says
they might have been from orally current accounts of the Sermon on the
Mount, or from many of the records of the teaching of Jesus in
circulation.
Hegisippus is the next early writer referred to. He made use of the
"Gospel according to the Hebrews." Jerome says (confirming Eusebius)
"that the Gospel according to the Hebrews is written in the Chaldaic
and Syriac (Syro-Chaldaic) language, but with Hebrew characters."
We have, says our author, direct intimation that Hegesippus made use
of the Gospel according to the Hebrews. "He was one of the
contemporaries of Justin--a Palestinian Jewish Christian. In order to
make himself thoroughly acquainted with the state of the Church, he
travelled widely, and came to Rome when Anicitus was bishop.
_Subsequently he wrote a work of historical memoirs in five books_,
and thus became the first ecclesiastical historian of Christianity.
This _work is lost_, but _portions have been preserved by Eusebius_,
and one other fragment is _also extant_." It must have been written
after the succession of Eleutherius to the Roman bishopric (A.D.
177-193), as that event is mentioned in the book.
"The testimony of Hegesippus is of _great value_, not only as a man
born near the primitive Christian tradition, but also as that of an
intelligent traveller amongst many Christian communities" (p. 430).
Hegesippus says, in the fifth book of his Memoirs, that "these words
('Good things prepared for the righteous neither eye hath seen nor ear
heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man,' from 1 Cor. ii.
9) are vainly spoken, and that those who say these things give the lie
to the Divine writings and to the Lord saying, 'Blessed are your eyes
that see, and your ears that hear,'" &c. This fragment is preserved by
Stephanus Gobarus, a learned monophysite of the sixth century.
"Nothing is more certain," says our author, "than the fact that, in
spite of the opportunities for collecting information afforded him by
his travels through so many Christian communities, for the express
purpose of such inquiry, Hegesippus _did not_ find any New Testament
Canon, or, that such a rule of faith did not exist in Rome in A.D. 160
and 170."
I ask, _How in the world can our author be certain of this, when only
portions of Hegesippus are extant?_ This applies generally to his
argument that the _silence_ of the early writers is of "as much
importance as their supposed allusions to the Gospels." Such a mode of
reasoning is aptly commented upon by the Rev. Kentish Bache, in his
letter to Dr. Davidson on the Fourth Gospel. He says: "When but small
portions of a work have been preserved to our use, it is no wonder
that these portions should make no mention of many circumstances
interesting and important, which the writer must certainly have known
and told of. If I tear a few leaves from the middle of my English
History book, I shall find on _them_ (the few leaves) no record of the
Norman Conquest or of the Battle of Waterloo. Would it thence be a
fair conclusion that these events are unhistorical and fictitious?"
Papias is next referred to. He was Bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia,
in the first half of the second century, and is said to have suffered
martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius, about A.D. 160-167. About the middle
of the second century he wrote a work in five books, called,
"Exposition of the Lord's Oracles," which is lost, excepting a few
fragments preserved by Eusebius and Irenæus. We have the preface to
his book, which states: "I shall not hesitate to set beside my
interpretations all that I rightly learnt from the Presbyters, and
rightly remembered, earnestly testifying to its truth. For I have not,
like the multitude, delighted in those who spoke much, but in those
who taught the truth; nor in those who recorded alien commandments,
but in those who recall those delivered by the Lord to faith, and
which come from truth itself. If it happened that any one came who had
followed the Presbyters, I inquired minutely after the words of the
Presbyters--what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip or what
Thomas or James, or what John or Matthew, or what any other of the
disciples of the Lord, and what Aristion and the Presbyter John, the
disciples of the Lord, say; for I held that what was to be derived
from books was not so profitable as that from the living and abiding
voice." "It is clear (says our author) from this that even if Papias
knew any of our Gospels, he attached little or no value to them, and
that he knew absolutely nothing of the Canonical Scriptures of the New
Testament" (p. 445).
I remark that it is far from clear that he attached no value to our
Gospels from anything he says in the fragments extant, and of course
we know nothing of those portions that are lost. We know that he was
making a book, consisting of what he could gather from tradition about
"the truth," "to set beside his interpretations" about the
"commandments delivered by the Lord to faith." There were Gospel
writings in circulation, and he was supplementing what they recorded.
There is positively no evidence to make us think that our present
Gospels were unknown to him. He does not, in the fragments we have,
mention Paul's writings, nor the Gospel of Luke, nor the Fourth
Gospel, but he does allude to a book by Matthew and another by Mark,
and Eusebius tells us that Papias makes use of passages taken from
Peter's first epistle and John's first epistle. So, on the whole, the
testimony of Papias, instead of being against is in favour of the
Synoptics, and also of the Fourth Gospel; for the silence inference
applies no more to it than it does to Paul and Luke's writings, and
the statement of Eusebius about John's Epistle is not to be set aside,
for if John wrote it, it will be allowed he wrote the Gospel. His
evidence respecting Mark is important, for the fragments contain a
statement that "Mark recorded what fell from Peter, writing
accurately, and taking especial care neither to omit nor to
misrepresent anything;" and Papias says that "Peter preached with a
view to the benefit of his hearers, and not to give a history of
Christ's discourses." Our author's inference is that it is some other
person of the name of Mark that is connected with the Second Gospel,
and not the Mark that Papias refers to. This is very far-fetched and
improbable, for the description tallies well with our Second Gospel,
and quite admits of the supposition that Mark had every opportunity of
obtaining from eye-witnesses the historical materials of his Gospel.
No one supposes that every statement in the book emanated from Peter's
discourses.
Papias is the only early writer that our author acknowledges furnishes
any evidence in favour of the Synoptic Gospels. He cannot deny that
he records that Matthew composed discourses of the Lord in the Hebrew
tongue, but he says "_that totally excludes the claim of our Greek
Gospel to apostolic origin_." The boldness of this assertion can only
be properly met by an equally explicit denial that it does anything of
the kind. If the translation be a faithful one from a Hebrew version,
it is of course entitled to the epithet apostolic if the original
possessed it. Our author must have some peculiar notions about verbal
inspiration if this be the rule he lays down. But he altogether
overlooks the supposition that Matthew's Gospel was not originally
written in Hebrew, notwithstanding this statement of Papias.
Tischendorf, in his book issued by the Tract Society, entitled, "When
were our Gospels Written?" maintains that the assertion of Papias
"rests on a misunderstanding," and he briefly states his reasons for
this view. He says: "This Hebrew text must have been lost very early,
for not one even of the very oldest Church fathers had ever seen or
used it." "There were two parties among the Judaisers--the one the
Nazarenes and the other the Ebionites. Each of these parties used a
gospel according to Matthew, the one party using a Greek and the other
party a Hebrew text. That they did not scruple to tamper with the
text, to suit their creed, is probable from their very sectarian
spirit. The text, as we have certain means of proving, rested upon our
received text of Matthew, with, however, occasional departures, to
suit their arbitrary views. When then it was reported, in later times,
that these Nazarenes, who were one of the earliest Christian sects,
possessed a Hebrew version of Matthew, what was more natural than that
some person or other, thus falling in with the pretensions of this
sect, should say that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, and
that the Greek was only a version from it? How far these two texts
differed from each other no one cared to inquire; and with such
separatists who withdrew themselves to the shores of the Dead Sea, it
would not have been easy to have attempted it."
"Jerome, who knew Hebrew, as other Latin and Greek fathers did not,
obtained in the fourth century a copy of this Hebrew Gospel of the
Nazarenes, and at once asserted that he had found the original. But
when he looked more closely into the matter, he confined himself to
the statement that many supposed this Hebrew text was the original of
Matthew's Gospel. He translated it into Latin and Greek, and added a
few observations of his own on it. From these observations of Jerome,
as well as from other fragments, we must conclude that this notion of
Papias cannot be substantiated; but, on the contrary, this Hebrew has
been drawn from the Greek text, and disfigured moreover here and there
with certain arbitrary changes. The same is applicable to a Greek text
of the Hebrew Gospel in use among the Ebionites. This text, from the
fact that it was in Greek, was better known to the Church than the
Hebrew version of the Nazarenes; but it was always regarded, from the
earliest times, as only another text of Matthew's Gospel."
The references to Justin Martyr occupy nearly one hundred and fifty
pages of the work. He was one of the most learned and one of the
earliest writers of the Church not long after the apostles. His
conversion took place about the year 132, and his martyrdom, A.D. 165.
In his second "Apology," A.D. 139, and in his Dialogue with Tryphon
the Jew, are many quotations of passages found in the Gospels. He
quotes from all the four Evangelists, and our author's elaborate
attempt to prove the contrary is certainly not successful. His
objection, based on slight discrepancies in the words while the sense
is identical, is frivolous in the extreme. Supposing there were in
Justin's hands a primitive work which supplied the passages, and that
work was embodied in the canonical compilation, they can be truthfully
said to be quotations from the latter. The objection to his quotations
on the grounds that they are not verbatim, is neutralized by the fact
that neither are his quotations from the Old Testament always exact.
It has been shown that "if Justin did not quote from our Gospels,
there must have been in his hands, in the second century, a variety of
accounts of Christ's life, to which he, a leading Christian apologist,
attached the greatest importance; and yet, in the course of the few
following years, those accounts must have disappeared, and four
others, of which this eminent Christian apologist knew nothing, must
have taken their place. This would have been what Canon Westcott
justly calls a 'revolution,' for it would have, in a single
generation, entirely changed the records of the life of Christ
publicly used by the Christians."[32]
[32] "Literary World," Oct. 23, 1874.
Justin quotes from a book entitled the "Memoirs," which he says "are
called Gospels," and our author tries to make out that the passage
quoted is an interpolation. It is not the only instance where the
"wish," and not the proof, "is father to the thought."
In Justin's work, the "Apology," occur the words, "And thou shalt call
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins;" which
are found in the apocryphal Gospel of James, as said to the Virgin
Mary, while in Matthew's Gospel they are spoken to Joseph. It is urged
that Justin must, therefore, have quoted them from a lost Gospel; but
why should it be supposed so when they are in the apocryphal Gospel of
James, which, Origen says, was everywhere known about the end of the
second century, and which, there is good ground for believing, was
written in the early part of that century?
A few other passages in Justin's work, which are not found in our
Gospels, may be accounted for by supposing them to be quotations
either from lost Gospels, genuine or apocryphal, or tradition may have
supplied them. There is no certain inference to be arrived at.
Justin tells us in his first "Apology" (A.D. 139), that the memoirs of
the apostles called evangels were read _after the prophets_ every
_Lord's Day_ in the assemblies of the Christians.
This must have reference to the writings which alone, a few years
later, were universally known as the Four Gospels, or the Acts of the
Apostles.
The second volume of the work opens with an examination of "the
evidence furnished by the apocryphal religious romance generally known
by the name of 'The Clementines,'" which includes the Homilies, the
Recognitions, and a so-called Epitome--the Homilies and Recognitions
being, he says, "the one merely a version of the other," and the
Epitome a blending of the other two. As there are in the Clementine
Homilies upwards of a hundred quotations of expressions of Jesus, or
references to His history (not less than fifty passages from the
Sermon on the Mount), it is important to ascertain, if possible, when
they were written, and from what writings they quote. The date cannot
be determined. The range of probability is from the middle of the
second century. If much later, the inquiry does not amount to much,
because we know, from ample evidence, such as that of Irenæus, that
the Four Gospels as we have them were in existence, and read in the
Churches, in the middle of the second century. We presume, therefore,
our author takes an early date for granted, or he would not have
occupied forty pages in their examination.
The first quotation which, he says, agrees with a passage in our
Synoptics, occurs in the third Homily, p. 52: "And he cried, saying,
Come unto me all ye that are weary;" which agrees with Matt. xi. 28.
Because the quotation is not continued, but the following words are an
explanation of what "Come unto me," &c., means--"that is, who are
seeking truth, and not finding it,"--we are to deem it "evident that
so short and fragmentary a phrase cannot prove anything." I exclaim,
Indeed! Not in a book that contains a hundred references to the words
of Jesus! Not, considering that they are especially the words of
Jesus, that no one else so said to the weary, "Come unto me!" Most
readers will surely think the contrary should be inferred!
Among the quotations are words resembling the text of Matthew xxv.
26-30: "Thou wicked and slothful servant: thou oughtest to have put
out my money with the exchangers, and at my coming I should have
exacted mine own."[33] If this were the only reference to the Gospels
as we have them, the quotation is sufficiently near to make the
inference certain that such writings, in some shape, must have been in
existence when the Clementine Homilies were written. This our author
acknowledges, but he says (vol. ii. p. 17): "If the variations were
the exception among a mass of quotations perfectly agreeing with the
parallels in our Gospels, it might be exaggeration to base upon such
divergences a conclusion that they were derived from a different
source. The variations being the rule, instead of the exception,
these, _however slight_, become evidence of the use of a different
Gospel from ours."[34]
[33] "Hom." iii. 61.
[34] "The 'Recognitions of Clemens,' which differ little from
Clementina, are the witty and agreeable productions of an Alexandrian
Jew, well versed in philosophy, written in the third century."--_Dr.
Mosheim._
I remark, supposing this be so, that the author of these Homilies had,
in the year 160, other Gospel manuscripts before him, it is not
pretended that our Gospels contain all that was known of the sayings
of Jesus, and all the events of His public ministry. We are told in
the Fourth Gospel: "There are also many other things which Jesus did,
the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even
the world itself could not contain the books that should be
written."[35] If the author of the Fourth Gospel did not include many
things which he knew had been previously written about, why should we
be surprised to find the authors of the Synoptic Gospels record only
portions?
[35] John xx. 25.
We know that Paul wrote an epistle to the Church at Laodicea, which is
not preserved to us. We hold that Paul was as much an inspired writer
as any of the apostles, and instead of making all sorts of
difficulties about the books we have, we ought to be grateful that
they are extant. We read in Paul's Epistle to the Colossians, iv. 16:
"And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also
in the Church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle
from Laodicea."
I wonder whether our author has an objection to the genuineness of the
Epistle to the Colossians, because Epictetus, who was born at
Hierapolis about A.D. 50, which was within a few miles of Colosse and
Laodicea, and who would be likely to know, at that time, what was
there going on, does not refer to Paul and the Churches there?
But it is useless to disprove the assertion that there are no
quotations from the Gospels, for we are met at every turn with the
objection that those specified are probably quotations from the
numerous lost Gospels known to have been in circulation. He says: "The
great mass of intelligent critics are agreed that our Synoptics have
assumed their present form only after repeated modifications by
various editors of earlier evangelical works. The primitive Gospels
have entirely disappeared, supplanted by the later and more amplified
versions (p. 459). The first two Synoptics bear no author's name,
because they are not the work of any one man, but the collected
materials of many. The third only pretends to be a compilation for
private use, and the fourth bears no simple signature, because it is
neither the work of an apostle nor of an eye-witness of the events it
records" (p. 401). I remark, if Luke's Gospel does only pretend to be
for private use, does that affect its value? If Matthew wrote at all,
and our author acknowledges he did in Hebrew, his work would be likely
to be translated into Greek, either by himself or some one else, and
many copies circulated. Supposing the original in Hebrew to be lost,
it is not probable the Greek copies could be all collected from
various places, and all altered and supplemented. How could any one
do this? He might write and issue a new version, but he could _not_
suppress the original one unless all the existing copies were under
his own control. As we have a certain work preserved, and no other,
pretending to be Matthew's, it is highly probable that what Matthew
contributed to the Church is that Gospel. A fictitious one would be
less likely to be preserved than a real one, though we are asked to
believe the contrary. Our author suggests that if we had the original
writings we should find them minus the miracles, which is altogether
inconsistent with what he has said about the prevalence of miraculous
notions among the Jews at the time. At any rate, if the books in
circulation did not relate miracles, they would not be in harmony with
the gospel preached by Paul, and believed by the first Christians.
Supposing that there were, as Luke intimates, and as our author
asserts, many original writings, what more likely than that Matthew
should collect some of them, and embody them, with his own record, in
one book, under his own name? It is quite true that we meet with
references to apostolic writings under other titles than those in the
New Testament: we read of,--
"The Gospel according to the Hebrews."
"The Gospel according to the Egyptians."
"The Memoirs of the Apostles."
"The Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew."
"The Gospel of the Lord."
"The Discourses of Peter."
"The Collection of Discourses."
Although we do not know how these were embodied in our New Testament
Scriptures, it is probable that they were in some way included, or the
copies of the present Gospels may not all have uniformly borne the
same titles as we know them by. In our day it is not usual for an
author's name to appear in the body of his work, and often a
title-page gives more than one title.[36] How few persons can give the
exact title of the book known as "Butler's Analogy." The value of a
book does not depend essentially upon the person who wrote it. We do
not know who wrote the Book of Job, many of the Psalms, the Epistle to
the Hebrews, and other portions of the Bible, but it would be unwise
to reject their teaching on that account.
[36] "The 'Recognitions' are conveyed to us by the ancients under
different titles. They are sometimes styled 'St. Clemens's Acts,'
'History Chronicle;' sometimes 'St. Peter's Acts,' 'Itinerary
Periods,' 'Dialogues with Apion,' all which are unquestionably but
different inscriptions, or it may be parcels, of the same book."--_Dr.
Cave's_ "Apostalici," p. 58.
Our author says: "No reason whatever has been shown for accepting the
testimony of these Gospels as sufficient to establish the reality of
miracles" (p. 249). I remark, the question is, Do they show such
_in_sufficient testimony as to warrant the conclusion that the general
evidence based on a great variety of proofs is not to be accepted?
The Epistle to Diognetus is a short composition, which has been
ascribed to Justin Martyr, but its authorship is uncertain, and the
date of its composition. It is not quoted or mentioned by any ancient
writer. The two concluding chapters are supposed to have been written
by a different hand. To the first quarter of the second half to the
end of that century the date is variously assigned. It is written in
pure Greek, and is elegant in style. Bunsen, in his valuable book,
"Hippolytus and his Age," asserts that "the epistle is certainly the
work of a contemporary of Justin the Martyr;" that he believes he has
proved that the first part is a portion of the lost early Letter of
Marcion, of which Tertullian speaks; and that "the very beautiful and
justly admired second fragment, which in our editions of Justin's
works is given at the end of that Patristic gem, the Epistle to
Diognetus,"[37] does not belong to that letter, but is the conclusion
of the great work, in ten books, by Hippolytus, "The Refutation of all
Heresies." Our author, in the eighteen pages devoted to the Epistle to
Diognetus, says nothing of this, although it is both important and
interesting. He says the supposed allusions in the Fourth Gospel may
be all referable to Paul's epistles, that the date and author are
unknown, and that the letter is of no evidential value. His two brief
allusions to Bunsen's work show that the ignoring of that eminent
man's opinion was not unintentional; while the absence of any
reference to Bunsen's elaborate proof that Hippolytus wrote the
"Refutation," is also significant.
[37] "Hippolytus and his Age," vol. i. 187.
CHAPTER IV.