Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net
[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been relocated to the end of the
text. Footnote anchors have been labeled with the original page and
footnote numbers.]
THE LOST GOSPEL AND ITS CONTENTS;
OR,
THE AUTHOR OF "SUPERNATURAL RELIGION" REFUTED BY HIMSELF.
BY THE REV. M.F. SADLER, M.A.,
RECTOR OF HONITON.
LONDON:
GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
1876.
PREFACE.
This book is entitled "The Lost Gospel" because the book to which it is
an answer is an attempt to discredit the Supernatural element of
Christianity by undermining the authority of our present Gospels in
favour of an earlier form of the narrative which has perished.
It seemed to me that, if the author of "Supernatural Religion" proved
his point, and demonstrated that the Fathers of the Second Century
quoted Gospels earlier than those which we now possess, then the
evidence for the Supernatural itself, considered as apart from the
particular books in which the records of it are contained, would be
strengthened; if, that is, it could be shown that this earlier form of
the narrative contained the same Supernatural Story.
The author of "Supernatural Religion," whilst he has utterly failed to
show that the Fathers in question have used earlier Gospels, has, to my
mind, proved to demonstration that, if they have quoted earlier
narratives, those accounts contain, not only substantially, but in
detail, the same Gospel which we now possess, and in a form rather more
suggestive of the Supernatural. So that, if he has been successful, the
author has only succeeded in proving that the Gospel narrative itself,
in a written form, is at least fifty or sixty years older than the books
which he attempts to discredit.
With respect to Justin Martyr, to the bearing of whose writings on this
subject I have devoted the greater part of my book, I can only say that,
in my examination of his works, my bias was with the author of
"Supernatural Religion." I had hitherto believed that this Father, being
a native of Palestine, and living so near to the time of the Apostles,
was acquainted with views of certain great truths which he had derived
from traditions of the oral teaching of the Apostles, and the possession
of which made him in some measure an independent witness for the views
in question; but I confess that, on a closer examination of his
writings, I was somewhat disappointed, for I found that he had no
knowledge of our Lord and of His teaching worth speaking of, except
what he might be fairly assumed to have derived from our present
New Testament.
I have to acknowledge my obligations to Messrs. Clark, of Edinburgh, for
allowing me to make somewhat copious extracts from the writings of
Justin in their ante-Nicene Library. This has saved a Parish Priest like
myself much time and trouble. I believe that in all cases of importance
in which I have altered the translation, or felt that there was a doubt,
I have given the original from Otto's edition (Jena, 1842).
CONTENTS.
PAGE
SECTION I.--Introductory 1
SECTION II.--The Way Cleared 5
SECTION III.--The Principal Witness--His Religious
Views 9
SECTION IV.--The Principal Witness--The Sources of
his Knowledge respecting the Birth of Christ 19
SECTION V.--The Principal Witness--His Testimony
respecting the Baptism of Christ 29
SECTION VI.--The Principal Witness--His Testimony
respecting the Death of Christ 33
SECTION VII.--The Principal Witness--His Testimony
respecting the Moral Teaching of our Lord 40
SECTION VIII.--The Principal Witness--His Testimony
to St. John 45
SECTION IX.--The Principal Witness--His Further
Testimony to St. John 53
SECTION X.--The Principal Witness--His Testimony
summed up 60
SECTION XI.--The Principal Witness on our Lord's
Godhead 65
SECTION XII.--The Principal Witness on the Doctrine
of the Logos 73
SECTION XIII.--The Principal Witness on our Lord as
King, Priest, and Angel 80
SECTION XIV.--The Principal Witness on the Doctrine
of the Trinity 85
SECTION XV.--Justin and St. John on the Incarnation 88
SECTION XVI.--Justin and St. John on the Subordination
of the Son 93
SECTION XVII.--Justin and Philo 98
SECTION XVIII.--Discrepancies between St. John and the
Synoptics 104
SECTION XIX.--External Proofs of the Authenticity
of our Four Gospels 118
Note on Section XIX.--Testimonies of Irenaeus, Clement
of Alexandria, and Tertullian to the use of
the Four Gospels in their day 136
SECTION XX.--The Evidence for Miracles 149
SECTION XXI.--Objections to Miracles 162
SECTION XXII.--Jewish Credulity 167
SECTION XXIII.--Demoniacal Possession 173
SECTION XXIV.--Competent Witnesses 179
SECTION XXV.--Date of Testimony 185
THE LOST GOSPEL.
SECTION I.
INTRODUCTORY.
In the following pages I have examined the conclusions at which the
author of a book entitled "Supernatural Religion" has assumed to have
arrived.
The method and contents of the work in question may be thus described.
The work is entitled "Supernatural Religion, an Inquiry into the Reality
of Divine Revelation." Its contents occupy two volumes of about 500
pages each, so that we have in it an elaborate attack upon Christianity
of very considerable length. The first 200 pages of the first volume are
filled with arguments to prove that a Revelation, such as the one we
profess to believe in, supernatural in its origin and nature and
attested by miracles, is simply incredible, and so, on no account, no
matter how evidenced, to be received.
But, inasmuch as the author has to face the fact, that the Christian
Religion professes to be attested by miracles performed at a very late
period in the history of the world, and said to have been witnessed by
very large numbers of persons, and related very fully in certain books
called the Canonical Gospels, which the whole body of Christians have,
from a very early period indeed, received as written by eye-witnesses,
or by the companions of eye-witnesses, the remaining 800 pages are
occupied with attempts at disparaging the testimony of these writings.
In order to this, the Christian Fathers and heretical writers of a
certain period are examined, to ascertain whether they quoted the four
Evangelists. The period from which the writer chooses his witnesses to
the use of the four Evangelists, is most unwarrantably and arbitrarily
restricted to the first ninety years of the second century (100-185 or
so). We shall have ample means for showing that this limitation was for
a purpose.
The array of witnesses examined runs thus: Clement of Rome, Barnabas,
Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Hegesippus, Papias of
Hierapolis, the Clementines, the Epistle to Diognetus, Basilides,
Valentinus, Marcion, Tatian, Dionysius of Corinth, Melito of Sardis,
Claudius Apollinaris, Athenagoras, Epistle of Vienne and Lyons,
Ptolemaeus and Heracleon, Celsus and the Canon of Muratori.
The examination of references, or supposed references, in these books to
the first three Gospels fills above 500 pages, and the remainder (about
220) is occupied with an examination of the claims of the fourth Gospel
to be considered as canonical.
The writer conducts this examination with an avowed dogmatical bias; and
this, as the reader will soon see, influences the manner of his
examination throughout the whole book. For instance, he never fails to
give to the anti-Christian side the benefit of every doubt, or even
suspicion. This leads him to make the most of the smallest discrepancy
between the words of any supposed quotation in any early writer from one
of our Canonical Gospels, and the words as contained in our present
Gospels. If the writer quotes the Evangelist freely, with some
differences, however slight, in the words, he is assumed to quote from a
lost Apocryphal Gospel. If the writer gives the words as we find them in
our Gospels, he attempts to show that the father or heretic need not
have even seen our present Gospels; for, inasmuch as our present Gospels
have many things in common which are derived from an earlier source, the
quoter may have derived the words he quotes from the earlier source. If
the quoter actually mentions the name of the Evangelist whose Gospel he
refers to (say St. Mark), it is roundly asserted that his St. Mark is
not the same as ours. [Endnote 3:1]
The reader may ask, "How is it possible, against such a mode of
argument, to prove the genuineness or authenticity of any book, sacred
or profane?" And, of course, it is not. Such a way of conducting a
controversy seems absurd, but on the author's premises it is a
necessity. He asserts the dogma that the Governor of the world cannot
interfere by way of miracle. He has to meet the fact that the foremost
religion of the world appeals to miracles, especially the miracle of the
Resurrection of the Founder. For the truth of this miraculous
Resurrection there is at least a thousand times more evidence than there
is for any historical fact which is recorded to have occurred 1,800
years ago. Of course, if the supernatural in Christianity is impossible,
and so incredible, all the witnesses to it must be discredited; and
their number, their age, and their unanimity upon the principal points
are such that the mere attempt must tax the powers of human labour and
ingenuity to the uttermost.
How, then, is such a book to be met? It would take a work of twice the
size to rebut all the assertions of the author, for, naturally, an
answer to any assertion must take up more space than the assertion.
Fortunately, in this case, we are not driven to any such course; for, as
I shall show over and over again, the author has furnished us with the
most ample means for his own refutation. No book that I have over read
or heard of contains so much which can be met by implication from the
pages of the author himself, nor can I imagine any book of such
pretensions pervaded with so entire a misconception of the conditions of
the problem on which he is writing.
These assertions I shall now, God helping, proceed to make good.