DATE OF TESTIMONY.
One point remains--the time to which the testimony to our Lord's
miracles reaches back. Can it be reasonably said to reach to within
fifty years of His Death, or to within twenty, or even nearer?
The author of "Supernatural Religion" asserts that it was not
contemporaneous or anything like it. In fact, one might infer from his
book that the miracles of Christ were not heard of till say a century,
or three quarters of a century, after His time, for he says, "they were
never heard of out of Palestine until long after the events are said to
have occurred." [185:1] (P. 192.)
In such a case, "long after" is very indefinite. It may be a century, or
three quarters of a century, or perhaps half a century. It cannot be
less, for every generation contains a considerable number of persons
whose memories reach back for forty or fifty years. In a place of 3,000
inhabitants, in which I am now writing, there are above fifty persons
who can perfectly remember all that took place in 1830. There are some
whose memories reach to twenty years earlier. Now let the reader try and
imagine, if he can, the possibility of ascribing a number of remarkable
acts--we will not say miraculous ones--to some one who died in 1830, and
assuming also that these events were the basis of a society which had
commenced with his death, and was now making way, and that the chief
design of the society was to make known or keep up the memory of these
events, and that there had been a literature written between the present
time and the time of the said man's death, every line of which had been
written on the assumption that the events in question were true, and yet
these events had never really taken place. We must also suppose that the
person upon whom these acts are attempted to be fastened was regarded
with intense dislike by the great majority of his contemporaries, who
did all they could to ruin him when alive, and blacken his memory after
he had died, and who looked with especial dislike on the idea that he
was supposed to have done the acts in question. Let the reader, I say,
try and imagine all this, and he will see that, in the case of our Lord,
the author's "long after" must be sixty or seventy years at the least;
more likely a hundred.
Let us now summon another witness to the supernatural, whose testimony
we promised to consider, and this shall be Clement of Rome--the earliest
author to whom it has suited the purpose of the author of "Supernatural
Religion" to refer.
If we are to rely upon the almost universal consent of ancient authors
rather than the mere conjectures of modern critics, he is the person
alluded to by St. Paul in the words, "With Clement also, and with other
my fellow labourers, whose names are written in the book of life."
(Phil. iv. 3.)
Of this man Eusebius writes:--
"In the twelfth year of the same reign (Domitian's), after Anecletus
had been bishop of Rome twelve years, he was succeeded by Clement,
whom the Apostle, in his Epistle to the Philippians, shows had been
his fellow-labourer in these words: 'With Clement also and the rest
of my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life.' Of
this Clement there is one Epistle extant, acknowledged as genuine,
of considerable length and of great merit, which he wrote in the
name of the Church at Rome, to that of Corinth, at the time when
there was a dissension in the latter. This we know to have been
publicly read for common benefit, in most of the Churches both in
former times and in our own." (Eccles. Hist. B. III. xv. xvi.)
Origen confirms this. Clement of Alexandria reproduces several pages
from his Epistle, calling him "The Apostle Clement," [187:1] and
Irenaeus speaks of him as the companion of the Apostles:--
"This man, as he had seen the blessed Apostles and been conversant
with them, might be said to have the preaching of the Apostles still
echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes." (Bk.
III. ch. iii. 3)
Irenaeus, it is to be remembered, died at the end of the second century,
and his birth is placed within the first quarter of it, so that, in all
probability, he had known numbers of Christians who had conversed with
Clement.
According to the author of "Supernatural Religion," the great mass of
critics assign the Epistle of Clement to between the years A.D. 95-100.
In dealing with this Epistle I shall, for argument's sake, assume that
Clement quoted from an earlier Gospel than any one of our present ones,
and that the one he quoted might be the Gospel according to the Hebrews,
and I shall ask the same question that I asked respecting Justin
Martyr--What views of Christ's Person and work and doctrine did he
derive from this Gospel of his?
The Epistle of Clement is one in which we should scarcely expect to find
much reference to the Supernatural, for it is written throughout for the
one practical purpose of healing the divisions in the Church of Corinth.
These the writer ascribes to envy, and cites a number of Scripture
examples of the evil effects of this disposition and the good effects of
the contrary one. He adheres to this purpose throughout, and every word
he writes bears more or less directly on his subject. Yet in this
document, from which, by its design, the subject of the supernatural
seems excluded, we have all the leading features of supernatural
Christianity. We have the Father sending the Son (ch. xlii.); we have
the Son coming of the seed of Jacob according to the Flesh (ch. xxxii.);
we have the words, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sceptre of the Majesty of
God, did not come in the pomp of pride and arrogance, although He might
have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared
regarding Him" (ch. xvi.); and at the end of the same we have:--
"If the Lord thus humbled Himself, what shall we do who have through
Him come under the yoke of His grace?"
Clement describes Him in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews as
One--
"Who, being the brightness of His [God's] Majesty, is by so much
greater than the angels as He hath by inheritance obtained a more
excellent name than they." (Ch. xxxvi.)
We have Clement speaking continually of the Death of Jesus as taking
place for the highest of supernatural purposes,--the reconciliation of
all men to God. "Let us look," he writes, "steadfastly to the Blood of
Christ, and see how precious that Blood is to God, which, having been
shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole
world." (Ch. vii.) Again, "And thus they made it manifest that
Redemption should flow through the Blood of the Lord to all them that
believe and hope in God." (Ch. xii.) Again, "On account of the love He
bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His Blood for us by the will of God,
His Flesh for our flesh, and His Soul for our souls." (Ch. xlix.) His
sufferings are apparently said by Clement to be the sufferings of God.
(Ch. ii.) But, above all, the statement of the truth of our Lord's
Resurrection, and of ours through His, is as explicit as possible:--
"Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord continually proves to us
that there shall be a future resurrection, of which He has rendered
the Lord Jesus the first fruits by raising Him from the dead." (Ch.
xxiv.)
"[The Apostles] having therefore received their orders, and being
fully assured by the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
established in the Word of God, with full assurance of the Holy
Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at
hand." (Ch. xlii.)
When we look to Clement's theology, we find it to have been what would
now be called, in the truest and best sense of the word, "Evangelical,"
thus:--
"We too, being called by His Will in Christ Jesus, are not justified
by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness,
or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that
faith through which from the beginning Almighty God has justified
all men." (Ch. xxxii.)
Again:--
"All these the Great Creator and Lord of all has appointed to exist
in peace and harmony; while He does good to all, but most abundantly
to us who have fled for refuge to His compassion through Jesus
Christ our Lord."
And he ends his Epistle with the following prayer:--
"May God, who seeth all things, and Who is the Ruler of all Spirits
and the Lord of all Flesh--Who chose our Lord Jesus, and us through
Him to be a peculiar people--grant to every soul that calleth upon
His glorious and holy Name, faith, fear, peace, patience, long
suffering, self-control, purity and sobriety, to the well pleasing
of His Name through our High Priest and Protector Jesus Christ."
(Ch. lviii.)
But with all this his Christianity seems to have been Ecclesiastical, in
the technical sense of the word. He seems to have had a much clearer and
firmer hold than Justin had of the truth that Christ instituted, not
merely a philosophy or system of teaching, but a mystical body or
visible Church, having its gradations of officers corresponding to the
officers of the Jewish Ecclesiastical system, and its orderly
arrangements of worship. (Ch. xl-xlii.)
Now this is the Christianity of a man who lived at least sixty or
seventy years nearer to the fountain head of Christian truth than did
Justin Martyr, whose witness to dogmatical or supernatural Christianity
we have shown at some length.
It is also gathered out of a comparatively short book, not one sixth of
the length of the writings of Justin, and composed solely for an
undogmatic purpose.
His views of Christ and His work are precisely the same as those of
Justin. By all rule of rationalistic analogy they ought to have been
less "ecclesiastical," but in some respects they are more so.
Clement certainly seems to bring out more fully our Lord's Resurrection
(taking into consideration, that is, the scope of his one remaining book
and its brevity), and the Resurrection of Christ is the crowning miracle
which stamps the whole dispensation as supernatural.
So far, then, as the Supernatural is concerned, it makes no difference
whatsoever whether Clement used the Gospel according to St. Matthew or
the Gospel according to the Hebrews. His Gospel, whatever it was, not
only filled his heart with an intense and absorbing love of Christ, and
a desire that all men should imitate Him, but it filled his mind with
that view of the religion of Christ which we call supernatural and
evangelical, but which the author of "Supernatural Religion" calls
ecclesiastical.
The question now arises, not so much from whom, but when, did he receive
this view of Christ and His system. I do not mean, of course, the more
minute features, but the substance. To what period must his
reminiscences as a Christian extend? What time must his experiences
cover? Irenaeus, in the place I have quoted, speaks of him as the
companion of Apostles, Clement of Alexandria as an Apostle, Eusebius and
Origen as the fellow-labourer of St. Paul. Now, I will not at present
insist upon the more than likelihood that such was the fact. I will, for
argument's sake, assume that he was some other Clement; but, whoever he
was, one thing respecting him is certain--that the knowledge of
Christianity was not poured into him at the moment when he wrote his
Epistle, nor did he receive it ten--twenty--thirty years before. St.
Peter and St. Paul were martyred in A.D. 68; the rest of the Apostolic
College were dispersed long before. This Epistle shows little or no
trace of the peculiar Johannean teaching or tradition of the Apostle who
survived all the others; so, unless he had received his Christian
teaching some years before the Martyrdom of the two Apostles Peter and
Paul, that is, some time before A.D. 68, probably many years, I do not
see that there can have been the smallest ground even for the tradition
of the very next generation after his own that he knew the Apostles.
Such a tradition could not possibly have been connected with the name of
a man who became a Christian late in the century.
Now, supposing that he was sixty-five years old when he wrote his
Epistle, he was born about the time of our Lord's Death: he was
consequently a contemporary of the generation that had witnessed the
Death and Resurrection of Christ and the founding of the Church. If he
had ever been in Jerusalem before its destruction, he must have fallen
in with multitudes of surviving Christians of the 5,000 who were
converted on and just after the day of Pentecost.
His Christian reminiscences, then, must have extended far into the age
of the contemporaries of Christ. A man who was twenty-five years old at
the time of the Resurrection of Christ would scarcely be reckoned an old
man at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Clement consequently
might have spent twenty of the best years of his life in the company of
persons who were old enough to have seen the Lord in the Flesh. [193:1]
So that his knowledge of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, and the
founding of the Church, even if he had never seen St. Paul or any other
Apostle, must have been derived from a generation of men, all the older
members of which wore Christians of the Pentecostal period.
Now when we come to compare the Epistle of Clement with the only
remaining Christian literature of the earliest period, _i.e._ the
earlier Epistles of St. Paul, we find both the account of Christ and the
Theology built upon that account, to be the same in the one and in the
other.
The supernatural fact respecting Christ to which the earliest Epistles
of St. Paul most prominently refer, was His Resurrection as the pledge
of ours, and this is the fact respecting Christ which is put most
prominently forward by Clement, and for the same purpose. The First
Epistle to the Corinthians is referred to by Clement in the words:--
"Take up the Epistle of the Blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write
to you at the time when the Gospel first began to be preached?
Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit ([Greek: pneumatikôs]) he
wrote to you concerning himself and Cephas and Apollos, because even
then parties had been formed among you." (Ch. xlvii.)
The other reproductions of the language of St. Paul's Epistles are
numerous, and I give them in a note. [194:1] The reader will see at a
glance that the Theology or Christology of Clement was that of the
earliest writings of the Church of which we have any remains, and to
these he himself frequently and unmistakably refers.
The earlier Epistles of St. Paul, as those to the Thessalonians,
Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, are acknowledged on all hands, even
by advanced German Rationalists, to be the genuine works of the Apostle
Paul; indeed one might as well deny that such a man ever existed as
question their authenticity. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, which
is the longest and most dogmatic of the earlier ones, cannot have been
written after the year 58. In a considerable number of chronological
tables to which I have referred, the earliest date is the year 52, and
the latest 58.
To the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, which is undoubtedly the
earliest of all, the earliest date assigned is 47, and the latest 53.
Now it is ever to be remembered that in each of these--the First to the
Thessalonians and the First to the Corinthians--we have enunciations of
the great crowning supernatural event of Scripture--the Resurrection of
Christ and our Resurrection as depending upon it, which are unsurpassed
in the rest of Scripture.
So that in the first Christian writing which has come down to us, we
have the great fact of Supernatural Religion, which carries with it all
the rest.
The fullest enunciation of the evidences of the Resurrection is in a
writing whose date cannot be later than 58, and runs thus:--
"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached
unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by
which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto
you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first
of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He
rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And that He
was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that [196:1] He was
seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater
part remain unto this present [twenty-five years after the event]
but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James, then of
all the Apostles, and last of all He was seen of me also." (1 Cor.
xv. 1.)
If the reader compares this with the accounts in any one of the Four,
he will find that it gives the fullest list of our Lord's appearances
which has come down to us, and this, be it remembered, forming part of
the most categorical declaration of what the Gospel is, to be found in
the New Testament. [196:1]
A man, then, writes in A.D. 57 or earlier, that another, Who had died in
A.D. 32 had been seen by a number of persons, and among these, by 500
persons at once, of whom the greater part were alive when he wrote, and
implying that the story had been believed ever since, and received by
him (the writer) from those who had seen this Jesus, and that the fact
was so essential to the religion that it was itself called "the Gospel,"
a name continually given to the whole system of Christianity, and
moreover that he himself, when in company with others, had seen this
Jesus at noon-day, and, the history asserts, had been blinded by the
sight. Now let the reader recall to his mind any public man who died
twenty-five years ago, that is, in 1850, and imagine this man appearing,
not as a disembodied spirit, but in his resuscitated body to first one
of his friends, then to eleven or twelve, then to another, then to five
hundred persons at one time, and a flourishing and aggressive
institution founded upon this his appearance, and numbers of persons
giving up their property, and breaking with all their friends, and
adopting a new religion, and a new course of life of great self-denial,
and even encountering bitter persecution and death, simply because they
believed this man to be alive from the dead, and moreover some
professing to do miracles, and to confer the power of doing miracles in
the name and by the power of this risen man.
Let the reader, I say, try to imagine all this, and then he will be able
to judge of the credulity with which the author credits his readers when
he writes:--
"All history shows how rapidly pious memory exaggerates and
idealizes the traditions of the past, and simple actions might
readily be transformed into miracles as the narrative circulated, in
a period so prone to superstition, and so characterized by love of
the marvellous." (Vol. ii. p. 209.)
"All history," the author says; but why does he not give us a few
instances out of "all history," that we might compare them with this
Gospel account, and see if there was anything like it?
Such a story, if false, is not a myth. A myth is the slow growth of
falsehood through long ages, and this story of the Resurrection was
written circumstantially within twenty years of its promulgation, by one
who had been an unbeliever, and who had conferred with those who must
have been the original promoters of the falsehood, if it be one.
To call such a story a myth, is simply to shirk the odium of calling it
by its right name, or more probably to avoid having to meet the
astounding historical difficulty of supposing that men endured what the
Apostles endured for what they must have known to have been a falsehood,
and the still more astounding difficulty that One Whom the author of
"Supernatural Religion" allows to have been a Teacher Who "carried
morality to the sublimest point attained or even attainable by
humanity," and Whose "life, as far as we can estimate it, was uniformly
noble and consistent with his lofty principles," should have impressed a
character of such deep-rooted fraud and falsehood on His most intimate
friends.
The author of "Supernatural Religion" has, however, added another to the
many proofs of the truth of the Gospel. In his elaborate book of 1,000
pages of attack on the authenticity of the Evangelists he has shown,
with a clearness which, I think, has never been before realized, the
great fact that from the first there has been but one account of Jesus
Christ. In the writings of heathens, of Jews, of heretics, [199:1] in
lost gospels, in contemporary accounts, in the earliest traditions of
the Church, there appears but one account, the account called by its
first proclaimers the Gospel; and the only explanation of the existence
of this Gospel is its truth.
THE END.
[FOOTNOTES]
[3:1] Papias, for instance, actually mentions St. Mark by name as
writing a gospel under the influence of St. Peter. The author of
"Supernatural Religion" devotes ten pages to an attempt to prove that
this St. Mark's Gospel could not be ours. (Vol. i. pp. 448-459.)
[6:1] I need hardly say that I myself hold the genuineness of the Greek
recension. The reader who desires to see the false reasonings and
groundless assumptions of the author of "Supernatural Religion"
respecting the Ignatian epistles thoroughly exposed should read
Professor Lightfoot's article in the "Contemporary Review" of February,
1875. In pages 341-345 of this article there is an examination of the
nature and trustworthiness of the learning displayed in the footnotes of
this pretentious book, which is particularly valuable. I am glad to see
that the professor has modified, in this article, the expression of his
former opinion that the excerpta called the Curetonian recension is to
be regarded as the only genuine one. "Elsewhere," the professor writes
(referring to an essay in his commentary on the Philippians), "I had
acquiesced in the earlier opinion of Lipsius, who ascribed them (_i.e._,
the Greek or Vossian recension) to an interpolator writing about A.D.
140. Now, however, I am obliged to confess that I have grave and
increasing doubts whether, after all, they are not the genuine
utterances of Ignatius himself."
[10:1] [Greek: Ou gar monon en Hellêsi dia Sôkratous hypo logou êlenchthê
tauta, alla kai en Barbarois hyp' autou tou Logou morphôthentos kai
anthrôpou genomenou kai Iêsou Christou klêthentous.]
[10:2] Such is a perfectly allowable translation of [Greek: kai ton par'
autou hyion elthonta kai didaxanta hêmas tauta, kai ton tôn allôn
hepomenôn kai exomoioumenôn agathôn angelôn straton, pneuma te to
prophêtikon sebometha kai proskynoumen.] As there is nothing approaching
to angel worship in Justin, such a rendering seems absolutely necessary.
[15:1] "For the law promulgated in Horeb is now old, and belongs to you
alone; but this is for all universally. Now law placed against law has
abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in
like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final
law--namely, Christ--has been given to us." (Heb. viii. 6-13; Dial. ch.
xi.)
[15:2] "For the true spiritual Israel and descendants of Judah, Jacob,
Isaac, and Abraham (who in uncircumcision was approved of and blessed by
God on account of his faith, and called the father of many nations) are
we who have been led to God through this crucified Christ, as shall be
demonstrated while we proceed." (Phil. iii. 3, compared with Romans, iv.
12-18; Dial. ch. xi.)
[17:1] This, of course, was a Jewish adversary's view of the Christian
doctrine of the Godhead of Christ, which Justin elsewhere modifies by
showing the subordination of the Son to the Father in all things.
[19:1] [Greek: En gar tois apomnêmoneumasi, ha phêmi hypo tôn apostolôn
autou kai tôn ekeinois parakolouthêsantôn syntetachthai, hoti hidrôs
hôsei thromboi katecheito autou euchomenou.] (Dial. ch. ciii.)
[20:1] [Greek: Kai to eipein metônomakenai auton Petron hena tôn
apostolôn, kai gegraphthai en tois apomnêmoneumasin autou gegenêmenon
kai touto, k.t.l.]
On this question the author of "Supernatural Religion" remarks,
"According to the usual language of Justin, and upon strictly critical
grounds, the [Greek: autou] in this passage must be ascribed to Peter;
and Justin therefore seems to ascribe the Memoirs to that Apostle, and
to speak consequently of a Gospel of Peter." (Vol. i. p. 417.)
[28:1] That of our Lord being born in a cave.
[29:1] [Greek: Iôannou gar kathezomenou.]
[34:1] Justin has [Greek: hidrôs hôsei thromboi]; St. Luke, [Greek: ho
hidrôs autou hôsei thromboi haimatos]. The author of "Supernatural
Religion" lays great stress upon the omission of [Greek: haimatos], as
indicating that Justin did not know anything about St. Luke; but we have
to remember, first, that St. Luke alone mentions _any_ sweat of our Lord
in His agony; secondly, that the account in Justin is said to be taken
from "Memoirs drawn up by Apostles and _those who followed them_," _St.
Luke being only one of those who followed_; thirdly, Justin and St. Luke
both use a very scarce word, [Greek: thromboi]; fourthly, Justin and St.
Luke both qualify this word by [Greek: hôsei]. If we add to this the
fact that [Greek: thromboi] seems naturally associated with blood in
several authors, the probability seems almost to reach certainty, that
Justin had St. Luke's account in his mind. The single omission is far
more easy to be accounted for than the four coincidences.
[37:1] And He said unto them, "These are the words which I spake unto
you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which
were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms
concerning me." (Luke xxiii. 44.)
[48:1] It is the reading of Codices B and C of the Codex Sinaiticus of
the Syriac, and of a number of Fathers and Versions.
[51:1] [Greek: Hekastos gar tis apo merous tou spermatikou theiou logou
to syngenes horôn kalôs ephthenxato.]
[63:1] For instance, in vol. ii. p. 42, &c., he speaks of one
of Tischendorf's assertions as "a conclusion the audacity of
which can scarcely be exceeded."--Then, "This is, however, almost
surpassed by the treatment of Canon Westcott."--Then, "The unwarranted
inference of Tischendorf."--"There is no ground for Tischendorf's
assumption."--"Tischendorf, the self-constituted modern Defensor Fidei,
asserts with an assurance which can scarcely be characterized otherwise
than as an unpardonable calculation upon the ignorance of his
readers."--"Canon Westcott says, with an assurance which, considering
the nature of the evidence, is singular."--"Even Dr. Westcott states,"
&c.--For Tertullian his contempt seems unbounded: indeed we way say the
same of all the Fathers. Numberless times does he speak of their
"uncritical spirit." The only person for whom he seems to have a respect
is the heretic Marcion. Even rationalists, such as Credner and Ewald,
are handled severely when they differ from him. The above are culled
from a few pages.
[69:1] [Greek: Hoti Theos hypemeine gennêthênai kai anthrôpos
genesthai.]
[69:2] [Greek: Ex hôn diarrhêdên outous autos ho staurotheis hoti Theos
kai anthrôpos, kai stauroumenos kai apothnêskôn kekêrygmenos
apodeiknytai.]
[70:1] The reader must remember that Justin puts this expression, which
seems to imply a duality of Godhead, into the mouth of an adversary. In
other places, as I shall show, he very distinctly guards against such a
notion, by asserting the true and proper Sonship of the Word and his
perfect subordination to His Father. There is a passage precisely
similar in ch. lv.
[71:1] "I continued: Moreover, I consider it necessary to repeat to you
the words which narrate how He is both Angel and God and Lord, and Who
appeared as a Man to Abraham." (Dial. ch. lviii.)
"Permit me, further, to show you from the Book of Exodus, how this same
One, Who is both Angel, and God, and Lord, and Man." (Dial. ch. lix.)
"God begat before all creatures, a Beginning, a certain rational Power
from Himself, Who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the
Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord
and Logos." (Dial. ch. lxi.)
"The Word of Wisdom, Who is Himself this God, begotten of the Father of
all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the
Begetter, will bear evidence to me," &c. (Dial. lxi.)
"Therefore these words testify explicitly that He is witnessed to by Him
Who established these things [_i.e._ the Father] as deserving to be
worshipped, as God and as Christ." (Dial. lxiii.)
The reader will find other declarations, most of which are equally
explicit, in Dial. ch. lvi. (at the end), ch. lvii. (at the end), lxii.
(middle), lxviii. (at middle and end), lxxiv. (middle), lxxv., lxxvi.
(made Him known, being Christ, as God strong and to be worshipped),
lxxxv. (twice called the Lord of Hosts), lxxxvii. (where Christ is
declared to be pre-existent God), cxiii. (he [Joshua] was neither
Christ, Who is God, nor the Son of God), cxv. (our Priest, Who is God,
and Christ, the Son of God, the Father of all), cxxiv. (Now I have
proved at length that Christ is called God), cxxv. (He ministered to the
will of the Father, yet nevertheless is God), cxxvi. (thrice in this
chapter), cxxvii., cxxviii., cxxix.
[73:1] I adopt this phrase because, it is used by Justin. His words are
[Greek: arithmô onta heteron]. (Dial. ch. lxii.)
[74:1] [Greek: Hoti archên pro pantôn tôn ktismatôn ho Theos gegennêke
dynamin tina ex heautou logikên, k.t.l.]
[77:1] Dr. Pusey translates this passage thus:--"For all that the
philosophers and legislators at any time declared or discovered aright,
they accomplished according to their portion of discovery and
contemplation of the Word; but as they did not know all the properties
of the Word which is Christ," &c.
[77:2] Translated by Dr. Pusey, "Seminal Divine Word."
[78:1] A few pages further on I shall show that the mode of reasoning
adopted by the author of "Supernatural Religion," in drawing inferences
from the ways in which Justin expresses the idea of St. John's [Greek:
ho logos sarx egeneto] would, if we adopted it, lead us to some very
startling conclusions.
[84:1] The following are some instances:--"God sent not His Son into the
world to condemn the world." "He Whom God sent."--John iii. 17, 23. "My
meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." "Jesus Christ, Whom Thou
hast sent." "As my Father sent me, so send I you," &c.
[85:1] This passage does not occur among the remarks upon Justin
Martyr's quotations, but among those on the Clementine Homilies.
However, it seems to be used to prove that the Gospel of St. John was
published after the writing of the Clementines, which the author seems
to think were themselves posterior to Justin.
[86:1] I say the "necessary" developments, because Holy Scripture is
given to the Church to be expounded and applied, and in order to this
its doctrine must be collected out of many scattered statements, and
stated and guarded, and this is its being developed. The Persons, the
attributes, and the works of the three Persons of the Godhead are so
described in Holy Scripture as Divine, and They are so conjoined in the
works of Creation, Providence, and Grace, that we cannot but contemplate
Them as associated together, and cannot but draw an impassable gulf
between Their existence and that of all creatures, and we cannot but
adoringly contemplate Their relations one to another, and hence the
necessary development of the Christian dogma as contained in the Creeds.
[91:1] [Greek: Ton di' hêmas tou anthrôpous kai dia tên hêmeteran
sôtêrian katelthonta ek tôn ouranôn, kai sarkôthenta ek Pneumatos
Hagiou kai Marias tês parthenou, kai enanthrôpêsanta, k.t.l.]
[94:1] Though of course not as regards _time_, for all Catholics hold
the Eternal Generation, that there never was a time in which the Father
was not a Father; nor as regards power or extension, for whatever the
Father does that the Son does also, and wherever the Father is there is
the Son also.
[100:1] Eusebius, B. ii. ch. v.
[106:1] Apol. i. 14.
[107:1] The spirit of this verse, and its form of expression, are quite
those of the Gospel of St. John; and it serves to form a link of union
between the three Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth, and to point to the
vast and weighty mass of discourses of the Lord which are not related
except by St. John. Alford in loco.
[117:1] If the reader desires to see Logos doctrine expressed in
philosophic terminology, he can find it in some of the extracts from
Philo given in the notes of "Supernatural Religion" vol. ii. pp.
272-298. Can there be a greater contrast than that between St. John's
terse, concise, simple, enunciations and the following: [Greek: Kai ou
monon phôs, alla kai pantos heterou phôtos archetypon mallon de
archetypou presbyteron kai anôteron, Logon echon paradeigmatos to men
gar paradeigma ho plêrestatos ên autou Logos, k.t.l.]--De Somniis, i.
15, Mang. i. 634. There is no particularly advanced philosophic
terminology here, and yet there is a profound difference between both
the thought and wording of this sentence of Philo and St. John's four
enunciations of the Logos. Again, [Greek: Dêlon de hoti kai hê
archetypos sphragis, hon phamen einai kosmon noêton, autos an eiê to
archetypon paradeigma, idea tôn ideôn, ho Theou Logos.]--De Mundi
Opificio Mang. vol. i. p. 8. "It is manifest also that the archetypal
seal, which we call that world which is perceptible only to the
intellect, must itself be the archetypal model, the idea of ideas, the
word of God." (Yonge's Translation.)
[126:1] "When He came into the world He was manifested as God and man.
And it is easy to perceive the man in Him when He hungers and shows
exhaustion, and is weary and athirst, and withdraws in fear, and is in
prayer and in grief, and sleeps on a boat's pillow, and entreats the
removal of the cup of suffering, and sweats in an agony, and is
strengthened by an angel, and betrayed by a Judas, and mocked by
Caiaphas, and set at naught by Herod, and scourged by Pilate, and
derided by the soldiers, and nailed to the tree by the Jews, and with a
cry commits His spirit to His Father, and drops His head and gives up
the ghost, and has His side pierced by a spear, and is wrapped in linen
and laid in a tomb, and is raised by the Father from the dead. And the
Divine in Him, on the other hand, is equally manifest when He is
worshipped by angels, and seen by shepherds, and waited for by Simeon,
and testified of by Anna, and inquired after by wise men, and pointed
out by a star, and at a marriage makes wine of water, and chides the sea
when tossed by the violence of winds, and walks upon the deep, and makes
one see who was blind from birth, and raises Lazarus when dead for four
days, and works many wonders, and forgives sins, and grants power to His
disciples."
[152:1] History affords multitudes of instances, but an example may be
selected from one of the most critical periods of modern history. Let it
be granted that Louis the Sixteenth of France and his Queen had all the
defects attributed to them by the most hostile of serious historians;
let all the excuses possible be made for his predecessor, Louis the
Fifteenth, and also for Madame de Pompadour, can it be pretended that
there are grounds for affirming that the vices of the two former so far
exceeded those of the latter, that their respective fates were plainly
and evidently just? That whilst the two former died in their beds, after
a life of the most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth
through coming time, as examples of the most appalling and calamitous
tragedy. (Mivart's "Genesis of Species," ch. ix.)
[155:1] What sign showest Thou us? Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it up: but He spake of the temple of His Body. (John
ii. 19-21) An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and
there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the Prophet Jonas,
for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so
shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the
earth. (Matt. xii. 39, 40) God commandeth all men everywhere to repent,
because He hath appointed a day on which He will judge the world in
righteousness by that man whom He hath chosen, whereof He hath given
assurance unto all men in that He raised Him from the dead. (Acts xvii.
30.)
[158:1] This sentence seems extremely carelessly worded. The author
cannot possibly mean that our ignorance is the anomaly, for throughout
his whole work he assumes that ignorance is the rule in all matters,
moral, physical, historical. The Fathers of the second century knew
nothing of the Evangelists. St. John knows nothing of the writings of
his brother Evangelists. They are all assumed to be ignorant of what
they have not actually recorded. We know nothing of vital force, or
physical force, or of a revelation. In fact, God Himself is the
Unknowable.
[164:1] Perhaps 1 Tim. i. 20, iv. 14; 2 Tim i. 6, may refer to such
gifts; but the contrast between such slight intimations and the full
recognition in 1 Cor. xii. and xiv. is very great.
[168:1] "The author [of the book of Enoch] not only relates the fall of
the angels through love for the daughters of men, but gives the names of
twenty-one of them, and their leaders, of whom Jequn was he who seduced
the Holy Angels, and Ashbeel it was who gave them evil counsel and
corrupted them. A third, Gadreel, was he who seduced Eve. He also taught
to the children of men the use and manufacture of all murderous weapons,
of coats of mail, shields, swords, and of all the implements of war.
Another evil angel, named Penemue, taught them many mysteries of wisdom.
He instructed men in the art of writing, with paper and ink, by means of
which, the author remarks, many fall into sin, even to the present day.
Kaodejâ, another evil angel, taught the human race all the wicked
practices of spirits and demons, and also magic and exorcism. The
offspring of the fallen angels and of the daughters of men, were giants
whose height was 3,000 ells, of these are the demons working evil upon
earth. Azayel taught men various arts, the making of bracelets and
ornaments, the use of cosmetics, the way to beautify the eyebrows,
precious stones and all dye-stuffs and metals, &c. The stars are
represented as animated beings. Enoch sees seven stars bound together in
space like great mountains, and flaming with fire, and he enquires of
the angel who leads him on account of what sin they are so bound. Uriel
informs him that they are stars which have transgressed the commands of
the Most High, and they are thus bound until ten thousand worlds, the
number of the days of their transgression, shall be accomplished." So
far for the "Angelology." As to the demons, "Their number is infinite
... they are about as close as the earth thrown up out of a newly made
grave. It is stated that each man has 10,000 demons at his right hand,
and 1,000 on his left. The crush in the synagogue on the Sabbath arises
from them, also the dresses of the Rabbins become so old and torn
through their rubbing; in like manner also they cause the tottering of
the feet. He who wishes to discover these spirits must take sifted ashes
and strew them about his bed, and in the morning he will perceive their
footprints upon them like a cock's tread. If any one wish to see them,
he must take the after-birth of a black cat, which has been littered by
a first-born black cat, and whose mother was also a first-birth, burn
and reduce it to powder, and put some of it on his eyes, and he will see
them." (Vol. i. pp. 104 and 111). And this is the stuff which the author
would have us believe was the real origin of the supernatural in the
life of Jesus!
[170:1] See also Mark v. 42 (healing of Jairus' daughter), "They were
astonished with a great astonishment." Mark vii. 37 (healing of deaf man
with impediment in his speech), "They were beyond measure astonished."
Luke v. 9, "He was astonished at the draught of fishes;" viii. 56, "Her
parents were astonished."
[178:1] There cannot be the slightest doubt but that certain cases of
madness or mania present all the appearances of possession as it is
described in Scripture. Another personality, generally intensely evil,
has possession of the mind, speaks instead of the afflicted person,
throws the patient into convulsions,--in fact, exhibits all the symptoms
of the ancient demoniacs. I have now before me the record of five or six
such cases attested by German physicians.
[183:1] The reader will find the references to it discussed in a
dissertation at the end of Whiston's "Josephus." Lardner utterly denies
its authenticity. Daubuz, however, has, I think, clearly proved its
style and phraseology to be those of Josephus.
[185:1] Singular that he should say "out of Palestine," for if they were
false they would be first heard of at a distance from the scene of their
supposed occurrence. Jerusalem, so full of bitter enemies of Christ, was
the last place in which His Resurrection was likely to be promulgated.
[187:1] Miscellanies, IV. ch. xvii.
[193:1] Let the reader remember that, if this be an assumption, the
contrary assumption is infinitely the more unlikely. Our assumption is
founded on the direct assertion of two writers of the second century,
one of whom asserts that Clement was a close companion of Apostles,
another that he was an Apostle: meaning, of course, such an one as
Barnabas. A writer of the early part of the next century, Origen,
asserts that he was the person mentioned in St. Paul's Epistle, and the
principal Ecclesiastical Historian who lived within two hundred years of
his time corroborates this.
[194:1] "Ye ... were more willing to give than to receive" (ch. ii.). A
reminiscence of St. Paul's quotation of Christ's words to be found in
Acts xx. 35.
"Ready to every good work" (ch. ii). Titus iii. 1. "Every kind of honour
and happiness was bestowed upon you (ch. iii). Reminiscence of I
Corinth. iv. 8.
"Let us be imitators of them who in goat skins and sheep skins went
about proclaiming the coming of Christ" (ch. xvii). Heb. xi. 37.
"To us who have fled for refuge to his compassions" (ch. xx.).
Reminiscence of Heb. vii.
"Let us esteem those who have the rule over us." I Thess. v. 12, 13;
Heb. xiii. 17.
"Not by preferring one to another." 1 Tim. v. 21.
"A future Resurrection, of which He has rendered the Lord Jesus the
first fruits by raising Him from the dead" (ch. xxiv.). 1 Cor. xv. 20;
Col. i. 18.
"Nothing is impossible with God except to lie" (ch. xxvii.). Tit. i. 2;
Heb. vi. 18.
"From whom [Jacob] was descended our Lord Jesus Christ according to the
flesh" (ch. xxxii.). Rom. ix. 5.
"For [Scripture] saith, 'eye hath not seen,'" &c. (ch. xxxiv.). Cor. ii.
9.
"Not only they that do them, but also those that take pleasure in them
that do them" (ch. xxxv.). Rom. i. 32. Ch. xxxvi. contains distinct
reference to Heb. i. I gave an extract above.
"Let us take our body for an example. The head is nothing without the
feet ... yea, the very smallest members of our body are necessary and
useful" (ch. xxxvii.), 1 Corinth. xii. 12, &c.
"Let every one be subject to his neighbour according to the special gift
bestowed upon him" ([Greek: kathôs kai etethê en tô charismati autou])
(ch. xxxviii.). Rom. xii. 1-4; Ephes. iv. 8-12.
"The blessed Moses, also, 'a faithful servant in all his house'" (ch.
xliii.). Heb. iii. 5.
"Have we not all one God and one Christ? Is there not one Spirit of
grace poured upon us? Have we not one calling in Christ?" (ch. xlvi.).
Ephes. iv. 4-6.
"And have reached such a height of madness as to forget that we are
members one of another" (ch. xlvi.). Rom. xii. 5.
"Love beareth all things ... is long suffering in all things" (ch.
xlix.). 1 Cor. xiii. 4.
[196:1] One is in amazement when one reads, in the work of a man who
professes to have such a love of truth, the words, "The fact is, that we
have absolutely no contemporaneous history at all as to what the first
promulgators of Christianity actually asserted" (vol. i. p. 193). This
writer, as far as I remember, gives us no reason to believe that he
doubts the authenticity of St. Paul's earlier Epistles. Again, what is
"contemporary history?" Surely, if a man was now to write the history of
the Crimean war in 1854-5, it would be a contemporary history.
[199:1] Celsus, for instance, who had been some time dead when Origen
refuted him, knew no other account than the one which he calumniated;
Josephus the Jew knew no other, Trypho suggests no counter story. The
wild exaggerations of the heretics refuted by Irenaeus all presupposed
the one narrative, and can have had no other basis.