We have maintained that the miracles which are reported after apostolic
days, instead of presenting the enormous distinction which Dr. Mozley
asserts, are precisely of the same types in all material points as
the earlier miracles. Setting aside miracles of a trivial and unworthy
character, there remains a countless number cast in the same mould as
those of the Gospels,--miraculous cure of diseases, expulsion of demons,
transformation of elements, supernatural nourishment, resurrection of
dead--of many of which we have quoted instances. Dr. Mozley anticipates
an objection and says: "It will be urged, perhaps, that a large
portion even of the Gospel miracles are of the class here mentioned
as ambiguous; cures, visions, expulsions of evil spirits; but this
observation does not affect the character of the Gospel miracles as a
body, because we judge of the body or whole from its highest specimen,
not from its lowest." He takes his stand upon, "e.g. our Lord's
Resurrection and Ascension."(1) Now, without discussing the principle
laid down here, it is evident that the great distinction between the
Gospel and other miracles is thus narrowed to a very small compass.
It is admitted that the mass of the Gospel miracles are of a class
characterized as ambiguous, because "the current
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miracles of human history" are also chiefly of the same type, and
the distinctive character is derived avowedly only from a few high
specimens, such as the Resurrection. We have already referred to the
fact that in the synoptic Gospels there is only one case, reported by
the third Gospel alone, in which Jesus is said to have raised the dead.
St. Augustine alone, however, chronicles several cases in which life was
restored to the dead. Post-apostolic miracles, therefore, are far from
lacking this ennobling type. Observe that Dr. Mozley is here not so
much discussing the reality of the subsequent miracles of the Church,
as contrasting them and other reputed miracles with those of the Gospel,
and from this point of view it is impossible to maintain that the
Gospels have a monopoly of the highest class of miracles. Such miracles
are met with long before the dawn of Christianity, and continued to
occur long after apostolic times.
Much stress is laid upon the form of the Gospel miracles; but as we have
already shown, it is the actual resurrection of the dead, for instance,
which is the miracle, and this is not affected by the more or less
dramatic manner in which it is said to have been effected, or in
which the narrative of the event is composed. Literary skill, and
the judicious management of details, may make or mar the form of any
miracle. The narrative of the restoration of the dead child to life
by Elisha might have been more impressive, had the writer omitted the
circumstance that the child sneezed seven times before opening his eyes,
and Dr. Mozley would probably have considered the miracle greater had
the prophet merely said to the child, "Arise!" instead of stretching
himself on the body; but setting aside human cravings
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for the picturesque and artistic, the essence of the miracle would have
remained the same. There is one point, however, regarding which it may
be well to make a few remarks. Whilst a vast number of miracles are
ascribed to direct personal action of saints, many more are attributed
to their relics. Now this is no exclusive characteristic of later
miracles, but Christianity itself shares it with still earlier times.
The case in which a dead body which touched the bones of Elisha was
restored to life will occur to every one. "And it came to pass, as they
were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of Moabites; and
they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let
down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his
feet."(1) The mantle of Elijah smiting asunder the waters before Elisha
may be cited as another instance.(2) The woman who touches the hem of
the garment of Jesus in the crowd is made whole,(3) and all the sick and
"possessed" of the country are represented as being healed by touching
Jesus, or even the mere hem of his garment.(4) It was supposed that
the shadow of Peter falling on the sick as he passed had a curative
effect,(5) and it is very positively stated: "And God wrought miracles
of no common kind by the hands of Paul; so that from his body were
brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed
from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." (6)
The argument which assumes an enormous distinction
{191}
between Gospel and other miracles betrays the prevalent scepticism, even
in the Church, of all miracles except those which it is considered an
article of faith to maintain. If we inquire how those think who are more
logical and thorough in their belief in the supernatural, we find the
distinction denied. "The question," says Dr. Newman, "has hitherto been
argued on the admission, that a distinct line can be drawn in point of
character and circumstances, between the miracles of Scripture and those
of Church history; but this is by no means the case. It is true, indeed,
that the miracles of Scripture, viewed as a whole, recommend themselves
to our reason, and claim our veneration beyond all others, by a peculiar
dignity and beauty; but still it is only as a whole that they make this
impression upon us. Some of them, on the contrary, fall short of the
attributes which attach to them in general; nay, are inferior in these
respects to certain ecclesiastical miracles, and are received only on
the credit of the system of which they form part. Again, specimens are
not wanting in the history of the Church, of miracles as awful in
their character, and as momentous in their effects, as those which are
recorded in Scripture."(1) Now here is one able and thorough supporter
of miracles denying the enormous distinction between those of the Gospel
and those of human history, which another admits to be essential to the
former as evidence of a revelation.
Dr. Mozley, however, meets such a difficulty by asserting that there
would be no disadvantage to the Gospel miracles, and no doubt regarding
them involved, if for some later miracles there was evidence as strong
as for those of the Gospel. "All the result would be," he says,
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"that we should admit these miracles over and above the Gospel ones."(1)
He denies the equality of the evidence, however, in any case. "Between
the evidence, then, upon which the Gospel miracles stand, and that for
later miracles we see a broad distinction arising, not to mention
again the nature and type of the Gospel miracles themselves--from the
contemporaneous date of the testimony to them, the character of the
witnesses, the probation of the testimony; especially when we contrast
with these points the false doctrine and audacious fraud which rose up
in later ages, and in connection with which so large a portion of the
later miracles of Christianity made their appearance."(2) We consider
the point touching the type of the Gospel miracles disposed of, and we
may, therefore, confine ourselves to the rest of this argument. If we
look for any external evidence of the miracles of Jesus in any marked
effect produced by them at the time they are said to have occurred, we
find anything but confirmation of the statements of the Gospels. It is
a notorious fact that, in spite of these miracles, very few of the
Jews amongst whom they were performed believed in Jesus, and that
Christianity made its chief converts not where the supposed miracles
took place, but where an account of them was alone given by enthusiastic
missionaries. Such astounding exhibitions of power as raising the dead,
giving sight to the blind, walking on the sea, changing water into wine,
and indefinitely multiplying a few loaves and fishes, not only did not
make any impression on the Jews themselves, but were never heard of out
of Palestine until long after the events are said to have occurred, when
the narrative of them was slowly disseminated by Christian teachers and
writers.
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Dr. Mozley refers to the contemporary testimony "for certain great and
cardinal Gospel miracles which, if granted, clear away all antecedent
objection to the reception of the rest," and he says: "That the first
promulgators of Christianity asserted, as a fact which had come under
the cognizance of their senses, the Resurrection of our Lord from the
dead, is as certain as anything in history."(1) What they really did
assert, so far from being so certain as Dr. Mozley states, must, as we
shall hereafter see, be considered matter of the greatest doubt. But if
the general statement be taken that the Resurrection, for instance,
was promulgated as a fact which the early preachers of Christianity
themselves believed to have taken place, the evidence does not in that
case present the broad distinction he asserts. The miracles recounted by
St Athanasius and St. Augustine, for example, were likewise proclaimed
with equal clearness, and even greater promptitude and publicity at the
very spot where many of them were said to have been performed, and
the details were much more immediately reduced to writing. The mere
assertion in neither case goes for much as evidence, but the fact is
that we have absolutely no contemporaneous testimony at all as to what
the first promulgators of Christianity actually asserted, or as to the
real grounds upon which they made such assertions. We shall presently
enter upon a thorough examination of the testimony for the Gospel
narratives, their authorship and authenticity, but we may here
be permitted, so far to anticipate, as to remark that, applied to
documentary evidence, Dr. Mozley's reasoning from the contemporaneous
date of the testimony, and the character of
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the witnesses, is contradicted by the whole history of New Testament
literature. Whilst the most uncritically zealous assertors of the
antiquity of the Gospels never venture to date the earliest of them
within a quarter of a century from the death of Jesus, every tyro is
aware that there is not a particle of evidence of the existence of our
Gospels until very long after that interval,--hereafter we shall show
how long;--that two of our synoptic Gospels at least were not, in any
case, composed in their present form by the writers to whom they
are attributed; that there is, indeed, nothing worthy of the name of
evidence that any one of these Gospels was written at all by the person
whose name it bears; that the second Gospel is attributed to one who was
not an eye-witness, and of whose identity there is the greatest doubt
even amongst those who assert the authorship of Mark; that the third
Gospel is an avowed later compilation,(1) and likewise ascribed to one
who was not a follower of Jesus himself; and that the authorship of
the fourth Gospel and its historical character are amongst the most
unsettled questions of criticism, not to use here any more definite
terms. This being the state of the case it is absurd to lay such
emphasis on the contemporaneous date of the testimony, and on the
character of the witnesses, since it has not even been determined who
those witnesses are, and two even of the supposed evangelists were not
personal eye-witnesses at all.(2) Surely the testimony of Athanasius
regarding the miracles of St. Anthony, and that of Augustine regarding
1 Luke i. 1--4.
2 We need scarcely point out that Paul, to whom so many of
the writings of the New Testament are ascribed, and who
practically is the author of ecclesiastical Christianity,
not only was not an eye-witness of the Gospel miracles but
never even saw Jesus.
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his list of miracles occurring in or close to his own diocese, within
two years of the time at which he writes, or, to refer to more recent
times, the evidence of Pascal for the Port-Royal miracles, must be
admitted, not only not to present the broad distinction of evidence
of which Dr. Mozley speaks, but on the contrary to be even more
unassailable than that of the Gospel miracles. The Church, which is
the authority for those miracles, is also the authority for the long
succession of such works wrought by the saints. The identity of the
writers we have instanced has never been doubted; their trustworthiness,
in so far as stating what they believe to be true is concerned, has
never been impugned; the same could be affirmed of writers in every age
who record such miracles. The broad distinction of evidence for which
Dr. Mozley contends, does not exist; it does not lie within the scope
of his lectures either to define or prove it, and he does not of course
commit the error of assuming the inspiration of the records. The fact is
that theologians demand evidence for later miracles, which they have not
for those of the Gospels, and which transmitted reverence forbids their
requiring. They strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.
Dr. Mozley points to the life of sacrifice and suffering of the Apostles
as a remarkable and peculiar testimony to the truth of the Gospel
miracles, and notably of the Resurrection and Ascension.(1) Without
examining, here, how much we really know of those lives and sufferings,
one thing is perfectly evident: that sacrifice, suffering, and martyrdom
itself are evidence of nothing except of the personal belief of the
person enduring them; they do not prove the truth of the doctrines
believed. No
{196}
one doubts the high religious enthusiasm of the early Christians, or the
earnest and fanatical zeal with which they courted martyrdom, but this
is no exclusive characteristic of Christianity. Every religion has
had its martyrs, every error its devoted victims. Does the marvellous
endurance of the Hindoo, whose limbs wither after years of painful
persistence in vows to his Deity, prove the truth of Brahmanism? or do
the fanatical believers who cast themselves under the wheels of the car
of Jagganath establish the soundness of their creed? Do the Jews, who
for centuries bore the fiercest contumelies of the world, and were
persecuted, hunted, and done to death by every conceivable torture
for persisting in their denial of the truth of the Incarnation,
Resurrection, and Ascension, and in their rejection of Jesus Christ, do
they thus furnish a convincing argument for the truth of their belief
and the falsity of Christianity? Or have the thousands who have been
consigned to the stake by the Christian Church herself for persisting
in asserting what she has denounced as damnable heresy, proved the
correctness of their views by their sufferings and death? History is
full of the records of men who have honestly believed every kind
of error and heresy, and have been stedfast to the death, through
persecution and torture, in their mistaken belief. There is nothing
so inflexible as superstitious fanaticism, and persecution, instead
of extinguishing it, has invariably been the most certain means of its
propagation. The sufferings of the Apostles, therefore, cannot prove
anything beyond their own belief, and the question what it was they
really did believe and suffered for is by no means so simple as it
appears.
Now the long succession of ecclesiastical and other
{197}
miracles has an important bearing upon those of the New Testament,
whether we believe or deny their reality. If we regard the miracles of
Church history to be in the main real, the whole force of the Gospel
miracles, as exceptional supernatural evidence of a Divine Revelation,
is annihilated. The "miraculous credentials of Christianity" assume
a very different aspect when they are considered from such a point of
view. Admitted to be scarcely recognizable from miracles wrought by
Satanic agency, they are seen to be a continuation of wonders recorded
in the Old Testament, to be preceded and accompanied by pretension
to similar power on the part of the Jews and other nations, and to be
succeeded by cycles of miracles, in all essential respects the
same, performed subsequently for upwards of fifteen hundred years.
Supernatural evidence of so common and prodigal a nature certainly
betrays a great want of force and divine speciality. How could that be
considered as express evidence for a new Divine Revelation which was
already so well known to the world, and which is scattered broad-cast
over so many centuries, as well as successfully simulated by Satan?
If, on the other hand, we dismiss the miracles of later ages as false,
and as merely the creations of superstition or pious imagination, how
can the miracles of the Gospel, which are precisely the same in type,
and not better established as facts, remain unshaken? The Apostles and
Evangelists were men of like passions, and also of like superstitions
with others of their time, and must be measured by the same standard.
Dr. Mozley will not admit that, even in such a case, the difficulty of
distinguishing the true miracles amongst the mass of
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spurious justifies the rejection of all, and he demands a judicial
process in each case, and settlement according to the evidence in that
case.(1) We might reply that if the great mass of asserted miracles be
determined to be spurious, there is no reason shown for entering upon a
more minute consideration of pretensions, which knowledge and experience
force us _a priori_ to regard as incredible, and which examination, in
so many cases, has proved to be delusion. Even if the plea, that "the
evidence of the Gospel miracles is a special case which must be decided
on its own grounds," be admitted, it must be apparent that the rejection
of the mass of other miracles is serious presumptive evidence also
against them.
2.
The argument for the reality of miracles receives very little
strength from the character of either the early or the later ages of
Christianity. "It is but too plain," says Dr. Mozley, "in discussing
ecclesiastical miracles, that in later ages, as the Church advanced
in worldly power and position, besides the mistakes of imagination and
impression, a temper of deliberate and audacious fraud set itself in
action for the spread of certain doctrines, as well as for the
great object of the concentration of Church power in one absolute
monarchy."(2) We have already quoted words of Dean Milman regarding the
frame of mind of the early Church, and it may not be out of place to add
a few lines from the same writer. Speaking of the writings of the first
ages of Christianity, he says: "That some of the Christian legends were
deliberate forgeries can scarcely be questioned; the principle of pious
fraud
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appeared to justify this mode of working on the popular mind; it was
admitted and avowed. To deceive into Christianity was so valuable a
service as to hallow deceit itself. But the largest portion was probably
the natural birth of that imaginative excitement which quickens its
day-dreams and nightly visions into reality. The Christian lived in
a supernatural world; the notion of the divine power, the perpetual
interference of the Deity, the agency of the countless invisible beings
which hovered over mankind, was so strongly impressed upon the belief,
that every extraordinary, and almost every ordinary incident became a
miracle, every inward emotion a suggestion either of a good or an evil
spirit. A mythic period was thus gradually formed, in which reality
melted into fable, and invention unconsciously trespassed on the
province of history."(1) Whether we look upon this picture or on that,
the result is equally unfavourable to miracles, and a ready explanation
both of the earlier and later instances is suggested. We must, however,
again recall the fact that, setting aside for the present the effect of
pious fraud, this vivid and superstitious imagination, which so
freely created for itself the miraculous, was not merely developed
by Christianity, but was equally rampant before it, and was a marked
characteristic of the Jews. The same writer, in a passage already
quoted, says: "During the whole life of Christ, and the early
propagation of the religion, it must be borne in mind that they took
place in an age, and among a people which superstition had made so
familiar with what were supposed to be preternatural events, that
wonders awakened no emotion, or were speedily superseded by some new
demand on the ever
{200}
ready belief. The Jews of that period not only believed that the Supreme
Being had the power of controlling the course of nature, but that the
same influence was possessed by multitudes of subordinate spirits, both
good and evil."(1) Between the "superstition," "imaginative excitement,"
and "pious fraud" of the early Church, and the "deliberate and
audacious fraud" of the later, we have abundant material for the natural
explanation of all supposed miracles, without going to such an extreme
hypothesis as exceptions to the order of nature, or supposing that a few
miracles can be accepted as supernatural facts, whilst all the rest must
be discarded as human fables.
It is certain that throughout the whole period during which miracles are
said to have been performed, gross ignorance and superstition prevailed,
and nowhere more so than amongst the Jews where those miracles occurred.
Almost every operation of nature was inexplicable, and everything
which was inexplicable was considered supernatural. Miracles seemed as
credible to the mind of that age as deviations from the order of nature
seem incredible in ours. It is a suggestive fact that miracles are
limited to periods when almost every common incident was readily
ascribed to supernatural agency. There is, however, one remarkable
circumstance which casts some light upon the origin of narratives of
miracles. Throughout the New Testament, patristic literature, and the
records of ecclesiastical miracles, although we have narratives of
countless wonderful works performed by others than the writers, and
abundant assertion of the possession of miraculous power by the Church,
there is no instance whatever, that we can remember, in which
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a writer claims to have himself performed a miracle.(1) Wherever there
has existed even the comparatively accurate means of information which
a person who himself performed a miracle might possess, the miraculous
entirely fails, and it is found only where faith or credulity usurps
the place of knowledge. Pious men were perfectly ready to believe the
supposed miracles of others, and to report them as facts, who were too
veracious to imagine any of their own. Even if Apostles and Saints had
chronicled their own miraculous deeds, the argument for their reality
would not have been much advanced; but the uniform absence of such
personal pretension enables us more clearly to trace such narratives to
pious credulity or superstition.
If we consider the particular part which miracles have played in human
history, we find precisely the phenomena which might have been expected
if miracles, instead of being considered as real occurrences, were
recognized as the mistakes or creations of ignorance and superstition
during that period in which "reality melted into fable, and invention
unconsciously trespassed on the province of history." Their occurrence
is limited to ages which were totally ignorant of physical laws, and
they have been numerous or rare precisely in proportion to the degree of
imagination and love of the marvellous characterizing the people
amongst whom they are said to have occurred. Instead of a few evidential
miracles taking place at one epoch of history, and filling the world
with surprise at such novel and exceptional phenomena, we find miracles
represented as taking place in all ages and in all countries. The Gospel
miracles are set in the midst of a series of similar wonders, which
commenced
1 This is fully discussed in the third volume.
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many centuries before the dawn of Christianity and continued, without
interruption, for fifteen hundred years after it. They did not in the
most remote degree originate the belief in miracles, or give the first
suggestion of spurious imitation. It may, on the contrary, be much more
truly said that the already existing belief created these miracles. No
divine originality characterized the evidence selected to accredit the
Divine Revelation. The miracles with which the history of the world is
full occurred in ages of darkness and superstition, and they gradually
ceased when enlightenment became more generally diffused. At the very
time when knowledge of the laws of nature began to render men capable of
judging of the reality of miracles, these wonders entirely failed. This
extraordinary cessation of miracles, precisely at the time when their
evidence might have acquired value by an appeal to persons capable of
appreciating them, is perfectly unintelligible if they be viewed as the
supernatural credentials of a Divine revelation. If, on the other
hand, they be regarded as the mistakes of imaginative excitement and
ignorance, nothing is more natural than their extinction at the time
when the superstition which created them gave place to knowledge.
As a historical fact, there is nothing more certain than that miracles,
and the belief in them, disappeared exactly when education and knowledge
of the operation of natural laws became diffused throughout Europe, and
that the last traces of belief in supernatural interference with the
order of nature are only to be found in localities where ignorance and
superstition still prevail, and render delusion or pious fraud of that
description possible. Miracles are now denied to places more enlightened
{203}
than Naples or La Salette. The inevitable inference from this fact is
fatal to the mass of miracles, and it is not possible to protect them
from it. Miracle cures by the relics of saints, upheld for fifteen
centuries by all the power of the Church, utterly failed when medical
science, increasing in spite of persecution, demonstrated the natural
action of physiological laws. The theory of the demoniacal origin
of disease has been entirely and for ever dispelled, and the host of
miracles in connection with it retrospectively exploded by the progress
of science. Witchcraft and sorcery, the belief in which reigned supreme
for so many centuries, are known to have been nothing but the delusions
of ignorant superstition. "A l'epoque ou les faits merveilleux qui s'y
(dans les legendes) trouvent consignes etaient rapportes," asks an able
French writer, "posse dait-on les lumieres suffisantes pour exercer une
critique veritable et serieuse sur des temoignages que venaient affirmer
des faits en contradiction avec nos connaissances? Or, on peut assurer
hardiment que non. Au moyen-age, l'intime conviction que la nature voit
tres frequemment ses lois interverties par la volonte divine regnait
dans les esprits, en sorte que pour peu qu'un fait se presentat avec
des apparences extraordinaires, on se hatait de le regarder comme un
miracle, comme loeuvre directe de la divinite. Aujourd'hui on cherche au
contraire a tout rapporter a la loi commune; on est tellement sobre de
faits miraculeux, que ceux qui paraissent tels sont ^cartes comme des
fables ou tonus pour des faits ordinaires mal expliques. La foi aux
miracles a disparu. En outre, au moyen-age le cercle des connaissances
qu'on possedait sur la nature etait fort restreint, et tout ce qui n'y
rentrait pas etait regarde comme surnatural.
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Actuellement ce cercle s'agrandit sans cesse; et loin d'en avoir arrete
definitivement la limite, on le declare infini." In a note the writer
adds: "On voit par la que le nombre des miracles doit etre en raison
inverse du nombre des lois connues de la nature, et, qu'a mesure que
celles-ci nous sont revelees, les faits merveilleux ou miraculeux
s'evanouissent."(1) These remarks are equally applicable to the
commencement of the Christian era. On the one hand, we have no other
testimony for the reality of miracles than that of ages in which not
only the grossest superstition and credulity prevailed, but in which
there was such total ignorance of natural laws that men were incapable
of judging of that reality, even if they desired impartially to
investigate such occurrences, which they did not; on the other hand, we
have the sober testimony of science declaring such phenomena violations
of the invariable laws of nature, and experience teaching us a perfectly
simple and natural interpretation of the legends regarding them. Are
we to believe ignorance and superstition or science and unvarying
experience? Science has already demonstrated the delusion involved
in the largest class of miracles, and has so far established the
superiority of her testimony.
In an early part of his discussion Dr. Mozley argues: "Christianity is
the religion of the civilized world, and
1 L. F. Alfred Maury. Essai sur los Legendes pieuses du
Moyen-age, 1843, p. 234 f., and p. 233, note (1).
The same arguments are employed by the late Mr. Buckle.
"Hence it is that, supposing other things equal, the
superstition of a nation must always bear an exact
proportion to the extent of its physical knowledge. This may
be in some degree verified by the ordinary experience of
mankind. For if we compare the different classes of society,
we shall find that they are superstitious in proportion as
the phenomena with which they are brought in contact have or
have not been explained by natural laws." Hist, of
Civilization, 1867, i. p. 373.
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it is believed upon its miraculous evidence. Now, for a set of miracles
to be accepted in a rude age, and to retain their authority throughout a
succession of such ages, and over the ignorant and superstitious part
of mankind, may be no such great result for the miracle to accomplish,
because it is easy to satisfy those who do not inquire. But this is
not the state of the case which we have to meet on the subject of
the Christian miracles. The Christian being the most intelligent, the
civilized portion of the world, these miracles are accepted by the
Christian body as a whole, by the thinking and educated as well as
the uneducated part of it, and the Gospel is believed upon that
evidence."(1) The picture of Christendom here suggested is purely
imaginary. We are asked to believe that succeeding generations of
thinking and educated as well as uneducated men, since the commencement
of the period in which the adequate inquiry into the reality of miracles
became possible, have made that adequate inquiry, and have intelligently
and individually accepted miracles and believed the Gospel in
consequence of their attestation. The fact, however, is that
Christianity became the religion of Europe before men either possessed
the knowledge requisite to appreciate the difficulties involved in
the acceptance of miracles, or minds sufficiently freed from ignorant
superstition to question the reality of the supposed supernatural
interference with the order of nature, and belief had become so much a
matter of habit that, in this nineteenth century, the great majority of
men have professed belief for no better reason than that their fathers
believed before them. Belief is now little more than a transmitted
quality or hereditary custom. Few men, even
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now, have either the knowledge or the leisure requisite to enable them
to enter upon such an examination of miracles as can entitle Dr. Mozley
to affirm that they intelligently accept miracles for themselves. We
have shown, moreover, that so loose are the ideas even of the clergy
upon the subject, that dignitaries of the church fail to see either the
evidential purpose of miracles or the need for evidence at all, and
the first intelligent step towards inquiry--doubt--has generally been
stigmatized almost as a crime.
So far from Dr. Mozley's statement being correct, it is notorious that
the great mass of those who are competent to examine, and who have done
so, altogether reject miracles. Instead of the "thinking and educated"
men of science accepting miracles, they, as a body, distinctly deny
them, and hence the antagonism between science and ecclesiastical
Christianity, and Dr. Mozley surely does not require to be told how many
of the profoundest critics and scholars of Germany, and of all other
countries in Europe, who have turned their attention to Biblical
subjects, have long ago rejected the miraculous elements of the
Christian religion. Such being the case we necessarily revert to the
first part of Dr. Mozley's representation, and find with him, that it
is no great result for miracles to accomplish, merely to be accepted by,
and retain authority over, a succession of ignorant and superstitious
ages, "because it is easy to satisfy those who do not inquire."
It is necessary that we should now refer to the circumstance that all
the arguments which we have hitherto considered in support of miracles,
whether to explain or account for them, have proceeded upon an
assumption of the reality of the alleged phenomena.
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Had it been first requisite to establish the truth of facts of such an
astounding nature, the necessity of accounting for them might never have
arisen. It is clear, therefore, that an assumption which permits the
argument to attain any such position begs almost the whole question.
Facts, however astounding, which, it is admitted, did actually occur,
claim a latitude of explanation, which a mere narrative of those alleged
facts, written by an unknown person some eighteen centuries ago, could
not obtain. If, for instance, it be once established as an absolute
fact that a man actually dead, and some days buried, upon whose body
decomposition had already made some progress,(1) had been restored to
life, the fact of his death and of his subsequent resuscitation being so
absolutely proved that the possibility of deception or of mistake on the
part of the witnesses was totally excluded--if such conclusive evidence
be supposed possible in such a case--it is clear that an argument, as to
whether such an occurrence were to be ascribed to known or unknown laws,
would assume a very different character indeed from that which it would
have borne if the argument merely sought to account for so astounding a
phenomenon of whose actual occurrence there was no sufficient evidence.
It must not be forgotten, therefore, that, as the late Professor Baden
Powell pointed out: "At the present day it is not _a miracle_, but the
_narrative of a miracle_, to which any argument can refer, or to which
faith is accorded."(2) The discussion of miracles, then, is not one
regarding miracles actually performed within our own knowledge, but
merely regarding miracles said to have been performed eighteen hundred
years ago, the reality of
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which was not verified at the time by any scientific examination, and
whose occurrence is merely reported in the Gospels. Now, although Dr.
Mozley rightly and logically maintains that Christianity requires, and
should be believed only upon, its miraculous evidence, the fact is that
popular Christianity is not believed because of miracles, but miracles
are accepted because they are related in the Gospels which are supposed
to contain the doctrines of Christianity. The Gospels have for many
generations been given to the child as inspired records, and doubt
of miracles has, therefore, either never arisen or has been instantly
suppressed, simply because miracles are recorded in the sacred volume.
It could scarcely be otherwise, for in point of fact the Gospel miracles
stand upon no other testimony. We are therefore in this position: We
are asked to believe astounding announcements beyond the limits of
human reason, which, as Br. Mozley admits, we could only be justified in
believing upon miraculous evidence, upon the testimony of miracles
which are only reported by the records which also alone convey the
announcements which those miracles were intended to accredit. There is
no other contemporary evidence whatever. The importance of the Gospels,
therefore, as the almost solitary testimony to the occurrence of
miracles can scarcely be exaggerated.(1) We have already
1 Dr. Farrar, winding up the antecedent discussion, says:
".... we arrive at this point--that the credibility of
miracles is in each instance simply and solely a question of
evidence, and consequently that our belief or rejection of
the Christian miracles must mainly depend on the character
of the Gospels in which they are recorded." The Witness of
History to Christ, 1872, p. 51. It is somewhat singular that
after such a declaration he considers it unnecessary to
enter into the question of the genuineness and authenticity
of the Gospels, deeming it sufficient for his purpose, that
Strauss and Renan admit that some portion of these documents
existed at the beginning of the second century, or earlier,
in the country where the events narrated took place.
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made an anticipatory remark regarding the nature of these documents,
to which we may add that they are not the work of perfectly independent
historians, but of men who were engaged in disseminating the new
doctrines, and in saying this we have no intention of accusing the
writers of conscious deception; it is, however, necessary to state the
fact in order that the value of the testimony may be fairly estimated.
The narratives of miracles were written by ardent partizans, with minds
inflamed by religious zeal and enthusiasm, in an age of ignorance
and superstition, a considerable time after the supposed miraculous
occurrences had taken place. 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 narratives
circulated, in a period so prone to superstition and so characterized
by love of the marvellous. Religious excitement and reverence for the
noblest of Teachers could not, under such circumstances and in such an
age, have escaped this exaggeration. How few men in more enlightened
times have been able soberly to appreciate, and accurately to record
exciting experiences, where feeling and religious emotion have been
concerned. Prosaic accuracy of observation and of language, at all times
rare, are the last qualities we could expect to find in the early ages
of Christianity. In the certain fact that disputes arose among the
Apostles themselves so shortly after the death of their great Master, we
have one proof that even amongst them there was no accurate appreciation
of the teaching of Jesus,(1) and the frequent instances of their
misunderstanding of very simple matters, and of their want of
enlightenment, which occur throughout the
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Gospels are certainly not calculated to inspire much confidence in their
intelligence and accuracy of observation. Now it is apparent that the
evidence for Miracles requires to embrace two distinct points: the
reality of the alleged facts, and the accuracy of the inference that the
phenomena were produced by supernatural Agency. The task would even then
remain of demonstrating the particular supernatural Being by whom the
miracles were performed, which is admitted to be impossible. We have
hitherto chiefly confined ourselves to a consideration of the antecedent
credibility of such events, and of the fitness of those who are supposed
to have witnessed them to draw accurate inferences from the alleged
phenomena. Those who have formed any adequate conception of the amount
of testimony which would be requisite in order to establish the reality
of occurrences in violation of an order of Nature, which is based upon
universal and invariable experience, must recognize that, even if the
earliest asserted origin of our four Gospels could be established upon
the most irrefragable grounds, the testimony of the writers--men of
like ignorance with their contemporaries, men of like passions with
ourselves--would be utterly incompetentto prove the reality of Miracles.
We have already sufficiently discussed this point, more especially
in connection with Hume's argument, and need not here resume it Every
consideration, historical and philosophical, has hitherto discredited
the whole theory of miracles, and further inquiry might be abandoned as
unnecessary. In order, however, to render our conclusion complete,
it remains for us to see whether, as affirmed, there be any special
evidence regarding the alleged facts entitling the Gospel Miracles to
exceptional attention. If, instead of being
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clear, direct, the undoubted testimony of known eyewitnesses free
from superstition, and capable, through adequate knowledge, rightly to
estimate the alleged phenomena, we find that the actual accounts have
none of these qualifications, the final decision with regard to Miracles
and the reality of Divine Revelation will be easy and conclusive.
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PART II. THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
INTRODUCTION.
Before commencing our examination of the evidence as to the date,
authorship, and character of the Gospels, it may be well to make a few
preliminary remarks, and clearly state certain canons of criticism. We
shall make no attempt to establish any theory as to the date at which
any of the Gospels was actually written, but simply examine all the
testimony which is extant with the view of ascertaining what is known
of these works and their authors, certainly and distinctly, as
distinguished from what is merely conjectured or inferred. Modern
opinion, in an Inquiry like ours, must not be mistaken for ancient
evidence. We propose, therefore, as exhaustively as possible to search
all the writings of the early Church for information regarding the
Gospels, and to examine even the alleged indications of their use.
It is very important, however, that the silence of early writers should
receive as much attention as any supposed allusions to the Gospels. When
such writers, quoting largely from the Old Testament and other sources,
deal
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with subjects which would naturally be assisted by reference 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 recognized as works of authority at the
time.
It is still more important that we should constantly bear in mind,
that a great number of Gospels existed in the early Church which are no
longer extant, and of most of which even the names are lost. We need
not here do more than refer, in corroboration of this fact, to the
preliminary statement of the author of the third Gospel: "Forasmuch as
many [--Greek--] took in hand to set forth in order a declaration of the
things which have been accomplished among us," &c.(1) It is therefore
evident that before our third Synoptic was written many similar works
were already in circulation. Looking at the close similarity of large
portions of the three Synoptics, it is almost certain that many of the
writings here mentioned bore a close analogy to each other and to our
Gospels, and this is known to have been the case, for instance, amongst
the various forms of the "Gospel according to the Hebrews." When,
therefore, in early writings, we meet with quotations closely
resembling, or we may add, even identical with passages which are found
in our Gospels, the source of which, however, is not mentioned, nor is
any author's name indicated, the similarity or even identity cannot by
any means be admitted as proof that the quotation is necessarily from
our Gospels, and not from some other similar work
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now no longer extant,(1) and more especially not when, in the same
writings, there are other quotations from sources different from our
Gospels. Whether regarded as historical records or as writings embodying
the mere tradition of the early Christians, our Gospels cannot be
recognized as the exclusive depositaries of the genuine sayings and
doings of Jesus. So far from the common possession by many works, in
early times, of sayings of Jesus in closely similar form being either
strange or improbable, the really remarkable phenomenon is that such
material variation in the report of the more important historical
teaching should exist amongst them. But whilst similarity to our Gospels
in passages quoted by early writers from unnamed sources cannot prove
the use of our Gospels, variation from them would suggest or prove a
different origin, and at least it is obvious that anonymous quotations
which do not agree with our Gospels cannot in any case necessarily
indicate their existence. We shall in the course of the following pages
more fully illustrate this, but such a statement is requisite at the
very outset from the too general practice of referring every quotation
of historical sayings of Jesus exclusively to our Gospels, as though
they were the only sources of such matter which had ever existed.
It is unnecessary to add that, in proportion as we remove from apostolic
times without positive evidence of the existence and authenticity of
our Gospels, so does the value of their testimony dwindle away. Indeed,
requiring as we do clear, direct, and irrefragable evidence of the
integrity, authenticity, and historical character of these Gospels,
doubt or obscurity on these points must inevitably be fatal to them as
sufficient testimony,--if
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they could, under any circumstances be considered sufficient
testimony,--for miracles and a direct Divine Revelation like
ecclesiastical Christianity.
We propose to examine first, the evidence for the three Synoptics and,
then, separately, the testimony regarding the fourth Gospel.
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CHAPTER I. CLEMENT OF ROME--THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS--THE PASTOR OF
HERMAS.
The first work which presents itself for examination is the so-called
first Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, which, together with a
second Epistle to the same community, likewise attributed to Clement, is
preserved to us in the Codex Alexandrinus,(1) a MS. assigned by the most
competent judges to the second half of the fifth, or beginning of the
sixth century, in which these Epistles follow the books of the New
Testament. The second Epistle, which is evidently not epistolary, but
the fragment of a Homily,(2) although it thus shares with the first the
honour of a canonical position in one of the most ancient codices of the
New Testament, is not mentioned at all by the earlier fathers who refer
to the first;(3)
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and Eusebius,(1) who is the first writer who mentions it, expresses
doubt regarding it, while Jerome(2) and Photius(3) state that it was
rejected by the ancients. It is now universally regarded as spurious,(4)
and dated about the end of the second century,(5) or later.(6) We shall
hereafter see that many other pseudographs were circulated in the name
of Clement, to which, however, we need not further allude at present.
There has been much controversy as to the identity of the Clement to
whom the first Epistle is attributed. In early days he was supposed to
be the Clement
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mentioned in the Epistle to the Philippians (iv. 3)(1), but this is now
generally doubted or abandoned,(2) and the authenticity of the
Epistle has, indeed, been called in question both by earlier and later
critics.(3) It is unnecessary to detail the various traditions regarding
the supposed writer, but we must point out that the Epistle itself makes
no mention of the author's name. It merely 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. Clement of Alexandria calls the supposed writer the "Apostle
Clement:"(4) Origen reports that many also ascribed to him the
authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews;(5) and Photius mentions that
he was likewise said to be the writer of the Acts of the Apostles.(6)
We know that until a comparatively late date this Epistle was quoted as
Holy Scripture,(7) and was publicly read in the churches at the Sunday
meetings of Christians.(8) It has, as we have seen, a place amongst
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the canonical books of the New Testament in the Codex Alexandrinus, but
it did not long retain that position in the canon, for although in the
"Apostolic Canons"(1) of the sixth or seventh century both Epistles
appear, yet in the Stichometry of Nicephorus, a work of the ninth
century, derived, however, as Credner(2) has demonstrated, from a Syrian
catalogue of the fifth century, both Epistles are classed among the
Apocrypha.(3)
Great uncertainty prevails as to the date at which the Epistle was
written. Reference is supposed to be made to it by the so-called Epistle
of Polycarp,(4) but, owing to the probable inauthenticity of that
work itself, no weight can be attached to this circumstance. The first
certain reference to it is by Hegesippus, in the second half of the
second century, mentioned by Eusebius.(5) Dionysius of Corinth, in a
letter ascribed to him addressed to Soter, Bishop of Rome, is the
first who distinctly mentions the name of Clement as the author of the
Epistle.(6) There is some difference of opinion as to the order of his
succession to the Bishopric of Rome. Irenaeus(7) and Eusebius(8) say that
he followed Anacletus, and the latter adds the date of the twelfth
year of the reign of Domitian (a.d. 91-92), and that he died nine years
after, in the third year of Trajan's reign (a.d. 100).(9) Internal
evidence(10) shows that the Epistle was written after some persecution
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of the Roman Church, and the selection lies between the persecution
under Nero, which would suggest the date a.d. 64-70, or that under
Domitian, which would assign the letter to the end of the first century,
or to the beginning of the second. Those who adhere to the view that
the Clement mentioned in the Epistle to the Philippians is the author,
maintain that the Epistle was written under Nero.(1) One of their
principal arguments for this conclusion is a remark occurring in Chapter
xli.: "Not everywhere, brethren, are the daily sacrifices offered up, or
the votive offerings, or the sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings,
but only in Jerusalem. But even there they are not offered in every
place, but only at the altar before the Sanctuary, examination of the
sacrifice offered being first made by the High Priest and the ministers
already mentioned."(2) From this it is concluded that the Epistle was
written before the destruction of the Temple. It has, however, been
shown that Josephus,(3) the author of the "Epistle to Diognetus" (c. 3),
and others, long after the Jewish worship of the Temple was at an
end, continually speak in the present tense of the Temple worship in
Jerusalem; and it is evident, as Cotelier long ago remarked, that this
may be done with propriety even in the present
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day. The argument is therefore recognized to be without value.(l)
Tischendorf, who systematically adopts the earliest possible or
impossible dates for all the writings of the first two centuries,
decides, without stating his reasons, that the grounds for the earlier
date, about a.d. 69, as well as for the episcopate of Clement from a.d.
68-77(2) are conclusive; but he betrays his more correct impression by
classing Clement, in his index, along with Ignatius and Polycarp, as
representatives of the period: "First and second quarters of the second
century:"(3) and in the Prolegomena to his New Testament he dates the
episcopate of Clement "ab anno 92 usque 102."(4) The earlier episcopate
assigned to him by Hefele upon most insufficient grounds is contradicted
by the direct statements of Irenaeus, Eusebius, Jerome, and others who
give the earliest lists of Roman Bishops,(5) as wrell as by the internal
evidence of the Epistle itself. In Chapter xliv. the writer speaks of
those appointed by the apostles to the oversight of the Church, "or
afterwards by other notable men, the whole Church consenting.... who
have for a long time been commended by all, &c.,"(6) which indicates
successions of Bishops since apostolic days. In another
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place (Chap, xlvii.) he refers the Corinthians to the Epistle addressed
to them by Paul "in the beginning of the Gospel" [--Greek--], and speaks
of "the most stedfast and ancient Church of the Corinthians" [--Greek--],
which would be absurd in an Epistle written about a.d. 69. Moreover, an
advanced episcopal form of Church Government is indicated throughout the
letter, which is quite inconsistent with such a date. The great mass
of critics, therefore, have decided against the earlier date of the
episcopate of Clement, and assign the composition of the Epistle to
the end of the first century (a.d. 95-100).(1) Others, however, date it
still later. There is no doubt that the great number of Epistles and
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other writings falsely circulated in the name of Clement may well excite
suspicion as to the authenticity of this Epistle also, which is far from
unsupported by internal proofs. Of these, however, we shall only mention
one. We have already incidentally remarked that the writer mentions the
Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, the only instance in which any New
Testament writing is referred to by name; but along with the Epistle
of the "blessed Paul" [--Greek--] the author also speaks of the "blessed
Judith" [--Greek--],(1) and this leads to the inquiry: When was the Book
of Judith written? Hitzig, Volkmar, and others contend that it must be
dated a.d. 117-118,(3) and if this be admitted, it follows of course
that an Epistle which already shows acquaintance with the Book of Judith
cannot have been written before a.d. 120-125 at the earliest, which
many, for this and other reasons, affirm to be the case with the Epistle
of pseudo-Clement.(3) Whatever date be assigned to it, however, it is
probable that the Epistle is interpolated,4 although it must be added
that this is not the view of the majority of critics.
It is important to ascertain whether or not this ancient christian
Epistle affords any evidence of the existence of
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our Synoptic Gospels at the time when it was written. Tischendorf,
who is ever ready to claim the slightest resemblance in language as a
reference to New Testament writings, states that although this Epistle
is rich in quotations from the Old Testament, and that Clement here
and there also makes use of passages from Pauline Epistles, he nowhere
refers to the Gospels.(1) This is perfectly true, but several passages
occur in this Epistle which are either quotations from Evangelical works
different from ours, or derived from tradition,(2) and in either case
they have a very important bearing upon our inquiry.
The first of these passages occurs in Ch. xiii., and for greater
facility of comparison, we shall at once place it both in the Greek and
in translation, in juxta-position with the nearest parallel readings
in our Synoptic Gospels; and, as far as may be, we shall in the English
version indicate differences existing in the original texts. The passage
is introduced thus: "Especially remembering the words of the Lord Jesus,
which he spake teaching gentleness and long-suffering. For thus he
said:"(3)--
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Of course it is understood that, although for convenience
{226}
of comparison we have broken up this quotation into these phrases, it
is quite continuous in the Epistle. It must be evident to any one who
carefully examines the parallel passages, that "the words of the Lord
Jesus" in the Epistle cannot have been derived from our Gospels.
Not only is there no similar consecutive discourse in them, but the
scattered phrases which are pointed out as presenting superficial
similarity with the quotation are markedly different both in thought and
language. In it, as in the "beatitudes" of the "Sermon on the Mount"
in the first Gospel, the construction is peculiar and continuous: "Do
this.... in order that [--Greek--]"; or, "As [--Greek--]... so [--Greek--]"
The theor of a combination of passages from memory, which is usually
advanced to explain such quotations, cannot serve here, for thoughts and
expressions occur in the passage in the Epistle which have no parallel
at all in our Gospels, and such dismembered phrases as can be collected
from our first and third Synoptics, for comparison with it, follow the
course of the quotation in the ensuing order: Matt. v. 7, vi. 14,
part of vii. 12, phrase without parallel, first part of vii. 2, phrase
without parallel, last part of vii. 2; or, Luke vi. 36, last phrase of
vi. 37, vi. 31, first phrase of vi. 38, first phrase of vi. 37, phrase
without parallel, last phrase of vi. 38.
The only question with regard to this passage, therefore, is whether
the writer quotes from an unknown written source or from tradition. He
certainly merely professes to repeat "words of the Lord Jesus," and does
not definitely indicate a written record, but it is much more probable,
from the context, that he quotes from a gospel now no longer extant than
that he derives this teaching from oral tradition. He introduces the
quotation
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not only with a remark implying a well-known record: "Remembering
the words of the Lord Jesus which he spake, teaching, &c." but he
reiterates: "For thus he said," in a way suggesting careful and precise
quotation of the very words; and he adds at the end: "By this injunction
and by these instructions let us establish ourselves, that we may walk
in obedience to his holy words, thinking humbly of ourselves."(1) seems
improbable that the writer would so markedly have indicated a precise
quotation of words of Jesus, and would so emphatically have commended
them as the rule of life to the Corinthians, had these precepts been
mere floating tradition, until then unstamped with written permanence.
The phrase: "As ye show kindness [--Greek--] which is nowhere found in our
Gospels, recalls an expression quoted by Justin Martyr apparently from
a Gospel different from ours, and frequently repeated by him in the same
form: "Be ye kind and merciful [--Greek--] Father also is kind [--Greek--]
and merciful."(2) In the very next chapter of the Epistle a similar
reference again occurs: "Let us be kind to each other [--Greek--] according
to the mercy and benignity of our Creator."(3) Without, however, going
more minutely into this question, it is certain from its essential
variations in language, thought and order, that the passage in the
Epistle cannot be claimed as a compilation from our Gospels; and we
shall presently see that some of the expressions in it which are foreign
to our Gospels are elsewhere quoted by other Fathers, and there is
reason to believe that these "words of the Lord Jesus" were not derived
from tradition but
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from a written source different from our Gospels.(1) When the great
difference which exists between the parallel passages in the first
and third Synoptics, and still more between these and the second,
is considered, it is easy to understand that other Gospels may have
contained a version differing as much from them as they do from each
other.
We likewise subjoin the next passage to which we must refer, with the
nearest parallels in our Synoptics. We may explain that the writer
of the Epistle is rebuking the Corinthians for strifes and divisions
amongst them, and for forgetting that they "are members one of another,"
and he continues: "Remember the words of our Lord Jesus; for he
said:"(2)
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This quotation is clearly not from our Gospels, but must be assigned
to a different written source. The writer would scarcely refer the
Corinthians to such words of Jesus if they were merely traditional.
It is neither a combination of texts, nor a quotation from memory.
The language throughout is markedly different from any passage in the
Synoptics, and to present even a superficial parallel, it is necessary
to take a fragment of the discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper
regarding the traitor who should deliver him up (Matth. xxvi. 24), and
join it to a fragment of his remarks in connection with the little child
whom he set in the midst (xviii. 6). The parallel passage in Luke has
not
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the opening words of the passage in the Epistle at all, and the portion
which it contains (xvii. 2), is separated from the context in which
it stands in the first Gospel, and which explains its meaning. If we
contrast the parallel passages in the three Synoptics, their differences
of context are very suggestive, and without referring to their numerous
and important variations in detail, the confusion amongst them is
evidence of very varying tradition.(1) This alone would make the
existence of another form like that quoted in the Epistle before us more
than probable.
Tischendorf, in a note to his statement that Clement nowhere refers to
the Gospels, quotes the passage we are now considering, the only one to
which he alludes, and says: "These words are expressly cited as 'words
of Jesus our Lord;' but they denote much more oral apostolic tradition
than a use of the parallel passages in Matthew (xxvi. 24, xviii. 6)
and Luke (xvii. 2)."(2) It is now, of course, impossible to determine
finally whether the passage was actually derived from tradition or from
a written source different from our Gospels, but in either case the fact
is, that the Epistle not only does not afford the slightest evidence
for the existence of any of our Gospels, but from only making use of
tradition or an apocryphal work as the source of information regarding
words of Jesus, it is decidedly opposed to the pretensions made on
behalf of the Synoptics.
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Before passing on, we may, in the briefest way possible, refer to one or
two other passages, with the view of further illustrating the character
of the quotations in this Epistle. There are many passages cited which
are not found in the Old Testament, and others which have no parallels
in the New. At the beginning of the very chapter in which the words
which we have just been considering occur, there is the following
quotation: "It-is written: Cleave to the holy, for they who cleave
to them shall be made holy,"(1) the source of which is unknown. In a
previous chapter the writer says: "And our Apostles knew, through our
Lord Jesus Christ, that there will be contention regarding the name,
[--Greek--], office, dignity?) of the episcopate."(2) What was the writers
authority for this statement? We find Justin Martyr quoting, as an
express prediction of Jesus: "There shall be schisms and heresies,"(3)
which is not contained in our gospels, but evidently derived from an
uncanonical source,(4) a fact rendered more apparent by the occurrence
of a similar passage in the Clementine Homilies, still more closely
bearing upon our Epistle: "For there shall be, as the Lord said,
false apostles, false prophets, heresies, desires for supremacy."(5)
Hegesippus also speaks in a similar way: "From these came the
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false Christs, false prophets, false apostles who divided the unity of
the Church."(l) As Hegesippus, and in all probability Justin Martyr, and
the author of the Clementines made use of the Gospel according to the
Hebrews, or to Peter, it is most probable that these Gospels contained
passages to which the words of the Epistle may refer.(2) It may be well
to point out that the author also cites a passage from the Fourth Book
of Ezra, ii. 16:(3) "And I shall remember the good day, and I shall
raise you from your tombs."(4) Ezra reads: "Et resuscitabo mor-tuos de
locis suis et de monumentis educam illos," &c. The first part of the
quotation in the Epistle, of which we have only given the latter clause
above, is taken from Isaiah xxvi. 20, but there can be no doubt that the
above is from this apocryphal book,(5) which, as we shall see, was much
used in the early Church.
2.
We now turn to the so-called "Epistle of Barnabas," another interesting
relic of the early Church, many points in whose history have
considerable analogy with that of the Epistle of pseudo-Clement. The
letter itself bears no author's name, is not dated from any place, and
is not addressed to any special community. Towards the
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end of the second century, however, tradition began to ascribe it to
Barnabas the companion of Paul.(1) The first writer who mentions it is
Clement of Alexandria, who calls its author several times the "Apostle
Barnabas;"(2) and Eusebius says that he gave an account of it in one of
his works now no longer extant.(3) Origen also refers to it, calling it
a "Catholic Epistle," and quoting it as Scripture.(4) We have already
seen in the case of the Epistles ascribed to Clement of Rome, and, as we
proceed, we shall become only too familiar with the fact, the singular
facility with which, in the total absence of critical discrimination,
spurious writings were ascribed by the Fathers to Apostles and their
followers. In many cases such writings were deliberately inscribed with
names well known in the Church, but both in the case of the two Epistles
to the Corinthians, and the letter we are now considering, no such
pious fraud was attempted, nor was it necessary. Credulous piety, which
attributed writings to every Apostle, and even to Jesus himself, soon
found authors for each anonymous work of an edifying character. To
Barnabas, the friend of Paul, not only this Epistle was referred, but
he was also reported by Tertullian and others to be the author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews;(5) and an apocryphal "Gospel according to
Barnabas," said to have had close affinity with our
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first Synoptic, is condemned along with many others in the decretal
of Gelasius.(1) Eusebius, however, classes the so-called "Epistle of
Barnabas" amongst the spurious books [--Greek--],(2) and elsewhere also
speaks of it as uncanonical.(3) Jerome mentions it as read amongst
apocryphal writings.(4) Had the Epistle been seriously regarded as a
work of the "Apostle" Barnabas, it could scarcely have failed to attain
canonical rank. That it was highly valued by the early Church is shown
by the fact that it stands, along with the Pastor of Hermas, after the
Canonical books of the New Testament in the Codex Sinaiticus, which is
probably the most ancient MS. of them now known. In the earlier days of
criticism, some writers, without much question, adopted the traditional
view as to the authorship of the Epistle,(5) but the great mass of
critics are now agreed in asserting that the composition, which itself
is perfectly anonymous, cannot be attributed to Barnabas the friend and
fellow-worker of Paul.(6) Those who maintain the former opinion date
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the Epistle about a.d. 70--73, or even earlier, but this is scarcely
the view of any living critic. There are many indications in the Epistle
which render such a date impossible, but we do not propose to go into
the argument minutely, for it is generally admitted that, whilst there
is a clear limit further back than which the Epistle cannot be set,(1)
there is little or no certainty how far into the second century its
composition may not reasonably be advanced. Critics are divided upon the
point; a few are disposed to date the Epistle about the end of the first
or beginning of the second century (2} while a still greater number
assign it to the reign of Hadrian (a.d.
{236}
117--138);(1) and others, not without reason, consider that it exhibits
marks of a still later period.(2) It is probable that it is more or less
interpolated.(3) Until the discovery of the Sinaitic MS., a portion
of the "Epistle of Barnabas" was only known through an ancient Latin
version, the first four and a half chapters of the Greek having been
lost. The Greek text, however, is now complete, although often very
corrupt. The author quotes largely from the Old Testament, and also from
apocryphal works.(4) He nowhere mentions any book or writer of the New
Testament, and with one asserted exception, which we shall presently
examine, he quotes no passage agreeing with our Gospels. We shall refer
to these, commencing at once with the most important.
In the ancient Latin translation of the Epistle, the only form, as we
have just said, in which until the discovery
{237}
of the Codex Sinaiticus the first four and a half chapters were extant,
the following passage occurs: "Adtendamus ergo, ne forte, sicut scriptum
est, multi vocati pauci electi inveniamur."(l) "Let us, therefore,
beware lest we should be found, as it is written: Many are called, few
are chosen." These words are found in our first Gospel (xxii. 14), and
as the formula by which they are here introduced--"it is written," is
generally understood to indicate a quotation from Holy Scripture, it
was and is argued by some that here we have a passage from one of our
Gospels quoted in a manner which shows that, at the time the Epistle
of Barnabas was written, the "Gospel according to Matthew was already
considered Holy Scripture."(3) Whilst this portion of the text existed
only in the Latin version, it was argued that the "sicut scriptum est,"
at least, must be an interpolation, and in any case that it could not be
deliberately applied, at that date, to a passage in any writings of the
New Testament. On the discovery of the Sinaitic MS., however, the words
were found in the Greek text in that Codex: [--Greek--]. The question,
therefore, is so far modified that, however much we may suspect the
Greek text of interpolation, it must be accepted as the basis of
discussion that this passage, whatever its value, exists in the oldest,
and indeed only (and this point must not be forgotten) complete MS. of
the Greek Epistle.
Now with regard to the value of the expression "it is written," it may
be remarked that in no case could its use in the Epistle of Barnabas
indicate more than individual opinion, and it could not, for reasons to
be
presently given, be considered to represent the decision of the Church.
In the very same chapter in which the formula is used in connection
with the passage we are considering, it is also employed to introduce a
quotation from the Book of Enoch,(1) [--Greek--], and elsewhere (c. xii.)
he quotes from another apocryphal book(2) as one of the prophets.(3)"
Again, he refers to the Cross of Christ in another prophet saying: 'And
when shall these things come to pass? and the Lord saith: When, &c. ...
[--Greek--],
.......[--Greek--]." He also quotes (ch. vi.) the apocryphal "Book of
Wisdom" as Holy Scripture, and in like manner several other unknown
works. When it is remembered that the Epistle of Clement to the
Corinthians, the Pastor of Hennas, the Epistle of Barnabas itself, and
many other apocryphal works have been quoted by the Fathers as
Holy Scripture, the distinctive value of such an expression may be
understood.
With this passing remark, however, we proceed to say that this supposed
quotation from Matthew as Holy Scripture, by proving too much, destroys
its own value as evidence. The generality of competent and
{239}
impartial critics are agreed, that it is impossible to entertain the
idea that one of our Gospels could have held the rank of Holy Scripture
at the date of this Epistle, seeing that, for more than half a century
after, the sharpest line was drawn between the writings of the Old
Testament and of the New, and the former alone quoted as, or accorded
the consideration of, Holy Scripture.1 If this were actually a quotation
from our first Gospel, already in the position of Holy Scripture,
it would indeed be astonishing that the Epistle, putting out of the
question other Christian writings for half a century after it, teeming
as it does with extracts from the Old Testament, and from known, and
unknown, apocryphal works, should thus limit its use of the Gospel to
a few words, totally neglecting the rich store which it contains, and
quoting, on the other hand, sayings of Jesus not recorded at all in
any of our Synoptics. It is most improbable that, if the author of the
"Epistle of Barnabas" was acquainted with any one of our Gospels, and
considered it an inspired and canonical work, he could have neglected it
in such a manner. The peculiarity of the quotation which he is supposed
to make, which we shall presently point out, renders such limitation to
it doubly singular upon any such hypothesis. The unreasonable nature of
the assertion, however, will become more apparent as we proceed with
our examination, and perceive that none of the early writers quote our
Gospels,
{240}
if they knew them at all, but, on the other hand, make use of other
works, and that the inference that Matthew was considered Holy
Scripture, therefore, rests solely upon this quotation of half a dozen
words.
The application of such a formula to a supposed quotation from one of
our Gospels, in so isolated an instance, led to the belief that, even
if the passage were taken from our first Synoptic, the author of the
Epistle in quoting it laboured under the impression that it was derived
from some prophetical book.(1) We daily see how difficult it is to
trace the source even of the most familiar quotations. Instances of such
confusion of memory are frequent in the writings of the Fathers, and
many can be pointed out in the New Testament itself. For instance, in
Matt, xxvii. 9 f. the passage from Zechariah xi. 12-13 is attributed to
Jeremiah; in Mark i. 2, a quotation from Malachi iii. 1 is ascribed to
Isaiah. In 1 Corinthians ii. 9, a passage is quoted as Holy Scripture
which is not found in the Old Testament at all, but which is taken, as
Origen and Jerome state, from an apocryphal work, "The Revelation of
Elias,"(2) and the passage is similarly quoted by the so-called Epistle
of Clement to the Corinthians (xxxiv). Then in what prophet did the
author of the first Gospel find the words (xiil 35): "That it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet,(3) saying: I will open my
mouth in parables; I
{241}
will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the
world "?
Orelli,(1) afterwards followed by many others,(2) suggested that the
quotation was probably intended for one in IV Ezra viii. 3: "Nam multi
creati sunt, pauci autem salvabuntur."(3) "For many are created, but few
shall be saved." Bretsclineider proposed as an emendation of the passage
in Ezra the substitution of "_vocati_" for "_creati_" but, however
plausible, his argument did not meet with much favour.(4) Along with
this passage was also suggested a similar expression in IV Ezra ix. 15:
"Plures sunt qui pereunt, quam qui salvabuntur." "There are more who
perish than who shall be saved."(5) The Greek of the three passages may
read as follows:--
[--Greek--]
[--Greek--]
[--Greek--]
There can be no doubt that the sense of the reading in IV Ezra is
exactly that of the Epistle, but the language is somewhat different. We
must not forget, however, that the original Greek of IV Ezra(6) is
lost, and that we are wholly dependent on the versions and MSS. extant,
regarding whose numerous variations and great
{242}
corruption there are no differences of opinion. Orelli's theory,
moreover, is supported by the fact that the Epistle, elsewhere, (c. xii)
quotes from IV Ezra (iv. 33, v. 5).
On examining the passage as it occurs in our first Synoptic, we are
at the very outset struck by the singular fact, that this short saying
appears twice in that Gospel with a different context, and in each case
without any propriety of application to what precedes it, whilst it is
not found at all in either of the other two Synoptics. The first time
we meet with it is at the close of the parable of the labourers in the
vineyard.(1) The householder engages the labourers at different hours
of the day, and pays those who had worked but one hour the same wages as
those who had borne the burden and heat of the day, and the reflection
at the close is, xx. 16: "Thus the last shall be first and the first
last; for many are called but few chosen." It is perfectly evident that
neither of these sayings, but especially not that with which we are
concerned, has any connection with the parable at all. There is no
question of many or few, or of selection or rejection; all the labourers
are engaged and paid alike. If there be a moral at all to the parable,
it is the justification of the master: "Is it not lawful for me to do
what I will with mine own?" It is impossible to imagine a saying more
irrelevant to its context than "many are called but few chosen," in
such a place. The passage occurs again (xxii. 14) in connection with the
parable of the king who made a marriage for his son. The guests who are
at first invited refuse to come, and are destroyed by the king's armies;
but the wedding is nevertheless "furnished
{243}
with guests" by gathering together as many as are found in the highways.
A new episode commences when the king comes in to see the guests (v.
11). He observes a man there who has not on a wedding garment, and he
desires the servants to (v. 13) "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him
into the darkness without," where "there shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth;"(1) and then comes our passage (v. 14): "For many are called
but few chosen." Now, whether applied to the first or to the latter part
of the parable, the saying is irrelevant. The guests first called were
in fact chosen as much as the last, but themselves refused to come,
and of all those who, being "called" from the highways and byways,
ultimately furnished the wedding with guests in their stead, only one
was rejected. It is clear that the facts here distinctly contradict the
moral that "few are chosen." In both places the saying is, as it were,
"dragged in by the hair." On examination, however, we find that the
oldest MSS. of the New Testament omit the sentence from Matthew xx. 16.
It is neither found in the Sinaitic nor Vatican codices, and whilst it
has not the support of the Codex Alexandrinus, which is defective at the
part, nor of the Dublin rescript (z), which omits it, many other MSS.
are also without it. The total irrelevancy of the saying to its context,
its omission by the oldest authorities from Matth. xx. 16, where it
appears in later MSS., and its total absence from both of the other
Gospels, must at once strike every one as peculiar, and as very
unfortunate, to say
1 This is not the place to criticize the expectation of
finding a wedding garment on a guest hurried in from
highways and byways, or the punishment inflicted for such an
offence, as questions affecting the character of the
parable.
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the least of it, for those who make extreme assertions with regard to
its supposed quotation by the Epistle of Barnabas. Weizsacker, with
great probability, suggests that in this passage we have merely
a well-known proverb,(1) which the author of the first gospel has
introduced into his work from some uncanonical or other source, and
placed in the mouth of Jesus.(2) Certainly under the circumstances it
can scarcely be maintained in its present context as a historical saying
of Jesus. Ewald, who naturally omits it from Matthew xx. 16, ascribes
the parable xx. 1--16 as well as that xxii. 1--14, in which it stands,
originally to the Spruchsammlung(3) or collection of discourses, out of
which, with intermediate works, he considers that our first Gospel was
composed.(4) However this may be, there is, it seems to us, good reason
for believing that it was not originally a part of these parables, and
that it is not in that sense historical; and there is, therefore, no
ground for asserting that it may not have been derived by the author of
the Gospel from some older work, from which also it may have come into
the "Epistle of Barnabas."(5)
{245}
There is, however, another passage which deserves to be mentioned. The
Epistle has the following quotation: "Again, I will show thee how, in
regard to us, the Lord saith, He made a new creation in the last
times. The Lord saith: Behold I make the first as the last."(l) Even
Tischendorf does not pretend that this is a quotation of Matth. xx.
16,(2) "Thus the last shall be first and the first last," [--Greek--] the
sense of which is quite different. The application of the saying in
this place in the first, and indeed in the other, Synoptic Gospels is
evidently quite false, and depends merely on the ring of words and not
of ideas. In xix. 30 it is quoted a second time, quite irrelevantly,
with some variation: "But many first shall be last and last first"
[--Greek--]. Now it will be remembered that at xx. 16 it occurs in several
MSS. in connection with "Many are called but few are chosen," although
the oldest codices omit the latter passage, and most critics consider it
interpolated. The separate quotation of these two passages by the author
of the Epistle, with so marked a variation in the second, renders it
most probable that he found both in the source from which he quotes. We
have, however, more than sufficiently discussed this passage. The author
of the Epistle does not indicate any source from which he makes his
quotation; and the mere existence in the first Synoptic of a proverbial
saying
{246}
like this does not in the least involve the conclusion that it is
necessarily the writing from which the quotation was derived, more
especially as apocryphal works are repeatedly cited in the Epistle. If
it be maintained that the saying is really historical, it is obvious
that the prescriptive right of our Synoptic is at once excluded, and it
may have been the common property of a score of evangelical works.
There can be no doubt that many Scriptural texts have crept into early
Christian writings which originally had no place there; and where
attendant circumstances are suspicious, it is always well to remember
the fact. An instance of the interpolation of which we speak is found in
the "Epistle of Barnabas." In one place the phrase: "Give to every one
that asketh of thee" [--Greek--](1) occurs, not as a quotation, but merely
woven into the Greek text as it existed before the discovery of the
Sinaitic MS. This phrase is the same as the precept in Luke vi. 30,
although it was argued by some that, as no other trace of the third
Gospel existed in the Epistle, it was more probably an alteration of
the text of Matth. v. 42. Omitting the phrase from the passage in the
Epistle, the text read as follows: "Thou shalt not hesitate to give,
neither shalt thou murmur when thou givest... so shalt thou know who is
the good Recompenser of the reward." The supposed quotation, inserted
where we have left a blank, really interrupted the sense and repeated
the previous injunction. The oldest MS., the "Codex Sinaiticus," omits
the quotation, and so ends the question, but it is afterwards inserted
by another hand. Some pious scribe, in fact, seeing the relation of the
passage to the Gospel, had added the
{247}
words in the margin as a gloss, and they afterwards found their way into
the text In this manner very many similar glosses have crept into texts
which they were originally intended to illustrate.
Tischendorf, who does not allude to this, lays much stress upon the
following 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."(1) We may remark that, in
the common Greek text, the words "to repentance" were inserted after
"sinners," but they are not found in the Sinaitic MS. In like manner
many Codices insert them in Matth, ix. 13 and Mark ii. 17, but they
are not found in some of the oldest MSS., and are generally rejected.
Tischendorf considers them a later addition both to the text of the
Gospel and of the Epistle.(3) But this very fact is suggestive. It is
clear that a supposed quotation has been deliberately adjusted to what
was considered to be the text of the Gospel. Why should the whole phrase
not be equally an interpolation? We shall presently see that there is
reason to think that it is so. Alhough there is no quotation in the
passage, who, asks Tischendorf,(3) could mistake the words as they stand
in Matthew, ix. 13, "For I came not to call the righteous but sinners"?
Now this passage is referred to by Origen in his work against Celsus, in
a way which indicates that the supposed quotation did not exist in his
copy; Origen says: "And as Celsus has called
{248}
the Apostles of Jesus infamous men, saying that they were tax-gatherers
and worthless sailors, we have to remark on this, that, &c.... Now in
the Catholic Epistle of Barnabas from which, perhaps, Celsus derived the
statement that the Apostles were infamous and wicked men, it is written
that 'Jesus selected his own Apostles who were sinners above all
sin,"(1)--and then he goes on to quote the expression of Peter to Jesus
(Luke v. 8), and then I Timothy, L 15, but he nowhere refers to the
supposed quotation in the Epistle. Now, if we read the passage without
the quotation, we have: "But when he selected his own Apostles who
should preach his Gospel, who were sinners above all sin.... then he
manifested himself to be the Son of God." Here a pious scribe very
probably added in the margin the gloss: "in order that he might show
that he came not to call the righteous but sinners," to explain the
passage, and as in the case of the phrase: "Give to every one that
asketh of thee," the gloss became subsequently incorporated with the
text. The Epistle, however, goes on to give the only explanation which
the author intended, and which clashes with that of the scribe. "For if
he had not come in the flesh, how could men have been saved by beholding
him? Seeing that looking on the sun that shall cease to be, the work of
his hands, they have not even power to endure his rays. Accordingly, the
Son of Man came in the flesh for this, that he might bring to a head the
number of their sins who had persecuted to death his prophets."(2) The
argument of Origen bears out this view, for he does not at all take the
explanation of
{249}
the gloss as to why Jesus chose his disciples from such a class, but he
reasons: "What is there strange, therefore, that Jesus being minded
to manifest to the race of men his power to heal souls, should have
selected infamous and wicked men, and should have elevated them so
far, that they became a pattern of the purest virtue to those who were
brought by their persuasion to the Gospel of Christ."(1) The argument,
both of the author of the Epistle and of Origen, is different from that
suggested by the phrase under examination, and we consider it a mere
gloss introduced into the text; which, as the [--Greek--] shows, has, in
the estimation of Tischendorf himself, been deliberately altered. Even
if it originally formed part of the text, however, it would be wrong
to affirm that it affords proof of the use or existence of the first
Gospel. The words of Jesus in Matt. ix. 12--14, evidently belong to the
oldest tradition of the Gospel, and, in fact, Ewald ascribes them, apart
from the remainder of the chapter, originally to the Spruchsammlung,
from which, with two intermediate books, he considers that our present
Matthew was composed.(2} Nothing can be more certain than that such
sayings, if they be admitted to be historical at all, must have existed
in many other works, and the mere fact of their happening to be also in
one of the Gospels which has survived, cannot prove its use, or even
{250}
its existence at the time the Epistle of Barnabas was written, more
especially as the phrase does not occur as a quotation, and there is no
indication of the source from which it was derived.
Teschendorf, however, finds a further analogy between the Epistle and
the Gospel of Matthew, in ch. xii. "Since, therefore, in the future,
they were to say that Christ is the son of David, fearing and perceiving
clearly the error of the wicked, David himself prophesies--"The Lord
said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy
footstool."(1) Teschendorf upon this inquires: "Could Barnabas so write
without the supposition, that his readers had Matthew, xxii. 41. ff,
before them, and does not such a supposition likewise infer the actual
authority of Matthew's Gospel?"(2) Such rapid argument and extreme
conclusions are startling indeed, but, in his haste, our critic has
forgotten to state the whole case. The author of the Epistle has been
elaborately showing that the Cross of Christ is repeatedly typified in
the Old Testament, and at the commencement of the chapter, after quoting
the passage from IV Ezra, iv. 33, v. 5, he points to the case of Moses,
to whose heart "the spirit speaks that he should make a form of the
cross," by stretching forth his arms in supplication, and so long as he
did so Israel prevailed over their enemies; and again he typified the
cross, when he set up the brazen serpent upon which the people might
look and be healed. Then that which Moses, as a prophet, said to Joshua
(Jesus) the son of Nave, when he gave him that
{251}
name, was solely for the purpose that all the people might hear that
the Father would reveal all things regarding his Son to the son of Nave.
This name being given to him when he was sent to spy out the land, Moses
said: "Take a book in thy hands, and write what the Lord saith, that the
Son of God will in the last days cut off by the roots all the house of
Amalek." This, of course, is a falsification of the passage, Exodus,
xvii. 14, for the purpose of making it declare Jesus to be the "Son of
God." Then proceeding in the same strain, he says: "Behold again Jesus
is not the son of Man, but the Son of God, manifested in the type and in
the flesh. Since, therefore, in the future, they were to say that Christ
is the son of David," (and here follows the passage we are discussing)
"fearing and perceiving clearly the error of the wicked, David himself
prophesied: 'The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I
make thine enemies thy footstool.' And again, thus speaks Isaiah: 'The
Lord said to Christ my Lord, whose right hand I have held, that the
nations may obey Him, and I will break in pieces the strength of kings.'
Behold how David calleth Him Lord, and the Son of God." And here ends
the chapter and the subject. Now it is quite clear that the passage
occurs, not as a reference to any such dilemma as that in Matthew, xxii.
41 ff., but simply as one of many passages which, at the commencement
of our era, were considered prophetic declarations of the divinity of
Christ, in opposition to the expectation of the Jews that the Messiah
was to be the son of David,(1) and, as we have seen, in order to prove
his point the author alters the text. To argue that such a passage of a
Psalm, quoted in such a manner in this
{252}
epistle, proves the use of our first Synoptic, is in the highest degree
arbitrary.
We have already pointed out that the author quotes apocryphal works as
Holy Scripture; and we may now add that he likewise cites words of Jesus
which are nowhere found in our Gospels. For instance, in ch. vii. we
meet with the folio wing expressions directly attributed to Jesus. "Thus
he say': 'Those who desire to behold me, and to attain my kingdom,
must through tribulation and suffering receive me.'"(1) Hilgenfeld(2)
compares this with another passage, similar in sense, in IV Ezra, vii.
14; but in any case it is not a quotation from our Gospels; (3) and with
so many passages in them suitable to his purpose, it would be amazing,
if he knew and held Matthew in the consideration which Tischendorf
asserts, that he should neglect their stores, and go elsewhere for
such quotations. There is nothing in this epistle worthy of the name of
evidence even of the existence of our Gospels.
3.
The Pastor of Hennas is another work which very nearly secured permanent
canonical rank with the writings of the New Testament. It was quoted as
Holy Scripture by the Fathers and held to be divinely inspired, and it
was publicly read in the Churches.(4) It has a
{253}
place, with the "Epistle of Barnabas," in the Sinaitic Codex, after the
canonical books. In early times it was attributed to the Hermas who is
mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, xiv. 14, in consequence of
a mere conjecture to that effect by Origen;(l) but the Canon of
Muratori(2) confidently ascribes it to a brother of Pius, Bishop of
Rome, and at least there does not seem any ground for the statement
of Origen.(3) It may have been written about the middle of the second
century or a little earlier.(4)
{254}
Tischendorf dismisses this important memorial of the early Christian
Church with a note of two lines, for it has no quotations either from
the Old or New Testament.(1) He does not even suggest that it contains
any indications of acquaintance with our Gospels. The only direct
quotation in the "Pastor" is from an apocryphal work which is cited as
Holy Scripture: "The Lord is nigh unto them who return to him, as it
is written in Eldad and Modat, who prophesied to the people in the
wilderness."(2) This work, which appears in the Stichometry of
Nicephorus amongst the apocrypha of the Old Testament, is no longer
extant.(3)
CHAPTER II. THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS--THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP
Although, in reality, appertaining to a very much later period, we shall
here refer to the so-called "Epistles of Ignatius," and examine any
testimony which they afford regarding the date and authenticity of our
Gospels. There are in all fifteen epistles bearing the name of Ignatius.
Three of these, addressed to the Virgin Mary and the Apostle John 2,
exist only in a Latin version, and these, together with five others
directed to Mary of Cassobolita, to the Tarsians, to the Antiochans,
to Hero of Antioch, and to the Philippians, of which there are versions
both in Greek and Latin, are universally admitted to be spurious, and
may, so far as their contents are concerned, be at once dismissed from
all consideration.(1) They are not mentioned by Eusebius, nor does any
early writer refer to them. Of the remaining seven epistles, addressed
to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians,
Smyrnaeans, and to Polycarp, there are two distinct versions extant,
one long version, of which there are both Greek and Latin texts, and
another much shorter, and presenting considerable variations, of which
there are also both Greek and Latin texts. After a couple of centuries
of discussion, critics
{256}
almost without exception have finally agreed that the longer version
is nothing more than an interpolated version of the shorter and more
ancient form of the Epistles. The question regarding the authenticity
of the Ignatian Epistles, however, was re-opened and complicated by
the publication, in 1845, by Dr. Cureton, of a Syriac version of three
epistles only--to Polycarp, to the Ephesians, and to the Romans--in a
still shorter form, discovered amongst a large number of MSS. purchased
by Dr. Tattam from the monks of the Desert of Nitria. These three Syriac
epistles have been subjected to the severest scrutiny, and many of the
ablest critics have pronounced them to be the only authentic Epistles
of Ignatius, whilst others, who do not admit that even these are genuine
letters emanating from Ignatius, still prefer them to the version of
seven Greek epistles, and consider them the most ancient form of the
letters which we possess.(1) As early as the sixteenth century, however,
the strongest doubts were expressed regarding the authenticity of any of
the epistles ascribed to Ignatius. The Magdeburg
{257}
Centuriators first attacked them, and Calvin declared them to be
spurious,(1) an opinion fully shared by Dallaeus, and others; Chemnitz
regarded them with suspicion; and similar doubts, more or lass definite,
were expressed throughout the seventeenth century,(2) and onward to
comparatively recent times,(3) although the means of forming a judgment
were not then so complete as now. That the epistles were interpolated
there was no doubt. Fuller examination and more comprehensive knowledge
of the subject have confirmed earlier doubts, and a large mass of
critics either recognize that the authenticity of none of these epistles
can be established, or that they
{258}
can only be considered later and spurious compositions.(1)
Omitting for the present the so-called Epistle of Polycarp to the
Philippians, the earliest reference to any of these epistles, or to
Ignatius himself, is made by Irenaeus, who quotes a passage which is
found in the Epistle to the Romans (ch. iv.), without, however, any
mention of name,' introduced by the following words: "As a certain
man of ours said, being condemned to the wild beasts on account of his
testimony to God: 'I am the wheat of God, and by the teeth of beasts I
am ground, that I may be found pure
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bread."(1) Origen likewise quotes two brief sentences which he refers to
Ignatius. The first is merely: "But my love is crucified,"(2) which is
likewise found in the Epistle to the Romans (ch. vii.); and the other
quoted as "out of one of the Epistles" of the martyr Ignatius: "From the
Prince of this world was concealed the virginity of Mary,"(3) which is
found in the Epistle to the Ephesians (ch. xix). Eusebius mentions seven
epistles,(4) and quotes one passage from the Epistle to the Romans (ch.
v.), and a few words from an apocryphal Gospel contained in the Epistle
to the Smyrnaeans (ch. iii.), the source of which he says that he does
not know, and he cites from Irenaeus the brief quotation given above, and
refers to the mention of the epistles in the letter of Polycarp which we
reserve. Elsewhere,(5) he further quotes a short sentence found in the
Epistle to the Ephesians (ch. xix.), part of which had previously been
cited by Origen. It will be observed that all these quotations, with the
exception of that from Irenaeus, are taken from the three Epistles which
exist in the Syriac translation, and they are found in that version; and
the first occasion on which any passage attributed to Ignatius is quoted
which is not in the Syriac version of the three Epistles occurs in
the second half of the fourth century, when Athanasius, in his Epistle
regarding the Synods of Ariminum and Selucia,(6) quotes a few words from
the Epistle to the Ephesians (ch. vii.); but although foreign to the
Syriac text, it is to be noted that the words are
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at least from a form of one of the three epistles which exist in that
version.(1) It is a fact, therefore, that up to the second half of
the fourth century no quotation ascribed to Ignatius, except one by
Eusebius, exists, which is not found in the three short Syriac letters.