We are told that "there is no good reason to doubt that the statements
of the Evangelists, as we have them now, are genuine." The fact is, no
one knows who made the "statements of the Evangelists." There are three
important manuscripts upon which the Christian world relies. "The first
appeared in the catalogue of the Vatican, in 1475. This contains the
Old Testament. Of the New, it contains the four gospels,--the Acts, the
seven Catholic Epistles, nine of the Pauline Epistles, and the
Epistle to the Hebrews, so far as the fourteenth verse of the ninth
chapter,"--and nothing more. This is known as the Codex Vatican. "The
second, the Alexandrine, was presented to King Charles the First, in
1628. It contains the Old and New Testaments, with some exceptions;
passages are wanting in Matthew, in John, and in II. Corinthians. It
also contains the Epistle of Clemens Romanus, a letter of Athanasius,
and the treatise of Eusebius on the Psalms." The last is the Sinaitic
Codex, discovered about 1850, at the Convent of St. Catherine's, on
Mount Sinai. "It contains the Old and New Testaments, and in addition
the entire Epistle of Barnabas, and a portion of the Shepherd of
Hennas--two books which, up to the beginning of the fourth century, were
looked upon by many as Scripture." In this manuscript, or codex, the
gospel of St. Mark concludes with the eighth verse of the sixteenth
chapter, leaving out the frightful passage: "Go ye into all the world,
and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." In
matters of the utmost importance these manuscripts disagree, but even if
they all agreed it would not furnish the slightest evidence of their
truth. It will not do to call the statements made in the gospels
"depositions," until it is absolutely established who made them, and the
circumstances under which they were made. Neither can we say that "they
were made in the immediate prospect of death," until we know who made
them. It is absurd to say that "the witnesses could not have been
mistaken, because the nature of the facts precluded the possibility of
any delusion about them." Can it be pretended that the witnesses could
not have been mistaken about the relation the Holy Ghost is alleged to
have sustained to Jesus Christ? Is there no possibility of delusion
about a circumstance of that kind? Did the writers of the four gospels
have "the sensible and true avouch of their own eyes and ears" in that
behalf? How was it possible for any one of the four Evangelists to know
that Christ was the Son of God, or that he was God? His mother wrote
nothing on the subject. Matthew says that an angel of the Lord told
Joseph in a dream, but Joseph never wrote an account of this wonderful
vision. Luke tells us that the angel had a conversation with Mary, and
that Mary told Elizabeth, but Elizabeth never wrote a word. There is no
account of Mary, or Joseph, or Elizabeth, or the angel, having had any
conversation with Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, in which one word was
said about the miraculous origin of Jesus Christ. The persons who knew
did not write, so that the account is nothing but hearsay. Does Mr.
Black pretend that such statements would be admitted as evidence in any
court? But how do we know that the disciples of Christ wrote a word of
the gospels? How did it happen that Christ wrote nothing? How do we know
that the writers of the gospels "were men of unimpeachable character?"