Our historical Scriptures were attacked by the early adversaries of
Christianity, as containing the accounts upon which the Religion was
founded.
Near the middle of the second century, Celsus, a heathen philosopher,
wrote a professed treatise against Christianity. To this treatise
Origen, who came about fifty years after him, published an answer, in
which he frequently recites his adversary's words and arguments. The
work of Celsus is lost; but that of Origen remains. Origen appears to
have given us the words of Celsus, where he professes to give them, very
faithfully; and amongst other reasons for thinking so, this is one, that
the objection, as stated by him from Celsus, is sometimes stronger than
his own answer. I think it also probable that Origen, in his answer, has
retailed a large portion of the work of Celsus:
"That it may not be suspected," he says, "that we pass by any chapters
because we have no answers at hand, I have thought it best, according to
my ability, to confute everything proposed by him, not so much
observing the natural order of things, as the order which he has taken
himself." (Orig. cont. Cels. I. i. sect. 41.)
Celsus wrote about one hundred years after the Gospels were published;
and therefore any notices of these books from him are extremely
important for their antiquity. They are, however, rendered more so by
the character of the author; for the reception, credit, and notoriety of
these books must have been well established amongst Christians, to have
made them subjects of animadversion and opposition by strangers and by
enemies. It evinces the truth of what Chrysostom, two centuries
afterwards, observed, that "the Gospels, when written, were not hidden
in a corner or buried in obscurity, but they were made known to all the
world, before enemies as well as others, even as they are now." (In
Matt. Hom. I. 7.)
1. Celsus, or the Jew whom he personates, uses these words:--"I could
say many things concerning the affairs of Jesus, and those, too,
different from those written by the disciples of Jesus; but I purposely
omit them." (Lardner, Jewish and Heathen Test. vol. ii. p. 274.) Upon
this passage it has been rightly observed, that it is not easy to
believe, that if Celsus could have contradicted the disciples upon good
evidence in any material point, he would have omitted to do so, and that
the assertion is, what Origen calls it, a mere oratorical flourish.
It is sufficient, however, to prove that, in the time of Celsus, there
were books well known, and allowed to be written by the disciples of
Jesus, which books contained a history of him. By the term disciples,
Celsus does not mean the followers of Jesus in general; for them he
calls Christians, or believers, or the like; but those who had been
taught by Jesus himself, i.e. his apostles and companions.
2. In another passage, Celsus accuses the Christians of altering the
Gospel. (Lardner, Jewish and Heathen Test. Vol. ii. p. 275.) The
accusation refers to some variations in the readings of particular
passages: for Celsus goes on to object, that when they are pressed hard,
and one reading has been confuted, they disown that, and fly to another.
We cannot perceive from Origen, that Celsus specified any particular
instances, and without such specification the charge is of no value. But
the true conclusion to be drawn from it is, that there were in the hands
of the Christians histories which were even then of some standing: for
various readings and corruptions do not take place in recent
productions.
The former quotation, the reader will remember, proves that these books
were composed by the disciples of Jesus, strictly so called; the present
quotation shows, that though objections were taken by the adversaries of
the religion to the integrity of these books, none were made to their
genuineness.
3. In a third passage, the Jew whom Celsus introduces shuts up an
argument in this manner:--"these things then we have alleged to you out
of your own writings, not needing any other weapons." (Lardner, vol. ii.
p. 276.) It is manifest that this boast proceeds upon the supposition
that the books over which the writer affects to triumph possessed an
authority by which Christians confessed themselves to be bound.
4. That the books to which Celsus refers were no other than our present
Gospels, is made out by his allusions to various passages still found in
these Gospels. Celsus takes notice of the genealogies, which fixes two
of these Gospels; of the precepts, Resist not him that injures you, and
if a man strike thee on the one cheek, offer to him the other also; of
the woes denounced by Christ; of his predictions; of his saying, That it
is impossible to serve two masters; ( Lardner, vol. ii. pp. 276-277.) Of
the purple robe, the crown of thorns, and the reed in his hand; of the
blood that flowed from the body of Jesus upon the cross, which
circumstance is recorded by John alone; and (what is instar omnium for
the purpose for which we produce it) of the difference in the accounts
given of the resurrection by the evangelists, some mentioning two angels
at the sepulchre, ethers only one. (Lardner, vol. ii. pp. 280, 281, &
283.)
It is extremely material to remark, that Celsus not only perpetually
referred to the accounts of Christ contained in the four Gospels, but
that he referred to no other accounts; that he founded none of his
objections to Christianity upon any thing delivered in spurious Gospels.
(The particulars, of which the above are only a few, are well collected
by Mr. Bryant, p. 140.)
II. What Celsus was in the second century, Porphyry became in the third.
His work, which was a large and formal treatise against the Christian
religion, is not extant. We must be content, therefore, to gather his
objections from Christian writers, who have noticed in order to answer
them; and enough remains of this species of information to prove
completely, that Porphyry's animadversions were directed against the
contents of our present Gospels, and of the Acts of the Apostles;
Porphyry considering that to overthrow them was to overthrow the
religion. Thus he objects to the repetition of a generation in Saint
Matthew's genealogy; to Matthew's call; to the quotation of a text from
Isaiah, which is found in a psalm ascribed to Asaph; to the calling of
the lake of Tiberius a sea; to the expression of Saint Matthew, "the
abomination of desolation;" to the variation in Matthew and Mark upon
the text, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," Matthew citing it
from Isaias, Mark from the Prophets; to John's application of the term
"Word;" to Christ's change of intention about going up to the feast of
Tabernacles (John vii. 8); to the judgment denounced by Saint Peter upon
Ananias and Sapphira, which he calls an "imprecation of death." (Jewish
and Heathen Test. Vol. iii. p. 166, et seq.)
The instances here alleged serve, in some measure, to show the nature of
Porphyry's objections, and prove that Porphyry had read the Gospels with
that sort of attention which a writer would employ who regarded them as
the depositaries of the religion which he attacked. Besides these
specifications, there exists, in the writings of ancient Christians,
general evidence that the places of Scripture upon which Porphyry had
remarked were very numerous.
In some of the above-cited examples, Porphyry, speaking of Saint
Matthew, calls him your Evangelist; he also uses the term evangelists in
the plural number. What was said of Celsus is true likewise of Porphyry,
that it does not appear that he considered any history of Christ except
these as having authority with Christians.
III. A third great writer against the Christian religion was the emperor
Julian, whose work was composed about a century after that of Porphyry.
In various long extracts, transcribed from this work by Cyril and
Jerome, it appears, (Jewish and Heathen Test. vol. iv. p. 77, et seq.)
that Julian noticed by name Matthew and Luke, in the difference between
their genealogies of Christ that he objected to Matthew's application of
the prophecy, "Out of Egypt have I called my son" (ii. 15), and to that
of "A virgin shall conceive" (i. 23); that he recited sayings of Christ,
and various passages of his history, in the very words of the
evangelists; in particular, that Jesus healed lame and blind people, and
exorcised demoniacs in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany; that he
alleged that none of Christ's disciples ascribed to him the creation of
the world, except John; that neither Paul, nor Matthew, nor Luke, nor
Mark, have dared to call Jesus God; that John wrote later than the other
evangelists, and at a time when a great number of men in the cities of
Greece and Italy were converted; that he alludes to the conversion of
Cornelius and of Sergius Paulus, to Peter's vision, to the circular
letter sent by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, which are all
recorded in the Acts of the Apostles: by which quoting of the four
Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, and by quoting no other, Julian
shows that these were the historical books, and the only historical
books, received by Christians as of authority, and as the authentic
memoirs of Jesus Christ, of his apostles, and of the doctrines taught by
them. But Julian's testimony does something more than represent the
judgment of the Christian church in his time. It discovers also his own.
He himself expressly states the early date of these records; he calls
them by the names which they now bear. He all along supposes, he nowhere
attempts to question, their genuineness.
The argument in favour of the books of the New Testament, drawn from the
notice taken of their contents by the early writers against the
religion, is very considerable. It proves that the accounts which
Christians had then were the accounts which we have now; that our
present Scriptures were theirs. It proves, moreover, that neither Celsus
in the second, Porphyry in the third, nor Julian in the fourth century,
suspected the authenticity of these books, or ever insinuated that
Christians were mistaken in the authors to whom they ascribed them. Not
one of them expressed an opinion upon this subject different from that
which was holden by Christians. And when we consider how much it would
have availed them to have cast a doubt upon this point, if they could;
and how ready they showed themselves to be to take every advantage in
their power; and that they were all men of learning and inquiry: their
concession, or rather their suffrage, upon the subject is extremely
valuable.
In the case of Porphyry, it is made still stronger, by the consideration
that he did in fact support himself by this species of objection when he
saw any room for it, or when his acuteness could supply any pretence for
alleging it. The prophecy of Daniel he attacked upon this very ground of
spuriousness, insisting that it was written after the time of Antiochus
Epiphanes, and maintains his charge of forgery by some far-fetched
indeed, but very subtle criticisms. Concerning the writings of the New
Testament, no trace of this suspicion is anywhere to be found in him.
(Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. p. 43. Marsh's
Translation.)