It is now rather more than eight years since Harnack wrote the famous
Preface to his _Chronologie der altchristlichen Litteratur_. It was an
instance of the genial insight of the writer, and a keen diagnosis of
the criticism of the day.
The main outline of the Preface will be remembered. Looking back over
the period from which Science was just beginning to emerge, the writer
characterized it as one in which all the early Christian literature
including the New Testament had been treated as a tissue of illusions
and falsifications. That time, he went on to say, was past. For Science
it had only been an episode, during which much had been learnt and after
which much had to be forgotten. His own researches, Harnack explained,
would be found to go in a reactionary direction even beyond the middle
position of current criticism. The results might be summed up by saying
that the oldest literature of the Church, in its main points and in most
of its details, from the point of view of literary history, was
veracious and trustworthy. In the whole New Testament there was probably
only a single writing that could be called pseudonymous in the strict
sense of the term, the so-called Second Epistle of St. Peter; and, apart
from the Gnostic fictions, the whole number of pseudonymous writings
down to Irenaeus was very small, and in one case (the Acts of Thecla)
the production of such a work was expressly condemned. In like manner
the amount of interpolation was also far less than had been supposed;
and the tradition relating to this early period might in the main, and
with some reservations, be trusted.
Baur and his school had thought themselves compelled, in order to give
an intelligible account of the rise of Christianity, to throw over both
the statements in the writings themselves and those of tradition about
them, and to post-date their composition by several decades. They were
driven to do this by mistaken premises. Starting with the assumption
that all these writings were composed with a definite purpose, to
commend some sectional view of Christianity, they were constantly on the
watch for traces of that purpose, and they found them in the most
unexpected places. The views of Baur and his followers had been
generally given up; but the tendencies set on foot by them remained. The
Christian writings were still approached in an attitude of suspicion;
they were cross-examined in the spirit of a hostile attorney; or else
they were treated after the manner of a _petit maître_, fastening upon
all sorts of small details, and arguing from them in the face of clear
and decisive indications. Baur thought that everything had a motive, and
an interested motive. But, whereas he sought for the motive on broad
lines, his more recent successors either gave themselves up to the
search for minor incidental motives, or for interpolations on a large
scale, or else they gave way to a thorough-going scepticism which
confused together probabilities and improbabilities as though they were
all the same.
Harnack went on to describe the results of the labours of the last two
decades (1876-96) as constituting a definite ‘return to tradition.’ This
return to tradition he regarded as characteristic of the period in which
he was writing; indeed he looked forward to a time when the questions of
literary history which had excited so much interest would do so no
longer, because it would come to be generally understood that the early
Christian traditions were in the main right.
* * * * *
This Preface of Harnack’s attracted considerable attention, and probably
nowhere more than in England. English students hailed it as the
beginning of a new epoch, and one in which they could be more at home.
It fell in with certain marked characteristics of the English mind. Even
the progressive element in that mind naturally works on conservative
lines; it has been reluctant to break away from the past. The very
advances of freedom, so steady and so sure, have not been revolutionary;
they have been advances
‘Of freedom slowly broadening down
From precedent to precedent.’
But it was not only the destructive conclusions of continental criticism
with which dissatisfaction was felt, and which gave an apologetic colour
to much English work. The methods were in many ways not less distasteful
than the conclusions. Englishmen felt, whether they said so or not, that
there was something wrong. And therefore, when a scholar of Harnack’s
distinction put their thoughts into words and pointed to the very
defects of which they seemed to be conscious, their hopes were raised
that at last a movement was begun which they could follow with sympathy,
and in which they might perhaps to some extent bear a part.
When I take upon myself to speak in this way of ‘English students,’ I of
course do so with some reservations. I have in mind the rather
considerable majority of the theological faculties in our Universities,
and I might say the majority of the teaching staffs of all denominations
throughout Great Britain; for there are excellent relations, and a great
amount of solidarity, among British teachers of Theology in all the
churches. A good general representation of the average views would be
found (e. g.) in Hastings’ _Dictionary of the Bible_. No doubt there is
also the other type—the type represented by _Encyclopaedia Biblica_.
There are not a few among us who are less dissatisfied with Continental
methods, and who pursue those methods themselves with ability and
independence. And beyond these there are very many more, especially
among the cultivated and interested laity, who are acquainted in a
general way with what has been done on the Continent, and who are
impressed by what they take to be the results, though for the most part
they have not time to test the processes. I say advisedly that this
class is impressed by what it conceives to be results, because I imagine
that, while there is a feeling that Continental scholars are freer in
their researches and less trammelled than our own, there is also some
reserve owing to the consciousness that the results have not been fully
tested. To this extent I should say that the intellectual posture of
this class was one of waiting—serious and interested waiting—rather than
of complete committal either to one side or to the other.
Since my visit to America I seem to be better able to speak of the
situation there, though closer acquaintance did but in the main confirm
and define the opinion that I had previously formed. There are several
differences between the conditions in the two countries. On the other
side of the Atlantic there are probably greater inequalities of
theological instructedness. They have a greater number of Universities
and Seminaries, in which the standard varies more than it does with us.
And while on the one hand general culture and that kind of vague
knowledge of the nature and tendencies of criticism which goes with
general culture is more widely diffused in these islands, on the other
hand I should be inclined to think that a real first-hand knowledge of
critical work is more often to be found there than it is here. This is
due to the fact that a large proportion of the ablest professors and
teachers have been themselves trained in Germany. And yet, in spite of
these differences and inequalities, there is a general tendency, which
seemed to me to embrace the whole nation.
It was summed up in a few words by one of the Methodist Bishops (it will
be remembered that the Episcopalian Methodists are strong in America)
with whom I had some conversation. He had, I believe, been secretary of
some Board of Religious Education, and spoke with wide knowledge. I
should be afraid to say how many students had passed through his hands.
And, speaking of these students, he said that their general attitude was
this: ‘They want to keep their faith; and yet they also want to see the
realities of things.’
The same description would, I believe, fit the teachers and professors
as well as the students, including those trained in Germany. They too
want to keep their faith, and to help their students to keep their
faith. As compared with the state of things in Germany, there is a more
general and sustained effort to make their teaching positive and
constructive; and this constructive teaching takes, I suspect, in most
cases very similar lines—I should describe it as in the main
Ritschlianism of the Right. At the same time, they too want to see the
reality of things; in other words, they want to teach by strictly
scientific methods. And the only further remark that I should have to
make would be that they are perhaps a little inclined—and it naturally
could not be otherwise—to look at these methods through German
spectacles.
Now I would not hesitate to carry this generalization still further. We,
in this country, have probably a greater number of cross currents; there
is a greater number of _media_ that stand between the individual and his
ultimate aims and wishes, in the shape of loyalties to this or that
church or party. And yet I think that, broadly speaking, we should not
be wrong in summing up what is really at the bottom of the minds and
hearts of the whole Anglo-Saxon race in the same words: ‘They want to
keep their faith; and yet they also want to see the realities of
things.’
It is the equilibrium of these two propositions that is most
characteristic. I fully believe that motives of the same kind are
present among the Germans as well as ourselves. I could easily name a
number of German professors who, I feel sure, are as anxious to keep
their faith as we are. At the head of the list I should put Harnack
himself, whose views have been so much discussed in this country. There
is, however, a greater diversity of attitude among the professorial body
as a whole. And so far as they were agreed—I am speaking especially of
the widespread liberal branch—they would, I think, all invert the order
of the two propositions: they would give precedence to the desire to get
at realities; and they would identify this getting at realities with the
use of scientific method. The reason is that in Germany, more than
elsewhere, the prevalent standards of judgement are essentially
academic. The Universities give the lead and set the tone for the whole
nation; and the Universities have now been accustomed for many
generations to an atmosphere of free thought.
Now it is far from my intention to undervalue, either the use of
scientific method in general, or German science in particular. I have
the highest opinion of both. By far the greater part of the advance that
has been made in Theology—and I believe that a great advance has been
made in our own country as well as elsewhere—I would again appeal to
Hastings’ _Dictionary_ as representing a sort of average—has been due to
the stricter application of science; and a great part of this has been
German science. Honour must be given where honour is due. We must not
hold back the full recognition that at the present time Germany holds
the first place in Science, and that its output of scientific work is
perhaps as great as that of all the rest of the world besides. I am not
sure whether this is an exaggeration, but I hardly think it is.
But in all the more tentative forms of science, such as philosophy,
history, and theology, there is, or at least has been so far, a double
element, one that is stable and permanent, and another that is more or
less local and ephemeral.
If I proceed to offer some criticisms upon German critical methods, I am
perfectly well aware that the Germans in turn would have something to
criticize in ours. At the present day discussion is not limited to any
one country, but is international. It is by scholars of different race
and training comparing notes together that mistakes are corrected,
methods gradually perfected, and results established. I shall not
hesitate therefore to point out where it seems to me that German methods
have gone wrong. And I feel that I can do this the more freely when a
scholar of Harnack’s high standing has set the example. The faults that
we seem to have noticed in German criticism are very much those which he
has indicated: it has been too academic, too _doctrinaire_, too
artificial, too much made in the study and too little checked by
observation of the facts of daily life. The very excellences of the
German mind have in some ways contributed to the formation of wrong
standards of judgement. More than other people the Germans have the
power of sustained abstract thought, of thoroughness in mustering and
reviewing all the elements of a problem, of thinking a problem out in
such a way as not to leave gaps and inconsistencies. Hence they are too
ready to assume that all the rest of the world will do the same, that if
an important piece of evidence is omitted in an argument it can only be
because it was not known, that carelessness and oversights and
inconsistencies are things that need not be reckoned with. And there is
also too great a tendency to argue as though men were all made upon one
pattern. There is a want of elasticity of conception. And, to sum up
many points in one, there is a great tendency to purism or
over-strictness in the wrong place, and to over-laxity also in the wrong
place, to strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.
What one desiderates most is greater simplicity, greater readiness to
believe that as a rule, in ancient times as well as modern, people meant
what they said and said what they meant, and that more often than not
they had some substantial reason for saying it.
ii. Instances in which Criticism has corrected itself.
These are not merely _a priori_ reflections, but they are based upon
experience of the actual course that criticism has taken. By this time
criticism has a considerable history behind it. It has corrected some of
its mistakes, and is able to look back upon the course by which it came
to make them. In this way it should learn some wholesome lessons.
I will take three rather conspicuous examples in which criticism has at
first gone wrong and has afterwards come to set itself right, in the
hope that they may teach us what to avoid in future. I imagine that they
may be found to throw some side-light upon the particular problem of the
Fourth Gospel.
The first example that I will take shall be from the criticism of the
Ignatian Epistles. I may assume that the Seven Epistles are now
generally allowed to be genuine, and written by Ignatius, bishop of
Antioch, on his way to martyrdom at Rome sometime before the end of the
reign of Trajan (i. e. before 117). This result is due especially to the
labours of two scholars, Zahn and Lightfoot. It is instructive to note
with what kind of argument they had to contend.
Both in their day had to stem a formidable current of opinion. Bishop
Lightfoot wrote in the Preface to his great work dated ‘St. Peter’s day,
1885’:
‘We have been told more than once that “all impartial critics” have
condemned the Ignatian Epistles as spurious. But this moral
intimidation is unworthy of the eminent writers who have sometimes
indulged in it, and will certainly not be permitted to foreclose the
investigation. If the ecclesiastical terrorism of past ages has lost
its power, we shall, in the interests of truth, be justly jealous of
allowing an academic terrorism to usurp its place.’
I should not find it difficult to produce parallels to this kind of
intimidation in the case of the Fourth Gospel. To look back in face of
them upon the issue of the Ignatian controversy is consoling.
Much was said in the course of the controversy about certain features of
style and character as unworthy of an Apostolic father. It was enough to
answer with Bishop Lightfoot that ‘objections of this class rest for the
most part on the assumption that an Apostolic father must be a person of
ideal perfections intellectually as well as morally—an assumption which
has only to be named in order to be refuted[22].’
It is true that the letters contained exaggerated language of humility,
and also an exaggerated eagerness for martyrdom. Beside these general
features, there were a good many strange and crude expressions of other
kinds. It is needless to say that it did not in the least follow that
such expressions could not have been used by Ignatius. But if the
critics had been willing to study the letters a little deeper and with a
little more sympathy, they might have found reason to change their
estimate even of these acknowledged flaws.
In dealing with Ignatius it is always important to remember that we have
to do with a Syrian and not a Greek. Certainly the language that he
wrote was not in his hand a pliant instrument. It always cost him a
struggle to express his thought; and the expression is very often far
from perfect. The figure of the writer that one pictures to oneself is
rugged, shaggy (if one may use the word), uncouth; and yet there is a
virile, nervous strength about his language which is at times very
impressive. And even his extravagances differ in this from many like
extravagances, that they are not in the least insincere. For instance,
if we read through the letter to Polycarp, we shall see in it a really
great personality. And Ignatius had a very considerable power of thought
as well as of character. Outside the New Testament, he is the first
great Christian thinker; and he is one who left a deep mark on all
subsequent thinking.
I have little doubt that the strong expressions of humility that are
found from time to time in Ignatius are wrung from him by the
recollection of the life that he led before he became a Christian. They
are doubtless suggested by St. Paul, and they spring from a feeling not
less intense than his.
The humility of St. John is a different matter. But as very shallow and
obtuse criticisms are sometimes passed upon it, the Ignatian parallel
may serve as a wholesome warning. I shall have occasion to return to
this point later.
The main arguments against the Ignatian authorship of the letters were
drawn from the seemingly advanced condition of things which they implied
in the way of heretical teaching on the one hand, and church
organization on the other. The objections on these grounds have been
quite cleared up; and now the letters supply some of the most important
data that the historian has to go upon.
It will be remembered that Bishop Lightfoot began by converting himself
before he converted others. He had been inclined to think at one time
that the shorter Syriac version represented the true Ignatius. He tells
us himself how he came to give up this opinion. He says:
‘I found that to maintain the priority of the Curetonian letters I
was obliged from time to time to ascribe to the supposed Ignatian
forger feats of ingenuity, knowledge, intuition, skill, and
self-restraint, which transcended all bounds of probability’
(Preface to the First Edition).
This is another bit of experience that it may be worth while to bear in
mind.
* * * * *
My second example is perhaps in this sense not quite so clear a case,
that there is not as yet as complete a _consensus_ in regard to it as
there is in regard to the Ignatian Letters. It is taken from the
discussions which have been going on at various times in the last
twenty-five years as to the genuineness of the treatise _De Vita
Contemplativa_ which has come down to us among the works of Philo.
A marked impression was made on the side of the attack by a monograph by
Lucius, _Die Therapeuten u. ihre Stellung in d. Gesch. der Askese_,
published in 1879. This, together with the acceptance at least of the
negative part of its result by Schürer, inaugurated a period during
which opinion was on the whole rather unfavourable to the treatise. A
reaction began with two articles by Massebieau in 1888, followed by the
important and valuable work of Mr. F. C. Conybeare, _Philo about the
Contemplative Life_, Oxford, 1895. The success of this defence may be
regarded as clenched by the accession of such excellent and impartial
authorities as Cohn and Wendland, who are bringing out the great new
edition of Philo, and of Dr. James Drummond. It is true that Schürer
reviewed Mr. Conybeare in an adverse sense so far as his main conclusion
was concerned, and that he still maintains his opinion in the third
edition of his _Geschichte d. Jüdischen Volkes_ (1898); but I must needs
think that his arguments were satisfactorily and decisively answered by
Dr. Drummond in the _Jewish Quarterly Review_ for 1896.
One or two points in this reply of Dr. Drummond have a general bearing,
relevant to our present subject.
Lucius had maintained that the treatise was of Christian origin, and
that it was composed not long before the time of its first mention by
Eusebius. The history of the text is opposed to this; and Dr. Drummond
is quite right in saying ‘the argument seems valid that Eusebius did not
make his extracts from a work which had been recently sprung upon the
market, but from one which had already undergone a long process of
transcription.’ I may point to Dr. Schmiedel’s article in the
_Encyclopaedia Biblica_ as one of many examples of reasoning similar to
that of Lucius in regard to the Fourth Gospel. It is a common thing
among critics to think it unnecessary to allow any but the smallest
interval between the first production of a book and the date of its
first mention in the literature that happens to be extant. I would not
lay down an absolute rule. Circumstances vary in different cases. But I
would contend that in any case they need careful consideration, and that
assumptions like those of Lucius and Schmiedel are highly precarious.
The next point I would notice is the argument from identity of thought
and style. One of the striking features in Mr. Conybeare’s book was the
vast accumulation of parallels both in thought and expression between
the _De Vita Contemplativa_ and the certainly genuine works of Philo.
Dr. Schürer thinks that this might be due to imitation. On that head I
should like to quote Dr. Drummond:
‘The purely literary evidence will affect different men differently.
To those who have no difficulty in attributing to the forger a
boundless power of refined imitation it will carry little weight. To
others who act upon the proverb, _ex pede Herculem_, and believe
that successful forgery in the name of an author, if not of high
genius, at least of unusual ability and distinguished style, is an
exceedingly difficult art, this line of evidence will come with
almost overwhelming force. It is easy enough to imitate tricks of
style, or to borrow some peculiarities of phrase; but to write in a
required style, without betraying any signs of imitation; to
introduce perpetual variation into sentences which are nevertheless
characteristic; to have shades of thought and suggestion, which
remind one of what has been said elsewhere, and nevertheless are
delicately modified, and pass easily into another subject; in a
word, to preserve the whole flavour of a writer’s composition in a
treatise which has a theme of its own, and follows its own
independent development, may well seem beyond the reach of the
forger, and must be held to guarantee the genuineness of a work,
unless very weighty arguments can be advanced on the other side.’
This paragraph seems to be very much in point for those who, like
Schmiedel, H. J. Holtzmann and Professor Bacon, would distinguish the
author of the First Epistle of St. John from the author of the Gospel.
On this point it is also worth while to consider Dr. Drummond’s replies
to the inconsistencies alleged to exist between particular details in
the _De Vita Contemplativa_ and the other Philonic writings. There is
always a tendency in the critical school to make too much of these
little _prima facie_ differences, which generally shrink a good deal on
closer examination.
* * * * *
My last example shall be taken from the _Vita Antonii_, ascribed to, and
now generally believed to be a genuine work of, St. Athanasius. The
_Vita Antonii_ holds an important place in the literature of the
beginnings of Monasticism. As such it was involved in the wholesale
scepticism on that subject which was pushed to its furthest limits by
the late Professor Weingarten in the seventies and eighties. How
complete the reaction has been may be seen in the recent edition of the
_Historia Lausiaca_ by Dom Cuthbert Butler. Among Weingarten’s converts
was our English scholar, Professor Gwatkin; and I do not think that
anything could speak more eloquently than just to transcribe the list of
objections brought against the _Vita Antonii_ by Professor Gwatkin in
his _Studies of Arianism_ (Cambridge, 1882). I proceed to give the more
important of them in an abridged form:
‘In the rest of the works of Athanasius there is no trace of
Antony’s existence. Considering the grandeur of the saint’s
position, and his intimate relations with the bishop of Alexandria,
this fact alone should be decisive.’
Observe the argument from silence, which is enlarged upon in the
remainder of the paragraph.
1. The treatise is addressed to the monks of the West, whereas
‘monasticism was unknown in Europe in the reign of Valentinian, and
at Rome in particular when Jerome went into the East in 373; and at
Milan it had only lately been introduced by Ambrose at the time of
Augustine’s visit in 385.’
2. ‘Apart from its numerous miracles, the general tone of the _Vita_
is unhistorical. It is a perfect romance of the desert, without a
trace of human sinfulness to mar its beauty. The saint is an
idealized ascetic hero, the _mons Antonii_ a paradise of peaceful
holiness. We cannot pass from the _Scriptores Erotici_ to the _Vita
Antonii_ without noticing the same atmosphere of unreality in both.
From Anthanasius there is all the difference of the novel writer
from the orator—of the _Cyropaedia_ from the _de Corona_.’
3. ‘Though Athanasius had ample room for miracles in the adventures
of his long life, he never records anything of the sort.... But
miracles, often of the most puerile description, are the staple of
the _Vita Antonii_, and some of them are said to have been done
before the eyes of Athanasius himself, who could not have omitted
all reference to them in the writings of his exile.’
Again, the argument from silence.
* * * * *
4. ‘Antony is represented as an illiterate Copt, dependent on memory
even for his knowledge of Scripture.’ Yet he alludes to Plato,
Plotinus, &c., and in general reasons like a learned philosopher.
5. ‘The _Vita Antonii_ has coincidences with Athanasius in language
and doctrine, as we should expect in any professed work of his....
But the divergences are serious’....
6. It is implied throughout the _Vita Antonii_ that the monks were
extremely numerous throughout the East during Antony’s lifetime. Now
there were monks in Egypt, monks of Serapis, long before; but
Christian monks there were none’ (_Studies of Arianism_, pp. 100-2).
Now I am not for a moment going to disparage this display of learning.
It is very clever; it is very scholarly: in the state of knowledge when
it was written it was at least very excusable in its statements.
Altogether it was as brilliant a piece of criticism as one would wish to
see. To this day the objections read quite formidably. And yet the
inference drawn from them is pretty certainly wrong; indeed the whole
array is little more than an impressive bugbear.
* * * * *
With such warnings from the past before our eyes, I think we should be
inclined to scrutinize rather closely arguments of a like kind when they
meet us in the course of our present investigation.
iii. Examples of Mistaken Method as applied to the Fourth Gospel.
At this point we may go back to Harnack’s Preface. And here I cannot
help expressing my regret that it has not had more of the influence that
it deserved to have, both in the country of its author and elsewhere. I
am even tempted to go a little further, and express my regret that it
has not had more influence upon the author himself. I will henceforward
confine myself more strictly to the Fourth Gospel. And it seems to me
that, in his incidental treatment of this, Harnack has more than once
forgotten his own precepts.
He expends endless ingenuity in trying to prove that there was a
confusion, in the minds of the Christian writers of the second century,
between the Apostle St. John and a certain ‘Presbyter’ of the same name,
who really lived, as the Apostle was supposed to have lived, at Ephesus
in the Roman province of Asia. An important difficulty in the way of
this proof is the explicit testimony of Irenaeus. To meet this
difficulty, the attempt is made to show that Irenaeus derived all his
knowledge, or supposed knowledge, about St. John and his surroundings
from two sources, a very brief intercourse in early youth with Polycarp,
bishop of Smyrna, and the book of Papias, called _Expositions of the
Oracles of the Lord_. It is like Nero wishing that Rome had one neck, in
order that it might be cut at a single stroke. By reducing the channels
through which Irenaeus received his knowledge to these two, it became
more possible that if they happened in any way to lend themselves to the
confusion, that confusion should really take hold of his mind and
express itself in his writings. The learning and ingenuity and skill
displayed are admirable. But how futile, from the very first, to suppose
that all the information Irenaeus possessed about the greatest leader of
the Church of his own home came only through these two channels and no
others; indeed, that he was like the princess in the fairy tale, shut up
in a tower and cut off from all communication with the outer world. We
know that two at least of his companions in the Gallic churches of
Vienne and Lyons came from the same region as himself. It is commonly
supposed that these churches had as a nucleus a little colony from Asia
Minor. In his Fourth Book Irenaeus often refers to a certain Presbyter,
whom Harnack rightly shows to have been not a direct hearer of the
Apostles, but at one degree removed from them, a disciple of those who
had heard from the Apostles. It is natural, with Lightfoot, to identify
this Presbyter with Pothinus, Irenaeus’ own predecessor in his see, who
had passed the age of ninety when he died in the persecution of the year
177. In any case, Pothinus must have been a store-house of traditions
and memories, to which Irenaeus would have constant access. We know also
that after the persecution Irenaeus was in Rome; and there is some
reason to think that he had resided there more than twenty years
before[23]. This was another great centre with which he was familiar,
and to which news and traditions of the past came streaming in from
every quarter of the Christian world. And yet we are asked to believe
that Irenaeus was the victim of a confusion that in any number of ways
might have been corrected. As Dr. Drummond well says, ‘Critics speak of
Irenaeus as though he had fallen out of the moon, paid two or three
visits to Polycarp’s lecture-room, and never known any one else. In
fact, he must have known all sorts of men, of all ages, both in the East
and the West, and among others his venerable predecessor Pothinus, who
was upwards of ninety at the time of his death. He must have had
numerous links with the early part of the century[24].’
Again the same writer says:
‘The testimonies of Irenaeus, of Polycrates, and of Clement are
those on which we must mainly rely. In judging of the collective
force of the evidence, we must not forget that the second century
was a literary age. The churches freely communicated with one
another by letters, and there was an abundant theological literature
of which only a few fragments have survived. I see no reason why the
churches of Asia should not have had as well-grounded a certainty
that John had been once among them as we have that Goldsmith was
once in London[25].’
To deal with all this body of evidence as Harnack deals with it is very
like ‘arguing on the strength of a few particulars in the face of clear
and decisive indications[26].’
Here is another instance of the very thing that Harnack himself
complained of. He has made up his mind that chap. xxi of the Gospel
could not have been written until after the death of the author. But in
ver. 24 the editors of the Gospel say expressly that the Apostle who
figures so conspicuously in it was the author of the whole book (‘this
is the disciple who beareth witness of these things, and wrote these
things’). This, according to Harnack, only convicts them of a deliberate
untruth, contradicted by the verses immediately preceding. If we must
needs accuse the unfortunate editors of falsification, we might at least
give them credit for the sense to take care that their falsehood was not
exposed by their own words, and almost (as it were) in the same breath.
But the fact is that the premiss, from which Harnack argues, is purely
gratuitous, as I hope to show in the next lecture.
Perhaps it is the same persons, the editors of the Gospel—in any case it
is the Presbyters who were closely connected with them—who are charged
with another piece of dishonesty. Harnack sees that mere accident will
not account for the supposed confusion of John the Presbyter with John
the Apostle. He therefore does not shrink from imputing deliberate
fraud.
‘The legend _purposely set on foot_ that the author of the Gospel
was the son of Zebedee, &c.[27]’
‘But Papias, through the oral traditions about which he took so much
trouble, already stood under the influence of Presbyters, of whom
some _perhaps purposely_ started the legend that the Presbyter John
was the Apostle[28].’
‘The John who had the encounter with Cerinthus, after what has been
said can only be the Presbyter. But in the confusion, “the
unconscious” alone can hardly have been involved.’
The dishonesty went beyond the confusion of the two persons. It is also
seen in the definite ascription of the Gospel to the Apostle.
‘The twenty-fourth verse of the twenty-first chapter of the Fourth
Gospel, about which we have spoken, will always remain a strong
indication of the fact that in Ephesus the Fourth Gospel was
deliberately put out after the death of its author as a work of the
Apostle, and so that the Apostle and the Presbyter were deliberately
identified, as Philip the Evangelist was made to change places with
Philip the Apostle[29].’
_Facilis descensus._ When once we begin imputing fraudulent actions we
may very easily find that we have to go on doing so. It should, however,
be remembered that the ground for all this is no assured fact, but only
the exigencies of a complicated theory which, quite apart from this, has
a load of improbability to contend with.
* * * * *
I will give one further example of a different kind. The tendency of the
criticism that has been, and still is largely in vogue, is to give what
seems to me quite undue weight to the exceptional, the abnormal, the
eccentric, as compared with that which is normal and regular.
In the controversy over the Fourth Gospel one of the questions has been
as to the exact degree of importance to be attached to the so-called
Alogi, who, about the third quarter of the second century, denied St.
John’s authorship of the writings attributed to him, including the
Gospel, and by a piece of sheer bravado ascribed it to the heretic
Cerinthus.
Harnack’s account of this—coterie perhaps rather than sect—is just. ‘The
attack did not spread; it was soon defeated; but the memory of it
lingered on, and the policy of the Church, auspiciously begun by
Irenaeus, came to be that of teaching the absolute equality in rank and
value of the four component parts of the Gospel[30].’ But the point to
which I wish to call attention is that the Church writers did not allow
the existence of these Alogi to prevent them from classing the Gospel
among the Homologoumena, or books about the canonicity of which all
Christians were agreed. Eusebius uses strong language. He says that both
the Gospel and the First Epistle were accepted without dispute by his
own contemporaries as well as by the ancients (_H. E._ iii. 24. 17).
And, if it is said that Eusebius was writing a century and a half after
the Alogi, when that little side-eddy of opinion had subsided and been
forgotten, it is not Eusebius alone who ignores their existence in this
manner. Irenaeus is one of those who certainly knew about them; and yet
he regards the Four Gospels, our present four, as a sort of divine
institution, deeply implanted in the nature of things, directly presided
over and inspired by Christ the Word (_adv. Haer._ iii. 11. 9). A little
later Clement of Alexandria speaks of the same Four Gospels as specially
handed down among Christians (_Strom._ iii. 13. 93). And, again, a
little later Origen describes them as ‘alone unquestioned in the Church
of God under heaven’ (Eus. _H. E._ vi. 25. 4). Still earlier, a
contemporary of the Alogi, Tatian, gave effect to the same belief by
composing his Diatessaron. And the Muratorian Fragment also endorses it.
This striking unanimity from all parts of the Christian world serves to
reduce the Alogi to their right dimensions. The reason why they have
bulked rather larger than they should do is, I believe, because they
wielded the pen. It will be remembered that Dr. Salmon was for reducing
them to the single person of Caius of Rome. Schwartz also argues that
not more than a single writer _may_ be meant. He thinks that in any case
Epiphanius had a book before him[31]. The Alogi were in any case a very
ephemeral phenomenon, chiefly significant in the history of the Canon,
as marking the slight element of resistance to the establishment of the
group of Four Gospels.