_THE CHURCHES OF GAUL._
A severe persecution broke out in the year A.D. 177, under Marcus
Aurelius, in the cities of Vienne and Lyons, on the Rhone, and an
account of the martyrdoms which then took place was given in a letter
from the persecuted communities, addressed "to the brethren that are in
Asia and Phrygia." This epistle is in great part preserved to us by
Eusebius (_H.E._ v. 1), and it is to a consideration of its contents
that Dr. Lightfoot devotes his essay on the Churches of Gaul. But for
the sake of ascertaining clearly what evidence actually exists of the
Gospels, it would have been of little utility to extend the enquiry in
_Supernatural Religion_ to this document, written nearly a century and
a half after the death of Jesus, but it is instructive to show how
exceedingly slight is the information we possess regarding those
documents. I may at once say that no writing of the New Testament is
directly referred to by name in this epistle, and consequently any
supposed quotations are merely inferred to be such by their similarity
to passages found in these writings. With the complete unconsciousness
which I have pointed out that Dr. Lightfoot affects regarding the
object and requirements of my argument, Dr. Lightfoot is, of course,
indignant that I will not accept as conclusive evidence the imperfect
coincidences which alone he is able to bring forward. I have elsewhere
fully discussed these, [140:1] and I need only refer to some portions
of his essay here.
"Of Vettius Epagathus, one of the sufferers, we are told that,
though young; he 'rivalled the testimony borne to the elder
Zacharias ([Greek: sunexisousthai tê tou presbuterou Zacharious
marturia]), for verily ([Greek: goun]) he had _walked in all the
commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless_.' Here we have
the same words, and in the same order, which are used of Zacharias
and Elizabeth in St. Luke (i. 6): 'and Zacharias, his father, was
filled with the Holy Ghost.'" [140:2]
Dr. Lightfoot very properly dwells on the meaning of the expression
"the testimony of Zacharias" ([Greek: tê Zachariou marturia]), which he
points out "might signify either 'the testimony borne to Zacharias,'
_i.e._ his recorded character, or 'the testimony borne by Zacharias,'
_i.e._ his martyrdom." By a vexatious mistake in reprinting, "to" was
accidentally substituted for "by" in my translation of this passage in
a very few of the earlier copies of my sixth edition, but the error was
almost immediately observed and corrected in the rest of the edition.
Dr. Lightfoot seizes upon the "to" in the early copy which I had sent
to him, and argues upon it as a deliberate adoption of the
interpretation, whilst he takes me to task for actually arguing upon
the rendering "by" in my text. Very naturally a printer's error could
not extend to my argument. The following is what I say regarding the
passage in my complete edition:
"The epistle is an account of the persecution of the Christian
community of Vienne and Lyons, and Vettius Epagathus is the first
of the martyrs who is named in it: [Greek: marturia] was at that
time the term used to express the supreme testimony of Christians--
martyrdom--and the epistle seems here simply to refer to the
martyrdom, the honour of which he shared with Zacharias. It is,
we think, highly improbable that, under such circumstances, the
word [Greek: marturia] would have been used to express a mere
description of the character of Zacharias given by some other writer."
This is the interpretation which is adopted by Tischendorf, Hilgenfeld,
and many eminent critics.
It will be observed that the saying that he had "walked in all the
commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless," which is supposed to
be taken from Luke i. 6, is there applied to Zacharias and Elizabeth,
the father and mother of John the Baptist, but the Gospel does not say
anything of this Zacharias having suffered martyrdom. The allusion in
Luke xi. 51 (Matt. xxiii. 35) is almost universally admitted to be to
another Zacharias, whose martyrdom is related in 2 Chron. xxiv. 21.
"Since the epistle, therefore, refers to the martyrdom of Zacharias,
the father of John the Baptist, when using the expressions which are
supposed to be taken from our third synoptic, is it not reasonable
to suppose that those expressions were derived from some work which
likewise contained an account of his death, which is not found in
the synoptic? When we examine the matter more closely we find that,
although none of the canonical gospels except the third gives any
narrative of the birth of John the Baptist, that portion of the
Gospel in which are the words we are discussing cannot be considered
an original production by the third Synoptist, but, like the rest of
his work, is merely a composition based upon earlier written
narratives. Ewald, for instance, assigns the whole of the first
chapters of Luke (i. 5-ii. 40) to what he terms 'the eighth
recognisable book.'" [141:1]
No apologetic critic pretends that the author of the third Gospel can
have written this account from his own knowledge or observation. Where,
then, did he get his information? Surely not from oral tradition limited
to himself. The whole character of the narrative, even apart from the
prologue to the Gospel, and the composition of the rest of the work,
would lead us to infer a written source.
"The fact that other works existed at an earlier period in which the
history of Zacharias, the father of the Baptist, was given, and in
which not only the words used in the epistle were found, but also
the martyrdom, is in the highest degree probable, and, so far as the
history is concerned, this is placed almost beyond doubt by the
'Protevangelium Jacobi,' which contains it. Tischendorf, who does
not make use of this epistle at all as evidence for the Scriptures
of the New Testament, does refer to it, and to this very allusion in
it to the martyrdom of Zacharias, as testimony to the existence and
use of the 'Protevangelium Jacobi,' a work whose origin he dates so
far back as the first three decades of the second century, and which
he considers was also used by Justin, as Hilgenfeld had already
observed. Tischendorf and Hilgenfeld, therefore, agree in affirming
that the reference to Zacharias which we have quoted indicates
acquaintance with a Gospel different from our third synoptic."
[142:1]
Such being the state of the case, I would ask any impartial reader
whether there is any evidence here that these few words, introduced
without the slightest indication of the source from which they were
derived, must have been quoted from our third Gospel, and cannot have
been taken from some one of the numerous evangelical works in
circulation before that Gospel was written. The reply of everyone
accustomed to weigh evidence must be that the words cannot even prove
the existence of our synoptic at the time the letter was written.
"But, if our author disposes of the coincidences with the third
Gospel in this way" (proceeds Dr. Lightfoot), "what will he say to
those with the Acts? In this same letter of the Gallican Churches we
are told that the sufferers prayed for their persecutors 'like
Stephen, the perfect martyr, "Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge.'" Will he boldly maintain that the writers had before them
another Acts, containing words identical with our Acts, just as he
supposes them to have had another Gospel, containing words identical
with our Third Gospel? Or, will he allow this account to have been
taken from Acts vii. 60, with which it coincides? But in this latter
case, if they had the second treatise, which bears the name of St.
Luke, in their hands, why should they not have had the first also?"
[143:1]
My reply to this is:
"There is no mention of the Acts of the Apostles in the epistle, and
the source from which the writers obtained their information about
Stephen, is, of course, not stated. If there really was a martyr of
the name of Stephen, and if these words were actually spoken by him,
the tradition of the fact, and the memory of his noble saying, may
well have remained in the Church, or have been recorded in writings
then current, from one of which, indeed, eminent critics (as Bleek,
Ewald, Meyer, Neander, De Wette) conjecture that the author of Acts
derived his materials, and in this case the passage obviously does
not prove the use of the Acts. If, on the other hand, there never
was such a martyr by whom the words were spoken, and the whole story
must be considered an original invention by the author of Acts,
then, in that case, and in that case only, the passage does show the
use of the Acts. Supposing that the use of Acts be held to be thus
indicated, what does this prove? Merely that the 'Acts of the
Apostles' were in existence in the year 177-178, when the epistle of
Vienne and Lyons was written. No light whatever would thus be thrown
upon the question of its authorship; and neither its credibility nor
its sufficiency to prove the reality of a cycle of miracles would be
in the slightest degree established." [143:2]
Apart from the question of the sufficiency of evidence actually under
examination, however, I have never suggested, much less asserted, that
the "Acts of the Apostles" was not in existence at this date. The only
interest attachable to the question is, as I have before said, the
paucity of the testimony regarding the book, to demonstrate which it has
been necessary to discuss all such supposed allusions. But the
apologetic argument characteristically ignores the fact that "many took
in hand" at an early date to set forth the Christian story, and that the
books of our New Testament did not constitute the whole of Christian
literature in circulation in the early days of the Church.
I need not go with any minuteness into the alleged quotation from the
fourth Gospel. "There shall come a time in which whosoever killeth you
will think that he doeth God service." The Gospel has: "There cometh an
hour when," &c., and, as no source is named, it is useless to maintain
that the use of this Gospel, and the impossibility of the use of any
other, is proved. If even this were conceded, the passage does not add
one iota to our knowledge of the authorship and credibility of the
Gospel. Dr. Lightfoot says "The author of _Supernatural Religion_
maintains, on the other hand, that only twelve years before, at the
outside, the very Church to which Irenaeus belonged, in a public
document with which he was acquainted, betrays no knowledge of our
canonical Gospels, but quotes from one or more apocryphal Gospels
instead. He maintains this though the quotations in question are
actually found in our canonical Gospels." [144:1] Really, Dr. Lightfoot
betrays that he has not understood the argument, which merely turns
upon the insufficiency of the evidence to prove the use of particular
documents, whilst others existed which possibly, or probably, did
contain similar passages to those in debate.