THE GOSPELS IN THE SECOND CENTURY
_AN EXAMINATION OF THE CRITICAL PART OF A WORK
ENTITLED 'SUPERNATURAL RELIGION'_
BY
W. SANDAY, M.A.
_Rector of Barton-on-the-Heath, Warwickshire;
and late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.
Author of a Work on the Fourth Gospel._
LONDON:
1876.
_I had hoped to inscribe in this book the revered and cherished
name of my old head master, DR. PEARS of Repton. His consent had
been very kindly and warmly given, and I was just on the point of
sending the dedication to the printers when I received a telegram
naming the day and hour of his funeral. His health had for some
time since his resignation of Repton been seriously failing, but I
had not anticipated that the end was so near. All who knew him
will deplore his too early loss, and their regret will be shared
by the wider circle of those who can appreciate a life in which
there was nothing ignoble, nothing ungenerous, nothing unreal. I
had long wished that he should receive some tribute of regard from
one whom he had done his best by precept, and still more by
example, to fit and train for his place and duty in the world.
This pleasure and this honour have been denied me. I cannot place
my book, as I had hoped, in his hand, but I may still lay it
reverently upon his tomb._
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. INTRODUCTORY
II. ON QUOTATIONS GENERALLY IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS
III. THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS
IV. JUSTIN MARTYR
V. HEGESIPPUS--PAPIAS
VI. THE CLEMENTINE HOMILIES
VII. BASILIDES AND VALENTINUS
VIII. MARCION
IX. TATIAN--DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH
X. MELITO--APOLLINARIS--ATHENAGORAS--THE EPISTLE OF VIENNE AND LYONS
XI. PTOLOMAEUS AND HERACLEON--CELSUS--THE MURATORIAN FRAGMENT
XII. THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE FOR THE FOURTH GOSPEL
XIII. ON THE STATE OF THE CANON IN THE LAST QUARTER OF THE SECOND CENTURY
XIV. CONCLUSION
[ENDNOTES]
APPENDIX. SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE ON THE RECONSTRUCTION OF MARCION'S GOSPEL
INDICES
PREFACE.
It will be well to explain at once that the following work has
been written at the request and is published at the cost of the
Christian Evidence Society, and that it may therefore be classed
under the head of Apologetics. I am aware that this will be a
drawback to it in the eyes of some, and I confess that it is not
altogether a recommendation in my own.
Ideally speaking, Apologetics ought to have no existence distinct
from the general and unanimous search for truth, and in so far as
they tend to put any other consideration, no matter how high or
pure in itself, in the place of truth, they must needs stand aside
from the path of science.
But, on the other hand, the question of true belief itself is
immensely wide. It is impossible to approach what is merely a
branch of a vast subject without some general conclusions already
formed as to the whole. The mind cannot, if it would, become a
sheet of blank paper on which the writing is inscribed by an
external process alone. It must needs have its _praejudicia_--
i.e. judgments formed on grounds extrinsic to the special matter
of enquiry--of one sort or another. Accordingly we find that an
absolutely and strictly impartial temper never has existed and
never will. If it did, its verdict would still be false, because
it would represent an incomplete or half-suppressed humanity.
There is no question that touches, directly or indirectly, on the
moral and spiritual nature of man that can be settled by the bare
reason. A certain amount of sympathy is necessary in order to
estimate the weight of the forces that are to be analysed: yet
that very sympathy itself becomes an extraneous influence, and the
perfect balance and adjustment of the reason is disturbed.
But though impartiality, in the strict sense, is not to be had,
there is another condition that may be rightly demanded--resolute
honesty. This I hope may be attained as well from one point of
view as from another, at least that there is no very great
antecedent reason to the contrary. In past generations indeed
there was such a reason. Strongly negative views could only be
expressed at considerable personal risk and loss. But now, public
opinion is so tolerant, especially among the reading and thinking
classes, that both parties are practically upon much the same
footing. Indeed for bold and strong and less sensitive minds
negative views will have an attraction and will find support that
will go far to neutralise any counterbalancing disadvantage.
On either side the remedy for the effects of bias must be found in
a rigorous and searching criticism. If misleading statements and
unsound arguments are allowed to pass unchallenged the fault will
not lie only with their author.
It will be hardly necessary for me to say that the Christian
Evidence Society is not responsible for the contents of this work,
except in so far as may be involved in the original request that I
should write it. I undertook the task at first with some hesitation,
and I could not have undertaken it at all without stipulating for
entire freedom. The Society very kindly and liberally granted me
this, and I am conscious of having to some extent availed myself
of it. I have not always stayed to consider whether the opinions
expressed were in exact accordance with those of the majority of
Christians. It will be enough if they should find points of contact
in some minds, and the tentative element in them will perhaps be
the more indulgently judged now that the reconciliation of the
different branches of knowledge and belief is being so anxiously
sought for.
The instrument of the enquiry had to be fashioned as the enquiry
itself went on, and I suspect that the consequences of this will
be apparent in some inequality and incompleteness in the earlier
portions. For instance, I am afraid that the textual analysis of
the quotations in Justin may seem somewhat less satisfactory than
that of those in the Clementine Homilies, though Justin's
quotations are the more important of the two. Still I hope that
the treatment of the first may be, for the scale of the book,
sufficiently adequate. There seemed to be a certain advantage in
presenting the results of the enquiry in the order in which it was
conducted. If time and strength are allowed me, I hope to be able
to carry several of the investigations that are begun in this book
some stages further.
I ought perhaps to explain that I was prevented by other engagements
from beginning seriously to work upon the subject until the latter
end of December in last year. The first of Dr. Lightfoot's articles
in the Contemporary Review had then appeared. The next two articles
(on the Silence of Eusebius and the Ignatian Epistles) were also
in advance of my own treatment of the same topics. From this point
onwards I was usually the first to finish, and I have been compelled
merely to allude to the progress of the controversy in notes. Seeing
the turn that Dr. Lightfoot's review was taking, and knowing how
utterly vain it would be for any one else to go over the same ground,
I felt myself more at liberty to follow a natural bent in confining
myself pretty closely to the internal aspect of the enquiry. My object
has been chiefly to test in detail the alleged quotations from our
Gospels, while Dr. Lightfoot has taken a wider sweep in collecting
and bringing to bear the collateral matter of which his unrivalled
knowledge of the early Christian literature gave him such command.
It will be seen that in some cases, as notably in regard to the
evidence of Papias, the external and the internal methods have
led to an opposite result; and I shall look forward with much
interest to the further discussion of this subject.
I should be sorry to ignore the debt I am under to the author of
'Supernatural Religion' for the copious materials he has supplied
to criticism. I have also to thank him for his courtesy in sending
me a copy of the sixth edition of his work. My obligations to
other writers I hope will be found duly acknowledged. If I were to
single out the one book to which I owed most, it would probably be
Credner's 'Beitrage zur Einleitung in die Biblischen Schriften,'
of which I have spoken somewhat fully in an early chapter. I have
used a certain amount of discretion and economy in avoiding as a
rule the works of previous apologists (such as Semisch, Riggenbach,
Norton, Hofstede de Groot) and consulting rather those of an opposite
school in such representatives as Hilgenfeld and Volkmar. In this
way, though I may very possibly have omitted some arguments which
may be sound, I hope I shall have put forward few that have been
already tried and found wanting.
As I have made rather large use of the argument supplied by text-
criticism, I should perhaps say that to the best of my belief my
attention was first drawn to its importance by a note in Dr. Lightfoot's
work on Revision. The evidence adduced under this head will be found,
I believe, to be independent of any particular theory of text-criticism.
The idea of the Analytical Index is taken, with some change of plan,
from Volkmar. It may serve to give a sort of _coup d'oeil_ of the
subject.
It is a pleasure to be able to mention another form of assistance
from which it is one of the misfortunes of an anonymous writer to
find himself cut off. The proofs of this book have been seen in
their passage through the press by my friend the Rev. A.J. Mason,
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, whose exact scholarship has
been particularly valuable to me. On another side than that of
scholarship I have derived the greatest benefit from the advice of
my friend James Beddard, M.B., of Nottingham, who was among the
first to help me to realise, and now does not suffer me to forget,
what a book ought to be. The Index of References to the Gospels
has also been made for me.
The chapter on Marcion has already appeared, substantially in its
present form, as a contribution to the Fortnightly Review.
BARTON-ON-THE-HEATH,
SHIPSTON-ON-STOUR,
_November_, 1875.
[Greek epigraph: Ta de panta elenchoumena hupo tou photos
phaneroutai pan gar to phaneroumenon phos estin.]
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
It would be natural in a work of this kind, which is a direct
review of a particular book, to begin with an account of that
book, and with some attempt to characterise it. Such had been my
own intention, but there seems to be sufficient reason for
pursuing a different course. On the one hand, an account of a book
which has so recently appeared, which has been so fully reviewed,
and which has excited so much attention, would appear to be
superfluous; and, on the other hand, as the character of it has
become the subject of somewhat sharp controversy, and as controversy--
or at least the controversial temper--is the one thing that I wish
to avoid, I have thought it well on the whole to abandon my first
intention, and to confine myself as much as possible to a criticism
of the argument and subject-matter, with a view to ascertain the
real facts as to the formation of the Canon of the four Gospels.
I shall correct, where I am able to do so, such mistakes as may
happen to come under my notice and have not already been pointed
out by other reviewers, only dilating upon them where what seem to
be false principles of criticism are involved. On the general
subject of these mistakes--misleading references and the like--I
think that enough has been said [Endnote 2:1]. Much is perhaps
charged upon the individual which is rather due to the system of
theological training and the habits of research that are common in
England at the present day. Inaccuracies no doubt have been found,
not a few. But, unfortunately, there is only one of our seats of
learning where--in theology at least--the study of accuracy has
quite the place that it deserves. Our best scholars and ablest
men--with one or two conspicuous exceptions--do not write, and the
work is left to be done by _littérateurs_ and clergymen or
laymen who have never undergone the severe preliminary discipline
which scientific investigation requires. Thus a low standard is
set; there are but few sound examples to follow, and it is a
chance whether the student's attention is directed to these at the
time when his habits of mind are being formed.
Again, it was claimed for 'Supernatural Religion' on its first
appearance that it was impartial. The claim has been indignantly
denied, and, I am afraid I must say, with justice. Any one
conversant with the subject (I speak of the critical portion of
the book) will see that it is deeply coloured by the author's
prepossessions from beginning to end. Here again he has only imbibed
the temper of the nation. Perhaps it is due to our political
activity and the system of party-government that the spirit of
party seems to have taken such a deep root in the English mind. An
Englishman's political opinions are determined for him mainly
(though sometimes in the way of reaction) by his antecedents and
education, and his opinions on other subjects follow in their
train. He takes them up with more of practical vigour and energy
than breadth of reflection. There is a contagion of party-spirit
in the air. And thus advocacy on one side is simply met by
advocacy on the other. Such has at least been hitherto the history
of English thought upon most great subjects. We may hope that at
last this state of things is coming to an end. But until now, and
even now, it has been difficult to find that quiet atmosphere in
which alone true criticism can flourish.
Let it not be thought that these few remarks are made in a spirit
of censoriousness. They are made by one who is only too conscious
of being subject to the very same conditions, and who knows not
how far he may need indulgence on the same score himself. How far
his own work is tainted with the spirit of advocacy it is not for
him to say. He knows well that the author whom he has set himself
to criticise is at least a writer of remarkable vigour and
ability, and that he cannot lay claim to these qualities; but he
has confidence in the power of truth--whatever that truth may be--
to assert itself in the end. An open and fair field and full and
free criticism are all that is needed to eliminate the effects of
individual strength or weakness. 'The opinions of good men are but
knowledge in the making'--especially where they are based upon a
survey of the original facts. Mistakes will be made and have
currency for a time. But little by little truth emerges; it
receives the suffrages of those who are competent to judge;
gradually the controversy narrows; parts of it are closed up
entirely, and a solid and permanent advance is made.
* * * * *
The author of 'Supernatural Religion' starts from a rigid and
somewhat antiquated view of Revelation--Revelation is 'a direct
and external communication by God to man of truths undiscoverable
by human reason. The divine origin of this communication is proved
by miracles. Miracles are proved by the record of Scripture,
which, in its turn, is attested by the history of the Canon.--This
is certainly the kind of theory which was in favour at the end of
the last century, and found expression in works like Paley's
Evidences. It belongs to a time of vigorous and clear but
mechanical and narrow culture, when the philosophy of religion was
made up of abrupt and violent contrasts; when Christianity
(including under that name the Old Testament as well as the New)
was thought to be simply true and all other religions simply
false; when the revelation of divine truth was thought to be as
sudden and complete as the act of creation; and when the presence
of any local and temporary elements in the Christian documents or
society was ignored.
The world has undergone a great change since then. A new and far-
reaching philosophy is gradually displacing the old. The Christian
sees that evolution is as much a law of religion as of nature. The
Ethnic, or non-Christian, religions are no longer treated as
outside the pale of the Divine government. Each falls into its
place as part of a vast divinely appointed scheme, of the character
of which we are beginning to have some faint glimmerings. Other
religions are seen to be correlated to Christianity much as the
other tentative efforts of nature are correlated to man. A divine
operation, and what from our limited human point of view we should
call a _special_ divine operation, is not excluded but rather implied
in the physical process by which man has been planted on the earth,
and it is still more evidently implied in the corresponding process
of his spiritual enlightenment. The deeper and more comprehensive
view that we have been led to take as to the dealings of Providence
has not by any means been followed by a depreciation of Christianity.
Rather it appears on a loftier height than ever. The spiritual
movements of recent times have opened men's eyes more and more to
its supreme spiritual excellence. It is no longer possible to
resolve it into a mere 'code of morals.' The Christian ethics grow
organically out of the relations which Christianity assumes between
God and man, and in their fulness are inseparable from those relations.
The author of 'Supernatural Religion' speaks as if they were separable,
as if a man could assume all the Christian graces merely by wishing
to assume them. But he forgets the root of the whole Christian system,
'Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall in
no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.'
The old idea of the _Aufklärung_ that Christianity was nothing
more than a code of morals, has now long ago been given up, and
the self-complacency which characterised that movement has
for the most part, though not entirely, passed away. The
nineteenth century is not in very many quarters regarded as the
goal of things. And it will hardly now be maintained that
Christianity is adequately represented by any of the many sects
and parties embraced under the name. When we turn from even the
best of these, in its best and highest embodiment, to the picture
that is put before us in the Gospels, how small does it seem! We
feel that they all fall short of their ideal, and that there is a
greater promise and potentiality of perfection in the root than
has ever yet appeared in branch or flower.
No doubt theology follows philosophy. The special conception of
the relation of man to God naturally takes its colour from the
wider conception as to the nature of all knowledge and the
relation of God to the universe. It has been so in every age, and
it must needs be so now. Some readjustment, perhaps a considerable
readjustment, of theological and scientific beliefs may be
necessary. But there is, I think, a strong presumption that the
changes involved in theology will be less radical than often seems
to be supposed. When we look back upon history, the world has gone
through many similar crises before. The discoveries of Darwin and
the philosophies of Mill or Hegel do not mark a greater relative
advance than the discoveries of Newton and the philosophies of
Descartes and Locke. These latter certainly had an effect upon
theology. At one time they seemed to shake it to its base; so much
so that Bishop Butler wrote in the Advertisement to the first
edition of his Analogy that 'it is come to be taken for granted
that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that
it is now at length discovered to be fictitious.' Yet what do we
see after a lapse of a hundred and forty years? It cannot be said
that there is less religious life and activity now than there was
then, or that there has been so far any serious breach in the
continuity of Christian belief. An eye that has learnt to watch
the larger movements of mankind will not allow itself to be
disturbed by local oscillations. It is natural enough that some of
our thinkers and writers should imagine that the last word has
been spoken, and that they should be tempted to use the word
'Truth' as if it were their own peculiar possession. But Truth is
really a much vaster and more unattainable thing. One man sees a
fragment of it here and another there; but, as a whole, even in
any of its smallest subdivisions, it exists not in the brain of
any one individual, but in the gradual, and ever incomplete but
ever self-completing, onward movement of the whole. 'If any man
think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought
to know.' The forms of Christianity change, but Christianity
itself endures. And it would seem as if we might well be content
to wait until it was realised a little less imperfectly before we
attempt to go farther afield.
Yet the work of adaptation must be done. The present generation
has a task of its own to perform. It is needful for it to revise
its opinions in view of the advances that have been made both in
general knowledge and in special theological criticism. In so far
as 'Supernatural Religion' has helped to do this, it has served
the cause of true progress; but its main plan and design I cannot
but regard as out of date and aimed in the air.
The Christian miracles, or what in our ignorance we call miracles,
will not bear to be torn away from their context. If they are
facts we must look at them in strict connection with that Ideal
Life to which they seem to form the almost natural accompaniment.
The Life itself is the great miracle. When we come to see it as it
really is, and to enter, if even in some dim and groping way, into
its inner recesses, we feel ourselves abashed and dumb. Yet this
self-evidential character is found in portions of the narrative
that are quite unmiraculous. These, perhaps, are in reality the
most marvellous, though the miracles themselves will seem in place
when their spiritual significance is understood and they are
ranged in order round their common centre. Doubtless some elements
of superstition may be mixed up in the record as it has come down
to us. There is a manifest gap between the reality and the story
of it. The Evangelists were for the most part 'Jews who sought
after a sign.' Something of this wonder-seeking curiosity may very
well have given a colour to their account of events in which the
really transcendental element was less visible and tangible. We
cannot now distinguish with any degree of accuracy between the
subjective and the objective in the report. But that miracles, or
what we call such, did in some shape take place, is, I believe,
simply a matter of attested fact. When we consider it in its
relation to the rest of the narrative, to tear out the miraculous
bodily from the Gospels seems to me in the first instance a
violation of history and criticism rather than of faith.
Still the author of 'Supernatural Religion' is, no doubt, justified
in raising the question, Did miracles really happen? I only wish
to protest against the idea that such a question can be adequately
discussed as something isolated and distinct, in which all that
is necessary is to produce and substantiate the documents as in
a forensic process. Such a 'world-historical' event (if I may for
the moment borrow an expressive Germanism) as the founding of
Christianity cannot be thrown into a merely forensic form.
Considerations of this kind may indeed enter in, but to suppose
that they can be justly estimated by themselves alone is an error.
And it is still more an error to suppose that the riddle of the
universe, or rather that part of the riddle which to us is most
important, the religious nature of man and, the objective facts
and relations that correspond to it, can all be reduced to some
four or five simple propositions which admit of being proved or
disproved by a short and easy Q.E.D.
It would have been a far more profitable enquiry if the author had
asked himself, What is Revelation? The time has come when this
should be asked and an attempt to obtain a more scientific
definition should be made. The comparative study of religions has
gone far enough to admit of a comparison between the Ethnic
religions and that which had its birth in Palestine--the religion
of the Jews and Christians. Obviously, at the first blush, there
is a difference: and that difference constitutes what we mean by
Revelation. Let us have this as yet very imperfectly known
quantity scientifically ascertained, without any attempt either to
minimise or to exaggerate. I mean, let the field which Mr. Matthew
Arnold has lately been traversing with much of his usual insight
but in a light and popular manner, be seriously mapped out and
explored. Pioneers have been at work, such as Dr. Kuenen, but not
perhaps quite without a bias: let the same enquiry be taken up so
widely as that the effects of bias may be eliminated; and instead
of at once accepting the first crude results, let us wait until
they are matured by time. This would be really fruitful and
productive, and a positive addition to knowledge; but reasoning
such as that in 'Supernatural Religion' is vitiated at the outset,
because it starts with the assumption that we know perfectly well
the meaning of a term of which our actual conception is vague and
indeterminate in the extreme--Divine Revelation. [Endnote 10:1]
With these reservations as to the main drift and bearing of the
argument, we may however meet the author of 'Supernatural Religion'
on his own ground. It is a part of the question--though a more
subordinate part apparently than he seems to suppose--to decide
whether miracles did or did not really happen. Even of this part
too it is but quite a minor subdivision that is included in the
two volumes of his work that have hitherto appeared. In the first
place, merely as a matter of historical attestation, the Gospels
are not the strongest evidence for the Christian miracles. Only
one of the four, in its present shape, is claimed as the work of
an Apostle, and of that the genuineness is disputed. The Acts of
the Apostles stand upon very much the same footing with the Synoptic
Gospels, and of this book we are promised a further examination.
But we possess at least some undoubted writings of one who was
himself a chief actor in the events which followed immediately
upon those recorded in the Gospels; and in these undoubted writings
St. Paul certainly shows by incidental allusions, the good faith
of which cannot be questioned, that he believed himself to be
endowed with the power of working miracles, and that miracles,
or what were thought to be such, were actually wrought both by
him and by his contemporaries. He reminds the Corinthians that
'the signs of an Apostle were wrought among them ... in signs,
and wonders, and mighty deeds' ([Greek: en saemeious kai terasi
kai dunamesi]--the usual words for the higher forms of miracle--
2 Cor. xii. 12). He tells the Romans that 'he will not dare to
speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought in him,
to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty
signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God' ([Greek:
en dunamei saemeion kai teraton, en dunamei pneumator Theou],
Rom. xv. 18, 19) He asks the Galatians whether 'he that ministereth
to them the Spirit, and worketh miracles [Greek: ho energon dunameis]
among them, doeth it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of
faith?' (Gal. iii. 5). In the first Epistle to the Corinthians,
he goes somewhat elaborately into the exact place in the Christian
economy that is to be assigned to the working of miracles and gifts
of healing (1 Cor. xii. 10, 28, 29). Besides these allusions, St. Paul
repeatedly refers to the cardinal miracles of the Resurrection and
Ascension; he refers to them as notorious and unquestionable facts
at a time when such an assertion might have been easily refuted.
On one occasion he gives a very circumstantial account of the testimony
on which the belief in the Resurrection rested (1 Cor. xv. 4-8). And,
not only does he assert the Resurrection as a fact, but he builds
upon it a whole scheme of doctrine: 'If Christ be not risen,' he says,
'then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.' We do not
stay now to consider the exact philosophical weight of this evidence.
It will be time enough to do this when it has received the critical
discussion that may be presumed to be in store for it. But as external
evidence, in the legal sense, it is probably the best that can be
produced, and it has been entirely untouched so far.
Again, in considering the evidence for the age of the Synoptic
Gospels, that which is derived from external sources is only a
part, and not perhaps the more important part, of the whole. It
points backwards indeed, and we shall see with what amount of
force and range. But there is still an interval within which only
approximate conclusions are possible. These conclusions need to be
supplemented from the phenomena of the documents themselves. In
the relation of the Gospels to the growth of the Christian society
and the development of Christian doctrine, and especially to the
great turning-point in the history, the taking of Jerusalem, there
is very considerable internal evidence for determining the date
within which they must have been composed. It is well known that
many critics, without any apologetic object, have found a more or
less exact criterion in the eschatological discourses (Matt. xxiv,
Mark xiii, Luke xxi. 5-36), and to this large additions may be
made. As I hope some day to have an opportunity of discussing the
whole question of the origin and composition of the Synoptic
Gospels, I shall not go into this at present: but in the mean time
it should be remembered that all these further questions lie in
the background, and that in tracing the formation of the Canon of
the Gospels the whole of the evidence for miracles--even from this
_ab extra_ point of view--is very far from being exhausted.
There is yet another remaining reason which makes the present
enquiry of less importance than might be supposed, derived from
the particular way in which the author has dealt with this
external evidence. In order to explain the _prima facie_
evidence for our canonical Gospels, he has been compelled to
assume the existence of other documents containing, so far as
appears, the same or very similar matter. In other words, instead
of four Gospels he would give us five or six or seven. I do not
know that, merely as a matter of policy, and for apologetic
purposes only, the best way to refute his conclusion would not be
to admit his premisses and to insist upon the multiplication of
the evidence for the facts of the Gospel history which his
argument would seem to involve. I mention this however, not with
any such object, but rather to show that the truth of Christianity
is not intimately affected, and that there are no such great
reasons for partiality on one side or on the other.
I confess that it was a relief to me when I found that this must
be the case. I do not think the time has come when the central
question can be approached with any safety. Rough and ready
methods (such as I am afraid I must call the first part of
'Supernatural Religion') may indeed cut the Gordian knot, but they
do not untie it. A number of preliminary questions will have to be
determined with a greater degree of accuracy and with more general
consent than has been done hitherto. The Jewish and Christian
literature of the century before and of the two centuries after
the birth of Christ must undergo a more searching examination, by
minds of different nationality and training, both as to the date,
text, and character of the several books. The whole balance of an
argument may frequently be changed by some apparently minute and
unimportant discovery; while, at present, from the mere want of
consent as to the data, the state of many a question is
necessarily chaotic. It is far better that all these points should
be discussed as disinterestedly as possible. No work is so good as
that which is done without sight of the object to which it is
tending and where the workman has only his measure and rule to
trust to. I am glad to think that the investigation which is to
follow may be almost, if not quite, classed in this category; and
I hope I may be able to conduct it with sufficient impartiality.
Unconscious bias no man can escape, but from conscious bias I
trust I shall be free.