NOTES.
A.
On the Improved Version.
Great allowance must perhaps be made for the clergymen who persist, after repeated expostulation, in their assumption that the Improved Version is an authoritative exposition of Unitarian theology. The convenience of limiting their studies, for the most part, to a single work, and the inconvenience of dispensing with the previous labours of Dr. Nares, and Archbishop Magee, whose hostile criticisms furnish the orthodox divine with invaluable prolegomena to the book, ought to diminish our surprise at the tenacious adherence to this ground of attack. The advantage too of giving fresh currency to the popular notion, that some dreadful production exists, containing unmentionable impieties, and constituting the “Unitarian Bible,” is undeniable. It is evident that the utility of fostering this impression is by no means overlooked: for after strong assertion and contemptuous comments have given to a very few passages of the Improved Version the appearance, to an unlearned audience, of falsification of the word of God, I have heard it said, that these cases are but a small sample of a system, which might be illustrated to an indefinite extent from every page. As there are not, on an average, more than two variations in a page from Archbishop Newcome, the charge must, in an incalculable majority of instances, fall on him.
I am at a loss, however, to perceive even any controversial advantage to be gained by the rash statement of Mr. Byrth; that every Unitarian minister is as much bound to uphold the criticism and interpretation of the Improved Version, as the Established Clergy to maintain the Thirty-nine Articles. A clergyman, it is known, signs the articles, and solemnly contracts to preach in conformity with them; a minister among Unitarians may never see the Improved Version, or hear its name. During a five years’ course of study at the college where I received my education for the ministry, I do not remember any mention of it in the theological classes, and only two in the Greek classes: both of which were condemnatory; one, of the introduction of the English indefinite article to indicate, in certain cases, the absence of the definite article in the original; the other, of the rendering of the preposition διά, with the genitive, by the word “for.” The fact that most ministers of our persuasion subscribe to the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, which has succeeded to the property in the Improved Version, and continues to circulate it, no more makes them responsible for its criticisms than a contribution to the Bible Society makes a clergyman accountable for the forgery of the “heavenly witnesses.” The one aids in distributing a possibly defective, the other a certainly interpolated, copy of the Christian records. Let us apply another test to this imprudent parallel between the established clergy, and the Unitarian ministers. In the United States of America, no one, I presume, could take holy orders in the Episcopal church, without pledging his assent to the Thirty-nine Articles; and should he cease to approve of them, his ordination vow would require him to resign his preferment. But in that country are hundreds of Unitarian ministers, who know nothing of the Improved Version; and would be as much astonished to be told that they were bound by it, as would Dr. Tattershall to hear that he must answer for the Oxford Tracts.
But the mere fact, that within a year after the publication of this work, a Unitarian divine, a subscriber to the Unitarian society, in a Unitarian periodical, submitted it to a criticism far more searching and elaborate than that which an acumen sharpened by theological hostility is now able to produce, is sufficient to set in its true light the statement which I have quoted. I beg to call the attention of our Reverend opponents to the following enumeration of the points, to which the censures of the Reviewer (Dr. Carpenter) are directed.
(1.) The selection of Newcome’s Revision, instead of the authorized version, as the basis.
(2.) The departure, and without any intelligible rule, from Griesbach’s text, which, in the introduction, had been mentioned in a way to excite the expectation of its invariable adoption. Of these departures, a complete table is given.
(3.) The neglect of proper acknowledgment and defence of these departures.
(4.) The professed employment of brackets for one purpose, (to indicate words which, according to Griesbach, were probably, though not certainly, to be expunged,) and the actual use of them for another; as, for example, in the introduction of St. Matthew’s Gospel, which is thus enclosed.
(5.) The use of italics (intended to indicate doubtful authority) without adequate evidence of doubtful authority, and in violation of the apparent intention to repudiate critical conjecture. And in particular, the use of this type in the introduction to St. Luke’s gospel; which “the evidence is far too little to justify;” and in the introduction to St. Matthew’s gospel. Both these examples are considered by the reviewer as instances of conjectural criticism.
(6.) The unwarrantable license allowed in general to conjectural emendation of the text; of which particular cases are adduced; as the transposition of verses, John i. 15, 18; and, in a lower sense of the word conjecture, the omission of διὰ τῆς πίστεως, Rom. iii. 25; and the καὶ in 2 Tim. iii. 16.
(7.) The departures from the received text without notice. Of these departures, a complete table is given.
(8.) The departures from Newcome’s Revision, without sufficient notice; of these, a list was given, and a synoptical table has since been published in the appendix to Dr. Carpenter’s reply to the “unanswered” Archbishop Magee.
(9.) The use of the English indefinite article, in certain cases, where there is no Greek definite article. For example, the Centurion’s exclamation at the crucifixion, Matt. xxvii. 54; in his remarks on which, Mr. Byrth will perceive that he has been anticipated by the reviewer.
(10.) The introduction of doctrinal notes, which the reviewer thinks ought to have been entirely excluded.[[112]]
The culpable omission of the epithet, “Unitarian,” from the description of the “Society for promoting Christian Knowledge,” in the title-page of the first edition, has since received the censure of the same friendly but just critic.[[113]]
If then, all that is original and “orthodox,” in the recent assaults on the Improved Version, be the sarcasm and extravagance; and all that is “candid” and “scholar-like” was long ago anticipated by a Unitarian divine, (to whom Dr. Nares awards the praise of being “the very learned and dispassionate reviewer,”) with what propriety can we be held responsible, as Unitarian ministers, for the peculiarities of the work, and called upon to defend it from strictures, produced at second-hand in Christ Church, and originally published among ourselves. If Dr. Carpenter had been minister in Liverpool, instead of Bristol, would he have been bound to come forward and answer himself?
I by no means intend to charge the clergymen engaged in this controversy with plagiarism. Their great authority, Archbishop Magee, so completely withheld in his postscript, all notice of his obligations to the Unitarian Reviewer, that a reader may well be excused for not knowing that there was such a person. Nor do I at all doubt the competency of our respected opponents to originate whatever they have advanced, without the aid of any one’s previous researches. I simply affirm that they have been anticipated, in a quarter, and to an extent, which disprove their assertions respecting the acceptance and influence of the Improved Version among Unitarians.
For the very same reason, however, that we are not bound to praise this work when faults are fairly attributed to it, neither are we bound to be silent, when merit is unjustly denied it. With the corrections introduced in the fourth and fifth Editions, it has the exclusive honour of accomplishing the following important ends:
(1.) It exhibits the text of the New Testament in the most perfect state, being conformed to Griesbach’s second Edition.
(2.) It enables the English reader to compare this critical with the Received text, all their variations being noticed.
(3.) It places before its possessors Archbishop Newcome’s Revision, which otherwise would have passed into unmerited oblivion. Wherever it departs from its basis, and advances any new translation, the Primate’s rendering is given also; so that the whole extent of the innovation is seen, and free choice afforded to the reader.
When the advocates of the common version shall exert themselves to bring it into accordance with the true text, they will attack the Improved Version, from a safer position. But so long as they leave with this heretical work the sole praise, among British translations, of showing what the Evangelists and Apostles really wrote, and content themselves with circulating a version containing words and passages, without mark or warning, which they know to be spurious, and in more than one case, to be ancient theological allies of their creed, they are too much open to the charge of availing themselves of detected forgeries, to be entitled to read lectures to others, about reverence for the text. Dr. Tattershall enforces well “the duty of preserving the Canon of Scripture in its integrity.” Will he permit me to remind him of the duty of preserving it in its simplicity: or is there, in the bare proposal of curtailment of the volume, a sinfulness which does not exist in the practical and persevering maintenance of known interpolation?
B.
On the Ebionites and their Gospel.
The argument of Mr. Belsham against the authenticity of Matthew’s account of the miraculous conception appears to me very unsound: but Dr. Tattershall’s criticism upon it, I must think to be altogether unsuccessful; if at least, amid its intricate construction, I have really apprehended the points to which its force is applied. In rejecting this portion of Scripture, Mr. Belsham relies on the authority of the Nazarenes and Ebionites, or early Hebrew Christians: who are affirmed by Epiphanius and Jerome, to have used copies of Matthew’s Gospel, without the introductory passages in question.
As the value of this argument depends altogether on the character of the attesting parties and documents, Dr. Tattershall calls in question the respectability of them all; and disparages, first, the ancient Nazarenes and Ebionites themselves; secondly, the testimony, in this matter, of Epiphanius and Jerome; thirdly, the Hebrew gospel or record, which they describe. The positions advanced under every one of these heads, appear to me to be erroneous.
I. Nothing, it is said, can be more incorrect than to admit the claim of the Nazarenes and Ebionites to be regarded as the original, or main body of Hebrew Christians. They were a sect, at first united, then divided into two; successors of the Judaizing Christians; and after Adrian’s destruction of Jerusalem (A. D. 132), they separated from the general community of the Christian Church.
I certainly had conceived that this quæstio vexata of ecclesiastical history, might be considered as set at rest, since the controversy respecting it between Bishop Horsley and Dr. Priestley; and still more, since the production of many additional loca probantia from the Fathers, by Eichhorn, Olshausen, Bertholdt and others, who have engaged in the inquiry respecting the origin of the three first gospels. If, however, the subject is still open to agitation, the principle on which it must be discussed is evident. If, as Dr. Tattershall states, the Nazarenes and Ebionites did not embrace in extent, the main body, and in time, the original societies, of Jewish believers, it is incumbent on him to find some clear traces of other or earlier Hebrew Christians, denominated by some different term, or at all events excluded from these. Until such persons are discovered, in the primitive history of the church, the Nazarenes and Ebionites must remain in undisturbed possession of their title as “The early Hebrew Christians.” Meanwhile, in direct proof of their claim to be so regarded, I submit the following considerations:
(1.) Their name is applied, in a direct definition, to the whole of the Jewish Christians. Origen says, “Those from among the Jews who received Jesus as the Christ,” were called Ebionites.[[114]]
(2.) The characteristic sentiments of this “sect,” are ascribed to the early Hebrew Christians generally. These were, the persuasion of the continued obligation of the Mosaic law, on persons of Jewish birth, and the belief that Christ was a creature, some considering him as simply human, others as pre-existent.[[115]] Origen says, “Those from among the Jews who have faith in Jesus, have not abandoned their ancient law; for they live in conformity with it, deriving even their name (according to the true interpretation of the word,) from the poverty of the law; for Ebion, among the Jews, means poor.”[[116]] Origen again says, “And when you observe the belief respecting the Saviour, held by those from among the Jews who have faith in Jesus, some supposing that he was of Mary and Joseph, and others that he was of Mary alone and the Holy Spirit, but still without the notion of his Deity, &c.”[[117]]
(3.) The characteristic Gospel of the sect (under its frequent title “Gospel according to the Hebrews”) was used by the Hebrew Christians generally. Eusebius says: “In this number, some have placed the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is a favourite especially with the Hebrews who receive Christ.”[[118]] The gospel here given to “the Hebrews who received Christ,” is given in the following to the “Ebionites,” by the same author. “They (the Ebionites) made use only of that which is called ‘the Gospel according to the Hebrews;’ the rest they made small account of.”[[119]]
If these passages be thought sufficient to identify the Ebionites and Nazarenes with the “main body of Hebrew Christians,” perhaps the following may be held to prove their early existence; as it states that they presented the Apostle John with a motive for composing his Gospel: Epiphanius says, “When therefore the blessed John comes and finds men speculating about the human nature of Christ,—the Ebionites going astray respecting the genealogy of Christ in the flesh, deduced from Abraham, and by Luke from Adam; and when he finds the Cerinthians and Merinthians affirming his natural birth as a mere man; the Nazarenes too, and many other heresies; coming as he did, fourth, or in the rear of the Evangelists, he began, if I may say so, to recall the wanderers, and those who speculated about the human nature of Christ, and to say to them, when from his station in the rear, he beheld some declining into rugged paths, and quitting, as it were, the straight and true one, ‘whither are you tending, whither are you going, you who are treading a path rugged and obstructed, conducting, moreover, to a precipice? Return, it is not so; the God, Logos, who was begotten of the Father from the beginning, is not from Mary only.’”[[120]]
That the Nazarenes and Ebionites were truly “the early Hebrew Christians,” must be considered as a fact established by such evidence as the foregoing, till some testimony to the contrary can be produced. That they were the successors of the Judaizing Christians reproved by St. Paul is an assertion destitute of support; for the opponents who troubled the Apostle of the Gentiles were distinguished by their pertinacious attempts, as Hebrews, to force the Mosaic Law on Gentile converts; whereas, respecting the Nazarenes, Lardner observes, “Divers learned moderns are now convinced of this, and readily allow, that the Jewish believers, who were called Nazarenes, did not impose the ordinances of the law upon others, though they observed them as the descendants of Israel and Abraham.”[[121]]
The application by Epiphanius of the words “sect” and “heretics” to these believers, does not prove that he was speaking of a different class from the early Hebrew Christians; but only that this same class began, in his time, to be spoken of in a different and more disparaging way. He is the first writer, so far as I can discover, who describes them in such reproachful language. On this point Dr. Wall observes: “He styles them heretics, for no other reason that I can see, but that they, together with their Christian faith, continued the use of circumcision and of the Jewish rites; which things St. Paul never blamed in a Jewish Christian, though, in the Gentile Christian, he did: and Epiphanius with the same propriety, as far as I can perceive, might have blamed St. James, bishop of Jerusalem, and those thousands of Jewish Christians with him, concerning whom James said to Paul, ‘Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe, and they are all zealous for the law.’”[[122]]
And as to the Nazarenes and Ebionites separating from the general community of the Christian church, after the second destruction of Jerusalem by Adrian, and thus bringing upon themselves the opprobrium of heresy, the fact, stated in this form, cannot be proved. From the first, the Hebrew Christians had formed a separate body from the Gentile Christians. But their proportion to the whole body of believers seems to have been for some time too considerable to admit of their being spoken of in contemptuous language. When the Gentile portion of the Church became altogether ascendant, and especially when it furnished all the ecclesiastical writers, (one of whose chief functions it has been, in every age, to call names,) the Jewish brethren, destitute of all pretensions to philosophy, and free from that ambitious speculative spirit out of which orthodox theology arose, were naturally treated with less respect, and regarded as exceptions to that general union which had consolidated itself independently of them, and at last completely left them out. It does not appear that any further change was wrought by Adrian’s destruction of Jerusalem, than necessarily followed from his resolution to exclude, from the new colony which he founded there, all who practised Jewish rites. This imperial determination compelled the withdrawal of the Hebrew Christians to the North of Palestine; and they were replaced by a new church, whose Gentile origin and customs qualified its members (under the Emperor’s decree) for settlement on the ancient site.
II. Dr. Tattershall disparages the testimony of the witnesses cited in this cause,—Epiphanius and Jerome; and not without good reason, if there should be sufficient proof, when the whole case is before us, of his two allegations, viz.:
First, That Epiphanius contradicts himself; affirming now the completeness, and then the mutilation, of the Gospel in question.
Secondly, That Epiphanius contradicts Jerome; in asserting, what “Jerome does not admit,” the identity of the Ebionite Gospel with that of St. Matthew.
Premising that one and the same work is to be understood as described, by the several titles, “Nazarene Gospel,” “Ebionite Gospel,” “Gospel according to the Hebrews,” “Gospel according to the Twelve Apostles,” I would submit that the first of these allegations is more plausible than true, and that the second is wholly untenable.
The contradictory statements of Epiphanius are the following:
(a.) “They (i.e. the Nazarenes) have the Gospel of Matthew most entire in the Hebrew language among them; for this, truly, is still preserved among them, as it was at first, in Hebrew characters. But I know not whether they have taken away the genealogy from Abraham to Christ.”[[123]]
(b.) “In that Gospel which they (i.e. the Ebionites) have called the Gospel according to St. Matthew, which is not entire and perfect, but corrupted and curtailed, and which they call the Hebrew Gospel,” &c.[[124]]
The verbal contradiction between these two passages, is no doubt manifest enough; and in a writer of more accuracy than Epiphanius, might have justified the proposal of Casaubon (approved by Jones) to effect a violent reconciliation, by the conjectural insertion of the negative adverb in the former sentence, which would then describe the document as not wholly perfect. But the looseness of this author’s style appears to me sufficient to explain the opposition between the statements; which seem indeed, to look defiance at each other, when brought by force, face to face; but which at the intervals of separate composition, may be, by no means, irreconcilable. That in the first, Epiphanius designed the phrase “most entire,” to be understood with considerable latitude, is evident from the expression of suspicion which instantly follows, that the genealogy might probably be absent. And if the work in question contained a quantity of matter additional to Matthew’s Gospel, whilst it also omitted some of its integral parts; it seems not unnatural that the same writer, who with his thoughts running on its redundancies, had at one time called it a most full copy, should at another, when dwelling on its deficiencies, style it an incomplete edition of the first Evangelist. But it is more important to observe, that on the points for which the Editors of the Improved Version adduce the testimony of Epiphanius, viz., to identify the Gospel of Matthew with that of the Nazarenes and Ebionites, and to attest the absence from this book of the story of the miraculous conception, there is here no contradiction whatever. In both passages he states the work to be Matthew’s, and in neither, according to Dr. Tattershall, does he say that the first two chapters were wanting. The harmony then, on these, the only points in dispute, is complete.
(2.) “Jerome,” it is said, “does not admit the work in question to be the Gospel of St. Matthew;” which puts him at issue with Epiphanius. Will Dr. Tattershall permit me to lay before him a passage of Jerome, which has been under his eye recently, for he has quoted a sentence from Jones which occurs on the adjacent page; it runs thus. “Matthew, also called Levi, who became from a publican an Apostle, was the first who composed a gospel of Christ; and for the sake of those who believed in Christ among the Jews, wrote it in the Hebrew language and letters; but it is uncertain who it was that translated it into Greek. Moreover the Hebrew (copy) itself is to this time preserved in the library of Cæsarea, which Pamphilus, the martyr, with much diligence collected. The Nazarenes, who live in Beræa, a city of Syria, and make use of this volume, granted me the favour of writing it out; in which (Gospel) there is this observable, that wherever the Evangelist either himself cites, or introduces our Saviour as citing, any passage out of the Old Testament, he does not follow the translation of the Seventy, but the Hebrew copies: of which there are these two instances, viz., that ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son;’[[125]] and that, ‘He[[126]] shall be called a Nazarene.’”[[127]]
Here Jerome, I presume, does admit the Nazarene Gospel to be that of Matthew; and the harmony on this point, between him and Epiphanius, is complete.
Besides alleging the above contradiction, Dr. Tattershall notices a supposed variance (not amounting to inconsistency) between these two Fathers on another point. From a statement of Jerome, he “thinks it may be fairly inferred,” that he knew the first two chapters of Matthew’s Gospel to be wanting in the Nazarene record. But it is denied that Epiphanius gives any countenance to the notion of their absence. Now I conceive that if this statement be precisely reversed, we shall have the true state of the case before us. Epiphanius gives us testimony to the absence, Jerome to the presence, of these chapters in the Nazarene Gospel.
First, as to Epiphanius: he makes the following statements bearing on this point:
(1.) He says that “the beginning of their (the Ebionites’) Gospel was this: ‘It came to pass in the days of Herod, the king of Judæa, that John came baptizing with the baptism of repentance in the river Jordan.’”[[128]] Is it not evident from this, that the initial event of this narrative was the advent of the Baptist, and that the previous account of the birth of Christ was absent? So, at least, it has been hitherto supposed.
(2.) He says in positive terms, “They have taken away the genealogy from Matthew, and accordingly begin their Gospel, as I have above said, with these words; ‘It came to pass,’ &c.”[[129]] It cannot be imagined that this will bear any but the common interpretation, that the Gospel began with the substance of our third chapter. The introduction of the miraculous conception, after John’s mission, would be an incredible disturbance of arrangement.[[130]]
(3.) He says, “That Cerinthus and Carpocrates, using this same Gospel of theirs, would prove from the beginning of that Gospel according to Matthew, viz. by its genealogy, that Christ proceeded from the seed of Joseph and Mary.” But to what purpose would these heretics have put this construction upon the genealogy, and argued from it the mere humanity of Christ’s origin, if it was immediately followed by a section, flatly contradicting what they had been labouring to prove? It is impossible then to get rid of Epiphanius’s testimony to the absence of these chapters.
Secondly, let us turn to Jerome. Dr. Tattershall conceives that because this author speaks of certain men without the spirit and grace of God, as having had some concern in the composition of this gospel, we may conclude that the introductory chapters were wanting from the copy which he used. The inference is not very obvious; and is at once destroyed by the fact, that Jerome’s quotations from the Nazarene Gospel, contain passages of Matthew’s introductory chapters. In a passage, e.g., which I have adduced above, occur two instances; “Out of Egypt I have called my son;” and, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
This discrepancy between these two fathers would have furnished Dr. Tattershall with a more powerful argument against the Editor’s note, than any which he has adduced; and have enabled him to show that Jerome, being cited for one purpose, establishes precisely the reverse.
III. Dr. Tattershall adduces in evidence against the worth of the Nazarene Gospel, the absurd chronological mistake in its first sentence, which assigns the Baptist’s appearance to the days of Herod, king of Judæa.
On this I have only to observe, that it might have been well to state, that the blunder is commonly attributed to Epiphanius himself, rather than to the Gospel which he cites. Whatever that work may have been, it was produced near the spot where the Herods lived, in times when the remembrance of them was fresh, for the people over whom they reigned; so that a mistake of that magnitude, in its first verse, must be regarded as of improbable occurrence. On the other hand, Epiphanius, it is admitted, had never seen this Gospel, and therefore cited it from hearsay; he wrote in the latter part of the fourth century, and is remarkable for inaccuracy of every kind, and especially with regard to time. There is then no improbability in the supposition that Epiphanius confounded Herod the king, with Herod the tetrarch, and with the purpose of explanation, inserted a mistake, by adding the words, “King of Judæa.” Eichhorn says, “Two different Herods are confounded together,—the King Herod under whom John was born, and Herod Antipas, under whom the Baptist publicly appeared;—an evident mark of a later annotating or correcting hand, unguided by a knowledge of the true chronology, as contained in Luke, and so substituting one Herod for another.”[[131]] For the foregoing reasons, it appears to me that Dr. Tattershall has not, by making his strictures sound, earned the right to render them severe.
The evidence bearing upon the introduction of Luke’s Gospel, is much simpler and less confused; and to Dr. Tattershall’s estimate of it, no valid objection, I think, can be urged.
C.
On the Chronological Inconsistency between the
introductory chapters of Matthew, and those of Luke.
In his note on this subject, Dr. Tattershall points out, as an example of carelessness in the Editors of the Improved Version, the following discrepancy between two of their statements. In their note on Matthew i. 16, they say, “If it be true, as Luke relates, that ‘Jesus was entering upon his thirtieth year, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius;’” and in their note on Luke i. 4, they say, “The Evangelist (Luke) expressly affirms that Jesus had completed his thirtieth year,” &c. It would have been only just to add, that in the more recent editions of the Improved Version, this inconsistency does not exist. The fourth edition (1817) lies before me; and in it the latter note stands thus: “The Evangelist expressly affirms that Jesus had entered upon, or, as Grotius understands it, had completed his thirtieth year,” &c.
To all the other strictures contained in Dr. Tattershall’s note, “the Unitarian Editors” appear to me to be justly liable.[[132]] The inaccuracy of their chronology was long ago perceived, by more friendly critics than their present assailants; and sounder calculations of the dates of our Lord’s birth, and ministry, were instituted and published by Dr. Carpenter, in the admirable dissertation prefixed to his “Apostolical Harmony of the Gospels.” Not being aware of any method, at all satisfactory, by which the notes in the “Improved Version,” referring to this point, can be defended, I do not profess to understand why they appear again and again without remark or correction, in the successive editions of that work.
Dr. Tattershall, I perceive, adopts the usual mode of reconciling the chronology of Matthew and Luke; and supposes that the reign of Tiberius must be reckoned, not from his succession to the dignity of Emperor, on the death of Augustus, but from his previous association with Augustus, in the tribunitial authority. Widely as this explanation has been adopted, it cannot be denied that it has been invented to suit the case; that such a mode of reckoning would never have been thought of, had it not been for this discrepancy between the two Evangelists; and that it has nothing to support it but the evidence which belongs to all hypotheses, viz., that if true, it removes the difficulty which it was designed to explain. Even the industry of Lardner has failed to present us with any instance in which a Roman historian has reckoned the reign of Tiberius, from this association with his predecessor; or with any distinct trace that such a mode of computation was ever employed. And it is notorious that all the Christian Fathers calculated the fifteenth year of Tiberius from the death of Augustus. Should Dr. Tattershall be in possession of any evidence in support of this mode of reckoning, more satisfactory than that which has hitherto been adduced, he would render an important service to biblical literature by producing it.
D.
It is so universally understood that we are indebted to Mr. Thirlwall for the admirable translation of Schleiermacher’s Essay, that I conceive there can be no impropriety in speaking of the work as his; though his name does not appear in the title-page;—a circumstance of which I was not aware, till making this extract for the press. The whole note from which are taken the words in the Lecture, is as follows:—“The arguments by which Hug attempted to reconcile the two Evangelists on the residence of Joseph, are extremely slight and unsatisfactory. He admits that St. Matthew supposes Bethlehem to have been Joseph’s usual dwelling-place. But, he asks, was St. Matthew wrong? This, however, is not the question, but only whether he is consistent with St. Luke. Now, nothing can be more evident than that, according to the account of the latter, Joseph was a total stranger at Bethlehem. Bethlehem was indeed, as Hug remarks, in one sense his own city, but clearly not in the sense that Matthew’s account supposes. Here too, therefore, Schleiermacher’s position seems to remain unshaken.”—(See note on p. 44, of Translation of Schleiermacher’s Critical Essay on St. Luke’s Gospel.)
Footnotes for Lecture II.
[48]. Galatians iii. 24.
[49]. Acts xxvi. 26.
[50]. John xiv. 23.
[51]. John vi. 44.
[52]. John xviii. 37.
[53]. John x. 37.
[54]. John x. 27.
[55]. John vii. 17.
[56]. Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible. Preliminary Lecture II. p. 35.
[57]. Preliminary Lecture I., pp. 4, 5.
[58]. Jer. xxxvi. 23. See Rev. Dr. Tattershall’s Lecture on the Integrity of the Canon. Introduction.
[59]. Rev. F. Ould’s Letter of February 11, 1839.
[60]. The Improved Version was published in August, 1808. Rev. T. Lindsey, who had been labouring under the effects of paralysis ever since 1801, died November 3rd, the same year.
[63]. Evidence of Christianity, part III, chapter 2.
[66]. Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, part II. ch. ii. § 1.
[67]. Matt. xiii. 58.
[68]. John iv. 18.
[69]. John x. 32.
[70]. John x. 37.
[71]. Luke x. 17.
[72]. Acts ii. 1-4.
[73]. Pp. 236, 237.
[74]. John xix. 35.
[75]. xxi. 24.
[76]. Luke i. 2.
[77]. Acts ii. 1-4.
[78]. 1 Cor. xiv. 18.
[79]. 1 Cor. xiv. passim: especially 4, 5, 13, 19, 23.
[80]. 1 Cor. xii. 8, 10.
[81]. Acts vi. 1-4.
[82]. Luke i. 15.
[83]. Matt. xii. 3.
[84]. John xiv. 16, 17, 26.
[85]. Discourses on the principal Points of the Socinian Controversy, p. 341. Disc. xi.
[86]. 1 John ii. 20.
[87]. 2 Pet. i. 21.
[88]. Unwilling to repeat what I have already said, in a former publication, I have contented myself with a brief and slight notice of this celebrated text. It is discussed in a less cursory manner in the notes to the first Lecture in the “Rationale of Religious Inquiry.” I would only add, that Schleusner considers the word θεὀπνευστος, as belonging, not to the predicate, but to the subject, of the sentence. See his Lexicon in Nov. Test. in verb. “In N. T. semel legitur 2 Tim. iii. 16. πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος, omnis scriptura divinitus inspirata, seu, quæ est originis divinæ.”
[89]. Sermon on the Nature and Extent of the Right of Private Judgment p. 238.
[90]. P. 249.
[91]. Schleiermacher’s Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke. Introduction by the Translator, p. xv.
[92]. Pp. xv. and xi.
[93]. Evidences of Christianity, part III. ch. i.
[94]. Matt. iv. 12-22.
[95]. John i. 35-51.
[96]. Mark i. 16-20.
[97]. Luke v. 10, 11.
[98]. Matt. xxvi. 69-end.
[99]. Luke xxii. 56-62.
[100]. John xviii. 15-25.
[101]. xxvii. 32.
[102]. xxiii. 26.
[103]. xix. 17.
[104]. xxvii. 37.
[105]. xv. 26.
[106]. xxiii. 38.
[107]. xix. 19.
[108]. xxvii. 44.
[109]. xv. 32.
[110]. xxiii. 39-43.
[111]. Pp. 243, 244.
[112]. See Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature, 1809, pp. 97, seqq.; 152, seqq.; 274, seqq.; 384, seqq.
[113]. Reply to Magee, p. 302.
[114]. Καὶ Ἐβιωναῖοι χρηματίζουσιν οἱ ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὡς Χριστὸν παραδεξάμενοι.—Contr. Cels., lib. ii. c. 1. Op. tom. i. pp. 385 C. 386 A. Ed. Delarue. Paris. 1733.
[115]. Οὗτοι δε εἰσὶν οἱ διττοὶ Ἐβιωναῖοι, ἤτοι ἐκ παρθένου ὁμολογοῦντες ὁμοίως ἡμῖν τὸν Ἰμσοῦν, ἤ οὐχ οὕτω γεγεννῆσθαι, ἀλλ’ ὡς τοὶς ἀνθρώποις.—Contr. Cels., lib. v. c. 61. Op. tom. i. p. 625 A.
[116]. Οἱ ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν πιστεύοντες οὐ καταλελοίπασι τὸν πάτριον νόμον· βιοῦσι γὰρ κατ’ αὐτὸν, ἐπώνυμοί τε κατὰ τὴν ἐκδοχὴν πτωχείας τοῦ νόμου γεγενημένοι. Ἐβίων τε γὰρ ὁ πτωχὸς παρὰ Ἰουδαίοις καλεῖται.—Contr. Cels., lib. ii. c. 1. Op. tom. i. p. 385.
[117]. Καὶ ἐπὰν ἴδῃς τῶν ἀπὸ Ιουδαίων πιστευόντων εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν τὴν περὶ τοῦ σωτῆρος πίστιν, ὅτε μὲν ἐκ Μαρίας καὶ τοῦ Ἰωσὴφ οἰομένων αὐτὸν εἶναι, ὅτε δὲ ἐκ Μαρίας μὲν μόνης καὶ τοῦ θείου πνεύματος, οὐ μὴν καὶ μετὰ τῆς περὶ αὐτοῦ θεολογίας, ὄψει πῶς οὗτος ὁ τυ φλός λέγι &c.—Comment. in Matt., tom. xvi. c. 12. Op. tom. iii. p. 733 A.
[118]. Ἤδη δ’ ἐν τούτοις τινὲς καὶ τὸ καθ’ Ἑβραίους εὐαγγέλιον κατέλεξαν, ᾧ μάλιστα Ἑβραίων οἱ τὸν παραδεξάμενοι χαίρουσι.—Hist. Eccles., lib. iii. c. 25. vol. i. pp. 246, 247. Heinichen Lips. 1827.
[119]. Εὐαγγελίῳ δὲ μόνῳ τῷ καθ’ Ἑβραίους λεγομένῳ χρώμενοι, τῶν λοιπῶν σμικρὸν ἐποιοῦντο λόγον.—Lib. iii. c. 27. vol. i. p. 252. Both passages are in Jones, Pt. II. ch. 25.
[120]. Διό καὶ ὁ Ιωάννης ἐλθὼν ὁ μακάριος, καὶ εὑρὼν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἠσχολημένους περὶ τὴν κάτω Χριστοῦ παρουσίαν, καὶ τῶν μὲν Ἐβιωναίων πλανηθέντων διὰ τὴν ἔνσαρκον Χριστοῦ γενεαλογίαν, ἀπὸ Ἀβραὰμ καταγομένην, καὶ Λουκᾶ ἀναγομένην ἄχρι τοῦ Ἀδὰμ· εὑρὼν δὲ τοὺς Κηρινθιανοὺς καὶ Μηρινθιανοὺς ἐκ παρατριβῆς αὐτὸν λέγοντας εἶναι ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον, καὶ τοὺς Ναζωραίους, καὶ ἄλλας πολλὰς αἱρέσεις, ὡς κατόπιν ἐλθὼν, τέταρτος γὰρ οὗτος εὐαγγελίζεται, ἄρχεται ἀνακαλεῖσθαι, ὡς εἰπεῖν, τοὺς πλανηθέντας καὶ ἠσχολημένους περὶ τὴν κάτω Χριστοῦ παρουσίαν, καὶ λέγειν αὐτοῖς (ὡς κατόπιν βαίνων, καὶ ὁρῶν τινὰς εἰς τραχείας ὁδοὺς κεκλικότας καὶ ἀφέντας τὴν εὐθεῖαν καὶ ἀληθινὴν, ὡς εἰπεῖν) Ποῖ φέρεσθε, ποῖ βαδίζετε, οἱ τὴν τραχείαν ὁδὸν καὶ σκανδαλώδη καὶ εἰς χάσμα φέρουσαν βαδίζοντες; ἀνακάμψατε. Οὐκ ἔστιν οὕτως, οὐκ ἔστιν ἀπὸ Μαρίας μόνον ὁ Θεὸς λόγος, ὁ ἐκ πατρὸς ἄνωθεν γεγεννημένος.—Epiphan. adv. Hæreses, Hær. 49 vel 69. § 23. Op. Petav. Colon. 1682, vol. ii. pp. 746, 747.
[121]. Jewish Testimonies, I., Works: Kippis’s ed. 4to. vol. iii. p. 484.
[122]. Acts xxi. 20. Wall’s Preface to Critical Notes on the N. T. p. 12.
[123]. Hæres. 29, § 9, as cited by Jones, Part II., ch. 25, and by Dr. Tattershall, p. 89.
[124]. Hæres. 30, § 13, as cited by Jones, Part II. ch. 25, and by Dr. Tattershall, p. 89.
[125]. Matt. ii. 15.
[126]. Matt. ii. 23.
[127]. Catal. vir. illust. in Matth. Giving Jones’s translation, I do not think it necessary to quote the original Latin. See Jones on the Canon, Part II. ch. 25.
[128]. Hær. 30, § 13, quoted by Jones, Part II. ch. 25.
[129]. Ibid.
[130]. See Eichhorn’s Einleitung in das N. T. I., § 8; Leipzig, 1820.
[131]. Einleitung in das N. T., I., § 8, 31; Leipzig, 1820. See also Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, by Andrews Norton, Note A. sec. V. i. Boston, U. S., 1837.
[132]. There is a misprint in Dr. T.’s note, p. 104. The sentence at the end of the third paragraph should close thus: “nine months after that event, on one calculation, or three months before it, on the other.”