CHAPTER III.
THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS—CONTINUED.
THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS—THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP—JUSTIN MARTYR—HEGESIPPUS—PAPIAS—THE CLEMENTINES—THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS.
Next our author examines quotations in "the Epistles of Ignatius," though he says they really appertain to a very much later period, for they are "all pronounced, by a large mass of critics, spurious compositions." He suffered martyrdom, it is said, on the 20th December, A.D. 115, when he was condemned to be cast to wild beasts in the amphitheatre, not at Rome, but at Antioch, in consequence of the fanatical excitement produced by the earthquake which took place on the thirteenth of that month.[31] If any of his fifteen letters, says our author, could be accepted as genuine, the references to them might be important. Dr. Mosheim says his whole epistles are extremely dubious. The shorter of the two versions of Ignatius is, however, generally allowed to be genuine. Tischendorf says "its genuineness is now generally admitted." In it we find, "What would a man be profited if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" which of course is a quotation from Matt. xvi. 26.
The next document mentioned is the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, who, Irenæus says, was in his youth a disciple of the Apostle John. He was Bishop of Smyrna, and ended his life by martyrdom, A.D. 167. Irenæus knew Polycarp personally. It is said that the epistle was written before A.D. 120. Our author ascribes it to a later date, and says that there are potent reasons for considering it spurious. As, however, Irenæus, Polycarp's disciple, believed it to be genuine, we shall take the liberty of differing from our author, and of believing it to be so. The epistle contains the following: "Remembering what the Lord said, teaching: Judge not, that ye be not judged; forgive, and it shall be forgiven you; be pitiful, that ye may be pitied; with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again; and that blessed are the poor, and those that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God." Also: "Beseeching in our prayers the all-seeing God not to lead us into temptation, as the Lord said, The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Also: "If, therefore, we pray the Lord that he may forgive us, we ought also ourselves to forgive."
Our author demurs to these being quotations from our Gospels, and says they might have been from orally current accounts of the Sermon on the Mount, or from many of the records of the teaching of Jesus in circulation.
Hegisippus is the next early writer referred to. He made use of the "Gospel according to the Hebrews." Jerome says (confirming Eusebius) "that the Gospel according to the Hebrews is written in the Chaldaic and Syriac (Syro-Chaldaic) language, but with Hebrew characters."
We have, says our author, direct intimation that Hegesippus made use of the Gospel according to the Hebrews. "He was one of the contemporaries of Justin—a Palestinian Jewish Christian. In order to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the state of the Church, he travelled widely, and came to Rome when Anicitus was bishop. Subsequently he wrote a work of historical memoirs in five books, and thus became the first ecclesiastical historian of Christianity. This work is lost, but portions have been preserved by Eusebius, and one other fragment is also extant." It must have been written after the succession of Eleutherius to the Roman bishopric (A.D. 177-193), as that event is mentioned in the book.
"The testimony of Hegesippus is of great value, not only as a man born near the primitive Christian tradition, but also as that of an intelligent traveller amongst many Christian communities" (p. 430).
Hegesippus says, in the fifth book of his Memoirs, that "these words ('Good things prepared for the righteous neither eye hath seen nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man,' from 1 Cor. ii. 9) are vainly spoken, and that those who say these things give the lie to the Divine writings and to the Lord saying, 'Blessed are your eyes that see, and your ears that hear,'" &c. This fragment is preserved by Stephanus Gobarus, a learned monophysite of the sixth century.
"Nothing is more certain," says our author, "than the fact that, in spite of the opportunities for collecting information afforded him by his travels through so many Christian communities, for the express purpose of such inquiry, Hegesippus did not find any New Testament Canon, or, that such a rule of faith did not exist in Rome in A.D. 160 and 170."
I ask, How in the world can our author be certain of this, when only portions of Hegesippus are extant? This applies generally to his argument that the silence of the early writers is of "as much importance as their supposed allusions to the Gospels." Such a mode of reasoning is aptly commented upon by the Rev. Kentish Bache, in his letter to Dr. Davidson on the Fourth Gospel. He says: "When but small portions of a work have been preserved to our use, it is no wonder that these portions should make no mention of many circumstances interesting and important, which the writer must certainly have known and told of. If I tear a few leaves from the middle of my English History book, I shall find on them (the few leaves) no record of the Norman Conquest or of the Battle of Waterloo. Would it thence be a fair conclusion that these events are unhistorical and fictitious?"
Papias is next referred to. He was Bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, in the first half of the second century, and is said to have suffered martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius, about A.D. 160-167. About the middle of the second century he wrote a work in five books, called, "Exposition of the Lord's Oracles," which is lost, excepting a few fragments preserved by Eusebius and Irenæus. We have the preface to his book, which states: "I shall not hesitate to set beside my interpretations all that I rightly learnt from the Presbyters, and rightly remembered, earnestly testifying to its truth. For I have not, like the multitude, delighted in those who spoke much, but in those who taught the truth; nor in those who recorded alien commandments, but in those who recall those delivered by the Lord to faith, and which come from truth itself. If it happened that any one came who had followed the Presbyters, I inquired minutely after the words of the Presbyters—what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James, or what John or Matthew, or what any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what Aristion and the Presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say; for I held that what was to be derived from books was not so profitable as that from the living and abiding voice." "It is clear (says our author) from this that even if Papias knew any of our Gospels, he attached little or no value to them, and that he knew absolutely nothing of the Canonical Scriptures of the New Testament" (p. 445).
I remark that it is far from clear that he attached no value to our Gospels from anything he says in the fragments extant, and of course we know nothing of those portions that are lost. We know that he was making a book, consisting of what he could gather from tradition about "the truth," "to set beside his interpretations" about the "commandments delivered by the Lord to faith." There were Gospel writings in circulation, and he was supplementing what they recorded. There is positively no evidence to make us think that our present Gospels were unknown to him. He does not, in the fragments we have, mention Paul's writings, nor the Gospel of Luke, nor the Fourth Gospel, but he does allude to a book by Matthew and another by Mark, and Eusebius tells us that Papias makes use of passages taken from Peter's first epistle and John's first epistle. So, on the whole, the testimony of Papias, instead of being against is in favour of the Synoptics, and also of the Fourth Gospel; for the silence inference applies no more to it than it does to Paul and Luke's writings, and the statement of Eusebius about John's Epistle is not to be set aside, for if John wrote it, it will be allowed he wrote the Gospel. His evidence respecting Mark is important, for the fragments contain a statement that "Mark recorded what fell from Peter, writing accurately, and taking especial care neither to omit nor to misrepresent anything;" and Papias says that "Peter preached with a view to the benefit of his hearers, and not to give a history of Christ's discourses." Our author's inference is that it is some other person of the name of Mark that is connected with the Second Gospel, and not the Mark that Papias refers to. This is very far-fetched and improbable, for the description tallies well with our Second Gospel, and quite admits of the supposition that Mark had every opportunity of obtaining from eye-witnesses the historical materials of his Gospel. No one supposes that every statement in the book emanated from Peter's discourses.
Papias is the only early writer that our author acknowledges furnishes any evidence in favour of the Synoptic Gospels. He cannot deny that he records that Matthew composed discourses of the Lord in the Hebrew tongue, but he says "that totally excludes the claim of our Greek Gospel to apostolic origin." The boldness of this assertion can only be properly met by an equally explicit denial that it does anything of the kind. If the translation be a faithful one from a Hebrew version, it is of course entitled to the epithet apostolic if the original possessed it. Our author must have some peculiar notions about verbal inspiration if this be the rule he lays down. But he altogether overlooks the supposition that Matthew's Gospel was not originally written in Hebrew, notwithstanding this statement of Papias.
Tischendorf, in his book issued by the Tract Society, entitled, "When were our Gospels Written?" maintains that the assertion of Papias "rests on a misunderstanding," and he briefly states his reasons for this view. He says: "This Hebrew text must have been lost very early, for not one even of the very oldest Church fathers had ever seen or used it." "There were two parties among the Judaisers—the one the Nazarenes and the other the Ebionites. Each of these parties used a gospel according to Matthew, the one party using a Greek and the other party a Hebrew text. That they did not scruple to tamper with the text, to suit their creed, is probable from their very sectarian spirit. The text, as we have certain means of proving, rested upon our received text of Matthew, with, however, occasional departures, to suit their arbitrary views. When then it was reported, in later times, that these Nazarenes, who were one of the earliest Christian sects, possessed a Hebrew version of Matthew, what was more natural than that some person or other, thus falling in with the pretensions of this sect, should say that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, and that the Greek was only a version from it? How far these two texts differed from each other no one cared to inquire; and with such separatists who withdrew themselves to the shores of the Dead Sea, it would not have been easy to have attempted it."
"Jerome, who knew Hebrew, as other Latin and Greek fathers did not, obtained in the fourth century a copy of this Hebrew Gospel of the Nazarenes, and at once asserted that he had found the original. But when he looked more closely into the matter, he confined himself to the statement that many supposed this Hebrew text was the original of Matthew's Gospel. He translated it into Latin and Greek, and added a few observations of his own on it. From these observations of Jerome, as well as from other fragments, we must conclude that this notion of Papias cannot be substantiated; but, on the contrary, this Hebrew has been drawn from the Greek text, and disfigured moreover here and there with certain arbitrary changes. The same is applicable to a Greek text of the Hebrew Gospel in use among the Ebionites. This text, from the fact that it was in Greek, was better known to the Church than the Hebrew version of the Nazarenes; but it was always regarded, from the earliest times, as only another text of Matthew's Gospel."
The references to Justin Martyr occupy nearly one hundred and fifty pages of the work. He was one of the most learned and one of the earliest writers of the Church not long after the apostles. His conversion took place about the year 132, and his martyrdom, A.D. 165.
In his second "Apology," A.D. 139, and in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew, are many quotations of passages found in the Gospels. He quotes from all the four Evangelists, and our author's elaborate attempt to prove the contrary is certainly not successful. His objection, based on slight discrepancies in the words while the sense is identical, is frivolous in the extreme. Supposing there were in Justin's hands a primitive work which supplied the passages, and that work was embodied in the canonical compilation, they can be truthfully said to be quotations from the latter. The objection to his quotations on the grounds that they are not verbatim, is neutralized by the fact that neither are his quotations from the Old Testament always exact.
It has been shown that "if Justin did not quote from our Gospels, there must have been in his hands, in the second century, a variety of accounts of Christ's life, to which he, a leading Christian apologist, attached the greatest importance; and yet, in the course of the few following years, those accounts must have disappeared, and four others, of which this eminent Christian apologist knew nothing, must have taken their place. This would have been what Canon Westcott justly calls a 'revolution,' for it would have, in a single generation, entirely changed the records of the life of Christ publicly used by the Christians."[32]
Justin quotes from a book entitled the "Memoirs," which he says "are called Gospels," and our author tries to make out that the passage quoted is an interpolation. It is not the only instance where the "wish," and not the proof, "is father to the thought."
In Justin's work, the "Apology," occur the words, "And thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins;" which are found in the apocryphal Gospel of James, as said to the Virgin Mary, while in Matthew's Gospel they are spoken to Joseph. It is urged that Justin must, therefore, have quoted them from a lost Gospel; but why should it be supposed so when they are in the apocryphal Gospel of James, which, Origen says, was everywhere known about the end of the second century, and which, there is good ground for believing, was written in the early part of that century?
A few other passages in Justin's work, which are not found in our Gospels, may be accounted for by supposing them to be quotations either from lost Gospels, genuine or apocryphal, or tradition may have supplied them. There is no certain inference to be arrived at.
Justin tells us in his first "Apology" (A.D. 139), that the memoirs of the apostles called evangels were read after the prophets every Lord's Day in the assemblies of the Christians.
This must have reference to the writings which alone, a few years later, were universally known as the Four Gospels, or the Acts of the Apostles.
The second volume of the work opens with an examination of "the evidence furnished by the apocryphal religious romance generally known by the name of 'The Clementines,'" which includes the Homilies, the Recognitions, and a so-called Epitome—the Homilies and Recognitions being, he says, "the one merely a version of the other," and the Epitome a blending of the other two. As there are in the Clementine Homilies upwards of a hundred quotations of expressions of Jesus, or references to His history (not less than fifty passages from the Sermon on the Mount), it is important to ascertain, if possible, when they were written, and from what writings they quote. The date cannot be determined. The range of probability is from the middle of the second century. If much later, the inquiry does not amount to much, because we know, from ample evidence, such as that of Irenæus, that the Four Gospels as we have them were in existence, and read in the Churches, in the middle of the second century. We presume, therefore, our author takes an early date for granted, or he would not have occupied forty pages in their examination.
The first quotation which, he says, agrees with a passage in our Synoptics, occurs in the third Homily, p. 52: "And he cried, saying, Come unto me all ye that are weary;" which agrees with Matt. xi. 28. Because the quotation is not continued, but the following words are an explanation of what "Come unto me," &c., means—"that is, who are seeking truth, and not finding it,"—we are to deem it "evident that so short and fragmentary a phrase cannot prove anything." I exclaim, Indeed! Not in a book that contains a hundred references to the words of Jesus! Not, considering that they are especially the words of Jesus, that no one else so said to the weary, "Come unto me!" Most readers will surely think the contrary should be inferred!
Among the quotations are words resembling the text of Matthew xxv. 26-30: "Thou wicked and slothful servant: thou oughtest to have put out my money with the exchangers, and at my coming I should have exacted mine own."[33] If this were the only reference to the Gospels as we have them, the quotation is sufficiently near to make the inference certain that such writings, in some shape, must have been in existence when the Clementine Homilies were written. This our author acknowledges, but he says (vol. ii. p. 17): "If the variations were the exception among a mass of quotations perfectly agreeing with the parallels in our Gospels, it might be exaggeration to base upon such divergences a conclusion that they were derived from a different source. The variations being the rule, instead of the exception, these, however slight, become evidence of the use of a different Gospel from ours."[34]
I remark, supposing this be so, that the author of these Homilies had, in the year 160, other Gospel manuscripts before him, it is not pretended that our Gospels contain all that was known of the sayings of Jesus, and all the events of His public ministry. We are told in the Fourth Gospel: "There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."[35] If the author of the Fourth Gospel did not include many things which he knew had been previously written about, why should we be surprised to find the authors of the Synoptic Gospels record only portions?
We know that Paul wrote an epistle to the Church at Laodicea, which is not preserved to us. We hold that Paul was as much an inspired writer as any of the apostles, and instead of making all sorts of difficulties about the books we have, we ought to be grateful that they are extant. We read in Paul's Epistle to the Colossians, iv. 16: "And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea."
I wonder whether our author has an objection to the genuineness of the Epistle to the Colossians, because Epictetus, who was born at Hierapolis about A.D. 50, which was within a few miles of Colosse and Laodicea, and who would be likely to know, at that time, what was there going on, does not refer to Paul and the Churches there?
But it is useless to disprove the assertion that there are no quotations from the Gospels, for we are met at every turn with the objection that those specified are probably quotations from the numerous lost Gospels known to have been in circulation. He says: "The great mass of intelligent critics are agreed that our Synoptics have assumed their present form only after repeated modifications by various editors of earlier evangelical works. The primitive Gospels have entirely disappeared, supplanted by the later and more amplified versions (p. 459). The first two Synoptics bear no author's name, because they are not the work of any one man, but the collected materials of many. The third only pretends to be a compilation for private use, and the fourth bears no simple signature, because it is neither the work of an apostle nor of an eye-witness of the events it records" (p. 401). I remark, if Luke's Gospel does only pretend to be for private use, does that affect its value? If Matthew wrote at all, and our author acknowledges he did in Hebrew, his work would be likely to be translated into Greek, either by himself or some one else, and many copies circulated. Supposing the original in Hebrew to be lost, it is not probable the Greek copies could be all collected from various places, and all altered and supplemented. How could any one do this? He might write and issue a new version, but he could not suppress the original one unless all the existing copies were under his own control. As we have a certain work preserved, and no other, pretending to be Matthew's, it is highly probable that what Matthew contributed to the Church is that Gospel. A fictitious one would be less likely to be preserved than a real one, though we are asked to believe the contrary. Our author suggests that if we had the original writings we should find them minus the miracles, which is altogether inconsistent with what he has said about the prevalence of miraculous notions among the Jews at the time. At any rate, if the books in circulation did not relate miracles, they would not be in harmony with the gospel preached by Paul, and believed by the first Christians. Supposing that there were, as Luke intimates, and as our author asserts, many original writings, what more likely than that Matthew should collect some of them, and embody them, with his own record, in one book, under his own name? It is quite true that we meet with references to apostolic writings under other titles than those in the New Testament: we read of,—
"The Gospel according to the Hebrews."
"The Gospel according to the Egyptians."
"The Memoirs of the Apostles."
"The Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew."
"The Gospel of the Lord."
"The Discourses of Peter."
"The Collection of Discourses."
Although we do not know how these were embodied in our New Testament Scriptures, it is probable that they were in some way included, or the copies of the present Gospels may not all have uniformly borne the same titles as we know them by. In our day it is not usual for an author's name to appear in the body of his work, and often a title-page gives more than one title.[36] How few persons can give the exact title of the book known as "Butler's Analogy." The value of a book does not depend essentially upon the person who wrote it. We do not know who wrote the Book of Job, many of the Psalms, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and other portions of the Bible, but it would be unwise to reject their teaching on that account.
Our author says: "No reason whatever has been shown for accepting the testimony of these Gospels as sufficient to establish the reality of miracles" (p. 249). I remark, the question is, Do they show such insufficient testimony as to warrant the conclusion that the general evidence based on a great variety of proofs is not to be accepted?
The Epistle to Diognetus is a short composition, which has been ascribed to Justin Martyr, but its authorship is uncertain, and the date of its composition. It is not quoted or mentioned by any ancient writer. The two concluding chapters are supposed to have been written by a different hand. To the first quarter of the second half to the end of that century the date is variously assigned. It is written in pure Greek, and is elegant in style. Bunsen, in his valuable book, "Hippolytus and his Age," asserts that "the epistle is certainly the work of a contemporary of Justin the Martyr;" that he believes he has proved that the first part is a portion of the lost early Letter of Marcion, of which Tertullian speaks; and that "the very beautiful and justly admired second fragment, which in our editions of Justin's works is given at the end of that Patristic gem, the Epistle to Diognetus,"[37] does not belong to that letter, but is the conclusion of the great work, in ten books, by Hippolytus, "The Refutation of all Heresies." Our author, in the eighteen pages devoted to the Epistle to Diognetus, says nothing of this, although it is both important and interesting. He says the supposed allusions in the Fourth Gospel may be all referable to Paul's epistles, that the date and author are unknown, and that the letter is of no evidential value. His two brief allusions to Bunsen's work show that the ignoring of that eminent man's opinion was not unintentional; while the absence of any reference to Bunsen's elaborate proof that Hippolytus wrote the "Refutation," is also significant.