Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History

by Annie Besant

F. That there is no evidence that the four Gospels mentioned about that date were the same as those we have now. This brings us to a most important point in our examination; for we now attack the very key of the Christian position—viz., that, although the Gospels be not mentioned by name previous to Irenæus, their existence can yet be conclusively proved by quotations from them, to be found in the writings of the Fathers who lived before Irenæus. Paley says: "The historical books of the New Testament—meaning thereby the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles—are quoted, or alluded to, by a series of Christian writers, beginning with those who were contemporary with the Apostles or who immediately followed them, and proceeding in close and regular succession from their time to the present." And he urges that "the medium of proof stated in this proposition is, of all others, the most unquestionable, the least liable to any practices of fraud, and is not diminished by the lapse of ages" ("Evidences," pp. 111, 112). The writers brought in evidence are: Barnabas, Clement, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, Justin Martyr, Hegesippus, and the epistle from Lyons and Vienne. Before examining the supposed quotations in as great detail as our space will allow, two or three preliminary remarks are needed on the value of this offered evidence as a whole.

In the first place, the greater part of the works brought forward as witnesses are themselves challenged, and their own dates are unknown; their now accepted writings are only the residuum of a mass of forgeries, and Dr. Giles justly says: "The process of elimination, which gradually reduced the so-called writings of the first century from two folio volumes to fifty slender pages, would, in the case of any other profane works, have prepared the inquirer for casting from him, with disgust, the small remnant, even if not fully convicted of spuriousness; for there is no other case in record of so wide a disproportion between what is genuine and what is spurious" ("Christian Records," p. 67). Their testimony is absolutely worthless until they are themselves substantiated; and from the account given of them above (pp [214-221], and [232-235]), the student is in a position to judge of the value of evidence depending on the Apostolic Fathers. Professor Norton remarks: "When we endeavour to strengthen this evidence by appealing to the writings ascribed to Apostolical Fathers, we, in fact, weaken its force. At the very extremity of the chain of evidence, where it ought to be strongest, we are attaching defective links, which will bear no weight" ("Genuineness of the Gospels," vol. i., p. 357). Again, supposing that we admit these witnesses, their repetition of sayings of Christ, or references to his life, do not—in the absence of quotations specified by them as taken from Gospels written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—prove that, because similar sayings or actions are recorded in the present canonical Gospels, therefore, these latter existed in their days, and were in their hands. Lardner says on this point: "Here is, however, one difficulty, and 'tis a difficulty which may frequently occur, whilst we are considering these very early writers, who were conversant with the Apostles, and others who had seen or heard our Lord; and were, in a manner, as well acquainted with our Saviour's doctrine and history as the Evangelists themselves, unless their quotations or allusions are very express and clear. The question, then, here is, whether Clement in these places refers to words of Christ, written and recorded, or whether he reminds the Corinthians of words of Christ, which he and they might have heard from the Apostles, or other eye-and-ear-witnesses of our Lord. Le Clerc, in his dissertation on the four Gospels, is of opinion that Clement refers to written words of our Lord, which were in the hands of the Corinthians, and well known to them. On the other hand, I find, Bishop Pearson thought, that Clement speaks of words which he had heard from the Apostles themselves, or their disciples. I certainly make no question but the three first Gospels were writ before this time. And I am well satisfied that Clement might refer to our written Gospels, though he does not exactly agree with them in expression. But whether he does refer to them is not easy to determine concerning a man who, very probably, knew these things before they were committed to writing; and, even after they were so, might continue to speak of them, in the same manner he had been wont to do, as things he was well informed of, without appealing to the Scriptures themselves" ("Credibility," pt. II., vol. i., pp. 68-70). Canon Westcott, after arguing that the Apostolic Fathers are much influenced by the Pauline Epistles, goes on to remark: "Nothing has been said hitherto of the coincidences between the Apostolic Fathers and the Canonical Gospels. From the nature of the case, casual coincidences of language cannot be brought forward in the same manner to prove the use of a history as of a letter. The same facts and words, especially if they be recent and striking, may be preserved in several narratives. References in the sub-apostolic age to the discourses or actions of our Lord, as we find them recorded in the Gospels, show, as far as they go, that what the Gospels relate was then held to be true; but it does not necessarily follow that they were already in use, and were the actual source of the passages in question. On the contrary, the mode in which Clement refers to our Lord's teaching—'the Lord said,' not 'saith'—seems to imply that he was indebted to tradition, and not to any written accounts, for words most closely resembling those which are still found in our Gospels. The main testimony of the Apostolic Fathers is, therefore, to the substance, and not to the authenticity, of the Gospels" ("On the Canon," pp. 51, 52). An examination of the Apostolic Fathers gives us little testimony as to "the substance of the Gospels;" but the whole passage is here given to show how much Canon Westcott, writing in defence of the Canon, finds himself obliged to give up of the position occupied by earlier apologists. Dr. Giles agrees with the justice of these remarks of Lardner and Westcott. He writes: "The sayings of Christ were, no doubt, treasured up like household jewels by his disciples and followers. Why, then, may we not refer the quotation of Christ's words, occurring in the Apostolical Fathers, to an origin of this kind? If we examine a few of those quotations, the supposition, just stated, will expand into reality.... The same may be said of every single sentence found in any of the Apostolical Fathers, which, on first sight, might be thought to be a decided quotation from one of the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. It is impossible to deny the truth of this observation; for we see it confirmed by the fact that the Apostolical Fathers do actually quote Moses, and other old Testament writers, by name—'Moses hath said,' 'but Moses says,' etc.—in numerous passages. But we nowhere meet with the words, 'Matthew hath said in his Gospel,' 'John hath said,' etc. They always quote, not the words of the Evangelists, but the words of Christ himself directly, which furnishes the strongest presumption that, though the sayings of Christ were in general vogue, yet the evangelical histories, into which they were afterwards embodied, were not then in being. But the converse of this view of the case leads us to the same conclusion. The Apostolical Fathers quote sayings of Christ which are not found in our Gospels.... There is no proof that our New Testament was in existence during the lives of the Apostolical Fathers, who, therefore, could not make citations out of books which they had never seen" ("Christian Records," pp. 51-53). "There is no evidence that they [the four Gospels] existed earlier than the middle of the second century, for they are not named by any writer who lived before that time" (Ibid, p. 56). In searching for evidence of the existence of the Gospels during the earlier period of the Church's history, Christian apologists have hitherto been content to seize upon a phrase here and there somewhat resembling a phrase in the canonical Gospels, and to put that forward as a proof that the Gospels then were the same as those we have now. This rough-and-ready plan must now be given up, since the most learned Christian writers now agree, with the Freethinkers, that such a method is thoroughly unsatisfactory.

Yet, again, admitting these writers as witnesses, and allowing that they quote from the same Gospels, their quotations only prove that the isolated phrases they use were in the Gospels of their day, and are also in the present ones; and many such cases might occur in spite of great variations in the remainder of the respective Gospels, and would by no means prove that the Gospels they used were identical with ours. If Josephus, for instance, had ever quoted some sentences of Socrates recorded by Plato, that quotation, supposing that Josephus were reliable, would prove that Plato and Socrates both lived before Josephus, and that Plato wrote down some of the sayings of Socrates; but it would not prove that a version of Plato in our hands to-day was identical with that used by Josephus. The scattered and isolated passages woven in by the Fathers in their works would fail to prove the identity of the Gospels of the second century with those of the nineteenth, even were they as like parallel passages in the canonical Gospels as they are unlike them.

It is "important," says the able anonymous writer of "Supernatural Religion," "that we should constantly bear in mind that a great number of Gospels existed in the early Church which are no longer extant, and of most of which even the names are lost. We will not here do more than refer, in corroboration of this fact, to the preliminary statement of the author of the third Gospel: 'Forasmuch as many ([Greek: polloi]) have taken in hand to set forth a declaration of those things which are surely believed among us, etc.' It is, therefore, evident that before our third synoptic was written, many similar works were already in circulation. Looking at the close similarity of the large portions of the three synoptics, it is almost certain that many of the [Greek: polloi] here mentioned bore a close analogy to each other, and to our Gospels; and this is known to have been the case, for instance, amongst the various forms of the 'Gospel according to the Hebrews,' distinct mention of which we meet with long before we hear anything of our Gospels. When, therefore, in early writings, we meet with quotations closely resembling, or, we may add, even identical with passages which are found in our Gospels—the source of which, however, is not mentioned, nor is any author's name indicated—the similarity, or even identity, cannot by any means be admitted as evidence that the quotation is necessarily from our Gospels, and not from some other similar work now no longer extant; and more especially not when, in the same writings, there are other quotations from apocryphal sources different from our Gospels. Whether regarded as historical records or as writings embodying the mere tradition of the early Christians, our Gospels cannot for a moment be recognised as the exclusive depositaries of the genuine sayings and doings of Jesus; and so far from the common possession by many works in early times of such words of Jesus, in closely similar form, being either strange or improbable, the really remarkable phenomena is that such material variation in the report of the more important historical teaching should exist amongst them. But whilst similarity to our Gospels in passages quoted by early writers from unnamed sources cannot prove the use of our Gospels, variation from them would suggest or prove a different origin; and, at least, it is obvious that quotations which do not agree with our Gospels cannot, in any case, indicate their existence" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., pp. 217-219).

We will now turn to the witness of Paley's Apostolic Fathers, bearing always in mind the utter worthlessness of their testimony; worthless as it is, however, it is the only evidence Christians have to bring forward to prove the identity of their Gospels with those [supposed to have been] written in the first century. Let us listen to the opinion given by Bishop Marsh: "From the Epistle of Barnabas, no inference can be deduced that he had read any part of the New Testament. From the genuine epistle, as it is called, of Clement of Rome, it may be inferred that Clement had read the first Epistle to the Corinthians. From the Shepherd of Hermas no inference whatsoever can be drawn. From the Epistles of Ignatius, it may be concluded that he had read St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, and that there existed in his time evangelical writings, though it cannot be shown that he has quoted from them. From Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, it appears that he had heard of St. Paul's Epistle to that community, and he quotes a passage which is in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, and another which is in the Epistle to the Ephesians; but no positive conclusion can be drawn with respect to any other epistle, or any of the four Gospels" (Marsh's "Michaelis," vol. i., p. 354, as quoted in Norton's "Genuineness of the Gospels," vol. i., p. 3). Very heavily does this tell against the authenticity of these records, for "if the four Gospels and other books were written by those who had been eye-witnesses of Christ's miracles, and the five Apostolic Fathers had conversed with the Apostles, it is not to be conceived that they would not have named the actual books themselves which possessed so high authority, and would be looked up to with so much respect by all the Christians. This is the only way in which their evidence could be of use to support the authenticity of the New Testament as being the work of the Apostles; but this is a testimony which the five Apostolical Fathers fail to supply. There is not a single sentence, in all their remaining works, in which a clear allusion to the New Testament is to be found" ("Christian Records," Rev. Dr. Giles, p. 50).

Westcott, while claiming in the Apostolic Fathers a knowledge of most of the epistles, writes very doubtfully as to their knowledge of the Gospels (see above p. [264]), and after giving careful citations of all possible quotations, he sums up thus: "1. No evangelic reference in the Apostolic Fathers can be referred certainly to a written record. 2. It appears most probable from the form of the quotations that they were derived from oral tradition. 3. No quotation contains any element which is not substantially preserved in our Gospels. 4. When the text given differs from the text of our Gospels it represents a later form of the evangelic tradition. 5. The text of St. Matthew corresponds more nearly than the other synoptic texts with the quotations and references as a whole" ("On the Canon," p. 62). There appears to be no proof whatever of conclusions 3 and 4, but we give them all as they stand. But we will take these Apostolic Fathers one by one, in the order used by Paley.

BARNABAS. We have already quoted Bishop Marsh and Dr. Giles as regards him. There is "nothing in this epistle worthy of the name of evidence even of the existence of our Gospels" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p. 260). The quotation sometimes urged, "There are many called, few chosen," is spoken of by Westcott as a "proverbial phrase," and phrases similar in meaning and manner may be found in iv. Ezra, viii. 3, ix. 15 ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p. 245); in the latter work the words occur in a relation similar to that in which we find them in Barnabas; in both the judgment is described, and in both the moral drawn is that there are many lost and few saved; it is the more likely that the quotation is taken from the apocryphal work, since many other quotations are drawn from it throughout the epistle. The quotation "Give to every one that asketh thee," is not found in the supposed oldest MS., the Codex Sinaiticus, and is a later interpolation, clearly written in by some transcriber as appropriate to the passage in Barnabas. The last supposed quotation, that Christ chose men of bad character to be his disciples, that "he might show that he came not to call the righteous, but sinners," is another clearly later interpolation, for it jars with the reasoning of Barnabas, and when Origen quotes the passage he omits the phrase. In a work which "has been written at the request, and is published at the cost of the Christian Evidence Society," and which may fairly, therefore, be taken as the opinion of learned, yet most orthodox, Christian opinion, the Rev. Mr. Sanday writes: "The general result of our examination of the Epistle of Barnabas may, perhaps, be stated thus, that while not supplying by itself certain and conclusive proof of the use of our Gospels, still the phenomena accord better with the hypothesis of such a use. This epistle stands in the second line of the Evidence, and as a witness is rather confirmatory than principal" ("Gospels in the Second Century," p. 76. Ed. 1876). And this is all that the most modern apologetic criticism can draw from an epistle of which Paley makes a great display, saying that "if the passage remarked in this ancient writing had been found in one of St. Paul's Epistles, it would have been esteemed by every one a high testimony to St. Matthew's Gospel" ("Evidences," p. 113).

CLEMENT OF ROME.—"Tischendorf, who is ever ready to claim the slightest resemblance in language as a reference to new Testament writings, admits that although this Epistle is rich in quotations from the Old Testament, and here and there that Clement also makes use of passages from Pauline Epistles, he nowhere refers to the Gospels" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i. pp. 227, 228). The Christian Evidence Society, through Mr. Sanday, thus criticises Clement: "Now what is the bearing of the Epistle of Clement upon the question of the currency and authority of the Synoptic Gospels? There are two passages of some length which are, without doubt, evangelical quotations, though whether they are derived from the Canonical Gospels or not may be doubted" ("Gospels in the Second Century," page 61). After balancing the arguments for and against the first of these passages, Mr. Sanday concludes: "Looking at the arguments on both sides, so far as we can give them, I incline, on the whole, to the opinion that Clement is not quoting from our Gospels; but I am quite aware of the insecure ground on which this opinion rests. It is a nice balance of probabilities, and the element of ignorance is so large that the conclusion, whatever it is, must be purely provisional. Anything like confident dogmatism on the subject seems to me entirely out of place. Very much the same is to be said of the second passage" (Ibid, p. 66).

The quotations in Clement, apparently from some other evangelic work, will be noted under head h, and these are those cited in Paley.

HERMAS.—Tischendorf relinquishes this work also as evidence for the Gospels. Lardner writes: "In Hermas are no express citations of any books of the New Testament" ("Credibility," vol. i. pt. 2, p. 116). He thinks, however, that he can trace "allusions to" "words of Scripture." Westcott says that "The Shepherd contains no definite quotation from either Old or New Testament" ("On the Canon," p. 197); but he also thinks that Hermas was "familiar with" some records of "Christ's teaching." Westcott, however, does not admit Hermas as an Apostolic Father at all, but places him in the middle of the second century. "As regards the direct historical evidence for the genuineness of the Gospels, it is of no importance. No book is cited in it by name. There are no evident quotations from the Gospels" (Norton's "Genuineness of the Gospels," vol. i, pp. 342, 343).