[2] “Be merciful that ye may obtain mercy; forgive that it may be forgiven to you; as ye do, so shall it be done unto you; as ye judge so shall ye be judged; as ye are kind so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure ye mete with the same it shall be measured to you” (c. 13). Matt. vi. 12-15; Matt. vii. 2; Luke vi. 36-38. “This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (c. 15). Matt. xv. 8; Mark vii. 6. “Woe to that man! It were better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling block before one of my elect, yea it were better for him that a millstone should be hung about his neck, and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before any of my little ones” (c. 46). Matt. xviii. 6; Matt. xxvi. 24; Mark ix, 42; Luke xvii. 2.
[3] The entire Gospel could be reproduced from those writings, including Irenæus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen.
[4] The Princeton Review for March, 1881, p. 201.
[5] Matt. x. 34-36; Luke x. 13-15; Luke xii. 47-53.
[6] Bampton Lectures for 1877, p. 221, by the Rev. C. A. Row, M. A., Pembroke College, Oxford, Prebendary of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
[7] Ap. I., cc. 22, 58. See also Sanday’s Gospels of the Second Century, p. 214, and “Canonicity,” by A. H. Charteris, D. D., 1880, pp. 76, 393.
[8] Norton estimates the number by the close of the second century at sixty thousand, which may be a large estimate.
[9] Vol. VII. of McClintock and Strong, p. 966; Neander’s Church History, Vol. I., p. 148. Neander says that Feb. 22, A.D. 303, on one of the great pagan festivals, at the first dawn of day, the magnificent church of Nicomedia (then the imperial residence) was broken open, the copies of the Bible found in it were burned, and the whole church abandoned to plunder and then to destruction. The next day was published an edict that all assembling of Christians for the purpose of religious worship was forbidden; churches were to be demolished to their foundations; all manuscripts of the Bible should be burned; those who held places of honor and rank must renounce their faith, or be degraded; those belonging to the lower walks of private life to be divested of their rights as citizens and freemen; slaves were to be incapable of receiving their freedom so long as they remained Christians; and in judicial proceedings the torture might be used against all Christians of whatsoever rank. “It is quite evident,” says Neander, “that the plan now was to extirpate Christianity from the root.” But it was the darkness which preceded the dawn, for this was the last of the Pagan persecutions.
[10] A facsimile steel engraving forming the frontispiece to Tischendorf’s New Testament, gives specimens of the Greek text in which these three manuscripts are severally written. The difference in the style of the text is one great means by which experts determine the age of the manuscript. The oldest manuscripts are written in large, square, upright capitals; and they are called Uncials. The later manuscripts are written in flowing scripts; they are called Cursives. The proportion of Uncial to Cursive manuscripts is about one to ten. The Cursive was introduced in the tenth century.