It is no matter of surprise, therefore, that so little has reached us from this early period. Christians were making history, not writing it, and of their writings the most perished. There were hundreds and thousands who well knew what memoirs of our Lord were accepted by the churches in this period, from whose lips no voice comes except in the volume of universal tradition.
[1] Renan’s Life of Jesus, p. 43.
[2] The Old Faith and the New (1874), p. 45.
[3] A.D. 138 or 139 is the date most usually assigned to this most important work, although some place it as late as A.D. 150. If his statement in it that “Christ was born 150 years ago” were to be taken strictly, it would make its date A.D. 146 or A.D. 144, according as we allow four or six years as the error for the beginning of the true Christian era; but he may have used the number in a general way. His martyrdom is variously stated at A.D. 165 and A.D. 167.
[4] That the quotations were by Basilides himself Matthew Arnold’s reasoning seems entirely satisfactory, and “no one” he says, “who had not a theory to serve would ever dream of doubting it.” Perhaps it may be permitted to regard Matthew Arnold as a “scholar;” and see Abbot’s “Fourth Gospel,” Boston (1880), p. 86. See also post, [c. 5].
[5] Buck’s Theological Dictionary, and Vol. VII of M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia, p. 966.
CHAPTER II.
ADMISSIONS AND PRESUMPTIONS.
With the somewhat scanty and inconclusive evidence from writings of the first one hundred years from the crucifixion, are there any facts that are conceded, and any presumptions from them? There are concessions, and from what motives is immaterial, since there is no doubt of the existence of the facts that are admitted even by those who deny the authenticity of the Gospels. Says Renan[1]: “Not the slightest doubt has been raised by serious criticism against the authenticity of the Epistle to the Galatians, the two Epistles to the Corinthians, or the Epistle to the Romans; while the arguments on which are founded the attacks on the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, and that to the Philippians, are without value.” And it may be added that the genuineness of the Book of Revelations is conceded and insisted upon by most of his way of thinking.