At that time it would have been thought profane to put Mark or Luke on the same level with Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah and the prophets, to whom “the word of the Lord” is said to have “come.” Luke never says, “The word of the Lord came to me,” but, in effect, this: “I have traced things back carefully and accurately, and have thought it well to set them forth in chronological order.” Matthew, as being an apostle, might have been placed on a different footing. But as he wrote in Hebrew, and his gospel was circulated in Greek, it was not thought that we had the very words of the apostle. Moreover Matthew’s words often differed in such a way from Luke’s, that even a child could perceive that two writers were describing the same words of the Lord in two different versions, so that both could not be exactly correct. And, very often, Luke’s version appeared better than Matthew’s.
Yet even in the reign of Trajan there had perhaps been springing up among a few people the belief that the three gospels above-mentioned were not only superior to others then extant but also to others that might hereafter be written. These men thought that Luke had said the last word on the things that were to be believed, correcting what was obscure in Mark and adding what was wanting. Perhaps it was natural that those who thus favoured Luke’s gospel should be for a time averse to a fourth gospel. I believe that my friend Justin of Samaria, who suffered as a martyr in this very year in which I am now writing, always retained a prejudice of this kind, favouring the three gospels, and especially Luke. Even though he could not sometimes avoid using some of the traditions that had found a place in the fourth gospel, he disliked to quote it as a gospel, and, as far as I know, never did quote it verbally in his writings.
On the other hand, some of the younger brethren now go into the opposite extreme, and maintain, not only that the fourth gospel is to be accepted, but also that the number four was, as it were, predestined. This seems to me as unreasonable as it would have been to maintain, in Trajan’s time, that the gospels must be three because of the “three witnesses” prescribed by Moses on earth, and the three in heaven (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) and the three angels that visited Abraham, and so on. Yet I have actually heard the teacher Irenæus—the young man about whom I spoke above—asserting that the gospels must needs be four to correspond with the four quarters of the globe, the four elements, the four living creatures in Ezekiel, and other quadruplicities.
However, I thank God that, when I was a young man, no such stumbling-block as this lay between me and my Saviour. Nor was any such belief in the necessity of four gospels entertained by my new friend Clemens—for that was his name, though he was not a Roman but an Athenian. He had long accepted the three gospels as containing the truth about Christ and about His constraining love. Recently, he had accepted the fourth gospel as also containing the same truth. But he neither believed nor expected me to believe that every word in these four writings was so inspired as to convey the unmixed truth. It was in these circumstances and with these preconceptions—or perhaps I should rather say freedom from preconceptions—that Clemens and I began our conversation.
CHAPTER XXX
SILANUS CONVERSES WITH CLEMENS
I explained to Clemens that I had been attending the lectures of Epictetus. He had taught us, I said, to neglect external things, and to value virtue, as being placed by God in our own power and a possession open to all. “This,” said I, “has strengthened me—this and the influence of his character—in the determination to lead a life above the mere pleasures of the flesh. But, on the other hand, Epictetus teaches us that we are never to be troubled, not even by the troubles or misdoings of those nearest and dearest to us. We are to say, ‘These things are nothing to us’.” I then explained to Clemens how this doctrine had repelled me, and how I had been led by an accident to study the letters of Paul, in which I found a very different doctrine.
“Paul,” said I, “counts many external things as evil, and especially the errors and transgressions of his converts. These he feels as evils and pains to himself. Yet he always seems hopeful and helpful, full of strength both for himself and for others. I have felt drawn towards him, and, through him, to the prophet Jesus, or Christ, whom he calls Son of God. Paul speaks of himself as led towards this Jesus by a ‘constraining love’ filling the heart with joy and peace. I have felt something of this, or at least have felt the possibility of it. In my childhood, ‘Christus’ was called one of the vilest of the vile, and I believed it. Now I have come to regard him as—I know not what. Just now I said ‘prophet.’ But Epictetus calls Diogenes God’s ‘own son.’ Christ, in my judgment, stands far above Diogenes and perhaps even above Socrates. When I say ‘above Socrates,’ I do not mean in reason, but in feeling, and in the power to draw men towards kindness and steadfast welldoing. I think I had come almost to the point of calling this Jesus ‘God’s own son’ in a very real sense, as being above all other men, yes, and more—more than I could understand. And then⸺.”
“And then?” said Clemens. I had paused. He waited an instant longer, questioning, or rather interpreting me, with his eyes. “And then,” said he, “something threw you back?” “Yes,” said I, “something threw me back. And what do you think it was? Paul drew me on. But the author of this little book, he, and Matthew, and Luke—these threw me back. It happened in many ways. I must tell you the last first. A friend, a fellow-student, has just now left me for Corinth, crushed to the earth by the most shameful outrages on his family. I wished to give him some comfort, to point him towards some hope, to give him what you Christians—for surely you are a Christian?” He assented. “Well, what you Christians call ‘good tidings’ or ‘gospel.’