The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old

by George Bethune English

I now leave it to the cool judgment of the reader, whether Jesus prophecied truly, or did, or did not, teach the duty of paying religious homage to other beings besides God? and, if so, it is consequent, according to the tests by Christians acknowledged to be given by God himself in Deuteronomy, that if Jesus was not sent by, or from, him; for if he was—Gods own words would be contradicted by Gods own deeds.

CHAPTER XVI.

EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE, EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL, IN FAVOR OF THE CREDIBILITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY.

In the preceding chapters, I have taken the New Testament as I found it, and have argued upon the supposition that Jesus and the apostles really said, and reasoned, as has been stated. I will now endeavour to show, by an examination of the authenticity of the four gospels, that it is not certain that they were really guilty of such mistakes as are related of them in those books.

*The life and doctrines of Jesus, and his followers, are contained in the pieces composing the volume called the New Testament. The genuineness of the books, i. e., whether they were written by those to whom they are ascribed, must be judged of, from the external testimony concerning them, and from internal marks in the books themselves; for the miraculous acts therein, and therein only, contained and related, cannot prove the truth and authenticity of the books, because the authority and credibility of the books themselves must be firmly established, before the miracles related in them can reasonably be admitted as real facts.

Now, the external evidence in favour of these books, is the testimony of those men called the fathers; and as the value of testimony depends upon the character of the witnesses, it would be proper, first, to state as much as, can be learned of these men. As time will not permit me to adduce all that might be said upon this subject, I shall here only take upon me to assert, that they were most credulous, superstitious, and weak men, and, what is worse, made no scruple of falsifying, to support and favour what they called the cause of truth; for they were writers of apocryphal books, attributing them to the apostles, and, moreover, great miracle-mongers, who vamped up stories of prodigies to delude their followers, and which they themselves knew to be false. I say, I take upon me to assert this; and to confirm and establish this accusation, I refer the reader to Dr. Middletons Free Enquiry, a learned Christian, who, therefore, had no interest to misrepresent this matter; and he will there find these accusations amply verified, and traits of character proved upon them. By no means favourable to the credibility of their testimony.

The first of these Fathers whose testimony is usually adduced to prove the authenticity of the Gospels, is Papias, a Disciple of John. The character given of him by Eusebius is, that he was a superstitious, and credulous man. And this is easily proved by recording some of the stories, concerning Jesus, and his followers, written by this Papias in a book extant in the time of Eusebius. One of these stories is mentioned by Irenoeus, who says, that Papias had it from John; who, according to Papias, said, that Jesus said, that— The days shall come, in which there shall be vines, which shall severally have ten thousand branches; and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand lesser branches; and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand twigs; and every one of these twigs shall have ten thousand clusters of grapes; and every one of these grapes being pressed shall yield two hundred and seventy-five gallons of wine. And when a man shall take hold of any of these sacred bunches, another bunch shall cry out I am a better bunch, take me, and bless the Lord by me! Theres a Munchausen for you, reader! Well! this Papias is the first witness who lived after Matthew, who has spoken of his Gospel. He lived about the year 116 after Jesus. And what does he say of it? Why this. Matthew composed a writing of the Oracles (meaning without doubt the Doctrines of the Gospel,) in the Hebrew Language, and every one interpreted them as he was able. So far as this Testimony goes it is positive evidence, that the only Gospel of Matthew extant in 116, was extant in Hebrew; and there was then no translation, of it, for every one interpreted as he was able. The present gospel called of Matthew was then not written by him, for it is in Greek. And that it has not at all the air of being a translation is asserted by most of the learned. As it stands then, it was not written by Matthew: and that it cannot be a translation of Matthews Hebrew, is not only plain from the circumstance of its style, and other marks understood by Biblical Critics, but can also be proved by another story related by this same Papias concerning the manner of the death of Judas. His body, and head (says Papias) became so swollen, that at length he could not get through a street in Jerusalem, where two chariots might pass abreast, and having fallen to the ground, he—burst asunder.

Now though this ridiculous story is undoubtedly false, yet it is not credible that Papias, who had so great a reverence for the Apostles as to collect and gather all their sayings, would so flatly by his story of the death of Judas contradict the story of Matthew, if the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew contained that part of the Greek Gospel of Matthew which relates the manner of Judas Death.

Justin Martyr lived after Papias, in the middle of the second century; and though he relates many circumstances agreeing in the main with those recorded in the Gospels, and appears to quote sayings of Jesus from some book or books; yet it is substantially acknowledged by Dr. Marsh, the learned annotator on Michaeliss Introduction, that these quotations are so unlike the words, and circumstances in the received Evangelists to which they appear to correspond, that one of two things must be true; either, that Justin, who lived 140 years after Jesus, had never seen any of the present Gospels; or else, that they were in his time in a very different state from what they now are.

The next Christian father who mentions the Gospel of Matthew is Irenoeus, who says also that Matthew wrote his gospel in the Hebrew Language. The character of Irenoeus is discoverable from his work against the Heresies of his time, to that I refer the Reader, who will find him to have been a zealous, though a very credulous, and ignorant man; for he believed the story of Papias just quoted, and many others equally absurd. He however furnishes this important intelligence, that in the second century, the Christian world was overrun with heresy, and a swarm of apocryphal, and spurious Books were received by many as genuine.