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

by George Bethune English

Extract from Dodwells Dissertations on Irenaeus, Diss. 1, p.p. 38, 39.

The Canonical writings (i. e. of the New Testament), lay concealed in the coffers of private churches, or persons, till the latter times of Trajan, or rather perhaps of Adrian; so that they could not come to the knowledge of the church. For if they had been published, they would have been overwhelmed under such a multitude as were then of apocryphal and suppositious books, that a new examination and a new testimony would be necessary to distinguish them from these false ones. And it is from this new testimony (whereby the genuine writings of the apostles were distinguished from the spurious pieces which went under their names,) that depends all the authority which the truly apostolic writings have formerly obtained, or which they have at present in the Catholic Church. But this fresh attestation of the canon is subject to the same inconveniences with those traditions of the ancient persons that I defend, and whom Irenaeus both heard and saw; for it is equally distant from the original, and could not be made except by such only as had reached those remote times. But it is very certain that before the period I mentioned of Trajans time, the canon of the sacred books, was not yet fixed, nor any certain number of books received in the Catholic Church, whose authority must ever after serve to determine matters of faith; neither were the spurious pieces of heretics yet rejected, nor were the faithful admonished to beware of them for the future. Likewise, the true writings of the apostles used to be so bound up in one volume with the apocryphal, that it was not manifest by any mark of public censure which of them should be preferred to the other. We have at this day, certain authentic writings of ecclesiastical authors of those times, as Clemens Romanus, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, who wrote in the same order wherein I have named them, and after all the other writers of the New Testament, except Jude, and the two Johns. But in Hermas you shall not meet with one passage, or any mention of the New Testament; nor in all the rest is any one of the evangelists called by his own name. And if sometimes they cite any passages like those we read in our gospels; yet, you will find them so much changed, and for the most part so interpolated, that it cannot be known, whether they produced them out of ours, or some apocryphal gospels; nay, they sometimes cite passages which it is most certain are not in the present gospels. From hence, therefore, it is evident that no difference was yet put between the apocryphal and canonical books of the New Testament, especially if it be considered, that they pass no censure on the apocryphal, nor leave any mark whereby the reader might discern whether they attributed less authority to the spurious than to the genuine gospels; from whence it may reasonably be suspected, that if they cite sometimes any passages conformable to ours, it was not done through any certain design, as if dubious things were to be confirmed only by the canonical books, so as it is very possible that both those and the like passages may have been borrowed from other gospels besides these we now have. But what need I mention books that are not canonical, when indeed it does not appear from those of our canonical books which were last written, that the church knew any thing of the gospels, or that the clergy made a common use of them. The writers of these times do not chequer their works with texts of the New Testament, which yet is the custom of the moderns, and was also theirs in such books as they acknowledge for scripture; for they most frequently cite the books of the Old Testament, and would, doubtless, have done so by those of the New, if they had then been received as canonical.

So far Mr. Dodwell, and (excepting the genuineness of the writings of Barnabas and the rest, for they are incontestably ancient,) it is certain that the matters of fact with regard to the New Testament are all true. Whoever has an inclination to write on this subject, is furnished from this passage with a great many curious disquisitions wherein to show his penetration and his judgment, as—how the immediate successors and disciples of the apostles could so grossly confound the genuine writings of their masters with such as were falsely attributed to them; or since they were in the dark about these matters so early, how come such as followed them, by a better light; why all those books which are cited by the earliest fathers with the same respect as those now received, should not be accounted equally authentic by them; and what stress should be laid on the testimony of those fathers, who not only contradict one another, but are often inconsistent with themselves, in relating the very same facts; with a great many other difficulties, which deserve a clear solution from any capable person.

I have said the ancient heretics asserted that the present gospels were forgeries. As an example of this, take the following, from the works of Faustus, quoted by Augustine, contra Faustum Lib. 32, c. 2. You think, (says Faustus to his adversaries,) that of all the books in the world the Testament of the Son only, could not be corrupted; that it alone contains nothing which ought to be disallowed; especially when it appears, that it was not written by the apostles, but a long time after them, by certain obscure persons, who, lest no credit should be given to the stories they told of what they could not know, did prefix, to their writings, the names of the apostles, and partly of those who succeeded the apostles, affirming, that what they wrote themselves, was written by these. Wherein they seem to me to have been the more heinously injurious to the disciples of Christ, by attributing to them what they wrote themselves so dissonant and repugnant; and that they pretended to write those gospels under their names, which are so full of mistakes, of contradictory relations and opinions, that they are neither coherent with themselves, nor consistent with one another. What is this, therefore, but to throw a calumny on good men, and to fix the accusation of discord on the unanimous society of Christs disciples.

ADDENDA. There is, in the Gospel ascribed to John, a passage, quoted as a prophecy, which, as it has been looked on as a proof text, ought to have been mentioned in the 7th chapter. It is this. The evangelist (John xix. 23) says, Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat—now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said, therefore, among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them and for my vesture they did cast lots. Now, however plausible this prophesy may appear, it is one of the most impudent applications of passages from the Old Testament that occurs in the New. It is taken from the 18th verse of the 22d Psalm, which Psalm was probably made by David, in reference to his humiliating and wretched expulsion from Jerusalem by his son Absalom, and what was done in consequence, viz., that he was hunted by ferocious enemies, whom he compares to furious bulls, and roaring lions, gaping upon him to devour him; that his palace was plundered, and that they divided his treasured garments, (in the East, where the fashions never change, every great man has constantly presses full of hundreds and thousands of garments, many of them very costly: they are considered as a valuable part of his riches), and cast lots for his robes. This is the real meaning of this passage quoted as a prophecy. In the same Psalm, there is another verse, which has been from time immemorial quoted as a prophecy of the crucifixion, (v. 16,) They pierced my hands and my feet. In the original, there seems to have been a word dropped importing they tear, or something like it, for it is literally, Like a lion—my hands and my feet, and there is there no word answering to pierced. The meaning, however, of the verse is not difficult to be discerned, dogs have compassed me; the assembly of wicked men have enclosed me; like a lion—(they tear) my hands and my feet. The meaning may be discovered from the context, where David represents himself as in the utmost distress, helpless, and abandoned amidst his enemies, raging like wild beasts around him; then, by a strong, but striking Oriental figure, he represents himself like a carcass surrounded by dogs, who are busied in tearing the flesh from his bones; their teeth fixed in his hands and feet, and pulling him asunder. This is the import of the place, and this interpretation is at last adopted, for the first time, I believe, by Christians, in the new version of the Psalms used by the Unitarian Church in London.

There is not a more palpable instance of the facility with which good natured and voracious piety is made to swallow the most flimsy arguments, if only agreeable to its wishes and wants, than the case under consideration. This Psalm, containing these passages, they parted my raiment among them; and they pierced my hands and my feet, is read, and for ages has been read, in the name of God, to the good people of the Church of England, on every Good Friday, as undoubtedly a prophesy of the Crucifixion; when yet the learned divines of the Church of England (and of these it can boast a noble Catalogue indeed) certainly know, and are conscious that the Psalm, which contains these passages, has no more relation to Jesus, than it has to Nebuchadnezzar.

A reference ought to have been subjoined at the end of the 10th chapter to the dialogue, called Philopatris in Lucians Works, for an account of the customs, habits, and personal appearance of the early Christians, corroborative of what is said in the 17th and 18th chapters of this work. Lest, however, Lucians testimony in this matter should be objected to, because he was a satirist, and, of course, may have been guilty of giving an overcharged picture of the subjects of his ridicule, I request the reader to peruse, if he can obtain it, Lamis Account of the domestic habits and personal appearance and practices of the primitive Christians. Lami was a very learned and sincere Christian, and of course his testimony cannot be objected to, and the reader will find, on a perusal of his work, that what I have asserted in the 17th and 18th chapters is altogether true, and not the whole truth neither. Indeed, that the statements in those chapters, as to the effects of the peculiar maxims of the New Testament upon the heart and understanding, are substantially correct, will, I believe, be discovered by asking any honest individual among the Methodists, who is an enthusiast, i. e sincere, and thorough-going in his religion. I have no doubt that he or she will avow, without hesitation, to the enquirer, and glory in it, that chastity is more honourable than marriage; that faith is every thing; that doubt is damnable, and a proof of an unregenerated mind; that all the goods and pleasures of this world are trash; that human institutions are mere carnal ordinances; and that human science and learning is a snare to faith and an abomination to a true disciple of the cross.

Published 1785.

* In the present day, various-attempts, insidious and powerful, have been made, even here, to coerce in matters of conscience, and to overthrow those wise barriers to the destructive effects of sectarian fanaticism and intolerance, which the great founders of the Republic, to their everlasting glory, erected.—D.

* Do you know (says Rousseau) of many Christians who have taken the pains to examine, with care, what the Jews have to say against them? If some persons have seen any thing of the kind, it is in the books of Christians, A fine way, truly, to get instructed in the arguments of their adversaries! But what can they do? If any one should dare to publish among us, books, in which be openly favours their opinions, we punish the author, the editor, the bookseller. This policy is convenient, and sure always to be in the right. There is a pleasure in refuting people who dare not open their lips"—(Emilius.) In the same work he says that he will never be convinced that the Jews have not something strong to say, till they shall be permitted to speak for themselves without fear, and without restraint." It was this hint of Rousseau which first excited the author's curiosity with regard to the subject of this book.—E.