Essays on the work entitled "Supernatural Religion"

by J. B. Lightfoot

Eusebius was acquainted with the work of Melito on the Passion, and quotes it, which must have referred to his contemporary and antagonist, Apollinaris, had he written such a work as this fragment denotes. Not only, however, does Eusebius know nothing of his having composed such a work, but neither do Theodoret, Jerome, Photius, nor other writers, who enumerate other of his works; nor is he mentioned in any way by Clement of Alexandria, Irenæus, nor by any of those who took part in the great controversy.

Here is a tissue of fallacies and assumptions. In the first place, it is a petitio principii, as will be seen presently, that Apollinaris was an antagonist of Melito. Even, if this were so, there is not the smallest evidence, nor any probability, that Apollinaris would have written before Melito, so that the latter could have quoted him. How, again, has our author learnt that Eusebius 'knows nothing of his having composed such a work'? It is certain, indeed, that Eusebius had not seen the work when he composed his list of the writings of Apollinaris; but it nowhere appears that he was unaware of its existence. The very language in which he disclaims any pretension of giving a complete list seems to imply that he had observed other books quoted in other writers, which he had not read or seen himself. Theodoret does not 'enumerate other of his works,' as the looseness of the English would suggest to the reader. He only mentions incidentally, when describing the sects of the Severians and Montanists respectively, that Apollinaris had written against them [243:1]. There is not the smallest reason why he should have gone out of his way in either passage to speak of the work on the Paschal Festival, supposing him to have known of it. And if not, where else does our author find in Theodoret any notice which can be made to yield the inference that he was unacquainted with this treatise? Nor again does Jerome, in the passage to which our author refers in his note [243:2], allude to a single work by this writer, but simply mentions him by name among those versed in profane as well as sacred literature. Elsewhere indeed he does give a catalogue of Apollinaris' writings [243:3], but there he simply copies Eusebius. With regard to Photius again, the statement, though not so directly inaccurate, is altogether misleading. Photius simply mentions three works of Apollinaris, which he read during his embassy, but he does not profess to give a list; and he says distinctly that there were other famous works by the same author which he had not seen. Who the 'other writers' may be, who 'enumerate other of his works,' I am altogether at a loss to imagine. But the last sentence, 'Nor is he mentioned in any way by Clement of Alexandria, Irenæus, etc.,' is the most calculated to mislead the reader. Of the treatise of Clement on the Paschal Festival only two short fragments are preserved. He does not mention any person in these, nor could he have done so without going out of his way. For the rest, Clement is reported by Eusebius to have stated in his work that he was prompted to write it by Melito's treatise on the same subject [243:4]. Eusebius is there discussing Melito, and any mention of Apollinaris would have been quite out of place. What ground is there then for the assumption that Clement did not mention Apollinaris, because Eusebius has not recorded the fact? When at a later point Eusebius comes to speak of Clement, he says of this father that in the treatise of which we are speaking he 'mentions Melito and Irenæus and certain others, whose explanations also he has given' [244:1]. Why may not Apollinaris have been included among these 'certain others' whom Clement quoted? The same fallacy underlies our author's reference to Irenæus. The work of Irenæus is lost. Eusebius, it is true, preserves some very meagre fragments [244:2]; but in these not a single writer on either side in the Quartodeciman controversy is mentioned, not even Melito. Irenæus may have quoted Apollinaris by name in this lost treatise, just as he quotes Papias by name in his extant work on heresies, where nevertheless Eusebius does not care to record the fact. All this assumed silence of writers whose works are lost is absolutely valueless against the direct and explicit testimony of the Paschal Chronicle.

2. But secondly; our author considers that the contents of these fragments are inconsistent with their attribution to Apollinaris. His argument is instructive [244:3].

It is stated that all the Churches of Asia, including some of the most distinguished members of the Church, such as Polycarp, and his own contemporary Melito, celebrated the Christian festival on the 14th Nisan, the practice almost universal, therefore, in the country in which Claudius Apollinaris is supposed to write this fragment. How is it possible, therefore, that this isolated convert to the views of Victor and the Roman Church could write of so vast and distinguished a majority as 'some who through ignorance raised contentions' on this point, when notably all the Asiatic Churches at that time were agreed to keep the fourteenth of Nisan, and in doing so raised no new contention at all, but, as Polycrates represented, followed the tradition handed down to them from their fathers, and authorized by the practice of the Apostle John himself?

with more to the same effect.

I will hand over this difficulty to those who share our author's views on the point at issue in the Quartodeciman controversy. Certainly I cannot suggest any satisfactory mode of escape from the dilemma which is here put. But what, if the writer of these fragments was not an 'isolated convert to the views of Victor,' but a Quartodeciman himself? What, if the Quartodecimans kept the 14th, not as the commemoration of the last Supper, but of the Passion, so that Melito himself would have heartily assented to the criticisms in these fragments? [245:1] This is the obvious view suggested by the account of the controversy in Eusebius, and in Irenæus as quoted by Eusebius; and it gains confirmation from these fragments of Apollinaris. It seems to me highly improbable that Apollinaris should have been an exception to the practice of the Asiatic Churches. So far I agree with our author. But this is a reason for questioning the soundness of his own views on the Quartodeciman controversy, rather than for disputing the genuineness of the fragments attributed to Apollinaris.

After this account of Melito and Apollinaris, the two chief representatives of the later school of St John, it will be worth while to call attention to a statement of Irenæus in which he professes to record the opinion of the Asiatic elders on a point intimately affecting the credibility of the Fourth Gospel, the chronology of our Lord's life and ministry [245:2].

The Valentinians, against whom this father is arguing, sought for analogies to the thirty æons of their pleroma, or supra-sensual world, in the Gospel history. Among other examples they alleged the thirty years' duration of our Lord's life. This computation of the Gospel chronology they derived from the notices in St Luke as interpreted by themselves. At the commencement of His ministry, so they maintained, He had completed His twenty-ninth and was entering upon His thirtieth year, and His ministry itself did not extend beyond a twelve-month, 'the acceptable year of the Lord' foretold by the prophet. Irenæus expresses his astonishment that persons professing to understand the deep things of God should have overlooked the commonest facts of the evangelical narrative, and points to the three passovers recorded in St John's Gospel during the term of our Lord's ministry. Independently of the chronology of the Fourth Gospel, Irenæus has an à priori reason of his own, why the Saviour must have lived more than thirty years. He came to sanctify every period of life—infancy, childhood, youth, declining age. It was therefore necessary that He should have passed the turn of middle life. From thirty to forty, he argues, a man is still reckoned young (juvenis).

But from his fortieth and fiftieth year he is already declining into older age, which was the case with our Lord when he taught, as the Gospel and all the elders who associated with John the disciple of the Lord in Asia testify that John delivered this account. For he remained with them till the times of Trajan. But some of them saw not only John, but other Apostles also, and heard these same things from their lips, and bear testimony to such an account.

Irenæus then goes on to argue that the same may be inferred from the language of our Lord's Jewish opponents, who asked: 'Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?' This, he maintains, could not properly be said of one who was only thirty years of age, and must imply that the person so addressed had passed his fortieth year at least, and probably that he was not far off his fiftieth.