The Wave of Scepticism and the Rock of Truth

by M. H. Habershon

Next our author examines quotations in "the Epistles of Ignatius," though he says they really appertain to a very much later period, for they are "all pronounced, by a large mass of critics, spurious compositions." He suffered martyrdom, it is said, on the 20th December, A.D. 115, when he was condemned to be cast to wild beasts in the amphitheatre, not at Rome, but at Antioch, in consequence of the fanatical excitement produced by the earthquake which took place on the thirteenth of that month.[31] If any of his fifteen letters, says our author, could be accepted as genuine, the references to them might be important. Dr. Mosheim says his whole epistles are extremely dubious. The shorter of the two versions of Ignatius is, however, generally allowed to be genuine. Tischendorf says "its genuineness is now generally admitted." In it we find, "What would a man be profited if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" which of course is a quotation from Matt. xvi. 26.

The next document mentioned is the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, who, Irenæus says, was in his youth a disciple of the Apostle John. He was Bishop of Smyrna, and ended his life by martyrdom, A.D. 167. Irenæus knew Polycarp personally. It is said that the epistle was written before A.D. 120. Our author ascribes it to a later date, and says that there are potent reasons for considering it spurious. As, however, Irenæus, Polycarp's disciple, believed it to be genuine, we shall take the liberty of differing from our author, and of believing it to be so. The epistle contains the following: "Remembering what the Lord said, teaching: Judge not, that ye be not judged; forgive, and it shall be forgiven you; be pitiful, that ye may be pitied; with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again; and that blessed are the poor, and those that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God." Also: "Beseeching in our prayers the all-seeing God not to lead us into temptation, as the Lord said, The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Also: "If, therefore, we pray the Lord that he may forgive us, we ought also ourselves to forgive."

Our author demurs to these being quotations from our Gospels, and says they might have been from orally current accounts of the Sermon on the Mount, or from many of the records of the teaching of Jesus in circulation.

Hegisippus is the next early writer referred to. He made use of the "Gospel according to the Hebrews." Jerome says (confirming Eusebius) "that the Gospel according to the Hebrews is written in the Chaldaic and Syriac (Syro-Chaldaic) language, but with Hebrew characters."

We have, says our author, direct intimation that Hegesippus made use of the Gospel according to the Hebrews. "He was one of the contemporaries of Justin—a Palestinian Jewish Christian. In order to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the state of the Church, he travelled widely, and came to Rome when Anicitus was bishop. Subsequently he wrote a work of historical memoirs in five books, and thus became the first ecclesiastical historian of Christianity. This work is lost, but portions have been preserved by Eusebius, and one other fragment is also extant." It must have been written after the succession of Eleutherius to the Roman bishopric (A.D. 177-193), as that event is mentioned in the book.

"The testimony of Hegesippus is of great value, not only as a man born near the primitive Christian tradition, but also as that of an intelligent traveller amongst many Christian communities" (p. 430).

Hegesippus says, in the fifth book of his Memoirs, that "these words ('Good things prepared for the righteous neither eye hath seen nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man,' from 1 Cor. ii. 9) are vainly spoken, and that those who say these things give the lie to the Divine writings and to the Lord saying, 'Blessed are your eyes that see, and your ears that hear,'" &c. This fragment is preserved by Stephanus Gobarus, a learned monophysite of the sixth century.

"Nothing is more certain," says our author, "than the fact that, in spite of the opportunities for collecting information afforded him by his travels through so many Christian communities, for the express purpose of such inquiry, Hegesippus did not find any New Testament Canon, or, that such a rule of faith did not exist in Rome in A.D. 160 and 170."

I ask, How in the world can our author be certain of this, when only portions of Hegesippus are extant? This applies generally to his argument that the silence of the early writers is of "as much importance as their supposed allusions to the Gospels." Such a mode of reasoning is aptly commented upon by the Rev. Kentish Bache, in his letter to Dr. Davidson on the Fourth Gospel. He says: "When but small portions of a work have been preserved to our use, it is no wonder that these portions should make no mention of many circumstances interesting and important, which the writer must certainly have known and told of. If I tear a few leaves from the middle of my English History book, I shall find on them (the few leaves) no record of the Norman Conquest or of the Battle of Waterloo. Would it thence be a fair conclusion that these events are unhistorical and fictitious?"

Papias is next referred to. He was Bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, in the first half of the second century, and is said to have suffered martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius, about A.D. 160-167. About the middle of the second century he wrote a work in five books, called, "Exposition of the Lord's Oracles," which is lost, excepting a few fragments preserved by Eusebius and Irenæus. We have the preface to his book, which states: "I shall not hesitate to set beside my interpretations all that I rightly learnt from the Presbyters, and rightly remembered, earnestly testifying to its truth. For I have not, like the multitude, delighted in those who spoke much, but in those who taught the truth; nor in those who recorded alien commandments, but in those who recall those delivered by the Lord to faith, and which come from truth itself. If it happened that any one came who had followed the Presbyters, I inquired minutely after the words of the Presbyters—what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James, or what John or Matthew, or what any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what Aristion and the Presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say; for I held that what was to be derived from books was not so profitable as that from the living and abiding voice." "It is clear (says our author) from this that even if Papias knew any of our Gospels, he attached little or no value to them, and that he knew absolutely nothing of the Canonical Scriptures of the New Testament" (p. 445).