The Wave of Scepticism and the Rock of Truth

by M. H. Habershon

These remarks apply to a great extent to the examination of the evidence of Valentinus, described as "another Gnostic leader, who, about the year A.D. 140, came from Alexandria to Rome, and flourished till about A.D. 160." "Very little remains of the writings of this Gnostic, and we gain our only knowledge of them from a few quotations in the works of Clement of Alexandria, and some doubtful fragments preserved by others" (p. 56).

Marcion, the son of a bishop of Pontus, became a conspicuous heretic in the second century, and there was a book called "Marcion's Gospel," which has long furnished a field for criticism. He was a Pauline heretic, denouncing the Jewish party which insisted upon dragging Jewish observances into Christianity. He went to Rome about A.D. 139-142, and taught there some twenty years. His opinions were widely disseminated. His collection of apostolic writings, which is the oldest of which we have any trace, includes (says our author) a single Gospel and ten Epistles of Paul—viz., Galatians, Corinthians (2), Romans, Thessalonians (2), Ephesians (in the superscription of which there is, "to the Laodiceans)," Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon.

The Gospel of Marcion is not extant, but it is referred to by his opponents, who affirmed that his evangelical work was an audaciously mutilated version of Luke's Gospel. Our author gives a brief account of the various opinions which have prevailed about the book during the last hundred years, and considers the discussion upon it far from closed. Is it a mutilation of Luke, or an independent work derived from the same source as his, or is it a more primitive version of that Gospel? Whence are the materials from which the portions of the text extant are derived? Tertullian and Epiphanius denounced Marcion's heresy. The former called him "impious and sacrilegious," which, our author says, implies anything but fair and legitimate criticism. I remark, Did he deserve the epithets? Would Paul, who tells the Colossians to "beware lest any man spoil them through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ," have been less emphatic in his denunciations in such a case? Marcion was more Pauline than Petrine, but would Paul have failed to censure in the strongest language such a misrepresentation of Jehovah and the Old Testament economy as Marcion disseminated?

Can our author's assertion be absolutely true that "Tertullian and Epiphanius were only dogmatical, and not in the least critical"? How could they be otherwise than to a certain extent critical? They were not critics in the way of taking nothing for granted, after the modern fashion; but they must have weighed, compared, and tested Marcion's views while writing against them. "The spirit of the age," he says, "was indeed so uncritical, that not even the canonical text could awaken it into activity." This is a sentence which suggests that the position in the Church of the canonical text was so evident, that to question it was then unwarrantable, as, indeed, it has continued to be to this day. The combined internal and external evidences harmonising with the believer's consciousness, his necessities, and his aspirations, were sufficient to preclude sceptical and captious criticism.

The Christian contemporaries of Irenæus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius were uncritical in that they did not doubt that the foundations of their faith were sure. The gospel which had been preached to them, which had changed the whole course of their lives, corresponded in its main features with the four books which were held in estimation by the Church at that time above all other writings; and they would not be likely to wrangle about the title instead of cultivating the faith they possessed. They could not, perhaps, prove by the rules of logic that "God is, and is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him;" that Christ is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his Person; but they knew that He had said,—"Ye believe in God believe also in me;" "In my Father's house are many mansions;" and, "I go to prepare a place for you." "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." They lived in the consciousness of these truths, and died (Bishop Pothinus, for instance) a martyr's death rather than deny them.

There is this remark to be made in reference to the alleged uncritical age of the Fathers. How is it that Marcion is seen to be so critical? He is surely after the modern model. He who wrote the "Antithesis," and, as our author says, anticipated in some of his opinions those held by many in our own time; he who wrote,—"If the God of the Old Testament be good, prescient of the future, and able to avert evil, why did he allow man, made in his own image, to be deceived by the devil, and to fall from obedience of the law into sin and death?[42] How came the devil, the origin of lying and deceit, to be made at all?"[43] surely he is an instance of a man in that age possessing the critical faculty. He has the boldness to question, and say,—"Yea, hath God said?" "Anticipating the results of modern criticism," says our author, "Marcion denies the applicability to Jesus of the so-called Messianic prophecies" (p. 106).

If the research which is going on as to the Gospel of Marcion be conducted in a proper manner, and from a proper motive, not from antipathy to "parsons" and ecclesiastical assumptions, which was the incentive of Strauss in attacking Christianity, good will come of it. As Justin Martyr did not, as far as we know, suppose the book to be a corrupted version of the Gospel according to Luke, Tertullian may have been mistaken, and it may have been an independent work, one of the many Luke refers to, the existence of which does not necessarily invalidate the canonical ones. We may naturally suppose that events of such marvellous speciality and importance as those which had "come to pass" in those days among the Jews, would be more or less described in letters and other writings by many persons who were eye-witnesses. Such writings would be collected and read when the first Christians assembled. The difference between the four canonical Gospels and other manuscripts would consist in their being compiled by persons competent to the task, who, like Ezra, were instruments Divinely influenced to compile and "set forth in order a declaration of those things," for the benefit of future ages and the religious instruction of the race.

The analysis of the text of Marcion by Hahn, Ritschl, Volkmar, Helgenfeld, and others, who have examined and systemised the data of the Fathers, is supposed to be sufficient to awaken in any inquirer uncertainty, and stimulate conjecture (p. 101). I do not doubt it. German hypercriticism is able, by a process of ratiocination, to discredit any truth, even to persuade men that the Throne of the universe is vacant, and that the only altar that man has the knowledge to rear is one to the Unknown God; but

"He sits on no precarious throne, Nor borrows leave to be."

They who believe in the inspiration by the Holy Ghost of the prophets of the Old Testament see no difficulty in regard to the inspiration of the writers of the New. If Isaiah and Jeremiah and Daniel had supernatural communications made to them, in order that the Eternal Creator might be manifested, why not Paul and John and Matthew? It is the foregone conclusion, on the part of critics, that the miraculous is impossible, which embarrasses their researches. One of John Stuart Mill's last sentences is: "It remains a possibility that Christ actually was what He supposed Himself to be." If this had occurred to the great reasoner at the outset of his career instead of the close, how much might the world have been advantaged!