Lucius had maintained that the treatise was of Christian origin, and that it was composed not long before the time of its first mention by Eusebius. The history of the text is opposed to this; and Dr. Drummond is quite right in saying ‘the argument seems valid that Eusebius did not make his extracts from a work which had been recently sprung upon the market, but from one which had already undergone a long process of transcription.’ I may point to Dr. Schmiedel’s article in the Encyclopaedia Biblica as one of many examples of reasoning similar to that of Lucius in regard to the Fourth Gospel. It is a common thing among critics to think it unnecessary to allow any but the smallest interval between the first production of a book and the date of its first mention in the literature that happens to be extant. I would not lay down an absolute rule. Circumstances vary in different cases. But I would contend that in any case they need careful consideration, and that assumptions like those of Lucius and Schmiedel are highly precarious.
The next point I would notice is the argument from identity of thought and style. One of the striking features in Mr. Conybeare’s book was the vast accumulation of parallels both in thought and expression between the De Vita Contemplativa and the certainly genuine works of Philo. Dr. Schürer thinks that this might be due to imitation. On that head I should like to quote Dr. Drummond:
‘The purely literary evidence will affect different men differently. To those who have no difficulty in attributing to the forger a boundless power of refined imitation it will carry little weight. To others who act upon the proverb, ex pede Herculem, and believe that successful forgery in the name of an author, if not of high genius, at least of unusual ability and distinguished style, is an exceedingly difficult art, this line of evidence will come with almost overwhelming force. It is easy enough to imitate tricks of style, or to borrow some peculiarities of phrase; but to write in a required style, without betraying any signs of imitation; to introduce perpetual variation into sentences which are nevertheless characteristic; to have shades of thought and suggestion, which remind one of what has been said elsewhere, and nevertheless are delicately modified, and pass easily into another subject; in a word, to preserve the whole flavour of a writer’s composition in a treatise which has a theme of its own, and follows its own independent development, may well seem beyond the reach of the forger, and must be held to guarantee the genuineness of a work, unless very weighty arguments can be advanced on the other side.’
This paragraph seems to be very much in point for those who, like Schmiedel, H. J. Holtzmann and Professor Bacon, would distinguish the author of the First Epistle of St. John from the author of the Gospel.
On this point it is also worth while to consider Dr. Drummond’s replies to the inconsistencies alleged to exist between particular details in the De Vita Contemplativa and the other Philonic writings. There is always a tendency in the critical school to make too much of these little prima facie differences, which generally shrink a good deal on closer examination.
My last example shall be taken from the Vita Antonii, ascribed to, and now generally believed to be a genuine work of, St. Athanasius. The Vita Antonii holds an important place in the literature of the beginnings of Monasticism. As such it was involved in the wholesale scepticism on that subject which was pushed to its furthest limits by the late Professor Weingarten in the seventies and eighties. How complete the reaction has been may be seen in the recent edition of the Historia Lausiaca by Dom Cuthbert Butler. Among Weingarten’s converts was our English scholar, Professor Gwatkin; and I do not think that anything could speak more eloquently than just to transcribe the list of objections brought against the Vita Antonii by Professor Gwatkin in his Studies of Arianism (Cambridge, 1882). I proceed to give the more important of them in an abridged form:
‘In the rest of the works of Athanasius there is no trace of Antony’s existence. Considering the grandeur of the saint’s position, and his intimate relations with the bishop of Alexandria, this fact alone should be decisive.’
Observe the argument from silence, which is enlarged upon in the remainder of the paragraph.
1. The treatise is addressed to the monks of the West, whereas ‘monasticism was unknown in Europe in the reign of Valentinian, and at Rome in particular when Jerome went into the East in 373; and at Milan it had only lately been introduced by Ambrose at the time of Augustine’s visit in 385.’