The fragment begins abruptly with the end of a sentence apparently relating to the composition of the Gospel according to St. Mark. Then follows 'in the third place the Gospel according to St. Luke,' of which some account is given. 'The fourth of the Gospels' is that of John, 'one of the disciples of the Lord.' A legend is related as to the origin of this Gospel. Then mention is made of the Acts, which are attributed to Luke. Then follow thirteen Epistles of St. Paul by name. Two Epistles professing to be addressed to the Laodiceans and Alexandrines are dismissed as forged in the interests of the heresy of Marcion. The Epistle of Jude and two that bear the superscription of John are admitted. Likewise the two Apocalypses of John and Peter. [No mention is made, it will be seen, of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of that of James, of I and II Peter, and of III John.] [Endnote 264:1]
The Pastor of Hermas, a work of recent date, may be read but not published in the Church before the people, and cannot be included either in the number of the prophets or apostles.
On the other hand nothing at all can be received of Arsinous,
Valentinus, or Miltiades; neither the new Marcionite book of
Psalms, which with Basilides and the Asian founder of the
Cataphryges (or the founder of the Asian Cataphryges, i.e.
Montanus) is rejected.
The importance of this will be seen at a glance. The chief question is here again in regard to the date, which must be determined from the document itself. A sufficiently clear indication seems to be given in the language used respecting the Pastor of Hermas. This work is said to have been composed 'very lately in our times, Pius the brother of the writer occupying the episcopal chair of the Roman Church.' The episcopate of Pius is dated from 142-157 A.D., so that 157 A.D. may be taken as the starting-point from which we have to reckon the interval implied by the words 'very recently in our times' (nuperrime temporibus nostris). Taking these words in their natural sense, I should think that the furthest limit they would fairly admit of would be a generation, or say thirty years, after the death of Pius (for even in taking a date such as this we are obliged to assume that the Pastor was published only just before the death of that bishop). The most probable construction seems to be that the unknown author meant that the Pastor of Hermas was composed within his own memory. Volkmar is doubtless right in saying [Endnote 265:1] that he meant to distinguish the work in question from the writings of the Prophets and Apostles, but still the double use of the words 'nuperrime' and 'temporibus nostris' plainly indicate something more definite than merely 'our post-apostolic time.' If this had been the sense we should have had some such word as 'recentius' instead of 'nuperrime.' The argument of 'Supernatural Religion' [Endnote 265:2], that 'in supposing that the writer may have appropriately used the phrase thirty or forty years after the time of Pius so much licence is taken that there is absolutely no reason why a still greater interval may not be allowed,' is clearly playing fast and loose with language, and doing so for no good reason; for the only ground for assigning a later date is that the earlier one is inconvenient for the critic's theory. The other indications tally quite sufficiently with the date 170-190 A.D. Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion, the Marcionites, we know were active long before this period. The Montanists (who appear under the name by which they were generally known in the earlier writings, 'Cataphryges') were beginning to be notorious, and are mentioned in the letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons. Miltiades was a contemporary of Claudius Apollinaris who wrote against him [Endnote 266:1]. All the circumstances point to such a date as that of Irenaeus, and the conception of the Canon is very similar to that which we should gather from the great work 'Against Heresies.' If this does not agree with preconceived opinions as to what the state of the Canon ought to have been, it is the opinion that ought to be rectified accordingly, and not plain words explained away.
I can see no sound objection to the date 170-180 A.D., but by adding ten years to this we shall reach the extreme limit admissible.
I do not know whether it is necessary to refer to the objection from the absence of any mention of the first two Synoptic Gospels, through the mutilated state of the document. It is true that the inference that they were originally mentioned rests only 'upon conjecture' [Endnote 266:2], but it is the kind of conjecture that, taking all things into consideration—the extent to which the evidence of the fragment in other respects corresponds with the Catholic tradition, the state of the Canon in Irenaeus, the relation of the evidence for the first Gospel in particular to that for the others—can be reckoned at very little less than ninety-nine chances out of a hundred.
To the same class belongs Dr. Donaldson's suggestion [Endnote 267:1] that the passage which contains the indication of date may be an interpolation. It is always possible that the particular passage that happens to be important in any document of this date may be an interpolation, but the chances that it really is so must be in any case very slight, and here there is no valid reason for suspecting interpolation. It does not at all follow, as Dr. Donaldson seems to think, that because a document is mutilated therefore it is more likely to be interpolated; for interpolation is the result of quite a different series of accidents. The interpolation, if it were such, could not well be accidental because it has no appearance of being a gloss; on the other hand, only far-fetched and improbable motives can be alleged for it as intentional.
The full statement of the fragment in regard to St. Luke's Gospel is as follows. 'Luke the physician after the Ascension of Christ, having been taken into his company by Paul, wrote in his own name to the best of his judgment (ex opinione), and, though he had not himself seen the Lord in the flesh, so far as he could ascertain; accordingly he begins his narrative with the birth of John.' The greater part of this account appears to be taken simply from the Preface to the Gospel, which is supplemented by the tradition that St. Luke was a physician and also the author of the Acts. As evidence to those facts a document dating some hundred years after the composition of the Gospel is not of course very weighty; its real importance is as showing the authority which the Gospel at this date possessed in the Church. That authority cannot have been acquired in a day, but represents the culmination of a long and gradual movement. What we have to note is that the movement, some of the stages of which we have been tracing, has now definitely reached its culmination.
In regard to the fourth Gospel the Muratorian fragment has a longer story to tell, but before we touch upon this, and before we proceed to draw together the threads of the previous enquiry, it will be well for us first to bring up the evidence for the fourth Gospel to the same date and position as that for the other three. This then will be the subject of the next chapter.