I should not be very much surprised if the general reader who may have followed our enquiry so far should experience at this point a certain feeling of disappointment. If he did not know beforehand something of the subject-matter that was to be enquired into, he might not unnaturally be led to expect round assertions, and plain, pointblank, decisive evidence. Such evidence has not been offered to him for the simple reason that it does not exist. In its stead we have collected a great number of inferences of very various degrees of cogency, from the possible and hypothetical, up to strong and very strong probability. Most of our time has been taken up in weighing and testing these details, and in the endeavour to assign to each as nearly as possible its just value. It could not be thought strange if some minds were impatient of such minutiae; and where this objection was not felt, it would still be very pardonable to complain that the evidence was at best inferential and probable.
An inference in which there are two or three steps may be often quite as strong as that in which there is only one, and probabilities may mount up to a high degree of what is called moral or practical certainty. I cannot but think that many of those which have been already obtained are of this character. I cannot but regard it as morally or practically certain that Marcion used our third Gospel; as morally or practically certain that all four Gospels were used in the Clementine Homilies; as morally or practically certain that the existence of three at least out of our four Gospels is implied in the writings of Justin; as probable in a lower degree that the four were used by Basilides; as not really disputable (apart from the presumption afforded by earlier writers) that they were widely used in the interval which separates the writings of Justin from those of Irenaeus.
All of these seem to me to be tolerably clear propositions. But outside these there seems to be a considerable amount of convergent evidence, the separate items of which are less convincing, but which yet derive a certain force from the mere fact that they are convergent. In the Apostolic Fathers, for example, there are instances of various kinds, some stronger and some weaker; but the important point to notice is that they confirm each other. Every new case adds to the total weight of the evidence, and helps to determine the bearing of those which seem ambiguous.
It cannot be too much borne in mind that the evidence with which we have been dealing is cumulative; and as in all other cases of cumulative evidence the subtraction of any single item is of less importance than the addition of a new one. Supposing it to be shown that some of the allusions which are thought to be taken from our Gospels were merely accidental coincidences of language, this would not materially affect the part of the evidence which could not be so explained. Supposing even that some of these allusions could be definitely referred to an apocryphal source, the possibility would be somewhat, but not so very much, increased that other instances which bear resemblance to our Gospels were also in their origin apocryphal. But on the other hand, if a single instance of the use of a canonical Gospel really holds good, it is proof of the existence of that Gospel, and every new instance renders the conclusion more probable, and makes it more and more difficult to account for the phenomena in any other way.
The author of 'Supernatural Religion' seems to have overlooked this. He does not seem to have considered the mutual support which the different instances taken together lend to each other. He summons them up one by one, and if any sort of possibility can be shown of accounting for them in any other way than by the use of our Gospels he dismisses them altogether. He makes no allowance for any residual weight they may have. He does not ask which is the more probable hypothesis. If the authentication of a document is incomplete, if the reference of a passage is not certain, he treats it as if it did not exist. He forgets the old story of the faggots, which, weak singly, become strong when combined. His scales will not admit of any evidence short of the highest. Fractional quantities find no place in his reckoning. If there is any flaw, if there is any possible loophole for escape, he does not make the due deduction and accept the evidence with that deduction, but he ignores it entirely, and goes on to the next item just as if he were leaving nothing behind him.
This is really part and parcel of what was pointed out at the outset as the fundamental mistake of his method. It is much too forensic. It takes as its model, not the proper canons of historical enquiry, but the procedure of English law. Yet the inappropriateness of such a method is seen as soon as we consider its object and origin. The rules of evidence current in our law courts were constructed specially with a view to the protection of the accused, and upon the assumption that it is better nine guilty persons should escape, than that one innocent person should be condemned. Clearly such rules will be inapplicable to the historical question which of two hypotheses is most likely to be true. The author forgets that the negative hypothesis is just as much a hypothesis as the positive, and needs to be defended in precisely the same manner. Either the Gospels were used, or they were not used. In order to prove the second side of this alternative, it is necessary to show not merely that it is possible that they were not used, but that the theory is the more probable of the two, and accounts better for the facts. But the author of 'Supernatural Religion' hardly professes or attempts to do this. If he comes across a quotation apparently taken from our Gospels he is at once ready with his reply, 'But it may be taken from a lost Gospel.' Granted; it may. But the extant Gospel is there, and the quotation referable to it; the lost Gospel is an unknown entity which may contain anything or nothing. If we admit that the possibility of quotation from a lost Gospel impairs the certainty of the reference to an extant Gospel, it is still quite another thing to argue that it is the more probable explanation and an explanation that the critic ought to accept. In very few cases, I believe, has the author so much as attempted to do this.
We might then take a stand here, and on the strength of what can be satisfactorily proved, as well as of what can be probably inferred, claim to have sufficiently established the use and antiquity of the Gospels. This is, I think, quite a necessary conclusion from the data hitherto collected.
But there is a further objection to be made to the procedure in 'Supernatural Religion.' If the object were to obtain clear and simple and universally appreciable evidence, I do not hesitate to say that the enquiry ends just where it ought to have begun. Through the faulty method that he has employed the author forgets that he has a hypothesis to make good and to carry through. He forgets that he has to account on the negative theory, just as we account on the positive, for a definite state of things. It may sound paradoxical, but there is really no great boldness in the paradox, when we affirm that at least the high antiquity of the Gospels could be proved, even if not one jot or tittle of the evidence that we have been discussing had existed. Supposing that all those fragmentary remains of the primitive Christian literature that we have been ransacking so minutely had been swept away, supposing that the causes that have handed it down to us in such a mutilated and impaired condition had done their work still more effectually, and that for the first eighty years of the second century there was no Christian literature extant at all; still I maintain that, in order to explain the phenomena that we find after that date, we should have to recur to the same assumptions that our previous enquiry would seem to have established for us.
Hitherto we have had to grope our way with difficulty and care; but from this date onwards all ambiguity and uncertainty disappears. It is like emerging out of twilight into the broad blaze of day. There is really a greater disproportion than we might expect between the evidence of the end of the century and that which leads up to it. From Justin to Irenaeus the Christian writings are fragmentary and few, but with Irenaeus a whole body of literature seems suddenly to start into being. Irenaeus is succeeded closely by Clement of Alexandria, Clement by Tertullian, Tertullian by Hippolytus and Origen, and the testimony which these writers bear to the Gospel is marvellously abundant and unanimous. I calculate roughly that Irenaeus quotes directly 193 verses of the first Gospel and 73 of the fourth. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian must have quoted considerably more, while in the extant writings of Origen the greater part of the New Testament is actually quoted [Endnote 315:1].
But more than this; by the time of Irenaeus the canon of the four Gospels, as we understand the word now, was practically formed. We have already seen that this was the case in the fragment of Muratori. Irenaeus is still more explicit. In the famous passage [Endnote 315:2] which is so often quoted as an instance of the weak-mindedness of the Fathers, he lays it down as a necessity of things that the Gospels should be four in number, neither less nor more:—